May sometimes hated being the youngest of her and her sisters. She is the last to get a shower in the morning, which is usually a cold one and is the last to get anything to eat for breakfast. So after her cold shower and picking out a faded blue t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans from her own selection of clothing, all of which is second hand from Lee or Marie, she heads downstairs to see if there is anything to eat.
Down in the kitchen May finds her sisters have already eaten. "Is there anything left to eat?" She asks looking over at Marie who was tying the laces on her black shoes.
Marie pulls down the legs of her black skinny jeans then stands up and turns to her sister. "Yeah, there are some toaster waffles left." She says adjusting her sleeveless white button up shirt. May had noticed that since Marie had started dating Edd she has been a little nicer to her each day, and while at first she thought it was just a side effect from her getting Edd. She's started to think its Edd influence that is making her a nicer person, and is enjoying the change.
"Thanks Marie." May says walking over to the fridge and opening the freezer door. Inside the freezer she finds the box of toaster waffles still had a few left in it, before there would only be one or two waffles left but today there was four still uneaten. It was only two more than she is used to seeing, but in her mind that was a big difference. But not wanting to seem greedy she only takes two out and pops them into the toaster.
"So where is Lee?" May asks as Marie clears off the dirty plates from the table.
"I was up talking to Mom." Lee says walking into the kitchen.
"Lee what is up with that getup?" Marie asks looking her sister over. Lee was dressed in a full length light blue with red polka-dot skirt and matching button up t-shirt.
"It's some of mom's old clothes. After she finished her shift yesterday we had some mother daughter time and she found some of her old things and gave them to me. YOU got a problem with how I look in it?" Lee says explaining where she got her new clothes from.
"Not at all, it looks good on you." Marie says rinsing off her plate.
"Good, I'd hate for your man to see you with a black eye." Lee says smiling, she really liked her new clothes her mom had given her. It was the first time she's ever worn a skirt and she felt almost pretty, but she would never tell anyone.
"Hurry up and eat May, we got to leave soon." Lee says as May's waffles pop up out of the toaster.
"K." May says taking a bite out of one of her waffles.
May had already put the bag of comics back into her backpack the night before so she was ready to bring them back to Ed in the morning. Comics were original a means to an end to get Ed to start talking to her, but now she really likes them. She's begun to care more about being Ed's friend over getting him to like her like Edd likes Marie. But she still has her same affection for Ed she's always had, it's just been put on the back burner for now.
So when she saw Ed standing with the rest of his group of friends she gets excited like someone would when they see their best friend after a long time apart from them.
"Hi Ed." She says walking up to the tall boy in his green jacket over a brown t-shirt and faded jeans.
"Hello May." Ed says turning to her and smiling. His fears of her from the past are long gone, though girls still scare him in general.
"I have you comics for you." She says pulling her backpack off her back and pulling out the bag of comics.
"Oh cool, thanks." Ed says taking the bag of comics from her.
"No thank you Ed, I really enjoyed them." May says putting her bag back on.
As May talked to Ed and Marie went to greet her white dress shirt black tie and black jeaned boyfriend Lee thought back to the previous day when she was with their Mother.
It was not uncommon for the Kanker sisters to help their mom at her job at the diner she worked at.
"So what did you do this time Lee?" A lady behind the counter of the diner asks as Lee and her mother walked in.
"I got busted for bullying a girl a school." Lee says to the lady.
"She gave this poor girl a wedgie after she hit her and her friends with a water balloon and then threw her into a dumpster." Lee's Mother says as she takes off her jacket.
"Damn Lee, what did this girl do to you?" The lady asks shocked by what Lee had done.
"She disrespected my sisters and me." Lee says grinning.
"Enough of that, go grab an apron Lee and start taking orders out to tables." Her mother says shaking her head. She did think it was a funny that Lee sticks up for her and her sisters in her creative ways, but she knew Lee needed to stop bullying the kids at her school.
Six hours later after Lee and her mother finished the shift at the diner they walked out the front door tired.
"Damn this was a busy day." Lee's mother says as she pulls out the keys to her old red truck.
"Yeah it was, sorry you had to leave work to come get me Mom." Lee says as her mother opens the driver's side door.
"It's fine Lee, with your help we got through that dinner rush faster than we would have." Her mother says unlocking Lee's door.
"Still I'm better than that, I guess all that's been going on with Marie and May had me on the edge of my nerves." Lee says as she climbed into the truck and put on her seat belt.
Doing some quick math in her head Lee's mother then says; "We made a bit more from our tips, why don't we go get a bucket of KFC and you can tell me what's been going on."
As they drove down the road Lee told her mother about Marie starting a relationship with Edd, then May changing how she acted around Ed and how Lee thought her sisters were changing for the worst but realized the error of her ways.
Her mother knew of her daughters crushes on the Ed's so she had asked Lee if she had gotten anywhere with Eddy. Lee then told her mother of the last two interactions she had with Eddy and how she has been mad at him more than she ever has been.
"Boys are so much different now a days, seems like force just doesn't work anymore." Her mother says as she hands the cashier at the KFC drive through some money.
"May said the same thing." Lee says letting out a little laugh.
"Look if you really want this boy to like you and if being nicer worked for your sisters, then give it a try. Just remember not to change who you are for anyone." Her mother says placing her hand on Lee's shoulder.
"But what about Kanker's are tough to the end?" Lee asks.
"Hey we can still be tough as nails, but be nice about it." Her mother says grinning. Lee and her mother both start laughing at what she had said.
Eddy hadn't paid any attention when his friends talked to their Kanker's in the morning nor did even see Lee during lunch. So when he finally saw her in gym he was shocked to see her dressed in a skirt and couldn't help but think that it looked good on her. But that was soon replaced by fear of what she might do or say to him after the past few days.
But when the coach told the group of kids to partner up she just said; "Ok let's get this over with."
He started to worry that she had some big evil plan to make him pay for what he did, but Lee had chosen to give him a pass on punishment for now and would only make him pay if he acted like that big of an ass again.
Hoping to get a feel for how mad she is at him Eddy decides to try and start a conversation with her. "What a past couple of weeks huh?" He asks preparing for the worst.
"Tell me about it. Ever sense that sister of mine started dating Double Dee the amount of stuff I have had to deal with seems to have doubled." Lee says rolling her eyes.
"I know right? Him starting to growing a backbone and fighting back, then Lumpy getting all friendly with May. It's like the world is being manipulated by some evil genius." He says agreeing with her.
"Booth of our flunkeys have been making our lives stressful." She says.
"Ha yeah." He says agreeing with her. Hoping she was in a good mood he thought he could keep up with his making amends with people. "Hey um, sorry for being a big headed ass."
"I guess I should apologies for Friday, maybe that was a bit too much." She says apologizing for harassing him at his baseball tryouts.
"That was mean as hell, but I should have known you would have done something like that."
"Hey I'm a Kanker, we are always mean Stubs."
Normally Eddy would get mad at someone for a joke like that, but he just laughs it off. "Oh I know, you are a mean red headed demon." He says laughing.
"Red headed demon am I?" Lee asks laughing herself. "I hope you're not implying that you are some kind of angle, because you are anything but that you ninny."
"Compared to you I am." He says laughing.
"Ha! You are almost as bad as I am, you just lack the right level of brain power to make scams that work."
For the rest of the class Eddy and Lee were throwing insults back and for at each other laughing at them, and when the bell rang ending the class Lee says to Eddy; "Late Sawdust for Brains." With a smile on her face.
"Late Trailer Queen." He says back to her.
Eddy didn't think anything of his friendly insulting he did with Lee, he didn't think it was that big of a deal. So when he sat down in his desk for his final class of the day he wondered why Nazz was grinning at him.
"What?" He asks looking at her.
"So I heard you and Lee finally participated in gym." Nazz says still grinning at him
"Yeah, so it was either do the stupid dancing or get in trouble with my folks."
"Sure Eddy whatever you say, I think it's cool that you are being nicer to Lee." She says leaning back in her chair.
"Ok so maybe she's not as bad as she once was, and she can insult with the best." He says rolling his eyes at Nazz.
Leaning up against the lockers Marie looks at the paper in her hand and lets out a long sigh then leans her head back against the locker.
"Something wrong?" She hears her boyfriend asks.
Turning her head to face him she says; "Yeah I did really bad on that test I was so keen on missing yesterday."
"How bad did you do?" He asks concerned.
"This bad." She says holding the paper out to him.
Edd takes the paper and looks it over, she had gotten a D- for a grade which made him feel bad for her. But as he looked over her work he sees that she was close to getting most of them right. "You know you were not that far off on some of these." He says looking up from the paper at her.
"Not far off still gets you a bad grade, Mom is going to be mad at me for this." Marie says dreading what her mom will say about her grades. Her mother had gotten a bit stick with Marie and her sisters since they reached high school about their grades. She knew her girls would never reach honor roll level, but wanted them to have a better chance in life then she did and hoped they could avoid the same mistakes she had made.
"My offer from yesterday still stands Marie." He says holding her test paper out to her.
"To help me with my school work?" She asks as he opens his locker.
"I wouldn't call it helping you, more like guiding you in the right direction." He says as he put a book into his locker.
Liking the idea of Edd helping her and spending another afternoon with him she smiles and says; "I'd love for you to give me some private lessons Double Dee."
Laughing at what she said he says; "Well I'm supposed to help Eddy and Ed today, but you are more than welcome to join us."
"Sure, shall we get going?" She asks as he closes his locker.
"Well I actually have something I need to take care of beforehand, it's nothing serious so if you still want to you can come over in like an hour." He says revealing they can't go straight to his house.
"Couldn't I come with you on your errand?" She asks as the walk down the hall holding hands.
"I guess you can, but it's going to be kind of boring."
"I'm never bored when I'm with you silly." She says as he opened the door for her.
Edd's errands consisted of stopping at the ATM outside of the local credit union to deposit his paycheck and to visit the barber shop ran by an old family friend.
"Why here Double Dee?" Marie asks as he opened the door to the shop.
"I was planning on surprising you, but remember how you said that my hair would look better if you could have cut it to make it even? Well I asked my parents last night and they are fine with me getting it cut to look better." He says telling her why they are at the barber shop.
As they enter the shop a bell goes off and an older gentleman in a white barbers jacket and salt and pepper hair looks up at them from behind the counter with an old register on it. "Eddward my boy! It's good to see you!" The older gentleman says with excitement in his voice.
"Hello Uncle Chuck." Edd says smiling at him.
"I'm surprise to see you, your folks haven't made an appointment with me." Chuck says walking around the counter.
"Yes well Mother and Father are letting me manage more of my life." Edd says as he shakes Chucks hand.
"Good good, so who is this lovely vixen?" Chuck asks looking over at Marie and smiling at her.
"This is Marie, my girlfriend." Edd says introducing Marie to him.
"Girlfriend huh? Damn it seems like only yesterday your parents were bringing in this little boy in for his first haircut. Now look at you my boy you're all grown up." He says patting Edd on the back.
Marie had been holding back a laugh since they walked in. "It's nice to meet you." She says still holding back a laugh.
"You too Little Mrs. So what is the plan for today Eddward? Three inches off like normal?" Chuck asks walking over to one of the barber chairs.
"Actually I want it evened out so it hangs at the same length." Edd says as he pulls off his hat and sits down in the chair.
"Ok, so with it parted down the middle it's going to come up to here." Chuck says holding part of Edd's hair between his index and middle finger.
It was a little shorter than Edd would have liked, but he knew it would grow back. "That's good." He says nodding to Chuck.
"Alrighty then." Chuck says swinging the apron meant to keep hair from getting onto your clothes over Edd.
Edd had left his messenger bag with Marie who had taken one of the waiting seats in the corner next to a window and with a quick look through his bag she had found his IPhone. Not wanting to play games at the moment she looks through his phone and finds a day planner app that has various assignments from school along with people's birthdays in it. Skipping ahead a few months she comes upon August and selects the eighteenth and sets a reminder that reads "Marie's birthday, buy her flowers and candy" then returned to the right week before closing the app.
"Heh, he is going to love that." She says laughing at her own mischief. Pushing the home button she sees the contacts app. "Might as well fully invade his phone." She says as she opens the app. His list of contacts in his phone was really short. He had the other kids in the cul-de-sack, his parents cell's and their work numbers and a bunch of emergency numbers and one she didn't expect to see. It's perfectly normal for a boyfriend to have his girlfriend's number in his phone, but with how little he seems to use it she didn't expect to see Marie Kanker in his contact list.
"This is a cute surprise." She says touching her name to see what information he has listed for her. Other than her name all he had listed was Park and Flush for her address.
"It's not like I told him any of this stuff." She says seeing what little information he had on her. "But that is an easy fix."
She punches in her full address and then the adds the phone number to the phone in her trailer.
"There we go, now he can get ahold of me if he ever needs to." She says looking over the information she put into his phone.
"Oh!" She says thinking of two more addition to her contact page. She first adds 3 to the beginning and end of her name then makes the picture for the contact the one she took several days ago. Looking at her finished handiwork she lets out a little laugh.
"Having fun?" Edd asks walking over to her.
"I am, look." She says holding the phone out for him to see.
Edd takes the phone and sees that she has updated the information he has on her in his phone. "Would you look at that, thank you Marie." He says looking up from his phone. "So what do you think?" He asks pointing to his hair.
She stands up and leans her head from side to side then runs her hand through his hair. "It's a bit short, but I still think you look handsome." She says smiling.
"I had hoped you would like it." He says happy that she likes his hair cut.
Edd then pays Chuck then thanks him before Marie and him leave the shop.
"I didn't know you had an uncle here in town." Marie says as they start their walk to the cul-de-sack.
"Oh he is not my biological uncle, I just call him that seeing as I have known him since I was around six."
"Ah I see now, that's cute of you by the way."
Shortly after Edd and Marie arrived at his house Ed and Eddy had shown up.
"Hello Ed, Hello Eddy." Edd says greeting his friends when he opened the door to let them in.
"Hey man." Edd says walking into the house.
"Hello Double Dee." Ed says following Eddy in.
"If you guys want to head into the living room I will grab you some soda cans." Edd says closing the door.
"Ok man." Eddy says as him and Ed head into the living room. Edd had forgotten to tell them that Marie was going to join them so they were a little surprised to see her sitting on the couch.
"Yo." Marie says when they spot her.
"Oh uh hey." Eddy says with surprise to see her.
"Double Dee didn't tell you I was going to be here, did her?" She asks leaning back.
"No he didn't." Eddy says. Eddy was not expecting to see Marie at Edd's, but he didn't really care if Marie was there or not.
"Yeah, I'm having him help me with my school stuff too. You know Double Dee, at this rate you could start charging for your help." She says spotting Edd walking into the room.
"That wouldn't be a very nice thing to do." Edd says carrying four cans of soda and a package of cookies.
"Yeah I guess you're right." Marie says scooting over so Edd could sit down next to her.
"Ok gentlemen and lady, let us get started on our homework." Edd says setting the soda cans and cookies down on the table.
As they worked on the math problems Edd would stop and look over what everyone has done and would make suggestions on what they needed to do to get the right answer. At first Marie needed just as much help as Ed and Eddy, but she would require less and less help as they worked. She was enjoying doing her homework with Edd and him teaching and explaining the problems to her.
After an hour or so Eddy closes his English book and says; "Ok, I'm done with this." And stands up.
"But Eddy, we are not finished." Edd says trying to stop Eddy from leaving
"I'm done for now man, my brain can't take any more of this stuff, you coming Lumpy?" Eddy says grabbing his backpack off the floor and looking at Ed.
"Yes sir Eddy." Ed says getting up and following Eddy.
Edd knew he couldn't change his friends minds. "Alright then, just promise me that you will work on the rest sometime tonight."
"Yeah yeah, sure sure." Eddy says walking out if the room.
"I'll be right back Marie." Edd says following his friends out of the room to set them out the door.
Trying to be helpful for Edd Marie picks up Eddy and Ed's empty soda cans off from the floor and closes up the package of cookies. She then gets up off the couch to stretch and walk around while she waited for Edd to come back. Walking around the room she sees a picture of Edd and his parents from when he was still little. She could see the resemblances between Edd and his dad, they have the same colored eyes and hair.
"He is going to look really good when he gets older." She says looking at the picture.
"I don't think they are going to finish their homework." Edd says walking back into the room.
"That's their loss then." She says turning around as sees he's sat back down on the couch.
Edd was about to respond to her but lost his train of thought when she jumped on him and pinned him to the couch and kisses him.
"Sorry Muffin, I couldn't resist any longer." She says breaking the kiss. "And thank you for all your help."
"You're welcome Cupcake and you never were one to be patient when you wanted something." He says before she returns to kissing him.
"Mom I'm home." Ed says opening the door.
"Welcome back Ed." His mom says from the kitchen
"Will dinner be ready soon?" Edd asks walking into the kitchen.
Laughing she says; "Yes dear, could you go and get your father and sister for me pleases."
"Yes ma'am." He says then turns and walks out into the hall.
He found his sister in the living room working on her own homework and his dad was in his office working on his own work. And a few minutes later the whole family was sitting down to eat dinner.
"Oh so Ed I ran into your friend Nazz's mother today." Ed's mother says as she served stew into a bowl for his dad.
"Oh?" Ed says not sure why she is bringing this up.
"Yes, she told me that your school is having a dance tomorrow night." She says as she continues to serve stew to the others.
"Yeah Eddy told me about that." He says picking up his spoon to start eating.
"And I think you should ask that May girl to go with you." She says sitting down in her chair.
Ed froze and dropped his spoon into the bowl and his eyes go wide. "What?" He says not believing what she had said.
"I think you should ask May to go to the dance with you." She repeating herself.
"But I wasn't even planning on going, there is a monster movie marathon on TV that night." Ed says trying to get out of going to the dance.
"You need to go out and socialize with your friends more Ed." She says giving him a stern look.
"Yeah son, get out and mingle with the ladies." His dad says patting him on the back.
Sarah had been snickering to herself since their mom had brought up the dance. "Yeah Ed, I bet May would love to go with you."
With Sarah commenting on him taking May to the dance, Ed knew he had lost this discussion. "Ok Mom." He says accepting his defeat.