Part IV: Where There's a Will, There's an Ed
Chapter Three

The rest of the school day went without incident, and the kids were all on the bus back home. Including Jonny, who was seated all alone at the back of the bus.

Everyone else was sitting at the front talking amongst each other.

"So, I reckon that we each go to the playground once our homework is finished, and once we're all there, we set off to find out what we can about Jonny."

"Wouldn't that make an easy target for Jonny out of whoever finishes first, Double D?"

"That can be addressed with study groups. Kevin and Rolf can study together, as can you, Jimmy, and Sarah."

Ed nodded. "And us Eds can study together with the Kankers."

May gave Ed a back pat. "Do good, Big Ed. Call us if Jonny gives you too much trouble for you guys."

Edd got out a notepad. "So, we know that Jonny appears to have made himself a dark alter-ego. And he appears to have been driven to this turn by our run to Mondo a-Go Go."

"Yes. But Rolf wishes to know what we are dealing with about Jonny the Wood Boy."

Sarah looked to Edd. "We do know that he doesn't know the truth about Eddy's brother, and that he won't let us tell him that."

Kevin nodded. "All we need to do is figure out a way to do that."

Eddy shrugged. "We could just go to where he is now and tell him."

Lee disagreed. "He's not going to believe you if you just tell him."

Marie nodded. "We knew you wouldn't believe us if we didn't have your brother's journal."

Jimmy looked to Marie. "They wouldn't believe what?"

"The reason for our sudden changes after the amusement park."

Eddy quickly changed the subject. "So, whoever finishes their homework first can start the brainstorming on what to do about Jonny."

Kevin decided not to hound the Eds or the Kankers for answers. "Alright."

The rest of the bus ride went without incident, and the kids split up into their study groups. The Eds and the Kankers went to the old abandoned house, Jonny went to the Gourd Pit, Kevin and Rolf went to the junkyard, and Nazz, Jimmy, and Sarah gathered at the playground.

Edd's parents were still in the trailer park talking with Jenny, unaware of the activities of any of the kids.

"So, let me get zis straight..." Randall adjusted his glasses. "You changed ze number for your 'ouse to a number zat is notorious for being prank-called so zat you could sleep wis dozens of men in ze 'opes zat you would get sick from zem?"

Jenny dropped the empty ketchup bottle in the trash. "That was the plan from when I started until I met Butch."

"Right." Cindy pushed herself up in her seat. "William Butcher, the motorcycle salesman from Lemon Brook who crashed a Mooney M20 off the coast of Sunset Beach after your session with him set off a scandal that caused his business to go bankrupt."

Jenny wiped a tear from her eye. "I was going to keep our session a secret until I discovered that I was pregnant. I had no idea what would happen when I told him. News got out of our time together, his business fell apart, and he thought I would ask him for child support, so he went to a liquor store, bought a bottle of whiskey, drove to the airport, got into his plane, chugged the entire bottle down, and flew out over the beach where he lost control of the plane and crashed."

Cindy nodded. "I heard about that from a pilot based at the airport after we moved here."

"When Lee was born, she had a mole on her forehead right here." She pointed at the center of her forehead. "Every time I looked at it, I could hear it laughing at me as if to say 'You're the reason Butch is dead.'. I did everything I could to ensure that the mark remained hidden from view."

Randall thought about this. "Did you see it as ze mark of Cain, or...?"

"Yeah, that's what it was. I drove a man to suicide, and my oldest daughter sports a constant reminder of it." Jenny opened another bottle of ketchup.

Cindy noticed this action. "Do you always drink this much ketchup?"

Jenny nodded. "It's a way to suppress my long-standing addiction to coitus from all the guys I've been through."

Randall was confused and disturbed. "Je ne veux pas savoir. So, what 'appened after Lee was born?"

"Well, I kept getting calls from guys, and one of them was a man named Arnold Bubsey. He was accused of murdering his wife after losing his job at a tattoo parlor. I didn't know any of that when I first met him. But when we went into the woods, he held me facedown on the creek bed and did his game on me. It was through Bubba that I found out about Butch's death."

Cindy was surprised. "Wait, as in he knew there was another man you slept with?"

Jenny shook her head. "He said things that indicated that a plane had crashed at Sunset Beach, and I found out later that Butch was the pilot."

"So, 'ow did you find out about what 'e 'ad done to 'is wife, zen?" Randall asked.

"After Bubba had left, I called the police and had him arrested for rape. When I was called to identify him, I heard some of the cops mention that he was the prime suspect in his wife's murder. I was able to identify him in a lineup, and he confessed to raping me when I found out that I was pregnant, this time with Marie. He was jailed for raping me and was later found guilty of his wife's murder."

Cindy couldn't believe what the brunette was telling her. "I can't understand why you didn't stop sleeping around after the first time you got pregnant."

"I wanted to stop, but I'd long become addicted to sleeping with men by the time I met Butch. It was when I got pregnant the first time that I started sleeping around to get children into my life."

"Even one child would be a huge burden to look after; what could've led you to have three?"

Jenny swallowed. "I felt awkward not being pregnant after Lee was born."

Randall straightened his tie. "Did you ever sink to look for someone who could be a fazer to your daughters?"

"After Marie was born, I did. I kept looking for men, but this time, I made sure they knew that I had two daughters. Only one man was willing to be a father to them: Rodney Michelson. We talked about what we had on our plates over coitus, and he got me pregnant with May. He found out that I'd been a prostitute after my dad found out about what I'd been doing the last two years."

There was a pause as Jenny took a drink from the ketchup bottle.

"And my dad... threw me out of the house, put it up for sale, and put the family fortune toward the construction of a new cul-de-sac. That was the last I saw of him for 15 years." Jenny was sitting on the floor at this point with her back to the TV, fighting to hold back tears. "Rod left me after that, saying that I would be too much of a burden for him."

Cindy's only response was to shrug. "Can't say I blame him; I think he made a sensible decision there."

"But now he's trying to get back in my life."

Randall was confused. "Whatever for?"

"He's gotten a job as a cruise ship captain, and now he says that he has the money he needs for supporting a family."

Cindy was skeptical. "Mm-hm. I don't understand why anyone would want someone like you for a wife. Or even a girlfriend."

Jenny laid her chin on her hands. "I've been trying to tell him that I don't want him in my life, but he won't listen. He's been at it for 5 years now, and I can't get him to stay away from me."

Randall slicked back his hair. "Well, 'e must 'ave a good reason for zat if 'e's zis persistent in being wis you."

Cindy rolled her eyes. "I don't understand why he would want someone like you, especially with your daughters treating our son and his friend as play toys."

Jenny stood up. "I know you spoke to my daughters last night, and they told me everything they told you, including why they'd been doing what they did since they met Ed, Edd n Eddy."

"We know that. We're just not ready to trust those girls as to whether the behaviour they exhibited over the last two years will persist even after breaking their agreement with Eddy's brother."

Jenny was confused. "Why would they?"

"Just that the girls seemed to have gotten ideas about interacting with boys from the way you interacted with men."

Jenny leaned on the bookshelf. "I will admit that the girls had difficulties in school before Matthew sold us this trailer, but most of those troubles were about the fact that I'd started the girls in the same year as opposed to starting them one at a time when they'd reached a certain age."

"Je vois. So, might I ask when zeir be'aviour started toward zat which was ex'ibited toward our son and 'is friends?"

"I don't know when it all started, but they were bullying students by the time they reached sixth grade. From what I heard from the faculty of the old school, they would ambush students in the hall, tie them up with duct tape, leave some sort of witness mark, and let them loose."

Cindy's eyes grew tense. "Did you ever figure out what was causing this behaviour?"

"I went over to the school to see what they were doing. I figured that I wouldn't be able to put a stop to their actions until I could figure out what they were trying to accomplish. So, I got the reports of each incident from the administrator and got together with each victim to see what they were doing. I managed to gather that the girls would go after boys; boys who shared traits with at least one of the girls."

Randall nodded. "Oui, I noticed zat Marie seemed to be ze most rational of ze sree sisters; not impulsive like Lee, nor meek like May."

"Yeah. Anyway, from the victims' accounts, I could see that each incident happened the same way. As soon as the victim was alone in an open space, the girls would dogpile on them and duct tape their wrists together. Whichever one of the girls was after them would put on lipstick while the other two held them down. Once the fun was had, they'd put their backpack on top of them and leave. By the time the victim got to their feet, the girls were long gone."

"Did you ever try to talk to your daughters about this?"

"By the time I was aware of what they were doing, I thought they were too far gone to be reformed. I found out too late that they had found out about my life as a prostitute and a nymphomaniac through Rod and my refusal to let him back in my life." Jenny took a drink of ketchup to stifle her tears. "I didn't think I'd be able to change them, except by telling them that men were not to be trusted, (I only said that to scare them, not because I think that, because I don't) and when Matthew offered me his old trailer, I saw it as a chance to start over."

Randall polished his glasses. "Did you ever stop to sink about why 'e was offering ze trailer to you specifically?"

Jenny shook her head. "I wasn't going to stick around in a city where my daughters wouldn't be able to go to school."

Cindy put a hand to her temple. "I'm pretty sure you'd be bouncing from town to town if you didn't do something about your daughters' behaviour."

Jenny shrugged. "My girls seemed content with Ed, Edd n Eddy, so I thought I was in a good spot. I took care to make sure that they didn't cause them too much trouble like the kids in Lemon Brook, and the boys' family lifestyles made it easy for me not to have to answer to them too often."

The pilots looked at each other before Randall spoke. "What do you mean 'ze boys' family lifestyles'?"

"Well, Ed Winters has a sister who is constantly favored by their mother, and their father doesn't care about what happens in his house, so Ed doesn't have a way of his tales of May being heard by his parents. Eddy McGee has lived under the shadow of his brother's influence, so his parents don't hold him in enough regard to take him seriously if he tried to tell them about Lee. And with you two constantly out flying, the only way you ever get to communicate with your son is through sticky notes, most of them about chores that he has to do around the house, so that doesn't grant him opportunity to tell you about Marie."

Cindy wasn't convinced. "What I'd like to know is why none of the other kids tried to tell their parents about your daughters."

Jenny folded her arms. "What I'd like to know is why you two treat your son like a maid or a butler."

Randall was surprised. "What do you mean?"

"You leave sticky notes around your house because you're constantly out flying for Delta Airlines. But all of your sticky notes have been about chores. Have you ever had the chance to see what goes on in your son's life?"

"Not all of our notes have pertained to chores." Cindy checked her watch. "We provide our son with food, clothes, and shelter. I even packed him his favourite lunch after he lost a spelling bee to Ed."

"Really?" Jenny went upstairs and reappeared with a notebook. "So, why did you renovate your house's bathroom without his knowledge?" She opened the notebook, revealing pages of photographs taped inside and notes written by the girls. "The poor child went wandering the neighborhood asking people to use their showers, and my girls saw him wallowing in garbage laughing like a hyena."

The pilots looked through the pictures and their captions. The girls had traced Edd's whereabouts from that day from the trail he'd left leading up to where he was spotted rolling in sludge like a pig.

"Mon dieu!" Randall gasped.

Cindy recognized the writing on the fences. "What in Sam Hill?"

"Indeed." Jenny watched the pilots flip through the pages. "I'm sure any other child would've called out their parents for a decision to renovate the house's only bathroom when their child is as much a neat freak as your son. But he's been too much of a coward to assert himself, even when doing so would grant him a better way of living."

Randall could think of nothing to say.

"In fact," Jenny continued, "he was offered a shower by the head cheerleader, but he didn't step in there because the bathroom was littered with women's undergarments."

Cindy shrugged. "Why would that be unusual?"

"Because," Jenny explained, "my girls told me about your son's hatred of being a boy, and he was most likely unwilling to shower there out of fear of being seen as a pervert as opposed to a girl made into a boy." She took another drink of ketchup. "I don't believe I ever got a full explanation behind your decision to make a son out of your daughter."

Cindy grabbed her cheeks with one hand. "Well, the thing is that I wasn't too keen on too many children; I was only willing to have an only son. When I gave birth to a daughter, I was at a quandary as to whether or not to keep her or send her to an orphanage and try again. I wasn't too keen on getting pregnant again, but I wanted a son."

"Did you ever consider adopting a son?" Jenny asked.

Cindy shook her head. "I wanted a biological son so that Randall or I could be identified if something happened. I resolved to have my daughter put through gender-swap surgery and change her name from Marion to Don."

Randall nodded. "It didn't work ze way we'd 'oped it would, because 'e would dye 'is 'air pink every day. We would do everysing to keep 'is 'air black, but 'e would find ways around zat. Not even 'is lack of friends in Stokenchurch would persuade 'im not to dye 'is 'air pink; 'e found enough 'appiness in 'is studies and looking at insects zat it was never a problem for 'im."

"So, we moved overseas to help our son make some friends." Cindy let off a small cough. "When we arrived in Seattle, we had breakfast at a diner with our son. The waiter who served us there had a lengthy chat with us, during which we told him about our plans for moving here. After Randall told him that Don's pink hair was getting in the way of him making friends, the waiter told us that he had an old toboggan hat that he could give to our son, so that he could wear his hair as he wished but still keep it hidden. His only request was that we change our son's name to Edward. Our son liked that name, and we felt obligated to ensure that our son made friends in Peach Creek, so we agreed."

"I see. So, from what your son told me, he said he wears his hair pink because he wants to be a girl. From everything I've gathered about you and your son, it seems to me that you two are trying to bend the world around you to suit your own needs." Jenny set the ketchup bottle down on the floor. "I'm starting to understand why your son became friends with a horror movie and comic book addict and a scam artist prodigy."

Randall folded his arms. "And 'ow's zat?"

"Edward is used to spending a lot of time alone, and your absolute control over his life had made him scared to speak up and challenge his surroundings. It would only seem natural that the friends he made would provide what he thought would be minimal disruption to the interests he'd developed before you moved here, as well as a role where he could have at least some control of his life. Eddy was able to take advantage of his lack of self-confidence, and Ed gave him the confidence he lacked in someone he thought he could school to full potential."

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Who do you think you are, Sigmund Freud?"

"Trust me; when you as much of a nymphomaniac as I used to be, and you go through as many guys as I have, you really get an idea of why people think the way they do." Jenny picked up her ketchup bottle. "But seriously, do you really want your son to be the kind of person he is? An introvert whose lifelong friends made him unpopular with all the other kids? He's only made friends with the rest of the kids because of a chase to an amusement park downtown."

"Well, 'e 'as managed to keep 'imself to ze standards we expect from 'im," Randall rebutted. "'E is a straight-A student, 'is morality and integrity are magnifique, 'e 'as 'igh standards of upkeep wis cleanliness, organization, and task performance. We sink zat zose are ze best attributes we could've asked for."

"And you don't think you're taking advantage of those traits by letting him live on his own and be left to keep the house clean while you're away? You didn't think that he would become friends with a scam artist's kid brother and help him swindle the kids out of their allowances for jawbreakers? You didn't think he wouldn't have the courage to leave it all behind when he thought that the routine was teetering on the brink of disaster?" Jenny wasn't used to being as worked up as she was at that moment.

The pilots were stunned to silence at Jenny's outburst.

"You know, if I wasn't so bent on keeping my daughters off the path that I'd taken, your son would've had it much worse with Marie than he did."

Randall looked at his watch. "Well, we do 'ave someone else 'ere to talk to, so I believe we should be on our way."

"And who might that be?"

"We were going to have a talk with Jonny's parents."

"Oh?" Jenny walked over to the trailer door. "What about?"

"We've been told zat Jonny was up to somesing, and we want to know what it is before we start our next flight."

Jenny opened the trailer door for them. "I probably shouldn't keep you waiting, then." As they left, Jenny made sure to tell them one other thing. "Word of advice: you'll be great parents if you let your son make his own decisions for his future, including who he wants for the rest of his life."

The pilots left without saying a word, and the trailer door closed behind them.

But not before Jenny asked them "Out of curiosity, did Edward ever say what he liked about having the name that the diner waiter suggested?"

Cindy shrugged. "He did insist on spelling his name E-D-D-W-A-R-D after we gave it to him, but beyond that, we really don't know."

"Hm. I guess that's a question for the ages."

"Probably."

And with that, the pilots were gone.

Jonny and Plank were in the Gourd Pit doing their homework for the day.

"I know, Plank. But we have to stay out of detention if we're going to be able to carry out our plans."

He propped Plank against the lamp on his desk.

"We don't have anyone who can help us escape from detention if we get one. And the kids are bound to take advantage of me being stuck in school without them."

He paused with a pencil over his notebook as Plank continued speaking.

"A plan to get this done faster would be helpful."

He started sifting through his backpack for his first assignment.

"Because if we don't do our homework, we'll start getting detentions. And if we're in detention, we won't be able to do anything to forward our goals."

He found what he was looking for and set to work.

"All the other kids are doing their homework. If we finish before they do, we can carry out a plan against them before they can do anything."

His friend decided to strike a deal with the bald kid.

"If it can get this done quicker, I'd really like the help. ... Alright. Let's do it."

He was silenced by the sound of his house's doorbell ringing.

The footsteps leading to the front door prompted Jonny to stay in his lair doing his homework.