DAR Highland Aftermaths and New Directions
Disclaimer: Daria is the creation of Glenn Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter and its characters are the creations of JK rowling and are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I don't own them, and I neither expect nor deserve financial reward for this work. I am writing for my own amusement and ego gratification.
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Daris Ravenclaw: The Highland Years*Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years*Daria Ravenclaw: The Highland Years
The car chase's aftermaths were messy. Jake turned in the rented street rod, and the rental shop owner had been furious: so much so that he was going to take Jake to court. Jake's drive had caused a lot of damage, his drive had strained the shock absorbers and torn up the tires, and the trip through the fence had further torn up the underframe and front end. Helen feared that they were going to court, yet somehow managed to pressure the insurance adjuster to look over the rental car to see just how much damage had actually done instead of simply taking the rental agency owner's word. The adjuster came by several days after Helen contacted him and gave the rod a thorough examination and to Helen's surprise, most of the damage was confined to a few paint scratches.
The local assistant district attorney had wanted to indict Jake Morgendorffer for trespassing when he drove into the construction site and also for offenses related to reckless driving, but the local grand jury refused to indict him. Lacking support from his boss, the assistant DA let the charges drop. The District Attorney, who had been watching the legal proceedings when the grand jury no-billed Jake, quietly buttonholed Jake outside the courtroom and suggested that he take a defensive driving class, but that was it. The opinion at the DA's office was that Jake Morgendorffer had been a father trying to protect his daughter and the decision was for the law to tell him "Go and sin no more."
-(((O-O)))-
In the meantime, Daria made a temporary getaway from the Aylesford. Farah extended an invitation from her cousin Laura Penrick to spent the weekend out at the Penricks' ranch and Daria had accepted. She was enthusiastict about the change of scene although less than thrilled about the locale: the Penricks lived out in the country and raised cattle and goats. On the other hand, the ranch was nothing like Highland. Still, despite the smells and the orneriness of the goats, Daria found the change of scenery to be a much-needed emotional tonic.
-(((O-O)))—
About three days after the last drive-by, the Aldrete sisters walked to school like things were normal. Daria had seen them on the sidewalk as her dad drove her and Quinn to school, chatting and gesturing as if everything was cool. They saw Jake's pickup and waved.
Daria wondered what was up with the Aldretes and why they were acting so nonchalant. She didn't think it was because the crazy twins were crazy, over the last year or so she'd grudgingly realized that for all their weirdness, they were better-grounded than a lot of her classmates.
Her chance to ask them came courtesy of an urgent need of a hall pass and a trip to to the girl's room. She opened the stall door and saw Sarita Aldrete combing her hair.
"I saw you guys this morning," said Daria. "What are you doing walking down the main drag like nothing's happening? That's dangerous. Aren't you worried about the gangers doing another drive-by?"
"Nope," Sarita said smugly. "Those guys are history. They aren't going to make trouble for anybody."
"And you know this how?" Daria said irritably.
"'Cause I know," Sarita said. "Those guys are so-o-o over."
"Don't blame me if you have to duck next time," said Daria.
Sarita chuckled. "Morgendorffer, you worry too much," she said dismissively.
-(((O-O)))-
Reinhart Sickles and his remaining lieutenant were never found. The police circulated wanted posters and offered rewards, but no trace of them was ever discovered. Daria didn't learn the full story until years later.
.
A few weeks later, a car registered to a Evvie Brown, who'd been reputed to to be Reinhart Sickle's girlfriend, turned up at the scene of a brush fire several miles out of town. The fire that burned the car and its contents had been exceptionally intense; the metal was scorched and the paint and interior were burned to ashes. Some bone fragments were found in the car. The intense heat made it impossible to guess who they belonged to.
Brown had not been seen since before the last drive-by and the police put out bulletins describing her as a person of interest. For a while, the general consensus was that Brown was no longer among the living, but she turned up in a dingy hotel near New Orleans, incoherent and with no memory of where she'd been or what she'd been doing since she'd last been seen in Highland.
Even before Evvie Brown's car turned up, the Morgendorffers felt that it was finally safe enough to return home. They packed the clothes possessions they'd taken to the Hotel Aylesford, then drove back to Whirlwind Drive.
The gang war had been traumatic for the Morgendorffer family, even if they'd only been bystanders. Jake and Helen gave serious thought to moving away from Highland and put out job feelers. Still, Jake and Helen saw no reason to simply pack and move away to another town, with or without jobs in hand. Despite all they'd been through, something in the atmosphere made them feel that they were safe, perhaps not as safe as they'd be if they lived in a big-city bedroom suburb like Plano or Katy, but as safe as they'd been before the gang war started.
-(((O-O)))-
A couple of days after the Morgendorffers' return to Whirlwind Drive, Daria was called in to the school counselor's office.
"Miss Morgendorffer, we'd like you to take some tests," said Janine Javert.
"What sort of tests?" Daria asked suspiciously.
"Academic performance tests," said Ms. Javert.
Daria remembered her last run-in with Ms. Javert. She didn't trust her.
"Let me ask my Mom," said Daria.
-(((O-O)))-
Helen accompanied her daughter to school a couple of days later and joined her oldest daughter in a conference room with Ms. Javert and Mr. Lamphier, a roving academic counselor who not only worked at James Ferguson Elementary School, but at Highland's other primary schools.
"Mrs. Morgendorffer, as you know, your daughter Daria is one of the highest-achieving and brightest students here at James Ferguson Elementary School," said Ms. Javert.
"Thank you," said Helen. "Surely that doesn't present a problem."
"Not in the usual sense," Mr. Lamphier smoothly cut in.
"Oh?" said Helen skeptically.
"We think your girl is capable of not only performing at fourth-grade level, but at a higher level."
"Does this mean that Highland is finally going to create an honors-track program?" Helen asked hopefully.
Mr. Lamphier made a small frown. "Not in the near future," he said.
"So what is your proposal?" said Helen.
"What I mean to say is that instead of passing Daria along to fourth grade, we let her into fifth grade instead," said Mr. Lamphier. "Would you mind?"
"No, I wouldn't mind," said Helen. "Why should I mind? My darling daughter is a smart girl and if she can do it, she ought to."
"All right, then," said Mr. Lamphier."We'll let her stay in third grade until the end of the term and then in the fall she can start fifth grade."
"It sounds all right to me," said Helen.
She turned to her daughter.
"Daria?" she said.
Daria thought about it. She thought she could handle Highland's fifth grade, although she might need some tutoring in math to get up to speed with her future classmates.
There was another factor involved. It sounded a little stupid, and she was afraid that her Mom would dismiss it if she brought it up. Most of her friends were a year or two older than she was. Gloria had already gone on to Middle School. Gail was about to, as was Farrah. She'd like to keep up with them, and it would be easier if she only had to spend one more year in primary school while they were in Middle School. She wasn't as social as Quinn, but she'd seen friends drift apart as one transitioned to Middle School and the other stayed behind.
.
"Sounds good," said Daria, hoping that Mr. Lamphier's proposal wasn't a typical Highland bait-and-switch. "When do I test?"
"We can schedule the tests in about ten days," said Mr. Lamphier. "Jusging from what I've seen of your transcripts, I think you'll do well."
-(((O-O)))—
Later, somewhere in Greater London
Daria Morgendorffer picked up her manuscript and started to proof-read it, penciling in corrections. She'd retype the corrected essay and give it to her tutor later. She smiled to herself as she read what she'd written. She no longer begrudged the time she spent at Hogwarts as she had her first couple of years there; she'd needed to learn magic and how to become a witch. Still, she was a girl with ambition, and her skills with Muggle science, mathematics, and what were called "language arts" were not what they should be, and she wanted to get into Oxford. She not only wanted to do her bit to rebuild the Black family's fortunes and position, but she strongly believed that any witch or wizard who ignored the existence of the Muggle world was an absolute, utter fool.
Her tutor had asked her to write an essay about death and dying. She did not want to discuss her experiences with the subject at school with her tutor. Instead, she decided to tackle the subject by writing about her experiences before she entered Hogwarts. She flipped over several pages, thanked the Fates that her tutor was a Squib who accepted typed pages instead of script written on parchment with goose quills, and began reading.
"Looking back on my childhood, I now realize that mine had been relatively sheltered, even if I'd spent most of my years before Hogwarts living in a violent, impoverished community like Highland. Unlike children living a century ago, death and dying wasn't something we thought could happen to us. Kids in the 19th century and before often died from diseases like Scarlet Fever, Whooping Cough, Smallpox, Diphtheria, and other illnesses that have almost disappeared thanks to modern medicine. We were either naïve or complacent. Death was something that seemed reserved for older people—gangsters shooting and occasionally knifing each other, other stupid teen-agers driving drunk or driving too fast, grown-ups, especially older grown-ups—but not us. It was as if we all agreed that some invisible hand was placed over us, protecting us from the dangers of the real world.
"Clara Posey's murder was a shock for me and a lot of my peers. Clara's death shattered the illusion that some invisible hand protected us from dying; it evaporated like so much mist. Clara had died in her house, and most of us had assumed our houses were safe places. Death was not only something that could happen while crossing the street or, if we were on the northwest side; it could come into our homes, too. We now found that we lived in a dangerous and uncaring world, one where death could strike us down at some unexpected moment. None of us really felt entirely safe after that, either at home or in the street.
"That February was also the first time I realized that not only could I die in an accident, but death could come seek me out. The gangsters in the drug store that chased my stepfather and me through the streets of Highland sought to do the same thing to my stepfather and me that they'd done to Verna Cabell and the child that she'd she'd been sitting. We only escaped because I was able to find a place to slip out of my stepfather's rental car unnoticed and he was able to lure them into a construction site. I only give so much credit to my stepfather's skill as a motorist and my trickery: our escapes from harm was as much due to dumb luck as anything else.
"A couple of weeks later, I actually saw someone die…"
-(((O-O)))—