Chapter 14: The Pack Part 1
Buffy strolled next to Paige and Dawn through the Sunnydale Zoo, enjoying the way the sun warmed her cheeks on this cool spring day. She let out a small sigh as she looked at the map. "Why is it all zoos are absolutely alike?"
"Oh, look."
The familiar voice caught their attention and they looked in its direction. Kyle DuFours. Creepy Kyle, Willow called him sometimes, came toward them accompanied by the kids he was always with: Rhonda Kelley, Tor Hauer, and Heidi Barrie. Always together, always annoying.
"It's Buffy and Dawn," Kyle said, he had noticed Paige but otherwise ignored her; after all she wasn't a real teacher, just an assistant librarian. "And all their friends."
Paige rolled her eyes. "Mr. DuFours," she said. "You have better things to do with your time than to try and come up with some witty line that will fail to be witty."
Tor fixed his gaze on the sisters as he ignored Paige. "Do you ever wonder why nobody cool ever wants to hang out with you two?" he asked.
"We're just thankful," Dawn replied.
"Were you this popular at your old school?" Rhonda asked, getting in on the action. "Before you got kicked out?"
"More," Dawn said with a smirk. "Buffy was head cheerleader."
Paige let out a sigh as they walked away. "Being only Giles' assistant …"
"We know, Paige," Buffy replied. "Not being a teacher, can be rough when it comes to discipline."
"Yes."
Buffy, Dawn and Paige all stopped to read a display outside the elephant enclosure.
Another voice called out to them. Also familiar, but more friendly. "Hey! Buffy! Dawn! Paige!"
They looked up to see Xander and Willow running toward her. They looked happy, like they were truly enjoying this little escapade.
"You missed it!" Willow said enthusiastically.
"Missed what?" Dawn asked.
"We saw the zebras mating," Xander said. "Thank you, very exciting."
"It looked like the Heimlich. With stripes," Willow added. Her wide smile was usually infectious, but it didn't spread to the sisters this time, though it did spread to Paige.
"And we missed it," Buffy said, with mock sadness. "Yet, somehow we'll find the courage to live on."
They started walking, headed nowhere in particular. "Where were you three?" Willow asked them.
"We were looking at the fishes," Dawn replied.
"Was it cool?"
Buffy thought about that for a moment. "It was fishes."
"I'm feeling that you guys are not in the field trip spirit here," Xander said, as if picking up on their decided lack of excitement.
"Well, it . . . it's nothing." Buffy couldn't quite summon the energy to shrug. "Anyway, we did the same zoo trip at my old school every year. Same old, same old."
"Yeah it got boring after you've seen everything so many times," Dawn agreed.
"Buffy, Dawn, this is not just about looking at a bunch of animals," Xander explained. "This is about not being in class."
Paige smiled. "Xander does kind of have a point. Look at it as a way of getting to go to school but cutting at the same time."
This time, the sisters did smile. "You know, you both are right," Buffy said. "Suddenly the animals look shiny and new."
"Gotta have perspective," Xander said.
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The chimpanzee enclosure looked like a granite cliff. On a rocky shelf, three chimps — mother, father, and baby — shared lunch. Or, the mother and father did. The young one shrieked and grabbed, but the adults managed to keep their food to themselves.
Lance Lincoln leaned on the rail at the enclosure's edge, spiral notebook open, scribbling down his observations on the chimp family's meal. For him, a field trip wasn't about being away from school, it was about having an opportunity for some good solid insight into primate behavior. He was so involved in his research that he didn't hear the four pairs of footsteps approaching him from behind.
"Lance!"
He turned around. Kyle and his friends, bearing down on him. Swell, he thought. Victim, thy name is Lance.
"How's it going?" Kyle asked. Like we're old buddies or something.
"Hey, Kyle," he replied evenly.
Kyle leaned on the railing next to him, glanced at the chimps. "So this is like a, um, family reunion?"
"No." Well — from an evolutionary perspective, maybe. But to go there with Kyle? He didn't think so.
Kyle went on as if Lance hadn't said anything. "I think it's a family reunion. It's so touching. Doesn't anybody have a camera?" He mimicked whipping one out, snapping a picture.
Lance flashed back to grade school, when his love for reruns of the old TV show "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp" had become common knowledge. Given his name, it would have been hard for him not to be drawn to the show, and it was probably what kick-started his interest in primatology. But the flack he'd taken from schoolmates calling him Lance Link, or Sir Lancelot, had almost driven him away from that calling.
Compared to these bullies, those kids were nothing, he thought.
Rhonda came up behind Lance and started tugging at the hairs on the back of his head. "Hey, does your mom still pick out your lice?" she asked. "Or are you old enough to do that yourself now?"
"Quit it," Lance demanded. He jerked his head away from her.
And in doing so, turned just enough that Tor was able to snatch his notebook from his hand. "Hey! Guys, come on," Lance said, grabbing for the notebook. "I've got all my notes in there!" But Tor held it over his head, out of Lance's reach. Only in the back of his mind, where he catalogued such things, did he vaguely realize that the whole scene duplicated the chimp behavior, with the larger chimps holding food away from the little one. Terrific. I'm the little monkey, he thought.
The group's laughter was interrupted by the voice of Mr. Flutie, Sunnydale High's principal. "What's going on here?" he asked.
Lance watched him approach. He was no fashion expert, but even he knew Mr. Flutie's plaid sports coat was just wrong. It hung open in front, as if both his belly and his sense of self-importance were too swollen to allow it to button. A shock of dark hair sat atop his head like an afterthought, or a small furry mammal abandoned there by some predator.
"I have had it up to here with you four," Mr. Flutie said. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Kyle insisted.
Flutie planted himself in front of Kyle. "Did I ask you to speak? Okay, I guess I did. But I want the truth." He looked at Lance. "Lance?"
Tell the truth — or survive? No real contest. "They weren't doing anything. Really," Lance went along.
He even forced a chuckle. "We were just playing around." Like I'd play around with these guys.
And yet, Mr. Flutie bought it. "All right." Mr. Flutie started to go, then stopped, swiveled, and raked a finger like a machine gun across the chests of the four troublemakers. "I'll be watching you," he said, then turned again and headed down the path.
"You," Kyle said, pointing at Lance's face. Lance didn't like the sound of that — or that finger in his eyes. Now what? "Came through big time," Kyle went on.
"Way to go, Lance," Rhonda added, patting him on the arm like an old friend.
"Flutie's been looking for a reason to come down on us," Tor said.
Whew. "It's okay," Lance said, trying not to sound too relieved.
Kyle reached out, gripped Lance's collarbone, somewhere between a pal and a prison warden. "Come on. We're gonna check out the hyena house."
Lance hesitated. "But — I think it's off limits."
"And therein, my friend, lies the fun."
Lance chuckled again, but to him it sounded even less real than the one he'd given Mr. Flutie. He didn't quite know how to extricate himself — that had been a bonding moment of some kind, he figured, and now they were a unit. He went along.
The pathway to the hyena house was blocked off by yellow caution tape, and signs on easels read
"Positively No Admittance." Yet another sign said "Closed." Orange lights flashed on the warning signs.
The meaning was pretty clear, Lance figured. The zoo officials didn't want anyone wandering into the hyena exhibit.
Which, according to Kyle, was the "fun part." Lance couldn't quite figure, but he was willing to go along. After all, they were being nice to him, which was a first. And besides, they had him more or less surrounded. Rhonda lifted the caution tape and they ducked under, headed down the path.
Hyenas, here we come.
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Paige, Xander, Willow, and Buffy weren't far behind. They saw Lance go under the tape and disappear down the path.
"What are Kyle and his buds doing with Lance?" Willow asked.
To Xander, the answer was clear. "Playing with him, as the cat plays with the mouse."
"What is it with those guys?" Dawn asked. They stopped at the tape, looking down the path. Lance and the others were gone from sight.
"They're obnoxious," Willow said. "Professionally."
"Every school has 'em," Xander explained. "You start a school, you get desks, some blackboards, and some mean kids."
Buffy started toward the tape. "Yeah, well, I better extract Lance before —"
But Xander raised a hand to her, stopping her in her tracks. "I'll handle it," he offered. "This job doesn't require actual slaying."
"No," Paige said as she stopped Xander in his tracks. "This requires someone with a little more authority."
"They didn't take to your authority much earlier," Dawn reminded Paige.
"Well they will this time," Paige responded. She looked around and made sure no one was watching. "If you guys see anyone from the zoo, keep them out as long as you can." She then orbed out.
They looked around and spotted a zookeeper approaching the hyena enclosure and they made a beeline toward him.
"Hi," Dawn said. "I was just wondering if you could tell me why the Hyena enclosure is off limits?"
"It's a quarantine. These hyenas just came from Africa. So keep out." His voice indicated that he would accept no response other than obedience. But he raised a single eyebrow, giving his face a slightly friendlier aspect. Then he said something that Buffy found very strange. "Even if they call your name."
"What're you talking about?" Buffy asked.
The zookeeper looked even more like a professor as he launched into lecture mode. "A Masai tribesman once told me that hyenas can understand human speech. They follow humans around by day, learning their names." His voice lowered. Now he sounded like a man telling a ghost story. "At night, when the campfire dies, they call out to the person. And once they separate him" — he snapped his fingers — "the pack devours him."
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There was more caution tape at the actual entrance to the hyena enclosure. Kyle just ripped it down as he passed through it, so that he was festooned in it for a moment, yellow against his yellow shirt. It was dark in here, shaded, and cooler than outside. The walls were artificial rock, a man-made cave with cutaways for illuminated displays, and a larger one for the hyenas themselves, up a couple of steps, chest-high bars across the front.
Kyle looked around, turning slowly. "Cool."
"I don't see any hyenas," Lance said.
Almost as if on cue, a hyena stepped forward from the gloom of its pen, revealing a dark, almost black muzzle, full of large, pointed teeth. It growled. It didn't sound friendly.
"Okay," he said. "Now we've seen it." He turned to go, but Tor was standing right behind him, blocking his way.
And the others hadn't had enough, it seemed. "It looks cute," Rhonda said.
"I think it looks hungry," Kyle said. He stepped away from the bars. He and Tor grabbed Lance, muscled him up the steps toward the cage.
"Come on, Spot!" Tor growled as they dragged Lance forward. "Suppertime!" They held him in front of the bars — which now seemed considerably shorter and less substantial than they had just a minute ago.
The hyena growled again, deep in its throat. Someone had a hand on the back of Lance's head, pushing his face into the cage. Everyone laughed — except Lance.
"Ow!" he complained just as Paige orbed in. "Stop it! That's not funny!"
Paige leapt up the stairs and into the thick of it, yanking people's arms away from Lance. Sh shoved Lance out of their reach, down the stairs. When Lance was safely away, Paige found herself eyeball to eyeball with Kyle.
"Mr. DuFour," Paige started.
Kyle glared at Paige, not giving an inch. "What, are you gonna get in my face, teach? Or are you going to go back to the library where you belong?"
The hyena interrupted the stare-down with another long, low growl. It raised its head into the light again, growling more, and then they were all looking at it. The thing was not lovely, but its eyes held a mesmerizing quality, and the five of them found themselves staring into those eyes.
Barely noticing when the eyes flashed with an eerie green glow.
And, of course, they couldn't see their own eyes. Flashing an answering green.
Nor did they, at this moment, notice the bizarre red design painted on the enclosure's floor. The design on which they all stood. Their attention was riveted on the hyena, growling and moving in its cage.
Lance took advantage of their distraction to make his escape. He started for the exit. Tripped. His notebook slid across the damp floor. He grabbed it up again, hoisted himself to his feet. But the others had heard him fall, were turning — weirdly, turning slowly but in unison — and laughing. Laughing at him, their laughter rising in pitch, becoming almost hysterical.
Paige, who had rescued him, was the last to turn, the only one out of synch, and Lance didn't know what he expected to see on her face but it wasn't what he saw, which was a smile. She wasn't laughing like the others, but the smile — knowing, and without a trace of kindness or real humor — was almost worse.
Lance ran.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
The Bronze was crowded — like that was news. When there's only one decent club in town where kids under twenty-one can hear music, drink coffee, dance, and hang out, it's likely to draw a crowd.
Buffy, Dawn and Willow turned away from the pastry counter. Both Dawn and Willow had carried a croissant and a soda each. Buffy had settled for a box of raisins.
"I thought Paige would be here by now," Buffy said as they threaded their way toward the table that Xander and Cordelia sat at.
"You know Giles," Dawn said. "Probably having her categorizing something."
"Did she seem at all upset on the bus back from the zoo?" Buffy asked.
"About what?" Willow wondered.
"I don't know," Buffy said. "She was quiet."
Dawn slid onto a seat at the chest-high table. "I didn't notice anything."
"What are we talking about?" Xander wondered.
"Paige," Willow said. "Buffy was just asking if she seemed upset on the bus back from the zoo."
"Not that I recall," Xander said as Willow and Buffy also slid onto a stool.
"Of course we're not as hyper-aware of Paige as, oh, say, for example, you," Dawn said as she jabbed at her sister.
"Hyper-aware?" Buffy asked.
"Well," Dawn said. "I'm not constantly monitoring Paige's health, her moods, her blood pressure —"
Buffy knew that one. "One-twenty over eighty."
Cordelia laughed. "You got it bad," she said as Buffy smiled. "Especially when Paige has given you what not one, but two gifts – both of which your wearing – and taken you out to dinner."
"Not even for a dangerous and mysterious older man whose leather jacket you're wearing right now?"
Buffy glanced at the jacket Paige had given her. "It goes with the shoes," she insisted.
"Come on," Willow said, having none of it. "Paige pushes your buttons. You know she does."
Buffy sighed as she nodded and then out of the corner of her eyes she spotted Paige. "There she is!"
Paige wended her way through the crowd, wearing a very form fitting black dress. She sauntered, stopping now and again to look at both men and women, smile at both men and women, flirt with both men and women. Finally, she made her way to their table. "Girls, Xander," she said.
"Paige," Dawn replied.
"Sorry I'm late," Paige went on. "I just forgot you all invited me out with you tonight." She looked at Dawn's plate.
"Hungry," she said, tearing off a chunk of Dawn's croissant and shoving it into her mouth. She then indicated Dawn's snack. "What is this crap?"
"Well, it was my buttery croissant," Dawn said.
"I need some food," Paige said. Her voice carried a tinge of anger, as if Dawn had ordered the pastry just to offend her. "Birds live on this."
But apparently she wasn't too angry to notice the look that passed between Dawn, Cordelia, Xander, Buffy and Willow. "What?" she asked with an anxious smile.
"What's up with you?" Cordelia asked.
Buffy took it more personally. She fiddled nervously with her raisin box. "Is something wrong? Did I do something?"
"What could you possibly do?" Paige asked. "That's crazy talk. I'm just restless."
"Well, we could go to the ice cream place . . ." Willow offered.
Paige raised her head, peering over the crowd, as if looking for something. Or just surveying her territory. She scratched her chest. "I like it here."
And as if the way she'd been acting wasn't bizarre enough, she began to sniff Buffy's hair.
"Okay, now what?" Buffy asked.
"You took a bath," she explained. Although "explained" wasn't the word for it, since it didn't actually explain anything. She kept scratching at her shirt.
"Yeah, I often do. I'm actually known for it."
"That's okay," Paige said.
Slipping into announcer-speak, Xander said, "And the weird behavior award goes to . . ."
But Paige wasn't even listening anymore. Her attention had become riveted on the door. They all turned to see what she was so intent on.
And was instantly sorry they had.
Kyle, Heidi, Tor, and Rhonda. The good-time gang.
"Oh, great," Buffy said. "It's the winged monkeys."
They walked through the Bronze, making a beeline for the table they were gathered around. Paige couldn't look away, couldn't blink, and was only somewhat aware of that fact. Her eyes had locked with Kyle's the moment he came through the door, and they stayed locked.
They reached the table, each of them looking only at Paige. She acknowledged them wordlessly as they went by, and turned to keep them in sight as they passed.
They stopped at a nearby table — one that was already occupied by a couple of kids. One was a stocky guy in a plaid shirt, the other thinner and familiar-looking, though Xander couldn't place him. Kyle and Rhonda leaned on the big guy's shoulders, and his tablemate silently scooted his chair back and left.
"You know," Kyle said. "I don't understand why you're sitting at our table."
"Yeah," Rhonda added. "Shouldn't you be hovering over the football stadium with 'Goodyear' written on you?"
They all laughed at that, Paige included. She was still laughing when she turned back to the table, and came face-to-face with Buffy's expression, which said she definitely didn't get the joke.
"Kid's fat," Paige said. She looked at Dawn, Cordelia, Xander and Willow and saw that they didn't get the joke either.
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The next day, Buffy met Giles for their scheduled sparring session. She threw a right, a left, spun and came out of the spin with another right, spun again into a kick, then leapt into the air, kicking out with both feet at once into Giles' gloves. Hitting hard, not holding back.
Breathing hard, too.
She advanced on him again. He waved his gloves.
"Right," Giles said. "That's enough training for one day."
"Well, that last roundhouse was kind of sloppy. Sure you don't want to do it again?" Buffy asked.
"No, that's fine." He was breathing hard too. "You run along to class," he panted, "while I wait for the feeling to return to my arms."
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As Buffy neared a corner of the hallway, she heard a commotion from the other side. Students shrieked.
And over it all, sounding somewhat strained, the unmistakable voice of Principal Flutie.
"Look out!" he cried. "It's gotten loose!"
There were more shrieks. They didn't sound terrified — and it was broad daylight — so her Slayer hackles didn't rise, but she was curious. She hurried toward the corner.
"Stop the beast!" Mr. Flutie called.
Then she rounded the corner and saw it, darting straight for her. A tiny pink piglet, running like pork chops were on the school lunch menu. Probably it was trying to get away from the ridiculous outfit someone had dressed it in.
Buffy bent over and snagged the piglet, lifting it into her arms. The poor thing was wearing a tiny Sunnydale High football helmet with papier-mâché tusks attached at the sides of his snout and had a row of green foam triangles stuck to its back, like a cartoon dinosaur's fins.
Mr. Flutie caught up to them. "Naughty Herbert," he said. "Gave Mr. Flutie quite a scare, didn't he?"
He drew himself up, addressing the students crowding the hallway. "Students, I'd like you all to meet Herbert, our new mascot for the Sunnydale High Razorbacks!" This was met with a smattering of applause.
"He's so cute!" Buffy said.
"He's not cute," Mr. Flutie insisted. "No, he's a fierce Razorback." He pumped his fists into the air, and there was some halfhearted clapping.
Buffy studied the poor, over-accessorized pig. "He doesn't look mean, Mr. Flutie."
"He's mean, he's ready for action." Mr. Flutie indicated Herbert's add-ons. "See, here are the tusks, and ... a scary ... razorback." The green fins. Now she got it.
"You're right," Buffy agreed. Sometimes a principal had to be humored. "He is a fine mascot and will engender school spirit."
"Well, he'd better — costs a fortune to feed him." He bent down, spoke directly to Herbert. "Let's get you back in your cage." He reached for the pig, and Herbert let out a squeal. Mr. Flutie backed off, gestured for Buffy to carry the new mascot.
"This way," he said. Buffy led the way, the piglet oinking contentedly in her arms.
