Stuck in ISS with Fugo on the other side of the room, Puck and her new black eye grumbled about Tina getting into the school play.
How could she? Only losers and attention seekers auditioned for plays, even if they settled for working backstage.
Like Tina had.
Last night had been a nightmare, with some new uh, person who'd be working backstage with Tina, taking Puck's rightful place idly leaning against the Circle K counter while Tina worked the register. Puck couldn't tell what the unsettling kid in the hot pink jumpsuit and Niqaab was, but she wanted no part of it after witnessing it's torso open along specially placed snaps on its jumpsuit, revealing row upon row of white teeth, bad breath, and a long tongue that shot out and wrapped itself around a dozen Slim Jims at once before yanking the spicy meat treat into that same disgusting maw.
Nauseated, Puck watched it chew, loudly swallow, burp and titter what vaguely sounded like, "'Scuse me" in a wet, sticky voice before spitting out the wrappers into the trash can beside the door.
Tina giggled, saying that "Pink" (or whatever it called itself) and Pink's family were the main inspiration for a popular new video game and thanks to royalties now lived in a nice house in the same gated community as Puck.
Whoopie fuckin' doo.
Pink was also in Tina's Cooking and Interior Design classes, as well as the top HVAC student in the career center. Puck watched the bean-shaped abomination tap on the counter between candy bars and novelty condoms with its matching gloves before showing anyone who'd look its hat collection: a chef's hat, a dust mask with matching goggles, and one of Giorno's flower crowns. Puck had been offered one the first day of school and crumpled it up, tossing it in his face, laughing at his shocked expression.
Fuckin' TWINK!
Tina's shift ended with: "Sorry Puck, can't hang at the rhododendron with you tonight. How about you, Pink, and I meet at Daisy's and read over "Hamlet" together? We need to know how the play goes so we know when to change the lights – you can help!"
"Hamlet?" Yeah, more like, "SPAMlet"!
Puck stalked out of the Circle K, ears flat and tail twitching– Tina would be sorry for replacing Puck with that, that, THING— to hell with being number two!
Tina was a loser, anyway.
Anyway, it wasn't fair Puck was here. Fugo had been the one to grab her by the tail and drag her down the hall and throw her into the school swimming pool with the whole school watching – Pit-Stain should be the one sitting here along with Mista and Narancia, who got caught smoking in the boy's room again, not her!
Clearly yesterday WASN'T Puck's fault – Pit-Stain should have taken it like a man.
The door opened. Officer Abbaccio stepped in, and glanced past her at Mista and Narancia who were pretending to study. Frowning, he shook his head, inspected the fire alarm, wrote something down on a clipboard and left, braid bouncing down his back, claws tapping on the tiles.
Puck scowled, stupid cop! Speaking of cops– Uncle Mike was furious last night.
Oh yeah, right. Like any of this is my fault!
If it wasn't for her needing her iPhone for work, he'd have taken that away for a week. How could she embarrass the entire family like that? Because of Puck's antics, he could lose his job!
Big loss there. It's not like he doesn't have four others.
Then Aunt Raina started in.
Bitch.
Fatass Maggie and whiny Josie sat in the background at the kitchen table doing homework pretending to be invisible. Not ONE of those CUNTS even TRIED to defend HER.
Traitors!
Friendless, betrayed, and grounded (ha!) except for school or work, Puck had nothing left to do other than the steadily growing mound of homework that she was currently pretending not to have.
She stared up at the clock, willing the extra hour to hurry up and be over so she could leave.
Why do I even BOTHER staying in this SHITHOLE?
Cleo deNile paused over her catered school lunch of hawawshi and French mineral water.
Life couldn't get any better.
Granted, Cleo wasn't going to be the center of attention, but given the circumstances, why care?
She had Deuce Gorgon, her boyfriend, as a date for the evening. Deuce was hot, and would enhance Cleo's shimmering Gucci evening gown – Balenciaga might have knocked Gucci to #4, but when you want to be look like the Goddess you are, you ditch the trendy, which Balenciaga was, and go with style.
Anyway, Balenciaga's entire offering for this season would clash with Cleo's one of a kind gilded platform sandals, designer silk headwrap, and cobra-themed jewelry she'd designed herself.
And as for Balenciaga's stupid pagoda shoulders and lame off the rack offerings?
Were Rameses de Nile was still king of Egypt, those fashion crimes would have got the entire design house burned to the ground and the staff publicly beaten for their crimes against fashion.
Dabbing sauce from her perfectly made up lips in a move deliberately choreographed to show off her delicate wrists with their load of antique gold and enamel bracelets, Cleo gave a feline smile.
Oh yes, Homecoming night would be… exquisite.
Cleo's boos and their dates all slayed – discreetly arranged so that they surrounded Cleo by order of attractiveness so that she sparkled like a first water diamond among tacky silver stars.
Even Josie would share the glory Cleo planned.
Not sure what to do with her, Rameses favorite daughter had managed to find a place for Maggie's little sister.
Was Josie even a RAD?
Josie, Clawdeen and the oversized cockroach who'd possibly saved them all during the school shooting, what was her name? Teeny? Tiny? Tina? and the abomination built like a baked bean would outdo themselves as part of the decorating committee because Cleo demanded it of them.
And if they succeeded? Well, big cockroach girl and the walking case of halitosis that referred to itself as any color seen on a preschool coloring sheet, just might earn themselves a place in Cleo's entourage as well.
(But only if they kept to the back of the group and Tina wore a burqa.)
A big one.
Like Great Aunt Nefertiti's.
Preferably polyester.
So, come Friday night, Cleo would carefully arrange herself and her entourage so that she and the CNN, Aljazeera, and FOX camera crews got a full view of the first trans Homecoming Queen ever get stood up by her boyfriend Chet.
Live.
Nobody fucks with the Queen of Mean.
Puck slunk through gloom of the nearly empty student parking lot, tail lashing around her ankles. Considering her options, she climbed aboard her scooter.
Well, she could get herself a pick me up.
Puck paused mid start, wondering how much money from the family stash she could take unnoticed, Fifty? A hundred? Hell, as long as Josie and Maggie weren't looking, she could take what she pleased.
How about five hundred?
Fuck yeah!
Puck sped home, excited.
After removing a cool chunk of change from the First Bank of Schmidt, Puck stopped at Daisy's and ordered dinner - she deserved it!
Puck lingered over her banana split; if she got caught coming in late tonight, she could always say she had to make a late delivery for the fictional tailor shop after her day of ISS. Considering the growing number of RADS moving into Salem, a night delivery wouldn't exactly be a lie…
Anyway, Maggie and Josie weren't working at Daisy's tonight, so her alibi would hold water.
Puck mounted her scooter and continued on her way until she was in Mista's neighborhood where it fed into the gated, mainly wealthy RAD neighborhood.
Too bad Mista wasn't out in his mom and dad's driveway, all hairy and shirtless as he worked on a car, like he had last weekend.
Disappointed and realizing that she hadn't spent enough time out and about to be believable, Puck pulled over, killing the engine. She looked up at the empty house closest to where she was parked. It was an unusual house for such a high rent district, old, and falling apart, perhaps the original farmhouse that had supplied the land for block after block of ticky-tacky post WWII GI built houses where less wealthy RADs with big families now crammed themselves in any old way.
Perfect for a cat and a roach to hang out.
Hey, she knew a guy, one of the part-time school janitors, always good for a nickle or dime bag— maybe she could get Tina to man up and try weed. Maybe she'd loosen up a bit. Tina was cool, but square.
Anyway, Puck got bored quickly without some social lubricant - this house would be perfect… well, better than the rhododendron.
Puck pulled out her phone, and began texting Tina.
And stopped.
She then looked up at the broken window, second floor, far left.
Someone was watching her.
Damn.
Some hobo already claimed it, meaning a cool new hideout wasn't on the menu tonight.
Puck edited the text, asking Tina to meet up with her in the rhododendron to hang out or something. As she sped away, a Shape watched from the window, black eyes narrowing from behind a blank, white mask.
Amused, the raven on the overgrown lawn cawed before bursting into a million shitting starlings that took to the air and streamed towards the darkened Eastern horizon.
After putting her scooter away in the Stein's garage, Puck sat wrapped in a blanket with her sketchbook and a flashlight in the shadows beneath the rhododendron, waiting in the growing cold for Tina, hoping she'd ditched Pink and the play so that things would be like they had been before.