Part 6
Blossom and Buttercup returned home to a very quiet house indeed. The Professor was in his lab with the door firmly shut, usually taken as a sign that he did not want to be disturbed. Bubbles was nowhere to be found. Rush hour was over, and the morning hush had descended upon suburban Townsville. The almost eerie quiet, coupled with the feeling of anti-climax that inevitably followed the earlier excitement, left both girls with a reluctance to break the silence.
Buttercup was disturbed by this atmosphere. Her sisters' behaviour had unsettled her. She normally took great delight in teasing Bubbles, because she was such an easy target and so very accommodating, quick to upset and quick to forgive. It was most unlike her to go off like this, and Buttercup actually found herself feeling very protective towards her sensitive sister and very annoyed at Blossom, whom she blamed for Bubbles' upset. It seemed to her that Blossom had hit on Bubbles just a little too hard. So she'd gone into one of her silly daydreams at a bad moment: so what? It wasn't the first time, it wouldn't be the last time, and it just didn't matter. She really couldn't understand why Blossom had found it necessary to harp on as she had. Then again, Blossom's behaviour in general struck Buttercup as rather perplexing. Buttercup had always harboured a desire to be the leader of the trio, and rather fancied that she could do a better job of it than Blossom, but in truth she was a lot more dependent upon Blossom's good judgement than she cared to admit. There was something about Blossom's attitude today that made her distinctly uneasy, a side of Blossom that she had not seen before and which made her really concerned, for the first time, about whether Blossom was losing her grip as leader. The fact that this worried her, that there was a part of her that was afraid that this might mean that she would have to take on the responsibility of that role, and which doubted her ability to fulfil it, just made Buttercup all the more irritated at her sister. After standing in the silence of the kitchen for a few minutes, watching Blossom make a cup of coffee without saying a word, Buttercup floated outside, also without saying a word, and began kicking a ball about the yard in a desultory way. There was definitely something wrong, and she was pretty convinced it wasn't her fault, but something made her reluctant to say anything about it. It was all very depressing.
Blossom was not consciously ignoring her sister as she pottered about the kitchen making coffee; she had just forgotten about her. The admission of truth is not always a cathartic experience. Sometimes it means only that still more, less palatable truths must be faced. This realisation was beginning to dawn upon Blossom, and it made her very unhappy. She was unhappy about what had happened at Pokey Oaks. She was unhappy at her reaction to what had happened. She was unhappy about her behaviour towards the Gangreen Gang, and Big Billy in particular. She was unhappy at upsetting Bubbles. And, most of all, she was unhappy with what Bubbles had said: because it contained an essential and inescapable truth. She sat at the kitchen table with the cup of coffee, untouched, before her, the only sound the gentle whirr of the refrigerator. The silence suited her mood exactly. Everything had gone wrong today. She was supposed to be the thinker, the clever one who could take a calm and rational view regardless of the circumstances. She modelled herself, in part, on what she believed the Professor was like, detached, sceptical and objective, able to take an analytical view of her own feelings as well as the feelings and motivations of others, but all that now seemed nothing more than a game, a bit of play-acting that helped her feel cleverer and better than everyone else.
Blossom suddenly felt very alone. She needed someone to talk to, to reassure her, but her feelings were so very personal that she wasn't sure she could discuss them. Nor was there anyone to turn to. She felt estranged from her sisters, which was in itself an unfamiliar and disturbing phenomenon. The responsibilities of leadership had always weighed heavily on Blossom's shoulders, and the authority that leadership brought had always seemed little compensation for the constant, nagging feeling that she must always be setting an example, must always not only be seen to be doing the right thing but to actually do it. This morning, she had let her sisters down, she had let herself down. Making mistakes was one thing, that was something she had never had any trouble admitting (but was that just part of the game?), but this was more than a mere mistake, this felt like she had undermined the whole team. They relied on her, she was the linchpin, and she had to set a standard. As for the Professor, what would he say? That was an even worse thought. He expected a great deal from her and she had failed him. Blossom leant forward on the table and stared into her coffee, her head in her arms.
Blossom was still in something of a self-pitying reverie when there was a tiny click and the kitchen door opened. It was Bubbles. When she saw Blossom she hesitated in the doorway.
'Hello,' said Blossom, awkwardly, 'where have you been?'
'I went back to school,' replied Bubbles, 'I helped to clear up.'
'That was a nice thought,' said Blossom, who felt she should have thought of it herself, instead of wallowing here on her own, a thought which did nothing to improve her spirits.
'Twiggy is all right,' said Bubbles, coming rather tentatively into the kitchen, 'she was under the floor. I heard her.'
'Oh, that's good,' replied Blossom, with a rather embarrassed smile.
Bubbles floated over to get some juice from the fridge, but as she passed her sister she stopped momentarily and reached out and touched Blossom's arm. Blossom looked up, a little surprised, into Bubbles' smiling face. Moments later, the two sisters were hugging each other tightly.
'I'm sorry,' said Blossom, wiping away a tear.
Bubbles squeezed her sister a little tighter.
'I love you,' she said.
'I love you too, Bubbles,' whispered Blossom.
As the sisters separated and Bubbles began to search in the fridge, there was the sound of a door opening and closing. The Professor had come out of his laboratory. He wandered off into the living room and returned a few moments later with a book. He was about to return to the lab when he caught sight of the girls through the open kitchen doorway.
'Oh, girls, yes,' he said, his mind clearly on something else, 'Ms. Keane phoned and told me about what happened at the school. She says you are going to be at home for a few days until they get a temporary classroom installed. Did you manage to find any clues to who did it?'
'It was the Gangreen Gang!' said Bubbles.
'They really smashed the place up, Professor,' added Blossom, gravely, 'They destroyed everybody's things, even Ms. Keane's. They smashed up the computers, and they tried to burn the school down. And they tried to kill Twiggy.'
'Who on earth is Twiggy?' asked the Professor.
'Our hamster,' said Bubbles.
'Oh, I see. But nobody was hurt, that's the main thing.'
'Yes, but education is the most important activity in the world – that's what you've always told us, Professor,' said Blossom, 'The Gangreen Gang tried to stop that activity, not just for us but for all the children of Townsville. If education is the most important activity, that must be one of the worst crimes possible!'
'Yes, well, you might be overstating the case a bit, Blossom,' replied the Professor, 'Now look, can you girls entertain yourselves for the rest of the day? I've got a lot of work to do.'
'Yes, we're going out later,' said Bubbles.
'Good. Have a nice time. Look after yourselves,' replied Professor Utonium, already walking towards the door to his laboratory.
Blossom followed the Professor out of the kitchen.
'Professor,' she said, very quietly, just as he was about to enter his laboratory, 'the Gangreen Gang destroyed my Christmas present.'
'What present was that, Blossom?' asked the Professor.
'My Chinese primer.'
'Was that a Christmas present?'
'Yes, don't you remember?'
'Oh, never mind, I'll buy you a proper present at the weekend. Anything you want. How does that sound? Now, Blossom, I really must get on. You will be all right this afternoon won't you?'
'Yes, Professor,' replied Blossom, meekly.
Professor Utonium entered the lab and closed the door. Blossom turned slowly and drifted back into the kitchen. What did he mean by a 'proper present'?
'What's up?' asked Bubbles.
'Nothing.'
'Is the Professor all right?'
'Yes, he's fine. Where's Buttercup?'
'She's outside.'
Blossom made a conscious effort to pull herself together. There were things to do, and she had to organise them.
'We need to get some money if we're going out shopping,' she said, briskly, 'How much have you got?'
'I don't know - I'll go and see.'
Bubbles disappeared up the stairs in a flash to fetch her pocket money. Blossom, meanwhile, had a battle on her hands to get Buttercup to contribute her savings to the proposed project. Buttercup was adamant that she did not owe anybody anything.
'It's not a question of owing,' said Blossom, 'it's about goodwill. Although it's our duty to keep Townsville free of crime, we have to recognise that sometimes innocent people can be hurt. All we're doing is showing that we care about that. And after all, helping people is part of our job too. Why shouldn't we help people who are relatives of criminals, if they're not criminals themselves?'
'Because it looks like we're admitting we did something wrong in locking that bank robber up.'
'No, we're not. We're just showing that we take our responsibilities seriously.'
Buttercup was eventually browbeaten into parting with her pocket money. Blossom telephoned the police department to get the address of the man they had arrested for the bank robbery, and the three little girls then spent an enjoyable afternoon at the shopping mall, collecting together a range of items that they thought would be suitable for the bank robber's family.
Blossom had to consult a map to locate the robber's house, as it was in a part of town they had never visited. Carrying bags full of their purchases, the girls set out across Townsville, flying above the streets with Blossom navigating. To the north of the city, they entered an area where the streets were closed in with tall, old tenement buildings. Some heavy cloud had set in, so the girls were forced to fly low, twisting and turning with the streets, with Blossom calling out directions from time to time: 'We need to turn right here' 'Straight on – no, wait, left!'. There were lots of people in the streets they passed over, just as there had been in the centre of town, but whereas the people in town had been going places and there had been a general air of hustle and bustle, here a lot of people were just standing in doorways or sitting on steps or wandering along rather aimlessly. There seemed to be a lot of litter on the roads, and today must have been the day for the garbage collection, because there were piles of sagging plastic rubbish sacks everywhere, piled up against lamp posts and in doorways. Unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells assailed the girls from all sides. They passed a woman dressed in shabby clothes who was talking loudly to herself and gesticulating angrily at passers-by, all of whom ignored her. They saw people wearing exotic-looking clothes not for fashion but as their everyday working garments, shops with names written in strange lettering and filled with odd-looking foods and goods, dark and unpleasant-looking doorways that claimed to lead to 'erotic theatres' and 'adult shows', whatever they were. It made the girls feel very uncomfortable and homesick, even though they were only a few miles from their own front door.
Blossom had difficulty reading the map and flying and holding on to two bags of shopping simultaneously, and several times the girls had to turn back and follow a modified route, all of which naturally delighted Buttercup, who was able to mutter 'I told you so' on several occasions. Eventually, though, Blossom led them around a corner and with a gasp of surprise they entered a different and seemingly familiar world. The tenements were gone and streets of houses, with trees and gardens, stretched before them.
'It should be just down here,' said Blossom, pointing.
Number 1324 Pleasant Valley Drive was a bungalow with a wide porch at the front. It had a front garden, which had evidently not been tended for some time, and a driveway which consisted of nothing more than two strips of bare earth where a car had been driven repeatedly over part of the lawn. The clapboards of the bungalow had obviously once been painted white, a very long time ago, but they were now peeling and grey, and by the side of the house there was a big old car, propped up on bricks, that had begun to collect moss on its roof. Around the back there was a sordid-looking old caravan that had turned a pale, streaky shade of green with a similar coating of moss or lichen.
The girls came down to land at the front of the house, and stepped up to the porch. Faced with the front door, Blossom became acutely aware of the awkwardness of their situation. Here they were, unannounced, at the home of someone who had professed to detest them, trying, in a way, to buy off that person's enmity. A feeling of unease crept over her as she opened the screen door, and her first taps on the front door were just a little too faint. How convenient if no-one answered! She looked around at Bubbles and Buttercup: there they were, as usual, looking to her to do the right thing. She took a deep breath and thumped the door again, much louder this time. There was no answer.
'It looks empty,' said Bubbles, who was peering in at one of the windows. 'Ew!', she squeaked, looking at her arms where they had been pressed against the glass, 'The windows are all dirty!'
'Let's look round the back,' said Blossom, who tempered her relief that there seemed to be no-one in with an almost masochistic desire to see this thing through.
A smell of damp and decay greeted the girls as they floated around the side of the house. A large dog in next door's yard barked at them ferociously and strained at the heavy chain that secured it to a post there. The back yard, filled mainly with the slimy old caravan, contained a number of other interesting items including a rusty bucket, an old saucepan, several piles of rotting timber and a number of plastic shopping bags containing something that gave off an unpleasant smell.
It began to rain.
'Let's go,' said Buttercup, with a shiver, 'There's no-one in.'
'We'll only have to come back again tomorrow,' replied Blossom, firmly. 'Still,' she continued, trying to see into the dark interior of the house, 'we can't just leave the things here. Maybe we will have to come back…'
Blossom cut short her reply. She had noticed that one of the windows was open.
'Look,' she exclaimed, 'we could go in through there. We could leave the things, with a note.'
Buttercup and Bubbles looked at one another.
'Are you sure that's a good idea?' asked Bubbles.
'Why not? We're not going to take anything, or break anything, are we?' said Blossom, 'We'll just leave the things, and a note explaining where they've come from, and go.'
Rather reluctantly, Bubbles and Buttercup followed their sister through the window. They found themselves in the kitchen, which was as dark and damp and cold and horrible as outside. The floor was covered in some sort of plastic material that was curling up at the edges. The sink was filled with clothes that had presumably been left to soak, and the draining-board was piled with dirty crockery. More unwashed crockery and cutlery stood on the pine table that was positioned in the centre of the room.
'What's that?' asked Bubbles, frowning.
The girls listened. From beneath the filthy floor covering and within the cupboards, their ultrasensitive hearing detected the scratchy, itchy sound of cockroaches.
'This is gross!' said Bubbles.
'I don't think we should be here,' said Buttercup, 'Why don't we just go. This was all a big mistake.'
'No,' said Blossom, 'Just because these people are poor and Bubbles doesn't like getting dirty doesn't mean we should turn our backs on them. Quite the opposite: it's all the more reason for us to help. If the place is dirty, we'll clean it up. It won't take long if we use our super powers.'
Bubbles and Buttercup looked around at the sticky floor, the mess in the sink, the stained walls and the grease-covered ceiling, then looked at each other, unhappily. Buttercup shrugged.
'OK,' she said, less than enthusiastically.
Even for super heroes with super powers, cleaning the bungalow presented a challenge. Just clearing out the garbage, including what appeared to be several months' worth of accumulated newspapers that were lying around in several rooms, was a major task. Then there were dishes to wash, clothes to clean and iron, walls and work surfaces to scrub, beds to make, carpets to shake out and beat, the list was endless and the girls realised that they would not be able to do it all. Nevertheless, when they had finished the place was transformed. It might not be perfect, but at least it was habitable.
'We'll just leave a note and then we can go,' said Blossom.
'Good,' replied Bubbles, 'I'm pooped!'
Just at that moment, there was a sort of bump and the sound of an engine vibrated through the house. After a second or two it stopped and a car door slammed. Moments later there was a rattle at the front door as a key was inserted into the lock, and the door opened. It was the woman who had shouted at the girls at the presentation. She held the child that the girls had seen on that occasion in one arm, and for a few moments she struggled in the doorway bringing in some bags of shopping. Once the bags were inside, she closed the door and turned to go into the kitchen, and the expression on her face changed. She looked around in astonishment.
'Come on,' whispered Blossom, and led Bubbles and Buttercup into the hallway. The woman looked at them, but scarcely seemed to register their presence, such was the dazed expression on her face.
'Hi,' said Blossom, nervously, 'I expect you're wondering what's going on. Well, we thought about what you said to us the other day, and we decided we'd like to help you. Being Powerpuff Girls isn't just about catching criminals, you know, it's about using our special powers to help people. Your husband did a bad thing, and we had to do what we did, but that doesn't mean we can't help you.'
'We got some presents for the baby,' said Bubbles, with a smile, 'They're in the kitchen.'
'Yeah, and we've tidied up a bit and got the place nice and warm,' said Buttercup.
'You thought you'd come and help me, did you? You thought,' said the woman, slowly. She put the child down on the floor. 'Oh, thank you, Powerpuff Girls,' she continued, 'Things were so hard for me here with my husband in prison, I thought I could never cope. I was really upset with what you did, but now I can see that you're really good little girls and I'm so very, very sorry with what I said about you.'
Blossom looked at the other girls and smiled. She turned back to the woman and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut short by the woman herself.
'That's what you want to hear, isn't it?' said the woman, staring directly into Blossom's face, ' "Oh, Powerpuff Girls, how can I cope without you." "Oh, aren't these presents wonderful." Yeah, just come in and interfere with my life some more, why not? Turn on all the radiators, who cares about the bill? Buy some presents, why dontcha', then when the kid's eyes light up because he's got some new toys you can get all weepy and sentimental and have a little cry and think what wonderful people you are. Oh, it's just lovely, isn't it, helping people, poking your noses into people's lives – but for the best possible motives, of course,' she sneered, 'All the pleasure is in the Giving, isn't it? Why don't you just rub it in how much you've got? Why don't you just decide what I need and what's good for me?'
'Yes, but…' stammered Blossom, 'You said it was difficult for you. We just wanted to help. It was a bit dirty in here, and we've got super powers, so why shouldn't we…'
'What the hell has it got to do with you?' screamed the woman, her fists clenched and her face screwed up for a brief moment into a picture of frenzied hatred, 'What the hell has it got to do with you how I live? If I've got any problems I'll sort them out for myself! I don't need anything from you, I don't want anything from you. How dare you break in here?'
She raised her fists in an agony of frustration and brought them down as if she were striking a table that stood invisible in front of her.
'Get Out!' she yelled, 'Get out and take your filthy presents with you!'
Blossom looked at her sisters. Tears were running down Bubbles' face and Buttercup was clearly fuming.
'All right, we'll go,' she said.
'Think yourselves lucky I haven't called the police,' called the woman, triumphantly, as the three crestfallen little girls exited the bungalow by the way they had come in – through the kitchen window – taking the bags of presents with them.
Outside, Buttercup hurled away the presents she was carrying, and they fell with great force into the yard next door, causing the surprised dog to cease its barking and slink out of sight behind a dustbin.
'This stinks!' she shouted, vehemently, and shot into the air, disappearing in a green flash above the grey, scudding clouds.
Blossom and Bubbles looked at the bags they were carrying.
'Perhaps we can get our money back,' said Blossom.
'We could give them to charity,' said Bubbles.
'Maybe,' replied Blossom.