______________________________________________ YOUTH OF THE NATION _______________________
_____________________________________________________________________ Rhapsody~* _________
______________________________________CHAPTER EIGHT: The Phone Call
Vejita, much like Bulma, came home after school that day to an empty house, except his house was a much different kind of empty. As in, only one person--him--lived there. Always. He dumped his backpack in the middle of the front hallway and kicked off his shoes, then, as usual, headed for his kitchen to grab a snack before football practice. He caught a glimpse of the snow-covered ground outside and cursed winter for coming so early this year.
Suddenly the sound of the front door opening and being slammed shut were heard, but Vejita remained calm. His visitor was no burglar. Nikolas came slouching in just moments after, trailing wet slush across the floors. Vejita glared at his careless cousin and resumed eating.
"Hey, Vejita, what's up?" Nikolas asked, jumping up to sit on top of the counter in his usual spot. "Your dad is still bitching about you taking off, dude. You've gotta let somebody know where you are sometime. I'm getting sick of keeping your secrets, man."
"Shut up, Nikolas," Vejita snarled, losing his appetite at the mention of his tyrant father. "You know damn well that I'll never go back to live with that asshole."
Nikolas chuckled. "It was worth a try. And by the way--you don't have to lie to me about why you left. I know what happened at the quarry pool, and don't worry, I'm not telling NOBODY."
Vejita shot him a sharp look. "You'd better keep it that way, or I'll be considering pushing YOU off of something, too." He leaned back in his chair and checked his watch, then settled back down. "What the hell are you doing here so early today?"
Nikolas was about to answer, but instead closed his mouth and sniffed the air suspiciously. "Dude, have you had a girl over here recently? It smells like..." He took another sniff and then burst out laughing. Vejita all of a sudden noticed just how much Nikolas reminded him of a donkey. "Fucking WILDFLOWERS, man!"
Bulma, Vejita thought. That was Bulma's scent. He suddenly noticed the smell also, and his eyes went to the jacket he had worn snowboarding the other day, which was still on the floor where he had left it. Bulma must have been wearing it when they had had their close encounter of the oral kind. Vejita scowled and vowed to wash the jacket and break out the Lysol at the first opportunity.
"I didn't bring her here," Vejita snapped defensively. "I'm not a complete idiot! We met up somewhere, jackass."
"Sorr-y!" Nikolas exclaimed, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Anybody that I've heard of?" Nikolas was a junior at Pineridge, but he didn't come to school enough to really get to know anybody, or else he (obviously) would have already known the answers to his questions.
"Perhaps," Vejita said, getting up and turning towards his room, where his football clothes awaited him. "I've gotta get ready for practice--go bother somebody else."
But Nikolas had also inherited the family trait of stubborness. He followed Vejita into his room, pleading for answers as to the identity of the girl who had managed to 'tame' his wild cousin. If it were any other girl, in any other situation, Vejita would have gladly told him, and perhaps even offered some details, but with Bulma, it was different somehow. And besides that, if they got caught in one of their pranks, there would be hell to pay.
"Its Bulma Briefs," Vejita growled, moving to lock Nikolas out of his room. Irritated at himself for giving in to Nikolas' pathetic questioning, he raised his voice to a shout. "Now get the FUCK out of my house!"
Before he succeeded in closing the door, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the look of disbelief on his cousin's face.
_______________ ~*~*~*~
Bulma skipped school the next day. Her claim of a pounding headache wasn't completely a lie. She could barely focus on anything without feeling miserable, lingering kind of pain that didn't only come from physical problems. The rememberances of last night were starting to take their toll on the exhausted girl. She buried her face in her soft pillows and began to fiercely regret even taking out that damned picture, let alone allowing herself to THINK about it.
"Damn you, Mariah..."
She let loose a long sigh of discontent and dragged her still-sleeping body out of bed. She tied up her hair sloppily and pulled on whatever it was that she picked up off the floor. She didn't bother with makeup--what was the use? Her parents, thankfully, were gone already, off shopping or working or whatever it was that they did during the day. Bulma usually didn't bother herself with what her parents were doing while she was gone. After washing her face, brushing her teeth, and shoving her feet into a pair of slippers she mosied down the large spiraling staircase and straight into the living room, where the television awaited her.
She had just begun to stick out her third episode of Jerry Springer when the phone on the table next to her rang shrilly. Thinking it was one of those pesky solicitors, she groaned, muted the TV, and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" she said grumpily.
"Where the hell are you?" came the equally irritated reply. "You're missing a great opportunity here."
Bulma stared at the receiver in bafflement. "Vejita? How did you get this number? Why...?"
"Your father's company number is plastered on the side of nearly every bus and billboard in the state," Vejita explained breezily. "I charmed your home number out of the operator."
Bulma rolled her eyes and turned the sound on the television back on. "You're interuppting my date with Jerry Springer. This had better be good."
"Well, it WOULD have been good if you were here to help me accomplish it."
"Accomplish what?" Bulma asked suspiciously. "You had better not do anything without me there."
"The bitch is--"
Bulma cut him off. "When you say 'the bitch', I assume you mean Chichi?"
Vejita sighed angrily. "Who else? Do you want to shut that gaping hole in your face long enough to hear or not?"
"Fine! Just tell me."
There was a mischevious chuckle on Vejita's line. Bulma found it contagious and smothered a giggle of her own. "She's allergic to vanilla, correct?"
"Yeah...wait...you wouldn't, Vejita!" Bulma sat up in shock. "You could kill her!"
"Not likely," Vejita replied. "She's complaining about the hives she gets when she eats it, and its annoying the hell out of me."
"Don't do it!" Bulma protested. "She might be a bitch, but you never know how she'll react."
"She's asking for it. This shit's COMING to her!" Vejita paused a moment to collect himself, then continued on. "They go away after a few hours, according to her. If she's dumb enough to lie about it, then she deserves to die."
"You're hopeless." Bulma shifted the phone to her other ear and examined her nails absently. "Fine. Do it--but if she dies or something, just remember that I wanted nothing to do with this."
Vejita snorted. "You're the hopeless one. By third period she'll be one huge, walking, talking pillar of disgusting little blemishes."
"Snap a picture for me," Bulma laughed. She was about to say something else when she got a call on the other line. "Hold up a minute, somebody's calling me. Hello?"
"Mrs. Briefs?" Bulma nearly dropped the phone at the sound of Mariah's mother's voice.
She scanned her mind for something to say, but the only thing that she could think of was to impersonate her mother and find out why the woman was calling. She hadn't so much as looked at Bulma or her family since Mariah's funeral, though she had never revealed a reason. Bulma's devious mind, enhanced by the recent conversings with Vejita, plotted what she was going to say even before she had cemented her plan.
"Are you there?"
Bulma cleared her throat and imitated her mother flawlessly. "Yes--yes, of course I'm here! Abby dear, how ARE you faring?" She noticed how ridiculous she had to sound to pass as her mother and grinned inwardly.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," Abby replied coldly. "But that is not the reason I called."
"Oh, no kitten?" Bulma cooed. "Then what DO you want?"
Abby cleared her throat nervously. "Well, since Mariah's...accident...there have been some rumors about whether it really was an accident or not."
Alarms went off in Bulma's head, and she thought of Vejita's prediction about Mariah's parents filing a lawsuit against her. She had to struggle to remain in character. "Wha--what?! That's terrible! Would you like to talk about it? I'm here for you, you know. I remember how close Bulma and Mariah used to be."
"Actually..." Abby started. "I'm calling to inform you that from what I hear, your daughter was involved."
Bulma's heart leaped into her throat. "Oh, surely Abby, those are just rumors! There is no way that my lovely daughter would ever get involved with people that would do such a...HORRIBLE thing to an innocent little girl!"
"Then you don't know your daughter very well." Abby had apparently decided to ditch the kindness and get straight to it. "Because I have several witnesses who are willing to go up against you and your horrid daughter in court. Perhaps she STILL doesn't know who her real friends are, because her supposed 'best friends' are the ones who have come forward about the matter."
"That's quite impossible!" Bulma protested, nearly dropping her disguise and screaming through the phone. "I know my daughter, Abby, and Bulma would never even THINK of doing such a thing to ANYONE, and especially not someone as familiar as Mariah!"
Abby laughed haughtily and then got serious again. "Well, I suppose that will be for the judge to decide. Find yourself a nice, expensive attorney, Mrs. Briefs, because the next time I see you, it will be in court." She hung up, and that opened up Vejita's line.
Bulma sat for a moment in shocked silence. For the first time in years, a stream of tears began falling down her face. "Oh shit..." she breathed.
Vejita, who was on his cell phone, sounded impatient. "'Oh shit' what? And what the hell took you so long?"
"Vejita," Bulma started desperately, the tears showing through into her voice. "Please help me...you--you don't understand!"
"Hold it," Vejita coaxed. "Is it your time of the month or something? What's with the mood swings?"
"Mariah's mother!" Bulma exclaimed shakily. "She--she..."
Vejita was beginning to get the gist of Bulma's ramblings. Bulma could hear him gathering up his belongings and being walking somwhere. "Fuck. No way!"
"Way," Bulma insisted. "She's gonna take me to court, Vejita, I'm gonna go to JAIL...my parents are gonna find out...you've got to help me!"
"Stay at home," Vejita instructed. "I'm leaving school. I'll be there in a few minutes, and you'd better stop crying by the time I get there."
Bulma tried to protest, but Vejita hung up the phone and she was left to herself once again. The tears continued falling steadily, and she knew there was no way she could stop them. For lack of anything else to do, she put her face into her hands and sobbed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
(A/N): The plot thickens! Things are gonna start happening quite rapidly now, so put on your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry about the loooong wait--family tragedy. I won't get into the depressing details. And on top of that, I'm right smack in the middle of finals, and it sucks! Studying is just not my thing... I know that this chapter was kinda short, but I promise you that I'll make up for it and make the next one a nice lengthy, detailed, exciting one! ^_^;; You just might have to wait a little while... My birthday's finally coming up fast! January 20th is the day, folks! Rhapsody's gonna get lotsa presents this year, cuz she's been a very good girl... heh heh...kind of....Well, anyway, why dontcha give me an early present and review? Thank you much!
___________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________ Rhapsody~* _________
______________________________________CHAPTER EIGHT: The Phone Call
Vejita, much like Bulma, came home after school that day to an empty house, except his house was a much different kind of empty. As in, only one person--him--lived there. Always. He dumped his backpack in the middle of the front hallway and kicked off his shoes, then, as usual, headed for his kitchen to grab a snack before football practice. He caught a glimpse of the snow-covered ground outside and cursed winter for coming so early this year.
Suddenly the sound of the front door opening and being slammed shut were heard, but Vejita remained calm. His visitor was no burglar. Nikolas came slouching in just moments after, trailing wet slush across the floors. Vejita glared at his careless cousin and resumed eating.
"Hey, Vejita, what's up?" Nikolas asked, jumping up to sit on top of the counter in his usual spot. "Your dad is still bitching about you taking off, dude. You've gotta let somebody know where you are sometime. I'm getting sick of keeping your secrets, man."
"Shut up, Nikolas," Vejita snarled, losing his appetite at the mention of his tyrant father. "You know damn well that I'll never go back to live with that asshole."
Nikolas chuckled. "It was worth a try. And by the way--you don't have to lie to me about why you left. I know what happened at the quarry pool, and don't worry, I'm not telling NOBODY."
Vejita shot him a sharp look. "You'd better keep it that way, or I'll be considering pushing YOU off of something, too." He leaned back in his chair and checked his watch, then settled back down. "What the hell are you doing here so early today?"
Nikolas was about to answer, but instead closed his mouth and sniffed the air suspiciously. "Dude, have you had a girl over here recently? It smells like..." He took another sniff and then burst out laughing. Vejita all of a sudden noticed just how much Nikolas reminded him of a donkey. "Fucking WILDFLOWERS, man!"
Bulma, Vejita thought. That was Bulma's scent. He suddenly noticed the smell also, and his eyes went to the jacket he had worn snowboarding the other day, which was still on the floor where he had left it. Bulma must have been wearing it when they had had their close encounter of the oral kind. Vejita scowled and vowed to wash the jacket and break out the Lysol at the first opportunity.
"I didn't bring her here," Vejita snapped defensively. "I'm not a complete idiot! We met up somewhere, jackass."
"Sorr-y!" Nikolas exclaimed, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Anybody that I've heard of?" Nikolas was a junior at Pineridge, but he didn't come to school enough to really get to know anybody, or else he (obviously) would have already known the answers to his questions.
"Perhaps," Vejita said, getting up and turning towards his room, where his football clothes awaited him. "I've gotta get ready for practice--go bother somebody else."
But Nikolas had also inherited the family trait of stubborness. He followed Vejita into his room, pleading for answers as to the identity of the girl who had managed to 'tame' his wild cousin. If it were any other girl, in any other situation, Vejita would have gladly told him, and perhaps even offered some details, but with Bulma, it was different somehow. And besides that, if they got caught in one of their pranks, there would be hell to pay.
"Its Bulma Briefs," Vejita growled, moving to lock Nikolas out of his room. Irritated at himself for giving in to Nikolas' pathetic questioning, he raised his voice to a shout. "Now get the FUCK out of my house!"
Before he succeeded in closing the door, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the look of disbelief on his cousin's face.
_______________ ~*~*~*~
Bulma skipped school the next day. Her claim of a pounding headache wasn't completely a lie. She could barely focus on anything without feeling miserable, lingering kind of pain that didn't only come from physical problems. The rememberances of last night were starting to take their toll on the exhausted girl. She buried her face in her soft pillows and began to fiercely regret even taking out that damned picture, let alone allowing herself to THINK about it.
"Damn you, Mariah..."
She let loose a long sigh of discontent and dragged her still-sleeping body out of bed. She tied up her hair sloppily and pulled on whatever it was that she picked up off the floor. She didn't bother with makeup--what was the use? Her parents, thankfully, were gone already, off shopping or working or whatever it was that they did during the day. Bulma usually didn't bother herself with what her parents were doing while she was gone. After washing her face, brushing her teeth, and shoving her feet into a pair of slippers she mosied down the large spiraling staircase and straight into the living room, where the television awaited her.
She had just begun to stick out her third episode of Jerry Springer when the phone on the table next to her rang shrilly. Thinking it was one of those pesky solicitors, she groaned, muted the TV, and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" she said grumpily.
"Where the hell are you?" came the equally irritated reply. "You're missing a great opportunity here."
Bulma stared at the receiver in bafflement. "Vejita? How did you get this number? Why...?"
"Your father's company number is plastered on the side of nearly every bus and billboard in the state," Vejita explained breezily. "I charmed your home number out of the operator."
Bulma rolled her eyes and turned the sound on the television back on. "You're interuppting my date with Jerry Springer. This had better be good."
"Well, it WOULD have been good if you were here to help me accomplish it."
"Accomplish what?" Bulma asked suspiciously. "You had better not do anything without me there."
"The bitch is--"
Bulma cut him off. "When you say 'the bitch', I assume you mean Chichi?"
Vejita sighed angrily. "Who else? Do you want to shut that gaping hole in your face long enough to hear or not?"
"Fine! Just tell me."
There was a mischevious chuckle on Vejita's line. Bulma found it contagious and smothered a giggle of her own. "She's allergic to vanilla, correct?"
"Yeah...wait...you wouldn't, Vejita!" Bulma sat up in shock. "You could kill her!"
"Not likely," Vejita replied. "She's complaining about the hives she gets when she eats it, and its annoying the hell out of me."
"Don't do it!" Bulma protested. "She might be a bitch, but you never know how she'll react."
"She's asking for it. This shit's COMING to her!" Vejita paused a moment to collect himself, then continued on. "They go away after a few hours, according to her. If she's dumb enough to lie about it, then she deserves to die."
"You're hopeless." Bulma shifted the phone to her other ear and examined her nails absently. "Fine. Do it--but if she dies or something, just remember that I wanted nothing to do with this."
Vejita snorted. "You're the hopeless one. By third period she'll be one huge, walking, talking pillar of disgusting little blemishes."
"Snap a picture for me," Bulma laughed. She was about to say something else when she got a call on the other line. "Hold up a minute, somebody's calling me. Hello?"
"Mrs. Briefs?" Bulma nearly dropped the phone at the sound of Mariah's mother's voice.
She scanned her mind for something to say, but the only thing that she could think of was to impersonate her mother and find out why the woman was calling. She hadn't so much as looked at Bulma or her family since Mariah's funeral, though she had never revealed a reason. Bulma's devious mind, enhanced by the recent conversings with Vejita, plotted what she was going to say even before she had cemented her plan.
"Are you there?"
Bulma cleared her throat and imitated her mother flawlessly. "Yes--yes, of course I'm here! Abby dear, how ARE you faring?" She noticed how ridiculous she had to sound to pass as her mother and grinned inwardly.
"As well as can be expected, I suppose," Abby replied coldly. "But that is not the reason I called."
"Oh, no kitten?" Bulma cooed. "Then what DO you want?"
Abby cleared her throat nervously. "Well, since Mariah's...accident...there have been some rumors about whether it really was an accident or not."
Alarms went off in Bulma's head, and she thought of Vejita's prediction about Mariah's parents filing a lawsuit against her. She had to struggle to remain in character. "Wha--what?! That's terrible! Would you like to talk about it? I'm here for you, you know. I remember how close Bulma and Mariah used to be."
"Actually..." Abby started. "I'm calling to inform you that from what I hear, your daughter was involved."
Bulma's heart leaped into her throat. "Oh, surely Abby, those are just rumors! There is no way that my lovely daughter would ever get involved with people that would do such a...HORRIBLE thing to an innocent little girl!"
"Then you don't know your daughter very well." Abby had apparently decided to ditch the kindness and get straight to it. "Because I have several witnesses who are willing to go up against you and your horrid daughter in court. Perhaps she STILL doesn't know who her real friends are, because her supposed 'best friends' are the ones who have come forward about the matter."
"That's quite impossible!" Bulma protested, nearly dropping her disguise and screaming through the phone. "I know my daughter, Abby, and Bulma would never even THINK of doing such a thing to ANYONE, and especially not someone as familiar as Mariah!"
Abby laughed haughtily and then got serious again. "Well, I suppose that will be for the judge to decide. Find yourself a nice, expensive attorney, Mrs. Briefs, because the next time I see you, it will be in court." She hung up, and that opened up Vejita's line.
Bulma sat for a moment in shocked silence. For the first time in years, a stream of tears began falling down her face. "Oh shit..." she breathed.
Vejita, who was on his cell phone, sounded impatient. "'Oh shit' what? And what the hell took you so long?"
"Vejita," Bulma started desperately, the tears showing through into her voice. "Please help me...you--you don't understand!"
"Hold it," Vejita coaxed. "Is it your time of the month or something? What's with the mood swings?"
"Mariah's mother!" Bulma exclaimed shakily. "She--she..."
Vejita was beginning to get the gist of Bulma's ramblings. Bulma could hear him gathering up his belongings and being walking somwhere. "Fuck. No way!"
"Way," Bulma insisted. "She's gonna take me to court, Vejita, I'm gonna go to JAIL...my parents are gonna find out...you've got to help me!"
"Stay at home," Vejita instructed. "I'm leaving school. I'll be there in a few minutes, and you'd better stop crying by the time I get there."
Bulma tried to protest, but Vejita hung up the phone and she was left to herself once again. The tears continued falling steadily, and she knew there was no way she could stop them. For lack of anything else to do, she put her face into her hands and sobbed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
(A/N): The plot thickens! Things are gonna start happening quite rapidly now, so put on your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry about the loooong wait--family tragedy. I won't get into the depressing details. And on top of that, I'm right smack in the middle of finals, and it sucks! Studying is just not my thing... I know that this chapter was kinda short, but I promise you that I'll make up for it and make the next one a nice lengthy, detailed, exciting one! ^_^;; You just might have to wait a little while... My birthday's finally coming up fast! January 20th is the day, folks! Rhapsody's gonna get lotsa presents this year, cuz she's been a very good girl... heh heh...kind of....Well, anyway, why dontcha give me an early present and review? Thank you much!
___________________________________________________________________________________________