Chapter Six, Part One: Interrupted

Devi stared at Johnny.

The gun had fired, loudly, a cloud of smoke filling the room for a second. Then, once the smoke cleared, the dark form of Johnny bled through. He was sitting upwards on the couch, a bit limply.

She looked away and shivered, waiting until all the smoke was gone before she saw him. She didn't want his shattered skull exposed to her slowly, she just wanted to see it, and then run. Devi turned back to face him and then felt a wave of relief flow through her.

Johnny wasn't dead.

He was sitting up, the tape recorder held before his chest. The bullet had hit the tape recorder.

" Nny?" Devi croaked out.

There were tears running down his cheeks. " Why'd you have to do that?" Johnny demanded, not looking at her.

" What? Why did you have to do this?" Devi shouted, pointing at the arm and the gun.

" I thought you never wanted to see me again." Johnny shot back. " Quote, 'I loathe you!'."

Devi wiped at her own cheeks, where the mascara had run like black blood from her eyes. She pulled a tissue out of her purse and glowered angrily at Johnny for a few seconds before saying: " You didn't think I'd let you die?"

" What was there to stop you?" Johnny asked. " Squee? Last minute guilt-trip? Perhaps you thought you should play the hero, the good guy, to run in here and try to stop me in a final attempt to make peace. I don't want your pity or anything like that, if that's what this is. I just want you to leave."

Squee pushed his way forwards. " Mr. Nny, she doesn't hate you. She said!"

" Shh." Devi whispered nervously.

" But you said! You said you loved him!" Squee demanded. " Why are you guys such babies?" His voice dropped suddenly. " It's cooties, isn't it?"

Johnny couldn't help but smile. He tossed the tape recorder aside and looked at Devi.

Devi stared at her fingers and then looked up, making eye contact for the first time in many days. She could see things, suddenly, in the dark depths of Johnny's eyes. There was a window of thought behind the pupil and iris, like a reflection of his soul. He was hurting, she could see it, and he loved her. It was unavoidable.

" Johnny." She said, her voice wavering. " I do love you."

The words resounded in Johnny's ears and he wasn't sure what to make of them; he wasn't sure whether it would make much difference to him. He thought hearing it be said would bring him some sort of pleasure, but instead, he just felt sadder and more empty.

" I just don't know if I can deal with being a flusher." Devi looked upset. " I'm stuck choosing between my old life and being a flusher with you. You can't just expect me to… to make a snap decision. This could take months."

Johnny sighed. " Is that what this is all about? Being a flusher?"

Devi nodded finally.

He laughed. Bitterly and darkly, the laughter echoing through the room. " Devi…" He said, finally. " You already are a flusher. You are born a flusher. Sooner or later you will snap and become a hermit anyway. That's what happened to me. I was perfectly normal until I just… snapped. Out of nowhere. And that's all I know about that."

She wasn't crying anymore. Now she just wiped at the remaining tears on her cheeks and said: " So I have no choice?"

" You have a choice. You can start now and have someone on your side after the snap occurs, or you can go back to your old life, snap, and forget everything. Be all alone." Johnny said.

Devi nodded slowly.

" You don't hate me?" He asked, finally.

" No!" She exclaimed. " No! I love you. I do. It took me forever to realize it, but… but I do. Even though sometimes I don't even want to. It's like there's just something destined between us, though."

Johnny nodded. " That's all I needed to know, then. You can go."

" Why?" Devi asked.

He looked up at her, puzzled.

" Who says I'm going anywhere?" Devi grinned.

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Two: Promises and Decisions

Devi spent the night at Johnny's house. It was odd, them just sitting at the table in his kitchen and talking endlessly, eventually collapsing into a long talk about when they knew that they were in love. They talked about how they could tell, how they dealt with it, what their future could be. They made promises to each other, they talked about the voices and how they'll try to work with them so they don't end up killing one another. And they talked about Squee, and how they could adopt him and somehow become a big happy family.

And finally, they just stared at each other, sated just with being in one another's presence. It was sickening for the author to witness this. Romance was not her thing. Maggie, the author, sipped at her Ginseng Green Tea and sighed dramatically, watching the love-sick couple from outside. Then, she walked on. She was no Peeping Tom.

Johnny felt his cheeks warming with a blush. " I'm sorry." He said, finally.

" For what?" She asked.

" For everything I put you through." Johnny told her. " I don't even know if I'm worthy of you, after all the heartache I made you go through."

" That just makes you worth it even more." Devi replied.

They sat in silence.

" Johnny? Can I do something we began long ago?" Devi asked. " But we never finished?"

" Uh, sure." Johnny wasn't sure what she was talking about.

Devi leaned forwards and kissed him. And he didn't pull back.

Maggie gagged on her tea.

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Three: Going to Squee's School!

Since flushers could get away with everything under the sun, Devi and Johnny took Squee and decided to go to his school. They would fill out applications stating that they were Squee's parents, and from then on they would be able to give Squee any legal or educational support he needed. After all, the school was getting suspicious why Squee had no parents on file, and why he just attended school anyway after an unusual rumor that he was in the mental hospital.

" So you'll be my Mom and Dad?" Squee asked them, as they walked.

" Eh…" Johnny looked a bit disturbed with the word. " Not really. Maybe a quirky aunt and uncle."

" Quirky?" Devi asked, raising her eyebrows. " I think we're beyond quirky."

They were both walking a good two feet apart, Devi on one side of the pavement, Johnny on the other. They were fine with this; Devi had begun to progress in the very waste-lock idea that the mind was the most powerful passion organ, and that physical demands for love were rarely to never necessary.

" What will my new last name be?" Todd asked nervously.

" Well, since I'm just C for all I know, I think we'll keep it Casil." Johnny replied. " I don't feel like changing all your medical forms, Squee."

Devi nodded. " Casil sounds good."

They were standing in front of the school now.

One of Squee's bullies walked by and stared. " Huh? You didn't say you had a spooky older brother and sister!" The bully gaped at Johnny and Devi. " They not gonna beat me up, right? Or your ass is getting spork-invaded at lunch, Todd-Wiener!"

Johnny and Devi exchanged glances.

Devi yanked out her switchblade and pulled it apart, revealing lots of odd mechanisms. " How'd you like to have your eyeballs pulled out with a cork screw?" Devi demanded. " You want them all the way out or just mutilated in your eye sockets?"

The bully gasped. " I'm telling the teacher!"

" Then perhaps we'll get rid of your tattletale mouth first." Johnny offered, yanking out a steak knife.

Squee felt both delighted and terrified at the same time. But he realized if he closed his eyes, he wasn't really a witness, so he didn't have to worry about being complicated into a murder. So, with a bit of a guilty smile, Squee closed his eyes and looked away.

" Todd! Make them stop!" The bully shrieked. " ACK! There's a baseball in my anal walls! NO! OH GOD NO, GOD NO!"

Once it was all good and done, Johnny and Devi wiped their hands on the kid's shirt, smiled at one another, took one of Squee's hands each, and walked on.

Inside the school, they approached the principal's office and knocked on the door.

" The principal!" Squee gasped. " I'm scared of him!"

" When you're with us, fear should be obsolete." Johnny said with a grin.

The principal opened the door. " Whaddya want?" She demanded.

" Uh… we just want to fill out some forms for little Sq—Todd Casil here." Johnny said. " My…"

" Son! Our son." Devi said.

Squee grinned. So they would be his parents after all. But then, wouldn't that make them their son, and would-be flusher? His grin disappeared just a little.

" Come in then, Mr. Casil; Mrs. Casil, and Todd." The principal walked into her dark, disturbingly haunted-looking office.

" She's old." Johnny noted.

" If we tickle her, moths might fly out her butt." Devi added.

Johnny and Devi laughed gently and then sat down in front of the principal's desk.

" Now, I've never seen Todd's parents here before, so I need you both to fill out these forms." The principal laid out some forms. "First, for Mr. Casil."

" Yes?" Johnny asked nervously.

" What's your occupation?" She asked.

" Uh…" Johnny thought hard. " Butcher."

" What do you weigh?"

" Since I'm a butcher, uh… I weigh meat?" Johnny tried.

" Very funny." She glared at him. " I'll put you down as 120 pounds, you emaciated little stick. How old are you?"

Johnny shrugged. " I'd say twenty four, or thereabouts."

" A bit young to have a seven year old son, isn't it?" The principal demanded. " Forgot to use a condom?" She stared at Devi when she said this. " Or did he rape you?"

Squee's eyes widened.

" Please. You're traumatizing my child." Johnny said, rubbing his temples. " And your assumptions that we had sex are lewd and misguided."

" Yeah, play the chaste parents, will ya?" The principal snorted. " Alright, when's your birthday?"

Johnny stared at the walls nervously. There was a picture of a Valentine's Day heart on the wall. " February." He said, and added: "The thirty-first."

" Okay." The principal wrote it down. " Odd, since there are only 28 days in January."

" Oh!" Johnny exclaimed. " So that's what the calendars are like these days?" He attempted for quick recovery. " I don't go out much."

Devi kicked his foot under the desk, wishing Johnny would come up with some better lies. " He's joking!" Devi said with a nervous giggle. " His birthday's really February second."

Johnny nodded.

The principal then said: " Alright. Now, Mrs. Casil, same information for you?"

" I'm twenty four too." She said. " I'm 120 pounds, too… I…" Her brain was clicking slowly. " My job is… painter. Yeah, painter."

" And I also am a comic book artist in my free time!" Johnny butted in.

" Okay." The principal was jotting it all down. " Mrs. Casil, birthdate?"

" February fourth too." She said and immediately frowned angrily at the idea. Oh well, at least they'd save on birthday parties, since they have one on the same day.

Johnny grinned to himself. Squee was beside himself in joy – he would finally have parents to brag about at lunch! When the other kids say, " My dad has cool tires", Squee would be able to say, " See that thing wrapped around my dad's tires? That's YOUR dad." Squee was feeling confident and brave. He pushed such malicious thoughts out of his mind though. Those were thoughts Shmee would come up with, not Squee.

" Now I need to know your total income." The principal said.

" 15,000 American dollars a year, I think." Johnny said. " Which is just a government handout. Some ancestor of Todd's – er… ours – served in the military. We get the checks in the mail." For the past few months, Johnny had been taking the check from the Casil family's mail, since both the mother and the father were gone, as was the house. What remained were the ruins of the lower floor and the tunnel between Johnny's house and Todd's.

" What house do you live in? Same as before?" The principal ventured.

" No, we're next door. Todd's – our house – was blown up by aliens." Devi answered for them. " It's kind of a bunch of ruins now. We live in the neighbor's house."

" That maniac they were speaking of?" The principal wondered.

" Oh, he died. Long ago." Squee piped up. " We're just in his house."

" Okay." The principal typed some more and said: " Okay, that's it then. Todd, since you've shown such impressive test results on the IQ test, we'll move you up to the sixth grade. Mrs. Bitters will be glad to take you."

" Huh?" Squee gasped. This was not good.

" I'll have a boy named Dib show you around. Okay, be gone." The principal said, and retreated into her office. (this is an old principal; eventually Zim will come to their school and there will be a new principal then. I just felt like having a freaky old lady principal that has no morals in conversation)!

" Mrs. Bitters?" Johnny asked finally. " Uh… sounds fun!"

Devi patted Squee's head and added: " We'll be home late, but tell us about your first day in sixth grade, okay?"

Squee nodded nervously and walked out to face school.

Devi and Johnny had different fish to fry.

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Four: Maggie's Modern Life!

Maggie was done typing up the next chapter of her story and was smiling deliciously from ear to ear. Why was that? Because she was done, of course! Also, because she had recently come out of a thirty-hour coma. Why was that? Because she didn't sleep for a very, very, very long time. Is that normal? No, no it isn't.

Maggie took a slow, wavering breath. You see, she often gets these unusual insomniac comas. She doesn't sleep, then she passes out and sleeps for a day or two. It usually happens on weekends. Anyway, she knows one thing only when she wakes up from her long and nightmare-plagued sleep – she had to write the next chapter!

And this is her excuse for why she didn't post this sooner… that last chapter was a brutal cliffhanger, wasn't it? But Maggie's dreams sure gave her ideas for future stories! Isn't that nice?

She is still wondering what happened to her life, anyway. I mean… 30 hour coma? Where's Maggie's social life? She spends her free time online or in the library and she only leaves the house to buy green tea or sit in the café at Barnes and Nobles and write poetry. She's so… weird!

With this sudden self-realization, Maggie finished writing this chapter and grinned. Yes; perhaps it is better that she's weird. I mean, she could be on the cheerleading team, or pep squad, or something. She gasped and realized that things were worse with the world than she thought. And she also realized that her reviewers should…

Review. And wait for chapter Seven. Mwa ha ha!