We're still losin control.
Zero looked around at the others, bewildered. They looked back at him, wondering what the quietist kid in junior year could have done to be called down there to the offices for. It was rare for someone to actually leave class to go down to the offices. Usually when you were paged, you were supposed to go down there at the end of the class. Getting called down there and actually going in the middle of a class, meant you did something wrong, really wrong. And, to make it even worse, someone from the office's was actually standing there waiting for him. Zero just nodded his head to what Mr. Sir and the lady said to him, and walked off towards the school, hands stuffed in pockets.
"Man, Zero must have done something really bad to be called down there." Shadow commented, looking at the small figure of Zero.
"I know, chica. That's one dead kid walkin'." Magnet said, shaking his head.
Mokamoe, who was running ahead of the others, called over her shoulder to the others. "He knows what he's doing though. He is one tough kid, if need be. Hey, Shadow. Race ya!" She then ran off.
Shadow glared after her, then turned to Magnet and Zigzag. "I'll see you guys later. I got a race to win!" With that, she tore off after her black and green haired friend.
"Leave it to them. Always racing to be the best." Magnet muttered, shaking his head.
"Do you think Zero could be a spy from the government? Maybe that's why he was called down to the offices? An update of some sort." Zigzag mused.
Magnet looked at him, like he was half-crazy. Which was true anyways, Zigzag wasn't all there. "Whatever you say there, Zig."
.:.:.:.:.
Marina sat at one of the chairs in the guidance office, waiting for that woman, Mrs. Matys, to come back to show her to the gym fields of the school. It figures that the gym class would be elsewhere; she had wonderful luck. She sat there, fiddling with the key chains on her backpack. Waiting for people wasn't one of her strong suits. Marina looked up when she heard voices and footsteps walking into the guidance office. She looked up from her backpack and saw that Mrs. Matys was back, with a small black boy with her with curly black hair. Mrs. Matys said a couple things to the boy and then motioned him over to where Marina was sitting.
"Miss. Manchester, this would be the kid I was telling you about to take you down to the gym fields. Mr. Zeroni here doesn't talk much; so don't expect him to speak. Now, Miss. Manchester you're to stay with Mr. Zeroni for the rest of the day as you two have the same classes," Mrs. Matys looked down at her watch. "The bell's about to ring, so off you go." She said, shooing the two out.
The two left the office, an awkward silence between them. Zero looked at her before grabbing his bucket hat and jabbing it on his head; his unruly locks sticking out. He motioned for her to follow him, staying silent all along. Marina slowly followed him, wondering why he didn't say anything. She shook it off, as they made their way down the stairs and down, yet another, hallway. She looked around, wondering where they were going, and then looked at the kid in front of her. She figured she might as well ask him.
"Hey…" She paused, what was this kids' name?
"It's Hector," She paused; this kid actually spoke? He hadn't spoke for the whole 'trip' down here. All of the sudden Hector spoke up, answering her unspoken question. "Yes, I can talk. I'm not as stupid as people think I am," He then turned around to face her, pointing to the floor. "You stay here. I have to go get out of these gym clothes." And with that, he vanished into the boys change room.
Marina nodded, dumbly and looked around, wondering what to do. She leaned against the wall, attempting to fish out her Walkman again. A door opened, and another bunch of people walked in. Marina looked up to see a bunch of guys and girls coming in. She shrugged and went back to plugging in her Walkman. She saw pairs of feet walk by her, but no one paid any attention, they were all used to skippers being around there, she only looked up when a pair of black boots stopped in front of her. She looked up to see Zero standing there. She slipped off one ear of the earphones, and stood up.
"Leaving?"
He simply nodded, and off he went. She sighed and followed after him again. This kid was like a mystery, hard to figure out and complicated. It might take some work before he comes unwrapped. She looked up; when he noticed he was talking to her again.
"The cafeterias in here."
Zero then led her over to three of the blue table's, where another boy was sitting. He sat down at the table and the other boy looked up. He had brown curly hair and a red baseball hat on, she guessed his name was Stanley; by the way Hector was talking to him. She was snapped out of her thoughts when Hector pointed at her.
"By the way, that's Marina. New transfer student." Hector muttered, at Stanley's confused look, which then vanished. "Come. Sit."
Marina nodded and sat down beside Hector, looking from one to the other, as they continued on their conversation, sounded weird if you asked her. But then again, they didn't ask her, so whatever.
"So Zigzag got in trouble again?"
"Yup. Thought the camera's were there, even though we're in a middle of a field."
"He's one crazy guy."
"Insane is more like it."
"True."
"So, what happened in math?"
"Psycho happened."
"Again? Doesn't she get the picture?"
"Nope. Probably not."
Psycho? Zigzag? What the heck was going on? The people at this school had weird names… Twitch, Armpit, Guts, Psycho and Zigzag. What the hell? What kind of names are those? The bell rang; the signal for lunch and what Zero had said earlier was true. The cafeteria does get really packed. Already people were here and there, and the door was always busy as more people piled in. She sighed and grabbed her bag from under the table, rooting for her lunch. When she finally grabbed the lunchbox, and sat back up, the two tables were already full. Oh great… more people to remember.
"Who's the girl, Zero? You're girlfriend?" The brunette on the other side of the table asked, pointing at Marina.
"Transfer student from Mexico. Mrs. Matys gave me the job of showing her around for today," The girl nodded. "Dannielle, Marina. Marina, Dannielle."
The brunette studied Marina, and then smiled. "You're that girl that I ran into in the hall! I'm sorry about that, some people thought it would be funny to leave me behind! Eh, Twitch?" She called, to a boy down the table.
"You're too slow. Go faster next time." Twitch called, winking at her.
Dannielle rolled her eyes, and looked back at Zero and Marina. "That's Brian down there, don't listen to him, and never get in a car with him," She shot Twitch a look. "It's most likely been hotwired."
Twitch looked over at Dannielle. "I didn't hotwire that car, I simply found it…" He flashed her a smile, and she rolled her eyes.
"Anyways, don't listen to anything Brian says, he's just a little, you know." Dannielle said, making the crazy sign out of Twitch's sight.
Twitch looked over them, glaring at Dannielle. "The name's Twitch, Crazed."
Dannielle glared over. "Don't you call me Crazed, the school nickname thing is dumb. The name is Dannielle. Dannielle Dickson."
Zero all the sudden broke in, right before Twitch and Dannielle got into another row about the nickname code that the older kids made up. "OK, well Marina this is the gang," Zero then turned to point to each person that was there.
"OK, that's Caveman."
"Stanley." Dannielle said, pointing at Caveman too.
"Squid."
"Alan."
"Zigzag."
"Ricky."
"Magnet."
"Jose."
The two went on down the tables pointing to each of them respectively. When they finally reached the end of the list, Zero and Dannielle were staring at each other, getting annoyed with the others' voice. The others all looked from Zero to Dannielle, shaking their heads. Leave it to Dannielle to get everyone going at each other about the whole nickname bit. When would she get the picture, that nickname's were the 'in' thing?
"Sounds neat. How do you get these nicknames?" Marina asked, leaning on the table.
Squid looked over at her, sharply. "You have to earn it, girl! It's not just something that you—"
"Augh! Here she comes!" Caveman exclaimed, flipping his binder in front of his head.
Dannielle, Zero, Squid and Marina broke out of their glaring match and conversation to look at Caveman's weird behaviour. The group at the table's were now looking at Caveman, wondering what was wrong with him, he was fine just a second ago. Zero was the only not looking at Caveman, for he knew what was wrong. His eyes combed around the cafeteria, looking for the person that would make Stanley act like this. Then he found her, making her way over to him.
"Stanley… watch out, she's on another power trip over here."
And Zero was right, because Nikki Bloom was on her way over; her blond hair flowing behind her, and her short t-shirt and skirt, tightly fitting her. Zero forced the urge to roll his eyes. Nikki thought she was God's gift to men. She believed that every man was attracted to her, and if they weren't, she'd make up rumours that the reason they weren't attracted to her was because they fancied their same gender.
"Who's that?" Marina asked, poking Zero then pointing to the girl, flaunting herself over there.
"That's Nikki Bloom, the cheerleaders' squad captain, with absolutely no brains. They call her Psycho, only because Bitch was taken." Zero said, saying the last part whimsically.
Marina rolled her eyes, and started to pick at her lunch. By then, Psycho had reached their table, looking down at Ebony, who just happened to be sitting beside her Caveman. Being the person she was, Psycho simply pushed Ebony, making her flail her arms, falling off the end of the bench, as Psycho sat down beside Caveman, batting her eyelashes at him. "Hi Stanley." Psycho was one of the few that only called Caveman by his real name, she didn't think that Caveman suited him, he was too cute for a name that rough. Stanley was a pretty name by her standards, and she loved him even more for the cute name.
Stanley looked over at her, forcing a smile. "Er, hi Psycho. How – how are you?"
Psycho batted her eyelashes, giggling. "You can call me Nikki, you know that Stanley. I'm great now that I'm here, you?"
"Fine. Just fine." Caveman said, sighing in defeat. Would this girl ever get a clue? He hoped she would, he wasn't interested in her. He wasn't interested in anyone yet. Stanley bit into his hamburger and hoped that Nikki would go anyway. Fat chance, Nikki smiled and put her piece of salty pizza down on the table beside him. Stanley rolled his eyes and glared over at Zero; who was laughing at him by this point. Oh well, he could stand her, he managed to get through the dreaded English class with her, lunchtime wouldn't be that bad.
Or… so he hoped anyways.
* * * * *
The day passed by slowly and soon enough the 2:40 bell rang, signalling the end of the day. Kids pushed out of the classes, weaving their way through the halls, pushing their way to the lockers. All of them wanting to get out of the school to start the weekend fun. While everyone was in the midst of pushing their way to find the doors out of this place, some people hung back. Two people sat on an old wooden teachers' desk pushed up against the wall, waiting for something, or someone in their case. Stanley and Zero sat on the old desk waiting for Dannielle to come along. The three had been pretty close friends since back in the third grade when Stanley and Dannielle had pretty much hated each other and then were voted the boy and girl to work with the new kid and in charge of making him come out of his shell. This was none other then Zero.
"Stanley! Hector! I'm here!" Dannielle called, bounding down the stairs at top speed.
The two boys' heads snapped up quickly at the sound of their names. Only one person called them by their true names. "Hi Dannielle." The two called, as she stopped, bent over in front of them.
"Come on, we're gonna be late." Zero muttered, pushing the school door open.
Caveman and Dannielle nodded and walked (or bounced) out the door and after Zero to his black car. The three hopped in the car and backed out of the parking lot, to head east; the way out of the town. Where something unexpected like always was going on.
* * * * *
A small black haired girl with baggy blue jeans that had many rips in them and chains decorating the pants, complete with a black tank top and a meshing over top of it. "Are you sure that's where their going, Thlump?" She asked, popping the bubble her gum made.
The boy, Thlump looked over at her, eyebrow's raised. "Of course, I'm sure, Guts. Don't question me, so are you guys in? Or are you all a bunch of lil chickens?" He asked sarcastically.
"I guess I'm in, just don't do anything to terrible… I have to keep face with them too." Guts said, kicking a stone with her foot.
"Yes, our inside link. Maybe you should stay behind, Gutsy-kins." Thlump said in a baby tone, moving to pinch Guts' cheeks, but she swatted his hand away.
"I'm coming," She locked eyes with Thlump then the others behind him. "I'm staying inside the restaurant, watching the scene. It's too early too be found out, right?" Some of the boys behind Thlump nodded. "Told you, now, let's go before it's too late." Guts made her way toward the door where one of the guys' black BMW punch buggy.
"She is right though. We can't let us all found yet. We tell you the info and you tell us what we're supposed to find out. You never said we had to get into the action!" Twitch yelled, and started out after Guts. "This bites."
Thlump grumbled, rolling his eyes at the two juniors, then turned back to the other two left on the room. "You two still in?"
The two figures pushed themselves off of the walls and walked up behind Thlump, hands stuffed in pockets. "I'm in."
"Same. So let's go before those two take off, alight?" The last figure said, taking out his car keys, and moving towards the door.
"X is right. Let's get going." The other boy said, and followed out after X-Ray.
Thlump nodded and followed the two out of their old warehouse, to the car parked out back near the forest. He walked out and slid the warehouse door closed, and slipped the lock back on it. Then turned to hop into X-Ray's car, and then backed out of the old beaten forest path and onto the main road, heading east.
* * * * *
OK, Thlump (I made the nickname up for the guy) He was in the movie, when Stanley gets pushed into him in the wreck room and the two start fighting… at least until the other D-Tent Boys step in. Do you know who I'm talking about; it's hard to explain. And, yes, Dannielle is supposed to have two 'N's, her creator (known as Psycho Goddess here – check out her stories!) spelled it that way, so, yeah! Review, ok? Cool!
11/07/03