THE CUCKOO'S EGG
by Galen Hardesty
Chapter Twelve
HOWLING MAD MORGENDORFFER
~*~
After she'd left Daria's room, Daria heard Helen knock on Quinn's door. Standing near her own door as she quietly slipped on her jacket, she heard Helen warn Quinn not to talk to anyone about her nocturnal activities.
As Daria slipped on her book bag and prepared to head out, she heard Quinn muttering to herself. "…house full of crazy people. Daria practically tears down the mall, terrorizes the shrink, and then goes back out after dark and burglarizes his office, and Mom's worried about ME! Daria can be a one-girl crime wave, but I can't even talk about it! Does that make any sense at all? Oh, why couldn't I be an only child?"
Daria stepped out of her room and into Quinn's. Her sister was primping and ranting to her mirrors. She turned, startled at Daria's entrance. "What do you want, you… midnight madwoman?" she demanded.
"I come to clarify the mysterious, Quinn, to illuminate the obscure. I come to reveal the pathway to riches, and to save you from a lifetime of terror and misery."
Quinn made a face. "Eeww! You sound as crazy as you did last night, if not more. What do you mean, the pathway to riches?"
Daria smiled a pleasant little smile. "If Mom suddenly had several million dollars, you could probably get your hands on quite a bit of it, couldn't you?" Daria asked.
Quinn smiled. "Oh, I think so."
"I'm sure you could. I'll make this as simple as possible, and just touch briefly on the two main scenarios for now. Scenario one is you do what Mom said, and keep your mouth shut. Mom wins a huge case, and earns herself a huge fee, and we all live happily and wealthily ever after. Simple enough?"
"Yeah…"
Daria continued, "Okay. Scenario two. You tell only your very best friends, in strictest confidence, what you know and what you think you know about what your crazy cousin did last night. The story is all over town by sundown, of course. Maybe I get arrested. Maybe I just get expelled and sued, which is to say, Mom and Dad get sued. Either way, the people Mom would have won that huge case from have time to get rid of the evidence and get their sith together. Mom gets no huge fee, and you get your fashions from garage sales and thrift shops the rest of your time in high school, and there's no college fund afterward."
Daria's expression darkened and an ominous tone crept into her voice. "But that's not the worst of it. I won't get to go to college either, and I'll blame you for that. And I'll get you for it. But consider the sub scenario where I do a stretch for burglary. Think about that. Me in a little cell, with nothing to do for years but think of what I'm gonna do to you when I get out. And I will get out one day, Quinn. And I will find you. And who knows what interesting stuff I will have learned from my fellow inmates in all that time. Just imagine."
"Daria, stop it! You're scaring me! I wasn't gonna say anything! Cross my heart!"
"Well, that's good, Quinn, that's really good to know. That means you can start looking forward to Mom having so much money she won't care how much you spend on clothes. But don't totally forget that other scenario, just in case you're tempted. Me in prison, learning all the interesting ways to hurt people that anyone else in that prison knows, and getting tougher, and meaner, and more vicious by the day, and thinking about what I'm gonna do when I get out. Neither of us wants that, right?
"R-right."
"Right. Well, gotta go. You have a good day, Quinn. I'll be thinking of you." Daria patted Quinn on the shoulder and ambled out into the hall. Quinn half-collapsed onto the seat at her vanity, and looked in the mirror. She began applying more blusher with a trembling hand. She was looking very pale all of a sudden.
~*~
As Daria neared the Lane house, Jane Lane walked out to meet her. "Hey, Amiga, did you make it into the house last night, or did you sleep on the lawn?" Jane asked.
"Just barely. I passed out on the sofa."
"Guess you really were thrashed. You're looking well-rested this morning, though."
"I should. I slept for about eleven hours. I wish I could sleep through this whole day, and I'll probably wish that a lot harder once I get to school."
"You're such a pessimist, Daria. It'll be fine. Li will probably want you to start a poetry club."
"I have friends in the joint, Lane. How many friends do you have in the cemetery?"
"Ooh, touchy! Maybe you do need a bit more sleep."
Daria sighed. "Jane, just keep in mind today that there's nothing on earth I hate and loathe as much as public humiliation."
Jane gave her friend an anxious look. "You may be in for a rough day, amiga."
"Exactly. It's possible that I may lose my temper at someone today, Jane. I hope it's not you."
As they arrived at Lawndale high, things seemed pretty normal, although it seemed to Daria that there were more glances than usual directed at her. They passed the fashion club huddled in their usual preschool spot just inside the main entrance. Stacy shot them a quick big-eyed glance, but the others seemed not to notice. They visited their lockers and proceeded to Mr. O'Neill's class without incident.
About a minute before the bell, Jodie came hurrying in, looking like she'd already put in half a day at something, which was usual for Jodie. Taking her seat, she turned to Daria. "I heard about a bunch of kids running wild at the mall yesterday, Daria, and your name was mentioned. What's that about?"
"It's a long story, Jodie. I'll try to give you a condensed version at lunch. Basically, I had a bad reaction to a prescrip…" Daria had her sentence cut off by the beginning of class.
O'Neill's class was taken up by other students reading their animal stories. They were all bad in varying degrees, and especially awful was one whose author was apparently trying to top Daria's baby-bird story. The protagonist, a homeless kitten, was put through a succession of ghastly yet uninteresting misfortunes, from which its tragic end beneath the wheels of a school bus came as a blessed relief to the audience. The story's only redeeming feature was that Mr. O'Neill was obviously distressed by it.
On the way to history class, Daria was definitely getting some fishy looks from knots of students who were huddled together discussing something. In class, Kevin Thompson seemed to find her much more interesting than Mr. DiMartino's presentation on the Russo-Japanese war.
After history class, as Jane was getting her science text and notebook, Daria definitely heard her name mentioned, by several people. She also heard the words "mall" and "fountain" more than once.
When Jane was finished, Daria hurried to her locker, anxious to get out of the hallway and away from the staring eyes. As she was dialing in her combination, she could hear in the background the approach of Kevin and several of his cronies. She thought nothing of this until Kevin spoke up.
"Hey look, guys, it's Howling Mad Morgendorffer! Nice poetry there, Howling Mad!" The other players dutifully laughed along with Kevin, even though he'd almost certainly stolen the joke, such as it was, and they probably knew it. Daria gritted her teeth, ignored the moron, and opened her book bag.
But Kevin was never one to quit while he was ahead. "Hey, Howling Mad! Wanna come to the party this Saturday? Wear a t-shirt and we'll throw some pennies in the pool!" Daria's head snapped around, but Kevin had already passed by, accepting a high five from a sycophant.
Daria glared at Kevin's back as she slid a book into her locker and let her book bag drop to the floor. Jane had caught a bit of her expression and could tell she was highly torqued.
"Hey, don't let jock itch boy get to…" she began, when Daria lunged at Kevin's back with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. There was a cry from Kevin, and then Daria was back at her locker, picking up her book bag as if nothing had happened, and Kevin was bent backward in an agonized bow, making strangled squeaking sounds of pain.
"Very impressive, Morgendorffer!" Jane exclaimed, watching Kevin's teammates awkwardly trying to assist him, and causing him more pain in the process. "That's the first time I've ever seen an atomic wedgie done with a jockstrap!"
"I hope they have to cut it off him with a Jaws of Life tool," Daria snarled as she stalked off down the hallway in the opposite direction.
Jane hurried to keep pace. "How in the world did you get the strap all the way over his head?"
"You have to lift with your legs. Anyway, just about everything goes over Kevin's head."
From his classroom door, Anthony DiMartino had seen the whole thing. He grinned wolfishly. This might actually be a good day.
Up ahead, at the door to the science lab, Daria and Jane saw that Janet Barch was observing Kevin's plight with fierce glee. Daria was pretty sure she knew what her grade for science that day was going to be. It would probably even rub off on Jane.
Other students had seen the commotion, and were flocking to the site. Daria noted that the fashion clubbers were moving that way, except for Quinn. She stood rooted to the spot, staring wide-eyed at the efforts to rescue Kevin from his athletic supporter, then, with a horrified glance at Daria, fled to the girl's room.
At lunch, having procured their cheap, poorly prepared food, Daria and Jane made their way to the Outcast Table.
"Gee, Daria, do you suppose you killed him?" Jane asked hopefully. "He didn't show up in Barch's class at all, and I haven't seen him since."
"No, I think Coach Gibson let him hide out that period. I think even Kevin is smart enough to know that if he had showed up, the ragging he'd have gotten from Barch would be worse than what I gave him."
"I can't blame him," Mack said as he and Jodie came to the table. "Listening to Barch extemporizing on the theme 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male' for an hour was bad enough. I'd hate to have heard her if she'd had Kevin there to use as an example."
"On the positive side," Jodie said, looking at Mack, "She didn't pick on you for once. What Daria did apparently slaked her bloodlust for a while. What did you do, anyway, Daria? It couldn't have been what I heard."
"Oh, yes it could," Mack replied with a shudder. "All the way over his head and around his neck. He might've strangled if Pavlov the custodian hadn't cut the strap. Daria, don't you think that was a teeny bit extreme?"
Daria saw Mack's gaze shift to something or someone behind her and instantly back again. Not turning around, she casually lifted the far edge of her brownie until she could use its aluminized wrapper as a rear-view mirror. The image was distorted, but she could tell that it was Kevin Thompson lurking there.
"After what he said to me? No, I do not," Daria replied.
"What did he say to you, Daria?" Jodie asked. "Mack didn't tell me."
"That's because I don't know. I suspect Kevin told his buddies not to talk about it. It seems very few people even know who did it to him."
Daria scowled down at her spaghetti and meatballs and colored slightly. Jane said, "After he called her 'Howling Mad Morgendorffer, he said if she wore a t-shirt to the party this Saturday, they'd throw some pennies in the pool for her."
Jodie and Mack threw angry glares over Daria's head. Jodie said, "That's pretty low, even for Kevin."
"You can tell mister QB," Daria paused to spear a meatball and hold it up on the end of her spork for a visual aid, "That if he ever says anything like that to me again, he will have no further use for a jockstrap." She bit off half the meatball and chewed, holding up the half still impaled on her spork. Mack swallowed and looked slightly queasy. From behind her, she heard a small noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, and the sound of cleated shoes slinking away.
As they hit the sunshine after the last bell, Jane turned to Daria. "See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad! So, you want to celebrate with a pizza?"
"Not today," Daria replied. "I have to go down to the courthouse."
"The courthouse? What for? You gonna finally pay all those jaywalking tickets?"
"No."
"Get a marriage license for you and Trent?"
"Never gonna happen. Resign yourself."
"You and Upchuck?"
"I don't do animal husbandry."
"Well, it wouldn't be Kevin, after this morning. I know. You're gonna get a prostitute's license."
"You didn't get one. Why should I?"
"Hmmm… gonna register as a sex offender?"
"Are you about through?"
"Are you about to fess up?"
"I should just see how many more guesses you're good for."
"I could go on for hours, but I can't guarantee to maintain the high entertainment value. Ummm… you're gonna register your feet as lethal weapons."
"No."
"Your mouth?"
"No."
"Your ass?"
Daria looked around to be sure no one else was within earshot. "I'm going to register as a process server."
Jane stared at Daria for a couple of seconds. "That was my next guess."
"Was not."
"I had it right up to the word 'register'. Why a process server?"
"It's a high-paying part-time job. The work is easy, and you don't get killed much more often than a convenience store clerk."
"That sounds tempting. Why really?"
"So I don't have to pay someone else to serve my subpoenas."
"Subpoenas? Really? You got subpoenas?"
"My lawyer is issuing them."
"That would be your mother?"
"Well, yeah."
"Can I tag along?"
"Sure, if you have bus fare."
"I think I do. How about pizza after?"
"Can't. I have a strategy meeting at Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, ad nauseam."
"A strategy meeting? You?"
"Mom really wants to inspire me to study law in college."
"And she thinks making you sit in a boring meeting and keep quiet is gonna do that?"
"Apparently. Actually, I think they're gonna need me. About half the partners couldn't sue pee out of a boot with instructions written on the heel."
Jane snorked. "Methinks you exaggerate, amiga."
"Well, maybe a bit. But Mom is one of the bright lights of the firm."
"Hm. Well, if you're gonna be busy indefinitely, I better go on home. Trent has a gig tonight, and someone's gotta wake him up. I'll want the condensed version of that meeting."
"Okay. See you later, Jane." Daria continued on toward the bus stop as Jane turned and retraced her steps toward their usual route home.
~*~