THE CUCKOO'S EGG

by Galen Hardesty

Chapter Sixteen

SITTIN' IN THE RAILWAY STATION

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Daria paused just inside the lobby of the Carter County Mental Health Services building, and took in the grand vaulted ceiling and the stark Art Deco chandeliers. It still looked like what it had been built to be, so long ago-- a railroad station. Daria felt a strangely powerful urge to board a transcontinental express and reread Atlas Shrugged.

Tearing her gaze away from the architecture, Daria scanned the oak benches that filled less than half of the lobby. Her quarry sat, disconsolate, on one of the nearer ones. Daria closed in.

"Hi, Mr. O'Neill. How are you feeling?"

O'Neill looked up. "Horrible!" he moaned. "Your beautiful mind could have been ruined, and it's all my fault! What must you think of me?"

"Mr. O'Neill, we've already been through the fault-finding process, and the lion's share was assigned to Dr. Drake and Mrs. Manson. It's official. Accept it." O'Neill continued to blubber, face in hands. Daria sat down beside him and hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder. "You really want to know what I think of you? I think you're a kind, caring, sensitive man who somehow developed a set of utopian expectations about what the world should be like, and is trying to make the real world measure up to them. You need to face reality, but you haven't a mean bone in your body. You did what you thought was best for me. You sent me to someone you thought could help. You were wrong, but not evil. Here, I brought you some chamomile tea. Hope you like it with honey."

"Thank you, Daria. That's very considerate." He opened the lid of the styrofoam cup she offered him, inhaled the vapors rising off the still-hot tea, and smiled. Then he shook his head ruefully. "I was so sure that assignment would help you to write a happy, cheerful story. Where did I go wrong?"

"I didn't want to be helped that way. I could write happy stuff if I wanted to. If you were to flat out order me to write one, I would, but I would resent it. I would consider it an unwarranted intrusion into my creative process."

He looked surprised for a moment, then thoughtful. "I can see why you'd resent doing something opposite of what you want to do. But I still don't see why you'd want to write unhappy stories."

"I want to write all kinds of stories. I'm learning, experimenting, trying different things. What would Shakespeare's plays be like if nothing bad ever happened to any of the characters?"

"Hmm," he said. "I never thought of it that way."

Daria looked down at the floor. "For what it's worth," she said, "I'm sorry the story I wrote got you into this."

"That's very nice of you, Daria," he replied. He sipped his tea, and his gaze wandered to a railroad-themed mural on the wall. "I can't say I wasn't warned. You told me way back at the beginning of your sophomore year that if I sent you to Mrs. Manson, you'd put us both in the loony bin."

Daria looked puzzled for a second, then remembered their conversation in Cafe Lawndale, after closing time. "Oh, yeah, I did say that, didn't I? But you're not in the loony bin. You're just here for an interview, and I think that's only because Superintendent Cartwright wanted to seem even-handed. Look, just say you were concerned for my well being, and don't go on about how dark you think my outlook is as opposed to how cheery and optimistic you think I should be, and you'll be all right. Oh, and don't dwell on all those herbs you take, and don't mention your crystals or your collection of crying clown paintings."

"Yes, probably good advice," he agreed. "Thank you for coming, Daria. I'm feeling much better. Mrs. Manson is here for her appointment too, you know."

"Yes, I know. I want to speak to her, too. I'll see you later, Mr. O'Neill."

Daria rose and walked toward the other end of the lobby, to another bench where Mrs. Manson was sitting. Manson looked up, scowling. "Well, I hope you're happy, Dara."

Daria let the name pass without comment. "No, more like vindicated."

"This is a permanent black mark on my record. Why shouldn't you be happy?"

Daria arched an eyebrow. "Awwww, a black mark. So you can dish 'em out, but you can't take em. You don't mind hanging labels on children that will follow them all their lives just for spite, but when you find yourself labeled, quite properly, you don't like it."

"Dara, I didn't label you. I referred you to a specialist, and rightly so. You wrote about leaping out of that nest to your death to escape what you saw as intolerable living conditions at home. I may well have prevented a suicide attempt on your part. They can't blame me for that."

"That story was totally tongue in cheek, and almost every student in that class knew it. They were cracking up when I left. I think you knew it too. But that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what... Mrs. Manson looked puzzled for a moment, then the dawn came. "Surely you're not talking about your first day at Lawndale High, when I interviewed you and recommended you attend that self-esteem class?"

Daria allowed a bit of a smirk to show. "You thought I'd forgotten that, did you? I poked a little fun at your precious cards and your brain-dead methodologies, and you couldn't handle it. You threw me in that self-esteem class to teach me not to sass my betters. Your mistake was that you're nowhere near being my better."

Mrs. Manson looked like she wanted to obliterate Daria with a crushing retort, but couldn't think of one. "I can't believe that class was so unbearable," she said, in lieu of anything pithier.

"It was as bad as Mr. O'Neill could unintentionally make it, which is fairly bad. But I made a good friend in that class, so I'm actually glad I was in it. What I object to is, to quote you, "a permanent black mark on my record." A false mark, a mark I didn't deserve."

"Don't kid yourself, Dara. You definitely had low self-esteem."

Daria leaned closer, her features set hard. "Don't you kid yourself, Manson. You have low competence. If you were any good, you wouldn't be working at Lawndale High. I had, and still have, very high self-esteem, and I know you know that from Dr. Millepieds' comprehensive evaluation. You were pissed off because I had low esteem for your lame methods, and you abused your position to 'teach me a lesson.' Well, what goes around, comes around. Now I'm teaching you the lesson. "

"So you're willing to totally wreck my life just to 'teach me a lesson?' You have absolutely no concept of proportion, do you?"

"I don't take kindly to people screwing around with my brain. And you're conveniently forgetting about all the other kids you sent to Dr. Quack for drugs they didn't need. And anyway, I didn't send you here. Cartwright did."

"You vengeful little bitch. My career is probably ruined. What am I going to do now?"

Daria smiled a wicked little smile. "You're going to talk with the nice psychologist, so he can spot any little problems on the horizon. After that, you're going to service your community. After that, I suggest you start a new career in a field where you can't harm innocent people."

Daria turned and started to walk away, then turned back. "And if you ever again have occasion to address me, you will do so as either Daria or Ms. Morgendorffer. Fool with my name again and you will further regret it." She spun on her heels and walked off, the sound of her bootheels on the terrazzo floor reverberating through the cavernous lobby, leaving Margaret Manson gaping after her.

~*~