It took about 5 days to clean Wendy's body up and to make preperations for the funeral. Because of Wendy's fame as a child, the ceremony would naturally attract some media attention, but Ms Testaburger made the church promise to keep as many reporters out of the ceremony as possible. A wake would be held at the church, and after the eulogy and other such things, the casket holding Wendy would be closed and taken to the cemetary for a burial. Practically everyone in town planned to come to the church for the viewing.
Stan and Ms Testaburger were inconsolable, especially since no one knew how to console them. Their closest friends knew that because they were so close to the deceased, the slightest wrong thing said could push them to the brink of despair or make them tear a few heads off in anger. Not even Kyle or Stan's parents knew how to try and get Stan to feel a little better, they just knew that it probably couldn't be done. So many of the people just left him alone to sort out his grief on his own. That was no problem for Butters since he didn't want to be anywhere near Stan for fear that he might let out his anger on him for having Wendy come over to begin with. He was a better person to blame than the driver, who wasn't even drunk and all he did was hit a huge pothole and spin out of control, plus he was already dead too. Butters had to live with his now larger share of the blame enough without Stan reminding him.
As for the eulogy, it was more harder to pick who would do it than most thought. Obviously Stan or Wendy's mother were the best people to talk about Wendy, but since they were so shaken up by this, there wasn't a good chance that they would get through the eulogy without breaking down in tears. They both knew that as well, so they tried to select a replacement, and somehow they settled on selecting Butters. He was broken down by this, but there was a better chance that he could get through a whole speech than Stan and Ms Testaburger could. So although Butters had only 3 days at the time to think of a good speech, he brought himself to go through with it.
On the day of the funeral, after Father Maxi did his sermonizing and reporters had their chance to take pictures before Ms Testaburger literally threw them outside, Butters got his chance to speak. After he was introduced by Father Maxi, it took a lot of effort for him to get up and face the huge crowd of mourners that were looking to him to deliver one final poignent memory of Wendy. After taking a few deep breaths, he went up to the pulpit, pulled out his speech, and began.
"G-Good afternoon." Butters cleared his throat and willed himself to not let his old stutter return, then he went back to reading from the paper. "We're all here to say a final goodbye to a very important person. At first she made a huge impact on a few people, then she just disappeared outta sight for a while, but then when she came back to the spotlight she did it with a vengenace and she didn't let go for 8 years. Many of us are very lucky that she touched our lives in a way before....she let go." Deciding that he wouldn't get tempted to cry this early, Butters took a pause and carried on when he was all set again.
"How can someone in my position best describe Wendy Testaburger? How can I sum up the kind of person that she was, the kind of person who was hated to the bitter end by some, loved to the bitter end by others, and who survived the onslaught by others along the way? When I was putting together this speech, I visited her room to see if there was something there that could help me out. And there was. She had one special item in her room that reminded me of a story, one that really describes how lucky we were to know a woman like her. Some of you already know this story, but I've never told it to a lot of you. But it's a story I never would have lived to tell if not for Wendy Testaburger."
"It all started when me and my fellow kids started high school...."
======================================================
4 years ago, Butters had narrowly survived middle school and lived to tell that tale. Although he still had the kids of South Park as his friends, he met a lot of new kids that weren't so tolerant of his desire to learn and his belief of being nice to everybody, since that pretty much labels you as a nerdy fag by the most ignorant kid. There were plently of ignorant kids in middle school, and when Butters's regular friends weren't around they liked to give Butters a hard time. Occasionally it stopped when he managed to tell teachers and authority figures about the bullying, but then it just came back even more so after that. Unfortunatly, it was in Butters's senior year that Julia had to leave town, so without her around to fight back for him, the taunting and teasing got worse and worse until the year mercifully ended. After spending the summer licking his wounds, Butters brought himself to look forward to high school, even though it was logical that the older kids there would be even crueler and stereotypical. But he figured if he was around Stan, Kyle, and the gang in a lot of his classes, it wouldn't be so bad.
However, when he was placed in his classes and it turned out that absolutly no one else he knew was in any of his classes, and he would be surrounded by new people all day with no one from his group of peers to notice what would happen to him, it got pretty bad pretty fast.
Over the first three months of the school year, the lesser minded assholes of the school targeted Butters for answering most of the questions in their classes, for looking like a nerd, for sounding like a nerd, for refusing to do their homework for them, or all of the above and more. First they just shoved him around into lockers and such, then they started hitting him in the stomach when they didn't think they were getting through to him, and finally at that point they began hitting him in the face when they were really pissed off. Soon they just started picking on him to laugh as he pleaded for mercy, since they were raised on the premise that pleas for mercy and showing any emotion were funny things that only pussies do.
By the time Thanksgiving was over, this pussy was nearing the end of his rope. He wasn't able to get to his South Park friends in school, and they were too busy with their own busy schedule and adventures to listen to him. He had told his parents about his troubles at first, but after they tried to get the powers that be to make the bullies stop, it was no coincedence that Butters got fewer moments of peace after that. So trying that little move again was definatly out. Therefore, this was his schedule. Whenever the teacher's back was turned, some people liked to throw papers at him or flick him on the ear or do something to distract him from work. When he was at lunch, he was lucky to eat everything that was given to him more than 2 days a week. When it was between classes and someone either wanted homework answers or a good laugh, Butters would come out of it either shaken up or hurt a little bit. If it kept up any longer he was going to get used to this pattern and start forgetting what it was like to have a peaceful school day. Not that he had many peaceful school days in his life already, but at least before he could get some work done and find something fun to pass the time, unlike here.
So when he went to lunch one day in the middle of December, he had just come off an ordeal where a guy one foot taller than him had stolen his notebook full of history notes, and given him a black eye for a souviner. Butters figured he could at least get a milk from the lunch line to calm the swelling, so he just took the various types of "food" in front of him and headed for the milk. That is, until he heard a familar female voice call out, "Butters?" And he only had to look up to see Wendy on the other side of the counter.
"Wendy?! What are you doing here, you don't have lunch in 5'th period like I do! No one does!" Butters didn't mean to nitpick that much, but he was just too happy to see someone he knew at lunch for a change that he had to make sure it was for real. Wendy didn't mind so much as she answered, "The Mentally Gifted Program had me serve lunch for the week as a kind of gift to the less intellegent. But what the hell kind of "gift" do you have on your face?" Knowing she meant his shiner, Butters tried to think of an alternate answer from the truth, just in case his squealing to her made it's way back to the bullies and they got pissed.
"Um, I, I j-just fell down the steps and I l-landed right on my eye, that's all." Since he had reverted to his stutter, Wendy hardly believed him, so she told him to move ahead before he held up the line some more. Then when he paid for his lunch she went right over to him before he sat down at a table all by himself like usual. "This explains it, doesn't it? I've seen you stumble home and look shaken up in the halls more than a few times, and this is why. Someone's doing something to you while we're all off having fun, right?"
"I don't k-know w-what you're t-talking about."
"You're stuttering more than ever, if I wasn't on to something then you'd sound normal. Are you nervous because Cartman's doing something to you, or are Stan and Kyle playing tricks on you again, or what?! If you're protecting people I know because they're doing shit to you like in 4'th grade, then-"
"It's not them, it's practically everyone else in this whole Goddamm, Godforsaken school, are you happy now?!" Though everyone was shocked at first, Butters was the most shocked of all after he finally reached his boiling point. But for most of the people in the cafeteria, their shock quickly turned to laughter because, let's face it, when a nerd yells and screams about being fed up, it sounds hilarious to pretty much everyone. They all laughed at that high pitched screaming and ignored the valid point he was trying to make. Everyone except Wendy, who actually seemed pissed at the people laughing at him. So ignoring her regular duties, she led Butters to a lunch table after the laughter was finished, and calmed him down by asking, "You wanna explain that to someone who actually cares enough to listen to you?"
So Butters took up about half of the lunch period explaining his ordeals over the last 3 1/2 months. He also took his time explaining how useless it would be to tell a teacher, the principal, or their friends about what was happening. That practically eliminated Wendy's original options to solve the problem, so she had to work her brain a little harder. "And all of these people are bigger than you and have more muscles than you?"
"Well, if they were wimps, I wouldn't have this big of a shiner, would I?" Wendy excused Butters's sharp comment due to his hard times, but Butters quickly made up for it himself. "Geez, I'm sorry. It's just that this has been such a hard time for me. I can't focus on my schoolwork, I have no one to talk to all day, and although their ways of torturing aren't as painful as the ones in 4'th grade, they're pretty close! I just need to be beat up by adults and the illusion is complete, hooray for me!" He slammed his fist on the table since he didn't have any other ideas to show off his anger. "I really thought this kind of crap was gonna stop happening to me this time."
"Maybe it doesn't have to stay that way. You just told me a lot of damming stuff about some very important people. I'm starting to get some power and respect around here, so it's very good that I know this. Tell you what, from now on if someone hurts you or pulls a prank on you, you tell me all about it, and I'll find some way to get the culprit back. If I can find effective ways to fight back against your attackers, they should back off by the end of the year."
A slightly puzzled Butters could only answer, "Why would you go to all that trouble for me? Don't you have a lot better things to do like everyone else?"
"Butters, you and I are friends, right?" The boy shook his head yes as an answer. "And if it was me who was hurt and disturbed for no real reason at all, wouldn't you try and help me? Even if you were scared or you had other things to do?"
"I, um, I probably would be a little scared but that's just me. But if you were being mistreated like that, then sure I'd wanna do something!"
"Exactly. You're a friend of mine, and you're being put through hell that you don't deserve and is completly unfair. And after the shit you've been through in your last two schools, it really should have been different this time!" Wendy stopped herself before she got a little too passionate about the issue, but she went on in a calmer matter anyway. "You just try to get through this and I'll think of a way to make it a little easier for you, that's the real important thing here." With that, Wendy went off to get her own food so she could come back and finish the period with Butters. The boy didn't know whether to be worried for her or just stay grateful that someone was finally noticing him, but in any case, he finally had someone to talk to during lunch. For that he should put aside his fears for at least 10 minutes.
======================================================
After the final bell rung and Wendy packed up her lockers to leave for the day, she headed for the staircase to go down to the first floor. But before that, she saw that a closet door nearby was slightly open, so she figured she should close it just in case some janitor needed it closed. However, once she saw the people inside the closet, she kept the door slightly open. Inside, there were a group of students hovering around Butters, who was lying on the floor in fear. She hid back to see what the heck they were saying and doing to him, and she gathered that they were teasing him for actually sitting with her in lunch. They were trying to get his goat by saying Wendy had caught nerd germs by being around him, and when he tried to object, he got hit. And the fact that he was almost crying from this punch made them laugh more and more. "Aw, look at the little baby crying from getting a boo-boo. What a faggy little pussy buttpirate, huh fellas?" This taunt from the largest member of the group made the assholes laugh more and more and have more fun in calling Butters a fag pussy for crying.
As they did this, none of them saw Wendy watching them, nor could they sense that her blood was practically boiling the more she saw this spectacle. She had already killed someone before, but that was when she hired Iraqis to do the job. Now she almost felt like she could kill these people with her bare hands this time- but she thought of a better idea instead. She went inside the closet just as the Butters torturing group finished their next round of lauging at the scared Butters.
"Hey guys, having fun?" The group turned to finally see that Wendy was there. The largest boy then figured it was time to turn on the charm, since one of the hottest girls in school was nearby and she might wanna have fun "playing" with a real man instead of that pussy Stan. "Just playing around with nerds, babe. I don't wanna brag, but I do the best job of pushing people around. And away from people who I like, if you get my meaning." Since Wendy was smart enough to know the meaning, it took more of her self control to avoid strangling him right there. But she stuck to her plan and leaned right up close to the bully, putting her hand on his chest. "You sure are a real man, aren't you? I'll bet you don't get hurt by anything.", she went on as her hand went lower and lower down the boy's chest. "I'm not even sure you'd be hurt by something like this!"
And with that, she made her move as she put his hand on the front of his pants, and squeezd his covered testicles with almost superhuman strength. She just kept squeezing and crushing the balls with her hand as the others were too stunned to do anything, and her victim obviously was in too much pain to fight back. Finally one of his friends pleaded, "Come on, stop doing that, man!" But all Wendy said was, "Not until I see some tears." And once she squeezed hard enough so that the bully was showing a few tears from so much pain, she finally pushed him against the wall and let go, leaving him in the fetal position to try and heal. Wendy then turned her attention to the nearly crippled kid's friends.
"If I EVER see or hear about any of you hurting Butters again....well, when I get done with you, you'll only wish you were in as much pain as this guy is in right now." And since that meant they would be in enough pain to nearly kill them, the group took this threat rather seriously and ran off to feel relieved that their balls weren't the ones that were bruised. With the threat very clearly made, Wendy helped Butters up and left the closet to take him home, leaving the bully there to try his best not to throw up.
======================================================
"From that day on, a lot of those kids really got the message that if I got picked on, someone would fight back for me. A few of them didn't pay attention since they weren't afraid of what they called, wussy girls. But after they heard about Wendy's ball crushing abilities, they began to back off a little. And as many of you know, she talked the guys into paying more attention to me and finding time to include me in their activities and stuff. And by the time the year was over, she helped make sure I was picked on less even though we didn't share any classes together! I got more of my work done and I got my grades up with little trouble!" The present day Butters cleared his throat before he got to the most important part of the story.
"So by the time the school year ended, the anniversary of the South Park riots was coming up. I knew some people might say that Wendy didn't deserve to still be free from prison, and they'd say it in the editoral section of the newspaper. Well, since I knew that those kind of comments weren't fair, and they would too if they spent more than 10 minutes with her.....I decided to send something to the paper as a thank you present."
======================================================
It was the middle of May, and the freshman year of high school of the South Park kids was nearly over. Also, on this particular day, it was exactly 5 years ago that the final battle between Stan Marsh and Francis Widmark took place over Wendy's imprisonment for Ellen Widmark's murder. Many people still thought it was wrong for her to get out of her prison sentence after those riots and after Widmark's suicide. A few weeks earlier, Butters decided that those comments wouldn't be the only ones in the editorial section of the paper that day. So he wrote a speech and requested that it be put in the paper on the anniversary date- and Butters was overjoyed to see that it had that morning. With that, he bought the paper before he went to school, and before he had to go to his first class, he found Wendy in the hallways with Bebe and walked over to them.
"Wendy? I, uh, since I'm not getting tortured or beaten anymore because of you, and since today's such a big day....I figured you should have this." She handed Wendy the paper that he bought, and naturally the two girls were confused about this kind of present. "Open to the editorial page and you'll find it there." Wendy turned her attention to the paper and found a substantial editorial that went something like this.
5 years ago South Park almost got destroyed over the war to free Wendy Testaburger. 5 years ago a police chief killed himself rather than face jail time for murdering people to keep her locked up. 5 years ago her friends finished the job of talking the governer into letting her go. But even to this day people still believe that was the worst possible thing to do. All they think about is how Wendy hired enemies of our country to murder an innocent lesbian because she thought she wanted sex with her boyfriend, though of course she didn't. But that's all they want to see. They either don't see or don't wanna see the girl who's the smartest person I know[sorry Kyle]They don't see that she's done so much to make up for her mistakes, and though she knows she can never really make up for those mistakes, it doesn't stop her from being good enough to make sure the sacrifices of that mob weren't for nothing. And here's something they really wouldn't bother to see. She could spend all her time being smart and ignoring less intellegent people and only thinking of her troubles and Stan's. But instead she takes the time to think of others before herself, and she's just as likely to do an overboard gesture for someone like me as she would for people more important to her.
I wouldn't be well enough to write this message if it wasn't for Wendy Testaburger. I can't change some people's minds about her but I can stay plently mad at you anyway. Because if you knew her like me and everyone else did, you'd be glad we almost destroyed the town to help get her back. I for one am very lucky and very proud to call her my friend, and lots of other people are too. I just wanted to remind the people of South Park that some of us are glad she's on the outside today.
Thank you, Wendy, and thanks to the paper for holding this speech until today like I asked.
Sincerely,
Butters Stotch.
Before an overcome Wendy could bring herself to look up and thank Butters, the bell had already rung and he was already in his first class, and barely on time too.
======================================================
The present day Butters then pulled out that very same newspaper editorial from 4 years ago to show to everyone. "A few days ago when I was in Wendy's room, looking for some ideas for the eulogy, I found this on her desk. She cut out my article and kept it in her room all these years. Maybe it was to satisfy her ego, I don't know. But I like to think she did that because she knew how hard I worked on it and how much....how much I wanted to show my appreciation for everything she did for me that year, and how much I appreciated her friendship period. That article, and what she did to make me write it, well, it really sums up everything you need to remember about her. It's those type of things she did for me and everyone here that explain why we worked so hard to get her sentence overturned, and why we're all here to show how much we miss her. At least that's what I think."
Butters was on the verge of tears already, but he knew he'd go overboard if he saw the sad reaction and tears of the mourners a second longer. So since he had made his points, he went down from the pulpit and considered his speech finished. But before he went to sit down, he wanted to see Wendy's open casket.
Unlike the last time he saw her, when she was unconsious and bloody from a car accident, this time she looked serene and peaceful. It almost made him cry and made him feel relieved that this would be Butters last image of her. Of course since it was the last time he would see her face up close, that gave the sad part the upper hand. Overcome from this, he leaned down and gave her a brief kiss on her already pale forehead, then he muttered "Goodbye" and went to his seat before he saw any of his fellow mourners faces again. And for the longest time, he didn't get why he actually kissed that dead body, since that was gonna be Stan's job later on.
======================================================
A few hours later at the local cemetary, the casket was closed and put into Wendy's grave, and at this point they were already putting dirt on it. The mourners were out getting their last looks at the casket, or walking around to find something else to do with their time. Butters was just standing around until he saw Ms Testaburger coming towards him, then he didn't know what to do. But he decided to stay as the ex-mother struggled to find whatever she wanted to say to him.
"I, I never knew that was the real reason why you wrote that speech. Better late than never, I guess." Ann Testaburger now looked like she was losing her fight to hold back her tears, and finally she let them go while her head was on Butters's shoulder. Now he had no choice but to embrace her and let her put tear stains on his blue tux. When she finished, all she could say was "Thank you. Thank you for giving me one last good memory of her. Now I'm all alone." Since she was all alone now, Butters didn't really have anything to say to reassure her, so he let her go off to wipe her tears and morn with someone else. Once she left, Kyle came over to him.
"That was a cool speech, Butters. I almost forgot how much Wendy bugged us to let you in our games that year, but you reminded me." Kyle paused to catch himself from getting emotional. "You never really appreciate how much someone can bug you or how someone was actually smarter than you until they're gone, huh? She was really the only smart person other than me and Stan in this damm town, and I should have taken advantage of that more often."
"Sure Kyle, whatever you say." was all Butters could say. He looked around for a bit until he found Stan standing right at Wendy's grave, watching the dirt being put on the casket. Butters then started to panic. "Kyle, you'd better go before Stan looks for you and he finds me!"
"You don't want him to talk to you about the eulogy? Or about how you obviously kissed her before you sat down?" Kyle did really know why Butters didn't wanna be near Stan, but he figured he might be able to get Butters to stop thinking about it with those accusations. They didn't work. "If Stan sees me, he's gonna yell at me and tell me it's all my fault she's dead! If she hadn't gone to my house to help me study, she wouldn't have been near that car and she wouldn't have died! I know that enough without him taking out his rage on me!"
"I know Butters, I know. But if we did try to talk to him before he said that.....what would we say?" Both Kyle and Butters shut up and looked at Stan. They saw that no one else was near him because, like them, they didn't know how to talk to him. He had lost the one and only love of his life[if you discount Miss Ellen since that was just a stupid crush that led to many deaths], so how could anyone talk to him and say everything was gonna be okay? How could they face him without driving him to even more pain and suffering? Like Kyle said, what could they say?
And now that Wendy was officially laid to rest....what was he going to do with the rest of his life now?
Stan and Ms Testaburger were inconsolable, especially since no one knew how to console them. Their closest friends knew that because they were so close to the deceased, the slightest wrong thing said could push them to the brink of despair or make them tear a few heads off in anger. Not even Kyle or Stan's parents knew how to try and get Stan to feel a little better, they just knew that it probably couldn't be done. So many of the people just left him alone to sort out his grief on his own. That was no problem for Butters since he didn't want to be anywhere near Stan for fear that he might let out his anger on him for having Wendy come over to begin with. He was a better person to blame than the driver, who wasn't even drunk and all he did was hit a huge pothole and spin out of control, plus he was already dead too. Butters had to live with his now larger share of the blame enough without Stan reminding him.
As for the eulogy, it was more harder to pick who would do it than most thought. Obviously Stan or Wendy's mother were the best people to talk about Wendy, but since they were so shaken up by this, there wasn't a good chance that they would get through the eulogy without breaking down in tears. They both knew that as well, so they tried to select a replacement, and somehow they settled on selecting Butters. He was broken down by this, but there was a better chance that he could get through a whole speech than Stan and Ms Testaburger could. So although Butters had only 3 days at the time to think of a good speech, he brought himself to go through with it.
On the day of the funeral, after Father Maxi did his sermonizing and reporters had their chance to take pictures before Ms Testaburger literally threw them outside, Butters got his chance to speak. After he was introduced by Father Maxi, it took a lot of effort for him to get up and face the huge crowd of mourners that were looking to him to deliver one final poignent memory of Wendy. After taking a few deep breaths, he went up to the pulpit, pulled out his speech, and began.
"G-Good afternoon." Butters cleared his throat and willed himself to not let his old stutter return, then he went back to reading from the paper. "We're all here to say a final goodbye to a very important person. At first she made a huge impact on a few people, then she just disappeared outta sight for a while, but then when she came back to the spotlight she did it with a vengenace and she didn't let go for 8 years. Many of us are very lucky that she touched our lives in a way before....she let go." Deciding that he wouldn't get tempted to cry this early, Butters took a pause and carried on when he was all set again.
"How can someone in my position best describe Wendy Testaburger? How can I sum up the kind of person that she was, the kind of person who was hated to the bitter end by some, loved to the bitter end by others, and who survived the onslaught by others along the way? When I was putting together this speech, I visited her room to see if there was something there that could help me out. And there was. She had one special item in her room that reminded me of a story, one that really describes how lucky we were to know a woman like her. Some of you already know this story, but I've never told it to a lot of you. But it's a story I never would have lived to tell if not for Wendy Testaburger."
"It all started when me and my fellow kids started high school...."
======================================================
4 years ago, Butters had narrowly survived middle school and lived to tell that tale. Although he still had the kids of South Park as his friends, he met a lot of new kids that weren't so tolerant of his desire to learn and his belief of being nice to everybody, since that pretty much labels you as a nerdy fag by the most ignorant kid. There were plently of ignorant kids in middle school, and when Butters's regular friends weren't around they liked to give Butters a hard time. Occasionally it stopped when he managed to tell teachers and authority figures about the bullying, but then it just came back even more so after that. Unfortunatly, it was in Butters's senior year that Julia had to leave town, so without her around to fight back for him, the taunting and teasing got worse and worse until the year mercifully ended. After spending the summer licking his wounds, Butters brought himself to look forward to high school, even though it was logical that the older kids there would be even crueler and stereotypical. But he figured if he was around Stan, Kyle, and the gang in a lot of his classes, it wouldn't be so bad.
However, when he was placed in his classes and it turned out that absolutly no one else he knew was in any of his classes, and he would be surrounded by new people all day with no one from his group of peers to notice what would happen to him, it got pretty bad pretty fast.
Over the first three months of the school year, the lesser minded assholes of the school targeted Butters for answering most of the questions in their classes, for looking like a nerd, for sounding like a nerd, for refusing to do their homework for them, or all of the above and more. First they just shoved him around into lockers and such, then they started hitting him in the stomach when they didn't think they were getting through to him, and finally at that point they began hitting him in the face when they were really pissed off. Soon they just started picking on him to laugh as he pleaded for mercy, since they were raised on the premise that pleas for mercy and showing any emotion were funny things that only pussies do.
By the time Thanksgiving was over, this pussy was nearing the end of his rope. He wasn't able to get to his South Park friends in school, and they were too busy with their own busy schedule and adventures to listen to him. He had told his parents about his troubles at first, but after they tried to get the powers that be to make the bullies stop, it was no coincedence that Butters got fewer moments of peace after that. So trying that little move again was definatly out. Therefore, this was his schedule. Whenever the teacher's back was turned, some people liked to throw papers at him or flick him on the ear or do something to distract him from work. When he was at lunch, he was lucky to eat everything that was given to him more than 2 days a week. When it was between classes and someone either wanted homework answers or a good laugh, Butters would come out of it either shaken up or hurt a little bit. If it kept up any longer he was going to get used to this pattern and start forgetting what it was like to have a peaceful school day. Not that he had many peaceful school days in his life already, but at least before he could get some work done and find something fun to pass the time, unlike here.
So when he went to lunch one day in the middle of December, he had just come off an ordeal where a guy one foot taller than him had stolen his notebook full of history notes, and given him a black eye for a souviner. Butters figured he could at least get a milk from the lunch line to calm the swelling, so he just took the various types of "food" in front of him and headed for the milk. That is, until he heard a familar female voice call out, "Butters?" And he only had to look up to see Wendy on the other side of the counter.
"Wendy?! What are you doing here, you don't have lunch in 5'th period like I do! No one does!" Butters didn't mean to nitpick that much, but he was just too happy to see someone he knew at lunch for a change that he had to make sure it was for real. Wendy didn't mind so much as she answered, "The Mentally Gifted Program had me serve lunch for the week as a kind of gift to the less intellegent. But what the hell kind of "gift" do you have on your face?" Knowing she meant his shiner, Butters tried to think of an alternate answer from the truth, just in case his squealing to her made it's way back to the bullies and they got pissed.
"Um, I, I j-just fell down the steps and I l-landed right on my eye, that's all." Since he had reverted to his stutter, Wendy hardly believed him, so she told him to move ahead before he held up the line some more. Then when he paid for his lunch she went right over to him before he sat down at a table all by himself like usual. "This explains it, doesn't it? I've seen you stumble home and look shaken up in the halls more than a few times, and this is why. Someone's doing something to you while we're all off having fun, right?"
"I don't k-know w-what you're t-talking about."
"You're stuttering more than ever, if I wasn't on to something then you'd sound normal. Are you nervous because Cartman's doing something to you, or are Stan and Kyle playing tricks on you again, or what?! If you're protecting people I know because they're doing shit to you like in 4'th grade, then-"
"It's not them, it's practically everyone else in this whole Goddamm, Godforsaken school, are you happy now?!" Though everyone was shocked at first, Butters was the most shocked of all after he finally reached his boiling point. But for most of the people in the cafeteria, their shock quickly turned to laughter because, let's face it, when a nerd yells and screams about being fed up, it sounds hilarious to pretty much everyone. They all laughed at that high pitched screaming and ignored the valid point he was trying to make. Everyone except Wendy, who actually seemed pissed at the people laughing at him. So ignoring her regular duties, she led Butters to a lunch table after the laughter was finished, and calmed him down by asking, "You wanna explain that to someone who actually cares enough to listen to you?"
So Butters took up about half of the lunch period explaining his ordeals over the last 3 1/2 months. He also took his time explaining how useless it would be to tell a teacher, the principal, or their friends about what was happening. That practically eliminated Wendy's original options to solve the problem, so she had to work her brain a little harder. "And all of these people are bigger than you and have more muscles than you?"
"Well, if they were wimps, I wouldn't have this big of a shiner, would I?" Wendy excused Butters's sharp comment due to his hard times, but Butters quickly made up for it himself. "Geez, I'm sorry. It's just that this has been such a hard time for me. I can't focus on my schoolwork, I have no one to talk to all day, and although their ways of torturing aren't as painful as the ones in 4'th grade, they're pretty close! I just need to be beat up by adults and the illusion is complete, hooray for me!" He slammed his fist on the table since he didn't have any other ideas to show off his anger. "I really thought this kind of crap was gonna stop happening to me this time."
"Maybe it doesn't have to stay that way. You just told me a lot of damming stuff about some very important people. I'm starting to get some power and respect around here, so it's very good that I know this. Tell you what, from now on if someone hurts you or pulls a prank on you, you tell me all about it, and I'll find some way to get the culprit back. If I can find effective ways to fight back against your attackers, they should back off by the end of the year."
A slightly puzzled Butters could only answer, "Why would you go to all that trouble for me? Don't you have a lot better things to do like everyone else?"
"Butters, you and I are friends, right?" The boy shook his head yes as an answer. "And if it was me who was hurt and disturbed for no real reason at all, wouldn't you try and help me? Even if you were scared or you had other things to do?"
"I, um, I probably would be a little scared but that's just me. But if you were being mistreated like that, then sure I'd wanna do something!"
"Exactly. You're a friend of mine, and you're being put through hell that you don't deserve and is completly unfair. And after the shit you've been through in your last two schools, it really should have been different this time!" Wendy stopped herself before she got a little too passionate about the issue, but she went on in a calmer matter anyway. "You just try to get through this and I'll think of a way to make it a little easier for you, that's the real important thing here." With that, Wendy went off to get her own food so she could come back and finish the period with Butters. The boy didn't know whether to be worried for her or just stay grateful that someone was finally noticing him, but in any case, he finally had someone to talk to during lunch. For that he should put aside his fears for at least 10 minutes.
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After the final bell rung and Wendy packed up her lockers to leave for the day, she headed for the staircase to go down to the first floor. But before that, she saw that a closet door nearby was slightly open, so she figured she should close it just in case some janitor needed it closed. However, once she saw the people inside the closet, she kept the door slightly open. Inside, there were a group of students hovering around Butters, who was lying on the floor in fear. She hid back to see what the heck they were saying and doing to him, and she gathered that they were teasing him for actually sitting with her in lunch. They were trying to get his goat by saying Wendy had caught nerd germs by being around him, and when he tried to object, he got hit. And the fact that he was almost crying from this punch made them laugh more and more. "Aw, look at the little baby crying from getting a boo-boo. What a faggy little pussy buttpirate, huh fellas?" This taunt from the largest member of the group made the assholes laugh more and more and have more fun in calling Butters a fag pussy for crying.
As they did this, none of them saw Wendy watching them, nor could they sense that her blood was practically boiling the more she saw this spectacle. She had already killed someone before, but that was when she hired Iraqis to do the job. Now she almost felt like she could kill these people with her bare hands this time- but she thought of a better idea instead. She went inside the closet just as the Butters torturing group finished their next round of lauging at the scared Butters.
"Hey guys, having fun?" The group turned to finally see that Wendy was there. The largest boy then figured it was time to turn on the charm, since one of the hottest girls in school was nearby and she might wanna have fun "playing" with a real man instead of that pussy Stan. "Just playing around with nerds, babe. I don't wanna brag, but I do the best job of pushing people around. And away from people who I like, if you get my meaning." Since Wendy was smart enough to know the meaning, it took more of her self control to avoid strangling him right there. But she stuck to her plan and leaned right up close to the bully, putting her hand on his chest. "You sure are a real man, aren't you? I'll bet you don't get hurt by anything.", she went on as her hand went lower and lower down the boy's chest. "I'm not even sure you'd be hurt by something like this!"
And with that, she made her move as she put his hand on the front of his pants, and squeezd his covered testicles with almost superhuman strength. She just kept squeezing and crushing the balls with her hand as the others were too stunned to do anything, and her victim obviously was in too much pain to fight back. Finally one of his friends pleaded, "Come on, stop doing that, man!" But all Wendy said was, "Not until I see some tears." And once she squeezed hard enough so that the bully was showing a few tears from so much pain, she finally pushed him against the wall and let go, leaving him in the fetal position to try and heal. Wendy then turned her attention to the nearly crippled kid's friends.
"If I EVER see or hear about any of you hurting Butters again....well, when I get done with you, you'll only wish you were in as much pain as this guy is in right now." And since that meant they would be in enough pain to nearly kill them, the group took this threat rather seriously and ran off to feel relieved that their balls weren't the ones that were bruised. With the threat very clearly made, Wendy helped Butters up and left the closet to take him home, leaving the bully there to try his best not to throw up.
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"From that day on, a lot of those kids really got the message that if I got picked on, someone would fight back for me. A few of them didn't pay attention since they weren't afraid of what they called, wussy girls. But after they heard about Wendy's ball crushing abilities, they began to back off a little. And as many of you know, she talked the guys into paying more attention to me and finding time to include me in their activities and stuff. And by the time the year was over, she helped make sure I was picked on less even though we didn't share any classes together! I got more of my work done and I got my grades up with little trouble!" The present day Butters cleared his throat before he got to the most important part of the story.
"So by the time the school year ended, the anniversary of the South Park riots was coming up. I knew some people might say that Wendy didn't deserve to still be free from prison, and they'd say it in the editoral section of the newspaper. Well, since I knew that those kind of comments weren't fair, and they would too if they spent more than 10 minutes with her.....I decided to send something to the paper as a thank you present."
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It was the middle of May, and the freshman year of high school of the South Park kids was nearly over. Also, on this particular day, it was exactly 5 years ago that the final battle between Stan Marsh and Francis Widmark took place over Wendy's imprisonment for Ellen Widmark's murder. Many people still thought it was wrong for her to get out of her prison sentence after those riots and after Widmark's suicide. A few weeks earlier, Butters decided that those comments wouldn't be the only ones in the editorial section of the paper that day. So he wrote a speech and requested that it be put in the paper on the anniversary date- and Butters was overjoyed to see that it had that morning. With that, he bought the paper before he went to school, and before he had to go to his first class, he found Wendy in the hallways with Bebe and walked over to them.
"Wendy? I, uh, since I'm not getting tortured or beaten anymore because of you, and since today's such a big day....I figured you should have this." She handed Wendy the paper that he bought, and naturally the two girls were confused about this kind of present. "Open to the editorial page and you'll find it there." Wendy turned her attention to the paper and found a substantial editorial that went something like this.
5 years ago South Park almost got destroyed over the war to free Wendy Testaburger. 5 years ago a police chief killed himself rather than face jail time for murdering people to keep her locked up. 5 years ago her friends finished the job of talking the governer into letting her go. But even to this day people still believe that was the worst possible thing to do. All they think about is how Wendy hired enemies of our country to murder an innocent lesbian because she thought she wanted sex with her boyfriend, though of course she didn't. But that's all they want to see. They either don't see or don't wanna see the girl who's the smartest person I know[sorry Kyle]They don't see that she's done so much to make up for her mistakes, and though she knows she can never really make up for those mistakes, it doesn't stop her from being good enough to make sure the sacrifices of that mob weren't for nothing. And here's something they really wouldn't bother to see. She could spend all her time being smart and ignoring less intellegent people and only thinking of her troubles and Stan's. But instead she takes the time to think of others before herself, and she's just as likely to do an overboard gesture for someone like me as she would for people more important to her.
I wouldn't be well enough to write this message if it wasn't for Wendy Testaburger. I can't change some people's minds about her but I can stay plently mad at you anyway. Because if you knew her like me and everyone else did, you'd be glad we almost destroyed the town to help get her back. I for one am very lucky and very proud to call her my friend, and lots of other people are too. I just wanted to remind the people of South Park that some of us are glad she's on the outside today.
Thank you, Wendy, and thanks to the paper for holding this speech until today like I asked.
Sincerely,
Butters Stotch.
Before an overcome Wendy could bring herself to look up and thank Butters, the bell had already rung and he was already in his first class, and barely on time too.
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The present day Butters then pulled out that very same newspaper editorial from 4 years ago to show to everyone. "A few days ago when I was in Wendy's room, looking for some ideas for the eulogy, I found this on her desk. She cut out my article and kept it in her room all these years. Maybe it was to satisfy her ego, I don't know. But I like to think she did that because she knew how hard I worked on it and how much....how much I wanted to show my appreciation for everything she did for me that year, and how much I appreciated her friendship period. That article, and what she did to make me write it, well, it really sums up everything you need to remember about her. It's those type of things she did for me and everyone here that explain why we worked so hard to get her sentence overturned, and why we're all here to show how much we miss her. At least that's what I think."
Butters was on the verge of tears already, but he knew he'd go overboard if he saw the sad reaction and tears of the mourners a second longer. So since he had made his points, he went down from the pulpit and considered his speech finished. But before he went to sit down, he wanted to see Wendy's open casket.
Unlike the last time he saw her, when she was unconsious and bloody from a car accident, this time she looked serene and peaceful. It almost made him cry and made him feel relieved that this would be Butters last image of her. Of course since it was the last time he would see her face up close, that gave the sad part the upper hand. Overcome from this, he leaned down and gave her a brief kiss on her already pale forehead, then he muttered "Goodbye" and went to his seat before he saw any of his fellow mourners faces again. And for the longest time, he didn't get why he actually kissed that dead body, since that was gonna be Stan's job later on.
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A few hours later at the local cemetary, the casket was closed and put into Wendy's grave, and at this point they were already putting dirt on it. The mourners were out getting their last looks at the casket, or walking around to find something else to do with their time. Butters was just standing around until he saw Ms Testaburger coming towards him, then he didn't know what to do. But he decided to stay as the ex-mother struggled to find whatever she wanted to say to him.
"I, I never knew that was the real reason why you wrote that speech. Better late than never, I guess." Ann Testaburger now looked like she was losing her fight to hold back her tears, and finally she let them go while her head was on Butters's shoulder. Now he had no choice but to embrace her and let her put tear stains on his blue tux. When she finished, all she could say was "Thank you. Thank you for giving me one last good memory of her. Now I'm all alone." Since she was all alone now, Butters didn't really have anything to say to reassure her, so he let her go off to wipe her tears and morn with someone else. Once she left, Kyle came over to him.
"That was a cool speech, Butters. I almost forgot how much Wendy bugged us to let you in our games that year, but you reminded me." Kyle paused to catch himself from getting emotional. "You never really appreciate how much someone can bug you or how someone was actually smarter than you until they're gone, huh? She was really the only smart person other than me and Stan in this damm town, and I should have taken advantage of that more often."
"Sure Kyle, whatever you say." was all Butters could say. He looked around for a bit until he found Stan standing right at Wendy's grave, watching the dirt being put on the casket. Butters then started to panic. "Kyle, you'd better go before Stan looks for you and he finds me!"
"You don't want him to talk to you about the eulogy? Or about how you obviously kissed her before you sat down?" Kyle did really know why Butters didn't wanna be near Stan, but he figured he might be able to get Butters to stop thinking about it with those accusations. They didn't work. "If Stan sees me, he's gonna yell at me and tell me it's all my fault she's dead! If she hadn't gone to my house to help me study, she wouldn't have been near that car and she wouldn't have died! I know that enough without him taking out his rage on me!"
"I know Butters, I know. But if we did try to talk to him before he said that.....what would we say?" Both Kyle and Butters shut up and looked at Stan. They saw that no one else was near him because, like them, they didn't know how to talk to him. He had lost the one and only love of his life[if you discount Miss Ellen since that was just a stupid crush that led to many deaths], so how could anyone talk to him and say everything was gonna be okay? How could they face him without driving him to even more pain and suffering? Like Kyle said, what could they say?
And now that Wendy was officially laid to rest....what was he going to do with the rest of his life now?