*Note: Hey, everyone! Are these notes getting annoying for any of you? I
just recently started reading this Manga/ Anime series called Fushigi Yûgi.
The author (Yu Watase) writes a column along the edges on the pages. I
love the storyline, but it's really fun to read those personal excerpts
too. I'm kinda hooked! Well, anyway, is the whole Carlotta, Christine,
and Raoul love triangle (?) working? I thought it added a nice twist to
the plotline. A lot will be explained in the next few chapters.
To follow up, I'm starting at the end of the school day. Christine's classes after lunch (in case you want to know) were Geography, French, P.E., and Biology. I'll go into detail later, but it's kind of difficult to write about an entire school day (don't be sad! You get to meet T.P. soon! After detention, that is...)
Oh, and T.P. stands for Theatre Phantom (since the school Arts Center isn't really an opera...). But, The Phantom works too! Honestly, I would have guessed that too, if I hadn't written the story...
~~~~~~~~~
Christine picked up the school phone and started to dial. "I wish Meg were here." She thought.
"Hello? Mama? Mama, I got detention... For Mr. Hurtinside..."
Christine grimaced while she heard Mama Valerius' disappointed sigh on the other side of the line. Mama would never yell at Christine, but Christine sometimes wished she would. That sigh was too good for Christine, and she knew it. She hated it when people were disappointed in her.
"Mama, I'm going to get a ride with Ms. Giry." Christine thought about Meg and felt sorry for her. She knew Ms. Giry was strict, even to Meg. It was times like those that Christine knew why Ms. Giry was single... "It's hard love, I suppose..." Meg remarked some time ago.
Mama agreed and hung up, with a goodbye that Christine didn't deserve. "I'm too terrible..." She thought as she headed to Mr. Hurtinside's room.
When she arrived, Meg was already sitting down and working. Apparently, as Christine learned later, Meg was asked to write the definition of a "geezer" fifty times. Christine saw Mr. Hurtinside. He looked up with a startling exhausted look in his tired eyes (which was quite different than what she had seen this morning)... And, surprisingly, all he said was, "Work on you homework, Miss Daae, till your friend is finished. Then you both may leave."
Christine got out her Algebra since it was the only homework she had (none of the other teachers gave homework on the first day). She began to work and suddenly she heard something... A soft, and beautiful, song...
"In an ALGEBRA ROOM?" Christine thought. She looked at Mr. Hurtinside and Meg. They seemed not to hear it. "This is weird... What kind of a school is this?! I wish that song would stop, I have to concentrate..."
As if the voice had heard her, it stopped, abruptly. So abruptly, in fact, that Christine gasped in surprise.
Meg looked over at her and cocked her head. She mouthed, "Are you okay?"
Christine mouthed back, "Did you hear anything?"
Meg shook her head. Mr. Hurtinside cleared his throat and Meg got right back to work.
Christine shrugged, "It's probably nothing..." She thought.
She stared at her Algebra homework, as if it was going to finish itself. "This might be a blessing in disguise... I have the Algebra teacher here if I need him... But I can't think!"
Try as she might, she couldn't think of how to get to the High School tonight to meet "T.P." "I could sneak out..." She thought, "But, I've been in enough trouble today. I should probably just forget about it."
She beat the pencil on her paper. "Why me?" She thought. "Why did I have to be so curious?"
She glanced over at Meg. "I hope she gets finished soon. I want to go home..." Meg looked at Mr. Hurtinside and sighed. Then she looked at Christine.
"How many more do you have?" Christine mouthed.
Meg showed the number 3 on her fingers. Christine gave a thumbs up. "Good, we'll be able to leave soon." she thought.
In less than ten minutes, Meg had finished her definitions. Christine got up and gathered up her homework. "Let's go." Meg said.
Meg made her way to the door, without even glancing back. Christine said, "Goodbye Mr. Hurtinside. I'll see you tomorrow in class..." He cleared his throat again. It seemed like he didn't hear her.
When she got out into the hallway, Meg said, "You know Christine? Sometimes you are some kind of suck-up."
"I can't help it! He's just and old man... Someone's got to be kind to him. What if he doesn't even have a family to go home to? How said is that?"
"That doesn't mean YOU have to be his family..."
Christine shook her head. She knew Meg was going to hold a grudge against Mr. Hurtinside the rest of the school year.
They walked back down to the Singing Arts room. Ms. Giry was typing on her computer, looking very stern.
"Mom, we're done..."
Her mother did not turn to face her. "The keys are on the desk," She said, "wait for me in the car."
Meg took the keys and Christine followed her to their eccentrically old vehicle. "Do you think you mom is mad?" Christine said.
"No da." Meg replied, sarcastically.
Quickly, the got into the car. It was extremely hot and stuffy, since it had been sitting outside the whole day. Meg opened her window, but it only let more hot air in. A midday breeze in August was anything but refreshing.
Christine kept thinking about getting back to the theater tonight. "I have to sneak out; there's no other option." Again, the thought of lying, tattoos, and murder or jail filled her brain again. She started to sweat.
Meg had her head stuck outside the window, like a puppy on the freeway. "I could sure go for a sundae..." She said.
Christine, shaken out of her thoughts of the electric chair, replied, "Hmm?"
"A sundae. I could sure go for one."
"Oh, yeah, me too."
Again, silence enveloped the tiny, stuffy car. The school door swinging open to reveal a miffed Ms. Giry broke the silence. Christine was somewhat glad to see her.
She walked up to the car and opened the door, "Meg, get your head out of the window. You look like a puppy!"
"That's the look I was going for!"
Meg got in but not without nodding to Christine to open her window.
Before Christine realized her surroundings, due the delirious weight of the heat, they had arrived at Meg's house.
"We're here." Ms. Giry said.
"Thank you Ms. Giry."
"Anytime, Christine. Have a nice night." Despite Ms. Giry's stern disposition, she was surprisingly polite.
"You too. Bye Meg." Christine got out of their car and looked back at Meg, who had a pleading look on her face with both hands stuck up against the window. "Oh, I wish I could take you with me too..." Christine thought. "But, to her credit, she really does look like a puppy..."
Christine walked across the street to her house. Inside her living room window, she could see Mama quietly knitting. "Maybe I should just not come in. She looks so happy just sitting there..."
She sat down on the porch, on Mama's coveted rocking chair. She sighed. "After all Mama has done for me..."
She started to remember her parents. Well, her father, particularly. She could even hear him saying to her, "I'll be back from the war soon... Don't cry..."
She remembered that day even though she was only five years old...
~(flashback)
Her best dress was flitting in the wind on that windy, cloudy day. "Daddy, don't go... Please?" she sniveled.
He bent down next to her and gave her a hug. "Now, come on, be a good girl. Mama will take good care of you."
He looked up at Mama Valerius. "Thank you, Aunt Virginia. Since Catherine died in that accident, I haven't been able to find any decent caretaker... I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you enough..."
"Not a word, Charles. My thanks is getting to take care of your little angel..." She smiled warmly at Christine.
He looked back at Christine. "Yes. My little angel who has so much of her mother in her..." His eyes began to water with the only tears that can fall from an adoring father's eyes. He hugged Christine again and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you, my darling."
"I love you too, daddy."
She watched him take his bag and run on the plane. She noticed that his pair of shiny pilot's wings had fallen out of his pocket. "Daddy!" She yelled. He turned around. "What honey?" He yelled back.
"You left your wings!" She yelled.
The propeller started to turn. There wasn't much time. "Take care of them for me... An angel needs her wings!"
She smiled and yelled back as he ran to the plane. "I'll take care of them!"
That was the last she would ever see of him...
~(end flashback)
And there she was crying, on her porch, on that extremely hot day. "Daddy..." She whispered through her tears.
"Why did I have to think of that?" she thought angrily. "I always get so depressed!"
She got up and shook herself out of it. She looked inside the window. Mama had left.
She gathered up her things and opened the tattered screen door. They didn't have any air conditioning to speak of, but Christine never really minded. "Mama?" Christine called.
"I'm in the kitchen dear!" Mama called.
Christine found Mama with her head stuck in the freezer. "Mama? What are you doing?"
"It's very hot today." Mama said as she closed the door. "This freezer is the only thing keeping my hairspray on."
Christine laughed. Mama was always a little eccentric, in a good way.
"How was detention?"
Christine was a little taken aback by the question, since it had come so suddenly. "Well, um, it was better than I expected..." She said. "But, I WON'T get used to it!" She added, as an afterthought.
"I know you won't, Christine. You are always too anxious to please me. That's probably the only thing keeping me alive!"
"Don't say such things!" Christine said.
Mama nodded and went back into the kitchen. "I'll cook dinner." She said. "I'm sure you must have homework."
Christine quietly went up the stairs to her room. When she arrived inside, she dropped her bag and fell limply on her bed. "What a day! What a night..."
"How should I go about this? Can I physically climb out the window?" She thought.
The heavy weight of the humid afternoon began to weigh just as heavily on her eyelids. Before she even realized it, she had fallen asleep.
She woke up to the sound of Mama calling her down to dinner. "I'm coming!" she called.
"Man," she said as she made her way downstairs, "I haven't even touched my Algebra homework... It's like it doesn't want me to finish it."
She sat down at the table and began to eat. She could barely touch her food, all the butterflies in her stomach were making such a commotion!
"Mama..." Christine said, sheepishly.
"Yes?"
"I'm not really that hungry tonight... But I am very tired. It's been a long, hard day." She winced internally at the thought of lying. It was not part of her nature.
"Well, if you're sure..."
"Yes."
Christine got up to kiss Mama goodnight. "Goodnight," she said.
"Sleep well."
As she trudged her way back up the stairs, she silently prayed to herself to let GOD forgive her for this. Someday, maybe.
"Okay," she thought. "First, I should rearrange my pillows..." She fluffed up her pillows to make it seem like she was lying there.
"Now, a flashlight... Dark clothes... Maybe some money... A watch... The key to my bike lock... And..." She smiled, "Some pepper spray." Time passed faster than Christine had realized while she had been waiting and gathering things in her room. She estimated that it would take her at least thirty minutes to get to the school. It was eight thirty then.
Sitting there, in her black clothes, looking like the spitting image of a secret agent, on her small bed. "I will sweat these clothes through. Maybe I should change... No! If he, or she, is dangerous, I want a quick getaway..." It was then she realized that she had been watching too many cop shows with Mama Valerius.
She walked quietly out of her room and down the stairs. The kitchen was a blind spot from the living room, as she managed to sneak out the patio door.
She opened the garage and wheeled her bike out. "Why am I doing this?" She thought. "I never remember being this insane... Maybe I wanted to live an adventure for myself for a change, instead of reading in a book all the time..."
She nodded in resolution, got on her bike, and headed out into the steamy summer night...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She had all her hair tucked beneath an old black ski cap. She was looking rather ridiculous riding down the main roads. She was almost pulled over by a policeman, if she hadn't taken that short-cut through Pine St.
It took her a relatively short time to get to the school, since it seemed like every cop in the district was chasing her. She huffed as she lazily slid off her bike. She leaned it up against the side of the theatre, deciding it best not to put the bike lock on, because it would delay her if she had to make a quick getaway.
She walked up to the front doors and, to her astonished surprise, they were indeed unlocked.
Apprehensively, she tiptoed softly into the theatre. She thought the hall was dark in the daytime, it was nothing compared to the night.
She gulped loudly, in spite of herself. Although every fiber of her being was telling her not to go on, to head back, she felt herself moving forward. The only sounds that echoed in the mask laden foyer were the gentle sound of her feet and the sound of her feverishly shaking the can of pepper spray.
She whipped out her flashlight, finally, and found her way backstage. "This was a BAD idea!" she whimpered.
At the very end of the backstage area, she spotted the girls' dressing room. "Well... Here it is..."
Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She pulled on the door handle and heard it creak open. She kept swallowing hard, to keep her heart from coming up her throat.
As she opened the door, a sliver of light from the room illuminated the backstage. The light was downright blinding. She let go of the pepper spray to shield her eyes...
"Hello, Curiosity... I've been waiting for you."
That voice, it sounded familiar... Somehow...
Before she gather in her surroundings, a very cold hand emerged from the lights and dragged her in...
~End of Part One~
*Yeah, yeah. I know this isn't a lot that we see of "him", but this was a REALLY LONG chapter, don't you think (eight pages... TYPED!)? At least you know that T.P. is definitely going to be in the next chapter. Stay tuned! You will NOT be disappointed!
To follow up, I'm starting at the end of the school day. Christine's classes after lunch (in case you want to know) were Geography, French, P.E., and Biology. I'll go into detail later, but it's kind of difficult to write about an entire school day (don't be sad! You get to meet T.P. soon! After detention, that is...)
Oh, and T.P. stands for Theatre Phantom (since the school Arts Center isn't really an opera...). But, The Phantom works too! Honestly, I would have guessed that too, if I hadn't written the story...
~~~~~~~~~
Christine picked up the school phone and started to dial. "I wish Meg were here." She thought.
"Hello? Mama? Mama, I got detention... For Mr. Hurtinside..."
Christine grimaced while she heard Mama Valerius' disappointed sigh on the other side of the line. Mama would never yell at Christine, but Christine sometimes wished she would. That sigh was too good for Christine, and she knew it. She hated it when people were disappointed in her.
"Mama, I'm going to get a ride with Ms. Giry." Christine thought about Meg and felt sorry for her. She knew Ms. Giry was strict, even to Meg. It was times like those that Christine knew why Ms. Giry was single... "It's hard love, I suppose..." Meg remarked some time ago.
Mama agreed and hung up, with a goodbye that Christine didn't deserve. "I'm too terrible..." She thought as she headed to Mr. Hurtinside's room.
When she arrived, Meg was already sitting down and working. Apparently, as Christine learned later, Meg was asked to write the definition of a "geezer" fifty times. Christine saw Mr. Hurtinside. He looked up with a startling exhausted look in his tired eyes (which was quite different than what she had seen this morning)... And, surprisingly, all he said was, "Work on you homework, Miss Daae, till your friend is finished. Then you both may leave."
Christine got out her Algebra since it was the only homework she had (none of the other teachers gave homework on the first day). She began to work and suddenly she heard something... A soft, and beautiful, song...
"In an ALGEBRA ROOM?" Christine thought. She looked at Mr. Hurtinside and Meg. They seemed not to hear it. "This is weird... What kind of a school is this?! I wish that song would stop, I have to concentrate..."
As if the voice had heard her, it stopped, abruptly. So abruptly, in fact, that Christine gasped in surprise.
Meg looked over at her and cocked her head. She mouthed, "Are you okay?"
Christine mouthed back, "Did you hear anything?"
Meg shook her head. Mr. Hurtinside cleared his throat and Meg got right back to work.
Christine shrugged, "It's probably nothing..." She thought.
She stared at her Algebra homework, as if it was going to finish itself. "This might be a blessing in disguise... I have the Algebra teacher here if I need him... But I can't think!"
Try as she might, she couldn't think of how to get to the High School tonight to meet "T.P." "I could sneak out..." She thought, "But, I've been in enough trouble today. I should probably just forget about it."
She beat the pencil on her paper. "Why me?" She thought. "Why did I have to be so curious?"
She glanced over at Meg. "I hope she gets finished soon. I want to go home..." Meg looked at Mr. Hurtinside and sighed. Then she looked at Christine.
"How many more do you have?" Christine mouthed.
Meg showed the number 3 on her fingers. Christine gave a thumbs up. "Good, we'll be able to leave soon." she thought.
In less than ten minutes, Meg had finished her definitions. Christine got up and gathered up her homework. "Let's go." Meg said.
Meg made her way to the door, without even glancing back. Christine said, "Goodbye Mr. Hurtinside. I'll see you tomorrow in class..." He cleared his throat again. It seemed like he didn't hear her.
When she got out into the hallway, Meg said, "You know Christine? Sometimes you are some kind of suck-up."
"I can't help it! He's just and old man... Someone's got to be kind to him. What if he doesn't even have a family to go home to? How said is that?"
"That doesn't mean YOU have to be his family..."
Christine shook her head. She knew Meg was going to hold a grudge against Mr. Hurtinside the rest of the school year.
They walked back down to the Singing Arts room. Ms. Giry was typing on her computer, looking very stern.
"Mom, we're done..."
Her mother did not turn to face her. "The keys are on the desk," She said, "wait for me in the car."
Meg took the keys and Christine followed her to their eccentrically old vehicle. "Do you think you mom is mad?" Christine said.
"No da." Meg replied, sarcastically.
Quickly, the got into the car. It was extremely hot and stuffy, since it had been sitting outside the whole day. Meg opened her window, but it only let more hot air in. A midday breeze in August was anything but refreshing.
Christine kept thinking about getting back to the theater tonight. "I have to sneak out; there's no other option." Again, the thought of lying, tattoos, and murder or jail filled her brain again. She started to sweat.
Meg had her head stuck outside the window, like a puppy on the freeway. "I could sure go for a sundae..." She said.
Christine, shaken out of her thoughts of the electric chair, replied, "Hmm?"
"A sundae. I could sure go for one."
"Oh, yeah, me too."
Again, silence enveloped the tiny, stuffy car. The school door swinging open to reveal a miffed Ms. Giry broke the silence. Christine was somewhat glad to see her.
She walked up to the car and opened the door, "Meg, get your head out of the window. You look like a puppy!"
"That's the look I was going for!"
Meg got in but not without nodding to Christine to open her window.
Before Christine realized her surroundings, due the delirious weight of the heat, they had arrived at Meg's house.
"We're here." Ms. Giry said.
"Thank you Ms. Giry."
"Anytime, Christine. Have a nice night." Despite Ms. Giry's stern disposition, she was surprisingly polite.
"You too. Bye Meg." Christine got out of their car and looked back at Meg, who had a pleading look on her face with both hands stuck up against the window. "Oh, I wish I could take you with me too..." Christine thought. "But, to her credit, she really does look like a puppy..."
Christine walked across the street to her house. Inside her living room window, she could see Mama quietly knitting. "Maybe I should just not come in. She looks so happy just sitting there..."
She sat down on the porch, on Mama's coveted rocking chair. She sighed. "After all Mama has done for me..."
She started to remember her parents. Well, her father, particularly. She could even hear him saying to her, "I'll be back from the war soon... Don't cry..."
She remembered that day even though she was only five years old...
~(flashback)
Her best dress was flitting in the wind on that windy, cloudy day. "Daddy, don't go... Please?" she sniveled.
He bent down next to her and gave her a hug. "Now, come on, be a good girl. Mama will take good care of you."
He looked up at Mama Valerius. "Thank you, Aunt Virginia. Since Catherine died in that accident, I haven't been able to find any decent caretaker... I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you enough..."
"Not a word, Charles. My thanks is getting to take care of your little angel..." She smiled warmly at Christine.
He looked back at Christine. "Yes. My little angel who has so much of her mother in her..." His eyes began to water with the only tears that can fall from an adoring father's eyes. He hugged Christine again and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you, my darling."
"I love you too, daddy."
She watched him take his bag and run on the plane. She noticed that his pair of shiny pilot's wings had fallen out of his pocket. "Daddy!" She yelled. He turned around. "What honey?" He yelled back.
"You left your wings!" She yelled.
The propeller started to turn. There wasn't much time. "Take care of them for me... An angel needs her wings!"
She smiled and yelled back as he ran to the plane. "I'll take care of them!"
That was the last she would ever see of him...
~(end flashback)
And there she was crying, on her porch, on that extremely hot day. "Daddy..." She whispered through her tears.
"Why did I have to think of that?" she thought angrily. "I always get so depressed!"
She got up and shook herself out of it. She looked inside the window. Mama had left.
She gathered up her things and opened the tattered screen door. They didn't have any air conditioning to speak of, but Christine never really minded. "Mama?" Christine called.
"I'm in the kitchen dear!" Mama called.
Christine found Mama with her head stuck in the freezer. "Mama? What are you doing?"
"It's very hot today." Mama said as she closed the door. "This freezer is the only thing keeping my hairspray on."
Christine laughed. Mama was always a little eccentric, in a good way.
"How was detention?"
Christine was a little taken aback by the question, since it had come so suddenly. "Well, um, it was better than I expected..." She said. "But, I WON'T get used to it!" She added, as an afterthought.
"I know you won't, Christine. You are always too anxious to please me. That's probably the only thing keeping me alive!"
"Don't say such things!" Christine said.
Mama nodded and went back into the kitchen. "I'll cook dinner." She said. "I'm sure you must have homework."
Christine quietly went up the stairs to her room. When she arrived inside, she dropped her bag and fell limply on her bed. "What a day! What a night..."
"How should I go about this? Can I physically climb out the window?" She thought.
The heavy weight of the humid afternoon began to weigh just as heavily on her eyelids. Before she even realized it, she had fallen asleep.
She woke up to the sound of Mama calling her down to dinner. "I'm coming!" she called.
"Man," she said as she made her way downstairs, "I haven't even touched my Algebra homework... It's like it doesn't want me to finish it."
She sat down at the table and began to eat. She could barely touch her food, all the butterflies in her stomach were making such a commotion!
"Mama..." Christine said, sheepishly.
"Yes?"
"I'm not really that hungry tonight... But I am very tired. It's been a long, hard day." She winced internally at the thought of lying. It was not part of her nature.
"Well, if you're sure..."
"Yes."
Christine got up to kiss Mama goodnight. "Goodnight," she said.
"Sleep well."
As she trudged her way back up the stairs, she silently prayed to herself to let GOD forgive her for this. Someday, maybe.
"Okay," she thought. "First, I should rearrange my pillows..." She fluffed up her pillows to make it seem like she was lying there.
"Now, a flashlight... Dark clothes... Maybe some money... A watch... The key to my bike lock... And..." She smiled, "Some pepper spray." Time passed faster than Christine had realized while she had been waiting and gathering things in her room. She estimated that it would take her at least thirty minutes to get to the school. It was eight thirty then.
Sitting there, in her black clothes, looking like the spitting image of a secret agent, on her small bed. "I will sweat these clothes through. Maybe I should change... No! If he, or she, is dangerous, I want a quick getaway..." It was then she realized that she had been watching too many cop shows with Mama Valerius.
She walked quietly out of her room and down the stairs. The kitchen was a blind spot from the living room, as she managed to sneak out the patio door.
She opened the garage and wheeled her bike out. "Why am I doing this?" She thought. "I never remember being this insane... Maybe I wanted to live an adventure for myself for a change, instead of reading in a book all the time..."
She nodded in resolution, got on her bike, and headed out into the steamy summer night...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She had all her hair tucked beneath an old black ski cap. She was looking rather ridiculous riding down the main roads. She was almost pulled over by a policeman, if she hadn't taken that short-cut through Pine St.
It took her a relatively short time to get to the school, since it seemed like every cop in the district was chasing her. She huffed as she lazily slid off her bike. She leaned it up against the side of the theatre, deciding it best not to put the bike lock on, because it would delay her if she had to make a quick getaway.
She walked up to the front doors and, to her astonished surprise, they were indeed unlocked.
Apprehensively, she tiptoed softly into the theatre. She thought the hall was dark in the daytime, it was nothing compared to the night.
She gulped loudly, in spite of herself. Although every fiber of her being was telling her not to go on, to head back, she felt herself moving forward. The only sounds that echoed in the mask laden foyer were the gentle sound of her feet and the sound of her feverishly shaking the can of pepper spray.
She whipped out her flashlight, finally, and found her way backstage. "This was a BAD idea!" she whimpered.
At the very end of the backstage area, she spotted the girls' dressing room. "Well... Here it is..."
Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She pulled on the door handle and heard it creak open. She kept swallowing hard, to keep her heart from coming up her throat.
As she opened the door, a sliver of light from the room illuminated the backstage. The light was downright blinding. She let go of the pepper spray to shield her eyes...
"Hello, Curiosity... I've been waiting for you."
That voice, it sounded familiar... Somehow...
Before she gather in her surroundings, a very cold hand emerged from the lights and dragged her in...
~End of Part One~
*Yeah, yeah. I know this isn't a lot that we see of "him", but this was a REALLY LONG chapter, don't you think (eight pages... TYPED!)? At least you know that T.P. is definitely going to be in the next chapter. Stay tuned! You will NOT be disappointed!