Chapter Four
As Natalie gets home, Fred opens the front door for her. Natalie groans and turns around to go back to her car, but Fred catches up with her and pushes her into the house and up to her room.
"So," he says, sitting Natalie down on the bed. "What are we going to do about this revenge?"
"Nothing," Natalie replies, "Absolutely nothing."
"Oh come on Poo Shoes! This is what Drop Dead Fred is really good at," Fred says, leaning against the door frame into the closet. Natalie gets up and pushes him into the closet shutting the door on him. "We've got to think of something really mean," his voice comes through the door, apparently unaffected by the closed door. He appears sitting on her bed, bouncing up and down. "I know, I know! We could cut off all her hair, or send her horrible gifts, or write 'Karen stinks of poo' all over the school walls." Fred looks so enthusiastic. "Or, we could put worms in that gunk she puts all over her face."
"I'd love to Fred, I sure would love to."
"What's that blue stuff anyway?" asks Fred, not bouncing so violently.
"It's chapstick, but it's clear but the blue pigment makes your teeth look whiter. Hey. Blue, Fred, I got an idea," she says, rolling onto her tummy on the bed and groping around under the bed for something, pulling out a make-up case. "I've got one of those blue sticks somewhere." She triumphantly pulls out a chapstick tube. "Alright." Natalie says, rolling up all the chapstick and throwing it in the bin, leaving the tube. "I need some beeswax." Fred, cooperatively pulls out a bees nest from a pocket, bees still buzzing around it. "Fred! Get rid of it! I don't want bees in my room, throw it out the window, where the hell did you get it?" Natalie opens the sash window for him.
"Back pocket, with the mice and worm slime," says Fred, putting the bees nest under his jacket where it disappeared. Natalie lays on the floor, back under the bed.
"Let me get the stuff I need," she says. Pulling things from under the bed until she finds what she's looking for, a paper bag containing two sticks of beeswax and a box of vitamin e capsules. She takes a small glass jar from one drawer and runs downstairs, slamming the door behind her. Fred, not wanting to miss anything, follows her at quite a pace, banging into the closed door.
"You, you, you, door! Who put you there?" he asks the door, running at it again, and again bouncing back off it. He tries one more time, and he runs straight through it.
In the kitchen Natalie has taken out a saucepan and placed it on the hob, full of water that's heating up. She's grating the stick of beeswax.
"Natalie, I'm bored," says Fred, after silently watching her grate the stick for about thirty seconds.
"Well, go and do something else, you weren't here for seventeen years, I'm sure you weren't bored for that long," says Natalie, putting the grated wax into the jar, followed by some olive oil and the contents of the vitamin e capsule and six or seven generous drops of blue food dye. She puts a drop on the end of one finger and then washes it down the sink, the blue mark remained. "Good." She drops the little jar into the boiling water, where it floats, and she stirs it with a cocktail stick.
Fred looks extremely bored, head resting on his hand, propped up on the worktop. Fifteen minutes have gone past and the wax is only just starting to melt, while Natalie stirs it. Fred, now too tired to keep himself propped up, slithers to the floor, where he lies still.
"Are you done yet?" he asks.
"Nearly," replies Natalie, as Elizabeth comes into the kitchen in a flowing pink skirt and white blouse. She walks up to Natalie.
"What're you up to?" she asks her, peering over her shoulder.
"I'm making some cosmetics," Natalie replies. She hears Fred hiss and looks down at him. He's laying on his back, where he fell, looking up Elizabeth's skirt. Elizabeth moves and he uses his feet to slide himself on his back wherever she goes. Natalie just rolls her eyes. Elizabeth goes to the fridge and gets some cold water. "I'm nearly done," Natalie says, turning off the heat and picking up the jar with a pair of tweezers, pouring the runny blue substance into the empty chapstick tube. She lets it cool for a second, pouring the hot water down the sink, and then runs the now cool waxy substance over another finger, leaving a strong blue mark. "Excellent," she says, putting the cap on the tube and putting the tube in her pocket.
Natalie sits a chair behind Karen in Psychology, looking into Karen's bag, at the same clear chapstick tube, idly tapping her pen on the desk, not listening to what Mr. Preston is saying. He turns around, and tells them to get on with their work, the instructions being up on the board. Natalie throws her pen down by Karen's seat, Karen, who wouldn't help Natalie if she was being eaten up by a mad rhinoceros, looks down at the pen and then back up. Natalie slides off her chair, chapstick in hand and picks up the pen, sneakily replacing the clear chapstick with the blue one.
Natalie doesn't see Karen for most of the day after that. But, she does pass her with all her popular friends when Natalie's at her locker, piling all her books into it at the end of the day. Karen walks past, her lips a royal blue, sulking like a four year old. Natalie smirks into her locker, just noticing Karen glaring at her blue-tipped fingers as she stalks past.
"Shit," says Natalie, banging her locker shut.
Oh well, there'll be payback for that. Ahh, don't worry, Fred's always coming up with something.
