Author's Note: …Once again, I'm struck dumb—
DALTON: Oh, we can only wish…
Well, almost speechless, by your overall fantasticness...because I never could have made it through my obligatory writer's block without so many suggestions and characters and emails and thinly veiled death threats, and everything else you've sent my way. "Ren & Stimpy" reruns also helped too, but…well, I just don't know who to thank for that one.
Nuwanda thinks I should have a point here. And the point is, feedback like this lets you take a step back from what you've been working on…and then another step back, and a step forward, and a step back again…and now we're tangoing!
Isn't cough syrup the greatest, by the way? Relieves headache, stuffiness, congestion, with delicious cherry flavor and a new non-drowsy formula! I feel bright-tailed and bushy-eyed…I could ride a horse! I could EAT a horse! I could—Zzzzzzzzzzz…
DALTON: This chapter was brought to you by the letter Q and the number 17,486. And now, on with the fic!
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Chinese Lantern
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Chapter Eight—
A Thoroughly Musical Situation
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"Only thing to do is jump over the moon."
—RENT
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Ginnie Skarbonkiewicz, Maddox's only female friend, Ram's reliable backup singer, and Max's eternal admirer, had always been very, very good at looking pretty, and not too talented at anything else. She was the kind of pleasant, open-faced beauty who had been hit on by the tree man when she was eleven years old; her looks had taken her this far in life, and would probably take her a lot farther. (It goes without saying that her parents had been seriously considering sending her to a nunnery since she turned fourteen.)
If she had wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer or an aluminum siding salesperson, she would have gone through a lifetime of agony and frustration—but, as things stood, she was more accepting of herself than many people who were a lot smarter than her. And if she wasn't exactly the brightest porch light on the block, then at least she was kind and funny and deeply faithful in the things that deserved her loyalty—Max, John Belushi, lemon drops, all animals including bats, George Gershwin, and her firm and deeply-rooted belief that, no matter what the situation, one should always expect that the absolute worst is true.
Which was really the only thing to do when Ram shook her awake after God only knew how long, and she found herself in an unfamiliar room with about twenty-five even more unfamiliar teenage boys. Of course, things only seemed to worsen when Ram surreptitiously turned one of the sleeping teenagers over, and appeared to be taking a look at his underwear.
"What in the name of Alec Baldwin are you doing?"
Ram sighed. "Trying to figure out who we're dealing with, what do you think?"
"By looking at his…"
"What?" he said defensively. "Doesn't your mom write your name in your underwear?"
"Um. No?" She paused. "Does yours?"
"Never mind," he muttered, turning whoever it was over. "Okay, ANTHONY HIGGINS, rise n' shine."
"Mmph…I'm up, I'm up." The boy leaned back on his elbows, surveying the two critically. "That'd be Racetrack, by the way," he added grumpily, rubbing at his eyes, and smoothing some dark hair away from his forehead.
Ram stared at him in disbelief. "Your parents named you 'Racetrack?'" No answer. "Were they drunk?"
"What kinda name you got?"
"Well…this is Ginnie, and I'm Ram."
"Ram? No kiddin'?"
"Sure," Ginnie said. "It's on his underwear and everything." Ram smacked her upside the head.
"So you're really named Ram?" Racetrack scoffed.
"It's short for Ramchandra. What? It's a family name."
Racetrack just looked at him. In his mind, he was considering his options. Obviously, whatever was going on, this wasn't the best of situations. He didn't know who these people were, but he could use whatever help he could get. What was the point in making enemies before he even knew what was happening?
He stuck out his hand to shake. "We'll call it even," he said.
"It's a deal."
And then, as intelligent teenagers are wont to do upon meeting each other for the first time, they stared at each other for a while in heightened awkwardness. Racetrack sighed, suddenly looking as pale as an arum lily. Ram nudged Ginnie. "Say something comforting."
Ginnie put on the comforting smile she had learned from years of watching Oprah. "I like your pants, Race."
"Thanks."
"They're very…um…plaid."
"Right." Racetrack paused, swallowing uncomfortably. "So Ram? Do me a favor?"
"Hm?"
"I think I'm gonna be sick on ya."
And, as usual, Racetrack was true to his word.
Ram sighed as he looked down at front at what had once been identifiable as Beavis and Butthead. "Well," he said, a little sadly, "I never liked that shirt much, anyway."
"Ram," Ginnie said. "That shirt was like the brother you never had, and you have three older brothers anyway."
"Well, can you blame me?"
Racetrack smiled, and cuffed him on the ear.
They were just beginning to talk things over and try to figure out their predicament (you bond with someone pretty quickly if they've just thrown up on you) when another curveball was thrown their way, this time in the form of a young woman stalking past the open door.
"So why are we here?"
"Dunno."
"How'd we get here?"
"Dunno."
"What happened, exactly? Do you remember anything?"
Racetrack sighed. "Look…the same thing happened to us as it did to you. An' I don't know what happened, but trust me when I say you're not gonna be home for dinner."
"But why would we—"
"Shut up, Ginnie."
"Okay."
Just then, the girl in question wandered past the door. Her dark hair was done up in a stiff pleat down her back and she looked as if she had just fallen out of bed, done up in little more than a loose pink dressing-gown, with a pair of snow-soft fox furs worn round her neck, and a silver clasp in her hair. She was holding an old book at arm's-length as she paced up and down the corridor, reciting the same verse over and over as she brushed her teeth. Suddenly, something in the room caught her eye, and she glanced over to them. From the moment her eyes rested on the occupants—Race, Ram and Ginnie sitting cross legged discussing their predicament, while everyone else lay sprawled out across the floorboards, unconscious—she looked as if she had seen a ghost.
For a second, it seemed as if she was about to faint. Then she let loose one of the most impressive strings of expletives Racetrack had heard in his entire life, and pounded off into the distance.
Racetrack leaned out the door, peering after her. "Uh, Miss? You forgot your toothbrush."
And with that, they set to waking up everyone else, and were almost done by the time she returned, another girl arm in arm with her, holding, of all things, an enormous silver teapot.
"Well," she said, addressing them all. At this word every set of eyes were on her, waiting for her to say the one definitive thing that explained their situation and made it all better.
"Well," she said, again. "Would any of you like to use the powder room?"
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An hour later, all of them sat crammed into Coin's upstairs apartment, sprawling, scrabbling, sipping pungent heartsease tea in cracked cups and saucers, mugs and wineglasses, fingerbowls and jam-jars, and when nothing resembling a clean glass could be found (because there were so many of them, more guests than Coin would even have in her worst nightmare, and more than she could ever have imagined slipping through the fissure this quickly), they drank from empty wine bottles, flower pots, slippers.
"Why is it so important that they drink it?" Ershey asked, leaning over from her perch on top of the stove to peer over at Coin as she leaned against the wall.
"It's relaxing," she said, simply.
"You mean it's a sedative."
"If you care to phrase it that way, yes. They're in a frightening situation, they need to calm down, listen, figure things out. This helps."
"Are you sure this isn't illegal?" Ershey asked.
"Is anything illegal here?"
"…Fair enough."
As if to prove Coin's point, Swifty half-fell over the arm of the divan. "This is good tea."
"Yeah…really…tea-y."
Ram had figured out what was going on a while back, and was carefully pouring the contents of his cup into his sneaker. David had also figured out what was going on, but had wisely decided that the best thing he could do in this situation was get loaded, and was on his third cup. And everyone else was somewhere in between.
Coin decided that this was the best time to make her entrance, pulled her coat about her shoulders, stood in the midst of them, and did their best to explain what was going on.
And again.
And again.
The third time did the trick and by nightfall they were all staring at her in awe, but not speaking, and with a look on their faces like they might never again. Jack—the apparent leader, as far as Coin could see—was the first to really snap out of it, and ever after that he took it calmly.
"You're dealing with this awfully well," Ershey remarked.
"Yeah, well…after I found out Skitts shaved his chest, I haven't been surprised by much."
"I knew it!" Kid Blink crowed, only to have Skittery punch him, hard, on the shoulder.
"I do not shave my chest, Jack," he hissed.
"Oh? Then why did I walk in on ya one day and find you with ya shoit off, covered in my shavin' cream?"
"So that's what that was…" Bumlets mused.
"You saw it too?"
"OKAY, THAT'S IT, EVERYONE SHUT UP!"
All the newsies whirled around, startled, to see Ram sitting on the floor, having listened to their conversation for the past fifteen minutes, growing more and more frustrated with every passing exchange.
"Who the hell are you?" Blink asked.
"I," he said, "am Ramchandra Hakim-Jaleel Kadam, and I know the answers to all of your questions. Treat me with respect and I will do the same for you."
"Really?"
"No. But your friend Racetrack hurled on me. You owe me one."
Coin just sighed, her head in her hands. This was going to take a lot longer than she had hoped.
By the time all questions had been asked and answered, every piece of minutiae figured out, hours had passed, and the only thing left to decide, really, was what they were going to actually do.
"Well, we're gonna find Spot," Jack said, simply. "What else?"
"Jesus, you sure are takin' this in stride," Skittery muttered, still a little miffed about the chest-shaving accusation.
"Well, what else am I gonna do?"
"If I'm not wrong—and I never am," Ram said in a perfect deadpan, as he turned towards Ginnie, "they're headed straight for the fire swamp."
Ginnie looked for a moment, as if she was about to laugh, and then collapsed, unconscious, in Ram's lap.
"Swell."
Jack turned towards them. "So whaddaya say? We look for our friend, you look for yours, we see if we can get away from this godforsaken place…you in?"
"That has to be the most idiotic idea I've ever heard," Ram said. And then, as the only natural continuation: "I love it."
Straight for the fire swamp.
[TBC…]
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A/N: This chapter was brought to you by AngstyGenderConfused!ChristianBale, from the wonderful and truly excellent (if rather plotless) Velvet Goldmine, possibly the best movie ever made about angsty gender confused Christian Bale and the glam rock scene in seventies England.
(Yeah, I know. That old storyline again.)
But it has, and I am not exaggerating here, one of the best soundtracks in the whole world. Especially if you happen to be fic-writing…and Circus Peanuts, of course, help as well. (wink)
And now, onto…
SHOUT-OUTS!
Ccatt: GOD BLESS THE INSOMNIACS OF THE WORLD! Yup, I never sleep either. Why waste time when there are so many Ginsu Knife commercials to watch (honestly, when do you ever have to cut your own shoe? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?).
Moonlights Sundance: LOVE YOU! (munches cookies) Mmm…got milk?
Strawberri Shake: Honestly, they should just do an investigative report on the History Channel on newsie underwear someday. I mean, we know all about labor laws, the strike, but…you know what they say…"behind every good man, is a good pair of underpants." Obviously a critical part of history is being overlooked.
Soaker: NARF! (loves) And if I ever write something that even vaguely compares to 'Phantom" in all it's greatness…that'll be the end of the world as we know it…and I'll feel fine. (sings)
Shooter: Stepsister, fairy godmother…just a casting choice for our Newsie adaptation of "Cinderella," silly! Personally, I would pick fairy godmother…can anyone say no to having a wand?
Sapphy: Oh, lord, it's pathetic how thoroughly I've thought this out…(grins) Basically, originally, all gypsies were blue-skinned, but there's been a corruption of the bloodlines and some have only a little blue blood, some look normal, and truly blue-skinned gypsies are very rare. It's a not-so-subtle nod to a certain musical…I'll give you a hint…it isn't "Oklahoma".
DALTON: Dammit! That was my first guess…
Uninvisible: Hey, Jell-O is a beautiful thing. Personally, I think it should be kept in the Guggenheim, in an exhibit somewhere between…Klee and the Pre-Raphaelites, maybe? God knows a composition in Lime & Cherry (full sugar, of course) would me more beautiful than anything Dante Gabriel Rossetti ever dreamed up…
Chaos89: I'm sorry to say…celery tonic does indeed exist. It's called Cel-Rey, and even worse, I've tasted it.
(dies)
I have some very strange relatives in Boston…
m-e lee12: Hey, for me, more characters=more people to mess with. And have sing KC and the Sunshine Gang songs. (pause) Maybe this would explain the cast of hundreds?
Silver Petra: Should we maybe just send Spot around to take out people depressed and overwhelmed by school? Maybe do a Pulp Fiction-type deal, take them out, enter a twist contest?
Now, second question…how much should we charge? (evil grin)
Splashey: That has to be the most annoying car song ever, right after "this is the song that never ends". The whole "nine green bottles" variation is the Australian variation, which is what I learned, because I practically grew up in Sydney…of course, I've gotten tripped up on a lot of other variations, too. (mutters) Does NO ONE realize that "rubbers" are just erasers? (sighs)
Written Sparks: Hey, where's the fun in upstanding? I strongly doubt Newsies would have even been made if everyone around was a moral citizen…
Coin: ACK! D'MOS! I LOVE YOU! Seriously, it's like J. Lo, but with cooler hair…and the booty contest? NO contest. (grins)
NadaZimri: One of the secrets to having an annoying yet semi-cute preppie muse, grasshopper, is to keep them in check, as you are doing admirable. Oh, and NEVER let them have caffeine…
DALTON: (bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce)
(sigh)
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Next Up: Chapter Nine, In Which A Few Newsboys Learn The True Meaning Of The Words "L.A. Face With The Oakland Booty," As Well As Quite A Lot Of Other Pop Culture Minutiae, Up To (But Not Excluding) Why Summer Dreams Ripped At The Seams, But Summer Nights Proved To Be Entirely Different.