Lucky Me

Chapter 031


"Kenney?" Adrian was so loud, and we were in the middle of the video store, it was Thursday night, the night before the supposed dance and I had let it slip with who I was forced to go. The store was crowded and everyone was now staring at us, or at least it felt like it.

"I-I-it wasn't like I wanted to!" I defended myself, like I had been all week, against this myth that I liked that annoying child named K'Yo'.

"Bull crap!" That's the first time I ever heard pacifist Adrian ever remotely use a word even resembling a curse. "You wanted to go with him!"

I was getting mad, and when I got mad and embarrassed, two things happened, I shout and the other….

My wings shoot out.

So when my wings (under the image inducer) spread, down went the DVDs!

BAM!

CLICK CLICK CLICK.

"Whoa! Watch out!"

We certainly had everyone's attention after that. I blushed like mad, and Adrian just took a deep breath, threw down the movie he had picked out, and started to leave. Well, not before he grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside with him.

In Salem Center there weren't many things, but what they did have nearby was an alley where Adrian led me to. Had I lacked the ability to kick his hinny (let's pretend I could, okay?) I would have gotten nervous. Adrian might act like a, uh, wimp, but that boy had a built body!

"How could you go with Kenney?" Adrian asked after pacing around the mouth of the alley for a while. I was already lit from the whole scene he pulled in the video store. I didn't like attention when it's not good, heck, I didn't like a ton of attention when it was good.

"He tricked me." So I lied, so what else was new?

"Oh, yeah, I can see that idiot tricking someone like you."

Huh? Wait a sec, "What do you mean someone like me?"

"You're too smart to be fooled by that muscle-brained moron. At least I thought you were!" Adrian kicked a can, and seemed to lose some of his steam. "You must really like him, huh?" Was said softer but trust me, he could have sang it in the most beautiful voice and my reaction would have been the same.

All week I'd been trying to get people to understand that I did not like that jerk and if wasn't for Adrian I wouldn't be in this mess! I could have stood there, yelled, shouted, and threatened bodily harm to him (which wouldn't be much considering he was a very strong boy), so I decided to go the route that would have me feeling bad the rest of the night.

"Geez, Adrian, just because you were too shy to ask me, you don't have the right to get all jealous. It sure does make you ugly."

He looked amazed, shocked, and hurt all in one. I could just hear his heart being crushed like two cars colliding going eighty, and all because I was being a little jerk (ha! Little! I was being a major jerk). Adrian's mouth hung open and all he did was stare at me for a moment or two.

I should have tried to apologize.

It was then I started to feel bad, but it wasn't until after Adrian said his piece that I felt rotten.

"Man, Kerry, I thought you were more—I dunno, just more than that."

Hello rotten feeling! He left after that. Just turned around and walked away.

I knew I should have concentrated on his feelings, but five minutes later, I had a memory strike me.

Adrian and I came into town together to get some movies. He had the keys. He left. That meant I either had to walk the ten miles back from town, or suck it up and call for a ride.

I shouldn't have said what I said to him in the first place, but I should really not have said it because he had the car and its keys!


"You look happy." I sighed and climbed into the vehicle. Putting on my belt, I sunk back in my seat (as much as one can with wings). Mr. Summers raised an eyebrow over his glasses, shrugged, and started to drive out of the town. "So are you going to tell me why Adrian told me to come pick you up or am I suppose to guess?"

I turned my head away from the driver and watched as the people walked by. I didn't feel like talking about it. I didn't know why everyone always felt like it would help me, it didn't help me. It just made me feel even worse. "Guess away."

He was quiet and I thought he wasn't going to say anything at first, but then he laughed and took a guess, "You two had a fight."

Good guess.

Obviously all that time with Mrs. Jean taught this man a thing or two.

"Yeah."

"And do I have to guess what it was about?" I didn't answer, "I'll take your silence as another yes." Another pause, "Now let me see if the gossip network works as well as it did when I was your age." Ut-uh, that couldn't be good. He might actually have been able to guess what it was about. "Adrian likes you, and because of some reason or another, you are going to go to this 'dance' with some other guy." His wife was a telepath and the mouth operator of gossip central! Should have known she related everything to him. "And you two fought about it, and he, or you, said some nasty things to each other and he took off."

Guess you win a pointless Kookie prize, or in other words, me talking to him. "Yeah."

Hey, I said I'd talk to him, I never said how long.

The rest of the short time was spent in silence, he just hummed along with the radio, but at the end, when I was getting out of the car, he happily reminded me of something. "Oh, Kookie, I just remembered, you have monitor duty tonight."

Oh joy.


I checked the roaster for the monitor duty. I rarely did because I didn't like seeing Kookie in big, bold caps on one of the slots. My name was written over Mr. Bishop's and with the word 'out' by the reason. The person I was supposed to be with was the one who probably didn't want to see me.

Adrian (actually it read Flex but that was just Adrian's codename).

I sighed, and walked in ready for the cold treatment.

And boy did I ever get it, but not in the way that I thought. Bobby-Pervert was there instead, making little snowmen on the control panel.

"Hey! Kookie! Nice of you to come."

I just stood there totally amazed that he was here. "Where's Adrian?"

He gave me a lopsided smile, and let his little men dissolve.

"He begged me to take this slot because of someone's temper tantrum. He felt like the ultimate punishment would be to deprive you of his company."

"And curse me with yours, yay."

Bobby-Pervert got a funny look on his face and stuck his tongue, "Someone is being extra sensitive all of a sudden." Then he laughed at his own comment and as I sat down he decided to add something, "Then again, you've always been a bit touchy."

I glared at him, and he ignored me. Argh! Jerk.

"So what was the fight about?" Oh, brother. Was everyone nosey? "'Cause, you know, if two of my students have a problem, then me, being you're most adored teacher, should-"

"Oh, cut it out." I faced the monitors in hopes of seeing my soap opera squirrels again, but so far they still weren't on the scene.

"Okay, seriously then, why are you two fighting?" Bobby-Jerk's voice went like an octave deeper when he's being all serious and stuff. I was so amazed he actually could be serious that I answered him.

"I'm going to the dance with someone who apparently no one approves of, who happens to be Kenney."

"That little playboy who wears a bottle of cologne and a glob of grease in his hair?" Oh, sure, no one had a positive opinion about this guy. It wasn't like I did either; I just had a better idea about him was all. It wasn't like I liked him or anything; I still was not capable of that. Nope. Nope!

"Don't go passing judgment; if I remember correctly, you are Mr. Bachelor." I was getting the snobby curse again. My mouth wasn't checking with my niceness or my brain, heck, it wasn't checking with anything.

"That's my personal choice," he added with a dramatic pose, "Besides it's better than being doped into something—not mentioning any names, Kerry."

I growled under my breath some words even I didn't even understand, but Bobby-pervert just glanced at me and told me he was more threatened by Wolverine's snores than he was of whatever I just said. I glared at him, which he again, ignored.

He was such a boy.

Argh!

"Anyway, how exactly did you get 'tricked' into it? He asked and you said yes?"

I didn't even spare him a mean look, Bobby-Pervert wasn't paying attention to them anyway, so why waste the energy of a perfectly good glare if there wasn't a person to notice it?

"No. He just—pointed out something." Like the fact that he knew something about Adrian. I couldn't tell anyone about it, it wasn't their problem. I was supposed to be co-leader and so I was supposed to take responsibility. Apparently Kenney told me that a person notices a lot in the locker rooms during football practice, and Adrian seemed to be displaying some rather unique trait, something different from the rest of the guys.

I just knew Kenney meant he knew Adrian was a mutant, or at least had his suspensions about it. I couldn't tell anyone about it, because Adrian would get in trouble for letting his control slip or something odd like that.

"What, that you almost drool over him now?"

My mouth hung open, and I looked at him with eyes three times their normal size. "Ex-cuse me?" Oh kay, needed to stop hanging around with D-M since I was starting to like a valley girl.

"Come on, I go to the same place you do five days out of seven, and at night I'm in the same HALL as you, I noticed a thing or two about you and Kenney's interactions."

"Like we don't HAVE any?"

"Let me demonstrate," He sat up in his chair, and swiveled around to face me. "Oh come ooon, Kenney. I mean, K'Yo'," Bobby-pervert said this in a high-pitched voice, and let rip a fake giggle. "You are so not funny! Te he!" He then flipped his imaginary hair. "Go to the dance? Well, sure! I'd love to with a guy as fine as you! Te he!"

I felt an odd feeling tingling all over my body. The more he played around in the chair and kept up his act, the stronger the feeling became. The tingling seemed to hit all at once, except my wings, they only twitched a few times. My head was swimming with the information my body was taking on about the changes it was receiving, and Bobby-jerk wasn't helping.

Ever got so mad that you couldn't control yourself?

Take it from someone who couldn't, you learned to live to regret it.


It wasn't easy to get Bobby-Pervert to even talk to me after I slammed him and the chair in the wall. See, I hit it (the chair) and not only did it seem that my strength increased, but also my skin started to shed. I didn't know my skin had dried until I woke up Friday morning and there it was, all over me, and my bed. So disgusting.

I felt like a snake that sheds its skin, but at least the snake knows when it does it!

My sheets were now being washed.

Ick.

Even in Business Math, Mr. Drake and Adrian forgot I existed (not that I could blame them) and ignored me. The twirp "accidentally" misplaced my test paper when he was handing them back, said that it probably got lost when he "accidentally" back flipped in his chair. Oh no, he didn't hold a grudge.

I thought the nightmare was over when I got back to the mansion after school, but lo and behold the nightmare known as Daisy-Mae Girly-Girl was there. And I didn't get any say in being shoved into the bathroom with my supplies, towel, and told (threatened) to freshen up because she had "big plans" for me. As long as it didn't mean 'big hair' (I'd seen Dolly Parton, and I'd been scared).

But because I didn't have anything else to do, and wasn't up for a lecture about power and the responsibility of it all, I did as I was told (that's a first, huh?). After which I ran across the hall to start the dressing process.

I opened the first drawer.

I shut my drawer, took a deep breath, and then reopened it.

It was just as empty as the first time I opened it.

I didn't know why I thought that it was just going to magically put back all the things that were supposed to be in there. But nothing was in that empty, wooden place but air.

Oh, this was bad.

Not a single stitch of clothing.

And it was needed clothing.

I was about to flip out and start searching through all my drawers when a small piece of paper on the floor caught my attention.

It was a digital smiley face.

Chris! That jerk stole my panties and bras!

What a pervert!

There was a serious lack of modesty when one was mad.

So without anything more on than my towel, I marched next door, and slammed the door open.

The sight I saw stopped me cold.

Chris looked at me with a confused face and one of my bras in his hands!

"You pervert!" Was the first thing to come to mind, after that happened my mind thought of several words to label him.

"What? Is this yours?"

Well, duh.

I marched over, grabbed my bra out of his hand, glared into his opened drawer which was filled with my missing stuff, and then back at him. "What, you've stolen so much you forgot what is whose?" I was fit to be tied.

"I didn't steal your crap! I don't even want to think that this has even touched you! It's so gross I might end up barfin'!" Chris lost his confused position and went to the mad one instead. "You probably put this in here just for some sick kicks!"

"The only kick I'm going to be doing is your butt! You are so disgusting!" I grabbed the entire drawer from where it was and started to stomp from the room. Another mean thought crept into my mind, down my throat, and into my mouth, "and knowing you and your self-proclaimed dammed up hormones you probably wore them for your sick kicks."

"Oh whatever!" He screamed, but I was already half-way back into my room, "Your fat pants wouldn't even fit!"

I hated boys.


What D-M meant by 'big plans' equaled up to skin-tight jeans, the black see-through shirt, and some type of sandal that was more or less a piece of plastic with a strip of leather across the toe (a high-heeled piece of plastic might I add). Oh, and the hair wasn't big, it was just so hairsprayed every imaginable direction that it looked like it hadn't been brushed in two months.

Apparently, this was the 'style'. Yeah, I could see how half dressed; fluffy hair is the latest trends.

I missed my jeans and baggy t-shirts!

How did I get talked into this? I was not even sure. But the thing was I told her I didn't want to give 'K'Yo'' the wrong idea. She said that only if I acted in all the right ideas would he give the wrong one.

I had yet to translate that in to terms I could understand.

We got to the dance, (we being Adrian, Chris, D-M and me, Adam wasn't a student and therefore couldn't come) and of course Kenney was waiting outside (remember it's a couples only thing). D-M dragged Chris along, I thought it was hilarious (and he deserved it the letch) that she was all dolled up, and he looked as grungy as ever.

"Whoa! You look hot! Forget the dance; let's go find a quiet, dark place."

That's it, next time Adrian could deal with his problem of keeping secrets. Kenney grabbed me around the waist and I tried to push away.

I thought Adrian might come to my rescue (hey, he was supposed to like me, if he did or not, I didn't know) but he was occupied with his date, Nikki. I felt a growl in my throat start to rise.

"Hey hey! None of that kiddies! At least wait until you're in the inside for that kind of stuff!"

Oh thank you for your intervention, but you could have chosen something better to say, Bobby.

"Sure thing Mr. Drake." What! Kenney knew how to show respect to someone? "I didn't know you were chaperoning."

"Someone's got to turn the hose on the kids when it gets a too hot." The music started to blast through the doorway, "Sounds like the party is starting without you two."

"Yeah, come on baaa-bee!" Kenney then 'escorted' me into the building but not before Bobb-Mr. Drake, decided to yell at me.

"Hey, Kookie, knock him off his feet." Then he smirked. He was such a vindictive little man; I couldn't even begin to imagine him not being single. Of course he was relating back to the chair incident (which was so hard to explain to the next group of monitor watchers, see, the chair had been bolted to the ground, and now there was a bent chair leaned against the wall and a huge hole in the floor).


Naturally I was forced to dance with Kenney most of the time, but I soon proved I could not 'bump and grind' and after people behind me kept mysteriously getting knocked over (thanks to my wings) I decided to sit some out. Kenney said he'd be keeping an eye on me but I didn't think he meant it; his eye had been on anyone who had a B-cup and showed their navel.

Not that I minded, until I noticed Adrian apparently knew how to 'get down' and was doing so with Nikki. I grumbled and felt something stir in my mind, I was thankful they were both wearing pants or else she'd wind up pregnant.

D-M was talking more than anything, floating between cliques, and gathering the latest gossip. She'd come over to me every now and then to tell me about some of the people at the school (most of who I had never heard of) and that 'Mr. Drake' was voted most likely to be a girl's personal 'toy' should any of them ever get the chance.

Sick, sick girls. Didn't they know he might look okay, but he was such a butt-head at times?

I was perfectly happy stewing around the dark table, when Adrian walked up from out of nowhere. I stared at him, and he did the same to me for a while, adverted his eyes, sighed, and started to talk.

"DJ's playing a slow song coming up," he pointed out. "I would like, if we could, just for the span of a song, forget yesterday, and -"

"Yes," There went my mouth without checking with my brain! Adrian looked at me, and smiled that shy boyish smile that he's become popular for (according to the Rumor Wheel of Daisy's knowledge).

"Good."


"You've got to!" D-M whined pulling me to my doom. "I say so!"

"Well, I say a lot of things, but you never do them."

"That's because I don't have to listen to you," she leaned closer, "out of uniform."

I sighed, the dance with Adrian was spent in silence, he'd sneak glances at me, and I felt worse than before. I didn't know why, but it was just something that was making me feel lousy about the way I treated him (and that was only adding to the lousy feeling I had earlier). But now D-M insisted that we swap dates for one dance at least.

That meant, "Here you go, Chrissy! You're dance partner."

Chris looked at her, his blue eyes in their normal glaring state, and shot a dark expression at me (who was glaring back at him), "No freakin' way."

"You say that like you got a choice. Remember our deal." D-M gave a smile. One of those creepy smiles because it was bridging on a smirk.

"Fine, but just get this straight Koo-kee, this ain't my idea." I rolled my eyes as D-M pushed us to the floor as the song (slow of course) started to play.

"I know that you idiot," I snapped back. For a bit we stood there, cross armed, and looked off in different directions. We would have been happy to stay like that but that annoying little voice of reason (ha-ha) came around again.

"You actually have to touch each other, you know. To do it right." Bobby-Pervert was on the dance floor with a student! She was an arm's length away from him and must have been one of the shyer girls as she seemed more interested in the floor and through her light brown hair, there was no mistaking the blush.

"Oh, gross."

"I'm not giving him some cheap thrill," I retorted, stuck my tongue out at Chris who did the same.

"Saving it all for your date?" He asked, and then disappeared into the crowd without another word.

Tonight was just not my night.

"You two better start or Ah'll make you do it again!" D-M hollered from where she was wrapped up with K'Yo'.

I hmphed, sighed, and scowled at my supposed partner. "I don't want to do this again."

"No worries about that." And without another word, I put my hands on his shoulders, and his setteled on my hips.

"You better watch where your hands go, Sparky." Chris gave me an annoyed look, and rolled his eyes.

We must have come off as two junior high students because we barely moved, never even tried to move in closer—at least until Nikki and D-M came out of crowd and one pushed me and one pushed Chris, and we, in effect, were sandwiched together.

"Yuck!" He and I jumped apart, but were quickly pushed together again.

"You two better start getting closer, or Ah won't be happy!" Daisy warned. When'd I become her foot soldier? This bites.

"Ow!" I yelped, stepping away from Chris, though he still had his hands on me. "You did that on purpose!" He stepped on my foot!

"Oh yeah, I have no other creative methods of getting back at you so I resorted to petty methods."

"Sounds like you."

"Is it over yet?" he asked looking up to the ceiling. I glared at him, and then returned the earlier favor. "Ouch!"

"Sorry!" I apologized in faux sweetness.

That's when we found out what to do the rest of the song (which seemed like an eternity) and that was to attempt to stomp on one another's feet. We'd gotten so adamant about it, people started to move away from us.

And needless to say, D-M didn't make us dance together again.


"Kookie." I nearly jumped out of my skin (which I could do literally) when Bobby-Jerk came up behind me. And here I thought I had found the perfect hiding spot. Kenney had completely forgotten about me, and so did the rest of them. Out of sight, out of mind. Almost. "What are you doing in the shadows…alone?"

"Nothing."

"That's good. But to fit in with the rest of the shadow-dwelling kids, you might want to pretend you're making out, sucking someone's blood, or something." 'Mr. Drake' hit me lightly on the shoulder.

"I'm hiding."

"I figured that out by myself," he tapped his head, "college degree hard at work."

Mr. Drake looked out to where everyone else was gathered, contorting their bodies in almost unnatural (most definitely uncomfortable) positions to the beat of the music. I thought he was going to leave me alone because he turned to go, but then, without warning, he grabbed my wrist, and dragged me after him.

"Huh?" Was my intelligent response, as always the genius was prepared for any new development that might arise. Ha!

"Next slow one," he gave me an exaggerated smile, "Just because I have with all my other students."

My mouth jumped the gun again, "Even the male ones?"

Bobby-Pervert stopped cold in his tracks, turned around, and answered, "Do I look like a man who could afford that many lawsuits?"


It was finally coming to a close.

It felt like an entire week, but was only five or six hours of pure 'bliss'.

Ha-ha. I just made a 'funny'.

Kenney, like I mentioned before, had forgotten me long ago and was talking with some barely dressed girl with bows in her hair and cleavage falling out of her shirt. I would have made fun of her, but nix the bows and you got what I looked like (but I kicked off the sandals, they just hurt-at least that was what Chris said).

"Dance with me?" It was him; I thought he was mad at me still. Every other male in our little school group seemed to be upset with me at that point. Sure we had danced one, but he quickly walked off afterward.

"Uh, won't that get some looks?" I asked, knowing full well that if D-M saw us dancing another dance, her little mind would start to race with the possibilities.

"And I'm supposed to care?"

Well, to put in the best way I knew how: duh!

"People might get the wrong idea…" I tried to defend the sanity of it all, but then he did that dang smile-the-boyish grin that was lined with mischief (completely irresistible if anyone had ever been on the receiving end of one of those smiles) and I knew I was losing the battle with myself! How could I duke it out with him if I really wasn't up for the fight, well, all of me wasn't.

He leaned in closer, that same smile on his lips, and whispered, "I bought you a stuffed animal, and even took care of you when you were sick, don't you think I've earned one more dance from you?"

Brain…shutting…down…he was so close… brain going, heck brain gone bye-bye.

All I did was sort of nod, and of course, we danced.

Big deal right?

Then why didn't my brain start to function properly until after his cologne wasn't being breathed in, and his gorgeous eyes weren't looking at me anymore?

I was turning into such a girl-girl. I needed help; I needed to be one tough Kookie!

Not Kookie Dough!

But man did he look good.

Ah! Stop! Stop!