Cavanaugh Park

Chapter 2

Hotshot

I met you last month at a party
You brought me up, you brought me down
You came to me last night as an apparition
Now you came around

What's with you and all your talk of independence?
What's with me and my lack of innocence?

Inside the Pocket, Something Corporate

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen," He said coming into the room, "It's second period so I'm hoping you're all a bit more awake now than you were yesterday. Today we're going to start getting into what we're doing this year. First I want to hand out books and then I'll take attendance. Now, I want the first row over here to get books."

Insert class groaning.

"Don't worry, these books are to go home with you and stay there for whatever homework I give you over the year. My senior class has opted, or ordered to leave them here so you can use their books for any class work. Now, row one."

After everyone had their books and were back in their seats he began down the list either mentally checking off names as he called them out or looking around for their raised hands.

"Let's see. Angelo Assaro.

"Alec Durecht.

"Chris Feldmen.

"Rich Jones.

"Aria LaRose.

"Lute McDounaghey.

"Eric Mordall.

"Amanda Pelligrino.

"De Pelligrino.

"Ceja Pierce.

"Calica Willson.

"And Blake Winters. Alright, good, everyone's here."

The chairs were, at his direction, pulled into a circle in the center of the room and the desks pushed away toward the walls.

"Mr. O'Connor, what're we doin?" Alec asked.

"We," he said pulling his rolling desk chair into the circle, "are going to have a discussion. Now, by a show of hands, how many of you are to at least stage three."

Every hand in the circle went up.

He counted off stage four and five and hands continued to drop. There were only three or four people with their hands left up at stage five.

"Do any of you have scars from them?" Mr. O'Connor asked.

Calica slowly lifted her shirt to show a small scar across one side of her stomach, "This is from him."

"Appendix removed?"

She shook her head, "Stabbed."

He nodded as though he wasn't that surprised. "What about you Eric, Alec?

"Gotten a few bruises," Eric said, "she plays lacrosse so…"

"Alec…"

He shrugged, "Can't complain."

Alec was avoiding the question and it was more than painfully obvious. The people that knew him well knew why. He didn't have any scars if that was what O'Connor meant. But then again, not all scars were external.

O'Connor let it go.

Blake Winter's spoke up. "Why the hell are we wasting our time with this?"

"Well, what did you do with your old teacher?"

"We read and answered questions while listening to him lecture on about how we'd burn in hell for being spawns of the devil," Lute smirked, trying to balance her chair. "I have to admit that it's much better now."

"Trust me, that's a large part of the reason Mr. Jacobs was fired." He pulled a clipboard into his lap.

"Now, my brother used to always refer to his soul twin by a nickname of sorts. Does that still happen today with all of you?"

"Yeah," Angelo nodded, "I've never called mine by anything other than his nickname. It just doesn't seem right."

"Good, then I want to go around and hear the name of everyone's soul twin and why they call him or her that. Ceja?"

"Specs," she muttered, "He's had these round glasses ever since I can remember."

"Ego," a small grin came over Alec's face, "He's got a bit of a big head."

Chris seemed not aware that it was his turn and looked around for a moment, "Blue, lives near the ocean."

Aria shook her head at Chris. "Mine's sort of really smart and really loud so I call him Mouth."

"Mine's got glasses too," Eric said, "But I call her Rims."

"Trick, and it's obvious," De mumbled.

"Babyface," Mandy said shrugging.

"Snoddy, and I don't remember," Blake said.

Rich shrugged, "Bumlets."

Angelo muttered, "A."

"Snitch," Lute said, "He stole something when he was little, from one of his siblings, and well, he got away with it for a while."

"Spot," Calica smirked and shook her head. "He's really a tough guy, but he's also sort of scrawny and short."

"That's good," Mr. O'Connor nodded as he wrote down 'Spot' next to Calica's name on a sheet of papers. "Now I want what they call you. I don't care about explanations."

"Mouse." Calica said begrudgingly.

"Swinger," Lute said.

"Itey," came from Angelo.

Rich glanced around, "Pie Eater."

"Cold," Blake was barely paying attention when they got to him.

"Candy," Mandy muttered.

"He calls me De too," De said, "I used to always talk to him during the day. It's sort of weird."

"Keys," Eric said.

"Sunny," Aria replied.

"Blue calls me Hawk," Chris smiled, "Probably 'cause I gave him a nice scar."

Alec seemed out of it, "Dutchy, he calls me Dutchy, sometimes Imagine, y'know, short for Imaginary Friend." As he spoke he fiddled idly with the pen in his hands, roughly sketching a face on the cover of his notebook.

"And you, Ceja."

Dutchy laughed and she nudged him before speaking. "Hotshot… no idea where it came from, but it was a long time ago…"

"Good," Mr. O'Connor mumbled to himself finishing off his notes. "Very good. Now I suppose the lot of you know everyone else's nicknames be heart already, since you've all been in this class together for at least a few years."

The general consensus was a nod from everyone.

Mr. O'Connor grinned and a few groaned at the sign. "Good, because that is what I want you to refer to each other as this year. At least in this class if not in the halls. Any of your other friends who have those obscure nicknames can get in on it too. Speaking of which, I'm guessing a lot o you call your normal friends by these nicknames. Tony Higgins refuses to be called anything except Racetrack, then I have Swifty, and Heels, and Nympho."

A lot of the class laughed at the mention of their friends, a few of who were just moronic about it.

"But now, apart from all this soul twin stuff we need to come up with a community service project for your class to complete for this year. I know it's only the second day of school but we need to get rolling as soon as possible to actually carry it out. Do you have any ideas?"

"I thought we were going to classes in the elementary schools?" Pie Eater questioned.

"Everyone does that Pie," Mouse commented leaning as far back in her chair as she could without falling over. "Don't you remember, they came like every year when we were there?"

"No…"

"Dude, you were definitely there," Hawk corrected him. "You were in my class every year and I remember you being there."

Pie shrugged.

"So that doesn't count as community service?"

"For your health class but not for here. Sorry."

"What else can we do?" Itey asked. It was true; there probably weren't many options.

"We could go up to the labs that they have for soul twin research in Boston," Swinger suggested, "Maybe we could volunteer for one of their tests or experiment things."

"Don't you usually have to be eighteen to do that?" Hotshot interjected.

Swinger shrugged, "Not always."

"It's a possibility," Mr. O'Connor agreed, starting a list on the board.

"We could do some kind of assembly thing for all the gifted students at the school toward the end of the year," De suggested. It wasn't the best of ideas, but it would quickly take up all their service hours.

"Or maybe we could just do nothing like we've done for the past two years," Hawk suggested trying to shove Mouse off of her chair. "I mean it's not really fair that we have to spend all this extra time doing community service."

"Ignore him," Mandy instructed the teacher. "He's testy until lunch period."

Mr. O'Connor just nodded and added a few of the shouted suggestions to the board. "What about the rest of you, Keys, Sunny, Cold."

Blake had been busily doodling in the first page of his notebook and looked up. "We could always invite the gifted kids from all over the state to some big convention or meeting or something. I heard about some school doing that last year."

Mr. O'Connor agreed, but motioned for the artist to put his notebook away. Blake did so but quickly pulled out a pen and began etching a design around his wrist. Luckily, the teacher knew to just give up there.

No concrete ideas were presented during the last few minutes of class and the group began to idly chat. The bell ringing was almost an instant relief.

1

That afternoon started with Chemistry for most of them. As Ms. Cook was known for giving a heavy workload they were already in the lab demonstrating their knowledge of lab safety and how to light the gas burners.

"Pair up," she told them.

Over half of their gifted class shared the same Chemistry class as well. Dutchy paired up with Hotshot, Cold with Swinger, Race with Nympho, Heels with De, Keys with Hawk and leaving Mouse to pair up with Pete Hargis.

"Ok students, on partner get two aprons, and the other two pairs of go- Mr. Higgins if I see you spray that water again I will give you detention! As I was saying, the other get two pairs of goggles."

The students scattered and returned to their rows with required materials. Several of them began attaching hoses to gas burners and Ms. Cook began to move around the room handing out matches.

"I'm surprised they trust us not to burn the school down," Race commented picking up the matches.

It seemed that Ms. Cook heard him. She grabbed the matchbook from his hand and replaced it with a metal tool used to produce sparks.

"Ok class, in your groups have one person turn on the gas while the other lights a match and holds it over the burner. Leave it on until I ok it and then you may shut it off, clean up your station and return to the classroom.

All at once gas burners were being turned on. People began lighting matches; save for Racetrack who was still having too much fun with the water bottles, especially as Nympho didn't seem to notice the large wet stains down the front of his apron. And after their burner was lit relished in the fact that he could make sparks.

There was a sudden yell that caught the entire classes attention. Everyone spun around to find Mouse halfway between the floor and standing, Hargis only catching her by reflex.

"Mr. Hargis, what did you do?" Ms Cook screeched, "Burners off children." She ran over, as did the rest of the class.

"I didn't do anything. She just jerked backwards and fell." His eyes were wide as he lowered her to the floor.

Mouse blinked several times and attempted to push herself up from the floor. Her lip was split and her eye was starting to puff up. "I swear, I'll kill him," she seethed.

Hargis and Nympho jumped back, as did several other students. Ms. Cook just nodded. Dutchy was the first to put forth any real action.

"C'mon, let's get you to the nurse's office." He helped her up. "Hawk, come with us in case something happens again."

They looked to Ms. Cook for a pass but she just waved for them to go. All that could be heard as they made their way out into the hall was Mouse's ranting. "I'm not kidding Dutchy I'm going to murder Spot."

"Sure you are Mouse, you know when you see him tonight." Dutchy responded.

"Bite me, Dutchy."

They were too far away for any more of their argument to be heard.

"Well, I guess we'll have to figure out who is not safe to do the labs this year, but for now I want the rest of you to partner up again and finish. Mr. Hargis, Ms. Pierce, and Mr. Mordall, please form a group of three and finish the assessment." She resumed her walking around the room and continued criticizing as though nothing had happened.

1

'SPOT!' She screamed into her empty house when she got home. She knew he could hear her if she just thought it but she needed to yell. 'Spot, you had better goddamn answer me!'

'What?' His voice snapped back inside her head, irritated.

'Do you want to share with my why I have a fucking split lip, black eye and bruises up and down my left side.'

'I got in a fight.'

'SPOT! You bastard, you fucking promised you'd stop!' She stifled a scream of frustration, 'If I fucking look like this how are you?'

'I've got more bruises than you, a little more than a black eye and a split lip. My side's probably a bit more banged up than yours is. The guy who started the fight with me looks worse though.'

A though suddenly occurred to her, 'Spot, you're not in jail again, are you?'

'No, hospital. They think the second guy who jumped me cracked a rib or two when he was kicking me in the side.'

'Don't fucking expect any pity from me.'

'I don't.'

'Spot!'

'What!?'

'Are you sitting in a hospital hallway talking to yourself?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Spot,' she giggled.

'Mouse, my face looks so fucked up right now and my shirt is ripped open, no one in their right mind is going to mess with me.'

'Why the hell can I not be mad at you?' She groaned, 'Do you know that because of you me and Dutchy, Keys, and I have to write stupid papers and do extra work because we're not allowed in the Chemistry lab anymore. All because you made me fucking fall over while we were lighting gas burners.'

'Sorry.'

'No you're not.'

'Mouse, the guy deserved it.'

'What did he fuck the girl that you're screwing too?'

'He beat up one of my friends last week. What do you want me to do, just not care that he has a broken arm.'

'Is that what you're going to do once you're out in the real world, Spot? If one of your friends loses his job are you going to go off his boss!?'

'Mouse, drop it okay? I'm sorry. I had to.'

'I'm done. I don't want to talk to you anymore, Spot.'

'I'll talk to you tomorrow night.'

'Yeah,' she paused, 'Fuck you.'

He either wasn't paying attention any longer or chose to ignore her.

She gave a very unlady-like grunt, and stomped upstairs to change out of her work clothes and take a hot shower.

1

'Hawk.'

'Blue.'

'School?'

'Sucks. I envy you.'

'You shouldn't.'

Hawk immediately pushed his homework into the corner of his desk. He leaned his chair back and put his feet up on the desk. 'You're not back in Phoenix yet, are you?'

'Dad got sent on a quick trip to Colorado. I'm stuck in Cali for an extra week and a half.'

'With mother dearest.'

'Yeah,' Blue sounded exasperated.

'And she's got a guy over.'

'Well yes, but there are a bunch of people from her work downstairs for some stupid function. Half of them are freaking cocked. Me and her had a fight earlier though. Nathaniel got here early to help her set up and we had an argument over what I had to wear. She got me this penguin suit. I swear I'd throw myself off a cliff before I'd wear it. So basically I'm not allowed out of my room for the night and I'm grounded the rest of the time I'm here.'

'Except when she's not home.' Hawk provided. Blue's mother barely ever stayed at home for a day. He could almost feel Blue's smirk.

'Yeah.'

'Seriously man, why do you still go out there in the summer if you and her don't get along at all.'

'Hawk, I'm out on the balcony. Concentrate for a minute and tell me you can't feel the beach.'

Hawk took a deep breath. He could definitely feel a slight breeze even though his windows were all closed, smell and hear the waves distantly. He remembered vividly seeing it once or twice in a dream after talks with Blue. It made him sure he'd see it tonight.

'What?' Blue's thoughts broke through his.

'Think good thoughts tonight, alright, Blue. I want to dream about the beach.'

'Well then you better be happy too, 'cause that damn bird of yours freaking attacks me when you're pissed.' He laughed. It was a rolling, musical laugh that captivated everyone, including Hawk.

'I hope your dad gets back early so you can go home.' Hawk put in.

'Me too.' Blue agreed. 'I should let you get back to your homework then.' He yawned.

'Ass.'

'By the way, number five is positive not negative. Stop thinking so hard about it, you're giving me a headache.'

1

A/N: Yeah, the last time I posted was definitely way back in January when I was still a junior. Wow, how quickly eight months pass. I really like this story so hopefully the next chapter will be up a little quicker. However, if you want them up even sooner than soon you could press that little button at the bottom of the page that says 'review' or 'go' or whatever.

By the way, I am convinced this is a crap/filler chapter to just get some stuff straightened out. Important stuff starts happening once the ball gets rolling. A few more chapters and the real good stuff starts happening.

Shout outs!

Frog: You're cool. I seriously have to print and color code the casting calls to keep characters straight.

B: Quicker… ah, heh-heh… Sorry. I am also hoping it gets less confusing from here. I swear if the web of characters in this one doesn't kill me Last Chance (50 characters) will.

Flem: Hah, look I have recreated O'Connor into a character, and Cook too. Now all I have to do is perfect O'Connor's stutter and it will be perfect. :-D

Shade: You rock. We need to talk more, or you need to update something, or… something like that.

Rumor: You're reviews are always the cause of much entertainment. You should see some of the pairs for soul twins. It will entertain me beyond reason to try and work them out.

Next Time

I couldn't tell you.

Hotshot

9/18/04