I sat in Der Waffle Haus, barely able to speak because I had just been given the worst news since I was told I'd be reaping souls until forever. Believe me, it was not fucking good.
Mason had just told me that Rube probably knew about what happened with Ray and, if you knew Rube, you'd know that little things like killing people never really put him in a happy mood.
You'd see me giving someone a compliment first.
Anyways, we all sat there, too scared to hell to actually speak to each other, waiting like fucking rabbits in headlights for Rube to come out of the bathroom and hand us our punishment.
For what I am about to receive, may the Lord make it as painless as possible.
Yeah fucking right. Like he ever listened to me when I was killed by a toilet seat.
"Shit…" Mason said miserably as he saw Rube emerge from the bathroom. He actually looked like he was about to, out of fear more than anything else.
"Don't give anything away, Georgia." Daisy said sternly as I looked across to see her reaction on impending doom. Other than that annoying warning (I hated being called Georgia!), she did nothing apart from shift in her seat.
"What are you looking so miserable about, Peanut?" Rube asked me as he sat next to Daisy. He ordered some toast with eggs and bacon (extra crispy!) and waited for me to reply.
"My car wouldn't start this morning," I said, smiling slightly as he added in a blueberry muffin to the order for me, "Piece of shit."
"Your car isn't a piece of shit, Peanut. It's a good car. If you treated it like one, maybe it wouldn't break down as often."
I almost didn't have a comeback to that, but I just about managed, "If you didn't call me Peanut, maybe I wouldn't be so negative."
"Fair enough," Rube replied smiling as if he had an Ace of Spades hidden in each sleeve, "…Peanut."
I scowled at him as Kiffany returned with my blueberry muffin, thanking her as I began tearing it to shreds.
"You're welcome," she replied kindly, "…he's right, though. It's not a bad thing to be positive." I chewed on my muffin as she walked back into the kitchen to fetch Rube's cremated bacon.
"Why are you so nice all of a sudden?" Mason asked Rube in his usual confused manner, "You weren't exactly yellow and black smiley faces when you went in the bathroom."
I couldn't blame Mason for saying that. Usually, something pretty fucking weird must have happened in the stars or tealeaves or whatever for Rube to not be angry. I mean, if he did know about Ray (which I was beginning to doubt even more by the second), he was doing a pretty good job of making sure the smoke didn't come out of his ears.
It wasn't until his mouth was suitably full of bacon that Rube gave a reply, "The bathroom's a reflective place for me, Mason. It's a good place for me to sort out my problems."
"Can't you just…I don't know…read a book or something?" I said lazily, my mouth full of blueberry muffin. I can bet I had blue teeth or something because of it.
"That'll distract you from your problems, Peanut. You need a place where you can concentrate. That's why the bathroom's good for me – because I can concentrate. Because I'm alone."
Rube placed a forkful of egg in his mouth while he waited for my answer. I hated it when he started talking garbage (lots and often), so I returned to him a helpful little quip, "So, for example, you could contemplate the universe while taking a shit?"
"Exactly." He smiled, waving his fork around to accentuate the point. All Daisy, Mason and I could do was wonder why the hell he wasn't screaming to the heavens about what he'd done.
Well, if he doesn't know, I'm not going to be stupid enough to tell him, am I?
Now for something a little unusual. To tell this whole story, I've got no choice but to involve my family at some point (I know, but I have no choice!). Now I'm obviously not there (I can imagine myself going all 'Exorcist' on my sister if I was!), so you're gonna have to put up with the third person narrative thing for a while, which also sadly means you won't be getting any of my quips either.
Oh yeah. Don't bother asking me how I know all this stuff happened if I wasn't there. I'm dead! I guess it comes as part of the package.
One more thing before I give you the pleasure of my family's company. I'm not gonna go through this shit more than once, so you'd better have a good memory. If you don't…well, that's your problem.
And remember! The name's George. Not Georgia. Not Peanut. Just George.
Was there anything else? ….No, I think that was it. Have fun(!)
"Reggie, are you ready for school yet?" Joy's voice rang up the stairs as her daughter prepared herself as slowly as possible for another Monday morning.
"Mom! There's half an hour yet!" she shouted back, adding (under her breath), "I'd be there yesterday if you got what you wanted…"
"Well, you'd better move your ass now because I'm not waiting all day for you!"
"It's not like it takes long to get to school anyways…" Reggie replied glumly, hoisting her schoolbag over her shoulder. She as good as stomped down the stairs to greet her mother's stony glare.
Such was the wonderful mother-daughter relationship in the Lass household.
"You got everything?" Joy asked her daughter coldly, trying at best to avoid actual eye-to-eye contact. It had been that way for a while now, having stemmed from one of their frequent arguments.
"I don't know why you're still in a bad mood about yesterday, Mom. It was just a movie." Reggie said nonchalantly, not actually bothered whether she had angered her mother or not.
"'Just a movie'," Joy repeated as the pair left the house and headed for the car, "Just an 'R' rated movie. Really…well, I guess I must have fallen asleep and missed the past five years, 'cause I didn't know you were seventeen." she put emphasis on the 'seventeen', in the hope that it would make Reggie feel guilty. It didn't work.
"Jeez, Mom. I told you, it's no big deal," Reggie stopped talking as she got in the car and did up her seatbelt, after which she added flippantly, "The movie sucked anyway."
"Reggie…" Joy began, seemingly ready to start on the caring mother spiel. She instead avoided all indication of emotion, "…Make sure you're out of school quickly. The electrician's coming about half an hour after you finish and I want to get back in time," Joy waited for a response from her daughter. When she didn't receive one, she added, "Okay, Reggie?"
"Okay, Mom." Reggie replied through gritted teeth.
The rest of the car journey was deadly quiet, with an atmosphere so thick it could have been cut by a knife. It suited both mother and daughter just fine.
"Yummy!" I smiled, finally finishing my blueberry muffin (the stupid things take a while if you just pick at them). That was one thing Rube was good for – he taught all of us to appreciate our food.
But how could you not appreciate a blueberry muffin?
On the subject of taking a while, Rube still hadn't given us our post-its for the day. You'd think after all of his contemplation and crap the least he could do was handout a few pieces of yellow sticky paper, right?
Wrong, apparently.
It also didn't help matters that Roxy had just walked in. This isn't me being mean towards Roxy, don't get me wrong. It's just that her fashionably late entrance meant that I (along with Daisy and Mason) had to wait even longer before we could get the hell out of Der Waffle Haus and not have the shit bored out of us.
"What?" Roxy said irritably as she sat down, in response to Rube's annoying stare in her direction.
"Why are you late?" he replied simply, gesturing at Kiffany to come to the table.
"Do you not see the badge?" Roxy asked sarcastically, "I actually have a job."
"Is that meant to be a poke at me?" Mason smiled innocently. Daisy gave him a soft kick under the table as a means of telling him to shut the fuck up.
"What would you like?" Kiffany said in a friendly manner as she approached the table, pen and paper at the ready.
"Just a coffee, please," Roxy replied tiredly, not even looking up as she spoke her order, "Extra sugar."
"On the house." Kiffany smiled as Rube made to give her the money. As she went to fetch Roxy's coffee, Rube put away his cash and turned his attention to what actually mattered: the post-its.
"Your assignments for today…" he said, handing out a yellow slip to Mason, Roxy and Daisy.
"Where's mine?" I asked confusedly, at the exact same time Kiffany arrived with the coffee. Of course, my question was not about the coffee.
"Oh…bollocks." Mason said quietly as he looked at his post-it.
"What?" I asked, even more confusedly. Why would no one answer me?
"It doesn't matter, Peanut," Rube replied finally, "Anyway, aren't people meant to be pleased when they get a day off?"
"Not when you won't tell me why."
"We've been through this before. Sometimes Reapers just get an off day. There's no reason."
With that, he got up from the booth and left, leaving me to stew in my juices, Roxy to be miserable, Daisy to not look at her post-it and, by the looks of it, Mason to shit himself silly.
After Daisy and Roxy left (which they did more or less straight after Rube), I homed in on Mason and his post-it:
"Who is on that thing?"
"You don't wanna know, Georgie-girl." He replied miserably.
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know." I said, ripping the yellow paper from his grip. I'll tell you now, I didn't expect to see what I saw – lightning never usually strikes twice.
"It's okay…" Mason tried desperately, "It's not like it's any of your-"
"Not like it's any of my family? But it's still at my fucking house!"
Hope ya like it. Please r'n'r, s'really important!