AN: Hiya all! Hope everyone's having a good week or so and getting ready for Halloween. Since I'm a Girl Scout leader, I get the esteemed honor of having to get myself a costume and dress up for our troop's Halloween Party. This year, because one of the other leaders stole my original costume idea which I think isn't fair, I'd going as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. The only thing I'm not doing is wearing a wig…my hair's too long to wear a wig comfortably and it makes me look odd. My sister's going as Raggedy Anne, even though she's fighting my mom (the troop's coordinator) about wearing a costume. Anywho, enough about Halloween. Thanks for all the reviews for my little story! They're greatly appreciated!
LJP: LOL! I'm glad you liked the chapter and Hope's going to get more than she bargained for in school. Sure she's got smarts and everything but she's also got a genetic disorder that's infamous for creating social to the point of annoying individuals and she's not exactly among people who are going to be friendly to that idea.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except a handful or two of made up characters. All of this wonderful stuff belongs to the geniuses at Marvel Comics. I'm just playing in their world. I'm broke and in graduate's school. All I own are my Pointe shoes.
The work wasn't exactly the hardest in the world- It was strangely simple in Hope's wide, lacey patterned eyes.- and everything else seemed to involve a whole lot of playing. Playing was something Hope was quite alright with as well. She liked the games the class played and had taken a strong liking to playtime.
Truth be told, she liked story time better but that was neither here nor there at the moment. Though she could read fairly well for someone her age- Thanks to her mutant abilities. - the young girl liked to be read to. Her mother, father, and many of the other "big people" she knew from her mother's school all read stories very well in her young opinion.
School was one of those things that Hope enjoyed…..except for one little, tiny fact.
"Mrs. McNamara," called one of the little girls, a chubby sandy haired child with lopsided pigtails, "Hope's being annoying again."
Mrs. McNamara, the class' older teacher, wandered over to the playhouse where a group of young girls was playing house. There were four of them at the moment, all playing with baby dolls or with the area's kitchen set. Usually, the playhouse was the domain of a certain set of girls even though Mrs. McNamara tried her best to get other kids to play as well.
Sometimes it worked and other times it didn't. This time it seemed to have worked, except for the child who had decided to play with the other girls.
Dressed in a pink sweater and blue jeans, underneath her sweater she wore a plain gray t-shirt with a darker gray "X" logo on it, Hope was standing at the front of the playhouse. She was smiling brightly and talking to one of the other girls in a rapid fire manner. Talking about playing house and a million other things in a squeaky voice Hope used whenever she got really excited about something.
"Make her stop, Mrs. McNamara," another girl, with a head of black curls that were most obviously placed there by her mother, "she's buggin' us. We don't want her to play."
"But I want to play and Mrs. McNamara said to share games," Hope insisted, sounding a bit on the whiny side.
Her overly friendly, ready to please personality was working against her in the school situation. Instead of coming off as being one really social individual, Hope had started to wander into the realm of the annoying. People, specifically other kids her own age, couldn't tolerate her personality and they were starting to gripe about it.
This was not a problem she had in her mother's school because the students were older. They understood what Hope was and tried their best to tolerate her. Much to their credit, they never called her annoying and never complained to her mother about her. They played with Hope and dealt with her as best they could. Probably because, for some of them, Angelina controlled their grades for the year.
"Jane, Heidi, Dana, Sarah," Mrs. McNamara recited, going through the names of the four girls who usually held court in the playhouse, "Let Hope play with you today. Maybe she'll turn out to be a good friend for all of you."
"Fine," sighed the red headed child of the group, "Come on, Hope."
Mrs. McNamara walked away, turning only once to make sure they were playing nicely. Sure enough, Hope had gotten involved in the games the four girls were playing. It seemed to be a good sign in the teacher's experienced eyes since many kids in the class had complained Hope was "bothering" them.
Like any good teacher, Mrs. McNamara had checked the meaning of the strange notations in Hope's medical file. The ones that warned of an overly friendly, pushing it to the point of being annoying personality. It seemed that the little girl was suffering from a very odd genetic condition that caused all sorts of strange side effects. Upon speaking to Hope's frighteningly young mother and father about it, they assured her that their daughter's mental and intelligence levels were up to par for a child their age and that their was nothing save experience that would train their daughter not to be so friendly.
Suddenly, as the teacher was sitting at her desk looking over some of her class' "homework," she heard a loud screech. It wasn't uncommon for the classroom, during play time, to be full of the happy screeching of little children but this wasn't that sort of sound. Rather it was a yell of someone getting hurt or someone being somehow bothered by another person.
Getting up as fast as her old bones allowed her, Mrs. McNamara located the sound of the screeching child. She discovered, much to her total nonsurprise, that the cause of the shouting was Jane's little circle of friends at the playhouse. The girls were involved in some sort of game that only little kids could understand. Taking a count, though, she noticed that Hope was not around.
It was likely that the little girl could have gotten board and wandered off to play some other game. It was odd but not unexpected since she'd seen it before but Hope could play best by herself. She seemed to be more comfortable that way but that was neither here nor there at the moment. Mostly because Hope was no where to be seen.
"Ladies," she asked, peering into the playhouse again, "Have you seen Hope? I can't find her."
Four eyes of varying shades stared up at their teacher. They were fairly shining with mischief and other things. Not unusual for little kids but, for this group, Mrs. McNamara knew that meant trouble. It meant they were up to something.
"We don't see her," Heidi commented with an innocent smile.
"She goes away," Sarah added with the same smile.
The screechy sound came again, this time more muffled than before. Something was most definitely up and it wasn't a good thing.
"Girls," she asked, sounding more insistent, "where'd Hope go?"
A giggle passed around the group and Jane stated, "She goes with James."
James was Jane's twin brother and usually involved in whatever trouble his sister was causing. There was a third sibling, an older girl who had been adopted by Jane and James' parents a few years prior, but no one talked about her really. It was almost as if she was a nonentity in their lives.
"Where did James go?" Mrs. McNamara asked, sounding curious and trying not to scare the young girls into thinking they were in trouble.
Four shrugs went around the group who seemed to be bothered by the fact their game was being interrupted. They wanted to go back to playing and not have their teacher hanging around them talking about stuff they….really….honestly….didn't know about.
The teacher didn't need the girl's to answer when she spotted James' head behind the playhouse's fake refrigerator. Walking around, Mrs. McNamara found out just where the muffled screeching was coming from.
James had the much smaller and not very strong looking Hope in a death grip. The little girl, try as she might couldn't get away from the boy as he was holding her tightly and had his hands clamped around her mouth.
"James, let her go now!" Mrs. McNamara told the boy.
"We're playin'," James informed her in one of those obvious voices.
"What kind of game is this, kids?" the teacher asked, angry beyond all compare and pulling an obviously upset Hope away from James.
"She got caught," Jane told the teacher, "we gonna find her."
"Later in game," Dana added, "later, later in game."
Handing out time outs and deciding to write notes home, Mrs. McNamara brought Hope over to her desk to be looked over. She motioned for her aide to call Hope's parents.
Someone had to pick this child up and take her home.