LET'S GET EMOTIONAL GIRLS TO ALL WEAR MOOD RINGS!
Got a new Relient K cd (oddly enough, one of their first), and listenin' to it for the first time. Exciting huh? BOO-YAH! Okay that was random. So how goes life, everyone? School sucks, doesn't it? Enjoy the never-ending-chapter last time? Good, 'cause I have no idea what to do now.
Somehow the whole family was sitting around the table at four (a rarity in a super household, let alone a normal one). Helen fed Jack-Jack his dinner that evening rather absent-mindedly. Twice she had spooned air some green applesauce slop, and even more often had she tried feeding the baby boy her own taco.
"Mom, you missed again."
"Oh, oops. Sorry Jack-Jack." She resumed looking out the window.
"Helen, are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine!"
"Okay," Bob said, although he continued to eye her worriedly.
"Mom-"
"What already?"
"You've got taco stuff on your face."
"Oh…" Helen wiped Jack-Jack's face off. "Sorry Vi."
"Mom!"
"What now!"
"Your face! It's on your face!"
"What are you talking about, Dash?"
"Oh for pete's sake!" Vi exclaimed as she leaned forward in her chair and wiped her mother's cheek of the taco-ness. Helen hardly noticed. Just continued to stare out the window. Where is the mailman!
"Well, I'm done," Dash announced as he gathered his plate and utensils to drop off in the kitchen. He'd hardly touched his food; somehow he didn't trust this slightly ditzy Helen with cooking.
"Me too," Violet said.
"Me three!" Bob exclaimed.
"Finish your vegetables, Dash," Helen said in a daze.
"Did Mom eat something?" Dash asked his father.
"Well, it could be the tacos," Vi suggested. The kids retreated to their bedrooms.
"Honey, you okay?" Bob asked his wife again.
"Great! Never been better!" Helen said very loudly.
"Honey, Jack-Jack's plate has been empty for the last five minutes."
"Huh?" Helen looked down; sure enough, the baby-plate was clean. Jack-Jack looked ready to turn to sludge after eating so much. In fact, he probably could.
"Uh, honey? I think Jack-Jack needs to have his diaper changed."
"Uh right."
So Helen attempted to change Jack-Jack's diaper upstairs while still watching the front window from downstairs (A/N ahh, elastic necks. Can you imagine how many mothers would jump at the chance to be made of elastic?) Problem, of course, comes to play when someone else exists in the household.
Dash was headed to the den/living room/whatever, reading a magazine, when he tripped over his mother's neck. Ouch.
"What the-!"
"Yeow!"
"What happened! He- whoooooaaa!" Bump. Bam. Rollrollroll, POW!
As you can imagine, Dash tripped over his mother's neck at the worst possible point, the staircase. And then of course upon hearing this commotion, Violet came out to see what could make such a horrible racket, and ended up somewhere in that mess so now everyone lay on the bottom of the stairs. Well, Dash and Vi were laying at the bottom of the stairs, tied up in Helen's neck; Helen's head just happened to be there as well. Then Bob walked into the room.
"Hey Dad, wanna give us a hand?" Dash asked.
Bob burst out laughing.
"Thank you, Robert," Helen said as she and her two eldest children glared.
"Sorry!" he choked between laughs. "I'll just go load the dishwasher!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Helen grunted as everyone struggled to get out of the mess.
Jack-Jack started crying.
"Just a second!" Helen called panicky. Just then she saw the mailman arrive through the front windows. Bad bad bad!
"Hey Vi, got any scissors?" Dash asked, pulling on his rubber bonds without much affect.
"What!"
"Don't look at me like that, Mom. I want out!"
"Well so do I!"
"I can't take it anymore!" Violet shouted. She put up forcefield around herself, shoving the elastic neck outta the way. Letting the field down, she was now able to climb out and up the stairs back to her room.
"Hey what about me!" Dash shouted.
Vi looked down at her brother… and continued to her room.
"I guess I deserved that," Dash said.
Jack-Jack was still crying, and Helen had little feeling in her neck. Then they heard something crash in the kitchen. Bob can't do dishes! she suddenly recalled. Yes, after years of trying to educate the man, Helen had never managed to teach her husband how to handle porcelain without turning it into rubble.
"Dash, hold on tight," Helen ordered.
"What d'you me-waaa!"
Helen de-stretched her neck until her head was once again in the same room as Jack-Jack. There just happened to be a Dash sticking horizontally out of a knot in her neck.
"This is not cool, Mom."
"Oh, I agree," Helen said, her voice cracking. The room was on fire, as was Jack-Jack. "I need a fire extinguisher, stat!" she screamed.
Violet threw one in.
"Don't tell me- the room's on fire," Dash said.
"Yeah," Helen shouted over the flames as she fought them back. More china could be heard breaking downstairs. I need to get the mail!
"Honey, I could use a hand down here!" Bob yelled up the stairs.
"One minute!"
"Yeah, you're gonna need it," Violet said casually, standing in the doorway and drinking a soda while watching her mother fight the fire.
Finally the fire was controlled, except for the bawling Jack-Jack.
"Dash, take care of Jack-Jack!" Helen ordered as she hurried toward the door.
"How exactly?" Dash asked, still restrained in his mother's neck.
"Do you mind Vi?" Helen asked. Violet rolled her eyes and put a forcefield around Dash, then moved him out of the mess of neck. She tossed him down the hall.
"Ow!"
"You're welcome," Violet grumbled.
"Violet, take care of Jack-Jack," Helen ordered Vi, tossing her the fire extinguisher.
"Yeah whatever."
Helen bolted down the stairs to the kitchen, wanting desperately to detour to the mailbox. "What did you do!" Helen shouted at Bob when she got to the kitchen.
Broken plates, bowls, utensils, and glasses. Everywhere. And a spouting sink for good measure. Bob smiled guiltily. Helen groaned as she started to clean up the mess, using her superpowers to their fullest extent. Mail mail mail mail mail mail!
Half an hour later, Helen was practically sprinting for the front door. Just as she opened the front door, she saw Bob there, getting the mail from the mailbox. No no no no NO!
"No!" Helen shouted, definitely sprinting across the front lawn now to take the mail from her husband. But it was too late. Helen reached him just as he flipped up the last envelope and saw the magazine, West Living. The cover of the magazine.
There was Helen on the cover of West Living. With Jack-Jack. On the front of a magazine. And someone else. Another model, Bob assumed somewhere in his subconscious. A man…
Helen looked from Bob's eyes to the magazine; his gaze was locked on the guy. A younger fellow than Bob, or at least younger looking. He was quite simply tall, dark, and handsome. The photograph portrayed the three as a family; Helen holding up a smiling Jack-Jack while the man was hugging her.
Bob just looked at the magazine.
"I was going to burn it before anyone saw," Helen mumbled (by now the knot in her neck was gone). Bob barely heard her. Somewhere, the voice of reason in his head was telling him to ignore the picture; it meant nothing. It was telling him to be happy, happy for Helen, for getting on the cover of a magazine. But we very rarely listen to those voices do we?
Helen seemed to wrap around herself. She knew she had no real reason to feel guilty, but she did.
The painful moment was finally interrupted when something came crashing out of an upstairs window. A fire extinguisher. From inside, there was an "oops" heard. That's when Vi and Dash stuck their heads out of the window; both looked like someone had tried to barbecue them.
"Wow, Vi, you dented the driveway with it!"
"Shut up, you twerp." Violet looked up and saw her parents. "Hey Dad?" she yelled. "We're gonna need another window… and a fire-extinguisher refill or something. Think you could drive by the hardware store?"
Bob turned his gaze from his daughter to his wife. "Yeah."
The darkened man dropped the mail into Helen's hands, got into the normalized Incredicar, and sped out the driveway.
Helen could do nothing but watch him go, and sigh somewhat sadly.
That night was rather cold and lonely. Helen and Bob hadn't spoke since he'd come home with the requested supplies. Vi and Dash, sensing this was not the time to be a 'disturbance,' retreated to their rooms for the rest of the evening (and for his sake, kept Jack-Jack with them). So there the two were, Helen doing the ironing while watching the news as Bob read the newspaper. The tension was enough to drive a person nuts. Finally, Helen couldn't take it any longer.
"It's not that big a deal," she said after the several-hour long silence.
Bob opened his paper further, pulling it high up so his face couldn't be seen.
"Bob, come on, say something to me!"
"Like what? What do I say to this?" Bob stormed, putting down his paper to glare at his wife.
"This? It's just a quick job I can quit anytime I like! Just a paycheck!"
"And I suppose I'm not enough of a paycheck to satisfy?" Bob growled as he hid back behind the paper.
"What! For starters, you've never been a paycheck to me! Secondly, in case you haven't noticed, you are the one who got fired! Maybe if you hadn't I wouldn't have to pick up a job so we can support our family!"
"I got fired defending my family!"
"You lost your temper!"
"You weren't there!"
"Doesn't matter!"
Bob screwed his face up a bit, anger rising. "I'm the reason we got the money for Syndrome's arrest!"
"We did that as a family, and you know it! And that mess happened when you got fired before!"
"That mess has given supers a second chance!"
"A chance! What chance! Bob, don't you get it? It'll never really last! It'll just happen all over again! Or if it doesn't, McCormick and his lot will have us all gone!"
"How can you say that!"
"I'm not saying I like it!" Helen had thoroughly forgotten the iron at this point. "I'm being realistic!"
"Whatever happened to hope, huh! Whatever happened to having some faith! What about your kids; they deserve a chance to use their powers, don't they!"
"Of course they do!"
"Since when are you too good for superhero work!"
"Is that what this is really about? You think I feel too good for you because I was on the cover on some magazine?"
That one hit home. Bob and Helen were standing, facing each other. Bob dug through his mind for a way to turn this around. But Helen was right that time. Bob felt bested, he felt as though he had no use anymore. His workplace didn't need him, his kids were growing up and away, and obviously Helen was perfectly capable of providing for them all without losing touch with the family. And the country didn't want much of his help as a super either. That's what had Bob. He had no purpose if he couldn't support his family or help save lives as a super.
And the truth was that Helen felt pretty awful about herself as well. She felt guilty about that stupid magazine gig; she should've known Bob would feel hurt if she took over his place in the family pyramid. Plus, she felt as though she'd betrayed him in that picture.
However, there was something in the argument that now haunted both their minds, more so than ever before. What chance did the supers really have against the politicians? Sure, supers could melt metal or turn invisible or outrun a cheetah or walk through walls, but what was that if they couldn't help people? What was that compared to the power of the people, politicians, and laws? How could any super stand it; either help people and become the criminal you despise, or obey the law and watch as people suffered…
Helen and Bob just glared at each other. It wasn't until they heard a shirt burning under the iron that they moved. Helen turned the iron off and put it away roughly while Bob turned off the TV. His wife stormed into their bedroom, slamming the door behind her like a moody teenager. Bob pulled some blankets out of the hallway closet and set himself up on the couch, glowering in the darkness. Guilt was clenching the hearts of both. Arguing sucked, but their anger and pride would keep them from apologizing. Then they both heard it.
A knock on a door. "Come in," Violet said. Helen could hear this through the wall, and Bob through the ceiling. Muffled, but they heard it.
"Hey Vi?"
"What's up Squirt? Want me to take Jack-Jack?"
"Naw, that's all right. Hey Vi?"
There was silence. In Bob's mind's eye he saw his daughter looking up from something to Dash.
"Did you hear that?"
More silence. She nodded?
"Their fighting again."
"Everyone fights, twerp, you're living proof."
"But I thought they were done."
"They will be soon enough."
"You don't think… they'll get a divorce?" Dash's voice was so low it was almost imperceptible. He had only recently really gotten a feel for what a divorce was.
"Nope."
"Really?"
"Not a chance, Creepazoid."
"Weirdo."
"Punk."
"Girl."
"I am a girl."
"Shut up."
"Girl."
"Hey!"
Helen and Bob's overpowering pride deteriorated. In its stead came shame, which would work just as well at keeping them from apologizing.
Somehow, the Incredibles had to push through this. Not just the Underminer or McCormick… All of it…
My first attempt at spousal argumentation! What'ya think? Hey, I just noticed something funny. The character that is basically Vi's best friend in here is a girl named Sarah, and Vi is voiced by a Sarah in the movie. Weird.
P.S. I should mention that the deeper into the plot we go, the less insanity is gonna be coming out, methinks... until, like the ultimate climactic moment which I am evilly planning and cannot wait to spring upon you. In the words of Helen Parr, ha ha ha.
Review…?