Chapter 5
A/N: Okay, here we go. I will be having a difficult time on this one...I don't know why. I'm very itchy right now, so send me the ointment. I ask for reviews, so please continue reading! Oh, and thanks to everyone, who reviewed, it's been nice!
Lilo's eyes widened greatly once she registered the sight of the figure that stood before her. It was not frightening, not to Lilo, but it was a very...unusual spectacle. She was unsure of just what it was...could it be human? Could it?
What had appeared from beneath the cloak of shadows was whom we may know as the unfortunate Quasimodo. His eyes were of mismatched size, the left overshadowed by a large bump. His nose seemed squashed, both round and flat, against his face, above his frowning mouth, which was filled with oddly shaped teeth. His head had sunk into his chest, as Lilo had suggested to herself before in jest. His arms were hairy and gorrilla-ish, his legs touched at the knees. He stood with his toes pointing inward, as if he were a very self-conscious person (which made a lot of sense). Despite every deformity of this awkward mess, there was one that eclipsed them all, and that was his back. His twisted spine formed itself into a hump, which hunched the poor man over.
The man's approach was hesitant and scared, obviously regretting revealing himself once he perceived the look on Lilo's face. It was obvious how much he wanted to return to his place of seclusion, but for some reason, he continued onward to complete the task that he was given, finding no use in hiding if she had already seen his face. Lilo watched him as he advanced, her mouth opened almost as wide as her eyes. Quasimodo did his best to ignore her stare.
For the majority of the time that Lilo had spent in this New World, she had suspected it was some other time and place on Earth. The humanoid statues that were distributed among the beams of the bell tower had assured her on that. But this person that had stepped from the shadows...well, it was a very confusing thing for Lilo. Once again, a question resounded in her mind. Was this man human?
Quasimodo finally reached the line beside Lilo and he held the red dress in his large fingers, rubbing the fabric as surreptitiously as he possibly could. It was indeed dry, and, he noted, soft. The material was so different from the one that made up his own clothes and it seemed much more comfortable as well. He did not recognize this fabric. Where could it have come from? Oh well, he thought, it doesn't matter anyway. And he continued to feel the cloth beneath his fingers. After several moments of this, he pulled the dress from the fasteners that held it to the line, his movements oddly gentle, unlike what his appearance seemed to reflect.
"Are you human?"
Quasimodo jerked. Lilo, who remained seated behind him, gazed at him expectantly. The question was not very timid (or tactful either), and it seemed to injure Quasimodo inwardly. Lilo fell once again into silence. There was another thing for her to regret.
Quasimodo glanced back at Lilo, sadness crossing his façade, his movements slower than they had been at first. "I should like to hope so," he replied.
Lilo lifted her head at the sound of his voice. She had not expected him to answer, but he had, and his response was a bit puzzling. She didn't really understand exactly what he had meant, but she suspected a 'yes' hidden beneath them, and she nodded to herself. So, he was human. Or he thought he was. That meant that there was a good chance that she was still on Earth...but, then, how could a man look like that? Lilo realized that this thought was a rude one, and very closed-minded, but it nevertheless continued to repeat in her head. Was it possible for someone to look that way? Of course there was, Lilo thought. She had to deal with them almost everyday. But those were experiments. Could a human...? Suddenly, a thought entered Lilo's head. Could it be possible that she...? Lilo gulped. Maybe.
"Here," Quasimodo said, presenting Lilo with her dress. Lilo held on to one fold of the material and stared up into his eyes. He backed off just a bit. What was she doing? Lilo continued this, slowly realizing that despite his appearance his eyes opened up to a human soul. It was a wonder how she was able to tell, but somehow she was. He was human.
Lilo's gaze startled Quasimodo, and his desire to hide off into the shadows grew more and more. And, just as he felt he was about to do it, Lilo seemed to kneel, supplicating, at his feet.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Quasimodo lowered his eyebrows in confusion.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," she repeated, her tone much louder than before. "I didn't know that this would happen and I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Quasimodo inquired, his tone mirroring his confusion. Lilo looked up at him with sad eyes.
"For giving you the cooties."
Quasimodo lifted an eyebrow. What? Lilo sighed, and she kept on apologizing. So this is what cooties did to people. It changed them, making them different from everyone else. She didn't know exactly what it changed in her, but she saw what they had done to her rescuer. It made him different. Maybe that's why everybody ran away from her; they didn't want to be like her. They didn't want to be different. They wanted to belong.
"What are cooties?" Quasimodo asked. Lilo looked up at him. Didn't he know? Everyone else did. Didn't he notice how different he was now?
"They're little monster germs that make you change," Lilo replied. Her tone was so guilty, her expression so wistful...but Quasimodo didn't understand!
"Really?" Quasimodo asked, sounding surprised. He checked himself quickly and looked back at Lilo. "I don't feel any different."
Lilo was confused. Maybe he didn't have a mirror to look into and didn't notice how much different he was now. But, wait, that didn't make any sense! Then why did he hide in the shadows? Lilo shook her head. This was getting harder and harder to understand.
"But," Lilo said, "didn't you see how you looked?"
Quasimodo slumped again, and slowly made his way back into the shadows. She had struck another chord, apparently. So he had seen how he looked. He wasn't very happy about it either. Lilo watched him as he walked away, and after several moments of thinking, she called him back to her side. Quasimodo stopped in his tracks, not continuing onward into concealment, but not returning to her. He seemed to be unsure.
"I told you that I was sorry," she said vehemently. Quasimodo seemed to glance backward at her and another one of the day's many sighs escaped his lips.
"It's not your fault," he replied sadly, turning back to her and sitting down at her side. "It's not anyone's fault." He looked down at the ground. "I have no one to blame. I am what I am...but sometimes I wish I wasn't."
"What do you mean?" Lilo asked curiously. "You were born this way?"
Quasimodo smiled wistfully and nodded lightly, and then pulled himself upward. "Don't blame yourself anymore, okay?"
Lilo smiled and nodded, receiving a bittersweet smile from her rescuer. Quasimodo continued to walk away, and Lilo was afraid that he might hide in the shadows again. But, obviously, he changed his mind, and she saw him limp toward the light that filtered in through the pane-less window. She kept her eyes on the place where he had sat and pondered.
So, he had touched her and he didn't get any cooties. Or, at least he didn't look like that. It seemed hours since he had at first came contact with her, and nothing had happened. So these "cooties" were harmless. Something about that both angered her and relieved her. Stupid Myrtle, making her feel so helpless; making everyone run away. But, then again, it's all in life, and she was almost used to it already. She would be alone all together, had it not been for Stitch and the rest of her Ohana. It was just then that she was learning to deal with it. It was nice knowing that she was dealing with absolutely nothing at all, but it was also very frustrating to know that she was forced to deal with it even when it didn't exist.
Lilo slowly unwrapped herself as she lost herself once again in her unusually deep thoughts. She pulled her dress over her head and pulled her hair out of the collar and smiled. She suspected she was going to be doing a whole lot of thinking today.
Once Jumba was complete with explaining the situation to the panicked Pleakley, Stitch was already near the end of his patience. Poor Lilo, trapped in an unknown realm for so long while the two idiots discussed seemingly irrelevant information. In his opinion, the cross-dressing alien was going to end up retarding their progress, making everything slower and forcing the young Hawaiian girl into more troubling situations (He wasn't very sure about this; it was just a guess). He was just speculating what these might be when Jumba ended the last sentence of his explanation.
"And, you see, that is how little girl is ending up in this situation," the man said crossing his arms satisfactorily. Pleakley held his chin in his hand, stroking it thoughtfully.
"So you made her test another one of your potentially dangerous inventions, and something malfunctioned, hurling her into an unknown region of space and time to fend for herself with only a few supplies, some useless?" Pleakley recapped, staring at Jumba with a focused eye.
"Yes, pretty much," Jumba replied, scratching the back of his head. It wasn't exactly how he described the situation, but it was what happened. Funny how anything can seem horrible if you just changed the wording a little bit.
"Alright," Pleakley said. Jumba raised an eyebrow. He was expecting the green guy to go running around, waving his hands in the air again.
"And, you're okay with this?" Jumba asked. Pleakley gave him a look.
"Of course not!" he exclaimed. "Does this look like an empty cranium to you?" he asked, pointing to his head and knocking on the top, apparently ignoring the very hollow sound it emitted. "I'm as worried as anyone else about this whole abysmal situation! It's just that I've tired myself out already. Do you know how much power it takes to run around screaming?"
"I wouldn't know," Jumba replied. Somehow, he was sure once he got enough strength, Pleakley would act as annoying as he did anytime something went wrong.
"Is there anyway to trace her?" Pleakley asked. Stitch looked at the two suddenly, his face clearly interested. Jumba noticed this and coughed uneasily into his hand.
"Well...once again, yes and no," Jumba responded sheepishly. Stitch narrowed his eyes at his creator.
"Jumba!" he exclaimed, cursing his master in his alien language. Why hadn't he said in the first place that he could find Lilo? '
"Now, 626," Jumba said defensively, "watch your language. Besides, I am saying both yes and no. Are you needing to get your big ears checked?"
Stitch went quiet.
"Now, listen," Jumba began, "I was hoping to avoid any false hope for you, you impulsive little creature. You see, Lilo's transmitter emits a distinct wave, like a radio. This way, it is able to communicate with the main machine, informing it when little girl wants to return to wherever she came from. I am able to trace this wave, but it will take a while, and I am not being sure if it is very useful anyway."
"Eh?" Stitch inquired.
"You see, if transmitter did fly off little girl's wrist at last moment, is meaning that it could be anywhere! It may be in the same time, but it may be in a different city, country; maybe even galaxy! And if it is in the same place, it may be in a different time! It is not too likely that it ended up in the same place and time." Jumba sighed. "That is the problem. We could try, and Stitch could search...but I wouldn't really suggest it. What do you think, 626?"
Stitch slouched and ambled to the broken window at the far wall. As impulsive as he was, he still understood the fact that the odds were against him. Was he willing to attempt something that was seemingly all in futility; blind himself with the hope that he would see his friend again? Stitch looked out at the edge of the hill, where Nani's car could be seen driving up, its driver, though hidden, obviously worried more because of the fruitless quest.
Watching as she pulled up to the drive, Stitch made his decision.
"Ih." Stitch walked from the window and up to his creator, determination blazing in his ebony eyes. To forget Lilo and leave her as lost would be the most heartless thing that any of them could do. Stitch may have been an abomination and defected, but Lilo didn't think so. She believed in him and introduced him into her Ohana, despite every one of his violent idiosyncrasies. And, as she had said: Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten. He wanted to help her. He wanted to save her; show her that he loved her as much as she did him. He wouldn't forget her. That was the last thing that he would do.
A/N: Okay, one of the shortest chapters I've written yet. I've tried really hard on this one, and I'm afraid that it might have fallen a few cards short of a whole deck. Well...Tell me what you think. I tried to improve my writing a little bit...eh...I don't know if I did it well... Review, please! (A fruitless attempt at touching moments brought to you by a defective muse!) (
A/N: Okay, here we go. I will be having a difficult time on this one...I don't know why. I'm very itchy right now, so send me the ointment. I ask for reviews, so please continue reading! Oh, and thanks to everyone, who reviewed, it's been nice!
Lilo's eyes widened greatly once she registered the sight of the figure that stood before her. It was not frightening, not to Lilo, but it was a very...unusual spectacle. She was unsure of just what it was...could it be human? Could it?
What had appeared from beneath the cloak of shadows was whom we may know as the unfortunate Quasimodo. His eyes were of mismatched size, the left overshadowed by a large bump. His nose seemed squashed, both round and flat, against his face, above his frowning mouth, which was filled with oddly shaped teeth. His head had sunk into his chest, as Lilo had suggested to herself before in jest. His arms were hairy and gorrilla-ish, his legs touched at the knees. He stood with his toes pointing inward, as if he were a very self-conscious person (which made a lot of sense). Despite every deformity of this awkward mess, there was one that eclipsed them all, and that was his back. His twisted spine formed itself into a hump, which hunched the poor man over.
The man's approach was hesitant and scared, obviously regretting revealing himself once he perceived the look on Lilo's face. It was obvious how much he wanted to return to his place of seclusion, but for some reason, he continued onward to complete the task that he was given, finding no use in hiding if she had already seen his face. Lilo watched him as he advanced, her mouth opened almost as wide as her eyes. Quasimodo did his best to ignore her stare.
For the majority of the time that Lilo had spent in this New World, she had suspected it was some other time and place on Earth. The humanoid statues that were distributed among the beams of the bell tower had assured her on that. But this person that had stepped from the shadows...well, it was a very confusing thing for Lilo. Once again, a question resounded in her mind. Was this man human?
Quasimodo finally reached the line beside Lilo and he held the red dress in his large fingers, rubbing the fabric as surreptitiously as he possibly could. It was indeed dry, and, he noted, soft. The material was so different from the one that made up his own clothes and it seemed much more comfortable as well. He did not recognize this fabric. Where could it have come from? Oh well, he thought, it doesn't matter anyway. And he continued to feel the cloth beneath his fingers. After several moments of this, he pulled the dress from the fasteners that held it to the line, his movements oddly gentle, unlike what his appearance seemed to reflect.
"Are you human?"
Quasimodo jerked. Lilo, who remained seated behind him, gazed at him expectantly. The question was not very timid (or tactful either), and it seemed to injure Quasimodo inwardly. Lilo fell once again into silence. There was another thing for her to regret.
Quasimodo glanced back at Lilo, sadness crossing his façade, his movements slower than they had been at first. "I should like to hope so," he replied.
Lilo lifted her head at the sound of his voice. She had not expected him to answer, but he had, and his response was a bit puzzling. She didn't really understand exactly what he had meant, but she suspected a 'yes' hidden beneath them, and she nodded to herself. So, he was human. Or he thought he was. That meant that there was a good chance that she was still on Earth...but, then, how could a man look like that? Lilo realized that this thought was a rude one, and very closed-minded, but it nevertheless continued to repeat in her head. Was it possible for someone to look that way? Of course there was, Lilo thought. She had to deal with them almost everyday. But those were experiments. Could a human...? Suddenly, a thought entered Lilo's head. Could it be possible that she...? Lilo gulped. Maybe.
"Here," Quasimodo said, presenting Lilo with her dress. Lilo held on to one fold of the material and stared up into his eyes. He backed off just a bit. What was she doing? Lilo continued this, slowly realizing that despite his appearance his eyes opened up to a human soul. It was a wonder how she was able to tell, but somehow she was. He was human.
Lilo's gaze startled Quasimodo, and his desire to hide off into the shadows grew more and more. And, just as he felt he was about to do it, Lilo seemed to kneel, supplicating, at his feet.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Quasimodo lowered his eyebrows in confusion.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," she repeated, her tone much louder than before. "I didn't know that this would happen and I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Quasimodo inquired, his tone mirroring his confusion. Lilo looked up at him with sad eyes.
"For giving you the cooties."
Quasimodo lifted an eyebrow. What? Lilo sighed, and she kept on apologizing. So this is what cooties did to people. It changed them, making them different from everyone else. She didn't know exactly what it changed in her, but she saw what they had done to her rescuer. It made him different. Maybe that's why everybody ran away from her; they didn't want to be like her. They didn't want to be different. They wanted to belong.
"What are cooties?" Quasimodo asked. Lilo looked up at him. Didn't he know? Everyone else did. Didn't he notice how different he was now?
"They're little monster germs that make you change," Lilo replied. Her tone was so guilty, her expression so wistful...but Quasimodo didn't understand!
"Really?" Quasimodo asked, sounding surprised. He checked himself quickly and looked back at Lilo. "I don't feel any different."
Lilo was confused. Maybe he didn't have a mirror to look into and didn't notice how much different he was now. But, wait, that didn't make any sense! Then why did he hide in the shadows? Lilo shook her head. This was getting harder and harder to understand.
"But," Lilo said, "didn't you see how you looked?"
Quasimodo slumped again, and slowly made his way back into the shadows. She had struck another chord, apparently. So he had seen how he looked. He wasn't very happy about it either. Lilo watched him as he walked away, and after several moments of thinking, she called him back to her side. Quasimodo stopped in his tracks, not continuing onward into concealment, but not returning to her. He seemed to be unsure.
"I told you that I was sorry," she said vehemently. Quasimodo seemed to glance backward at her and another one of the day's many sighs escaped his lips.
"It's not your fault," he replied sadly, turning back to her and sitting down at her side. "It's not anyone's fault." He looked down at the ground. "I have no one to blame. I am what I am...but sometimes I wish I wasn't."
"What do you mean?" Lilo asked curiously. "You were born this way?"
Quasimodo smiled wistfully and nodded lightly, and then pulled himself upward. "Don't blame yourself anymore, okay?"
Lilo smiled and nodded, receiving a bittersweet smile from her rescuer. Quasimodo continued to walk away, and Lilo was afraid that he might hide in the shadows again. But, obviously, he changed his mind, and she saw him limp toward the light that filtered in through the pane-less window. She kept her eyes on the place where he had sat and pondered.
So, he had touched her and he didn't get any cooties. Or, at least he didn't look like that. It seemed hours since he had at first came contact with her, and nothing had happened. So these "cooties" were harmless. Something about that both angered her and relieved her. Stupid Myrtle, making her feel so helpless; making everyone run away. But, then again, it's all in life, and she was almost used to it already. She would be alone all together, had it not been for Stitch and the rest of her Ohana. It was just then that she was learning to deal with it. It was nice knowing that she was dealing with absolutely nothing at all, but it was also very frustrating to know that she was forced to deal with it even when it didn't exist.
Lilo slowly unwrapped herself as she lost herself once again in her unusually deep thoughts. She pulled her dress over her head and pulled her hair out of the collar and smiled. She suspected she was going to be doing a whole lot of thinking today.
Once Jumba was complete with explaining the situation to the panicked Pleakley, Stitch was already near the end of his patience. Poor Lilo, trapped in an unknown realm for so long while the two idiots discussed seemingly irrelevant information. In his opinion, the cross-dressing alien was going to end up retarding their progress, making everything slower and forcing the young Hawaiian girl into more troubling situations (He wasn't very sure about this; it was just a guess). He was just speculating what these might be when Jumba ended the last sentence of his explanation.
"And, you see, that is how little girl is ending up in this situation," the man said crossing his arms satisfactorily. Pleakley held his chin in his hand, stroking it thoughtfully.
"So you made her test another one of your potentially dangerous inventions, and something malfunctioned, hurling her into an unknown region of space and time to fend for herself with only a few supplies, some useless?" Pleakley recapped, staring at Jumba with a focused eye.
"Yes, pretty much," Jumba replied, scratching the back of his head. It wasn't exactly how he described the situation, but it was what happened. Funny how anything can seem horrible if you just changed the wording a little bit.
"Alright," Pleakley said. Jumba raised an eyebrow. He was expecting the green guy to go running around, waving his hands in the air again.
"And, you're okay with this?" Jumba asked. Pleakley gave him a look.
"Of course not!" he exclaimed. "Does this look like an empty cranium to you?" he asked, pointing to his head and knocking on the top, apparently ignoring the very hollow sound it emitted. "I'm as worried as anyone else about this whole abysmal situation! It's just that I've tired myself out already. Do you know how much power it takes to run around screaming?"
"I wouldn't know," Jumba replied. Somehow, he was sure once he got enough strength, Pleakley would act as annoying as he did anytime something went wrong.
"Is there anyway to trace her?" Pleakley asked. Stitch looked at the two suddenly, his face clearly interested. Jumba noticed this and coughed uneasily into his hand.
"Well...once again, yes and no," Jumba responded sheepishly. Stitch narrowed his eyes at his creator.
"Jumba!" he exclaimed, cursing his master in his alien language. Why hadn't he said in the first place that he could find Lilo? '
"Now, 626," Jumba said defensively, "watch your language. Besides, I am saying both yes and no. Are you needing to get your big ears checked?"
Stitch went quiet.
"Now, listen," Jumba began, "I was hoping to avoid any false hope for you, you impulsive little creature. You see, Lilo's transmitter emits a distinct wave, like a radio. This way, it is able to communicate with the main machine, informing it when little girl wants to return to wherever she came from. I am able to trace this wave, but it will take a while, and I am not being sure if it is very useful anyway."
"Eh?" Stitch inquired.
"You see, if transmitter did fly off little girl's wrist at last moment, is meaning that it could be anywhere! It may be in the same time, but it may be in a different city, country; maybe even galaxy! And if it is in the same place, it may be in a different time! It is not too likely that it ended up in the same place and time." Jumba sighed. "That is the problem. We could try, and Stitch could search...but I wouldn't really suggest it. What do you think, 626?"
Stitch slouched and ambled to the broken window at the far wall. As impulsive as he was, he still understood the fact that the odds were against him. Was he willing to attempt something that was seemingly all in futility; blind himself with the hope that he would see his friend again? Stitch looked out at the edge of the hill, where Nani's car could be seen driving up, its driver, though hidden, obviously worried more because of the fruitless quest.
Watching as she pulled up to the drive, Stitch made his decision.
"Ih." Stitch walked from the window and up to his creator, determination blazing in his ebony eyes. To forget Lilo and leave her as lost would be the most heartless thing that any of them could do. Stitch may have been an abomination and defected, but Lilo didn't think so. She believed in him and introduced him into her Ohana, despite every one of his violent idiosyncrasies. And, as she had said: Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten. He wanted to help her. He wanted to save her; show her that he loved her as much as she did him. He wouldn't forget her. That was the last thing that he would do.
A/N: Okay, one of the shortest chapters I've written yet. I've tried really hard on this one, and I'm afraid that it might have fallen a few cards short of a whole deck. Well...Tell me what you think. I tried to improve my writing a little bit...eh...I don't know if I did it well... Review, please! (A fruitless attempt at touching moments brought to you by a defective muse!) (