Chapter three: Family Values.
"Family I have an announcement to make" I said at dinner.
"Honey this isn't about the red paint you threw all over that poor girls fur coat at the movie theatre last week" Carol began.
"No this is different from my usual environmental crusades," I admitted.
"You know you still owe me twenty dollars for that dry cleaning bill," Dad added and my little sister Gracie began to throw her beans at Jeff's head.
"I bet she's a lesbian," Jeff said wisely.
"I am not a lesbian," I said coldly.
"It's cool if you are" Jeff said dismissively.
"Yes Dawn we'll support you no matter what your life style choices are" Carol said smiling.
"Besbian?" Gracie asked looking confused.
" I AM NOT GAY, THIS IS ABOUT ME GETTING A JOB," I bellowed and they all stared at me.
"Honey why would you want a job? Getting a job means becoming a part of the system" Dad said meaningfully.
"You have a job," I pointed out.
"Yeah but I'm a tired ex punk from the seventies, you're still young! You should be out protesting, not working" Dad pointed out.
"Mommy wots a punk?" Gracie asked.
"It's a dude who wears safety pins in their noses and can you stop throwing your food at my head?" he informed his little sister and being Gracie she reacted the way she always did when some one yelled at her.
She grabbed onto her apple juice sippy cup and promptly poured it's entire contents on Jeff's lap.
"You little brat!" Jeff screamed.
"Gracie we have discussed this, food goes in mouths not on clothing" Carol said mildly.
"Orry Mommy" Gracie said looking sheepish.
"Dad I'm getting a job because I need to pay for something," I admitted.
"Pay for what? You have a college fund and your grandparents give you enough money for everything else" he pointed out and I sighed.
"I just want to pay for something myself, can't you let me be responsible?" I cried.
"Dawn don't you think you're over extending yourself, I mean you're already a member of the teens against meat foundation, amnesty international, the Palo city life volunteer life saver organization and that band Vanish" Carol pointed out.
"You know telling her not to put food on my clothes doesn't do shit! She still does it anyway and sometimes she goes into my room and she leaves her dried apricots in my shoes" Jeff grumbled.
"If it makes you feel any better I'll quite the life saving organization! I really need to do this" I insisted.
"She's only leaving food in your clothes because she loves you, they're presents" Carol informed Jeff.
"If she really loved me she'd buy me a Ipod" Jeff pointed out.
"Jeff she's four, how is she going to buy you an Ipod?" Carol sighed.
"Oh so you'd prefer to prevent saving lives in order to get money? I can't believe this my daughter is turning into a capitalist" my dad groaned.
"I'm not a capitalist for Christ sake! In the real world people have to work to pay for things dad" I screamed.
"Well if you really loved me you'd buy me an Ipod!" Jeff said sounding incredibly immature for a thirteen year old.
"I love you Jeffie" Gracie cried climbing out of her chair in order to give Jeff a sticky applesauce smelling hug.
"Oh for the love of god you may love me but that doesn't mean I have to like you, you're ruining my shirt" Jeff protested but he picked her up anyway and carried her away from the table in order to wash her hands.
"Honey I think Dawn should go for this job, I know that capitalism is bad but she's going to have to learn how to use money responsibly sooner or later" Carol said calmly.
"She learned how to use money when she was a babysitter" Dad protested.
"Oh yeah I learned how to manage six whole dollars at a time, wow" I drawled rolling me eyes.
"It's normal for a teenager to get a job, when I was sixteen I worked as a cage dancer at a club" Carol pointed out.
"Carol I really don't want to hear the story about how you met dad right now" I said and she glared at me.
"No need to be a smart ass Dawn," she said and Dad groaned.
"Fine obviously she's going to get a job no matter what I do, so where are you working Dawn?" he asked.
I stared at my plate.
"Um.. McDonalds" I began.
There was a thudding sound as dad fainted and then Gracie began to squeal with delight.
"Daddy dead! Daddy dead!" she shrieked.
Once we'd established Dad wasn't dead Carol decided it would be a good idea for me to leave the house unless I wanted to risk a two hour lecture on why McDonalds was an evil cooperation destroying humanity.
I mean I agreed with dad but I'd heard the same lecture ever since I was five; it was kinda loosing its impact.
"Hey Dawn I was just about to come over" I said seeing Sunny in one of her more popular outfits.
"Well don't you look like a walking felony, what's up with the red halter neck? Are you planning another hot date?" I asked and Sunny grinned.
"No we're going to go see another one of my connections, now hurry up because Maggie's going to pick me us up any minute"
"Maggie? What does Maggie have to do with anything?" I asked.
Maggie picked us up in her dad's town car, unlike us Maggie had drivers and she never bothered to pick up her license.
She said she'd fail if she tried so there was no point, but that was Maggie all over.
"Sunny told me what happened, of course I already heard from Rico who heard it off Justin, apparently Ducky rang him up at six am crying hysterically" Maggie began.
"Hmm yeah, we're trying to earn enough cash to at least help him fix his car" I began.
"Ducky is a very proud man, he'd never accept it" Maggie said seriously.
"Oh we're not going to tell him, you see I happen to know a guy who graduated from Vista last year, he's name is Seth and he's working in the auto shop on Sunset road" Sunny said with a shrug.
"So?" I asked curiously.
"So Ducky was convinced his car was a total right off and he sold it to a junkyard for spare parts, I got Seth to pick it up and he's going to fix it for us, all we have to do is pay" Sunny informed me.
"Your connections are starting to scare me Sunny" I sighed.
"Sunny has asked me to act as your financial advisor, I have no idea why because I suck at Math just like I suck at everything else in life" Maggie said but Maggie seemed to work best on depressing autopilot.
"Wait a second Sunny this plan sounds like it can actually work" I began and Sunny smirked.
"He's going back to college next week and he wont be back until the summer, we have until then to earn enough cash to fix the car" Sunny began and I blinked.
"I know I was surprised as you are, it almost seems like the old selfless Sunny is back" Maggie mused.
"Hey I've always been selfless! I've just been a little pre occupied with being selfish lately to show it!" Sunny said an annoyed expression on her face.
Seth turned out to be a little on the scary side, it was obvious that he was one of those special people who were talented when it came to fixing cars but were so stupid they didn't even notice that the world got dark at night time.
"So you're Sunny's friend Dawn! Wow it's like you're names are like both part of the sun you know? Accept you're like the sun waking up and Sunny is like coming out of you, like a sun baby"
That was the first thing he ever said to me.
"Yes I'm giving birth to Sunny in the form of sunshine," I said with a forced smile.
"That's so cosmic man," he said slowly nodding with appreciation.
"Sunny can I please speak with you? In private?" I asked.
"What was that about?" she whispered once I'd dragged her outside.
"Is Seth a stoner?" I asked and she glanced inside briefly where Seth was trying to impress Maggie by balancing a pencil on top of his nose.
"Could a stoner really balance a pencil?" Sunny pointed out and I rolled my eyes.
"Ok so he did smoke a fair share of weed and it did kinda fry him out but he cleaned up after he graduated," Sunny said sincerely.
"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea Sunny, I mean what if he screws the car up even more?" I pointed out.
"Ducky already thinks that the car has been sent to an auto wrecking yard and Seth will fix it really cheap" Sunny pointed out.
"I guess we're in a loose loose situation so it doesn't really matter" I admitted.
"That's the spirit! Now lets start negotiating with Seth! I think he'll give us a fifty percent discount if we flash him" Sunny smiled and I frowned.
"Well I guess we could ask him if he could turn the car into a solar powered electric one…but I'm not flashing my boobs" I said warily and Sunny sighed.
"Guess this means we'll be working longer hours then"
I used to assume that chasing after the Pike kids when they were hyped up on unnatural refined sugar was hard, but that was a picnic compared to working at McDonalds.
I mean sure chasing kids is hard but your ankles end up hurting a lot more when you're forced to stand in front of the deep fryer for periods of up to and including eight hours. Jill had put me in front of the French fries until I got used to how things were apparently done. This required defrosting chips in one fryer moving them to the next, cooking them and then salting them all the while trying to fill the fifty odd orders that came every two minutes.
But then again that was a picnic compared to dealing with Nick. Nick made the burgers out back and I suspected that he was a former serial killer out on parole. I came to this conclusion during my second shift at McDonalds.
Up until that point it had been a nice enough day, sure the smell of grilled meat was making me gag and I was so depressed about the Styrofoam containers that I wanted to cry but it seemed like I was going to be able to go through a whole shift without crawling into the fetal position.
That was before Nick came charging past me screaming hysterically while brandishing a butcher's knife.
There was a tearing sound followed by a faint sizzling and I watched in detached horror as two galleons of coke spilt all over the floor.
He was standing across the sticky brown ocean his face contorted with rage, his chest raising and falling while he still held the knife above his head.
"Are you ok Nick?" I finally managed to ask and that was when he realized he wasn't alone.
He stared at me for a few seconds and then he lowered the knife still panting.
"Fine Fine, never finer" he breathed before trudging towards the giant cooling fridge.
"Nick, well Nick is special" Jill grinned.
"You mean special as in special ed?" don't you. Now normally I had nothing against the disabled in fact I'd been hired to baby-sit kids with disabilities during numerous politically correct adventures.
However I kind of drew the line when the "special" person happened to be running around with a butcher's knife.
"Exactly! He has um, what's it called? Manic something or other" Jill grinned.
"Manic depression?" I choked.
"Yep that's it! McDonalds hired him because of you know equal opportunities in the work place and all that! If we fired him he could end up suing us and that would be bad," Jill giggled nervously.
We were sitting outside during our lunch break, I'd stuck to the McDonalds salads plus menu but even the vegetables were filled with evil globalization preservatives.
"How often does he run around screaming with the knives?" I asked and Jill bit her pink lip thoughtfully.
"Oh around once a week, but don't worry you'll soon recognize the scream and develop really good dodging reflexes" she smiled scooping up a mouthful of her sundae.
"So how's Sunny doing anyway?" I asked, Sunny had been given the later shifts. She would sneak out at night anyway so we reasoned that she might as well do it for a good cause.
"Oh Kim says she's doing really well! Ever since she started wearing the t shirt advertising our new burgers sales have tripled!" Jill smiled eagerly.
I didn't really have the heart to tell Jill that Sunny had shrunk the shirt in the wash so it would cling to her breasts.
"That sounds great Jill, wait a second what is this?" I asked suspiciously poking something white and lumpy in my garden salad.
"Oh that? It looks like chicken.. Must have fallen in," Jill said and I just gagged.
"So Sunshine how was your first week of work?" Dad asked in a horribly cheerful tone of voice as I lay on my bed feeling my muscles slowly turning into mush.
I just stared at him.
"It must be so rewarding working for a global symbol like McDonalds, it must make you feel like you're really part of something, like a worker bee would feel in a hive" he continued.
"How long are you going to go on like this?" I asked wearily.
"When are you going to quit?" he asked.
"When I have enough money!" I snapped and he leaned against the door shooting me his best fatherly look.
"Dawn why do you have this desperate need to earn money? You buy all your clothes from thrift stores," he pointed out.
"I just..Need it" I sighed.
"You're not involved in something are you? It's not drugs is it?" he asked suspiciously.
"No it's not drugs!"
"Then what is it?" he asked and I rolled my eyes.
"FINE during a driving lesson Sunny and I accidentally trashed Ducky's car and now we're trying to earn enough cash to fix it up for him" I admitted and he rolled his eyes.
"Dawn that sounds like the most ridicules story I've ever heard, when you're ready to tell me the truth I'll be down stairs having a tea party with Gracie and Jeff" he said sounding deeply disappointed.
Parents were always like that, they were more then willing to believe you were a drug addict before they'd believe the truth.