Would you like fries with that: Chapter Five.
A/N: The soundtrack for this chapter came from the movie " The Blues Brothers" and I don't own the California diaries series!
By the end of the second month I'd gotten so used to working at MacDonald's that I barely blinked an eye when I had to get slaughtered dead cows out of the freezer. The Teen's Against Eating Meat club however saw things differently.
"Dawn" Marcie Brown said as I walked into our after school meeting and I was suddenly aware that every one in the room was staring at me.
"Marcie" I shot back warily brushing a speck of dust off my tsunami crisis wave aide t-shirt.
"Dawn recently we've received several disturbing reports," she said seriously.
"About battery hens?" I asked hopefully and Marcie's personal yes man David jumped forward holding onto several sheets of paper.
They all showed photos that had been taken on a camera phone, photos of me working at MacDonald's.
"Care to explain?" Marcie asked folding her arms.
"It's not what it looks like" I began.
"It looks like you're working for an organization that promotes animal cruelty and SLAUGHTER," she screeched.
"Oh come on it's not like I'm eating dead cow! I needed the money," I protested.
"If you needed money so badly then why did you decide to work for them? There are plenty of health food restaurants in the city," she snapped.
"Yes and they're all run by stupid stoners who never hire teenagers" I pointed out.
Marcie's mouth opened with outrage.
"How dare you insult the health food industry in such a cocky manner! I hate to do this Dawn but I'm going to have to suspend you from the club until you come to your senses" she said pressing her lips together.
"Suspend me? But I'm the hardest worker in this club! I was the one who organized the trip to Spain last year to protest against the running of the bulls" I cried.
" We can't have you here tarnishing our reputation, hand over your " We Hate Carnivores" badge now" she said holding out her hand and I felt tears of injustice gather in my eyes.
"Fine" I choked ripping the badge off my knapsack.
"This whole fucking society will be run into the ground without me!" I choked as I marched out of the room the door slamming behind me.
"It's not that bad" Jill said soothingly patting my shoulder.
"Yes it is! I was one of the founding members of the club" I choked tears streaming down my face.
"Well if they're going to act so crazy about a job then maybe you should stay away from them, there's having a social conscience and then there's just being crazy" Jill said handing me a MacDonald's napkin and I blew my nose noisily.
"Maybe I should just quit" I choked.
"But then what about Ducky's car?" Jill asked and I sighed.
"But I feel like I'm betraying who I am Jill! Have you ever felt like that?" I asked and Jill glanced down at her lap.
"Remember the first week of high school? When you guys ran off to the party and I didn't tell mom?" she asked and I shook my head miserably.
"Well I felt like I was betraying myself when I did that, but sometimes our friends are more important then our own selfish needs" she said wisely.
"Jill that was the smartest thing you've ever said" I choked.
"I didn't get the assistant managers position based on my sultry good looks," she laughed and I looked up when Sunny entered the kitchen dressed in a denim mini skirt and a bright pink sequined boob tube.
"Sunny you're only supposed to come back here when you're working" Jill said tiredly and Sunny hopped up onto the kitchen bench swinging her long tanned legs.
"I'm picking Dawn up," she said airily.
"Since when? You can't even drive," I pointed out.
"Maggie's driving us because I found this," she said reaching into her straw bag.
"You found an Ipod? You should tell the police!" Jill cried staring at the tiny silver mp3 player.
"Relax Jill, it belongs to Ducky," I said and Nick who was chopping tomatoes stared at Sunny as if she held the secrets of the universe between her legs.
Knowing Sunny she probably did.
"You mean we're going to go return it right now? Couldn't we just mail it to him?" I asked wearily.
"You're going to trust the US postal service with an IPOD? It'll only take half an hour to get there Dawn! We'll be back long before your curfew" Sunny said and Jill attentively raised her hand.
"Can I come to?" she asked.
"You want to come with us to a college? You do know that in college people have sex and drink, sometimes at the same time" Sunny said and Jill hesitated for a moment before nodding firmly.
"Dawn and I finish at the same time and I've got nothing else to do tonight, besides I want to meet Ducky properly" Jill said defiantly.
"Fine but don't blame me when you turn into a crack whore" Sunny said and then her eyes flickered towards Nick.
"So Nick is that a quarter pounder in your pants or are you just happy to see me?" she grinned.
My brother once told me that you could tell a lot about a person based on what they stored on their Ipod. For example if it was filled with nothing but angry Marilyn Manson and Gwar music then you'd know that the next time you saw them you should just back away slowly. Or if their play list had nothing but Hillary Duff and The Back street boys you were either dealing with a twelve-year-old girl, a very gay guy or Jill.
Sunny wasted no time telling Maggie's driver to plug Ducky's Ipod into the car, being rich Maggie had all the attachments needed.
"Sunny that is Ducky's private property" I pointed out tirelessly.
"Please! He wasn't upset that time I borrowed his toothbrush so why would he be upset about this?" Sunny pointed out as we climbed into the back of Maggie's limo.
Maggie had offered to drive us to Ducky's campus because she claimed her life was so pathetic she had nothing else to do, personally I thought she just wanted to get out of baby sitting her drunk mother.
"You borrowed his toothbrush?" Jill squeaked and Maggie glanced at Jill a surprised expression on her face.
"Jill, shouldn't you be off coloring in pictures of unicorns?" she asked adjusting her hip black-framed reading glasses.
"Shouldn't you be off writing poetry about your cut up arm?" Jill asked with a perfectly innocent expression on her face and Maggie's expression froze, she then grudgingly gave Jill a small smile.
"Nice to see you're still not a total baby, even if you do wear your hair in pigtails" Maggie mused and as the car drove away from McDonalds the Ipod took over the stereo system.
"Holy shit! Do you know what this is?" Maggie yelled her face growing even paler.
"A punk version of the song Soul Man by The Blues Brothers" Jill grinned.
"Yeah it's a punk cover Vanish did right before we broke up, Rico wanted us to record it for his mother" Maggie gasped and I realized it was her singing on the Ipod.
"But I thought that Bruce set fire to all those Vanish CD's after he and Rico had that massive blow out?" I asked and Maggie slowly nodded.
"I thought he did as well, Ducky must have saved one," I said and Sunny had already climbed up onto her seat sticking her head out of the roof.
"Coming to yah on a dusty road, good loving I got a truck load! And when you get it you got something so don't you worry cause I'm coming! I'm a soul man," she sang along to the music and Jill screeched with horror while Maggie and I took this in calmly.
"Shouldn't we make her get down?" Jill hissed.
"She does this every time we play rock music in the limo, don't worry she'll get down as soon as we hit the tunnel" Maggie said her expression still tense.
"He probably had a burned CD lying in his stink filled house and then he uploaded it onto his Ipod with everything else" I said to Maggie and she angrily shook her head.
"Did you know how it felt when I thought Bruce destroyed everything?" Maggie asked and I slowly nodded thinking of the time Sunny nearly burned down my kitchen.
"I just can't believe he had this all this time and he never said anything!" she snapped.
"Ducky's had his Ipod for ages Maggie and they hold over ten thousand songs, he probably completely forgot about it" I said patting her hand.
"Why is she so upset?" Jill asked but her words were cut off as Sunny reached down and dragged Jill reluctantly up by her hand.
"Sing it with me Jill" she cried happily and Maggie and I shared an amused look.
"I don't know the words," Jill protested weekly.
"The chorus is I'm a soul man! How hard is that?" Sunny pointed out and then she suddenly screeched.
"I can see an SUV we need to flash in protest girls!" Sunny cried and there was a rustling sound as Sunny's boob tube fell onto the cars floor.
Maggie just rolled her eyes, Sunny had come up with the flashing SUV protest idea when she turned fifteen and her boobs graduated to a C cup. Her theory was that her chest was so good it would cause any male driver to break in shock and any female driver to break out of sheer jealousy, thus causing the car to spin out of control and crash.
I'd given her a stern lecture about auto safety and she'd agreed only to do it when she saw a car that was particularly dangerous for the environment.
So far she'd successfully caused eighteen SUV's to be taken off the road, in a small way I was almost proud of her.
Jill gave a horrified scream, which was coupled by the squealing sound of breaks as the SUV spun off the road.
"Lets hope he didn't get the drivers license and registration" Maggie muttered darkly as I handed Sunny her shirt.
Sunny and I had been to Ducky's college once in the past, after all we were the closest thing he had to best friends ever since Alex was sent to the psychiatric ward. The last time we came was when we helped him move into his dorm after his brother flaked out on him again. His roommate a fat party animal named Seb had called us Ducky's hot little sisters and we'd both freaked out.
Even Sunny had some standards.
The dorms however seemed different at night, Maggie had made her driver drop us off a block away but even there we could see all the people spilling out onto the lawn.
"Great there's a party going on and I'm wearing my worst pair of underwear," Sunny said trotting along in her inch high heels.
"You're not going to hook up with some guy Sunny, we're here to give the Ipod back and then you're going to work and Jill and I are going to go home" I said firmly.
"Like any one would want to hook up with you anyway, you smell like hamburgers" Sunny grumbled.
"Hey I resent that! I changed out of uniform," I said gesturing to my loose light blue beaded Kafka and my baggy denim jeans.
"Doesn't get rid of the smell, trust me you need a pumice stone to get it out" Jill said, after work she'd changed into a bright pink t-shirt with the word princess written across the front in glitter but she was still wearing her navy blue work pants.
"Or you could go for a full body tissue scrub, now where's Ducky's dormitory?" Maggie asked glancing around the party an annoyed expression on her face.
"It's the Freeman building, past the make shift stage" I said gesturing to the enthusiastic punk rock concert that happened to be going on around a hundred feet away.
"You know this band isn't all that bad if you like the whole screaming about anarchy thing, very sex pistols" said Maggie the music expert as we pushed our way through the mosh pit.
Some how in the chaos Sunny had managed to get her hands on a Vodka Cruiser and she handed it to Jill.
"Is this like Soda pop?" Jill asked.
"Sure it is" lied Sunny and Jill took a swig.
"They may be okay but right now they're stopping us from getting to the dorms and that's pissing me off" I said pushing past a Goth girl in a black corset.
"Can you please get out of my way?" I growled and she glared down at me.
"Bite me freshmen" she replied sticking out her pierced tongue.
"I don't think so, I'm not a lesbian" I shot back.
"Could have fooled me," she snarled her gaze lingering on my friends.
"What's going on here? Oh it's an angry Goth attack" Maggie said her eyes falling on the girl.
"And what is that supposed to mean princess?" asked the girl who for the purposes of this story will be referred to as the angry Goth.
"Please I went through a Goth cutters phase once and you're not fooling anybody, I know you have this whole tougher then brick image to maintain but that doesn't give you the right to push my friend down when she's asking a polite question" Maggie said raising her eye brows.
"You're lesbian friend was asking if she could push upfront and I've been camping out here since noon! I nearly ruined my pallor for this position!" the angry Goth snarled.
"Please we don't want to get up close we just want to get to the dorms," Jill asked looking on the verge of tears.
"Why don't you go fuck yourself baby blue because nobody else will" the angry Goth snarled and some one grabbed her on the shoulder.
"Have you got some kind of problem with these ladies Celestina?" asked a tall guy in a Shrek mask.
"These conformist pigs were disrespecting me and my life style choices" she sneered.
"We were not! We just wanted her to move!" I yelled, Sunny who had been off flirting with a random hairy guy in a green peace shirt returned a confused expression on her face.
"Do we know these people?" she whispered to Maggie.
"Gucci over here mocked my beliefs," the angry Goth growled.
Oh honestly shut the fuck up before my fathers security team gets you killed" Maggie said in a bored tone of voice.
"That's it bitch!" The angry Goth cried and she plunged towards Maggie her black lace skirts flying.
Thankfully Maggie had taken Thai kick boxing exercise classes with her mother for nearly two years and she sent out a great flying kick with one dainty high-heeled encased shoe.
Within seconds the two girls were fighting and I stood there completely horrified.
Maggie never ever fought anyone; she was too obsessed with her own insecurities for that.
"Should we help them?" I asked the guy in the Shrek mask as Jill ran off to find Maggie's driver and Sunny ran off to find a guy big enough to pull them apart.
"Celestina does this at every single party we go to, the universities security will be here soon" he said his voice slightly muffled and I saw two fat guys in blue shirts arrive in a golf cart.
"Ah here they are," he laughed as if he found this funny, by now Maggie had successfully ripped off the girls black studded belt and was hitting her on the head with it while screaming
"You're not hard core!" it took both guards to drag her off.
Maggie was arrested, thankfully by the universities security as apposed to the real police.
They'd mistaken her for a student and they locked her up in their security office, Celestina had been locked up in their bathroom.
Jill wanted us to explain that Maggie was technically not a student but then Sunny pointed out that if we did that the security team might call the actual police.
The guy in the Shrek mask told us they'd let her go if we paid the three hundred dollar fine other wise she'd have to wait until her student advisor showed up and considering Maggie didn't have a student advisor we decided this was the best course of action.
Which was why I was sitting outside the security office while Sunny and Jill ran off to find an ATM machine.
Thankfully I wasn't alone, but I wasn't sure if the guy in the Shrek mask was such a good companion.
"What's with the Shrek mask?" I asked raising my eyebrows.
"I accidentally glued it onto my face and it won't come off" He laughed putting on a fake Scottish accent that sounded better then Mike Myers.
"You accidentally glued a mask to your face?" I asked.
"Well technically my room mate did it, we were all going to wear masks to this concert right and he decided it would be hysterically funny to pour crazy glue on mine" he said.
"You should wipe down the sides with mentholated spirits, that's what I did when Jackie once glued a bird feeder to his face" I advised him.
"Jackie?" he asked.
"This kid I used to baby sit in my mothers home town, he had a habit of sticking random objects onto his face" I said.
"All kids go through that"
"He once managed to glue a live duck onto his back," I recalled.
"Ok that makes him a little different" Shrek admitted and then he cocked his head to one side.
"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked and I raised my eyebrows, he must have sussed out that I wasn't a student.
"Returning an Ipod" I explained, my dad had warned me about college guys but this one wasn't drunk and seemed relatively ok, besides we were outside the security booth.
"That's nice of you, most people would have bought a new one" the Shrek guy mused and I shrugged my shoulders.
"Yeah but the guy who owns it happens to be one of my best friends plus I'm wracked with guilt because I accidentally crashed his car" I admitted and the Shrek mask bobbed to one side it's enraged expression looking curious.
Later on Sunny would ask me why I told a guy in a Shrek mask, who happened to be a complete stranger everything that happened and yet some how I did.
Maybe it was the whole mask thing, or maybe I just needed to tell some one who wouldn't accuse me of being a capitalist like my father.
"You see he was teaching us how to drive and I distracted my other best friend causing the car to crash" I admitted.
"It's hardly your fault, he should have anticipated that you two were in experienced" Shrek replied and I shrugged my shoulders.
"Maybe, I got a job to pay for the damages at McDonalds," I said with a small shudder.
"Ugh rough, my first casual job was at a book store" the masked ogre replied and I sighed.
"Yes well it really sucks for me because I'm a vegetarian," I explained and I expected him to laugh but instead there was the tiniest intake of breath.
"So you went against your moral beliefs to help your friend?" he asked.
"I guess so," I admitted and there was a thoughtful silence.
"That's… that's pretty cool," he muttered in a very tiny voice and the familiar jingling sound of Sunny's metal bangles distracted me.
"We got the money" she greeted me and her eyes fell on the guy in the Shrek mask.
"Anyway Maggie's driver says we have to go as soon as we pay the fine" she said her eyes returning to me.
"Thanks for listening, why were you wearing that Shrek mask anyway?" I asked and the Shrek guy shrugged his shoulders.
"Because I have many layers" he replied and I shook my head a small smile on my face.
We never found Ducky, Sunny ended up putting the Ipod into his mail slot, which really made the whole trip pointless. But at least we'd finally gotten Jill out into the real world and Maggie seemed rather pleased with her self especially when her driver called her father.
Sunny and I suspected that she got into trouble on purpose, sometimes Maggie seemed to have trouble distinguishing between positive and negative attention.
As we drove back to Palo City I smiled with bemusement as Sunny told anyone who would listen that I was in love with a cartoon character, for a moment everything seemed ok.
The next day we were told that while we were out arsonists had burned the McDonald's restaurant to the ground.