Chpt. 9 – A Day to Remeber

Carl Foutly lay somewhere between the lands of sleep and awake, uncertain as to whether he should bother trying to stay conscious or just continue to lie there, doing nothing forever. His mind drifted in and out, bouncing around thought of the last two days and wondering if love truly was worth all the pain. He wasn't quite sure really how it happened, how in a manner of two days he had gone from mortal enemies to lovers, but that really didn't matter to him anymore. No matter how hard he thought about it, everything just seemed more and more confusing to the junior high school student. He was so young and, supposedly, so innocent, he shouldn't have to deal with things like love yet. There was no way for him to understand what was going on in his head and in his heart and because of that all Carl seemed able to do was role over to face the wall as a single tear ran down across his face to soak into the material of the pillow he clung to for dear life. Under his breath Carl muttered to what appeared to be the wall,

"Why me?"

Then with a lurch that would have surprised even a psychic, Carl jumped from his bed, dragging the covers with him and stared towards the ceiling for only a second before screaming,

"WHY ME?"

The words hung on the air with a force strong enough to rip the wings off of an angel, followed by an uncomfortable silence. Left with no response, Carl fell to the floor amid the mass of blankets he had pulled up with him and proceeded to cry softly to himself.

Downstairs, Lois Foutly jumped as her son's words reverberated through the wooden beams of the house and carried as far as the kitchen, 'and probably down the block,' she thought to herself. Wincing slightly as pain shot through her hand, she realized that when she had jolted from her Carl's scream she had also managed to slice open one of her fingers with the knife she was using to cut vegetables. Dropping the now finely deiced carrots in with the roast that sat on the center rack of the oven, Lois closed the door to the oven and made her way across the kitchen and into the nearby bathroom in search of a band-aid.

As she walked, Lois thought through all the events of the day. Finally she came to the sudden realization that, while Carl had quite obviously been in his room all day, Ginger had been no where in sight. The day was too hot for her to go anywhere, besides, Ginger would never leave without permission.

The bandage was retrieved quickly and did its job well as Lois returned to the world to find that her oldest child had decided to return from hiding and was sitting patiently at the table, waiting on dinner. A questioning look crossed Lois' face as the two females locked eyes, but only remained there for a second, causing Ginger to wonder whether she imagined it.

"I guess it's just the two of us tonight, Ging."

The statement was made rather easily as if it had been an expected thing, but Ginger could hear the hurt in her mother's voice and attempted to hide her own pain at the situation behind a mask of conversation.

"Yah, at least this time I won't have to worry about vomiting because of whatever Carl decides is his monster creation of the night."

The grin that played across Lois' face told Ginger that her ploy to make her mother even a bit happier had worked, if only for the second, but what she hadn't expected was a question directed at her.

"So Ging, what have you been up to all day?"

Caught so off guard by her mother's sudden prodding, Ginger nearly fell out of her seat, but attempted to cover the sudden drop of cool by pretending to pick up an "accidentally" fallen fork. Once the fork had been retrieved, along with Ginger's composure, she replied in a cool manner,

"Nothing much, just this and that."

The answer was an obvious cover up for something, but Ginger knew that she wasn't the best of liars and she also knew that her mother would see past it anyway. The point was that she hoped her mother would realize the need for privacy and drop the subject.

"Now what's this? You can't even talk to your old Mom anymore?"

Ginger had hoped wrong. What would she say now, she didn't want to give too much away, that might compromise everything, but then again, she never could lie to her mother. Ginger hated being caught in moments like this. Her thought processes were interrupted by her mother, though, before she could think it all through.

"You think I don't know what's going on Ging? I'm not one of those moms who don't pay attention to what's going on. I know what you're up to, and I want a part of the action…"

Lois' words seemed to hover somewhere in front of Ginger as if she should inspect them for a lie, but she could find none. Slowly the truth of the situation sunk into Ginger's mind and a smirk made its way across Ginger's lips, which was matched perfectly by those of her mother. Chatter quickly filled the kitchen, though kept to a volume that any eavesdropper would find it hard to listen in, and it was only late in the evening when it was decided that bed was for the best right now. Thus a twin headed operation gained some "outside" help.

The night passed slowly at the Foutly household. Outside the weather was unbearably hot and only cooling at a rate that seemed far too slow, but inside the world just seemed dark and woeful. While there were no more outbursts from Carl's room, there was also little indication at all that he was still alive. The one thing that led Ginger to believe that the boy was still breathing were the faint, and rather pitiful, whimpers that emanated from the wall which separated their two rooms. Eventually the girl fell asleep and was awakened, far too early in her mind, for the day at school.

The morning seemed to go by just as slowly as the day had. Prying herself out of bed, Ginger began to sort through her drawers in search of a suitable outfit for school at about the same time her mother decided to pass by her door. A loud pounding was heard, accompanied by her grumbly morning voice.

"Ging, time to get up!"

"I'm up mom!"

Ginger's response sounded much more annoyed that she actually was, and it was all just as she wanted it to be.

'One week,' she thought to herself, smiling, 'just one…'

Downstairs, Ginger was surprised to find her younger sibling dressed, though not necessarily ready for school. His red hair stuck out in every direction imaginable as long as it didn't seem to look natural and his eyes made it rather obvious that he had done more crying that sleeping during the night. It took no more than a look at her brother, who sat looking shot down staring into a glass of orange juice, and another at her mother, who did the dishes as if they had done her a personal wrong, for Ginger to realize that Carl had tried to weasel his way out of school for reasons of "emotional duress." Feeling a sudden twinge of pain in relation to her brother's position, Ginger made to give him a hug from behind, yet was surprised as he stood before she could complete the motion and made to leave the room. She couldn't blame him for being upset, she would be too in his situation, but still, that was rude.

The drive to school was long and quiet, sort of to be expected after such a weekend, yet it still brought about an uncomfortable silence that Ginger was not happy with in the least. As the three redheads pulled up in front of Lucky Junior High, Ginger proceeded to get out of the car along with her sibling, which surprised both her mother and Carl. She grinned as she walked over to Carl and, in the most soothing voice she could muster, said,

"You're gonna be fine, trust me, once all this blows over everything will be just fine."

With that she kissed her brother lightly on the forehead, making him grin in spite of his feelings for public affection. Once again she smiled down at him before getting back in the car and driving off with her mother. Carl looked up at the doors of his school, which suddenly seemed so much bigger than life, and thought to himself how much things had changed. The clock struck seven and the doors opened. As the whole of the school swarmed toward the now open doors, not one of them realized that the whole world changed over the weekend.

The day proceeded as normal for the majority of the morning. Classes were utterly boring and Carl, though he portrays the delinquent, knew most of what he was supposedly being taught. As the day continued by in its slow crawl, Carl began to tune it out, fading in to his own world and hope that the real one would just go away. The world truly would have been nothing more than a vague memory for Carl, had it not been for the fact that partway through the day he had a class with the one person who could make or break the day for the young boy.

As Carl entered into the math room, the first thing that he notice was the man standing at the back of the room, his suit was emasculate and his eyes were downcast. Winston. Carl knew how Blake's mother had taken the whole situation, but this was a bit much. She had sent a chaperone? As Carl moved further into the room he saw him. The platinum blonde head was obvious among all the others, at least to Carl. There was a flash of hope, a flash that would have blinded the room had it been real light, but that faded as fast as it came when the blonde looked up. Blake's face was hard and his blue eyes were like ice as the fell on Carl. There was no sorrow, if anything there was hate, and it was too much for Carl to take. He turned silently on one heel and made to leave the room but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Looking back, Carl saw the kind face of his best friend hovering over his shoulder. A wink passed from the larger boy that was so fast it might have been missed had Carl not been looking so quickly.

"Don't worry about that ass, Carl, I'll make sure he knows where his place is and doesn't leave it anytime soon."

The look of confusion that crossed Carl's face almost caused him to laugh, but instead he just blindly followed his friend back into the room. It took him a moment to realize that Hoodsie's comment had been relatively loud for what was needed to talk to him, almost as if he wanted the room to hear him, but Carl didn't have time to think on it. He hated math, and this was the one class where he had to think about what he was doing.

The class ended without incident and Winston made quick work to escort his master out of the room. This destroyed any hope that Carl may have had to talk to Blake. Considering that it was the last class of the day, Carl made the trip to his locker relatively blindly, not even realizing where his feet were taking him until he was gone. Things were happening to fast, and not just normal things, but weird things.

'What was Ginger up to?'

'Why is Hoodsie acting so weird?'

'Why won't Blake even look at me?'

So many questions blundered through Carl's mind that they blocked off all his other senses and it was only after his name was yelled that he realized there was a small girl next to him. He didn't know her by name, but he knew her from the fact that she was in his math class and she sat right next to Blake. The only reason that even registered in his mind is because some of their backfired plans had unwittingly involved her when they were originally aimed for Blake. As he looked at her now he realized that she was much shorter up close than she was from across the room. She stood nearly a head shorter than him, with her long, curly, blonde hair trailing down well past her mid-back. The recollection came to him in a burst that, the entire time she had been there, she had been holding a piece of paper in front of his nose. As he reached for it she finally sighed in relief.

"I don't know what world you were in, but it looks like you finally woke up. Blake asked me to give this to you."

With that, she walked off. Opening the paper, Carl finds a quickly scrawled note that, by the handwriting, Carl can obviously tell was meant to be hidden from prying eyes.

'Carl,

Don't mind Winston. He's on our side. Pretend like nothing happened this weekend. Will be fixed soon.

Love Blake'

A/N: And now I torture you all by leaving it at that. MWAHAHAHA…I know I'm evil. Leave me reviews and I may update soon. Devilish Grin

MK