I've enjoyed writing this tale so far. It's given me something to do these boring school days. (Blah, blah, blah) Here's the fourth chapter.
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Chapter Four: Ice Cream 'N Cookies
"I was taken in pretty quickly by everyone but Mento. He was a very suspicious man." Beast Boy shook his head. "But the others were okay. They were almost like a real family."
"I always thought of Rita as the mom, 'cause even Steve—Mento—listened to her." The green teen smirked. "Steve was the military dad, and I do mean military. You know how Robin likes to work us for hours each." Everyone but the team leader grinned and nodded. "Well, Mento was a lot worse; a whole lot worse. Whenever there was a crime-free moment, he would make us train. From dodging missiles, to running through the maze, it was one exercise and then another." Jinx and Starfire stared at him in disbelief. Cyborg dropped his metal cranium on the table in shock, causing the candles to flicker briefly. Robin had a look of admiration in his masked eyes, while Raven showed no emotion at all, which was normal for her.
"The last two, Larry and Cliff—Negative Man and Robot Man—, were more like brothers than uncles. Cliff was the stronger one you went to for a game of football. While Larry was the smarter one who you went to if you had a question. And I had a LOT of questions."
"It was hard during those first couple weeks. I still didn't understand a lot of the English language, so I had to spend every moment relearning to read and write and talk." Cyborg cracked up.
"No wonder you don't like to read!" the metal-man hybrid laughed. "You can't!"
"I can too!" Beast Boy argued angrily. Then in a more composed tone, he added "It's just different from reading in African."
"Now, where was I?" He paused for dramatic effect. "Oh yah, I was telling you guys about all my questions."
"What kind of questions could you possibly have?" Robin interrupted. "I mean, what could you NOT understand?"
"If you'd listen instead of barging in on the middle of my story, you'd find out." Robin coughed in a futile attempt to veil the embarrassed look that could be seen despite the mask that concealed his eyes and most of his upper face.
"Well…okay, maybe it'd be easier if I gave you an example first." Beast Boy hesitated before deciding how to carry on. "Okay, here's a good one. It was one of the few days without any crime, but it was also too hot to train—glorious summer days. Everybody was just lounging about the dining-slash-living room. Then Cliff went into the kitchen for a snack. I was thinking he'd come out with yet another of his never-ending supply of fish sandwiches, but instead he had a blue, plastic package in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other."
"After a while, curiosity took over and I went over to him. I asked him what was in the package." Beast Boy had his head in his hands and was grinning sheepishly. "He said they were cookies, and I asked him what cookies were." The whole table was in hysterics.
"You—" Cyborg tried to catch his breath. "You didn't know what cookies were?" Beast Boy shook his head, unable to speak because of his laughter. "That's… that's hilarious!"
"It gets better! He gave me one to try, and I thought it was a type of sandwich." The changeling's normally green face was now a bright scarlet.
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Garfield moved to take a bite of the strange, black disc.
"Not that way, shrimp." Cliff stopped the little seven-year-old, and took another Oreo cookie out for himself. "First you twist the top off, kind'a like popping off a lid." He gently twisted the two halves of the cookie different ways, and they came apart easily. Garfield did the same and received the exact same results—to the boy's utter amazement.
"Then you lick off the cream." Cliff saw the confusion on the green child's face, so he rephrased his instruction. "It's the white stuff."
"Ohhh" Gar voiced as he finally understood.
"I personally like to scrape it off with my teeth." Garfield mimicked the robot-man's actions. Cliff watched—a slight smile playing about his lips—as the green boy savored the sugary taste of the "white stuff".
"Sweet", Gar concluded at last. "And yummy!" and he reached for another cookie.
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"I became addicted to the stuff" Beast Boy laughed. "And I never would eat the cookie itself, just the cream." No one could stop giggling.
Jinx managed to control herself long enough to submit a question. "So, you'd never had a cookie before that?" Beast Boy shook his head. "I mean, not even some home baked ones?"
"Nope, usually, my mom was too busy for sweets. But when she wasn't, she took me with her to the savanna. There we'd find sugarcane." His contented smile was accompanied by a distant gaze. "I remember sucking on one of them the whole trip back. Usually, the journey'd take all day, so Mom would take a day off about once a month just for the 'Sweet Day', what I called it."
"If you never tasted cookies before" Raven pondered aloud to Beast Boy. "I'll bet you'd never had a couple of other things."
"You're right" he nodded to her. "I guess I was a lot like Starfire back then, but I'll only tell you a few of the stuff I tried."
"Like the day that was Larry's birthday. Rita was bustling around the kitchen getting things ready when I heard her say 'Cliff, I need you to go down to the store for a tub of chocolate ice cream."
"You never had ICE CREAM before!" Robin practically shouted.
"Nope."
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Garfield stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Rita and Cliff rush around. What's a birthday, he wondered to himself. What's an ice cream? He tried to get Cliff's attention to ask him, but Robot Man was much taller than Gar to take notice of him. And Rita was too busy. So he walked down the corridor to the study. Should I disturb him? What if he's in the middle of something important?
None-the-less, Garfield cautiously knocked three times on the great, steel door of Mento's study. "What do you want?" The voice of his adoptive father burst through the steel.
The boy drew in a gulp of air and gathered his courage. "I have question." It was a strange statement to hear, and was made all the more strange because Garfield's voice was still deeply accented from living in Africa.
The door slid open to reveal the imposing stature of Steve Dayton. "And what question would that be, Garfield?" he asked with his steely gaze.
"What is 'birthday'?"
"Um." Clearly the Patrol leader was flustered with this seemingly innocent question. Then he appeared to collect himself. "It's a celebration that marks the day you were born on."
Gar considered this for a nanosecond before asking: "Do I have birthday?"
Steve gave one of his rare smiles. "Of course you do, everyone does. I want t be left alone for a while now." He shut the door.
"But" the child said, finding himself speaking to a metal door. "I have more question."
Garfield wandered into the living room and found Negative Man there, reading a thick novel. "Larry?" The bandaged-wrapped man looked up.
"Yah, squirt?"
"What ice cream?"
"Well, it's a sweet substance made of sugar, salt…" Larry trailed off into silence as he observed Garfield. "How 'bout I show you? Wouldn't that be better than an explanation?"
"Yes, yes! Please show me 'ice cream'!" Gar exclaimed excitedly.
He followed Larry as they walked out of the Doom Patrol Headquarters and onto the street. Larry led the green kid down a couple blocks to the park. There, on the very edge, was a small cart.
"That's an ice cream cart," the mummy-like man spoke as he pointed it out to Garfield. "It sells ice cream cones and sundaes. C'mon, I'll buy you a cone."
Larry walked confidently over to the cart, followed by the not-so-confident young shapeshifter.
"What'll it be?" the man at the counter said to Negative Man.
"Two cones", Larry responded. "Chocolate flavor if you have it."
"Chocolate" Garfield whispered as the man disappeared to the back of his cart. "Like the bars Cliff eats?"
Larry chuckled and nodded. Then the man returned with two cones topped with a couple of dark brown scoops on each. Larry paid the man, and handed Gar's cone to him. "C'mon, let's go back. Rita'll be looking for us if we're gone too long."
Garfield nodded then took a big bite out of the top of the cone in his hand. And immediately spit it out on the ground. "It's cold!"
Larry laughed at the sour face on the kid's face. "That's why it's called 'ice' cream. It's frozen cream. Get it?"
Gar nodded and took a cautious lick.
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There was so much laughter by now that the table was shaking. "You were worse than Starfire!" Robin managed to gasp between gales of giggles.
"Yah" Jinx agreed with the Boy Wonder. "About TEN times worse!"
"Would you like to hear another?" Beast Boy giggled.
"If I laugh any more I think I'll explode!" Cyborg was practically ready to fall out of his chair.
"I suspect everyone has eaten cotton candy before" the changeling went on.
"Oh my God!" Robin was near tears, he was laughing so hard. "I forgot all about cotton candy!"
"I thought you were allergic to cotton candy," Jinx remarked, obviously puzzled.
"Yep, one day Rita came back from a fair with this big bag of some really flossy stuff. She'd gotten it for—believe it or not—Steve!" All the green teen's friends stared at him in amazement. "He served us all some. And—" Beast Boy had to break off there because of his mirth. "And I had a sugar high for the rest of the day. In fact, Rita had to give me a tranquilizer just to get me to go to sleep!" The hysterics reached the peak of the extensive night at that comment.
"And that's why I say I have a bad reaction to cotton candy." He calmed down a bit. "Cliff said it was because my biology is so different from a normal human's that I couldn't handle that much sugar all at once. So I guess I kind'a am, in a way, allergic to cotton candy."
Just as those last words left his mouth, the lights came back on and a message popped onto the computer: Restarting system, please wait... Everyone sighed in relief.
"Who feels like going to bed?" Robin questioned joyfully.
"I", "I", "Me too", "I as well", "I'm going to bed", rang out the various responses as the team stood up and headed towards their rooms to get the last hours of sleep before morning came.
Raven and Beast Boy turned down the hallway that led to their rooms. Raven turned to him halfway down the hall. "How did you handle it?" she demanded.
"What?" he said flabbergasted.
"How did you handle a life like that?"
The green fourteen-year-old just shrugged as he responded. "I know I didn't exactly have the perfect life, and I made a lot of mistakes. And I mean a LOT of 'em." Beast Boy tilted his head sideways, so he was looking at the Goth beauty through one eye. "But the point is, I was challenged throughout my entire life, and I met all of them successfully." He then left her with a smile and strode off to his room.
I never did have him pegged as a philosopher. Raven thought to herself as she entered her own room.
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There you go. Not long, I know, but I couldn't think of a better ending.
I think it's gonna be a while 'till I think up another more-than-one chapter story.
May you have good writings and reviews (HINT, HINT), cheers.
JadeAshes