A/N: Sooooo...here's Chapter five. Thanks to all my readers for ...well, reading and to my reviewers Usagi of Feudal Moon Era, and I love Zigzag. I love you guys!
This chapter is dedicated to RMP, I guess she knows why.
Disclaimer: Yep, still don't own 'Holes' ... (snif)
Chapter five - Lost and found
Mud was sticking to my feet as I climbed up the hill. The boys followed me, and I could hear them discuss: 'How do we know he's behind that hill?' 'We don't know it, Magnet, we only hope it.' 'Then why are we walking through all that mud?' 'Oh, stop complaining, man!'
I stopped on the highest point, letting my gaze shift around in the forest behind the hill, but I didn't see anything of Caveman. What I saw were nettles. Fields of nettles. Nearly the entire ground was covered by them. In the next moment, the boys were standing next to me, looking around, too. "Ouch." Squid said, "If the Caveman's down there, you'll have to go find him without me.". I couldn't help but giving him a disapproving glance.
"What a fine friend you are." I said arrogantly, "First making fun about him, and then not even willing to walk through some nettles."
Squid gaped at me, speechless. "By the way,..." I said, pointing at a gap inbetween the nettles, "... seems like there's some kinda path over there."
The boys all stared into the direction, as if they expected the Caveman to pop out from between the nettles, exclaiming that it was all just a joke. But of course he didn't, and so Zero, the smallest of the guys, staggered towards the gap, eyeing the poisonous plants suspiciously. Then suddenly he disappeared. "Oh no, not another one of them gone! Is this epidemic, or what?" I groaned and went after Zero's friends to look at where he had went. All together, we peered into the gap. What we saw was - nothing. There was something like a beaten path, but it formed a curve around a huge tree and so it wasn't to be seen where it went. "Ladies first." Ricky said, smiling his creepy smile again, but I just glared at him. "I don't see any ladies around here, despite you and your friends. So please, why don't you go fi-..." I tried to say, but was interrupted by Zero's voice .
"I found him! Over here! I found him!" he yelled, and all the guys forgot about the nettles instantly and stomped down the path at full speed. I rolled my eyes and followed them, carefully avoiding contact with the plants. 'Jerks.' I thought.
We found him on a small clearing in the middle of a nettle field. The place was one big mud hole with a tree standing in the middle of it. Caveman gave a miserable sight. Not only that he was sopping wet, covered in mud and shivering, but also he seemed to have tripped and fallen into the nettles, for his arms, hands, neck, face and lower legs were full of huge, red nettle pustles. He stared up at us, sitting with his back leaned to the tree, not able to speak a word. Ricky spoke first. "Man, why didn't you come back? We thought a Grizzly ate you alive or something!" he pulled Caveman up to his feet for the second time that day, but the boy yelped in pain when Ricky touched the pustles, and he jerked his arm away quickly.
"Muchacho, you're lucky the chica helped us. If she hadn't, we would have never found you." Magnet said, smiling at me. I rolled my eyes.
"Of course you wouldn't." I muttered to myself, looking at my muddy sneakers, "Chances are, you'd got lost, too, rather than finding him...not that that would have bothered me too much..."
"Seems like you don't need me anymore here. I'll go back to the house then." I said and slowly started walking back down the path, when I heard Caveman scream behind me "NO! DON'T STEP IN THERE!" . But it was already too late. Suddenly, my right foot sunk into the ground, up to the shin, and I tripped and fell, arms first, into the mud. And the nettles.
"Holy shit!" Ricky was at my side within a second and lifted me up by grabbing me by the waist. "Jesus! Are you hurt, girlie?" Squid asked concernedly, but I didn't answer. I just stared at my forearms, where the same red pustles as Caveman had them were beginnig to appear. The itching pain was worse than one would have expected it. I was just about to forget everything my mother had told me when I was a little girl, and scratch my arm, when Caveman grabbed my hand. "Don't. It'll only make it worse." he said. I bit back an angry comment and withdrew my hand. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as I thought. "You're right." I said, shrugging, "Let's go back. I want some clean clothes.". Caveman laughed "Dry clothes. I'm freezing."
We walked back home, and after, like, five minutes, I found myself in the middle of the group. The boys laughed and joked around all the time, and I couldn't help but think how childish they were. Then something came up to my mind, and slowed down slowly until I was walking next to Ricky. "Hey Ean. How are your arms doing?" he said, and I groaned. "What? I it so bad?" he asked concernedly.
"No. It's just-..." I stopped. Should I tell him? Well, if I didn't he would go on with it forever. "It's that 'Hey'. I just hate this word. There was a real motherfucking asshole at my class and he always said that word. Every single one of his sentences started with it." I said, and felt Ricky smile at me. I didn't even have to see his face to know that he was smiling. "Okay, I won't say it again. Don't want you jumping at my throat." Haha, very funny... "Is that what you wanted to say? Or are you schizophrenic and this is your alter ego who actually enjoys my company?" he chuckled.
I glared at him, but that didn't stop his grinning. I started speaking quickly, before he was able to pull another wisecrack like that. "I wanted to ... uhm...thank you for helping me out of the mudhole..." I said, wondering why my voice grew so quiet suddenly. Ricky's grin became a warm smile. "No problem. But... wow, you're behaving like a normal human being!" he said, pretending to be amazed. My head jerked up and I snorted.
"Yeah, you're the right one to say that, Mr."The-government-takes-over-your-brain!". " I shot back. Suddenly Squid was next to me, coming out of nowhere.
"Man, Zig. Don't say you're still keeping people from watching the news! Didn't you say they gave you a therapy?" he said, and I stared at Ricky.
"A therapy? Against what?" I said, trying to sound calm, but failing terribly. Squid answered for Ricky. "Don't you know? Your brother used to suffer from acute paranoia."
I froze dead in my tracks and Ricky promptly bumped into me. I whirled around and stared at him. "You have... paranoia?" I asked breathlessly, and he squirmed around. "Well... I had. I got a therapy against it. They used all that stuff, you know. Psychotherapy, mind drugs... wasn't very nice. But I'm quite okay now." he looked at me insecurely, but I stared right through him. Mind drugs. I remembered mind drugs, but they definitely belonged to a phase in my life that I didn't want to be remembered of. "They make you feel like a zombie, don't they?" I said without thinking and cursed myself in the same moment for not keeping my mouth shut. It turned out that all the boys had been listening to our 'conversation' for now the entire mob was staring at me. "Yeah. They do..." Ricky said, observing me critically, "But how do you know?"
"Uh... never mind." I said, trying to regain composure. I put on a harsh face again. "It's none of your business, by the way." With these words I rushed past them, ignoring their piercing looks in my back.
I was the first one to reach the house and immediately disappeared in my room to get some clothes. Then I went into the bathroom, took off the muddy clothes, washed myself, and then put on a pair of long jogging trousers and a black, oversize Adidas t-shirt. My forearms gave a distressing tingle each time I touched them and so I was quite edgy when I finally left the bathroom. Plus, my comment on the mind drugs and the fact that my parents had actually adopted a psycho and still expected things to go well between him and me, still bothered me. I took two wet washclothes down to the kitchen. While I put a lot of salt on them and then placed them on my forearms, I kept on wondering what I should say if the boys asked me about the mind drug thing again. 'The best thing will be to simply ignore them, just like I igored the dumbasses at school...' I thought while the salt extracted the nettle poison from my skin and the pain slowly eased. Then Magnet walked into the kitchen. I looked out of the window, ignoring his questioning looks, pretending I hadn't noticed him.
"What are you doing, chica?" he asked.
"Primero: My nombre no es chica. Me llamo Ean. Y segundo: Estoy haciendo algo contra el erupción en mi piel." (First: My name is not chica. It's Ean. And secondly: I'm doing something against the rash on my skin.) I said, and he stared at me wide-eyed. Then a big smile spread across his face and he said: "See see, the chica speaks Spanish, too."
"Seems so, burrito." I said and went into the livingroom to settle down on the sofa. He followed me and I glared at him. "Why can't you leave me alone?" I said angrily, and he flashed me his smile again. "Squid said, you freak out very quickly. I want to see if I can get you freaking out, too." he said, and once more I felt the urge to show the seafood-guy another place than his mouth for his toothpick to stick in. "You guys have too much freetime." I said, getting up. "And tell your foolish seafood-friend, the next time he'll-..." I tried to say, but was interrupted by the whole mob, including the pustle-covered Caveman, coming into the livingroom. "What shall he tell me?" Squid asked. I gave him the frostiest look ever. "The next time you'll try to run me over or call me girlie, I'll show you some exciting new placed to stick your toothpick. You're getting on my nerves." I squeezed myself past the group, but not without telling Caveman to put wet, salty washclothes onto the rash. He thanked me with a nod and I stomped up the stairs, into my bedroom. 'Is this the only room where I can spend more than five seconds alone?' I asked myself. 'How did my peppy parents get the idea that I'd be able to stand this for one entire week?' Well, that was a good question. I had often before wondered what was going on in my parents' heads, but this time I was very close to making a phone call to Dubai to ask them WHAT THE HELL they had thought while adopting a nearly grown-up, male, paranoid teenager. Okay, he said he had had a therapy, but they should have known from my example that psychotherapies often didn't work. I was ripped out of my dark thoughts my a loud rumble coming from my stomach. 'Okay, I should make some dinner before the fools get any other great ideas how to set the kitchen on fire...'
I opened my door and walked straight into Ricky. "Second collision today. Seems like this is becoming some habit of yours." he smirked, and I glared at him. He continued quickly, so I wasn't able to respond. "I wanted to ask you if you please..." he stressed the word please and looked at me intentedly, "...will help us to make dinner.". Well, that was surprising. The guys were able to learn from failure. Impressive.
"Sure." I shrugged, and together we went down. When we walked past the livingroom-door, I got a quick glance on the Caveman lying on the sofa, nearly entirely wrapped in wet, salty towels. "I want you and Zero to help me. Go get him." I commanded and Ricky gave me puzzled look, but then he shrugged and one minute later the tallest and the smallest guy of the mob stood in front of me, waiting for instructions. Half an hour later, a huge pot full of steaming hot, nice-smelling soup stood on the table. Zero had turned out to be a person of few words, which made him far more sympathic in my eyes than before, and Ricky had managed to cut only the parts of the vegetables we really needed. What an improvement.
During dinner, a tensed atmosphere hung over the table, as if they all wanted to ask me the same question, but didn't dare to. Squid shot me strange glances from time to time. When we were finished, the guys went to watch TV, and I returned to my room. Comics weren't the kind of TV-show I liked, and so my book became my best friend again. But, of course, someone up there hated me, so it didn't take half an hour until there was the well-known knock at my door, and Ricky's head popped into my room. "Why don't you come and join us?" he asked, and I just gave him a blank look, trying to submit that this question was simply pointless, for I'd never agree to watch Spongebob with a bunch of teenage boys. Plus, he knew that very well, so there was no way he'd make me believe that this was the reason for his visit. "What do you really want, huh?" I asked.
"Uhm... it's about that thing you said today in the forest..." he started, but I cut him off. "The mind drug-thing, right? Well, if you want to know something about that, I have to disappoint you. It's nothing I'll ever talk about. Sorry. Now you can go back down to your friends and tell them that I don't think that it's any of their business." I wanted to start reading again, but then I heard Ricky say "It's not a bad thing to talk about it." and I looked at him surprisedly. He gave me the most serious look I had ever seen on him.
"How come you think that I am the one who took the mind drugs? Maybe a friend of mine told me about them?" I said, trying to distract him from my person. He shrugged.
"Dunno. Maybe because you sounded like you were speaking from personal experience..." he said slowly, then gave me another serious, questioning look. I picked up my book, deciding to quit the conversation. "Like I already said, it's none of your business. Will you now please leave me alone? Thanks.". Ricky didn't answer, but closed the door behind him and walked to my bed, sitting down on the edge. 'Somehow this seems familiar to me.' I thought, remembering the evening when he had killed the broccoli. "Didn't I just ask you to leave me alone?" I said, still reading, "What you do is not very polite."
"This here is not about being or not being polite. By the way, you're not the friendliest and politest person ever, too." he said calmly. I just continued staring at the pages. "What is it with your friend and the mind drugs?" he asked, and I threw the book down.
"It's NONE of your business, okay?" I practically yelled at him, and he jumped, staring at me wide-eyed. Then his expression turned normal again. "Calm down, Ean. I'm just trying to be friendly."
"Keep your friendliness for yourself." I hissed, and suddenly he seemed kind of angry.
"Why are you so mean?" he exclaimed, "Everyone's just trying to get along with you, but you always behave like the most arrogant bitch ever. Just take your parents, for example. They love you and would do anything for you. And you treat them like stupid kids or something. Why? Why are you doing this? And don't tell me it's none of my business, because it definitely is."
I just stared at him, my mouth hanging open a bit. "I know they love me... a few years ago that was the only thing that kept me from going crazy, okay?" I said not thinking about whom I was talking to. It was as if his words had pushed a button deep inside of me. I couldn't keep the words from just coming out of my mouth, although I had never talked about it before. "Do you know what it feels like to have no friends? Huh?" I said, and to my surprise he nodded.
"Yeah, I do. People don't like psychos." he said. "Nobody wanted to have anything to do with me, until I met the boys that are currently sitting in our livingroom.". He sounded sad, and ... angry? But also, his voice was full of warm sympathy for his friends. He hung his head and stared at his feet. Then he looked up at me again. "So you were one of these kids that don't have friends?" he asked.
"Hmmm ..." I nodded, lost in my memories, "They didn't like me because I was taller than all of them, because I was smarter than all of them, and because I was unfriendly." I said, and Ricky chuckled. I glared at him, but he just shrugged. "Seems like unfriendliness is just part of your nature." he explained.
"This isn't funny." I said, "If you wanna have a good laugh, you can go back down and watch Spongebob."
"Sorry, you're right. It ain't funny. Please, go on." he said, but I shook my head, having found back to my old uncommunicativeness. No need for him to know about the times when I used to be a Thorazin-queen ... (A/N: Thorazin is a psychotrope pharmaceutical)
"I don't think I really want to talk about this any further. I'm not very much the person to share my innermost with others, okay?" I said. He looked at me blankly for one moment, then shrugged. "Whatever. If you feel like talking, you know where to find me.". He got up and walked back to the door. In the doorframe he stopped. "Ean?"
I looked at him. "I'm sorry for calling you arrogant and ... you know, a bitch." he said.
"No need to feel sorry." I said, "I guess you were right."
"No I wasn't. You're not a bitch. Know what I think? I think something is on your mind and it just bothers you. But let me tell you that there's no need to be unfriendly because of that. Not towards my friends." he said, and I stared at him. "Maybe you don't have the finest past, but neither have they. None of them will make fun of you, as long as you're just honest and give us the reason for your behaviour.". Saying so, he quietly closed the door, leaving me alone in my room. I continued staring at the closed door, completely stunned. He had sounded so... serious, but still understanding. Not like all the psychologists my parents had dragged me to. They only wanted to make money, just pretending to be listening to me. But Ricky ... there was something about him that just make me feel as if he really listened to what I said and got the meaning behind it. Five minutes passed until...
"Oh, damnit!" I said angrily, jumped out of bed and stomped down to the livingroom where I planted myself in front of the TV set and the guys all stared at me. I took a deep breath. "Listen." I said with a clear voice, "I'm not a friendly person, so don't expect me to be nice. But I want to apologize for behaving like a bitch without reason. Sorry."
They all stared at me, dumbstruck. I looked at Ricky, and he flashed me a big smile. 'I'm proud of you.' he silently formed with his mouth, and I rolled my eyes. The boys' looks shifted between me and Ricky, then Armpit asked: "Yo Zig, how did you do that?"
"Yeah man." Squid agreed, "How did you get her to apologize? I mean..." he looked at me critically, "...she's not half as scary as she was an hour ago."
"Excuse me? Now you're exaggerating." I said angrily, and already regretted having apologized to the guys.
"Nah dawg, that's what you think." X-ray said. "Just think of the Caveman." . We all looked at Stanley, and he blushed lightly. "Ean, you are scary..." he whispered, and I shook my head in disbelief. "Then tell me why I'm scary." I demanded, crossing my arms.
"Okay, maybe you're not very scary. But neither do you inspire too much trust. Some reasons for that: First: Your black clothes. Second: Your death glare. And third: You're extremely tall." X-ray explained. The others all nodded, except Ricky and Zero.
"Yeah, by the way: How tall are you, chica?" Magnet asked.
"1,81 m." I said indifferently, and the boys all gasped in unison.
"Bloody hell, she's taller than me!" Armpit said, pretending to be shocked. "How much's the difference?" Ricky asked, smiling. "One entire centimeter." Armpit said and the boys all burst out laughing.
"Come on, it's not like you're all gnomes or something." I said. Those guys were making such a drama out of the whole thing! "Ricky for example is taller than me. And Squid and the Caveman are, too. And that's by the way not the reason why I'm standing here. I still wanna know whether or not the apology is accepted."
X-ray smiled at me widely. "No problem, just forget about it. We're used to people scaring and threatening us, right, lads?" The other boys nodded, grinning. I just stared at them "Used to people- ..." I said slowly, thinking about his words. "Uh, where do you come from? I mean, it's not really normal to be used to people scaring and threatening you, is it?" I asked. Honestly, these boys were becoming weirder and weirder...
Squid smirked at me and then at the blushing Ricky, and I became very suspicious. "Zig, don't say you haven't told her where you got to meet us...?" he said, and suddenly all the boys were looking at Ricky. "Uhm...no..." he said quietly, and they all grinned at each other.
"Would you fools tell me what amuses you so much?" I demanded, and they smirked at me. Actually, that was way more scary than I would have ever been able to look like. "Aren't you classmates or something?" I asked. Magnet chuckled. "Somehow. We were ... tentmates at camp." he said, and now they started giggling like a bunch of little girls that just planned out a great prank. It was annoying.
"So, your reason for giggling around here is that you met at some summer camp? That's stupid." I said matter-of-factly, but now they started laughing really hard. "Nah, not summer camp..." X-ray snorted, "Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility for criminal boys, Texas."
My face fell. I turned to Ricky who was staring into the void, his face red as a tomatoe. "Criminal boys?" I asked, and he threw a short, nervous glance at me before looking away again. "I told you they don't have the finest past, either." he said quietly.
- End of chapter six -
A/N: Well guys, now Ean knows that's she's trapped with a bunch of criminals. Will she freak out? Will she call her parents? Will she flee? More on this topic in the next chapter. Reviews, criticism, suggestions, etc. are very welcome...