So, I know it's been a while since I updated this fic, but that's just because the real world has been keeping me busy. I am officially single again, and have been busy escaping from the new COVID-19 epicenter (aka Florida), to move back north to Virginia. Things have settled down a little. I'm still establishing residency here, and have moved back in with Mater for the next few months until I can find a place of my own.
But while I'm doing that, I've also resumed work on the story of that mysterious orphan girl named Melanie. I told you I loved this fic too much to abandon it completely. I don't care now long it takes, I will work on her backstory until I finish it or die. But enough of my rambling. Let's get this fic started again!
So, there won't be a lot of action for these next few chapters. Just days in the life of Melanie. But I still hope you like. As always, feedback is welcome.
All characters are the property of SNK/Playmore. I don't own them, the video games, or the anime.
Chapter Nine: School Daze
October 4th, 1996
She'd cleared both the tires and the monkey bars in under a minute. For the second one, as she was climbing the ladder, she'd actually managed to get enough speed up to vault on top of the bars and just run across them. It was secondhand to Melanie, who'd learned to navigate scaffolds and other raised platforms on rooftops quickly when running from the police or social services.
Hartman, who stood on the sidelines of the course with the rest of the class, did not seem amused. "That's a thirty-second penalty, Melanie," he said. "Next time, do the obstacle the right way." His eyes flicked away from her to the stopwatch in his hand long enough for him to press a button.
Melanie was about to say that if it was so easy, he should run the course, then she remembered Kimberly saying something about how he was ex-Marine, so this was probably old hat for him. But when she reached the lattice of barbed wire, she did drop to her belly and start crawling underneath it, instead of moving across the wooden beams it was attached to, which would have been easier. The going was slower than she would have liked due to the muddy consistency of the ground beneath her, not to mention Melanie's limbs were splayed out like some impossible cockroach. But like that pest, she was still quite fast on her stomach.
After that, she reached the wall, a ten-foot-tall climbing obstacle of two posts with wooden planks nailed between them. Most people would have found such a thing impossible to climb, but there were still minuscule gaps between them, and life on the streets had taught Melanie how to find a hand or toe-hold in small cracks. So she scurried up the wall in the same easy manner as she'd passed under the wire.
A few of the girls were starting to cheer her on, the loudest of them being Kimberly. "You got this, Mel!" The dark-haired girl shouted. Melanie was starting to believe it, and getting a natural high off that.
Then the hand not holding the watch went into the pocket of Hartman's slacks and drew out another remote. Melanie was too caught up in her climb to notice, so she did not see the gym teacher press a button on this new device. But she did notice when one of the wooden planks seemed to pop off of the wall by way of a spring mechanism and hit her in the stomach.
The blonde girl gave a yelp of surprise as she was knocked from the wall, landing roughly on her bottom in the dirt. This elicited laughter from several of the girls, most notably Regina and her crew. Melanie cast a glare at her instructor that could have cut diamond.
Hartman's own expression was unreadable. "That's enough for today, Melanie," he said. "You did well for a first try. Even with that thirty-second penalty, your time so far was one of the best I've seen on a first run." He pocketed the watch, then walked over to where Melanie still sat in the dirt and extended a hand.
Melanie ignored it, as usual, found her feet on her own. "And you wonder why I don't trust grown-ups," she grumbled.
"Don't worry, Melanie," Hartman said with a chuckle. "None of the other girls made it to the top of the wall on their first try. And now you know it's there, so the second time you run the course, you'll be ready for it. I will say this, though. You were right about your abilities to move quickly and quietly. They're fairly advanced for a girl your age. I'll be sure to note that in my report to the headmistress."
Melanie couldn't help but stand a little taller at hearing that. Then Hartman blew his whistle, and the petite blonde hustled to join the other girls in the ten by four rank and file formation. They stood at attention for a few moments, and then he dismissed them. "Hit the showers, ladies!" He said, and the girls dispersed and started making their way towards the lockers, while Hartman walked the opposite way towards his office.
Melanie maneuvered her way towards the front of the crowd, eager to claim one of the shower stalls first, as she'd gotten a bit dirtier than most of the other girls, since the sarge had chosen to end class by testing her on the obstacle course for the first time. Kimberly fell into step alongside her. "You are fast, Mel," she remarked. "You should be able to dodge me with no effort, once you find your focus in our training sessions."
Melanie said nothing, just stared straight ahead at the locker room "shed."
"What's wrong?" The dark-haired girl asked.
"I thought you said I had 'full disclosure' from now on," Melanie growled. "That is what you said, right? That day in the showers, when you..."
"Um, yeah, I was there. I know what I said. What's your point?"
"Why, then, did you not warn me about that thing on the obstacle course. Might have been nice to know."
Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Because, Mel, you heard the sarge. None of the girls ever got to the top of the wall on their first try. Before you got here, Hartman tested us all individually. And none of us were allowed to tell the other girls about what the course contained. Despite what you think about the grown-ups here, Hartman is not stupid. If you were the only girl who made it up the wall on the first try, he'd know that you had help. And it wouldn't take him long to find out who blabbed. And he is one of those teachers you don't want to get punishment from."
After hearing that, Melanie allowed most of her anger to cool. Her legs still ached a little from this past Monday, when she didn't take Kim's warning seriously and was two minutes late falling in with the rest of the girls for gym class, resulting in her running several laps around the field. "Okay, fair enough."
"Look, everyone, the runt crapped herself!" They heard Regina shout from behind. Melanie turned her head slightly to see the Alpha walking a short distance behind her, pointing at the seat of Melanie's white skirt, which had a large circular brown stain from when she'd landed on her butt in the dirt.
Regina began to cackle at the sight, which was echoed by her cronies, as well as a few of the other girls who were walking close to the taller blonde. Melanie, remembering the rules she and her roommate had laid down, did her best to try and ignore it. Instead, she just turned her head and upper body slightly in the same direction to get a better look at the stain...
...Then she noticed the black beetle crawling up the back of her pullover. Her demeanor changed in an instant, as she started swiping wildly at it. "AAAH, get it off, get it off, get it off!" She shouted. After doing what looked like an awkward dance for a few minutes, she finally knocked the bug off into the dirt, and then began repeatedly stomping on it. This suddenly spastic behavior earned her a few laughs from some of the other girls, most notably Regina.
"What's wrong, runt?" She mocked. "Don't like bugs?"
Melanie was now satisfied that the beetle was dead, and after assessing her surroundings found herself blushing for showing weakness in front of so many people. So, in an effort to save face, she smoothed out her muddy shirt, gave a shrug, and answered: "I thought that was obvious. I mean, everyone knows I don't like you."
This garnered more laughter from some of the girls. Even Lacey gave a small chortle, until Regina shot a dagger-like glare at her. "That's gonna cost you," Regina growled, her eyes narrowing into slits.
Melanie gave a shrug. "Check's in the mail," she said, then turned and continued on towards the locker room.
She'd only gone two steps when Regina tackled her from behind and then gave Melanie her "usual." After she was done, the Alpha walked away slowly, rubbing her chin in thought. To Kimberly, it looked like she was processing some new information.
A minute later, Melanie sat up and wiped the blood from her nose, leaving an angry red streak on her white shirt sleeve. Most of the other girls had wandered off at this point, except for Kimberly, who looked annoyed, though she still offered a hand to her roommate.
As always, Melanie ignored the hand and got up on her own. "What?" She asked.
"Damn it, Mel," Kim said with a shake of her head. "You had to say something, didn't you? I thought we laid down some rules."
"Well, I figured the Regina one was more a guideline," Melanie answered. "Besides, I let the first remark slide, so you could call that progress, but that second one... well, I can't look too weak."
Kimberly shook her head again. "Not everyone in this school is your enemy, Melanie. I mean, Regina, definitely. Her lackeys, yeah. Maybe some of the other girls looking to score points with her. But you gotta stop thinking the entire school is out to get you. There are good people here."
"Can't afford to know them," Melanie said with a shrug. Because the second you let your guard down, you open yourself up to get hurt, betrayed, abandoned... you don't need that. Not again.
Kimberly could sense that her friend was likely thinking about the past, so she said nothing except: "I'm gonna go change."
"Right," Melanie said with a nod. "I'm gonna catch a shower back at the dorms."
"Probably a good idea. Regina might still be mad." With that, the two girls parted ways until dinnertime.
Wednesday, November 6th, 1996
The weeks continued to pass quickly, mainly because Melanie was kept busy. Her schedule was still loaded with her regular schoolwork, and training, and academic homework, not to mention the extra hours staying after class to try and get to the same level as her peers. Some of it was easy. She picked up on blocking after just a few lessons with Kimberly, and so the dark-haired girl gave her some books to read when they weren't practicing.
"I read these same books, Mel," she explained. "When I was working to earn my own knife. Kali Eskrima, Paranza Corta... they're effective styles of knife fighting."
"You mentioned those before," Melanie noted.
"Yup," her roommate said with a smile. "And they involve being fast and light on your feet. So they're useful for runts like us."
Melanie checked out the books, and tried to read them in addition to the rest of her work, but she was just a little frustrated by the fact that in their extra training, Kimberly only seemed to be giving her lessons that involved unarmed combat. "Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, Mel," she said with a laugh. The small blonde did her best to follow along, largely because she was thinking that once she had her knife, she wouldn't need to think about using her fists. Especially if she was able to come up with some other weapons to use. After all, if she had enough of them, then she would never have to worry about being unarmed, would she?
Her academic studies were a different story. Some things she picked up on easily, like her lessons from Mr. Coleman the math teacher, or Mr. Santiago the social studies teacher, but English was a course she struggled in. She was able to do the work on nouns, verbs and other lessons on grammar and sentence structure, to get closer to the level Ms. Kelly felt she should be at. But things got a little shakier once the required reading started. The first book she assigned them was something called "The Outsiders," a novel about class struggle, and Melanie hated it almost instantly.
She would do the reading, but at every class she had some cynical remark prepared: "These names are stupid. I mean, who names their kid Sodapop? Darrell is lucky he was born first, he got a normal name"; "Why is Ponyboy bitching about his dead parents? He should just be lucky he at least got to know them"; "Why aren't the greasers fucking more shit up? I mean, after Ponyboy was attacked in the very first chapter, they should have been planning to retaliate"; "If Sodapop – stupid name, by the way – likes horses, then why doesn't he just ride on his brother's back? I mean, his name is Ponyboy."
More often than not, Melanie's inquiries would land her in detention, so she eased off on the smart-assed questions after one such incident caused her to miss combat training. "Thanks for giving me a break, Mel," Kimberly told her jokingly that evening as the two girls were lounging in their beds, killing time until lights out. "I had enough free time before dinner to finally watch that bootleg video of 'Hakuto No Ken' I got from Des earlier this year."
"Whoop-dee-fucking-doo," Melanie said, her nose buried in her copy of "The Outsiders", struggling to get through that evening's assigned pages.
"Well, if it's any consolation, the movie wasn't that great," Kim added.
Melanie put the book down on the bed and turned to face her roommate, laying on her side. "So, I'll keep my comments to myself at least during class. But you'll probably still have to hear about it."
The dark-haired girl gave a shrug. "That's okay. I honestly think they're kinda funny. Makes me wonder how you're gonna manage to write the report on it."
Melanie's outlook on life seemed to fade a little at hearing that. "We have to write a report on this piece of shit? I was just gonna wipe my ass with it after I was done reading."
Kimberly wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. "Well, yeah, Mel. It's called a book report. Haven't you ever written one?"
The blonde girl thought back over what schooling she'd had. "Nope."
"Well, knowing Kelly, it's probably going to be five-hundred words or more on analyzing a theme in the story. You know, something that pops up again and again."
Melanie picked up her copy of the novel again and frowned a little at it. "Well, one thing I keep seeing in this book is that Ponyboy is a pussy. Maybe I'll write about that."
Kimberly laughed at that. "Well, if you wanna read that report to me before it's due, I'd love to hear it."
Melanie shook her head, and opened the book again. "Weirdo..." She muttered. Though she did file away the fact that she had someone to bounce her report off of. If she managed to write it...
November 14th, 1996
"I have to what?" Melanie was doing her extracurricular work for biology class, which was actually one of her favorite subjects. She thought it was pretty cool learning how living things worked on the inside, especially because the teacher made it interesting with a lot of gross visual aids and hands-on stuff. At least, most of it was pretty cool. The news he'd just given Melanie was decidedly the opposite.
"You're making good progress so far, Melanie," explained her teacher, Dr. Wong, a bespectacled man with short black hair and a goatee, who never seemed to be without a lab coat. "You're close to where I think you should be compared to the other girls. All you need to do is pass my exam, which will require you to dissect a frog."
Melanie could practically feel her face turning green. She already thought frogs were disgusting (almost as gross as bugs), and now she had to cut into one, take out the organs, and label them in order to get a passing grade. "Um... is there maybe another animal I could cut open?"
Wong shook his head. "I'm sorry, Melanie, but your exam will be the same as everyone else. I know that you know the material, so it should be a piece of cake for you."
The small blonde focused on something else in the room, trying not to think about one of those slimy, spindle-legged things face-up on a metal tray, pinned down at the wrists and ankles, still breathing even though it had been put under by ether-soaked cotton. What would she do if it suddenly jumped up off the table? More importantly, could she complete the exam without puking? Somehow, the fact that she'd be wearing gloves wouldn't make the slippery amphibian any easier to touch.
She took several deep breaths, looking past the teacher at a human skeleton model mounted on the wall. She was starting to wish she had a bag to breathe into. "And... when would I need to do this?"
"At the very latest, shortly after the New Year," Dr. Wong told her. "But you'll do fine, Melanie. You've taken to this subject like a fish to water. I've said as much to Ms. Landy. And once this is done, I'll no longer require any extra work from you. Unless, of course, you'd like it."
And he just had to pick the nastiest thing for me to cut open. Still, Melanie kept that to herself, as she didn't feel like sharing her dislike of frogs with the teacher. So she merely said: "Um... thank you, sir."
After Melanie had been given her homework assignment and was dismissed, she spent the next half hour helping to shelve books in the library. Ever since the first visit to Burlington, she'd borrowed a page from Kimberly and did chores when she could. Then she gave Regina just enough money for the stupid bitch to think that Melanie was actually showing her respect, and she also hid a portion of it under a floorboard in her room (a hiding place not even her roommate knew about).
At dinner later on, she didn't seem to have much of an appetite. "What's wrong, Mel?" Kimberly asked, noticing the petite blonde was pushing her food around more than eating it. "Nikolai's cooking is no worse than usual." She took a large bite from her own plate. "And his lasagna is one of your favorite things that he makes."
Melanie forked some greens from her salad plate, chewed, and forced herself to swallow. She didn't feel like sharing, but maybe she could direct the conversation in such a way that she wouldn't have to. So she asked: "Kim, did you have to dissect a frog for Dr. Wong?"
"Yeah," the other girl answered. "And it was easy. Is that what's bothering you? Don't sweat it, Mel. It'll be easy for you, too. You love biology. I think it's your second favorite thing after training for your knife. And it's like Wong says, most animals have a key thing in common: inside, we're all just blood, guts, bones and connective tissue. Honestly, I think that's why you like his class."
Melanie was prepared to drop it, and attempted to eat a bite of her lasagna, but the dark-haired girl was not stupid. "Do you not like frogs? I mean, I know you hate bugs, but..."
"Maybe," Melanie said with her mouth full, and poured another glass of milk.
Kimberly knew this meant "yes," but decided not to probe further, as she remembered their agreement. So she said: "Well, just pretend the frog is Regina. Maybe that'll help."
Melanie had been chewing another bite of dinner, and almost choked at hearing that. The image of the frog on the sterile dissection tray was replaced with an image of Regina on the same tray, pins through her wrists and ankles, saying ribbit over and over as Melanie pressed the blade of the scalpel just below the center of her collarbone. She started to laugh, though her mouth was still full, so she had to hold a napkin in front of her mouth to keep from spraying all over the table.
Kimberly joined her in laughing, and after a moment they settled down to the point where Melanie was able to swallow what was left in her mouth. She followed that with a sip of milk. "You almost made me choke, you asshole!" She snapped at her roommate.
"But you didn't," Kim said with a shrug. "And now you feel better, right?"
"Maybe," Melanie answered, though the dark-haired girl noticed she was now eating her lasagna with a bit more gusto, making up for lost time. Kimberly said nothing and turned back to her own dinner. Like Joan, she was smart enough to know when she'd won without saying as much.
December 3rd, 1996
"So, in conclusion, Ponyboy was a giant pussy, just like all of the other greasers. Except for Dally. Dally was the only smart one, so maybe this story should have been about him instead. Then we wouldn't have had to listen to Ponyboy's bitching and moaning, and the story would have been better." Melanie looked up from what she'd written at the dark-haired girl seated across the table in the library. "So, what do you think?"
Under normal circumstances, Kimberly would have laughed. But if Melanie got an F on this book report, she might have to repeat fifth-grade English over the summer. Which would definitely put a wrench in her efforts to earn a knife. "I dunno, Mel. I think Kelly wants us to explore themes."
"I am exploring a theme. The theme that Ponyboy is a giant pussy and is nowhere near as cool as Dally!"
Now Kim laughed a little. "You'll be lucky to get a D for that one."
Melanie growled in frustration. "It's not my fault that she can't see what a waste of time this book was!" She looked down with disdain at her copy of "The Outsiders," the cover of which now had heavy doodles all over it (mainly fake mustaches and stink lines on the greasers).
"Waste of time or not, you know what'll happen if you get an F," the dark-haired girl said with a shrug.
Melanie let out another growl, this one earning her a stare from the librarian. After a moment, she continued in a softer voice. "I know, I know. It's just... I can't think of anything else to write about. I mean, I've proven to Kelly I can read. So I don't see why we have to waste our time reading books that are stupid!"
Kimberly shrugged. "She's the teacher, so... we read what she gives us." She then turned her attention back to her own book report.
The blondee girl leaned in closer to her, voice dropping to a whisper: "Um... I'll pay you to write my report for me. I've got some money."
"Nope," Kimberly said.
"Aw, c'mon!"
"Nope," her roommate repeated, and Melanie could tell that she wouldn't change her mind. Kimberly used that moment of silence to switch tactics. "Why not find a new theme? Like... that poem that Ponyboy quotes? It's pretty relevant to the last half of the story."
Melanie snorted. "It proves my point. Poetry is for pussies!"
"Not all of it," Kim said, getting up from her chair. "Sit tight, I'll be right back." She then walked off to another part of the library. Melanie waited for several minutes, and spent that time drawing pictures in the margins of her book. Finally, Kimberly returned with some hardbound volume in both hands. She flipped to a certain page and passed the book to Melanie. "Read this," she said.
Melanie accepted the book, her amber eyes narrowing in suspicion when she noticed what looked like a poem on the pages. "The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe..." she read the title. "What the hell is this?"
"An example of poetry that's not for pussies," Kimberly explained. "Give it a chance, Mel, it's pretty cool."
"He doesn't talk about trees, does he?"
"Nope. This poem is about a guy who's mourning a dead lover, then a raven comes into his study one night, and while speaking to the bird he starts to go crazy with despair."
Melanie raised an eyebrow at that. "This guy sounds like a loser, but... that seems kinda cool."
Kimberly nodded. "Just read it."
There was bit more force behind her words, something Melanie only heard in their combat lessons. So she read the poem. There were a lot of phrases and references to things no longer in use, but thankfully the book had copious footnotes to keep her from getting lost. When she was done, she closed the book and simply said: "Okay... that was pretty neat."
Kimberly gave her a smile of vindication. "You should look up some of his other poems in that book, Mel. He's a pretty gnarly writer."
"Why can't we read shit like this in English class?" Melanie asked.
"I dunno. But I do know you should give that poem in 'The Outsiders' another look. In particular, how it applies to the connection between Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally. You can make five-hundred words out of that."
Melanie chuckled softly. "Um... two of those characters died. I wouldn't exactly say it did much for them."
Kimberly couldn't help but laugh a little. "Well, you know what I mean, Mel." And with that, she turned her attention back to her own book report.
Melanie reopened her own notebook and resumed work. An hour later, all she had were notes, but it was giving her ideas for a final draft she could type out in the computer labs. It was five-thirty when they packed up their books, left the library and ventured out into the chilly gray of late afternoon, rapidly darkening into night. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, but the girls were warm enough. Back in the middle of October, when the color change of the leaves went into overdrive, Joan's staff had issued the students hooded parkas, snow boots, and black thermal leggings to go with their uniforms, which went a long way towards keeping out the cold.
They were heading in the direction of the dorms, to drop their books off before dinner, when they noticed Niko sitting under the shade of an evergreen. The stiff needles had kept most of the snow off the ground directly by the trunk, providing a dry patch of ground which the freckled blondee was sitting on, as she looked back over some of the diagrams in her composition book. The two girls shifted course to the same tree. Niko raised her head when she saw them coming, gave a polite nod, and pulled off her earmuffs to hear them better.
"How go the plans?" Kimberly asked her.
"Not well," said Niko. "There's a variable I'm missing. I just gotta figure out what it is."
The dark-haired girl smiled. "You'll figure it out, Niko. You're a genius."
Niko gave a weak laugh. "I wouldn't go that far, but at least this project has kept Regina off my back, since she knows what we could do with it. Maybe that's why I can't find the missing variable. I secretly don't want to, because it keeps me useful."
Kimberly laughed at that, while Melanie looked a little more thoughtful. She remembered back when she'd first learned of this project, and asked the other blondee: "So, Niko, if you could siphon juice away from the generators, what would you use it for?"
"All sorts of stuff," Niko said with a shrug. "The main thing I've got planned is to power a small transmitter array that can piggyback the signal off a Cable TV satellite into a black box in the rec room, letting us watch any cable channel we want. But I'm sure we can find other uses for it that Landy doesn't have to know about."
"Sweet!" Kimberly said. "Maybe I could finally see some of my animes uncensored."
"And do you think it's weird that we even have an electric fence around this place to begin with?" Melanie continued her questioning, ignoring her roommate.
Another shrug. "You know, one of the other girls once asked Landy about that at an assembly. Landy told her that the fence wasn't to keep us from getting out. It was to keep other people from getting in."
Kimberly became a bit more serious, then. "Yeah, I remember that, too. Odd thing to say about a school full of girls."
"Yeah," Melanie said with a nod. "Who is she trying to keep out? Boys?" She was half-joking, but at the same time, she thought it an interesting thing for Joan to say. Especially considering some of her past conversations with the woman.
"Well, we do know how to cut them," Kimberly remarked.
The mention of that reminded Melanie of what she was working towards, so she filed Joan's comment away into the back of her mind. "Well, I'm gonna go drop my books off," she said to the other girls. "It's almost dinnertime."
"I'll hit you up later, Niko," Kimberly said to the freckled blondee. "After dinner, when there's no adults around. Maybe I can help with your notes."
"Sounds good," said Niko, fixing her earmuffs back in place. "I'll see you later."
As Melanie and her roommate continued on their way through the gray twilight of late autumn, she took out her yo-yo and started to twirl it up and down, not saying a word. "What's up?" Kimberly asked, noticing how thoughtful the other girl looked. Which wasn't normal.
"Just thinking," Melanie replied.
"'Bout what?"
"Life, the universe... everything. Mostly, my book report. Just... stop distracting me, okay?"
"Whatever," Kim said with a shrug, leaving the small blondee to walk and continue the repetitive up-down motions of her yo-yo. Though Melanie was thinking of her book report, it was taking a back seat to other things. For the most part, she found herself wondering what other applications Niko's technology might have, and if she could use it for her own gain...
ADDITIONAL NOTES
So, I would like to extend my deepest apologies to S.E. Hinton, the author of "The Outsiders." I was not trying to insult her or the novel she is famous for in any way. When I was brainstorming ideas in my Discord group, I was trying to remember required reading for girls Melanie's age, and "The Outsiders" came up in that discussion, which was a book I had to read as a kid. And as I remembered the plot, I realized that it was a book Melanie would hate, which is what I was going for. So I myself wasn't saying "The Outsiders" was a stupid book... Melanie was. But I doubt Hinton, her family, or her attorneys are reading this anyway.
Also, the poem Kimberly refers to is "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost, which is featured in "The Outsiders" and does play a big part in the last half of the book.
And Malin's profile says she dislikes frogs. So yeah, having to dissect one...
Well, it's good to be back in this. I hope you liked. Until next time...
