Wanda pouted as hard as she could at her mother, seeming almost on the edge of stamping her foot
"But Mooooooooom…" she whined, "I'm sick! I really am!"
"You're not sick, and you're going to school, get your bag"
"Mom –"
"Wanda Maximoff I want you in that car in ten seconds. You are not staying home!"
"What about Peter though?" she pleaded, gazed at her mother with her huge dark eyes wide and appealing. Damn it, all her children really knew how to use those puppy-dog eyes. Sadly for her, Magda was very used to it by now and didn't relent.
"You can't stay home just because your brother is. Car, now"
Wanda slammed the door hard behind her, and Magda winced as she heard the car door slam just as hard. Glanced over her shoulder to see her son materialise behind her. Still in his pyjamas, she noticed, as if he'd decided if he wasn't going to school then he wasn't getting dressed. She fetched him a kind smile, which he tried to return though it looked a little wobbly round the edges.
"Go get yourself some breakfast," she told him, "I won't be long"
"I already had –"
"Go have some more, it's not like you don't need it" reaching out and squeezing her son's shoulder gently, "She'll be fine, Peter. Don't worry about her"
Finally left alone in the house save for his younger sister playing happily in the lounge, Peter sighed heavily and opened the refrigerator to take stock. Tried with all his might to push the whirlwind of intrusive thoughts to the back of his head and tell himself it wasn't so bad to be out of school. After all, he could catch all the morning cartoons now, could stay and play with Lorna and play table-tennis and raid the fridge whenever he felt like it – and that had to be better than sitting in classes getting bored out of his mind and counting the seconds until lunch. There were a lot of good things about being expelled, when he thought about it.
The trouble was, he couldn't help also thinking of how much this reminded him of the few months he'd had to spend at home, first because he felt too sick to go anywhere and then because he could no longer stand up. It had been months since he'd felt in any way ill now, but it was still painfully fresh in his mind how scared his Mom had looked, how worried Wanda had been, and how frightened he had been himself that he was going to die. Told himself it was all different now and that he didn't have to worry, that this was really kind of fun and better than school, but the thoughts were there nonetheless and with how crazy fast his mind went, he could hardly catch them before he was diving down into feeling anxious and low and tearful all over again. Grabbing a carton of heavy cream, a box of Fruit Loops, and a mixing bowl and taking it through to sit cross-legged in front of the television, hoping that at least it would distract him from himself. By the time he had finished the box of cereal and was sat playing blocks with Lorna, he'd come to a conclusion that had cheered him up quite a bit.
If everyone thought he was such a bad kid, why not be one?
It wasn't as if he'd intended to be a juvenile delinquent, it just sort of happened. In truth he really did just get so bored that he liked to liven things up with a couple of harmless pranks – more so since he'd come back. Even before he got sick he'd been an energetic, mischevious kid who liked to have a little fun, but now that he seemingly had this strange power, and now that sitting still was even more of a chore, the pranking had escalated along with a few other perhaps not-so harmless activities. Stealing, for example – simply too easy now that he could move faster than he could be perceived. Peter had only ever stolen food up until now, considered it to be helping his mother out to do so. It must cost a fortune to feed him after all, especially since he was still doing his damndest to gain some weight, and there were all those medical bills to pay off. If stealing food was easy, surely it would also be easy to steal other things? That skateboard with the cool silver wheels, for example, or the new Rush album he couldn't afford…
Really, why not? He had to do something with his time.
By the time his Mother had arrived home, Peter had pretty much come to the decision that being expelled might have been the best thing that had happened to him recently, giving him all the time in the world to have as much fun as he wanted. Nothing seemed out of bounds to him now, and he'd been feeling pretty cheerful until he caught sight of the look on his mother's face, sitting down hard on the sofa and fussing with his hair as he rested back against her knees. Quiet for a few minutes until he'd said
"Traffic bad? You were a while"
Magda sighed heavily, pulled him back against her in a hug
"I went to the other two schools in the area" she said, "Apparently, you're on some kind of a black list. They won't take you on"
Peter leaned round and smiled at her, squeezed her hand reassuringly
"S'okay, Mom. I'll be fine. What am I gonna learn in school anyway?"
"Everything you need to, hon!" she told him, exasperated, "You have to go to school – otherwise how will you ever get a job?"
"And what job's going to hire me?" he shrugged, the smile looking a little sad, "I'll just get fired or something"
"Oh, Peter…" she raised his hand to her lips, kissed it gently, "Don't think like that honey, your luck has to change some time"
"Mom, I've been kicked out of everything I've ever joined. I'm getting kinda used to it by now, besides, I'll find something to do" deprived of her playmate, Lorna flung herself at him brutally hard, grabbed one of his hands to fool with, "I can look after the Littlest, then you won't have to pay a babysitter, right?"
"Honey, I appreciate you being brave about this, but it's just so unfair on you! I don't want you to just stay at home and babysit, you should be out doing something with your life! Meeting people, making friends, doing –"
"I've never had any friends and you know it" he told her firmly, focussed on his baby sister instead of the hurt look he knew his mother would be wearing. It was the truth – somehow, even before this power had come on, he'd always been too different to really get along with anybody. Always hyperactive and flighty, always odd in some way, never part of any gang. Even when he'd still been allowed to play team sports he'd never got on with his teammates, despite the fact that he was obviously their most valuable player. He'd tried for years to be likeable, developed that quirky sense of humour and generosity of spirit in an effort to make others not feel he was just too weird to hang out with, but somehow he was still always the odd boy out. The crazy, twitchy kid with bad grades and unnatural silver hair. A few picked on him hard, most simply treated him as if he wasn't there. His twin sister had friends, and she tried her best to get them to have Peter along with them, but it never worked out. Eventually he'd leave them to have fun without him, feeling like he was spoiling things by Wanda's friends being forced to tolerate his presence.
Perhaps if Peter had been less good-natured, less inclined to taking the blame rather than resenting others, it would have been easier for Magda to see him so lonely. At least then she could have held him partially responsible, but the fact was that nobody gave Peter a fair chance, no matter what any of the few people who cared about him did to try to ease his life. Even now, though he must be terribly hurt by all this, he was happily playing Three Little Piggies with Lorna's toes, making her scream in delight at the tickles, not outwardly moping about things or getting angry.
"It has to get better for you one day, Baby Boy" she murmured. Peter glanced up at her, gave her half a smile that lacked the brilliance of his real one, "Somehow it has to"
"It will," he told her. She only half-believed him.
Leaving Peter and Lorna to play, Magda had set herself to cleaning up and letting her thoughts brew. She couldn't believe Principle Weeks had been so vindictive as to make sure that not only could Peter not go to his school, he couldn't go to *any* school, as if the man wanted to ruin his chances in life. She'd tried her only options, short of getting him a place at a school far away, and it seemed that once again she'd hit a wall. Yet something had to be done, she couldn't allow people to get away with treating her boy like this – as if he was some kind of freak, when he was just a little different. She loved him the way he was, for all his oddness, and if others would only spend enough time around him to see his big heart and sweet nature, she was sure they would love him too. Just nobody seemed able to do that.
Scrubbing away at a burn mark on the countertop, the result of Peter and Wanda trying to bake a cake together (never again, she swore), Magda mulled over the idea that whilst there seemed nothing left to do to actually help Peter out of this situation, she could at least get some kind of justice for him. If nothing else, it would make them all feel a lot better if the people who'd done this didn't walk away without some kind of comeuppance. Slowly, she had begun to form a plan, and by the time Peter had come in to find out what else in the kitchen he could devour, she had been set on an idea that would be satisfying to them.
