Been a while since I updated this. And this chapter is even longer than the last one! Though a lot less dark. Which is good, right?
Timeline
1. 'In the beginning' Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 13 and 14) Rusty is seven, Danny is nine.
2. 'Neverending Conversation' Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 15 and 16) Rusty is seven, Danny is nine.
3. 'Matilda and the Werewolf' (Chapter 23) Rusty is nine, Danny is eleven.
4. 'Something more than it should be' (Chapter 10) Rusty is ten, Danny is twelve
5. 'The humiliation of Norris Carrol' (Chapter 20) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
6. 'Four Day Interlude' (Chapter 5) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
7. 'Remember the first time' (Chapter 4) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
8. 'Sunshine, smiles and sweet, sweet words' (Chapter 17) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen.
9. 'Lie, Cheat, Steal, Play' (Chapter 24) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
10. 'View from the outside' (Chapter 12) Rusty is eleven, Danny is fourteen
11. 'Walk before you can crawl' (Chapter 2) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
12. 'Other Nightmares Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 8 and 9) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
13. 'The more things change' (Chapter 1) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is fifteen
14. 'Words and Silence' (Chapter 22) Rusty is thireen, Danny is sixteen
15. 'Six months of roses' (Chapter 18) Rusty is thirteen/fourteen, Danny is sixteen
16. 'Two stories with some understanding' (Chapter 21) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is sixteen. Falls within time of 'Six months of roses'
17. 'Life Lessons' (Chapter 7) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen - falls within time of 'Six months of roses'
18. 'The lies we live' (Chapter 3) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen
19. 'If the fates allow' (Chapter 19) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
20. 'This is our decision (to live fast and die young)' (Chapter 6) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
21. 'Such a perfect day' (Chapter 11) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
And sequels after they move away!
'Adjusting' - two months after they leave town, Rusty is 15, Danny is 17
'Learning Curve' - eighteen months after they leave town, Rusty is 16, Danny is 19
Mabel was serving a customer when they came in, but she spotted them and hastily signalled them over. Which was interesting. Normally she left them to get settled and then came over for a chat when she had the time. Something must have happened, and Rusty glanced at Danny quickly, but Danny didn't know either; he just smiled and wandered over to the counter to watch Mabel pouring coffee.
"Morning, Mabel," he said, as soon as the customer's attention was back on his newspaper.
"Hi," Rusty added, with a grin.
She paused and smiled warmly at both of them. "And where have you two been? The place has been positively quiet the last while. I was starting to miss you." The tease was loud and clear in her voice.
Two weeks. They'd been having an enforced stay-at-Danny's-and-watch-movies-and-eat-popcorn weekend the first week and then the second his bruises hadn't faded quite enough for him to be happy that Mabel wouldn't say anything.
"Sorry," he said sincerely.
"We've not been cheating on you with any other diners," Danny added and she laughed.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" she demanded. Then she leaned forwards. "There's a boy in here looking for you." There was trepidation in her voice. And he could understand that, they'd used the 'bullies' excuse often enough – maybe too often – and she didn't want him hurt in her place. Still. As far as he was aware – as far as they were aware – no one was looking for them, looking for them. Which meant it was probably just someone looking for them.
"Thanks, Mabel," Danny said, looking – as he almost always did in public – as though he knew exactly what was going on. "He still here?"
She nodded. "In a booth in the back," she told them. "Can I bring you any food over?"
"Coffee and a burger please, Mabel," Danny said with a smile .
"Milkshake and a bowl of fries and a jelly donut please, Mabel," Rusty decided.
She raised an eyebrow.
He sighed. "And . . . " he scanned the counter. "An apple?" he suggested.
She smiled at them. "Sure, honey. I'll bring it over."
They paused as they walked further into the diner. There weren't many customers of course. Their usual table – the one close to the back door that gave the best view of the street and both exits – was empty. There was an old woman picking at a muffin. The man at the counter, sipping his coffee. And . . . over in the last booth, facing away from them, there was Mike.
Oh. That was interesting. They exchanged a glance and Danny didn't have any ideas to the 'why' either.
They slid into the booth opposite him and he looked surprised to see them.
"Hi, guys," he said nervously, looking round furtively.
Rusty carefully didn't look at Danny. Suddenly this felt like a clandestine meeting and he resisted the urge to check the salt and pepper for listening devices.
"Hello, Mike," Danny said, amusement sparkling in his voice. "You been looking for us?"
"Because you've found us," Rusty added.
"Right," Mike nodded, twisting his coffee mug in his hand. "Someone said that you ate lunch here most Saturdays. So I figured I'd get here early and wait."
Rusty wondered just how many cups of coffee Mike's waiting had involved. "What can we do for you?" he asked.
"I was . . . well, I was talking to Jeff Thomson." He stopped.
Danny nodded encouragingly. "Go on."
"He said that you - "
Rusty held up a hand quickly as Mabel brought their food over and Mike shut up.
He blinked down at his plate. Huh. Apparently his bowl of fries came with a sandwich and a salad. Aware of Danny's look of amusement, he glanced up at Mabel enquiringly. "Uh, Mabel? I didn't order - "
She looked at him, lips pursed and he closed his mouth. Right. He wasn't going to argue; Mabel had clearly decided he was getting skinny again. He'd just have to make sure that she charged them when they left.
Mike, oblivious to all the unspoken, laughed at the food laid out on the table. "Honestly, Rusty, don't they feed you at home?"
Mabel quickly laid Danny's coffee and burger in front of him and abruptly walked away. Danny sat next to him and far away, and Rusty didn't have to look to know about the tension and the misery and the stillness, and he wanted to remind Danny, to tell Mabel, that it wasn't that bad, that it had never been that bad.
But he had to cover before Mike understood any more than he should. He grinned. "What? I'm hungry," he said truthfully, popping a fry in his mouth and eating it before continuing. "And really, I think better when I'm eating. So you should be pleased. Now. What's the problem?"
"You know how I'm in the drama club?" Mike asked, and Rusty took a forkful of salad and nodded. "Well, we've had our budget slashed."
"Ouch," he commented.
"Sounds painful," Danny agreed lightly, and Rusty breathed a silent sigh of relief that the moment was passed.
Mike shot them an annoyed look. "This is serious," he insisted. "We don't have any money to buy the props we need."
Danny blinked. "Props?"
Rusty leaned towards him. "Means the things they use on stage to pretend it's the real world."
"Right," Mike nodded. "More or less. Set furnishings and hand props. Items we use. Anyway, the play's on Friday, and Mr Harrigan says that we can do without and just mime, but . . . "
"You don't want to," Rusty nodded.
"And you thought we could help," Danny agreed with a smile.
"Well, you've been doing a lot of things for a lot of people lately," Mike explained, "And I don't think I want to know how - "
" - probably not - " Rusty put in.
" - but I've got a list."
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and pushed it across the table. They looked down at it for a long moment.
"Huh," Rusty said thoughtfully, and Danny was already considering.
Watching them carefully, Mike went on. "Obviously, we couldn't really pay you, but I could give you a couple of tickets for the play, and you could get producer credits." He grimaced. "Really guys, I'd owe you an enormous favour."
Danny looked up. "Really?" he said slowly.
Mike looked confused. "Yeah, sure. Anything." And Rusty almost wanted to tell him that was a little hasty.
Still. He remained stuck on the list. He frowned at the last item.
Apparently Mike must have caught the look. "Hey, it could be worse. Least I'm not asking you to help me stage Aida," he grinned.
They glanced quickly at each other. Enough to acknowledge the joint incomprehension. Oh well. He pulled his fries closer and looked back at Mike.
Food and more information. That was what he needed.
After Mike had left, Danny stared down at the list. A spinning wheel, a guitar, smoking test tubes, a wedding dress and a sword.
He shook his head. "What is he putting on?" he asked wonderingly.
Rusty looked at the list. "Cinderella?" he suggested.
"With the test tubes?" Danny frowned, then he blinked. "You mean Sleeping Beauty" he pointed out.
"Do I?" Rusty asked suspiciously.
Danny nodded. "Sleeping Beauty is the one where she pricks her finger and falls asleep. Cinderella is the one with the pumpkin and the glass shoe." He was positive of this.
"Oh." He watched Rusty consider. There was a sudden grin. "Actually, I've not seen either of them. What's the one with the glass coffin and the - "
" - Rus' -" he sighed.
" - necrophiliac?"
He grinned, shaking his head. "You really wanna be saying that where Mabel might overhear?"
Rusty looked slightly apprehensive. "No," he said definitely.
"Right," Danny agreed. "Where'd you learn these words anyway?"
He got a look. "Your English homework. Last month. Remember?"
"Oh." He did. "You know, I don't think those were the words Mrs Patterson was looking for."
"You think?" Rusty asked with a roll of his eyes.
Time for a quick change of subject. He smiled. Speaking of Disney movies . . . "Maybe it's - "
" - not Bambi," Rusty interrupted firmly. "And not Aida either."
He couldn't help but laugh. "That's going to annoy you, isn't it?" Rusty didn't like it when there were things he didn't understand.
Rusty glared at him absently. "You know, there's a spinning wheel in the public library."
"Really?" he asked intently, thoughts already forming.
"In the storeroom in the back," Rusty nodded.
Wait a minute. Wait just a minute here. He grinned. "How do you know so much about the library?"
Rusty shot him a look. "Some of us aren't actually afraid of books," he said nastily and Danny's grin faded. There was something Rusty was trying to distract him from.
"How do you know so much about the library?" he asked again, seriously this time, and Rusty couldn't meet his gaze. He sighed. "Last summer," he stated.
Staring down at the table, Rusty picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. "Yeah," he agreed.
"Last summer. While I was away," he went on and he closed his eyes and thought about Rusty being hurt and abandoned and afraid and alone.
Rusty reached across the table and laid a hand on his, and he opened his eyes. "It's all right, Danny," Rusty said quietly. "Really. I promise."
"Of course it is," he agreed hollowly.
"It was warm. I could stay in there all day and as long as I was quiet and relatively clean, no one complained," Rusty told him and Danny nodded and suppressed the part of him that wanted to uselessly scream and rage at the world, the part of him that ached, the part of him that wanted to cry, to show people, to make them see that life wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. As if they didn't already know that.
Rusty was looking at him apprehensively, and really, this wasn't the time or the place to get into another discussion (argument) about 'should be' and 'is' and about what Rusty deserved and what he got. He swallowed his emotions with difficulty. "So you want to go and find out how we're doing this?"
Later, and they sat outside the steps of the library, apparently playing marbles. The reality of it was that Rusty was cheating and Danny was trying to figure out how. Oh, he knew fine well that by far the easiest way for him to find out would be to simply ask – Rusty would tell him immediately - but that was a lot less fun. Most of their attention was focused on the door anyway. The library had shut an hour ago, give or take, and they needed to know how long it took for the building to empty.
"Producers," Rusty commented out of nowhere, spinning a marble round and round absent-mindedly.
Danny glanced over at him. "Yeah?"
"You feel more like Gene Wilder or Zero Mostel?"
Oh, that was . . . "Got to tell you, 'We find the defendants incredibly guilty' is not a phrase I want to be associated with right now, Rus'."
Rusty grinned. "How about 'I want everything I've ever seen in the movies'?"
Better. Definitely better, and he couldn't have stopped the smile if he'd wanted to. The door opened and a small crowd of people exited the library, chatting happily. There was a long moment involving keys and locks, and then the library staff were walking down the steps, and around and past Danny and Rusty. It took something of an effort not to look up, not to look interested, but he stayed still, stayed smiling happily at the game until after the crowd had dispersed and wandered off their separate ways. "That everyone?" he asked. He'd thought so, but always best to check.
"Seven," Rusty nodded. "Almost certain."
"So, what, a little over an hour for them to clear the building?" he asked, and they picked up the marbles and wandered up the steps.
"Looks like," Rusty agreed. "Workable."
Seemed likely. They examined the door carefully.
"Locks look easy enough," Rusty said with confidence.
Danny was staring up though, had seen the problem. "Alarm system," he pointed out shortly.
"Oh," Rusty said with a grimace. "Guess we'll - "
" - no," he said thoughtfully. If he had to guess, he'd say that just the door was alarmed. "How long would you think that it takes for someone to respond to one of those?"
Rusty shrugged. "Ten minutes?" he suggested. "At least? It's not long enough to go in and - "
" - no," Danny agreed, because that was obvious. "But it would be long enough to - "
Eyes widening, Rusty caught on. " - if we were already inside - "
" - breaking out - " Danny nodded.
" - doesn't take nearly as much time," Rusty finished.
Oh, they had a plan.
Sunday and they'd spent the morning in the arcade, the afternoon in the cinema watching James Bond for the second time that month, and the past hour hiding behind the small shelves at the very back of the library, behind a bunch of cookery books. The one directly in front of his face had a really tasty-looking chocolate cake on the cover. Huh. He was kind of hungry.
Danny followed what he was looking at and grinned at him, and it wasn't mockery, just amusement. He watched, maybe a little disapproving, as Danny reached into his pocket and then his eyes widened when Danny produced a Snickers bar and passed it over.
They were supposed to be being very, very quiet. Very, very careful.
Danny grinned. "There's no one anywhere near," he pointed out in a whisper. "And I don't like having to deal with you when you're hungry. Cranky's the least of it."
And that was the truth. He smiled, broke the Snickers bar in half, and passed half of it back to Danny, and the look in Danny's eyes when he took it . . .warm and caring and everything good in his life, and looking at him. Rusty was happy. Almost ridiculously so.
They sat, and other than eating their chocolate, they were as still and as quiet as statues, and gradually the people stopped moving around, and gradually the lights were turned off, and from the floor below they heard the doors open and close, and they were alone in the dark. They glanced at each other and gave it another fifteen minutes. Just in case. Be terrible to be caught because someone had forgotten something.
Eventually, they stood up, and, pretty much in unison, stretched and dug their flashlights out of the bag they'd brought.
"Spinning wheel?" Danny asked.
"Spinning wheel," he confirmed. "This way."
He'd seen it in the storeroom when he'd been helping one of the librarians carry boxes from the children's section. She'd seen him there three days in a row and had apparently formed the opinion that he was a shy boy who liked reading and would appreciate a little attention, and she'd asked him to help her with the displays. He'd gone along with it, she'd asked a couple of questions, and he hadn't gone back the next day. But he'd caught a glimpse of the inside of the storeroom. And there'd been all kinds of junk in there. They could steal it and no one would notice for at least a few days.
The door was locked and that didn't take long to deal with at all.
They stood looking down at the spinning wheel. "Huh," Danny said eventually. "That's what Mike's looking for?"
"Guess so," he said with a frown. "Though I suppose - "
" - yeah," Danny nodded. "Why?"
He shrugged and started taking the thing out of it's place amidst cardboard boxes and piles of newspaper.
"Plus," Danny added, "I don't even get how anyone could prick their - "
" - ow!" he complained, sticking his finger in his mouth, sucking away the dot of blood.
Danny sighed. "Never mind. Just let me know if you start feeling sleepy."
He glared at the spinning wheel. "What's the thing supposed to do, anyway?"
"Make wool," Danny said, in a voice that was somewhat less than certain.
"How?" he demanded.
Danny shrugged. "Sheep are involved," he suggested.
"So, what, you stick a sheep in one end and wool comes out the other?" he asked with a frown.
"Do you want to steal it or knit a jumper?" Danny's voice was mild.
He considered. "Does it do wedding dresses?"
Danny grinned and helped him haul the spinning wheel out of the storeroom and got it stuffed into the large holdall they'd brought with them. Had to figure that two boys carrying a bag through the streets late at night would attract marginally less attention than two boys carrying a spinning wheel. That sort of thing got noticed.
"So what do you think?" Danny asked.
He glanced up at the window. "Few more hours," he said decidedly. No good breaking out of the library while it was still daylight.
Danny nodded. "So," he said grimly.
"Homework," Rusty agreed.
Homework done by flashlight, in a huddle of beanbags, in a building that they were absolutely not allowed to be in, that it was probably illegal for them to be in, was still remarkably dull. Danny drew a pattern of dancing stick figures along the margins of Rusty's English assignment and considered. "What do you think about trees?" he asked.
"You mean am I for or against?" Rusty asked, not looking up from the encyclopaedia he was reading. Danny wasn't asking. Rusty had already finished Danny's math problems. He was quicker at it; he'd spent a whole day staring at Danny's math textbook a couple of months back, when even the light and movement from the TV had left him sick and dizzy, when even talking had left him with a headache. Somehow, he'd learned and somehow it had stuck.
He shrugged. "Something like that. You're supposed to write a poem about them."
Rusty nodded. "Go trees," he suggested.
"Right." Danny stared down at the paper and thought some more.
There was silence for a while, other than the scratching of Danny's pencil, and the occasional turning of a page.
"How would you rhyme 'deciduous'?" he pondered eventually.
Rusty grinned. "I wouldn't."
"You think I should try something else?" He considered. "Maybe a limerick?"
"There was a young man from the woods - " Rusty began.
" - whose penchant was for painting nudes - " he continued immediately.
" - when hiding up trees - "
" - he charged extra fees - "
" - and the park ranger gave up the goods."
They looked at each other for a moment. "No?" he suggested.
"No," Rusty agreed, and stabbed at his book with a finger. "Ah! Got it! There's an elephant in it."
"What?" Danny blinked.
"Aida," Rusty explained. "We'd need to get an elephant."
"Ah," he nodded. "Makes a sword look - "
Rusty scowled. " - oh, positively easy,if only - "
" - we had the first idea," he agreed with a groan. Tomorrow's problem. Tonight was still about tonight. He glanced at his watch and up at the windows. "What do you think?"
Following his gaze, Rusty nodded tightly. "Yeah. Time."
Putting everything back where they'd found it, they walked to the front door. "Ready?" he asked, a little breathless.
"Uh huh." Rusty looked about as nervous as he felt. Oddly, this plan had looked a lot more sensible in the cold light of day than it did in the dark and the mysterious.
The moment he touched the lock, the alarm started screaming, and by the time the door slammed open, by the time they were running down the stairs, running as far and as fast as possible, running before anyone could see them, before anyone would come out of the surrounding buildings, figure out what was going on, by the time they were away and free and unstoppable, his heart was beating fast and wild.
Not fear. Not panic. Exhilaration. And he turned round and grinned at Rusty and Rusty was laughing, and this was fun, and this was happiness and this was what he wanted.
Monday lunchtime and the morning had passed in a haze of art and boredom. Danny couldn't help but think that there was a limit to the number of conch shells anyone could reasonably be expected to sketch.
He waited for Rusty at the bottom of the stairs with a certain amount of anxiety. There'd been an awkward moment that morning. Rusty had stayed over at his – which was always good – and maybe they'd stayed up talking a little too late last night because this morning they'd slept in a little longer than they should have. Which meant that they'd been in more of a hurry. Which meant that they'd been a little more careless than usual. Which meant that they'd walked into Dad on the stairs. Yeah. Awkward.
Dad had stared at them for a long moment, apparently surprised to see two boys where he thought there should only be one. And in the end he hadn't said anything beyond a polite 'good morning', but Danny was certain there was going to be some sort of discussion – lecture – about this later. Hopefully just from Dad. Hopefully he wouldn't get the school involved. Or Mom.
Most of the time, Dad was more understanding about things. About him and Rusty. Danny was pretty sure that he thought that this friendship was a rebellious phase that Danny would grow out of, if they just gave him time, if they refused to take it seriously. And sometimes he fantasized about sitting Dad down and calmly explaining exactly how he felt and what it all meant and the fact that nothing was ever going to change that. Trouble was, it was all too easy to imagine the look on Dad's face if he ever tried.
Still. They'd been caught doing something they weren't supposed to, and there were going to be consequences, and the important lesson to take away from this was not to get caught again.
Finally Rusty appeared at the top of the stairs, grinned his goodbyes to his laughing classmates, and strolled over to join Danny.
"There's no way the music department will let the drama club have a guitar," Rusty reported. "Apparently there was an incident with a sousaphone a decade ago and since then they've been having their own private war."
"What kind of incident?" he couldn't help but wonder.
Rusty shrugged. "All Mr Sharp would say is that no-one actually died. But Joseph Becker's nose was never quite the same."
They exchanged a long look, grinned to each other, and started walking down the corridor.
"Okay," Danny began after a moment. "So, the guitar - "
" - tonight," Rusty agreed, and it should be simple enough. "Still don't know about - "
" - the wedding dress?" Danny nodded. He'd been thinking about that. After all, Mike had told them that it didn't actually need to be worn by anyone. It just had to hang there. "Mom's is still at the back of her closet. We could easily borrow it for a couple of days. She'd never even know."
"Sounds good," Rusty agreed with a smile. He paused outside a classroom. "So. Test tubes?"
"Test tubes," Danny nodded and pushed the door open.
Lee was standing behind a desk, wearing thick goggles, doing something with a beaker, a tripod and a bunsen burner that Danny thought was probably fairly dangerous and, according to Rusty, was directly related to his plans for world domination through science. He whirled round at the sound of the door and almost set fire to his sleeve.
"Hi Lee," Danny smiled.
"Hey Lee," Rusty added.
Lee sighed. "Oh. You two. What do you want?"
"We were wondering if you could help us," Danny explained, taking a seat opposite Lee.
Rusty had wandered over to the back of the room and was investigating a large cage. ""You've got a whole lot of mice in here," he called out.
"They're for this afternoon," Lee explained and turned back to Danny. "With what?" he asked suspiciously.
"We're helping Mike with the play on Friday," Danny said. "He needs a load of smoking test tubes."
Lee frowned. "Take it you don't want anything that'll explode or poison the audience?"
"We're easy on that point, actually," Rusty called over his shoulder.
"Not this time," Danny said firmly, trying, and failing, to glare at him. "Is it possible?" he asked Lee.
"Possible," Lee said with a shrug, sounding less than enthusiastic.
And this was the difficult part. He'd been hoping that Lee would volunteer to help out of some sort of spirit of solidarity. Didn't look like that was going to happen. He smiled, as relaxed as he could possibly look. "Will you let us have something?"
Sighing heavily, Lee slumped down onto a chair and looked over at him. "What'll you do for me?"
That wasn't like Lee. Not at all. "What do you want us to do?" he returned instantly.
Lee hesitated and then shook his head. "Nah. Never mind. Let's forget the whole thing. I can't help you."
Huh. That was actually kind of intriguing. Rusty looked round, obviously agreeing. "Come on," he entreated.
"What do you need?" Danny pressed.
"Well . .. " Lee paused. "You know that there's this Glee Club Summer Ball thing coming up?" he began.
Danny frowned. Well. Yes. There was, he supposed. "In about two months."
"I like to think ahead," Lee told him absently, looking over Danny's shoulder. "Don't get too attached, we're dissecting them after lunch."
There was a pause that lasted a couple of seconds too long, and Danny was just about to twist round, to check, to reassure, and then Rusty strolled back over and jumped up to sit on the bench just behind Danny. "Oh, well," he said casually. "So there's this dance. You going?"
"Yes," Lee nodded. "Or at least I was. I asked a girl. Ami. I asked Ami Sato."
"And she said no?" Danny guessed, sympathetically. Lee's crush was longstanding and pretty well known.
But surprisingly, Lee shook his head. "She said yes. Yesterday. Then she came and found me this morning and said that she couldn't and she ran off crying."
Oh. Danny pursed his lips. Seemed Lee had problems.
"Huh," Rusty nodded slowly. "You want - "
" - to know why?" Danny finished.
Lee scowled. "I want to go to the dance with her." He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "No. No, I want to know if she's all right. I want to know if there's anything I can do to make it up to her."
He sounded miserable and sincere and it was difficult not to be sympathetic. "We'll see what we can do," he promised, and he could feel Rusty looking at him.
"Really?" Lee asked hopefully.
"We'll talk to her," Rusty said firmly. "We're not promising anything."
"Even if you try . . . " Lee smiled at them for the first time that day. "Come by after school tonight and I'll give you the stuff that you need. It's easy enough to fix up, and I guess it's still being used for school purposes . . . "
They left Lee to return to his bunsen burner and his megalomania. "He should have a lightning storm," Danny commented. "And an ugly lab assistant."
Rusty grinned. "You volunteering for the job?"
"I'm not qualified," Danny said immediately. "Maybe you should - "
" - maybe if you weren't so vain, you'd - "
" - vain?" Danny demanded, with mock outrage. "I'm - "
Rusty looked over at him. "Your hair's sticking out at the back," he said calmly.
With an effort he managed to stop his hand from doing any more than twitching. Rusty saw anyway and laughed. Danny sighed. "So we need to talk to Ami," he stated.
"Right," Rusty said simply. "You know - "
"Uh huh." He did. Probably, he should have kept his mouth shut. "There's a good chance we won't be able to do anything."
"No," Rusty agreed.
"I mean, this is difficult," he went on thoughtfully. "There's a good chance that it's really - "
" - impossible," Rusty chipped in, nodding wisely. "We could even make things worse."
They walked in silence for a couple of steps. Then Danny looked at Rusty. "So, you have a mouse up your sleeve right now, don't you?"
"Uh huh," Rusty's hand shot out of his sleeve and Danny saw a small mouse looking up at him contemplatively.
"Very nice," he said calmly and resisted the urge to bang his head off the wall.
Rusty was wearing the earnest expression that teachers always seemed to fall for. Why he thought it would work on Danny was a mystery. Really, it was just annoying . . .oh. That would be it. "Lee said they were all going to be killed, Danny. And Olaf's not done anything to deserve that."
"Olaf?" he asked, knowing he was going to regret it.
"Olaf the Brown," Rusty explained happily.
Danny looked thoughtfully at the black-and-white mouse. "Of course," he agreed. "You remember the part where I said you weren't to name anything anymore?"
Rusty sighed. "I'm not keeping him, Danny."
"You got - "
" - Brady. He's already got six mice. Also two guinea pigs, four cats, eighteen goldfish, a parakeet and a chinchilla. He won't mind taking in Olaf."
Danny blinked. "He starting his own zoo?"
"His own Ark," Rusty grinned.
"Oh." Danny considered this for a moment. "The parakeet and the chinchilla - " he began.
" - against nature?" Rusty asked.
"Slightly," he agreed. "You should talk to Ami."
Rusty paused. "Why me?" he asked.
He grimaced. "She'll assume I have an ulterior motive," he explained.
"We do have an ulterior motive," Rusty pointed out.
True. "She'll think I have a different ulterior motive," he explained further and Rusty got it.
"I'll talk to her," he agreed and obviously he was already figuring out what to say.
Danny gave it a moment. "Rus'?" he asked at last, innocently.
"Yeah?" Rusty asked absently.
"I'd lose the mouse before you go talk to her."
After quietly asking around, Rusty found Ami sitting by herself on a bench in an unused cloakroom.
She looked up, clearly startled when he sat down beside her, and she had been crying and doing her best not to.
"Hi," he said with a soft smile.
"Hello," she answered, sniffing slightly. "I'm sorry, Rusty, but I'm not in the mood for company right now."
"Lee is worried about you," he said quietly, jumping straight to the point.
"He sent you?" she asked sharply.
Yes, pretty much, but saying so would be a bad idea. "Not exactly," he temporized.
Didn't seem to matter; she wasn't exactly listening. "Is he very angry with me?"
He paused. "More hurt," he said truthfully. "And confused. Not angry."
"I didn't mean to hurt him," she moaned. "I should never have said 'yes' in the first place."
"Why did you?" he asked, and that was really the important question here.
She bit her lip. "Because I really wanted to."
"You want to go to the ball with Lee?" he blinked.
"Oh, yes," she nodded. "More than anything."
"Then what's the problem?" Seemed straightforward to him.
For a moment he thought she was going to start crying, and he wondered what he'd do, beyond pat her arm and offer her a tissue. "Because I can't" she gulped, getting herself under control.
"Is your mom saying you're not allowed?" he asked with a certain amount of sympathy. From what he'd seen, parents delighted in telling people what they could and couldn't do. His rules weren't so complicated.
She glared at him. "No! Mom would never say that!"
"Then what," he pressed gently, his voice low and his eyes sincere, and it seemed as though she wanted to talk and he was good at listening.
"Promise you won't tell Lee?" she asked. "Or spread it around the school?"
"I promise," he nodded and meant it.
"I don't have a dress," she admitted quickly.
He blinked. That was it? "Can't you get a new one?" he suggested, keeping the compassion in his voice with an effort.
Her lip was wobbling. "No. No, I . . . things have been difficult since Dad got sick. I can't ask Mom for money. And I don't get an allowance. So I'm not going to be able to buy one, and I can't go to the ball, and even if I could, I can't dance, and Lee's never going to ask me out again." Her voice was trembling and filled with misery and despair.
Oh, that was it. He snapped. "That's completely ridiculous."
She stared at him. "I can't ask Mom," she insisted wildly.
"Not what I meant," he said immediately. "You don't want to burden your parents, I get it. That part's fine, that part's admirable. But why does that mean you can't have any money?"
She was still staring. "What?"
"When me and Danny need money, we go out and get some," he explained. "Otherwise we'd never have any either." If anyone was to ask Danny's parents they'd probably insist that Danny got a generous weekly allowance. And probably they didn't even realise that it had been a good year or so since either of them had actually remembered to give Danny his allowance. And Danny was never going to go to them and ask for money. As for Rusty, well, he didn't particularly want to imagine what Dad would say (do) if he walked up to him and asked for pocket money. No. They did their best with what they had and had as much fun as possible.
"How?" Ami asked, wide-eyed.
Oh, he wished she hadn't asked that. "Probably no way you want to try," he admitted with a grin. "We play to what we're good at. You should do the same."
"But I'm not good at anything that could get money," she protested.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and wondered why more people didn't try and fend for themselves. Okay. He could think about this for her. "You speak Japanese, don't you?" he began.
Surprised, she nodded. "Yes. Also Chinese, Spanish and Portugeses."
Okay. That was impressive. "Really?"
"Yes," she smiled slightly, obviously enjoying the look on his face. "My parents are interpreters. They used to work for the Foreign Service. They met at the American Embassy in London."
He frowned. "They speak English in London."
"Yes?" she looked at him uncertainly.
"Then why . . . " He shook his head. "Never mind. My point was that probably people would be willing to pay money for language lessons. If you put adverts up. People like learning exotic things. Two months, you could make enough easy."
She was staring at him again. "You really think so?"
"Yeah." Seemed obvious to him.
"But who would pay for that kind of lesson?" she wondered.
"Well, I would," he admitted after a moment's thought. Being able to speak another language seemed like it would be useful. Or at least interesting. He'd settle for either.
She nodded thoughtfully and it seemed as though she was thinking about it. Seemed as though she was at least admitting she had options. "I still don't know how to dance," she said slowly. This time he did roll his eyes. "But," she went on determinedly, glancing at him. "I suppose I could . . find someone to teach me?"
"That's right," he smiled. "Danny can, if you don't know anyone else." Not like Danny would object. Danny liked girls. And Ami was pretty.
She smiled at him suddenly. "Thank you, Rusty," she said sincerely. "You've given me a lot to think about."
He nodded. "Good," he said and meant it. "Is there anything I can tell Lee?"
She stood up, looking resolute. "I will tell him that I will go to the Ball with him," she announced.
"Fantastic," he grinned. More than pretty.
She looked at him for a long moment, before she left, as if she was trying to puzzle something out. In the end, she shook her head absently and walked away.
He managed to catch up with Danny just before the bell rang for the end of lunch and quickly told him what had happened.
Danny nodded slowly. "Now that's Cinderella."
Rusty frowned with feigned suspicion. "Wait, who's the necrophiliac?"
Lee had been almost frighteningly happy when they'd stopped by after the after-school science club. Apparently Ami had asked him to the ball last class of the day, and he was consequently dancing on air and he hadn't stopped thanking them. Which was as it should be. Rusty's best efforts had been impossible.
At any rate Lee had proudly handed them a set of test tubes, a couple of vials of powder and a careful explanation of exactly what would happen when they were mixed together. Personally Danny was wondering if it could work on a larger scale. He could see uses for their own, personal smoke-maker. Not least that it would look incredibly cool. In the meantime they were getting somewhere and they were having fun and they stowed the test tubes in the abandoned house with the spinning wheel, raided his parents' fridge for leftovers and headed back to the school in search of fame and fortune, or a guitar at the very least.
And that was where they hit a snag. A snag in the form of Hutchins the janitor, camped out in the middle of the music corridor, listening to the radio.
"What's he doing?" he hissed in Rusty' ear as they stood at the top of the stairwell, peering round the edge of the doorway at Hutchin's back.
Rusty shrugged and was saved from having to answer by an announcement on the radio.
"And we now take you to a very special program, Ol' Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra will be singing live from The Desert Inn shortly, and first of all we're going to take you round a few of the more colourful nightspots in Las Vegas – America's Playground."
Hutchins rubbed his hands together and Danny had never seen him smile like that before.
"We've got a problem," he told Rusty in a whisper.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll do 'My Way'," Rusty reassured him.
"That's not actually the problem I was thinking of," he sighed, and frowned. "You think so though?"
Rusty grinned. "Bound to."
Huh. They should probably try to get home in time to hear that.
"We could just come back another night," Rusty offered.
They could. Trouble was they had no ideas with the sword, no way of knowing how much it was going to take. "We need to get this over with," he decided.
Rusty nodded. "Distraction then."
He considered. "If he was doing his job - "
" - he could even take his radio - "
" - just to get him - "
" - someplace else."
They looked up the stairwell, at the girls restroom on the landing at the top.
"Water flows downhill," Danny said thoughtfully.
A quick exchange of looks and they were tiptoeing up the stairs at a run and Danny started blocking up the sinks.
"No," Rusty objected.
Surprised, he turned round, and saw Rusty was crouching down and examining the pipes under the sinks. "What?"
"It'll take too long your way," Rusty explained and with a slightly uncertain expression which made Danny nervous, he reached out, unscrewed something, and pulled firmly on a pipe.
They just managed to dodge the ensuing jet of water.
Danny watched as Rusty fixed – broke – the other two sinks, and by the time they darted back down the stairs and hid on the bottom landing, the water was already pooling round their feet.
They stood and watched the water make it's gradual way down the stairs. It was a very long twenty minutes.
"How much longer do you reckon," he asked presently.
Rusty shrugged. "Five minutes? Maybe?"
He nodded and was about to answer when they heard a shout from the corridor.
"Jesus Christ." Hutchins sounded very, very unhappy.
He couldn't help it; he risked a glance out the doorway.
Oh.
Oh, they were in trouble.
Water was pouring from the ceiling, bits of plaster and pieces of ceiling tile littered the floor, and Hutchins was standing in the middle of it all looking stunned.
"We broke the school!" he hissed and Rusty grabbed his arm and they were further down the stairs just in time to see Hutchins come running into the stairwell and up towards the restroom.
"It'll take a while for him to get the water off," Rusty whispered.
Danny nodded. They might as well get what they'd come here for.
Picking their way through the flood corridor, Rusty got the store cupboard door open faster than Danny had ever seen him manage before. They grabbed a battered guitar from the very back, shut the cupboard up again and hightailed it out of the school, closer to panic than they'd been for a while.
They stopped running a couple of streets later and looked at each other. Oh, they'd messed up. They'd messed up and he couldn't stop feeling guilty.
Rusty nodded, agreeing. "Nothing we can do about it though."
"Let's not do it again," Danny suggested.
"Yeah," Rusty sighed. "Sinatra?"
They walked to Danny's house in silence.
Next day it seemed the sole conversation was the flood. How some vandals had destroyed a restroom. How many days, weeks, months the music department was likely to be closed for. How many hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars it was all going to take to fix. What they were going to do to the culprits when they caught them. Even allowing for a fantastic degree of exaggeration, Rusty figured that they'd caused a hell of a lot more trouble than they'd ever intended. And he felt a little bit guilty and a lot annoyed. It had been an accident, and if they were going to engage in wholesale destruction, he wanted there to be a better plan and a better reason.
He spent the morning trying to figure exactly what to say if he was called out of class, wondering all the time if Danny had already been blamed, and it was so difficult to suppress the need to run and check, make sure Danny was still fine.
By lunchtime however, nothing had happened, and Danny breathed a sigh of relief on seeing him, and Rusty could see he'd spent the morning with the same thoughts and worries. But there was nothing. They were both fine.
"Not like anyone could know," he pointed out quietly and Danny nodded his agreement.
"Nah. We're good."
They sat at their normal table and Rusty picked apart a cheese sandwich with absent-minded determination.
"What?" Danny asked after a moment.
"Sword," he sighed. He had no ideas.
Danny nodded. "We're - "
" - nowhere," he finished glumly.
They smiled casually at Doug Fletcher and Ritchie Sinclair who sat down next to them.
"Where do you even get a sword," he asked frustrated.
Danny shrugged. "Armoury?"
"Of course." That was helpful.
"You're looking for a sword?" Doug spoke up. "I know someone who's got one."
"Who?" Danny asked, and they both looked at Doug intently.
Doug blinked. "He showed it to me a few weeks ago."
"Who?" Rusty repeated patiently.
"Think his dad brought it back from Toledo or something," Doug explained further.
"Who?" they demanded in unison.
With a sigh, Doug stared past them. "You're not going to like it," he warned.
Rusty craned round to follow his gaze. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he groaned.
On the other side of the cafeteria, Norris Carroll ate his burger obliviously.
Danny waited patiently in the corridor after his last class of the day, until Norris had finished teasing his friends. Or harassing his minions. However you wanted to look at it.
They'd agreed that it would be best if only one of them talked to Norris. Both of them and he'd be on the defensive, would assume they were up to something, trying to trick him or strong-arm him. Just Rusty and Norris would be the one trying to bully, trying to intimidate, and just because Danny knew that he'd never succeed didn't make that acceptable in any way. No, it needed to be him. Him and he could be distantly friendly and respectful. Him, and he could treat Norris like an equal and expect the same in return. And that was the trick. Because he was going to try simply asking.
Eventually, Norris watched the other boys head down the stairs and turned to glare at Danny. "What do you want, Ocean?"
"Just looking for a favour, Norris," he said easily.
"A favour." Norris laughed incredulously. "A favour?"
This was not going like he'd hoped. "A trade, perhaps," he clarified. Not like they weren't prepared to give Norris something in return. Money, maybe. Money they could do easy.
"You think I'm going to do you a favour? You think I'm going to give you anything?" Norris was actually snarling. "You think I want anything from you? I hate you, remember? I hate you and you hate me, and that's exactly the way it should be."
Danny blinked slowly. "You think I hate you?" He didn't. He didn't like the other boy; not in the slightest, and he still remembered the look on Norris' face six months back when he'd sat in math class while Norris whispered next to him "Hey, Ocean. Just come from seeing your little friend. Cries a lot, doesn't he? I only hit him a few times." And if anything he'd said had been true, then things would have been different. But Norris had been lying, and Norris was small and Norris was nothing to him. Hate Norris? Hate Norris like he hated . . . he was never going to wake up in the middle of the night overwhelmed with dreams of anger and fear because of Norris. He was never going to have to stand in front of Norris and bite his tongue, literally bite his tongue until he tasted blood, because if he didn't then the truth might scream its way out. He was never going to find himself lying in the dark, listening to Rusty's uneven, frightened breathing, fantasising about waiting for Norris in a dark alley. Hate Norris? Not even close. He knew what hatred tasted like.
Norris was staring at him, his face twisted. "I know you do," he growled and he knew nothing.
It was a good thing he hadn't actually said what they wanted.
They were going to need to do this the fun way.
They'd wanted to give him a chance.
Rusty leaned on the wall outside the school, lit a cigarette and wondered how Danny was getting on. He didn't honestly think this was going to work. Didn't think that there was the slightest possibility of Norris going along with them. And he knew that Danny was only slightly more optimistic, but he knew why they'd had to try. This wasn't them exacting revenge or taking something of no consequence. From what Doug had said, this sword mattered to Norris. And even if they didn't like him much, and even if they were going to give it back in a couple of days, no harm no foul, it was still important for them to try.
He looked up in time to see Annette Darcey walking down the hill towards him and then she vanished behind the building. Be a couple of moments before she reappeared. He couldn't help but wonder what she was doing here. And if he should try and persuade her to stick around until Danny turned up. Difficult to judge. Shaking his head, he went back to considering what their next step should be when Norris inevitably turned them down. They had the beginnings of a plan . . . actually, no. That was the problem. They had the middle and the end of a plan. The beginning was what was giving them problems.
Annette stepped round the corner and smiled at him awkwardly. "Hi," she muttered, before reaching into her purse and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
He smiled absently back and wondered if it would work if they annoyed Norris enough. If they could anger him into wanting to be competitive, wanting to prove he was better than them.
"Got a light?" Annette asked, after a moment searching through her bag, neatly interrupting his train of thought.
Sighing to himself, he leaned forwards and lit her cigarette for her. "Here."
"Thanks," she smiled, inhaling and ending with something that sounded suspiciously like a cough.
"I'm waiting for my mom," Annette announced. "She's in seeing Celeste's teacher. Since Aunty Marissa can't leave the house." She leaned in close to him. "She's got a new nose, but don't tell anyone."
He blinked. "What happened to the old one?" he asked.
Annette shrugged. "She didn't like it."
Nodding, he decided that probably making Norris mad at them was a bad idea. Far, far too many ways it could go wrong.
Annette was looking at him sideways. "You're Danny's friend, aren't you. Danny Ocean, I mean."
Huh. Somehow he thought that maybe he should be giving this conversation more of his attention. "You looking for him?"
"No," she shook her head. "No. Just wondering."
"Yes," he told her evenly. "Me and Danny are friends."
She nodded slowly and she was still looking at him, as if she was trying to figure him out. "My mom says you're a bad influence on Danny. She says that you cling to Danny and bring him down to your level and it's disgusting. She says that if you were hanging around her child she'd soon teach you your place."
He thought about Juliet Darcey and wasn't surprised. And Annette wasn't trying to hurt him, wasn't even thinking that her words could hurt him. Which they couldn't. There was nothing in her voice but puzzled curiosity. "Really," he said, as if the subject bored him.
"Yes," she said, and her eyes were raking over his clothes and he wasn't embarrassed. "She says you're – poor."
He smiled sardonically. "I bet that's not the word she used."
She flushed slightly. "Trailer trash," she said quietly.
"I live in an apartment," he told her.
There was a pause. "My mom's wrong sometimes," Annette blurted out. "She's . . . she can be a little bit of a snob."
He didn't say anything. Didn't react. Certainly didn't agree; that was the last thing that she wanted.
"It's not like she's a bad person," Annette went on after a second. "It's just that she assumes she's always right. And that's annoying. I don't think you're bad like she says. I mean, you're just a kid. You can't be a . . . what she says."
He nodded and didn't ask. Not like he was crying out to be insulted.
"But I don't understand," she said slowly, her voice full of a different curiosity. "Why is Danny friends with you?"
"Because he likes me," he said simply. He was never going to explain – not to her and not to anyone – about miracles and magic.
She frowned. "But you're just a little kid, and Danny is . . . .Danny is Danny. I mean, he could be hanging out with anyone. Celeste says everyone in school thinks he's cool and amazing."
"He likes me," he repeated and he hated the edge to his voice.
She still looked unconvinced and she opened her mouth, obviously about to say something else, when suddenly she paled and stared over his head, up the hill. "Mom!" she gasped.
He turned in time to see Juliet Darcey disappear behind the building.
"She saw me!" Annette moaned. "She saw me smoking. She's going to kill me."
She looked frightened and miserable and it was obvious she'd never dreamed of consequences. He sighed and grabbed the cigarette out of her hand and threw it on the ground. "Stamp on it, he ordered tersely.
Looking bewildered, she did as she was told. He threw his own cigarette over the wall, pulled her purse out of her hand, found her pack of cigarettes and stuffed them into his pocket.
Finding a pack of mints, he thrust them into her hand. "Take one," he commanded and gave her her purse back. "And start yelling at me."
"What?" she asked, her voice high and panicked.
"Which of us is your mom more likely to believe the worst of?" he demanded. "You caught me smoking, made me stop and are giving me a lecture on it. Your mom can't possibly have seen enough to be certain at that distance. You know she hates me. We can make this work."
She bit her lip and nodded. "It's a disgusting habit," she said loudly and he had to say her impression of her mother was pretty good. "You should be ashamed of yourself. I really don't know why your parents don't - "
" - Annette," Juliet Darcey cut in, stepping round the corner in time to see her daughter towering over Rusty, her finger waving in his face. She blinked. "What's going on here?" she asked, in a slightly less querulous tone of voice.
Annette looked round at her mother. "I caught this boy smoking, mother," she said. "I was just explaining that it's wrong. Just like you always told me. He actually offered me one."
He watched as Juliet Darcey's narrowed eyes slipped between them, not looking for truth so much as looking for what she wanted to believe. Her daughter hadn't done anything wrong. Rusty was foul and worthless.
He kept his head down and looked up at her sullenly as she stepped towards him, looked down at him like he was some repulsive insect. "You disgusting boy," she hissed, fury in her voice, and he wasn't going to run - he was not going to run - because there was nothing to be afraid of. "You insignificant little worm. How dare you? How dare you even talk to my daughter, let alone try to corrupt her the way you've corrupted Daniel. Do you think no one sees what you're doing? Fawning over him. Bringing him down to your paltry, sordid level. If I was Barbara, I'd soon send you packing."
"I'm sorry," he said meek and angry his eyes fixed on her shoes.
That just seemed to make her even angrier, and she took a step impossibly closer, and the trembling started deep inside, and still, he was almost certain that she wasn't actually going to hit him. And if she did, he'd never let her see that it hurt. "That act doesn't fool me in the slightest! I know what you are. I see you strutting around the neighbourhood, showing off your bruises. How many fights have you been in, this month alone? You think violence solves all your problems, don't you? Oh, Barbara's told me all about you. Your mother is a drunken prostitute and your father is a worthless thug and that's all you have to look forward to. You'll never be more than them."
No. No, no, no, no, no. Please. No.
She stepped forwards, roughly grabbed his chin, angrily wrenched his head up to face her, and he would never let her see that it hurt, even if that's what she wanted. "You are worthless. And you disgust me. And if I ever see you talking to my daughter again, I'll make you wish you'd never been born." She let go of his face and he stumbled and had to take a step backwards to stop himself from falling. "Don't think that Barbara isn't going to hear about this," she hissed. "I'm sure she'll be interested in knowing just what the scum that she lets roam around her house and our neighbourhood has been doing this time."
"I'm sorry," he said again and his voice was polite and respectful and the anger and defiance was nowhere. He had no doubt she'd tell Danny's mom. He had no doubt she'd take great pleasure in telling Danny's mom. But they could deal with that. They'd dealt with that before and they'd deal with it again, and Danny liked him.
She gave a contemptuous sniff and turned on her heel, walking away. "Come on, Annette."
Annette, face pale, eyes wide and horrified, paused for a few seconds, watching until her mother was out of sight, vanished behind the building. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
He smiled at her. "It's okay," he promised and she ran after her mother.
Sighing he leaned back against the wall. Okay. Norris Carroll. That's what he had to think about. There had to be a way to make this work, and it would be nice if he already had the whole plan ready to lay out as soon as Danny came back and told him that Norris had turned them down.
Distracted, he didn't even realise that Annette had come back until she darted up to him, until her mouth was on his, until they were kissing.
Huh.
Rusty was being quiet and Danny didn't like it. It was the wrong kind of silence. Not the worst kind of silence, not the silence that echoed back to Quiet Days and fear and hiding, but it wasn't the comfortable, easy silence he expected either.
He'd found Rusty waiting outside the gate, exactly where they'd agreed, and he'd told Rusty that Norris wasn't going to help, and Rusty had just nodded and said nothing.
They'd walked round to Mabel's, barely exchanging more than a few words, and Danny had nodded to Mabel significantly when they ordered food, and he knew that she'd leave them alone.
He talked. Kept the conversation light. Affected not to notice that Rusty was distracted. "So we've got the test tubes, the spinning wheel, the wedding dress and the guitar. And Norris has the sword."
"Yeah," Rusty agreed, his fingers at his mouth, his mind a thousand miles away.
Danny nodded thoughtfully. "And the elephant. I mean, where do we even start looking?"
"Well, the zo . . . " Rusty started and then frowned. "I'm paying attention."
"Uh huh," Danny nodded and took a sip of coffee and worried. "Gonna tell me what's going on?"
Rusty turned and stared out the window. "I kissed a girl," he said eventually.
Danny blinked. "Oh," he said. He didn't quite know what to say. Wasn't like the subject had ever come up before, precisely. It wasn't just that Rusty hadn't ever kissed a girl before, he hadn't even expressed an interest in kissing girls. Regarded Danny's interests and pursuits with tolerant amusement.
"Well," Rusty clarified. "She kissed me."
Danny felt himself start to smile. "She - "
" - yeah. Think she felt sorry for me or something. Her mom just got through yelling at me."
He felt his smile freeze and he caught the flicker of amusement as Rusty watched him try to sort out the joint and conflicting needs-to-know. Okay. He sighed and he was always going to chase down the thing that was bothering Rusty most. "Did she - "
" - yeah," Rusty cut in quickly.
"Wasn't pity then," he said firmly, shaking his head. "Girls don't kiss like that because they feel sorry for you."
"Oh," Rusty's voice was quiet and reflective.
"Did you like it?" Danny asked curiously.
There was a long moment of consideration. "Yes," Rusty decided eventually.
"Oh, good." Danny smiled. "Nice to know that the people who've been kissing since the dawn of time have got your support."
He enjoyed the sight of the grin. "There are people who have been kissing since the beginning of time? Aren't they getting tired yet?"
"So, this girl," Danny began brightly. "Do we know her?" His eyes narrowed at the sudden spasm of reluctance. "I mean, obviously one of us knows her slightly better than the other, but - "
" - no," Rusty interrupted.
Danny paused. "No what?"
"No, one of us doesn't know her better than the other," Rusty clarified, and he was looking out the window again, looking anywhere but at Danny, in fact. "Annette Darcey."
Oh. Annette Darcey. Rusty had kissed Annette Darcey. Or, rather, the other way round. And suddenly a lot of things made sense. Because eighteen months or so ago, at a piano recital that had brought him to new and previously uncharted levels of boredom, he had got talking to Annette in the cloakroom. And she'd shyly admitted that she'd never kissed a boy before, and he'd never kissed a girl, and hidden behind a pile of coats, they'd explored a whole new world and it had been fantastic.
Annette had been his first kiss. And now she'd been Rusty's first kiss. What, was she starting a collection?
Rusty still wasn't looking at him and that was unbearable. "Rus'," he said quietly, and the look that was turned on him was frighteningly apprehensive. He took a deep breath. "You think I'd be mad at you for this?" The pain and disbelief cut into him like a knife.
Rusty blinked. "I kissed - "
" - you did," he agreed.
"It's - "Rusty tried to explain.
" - it is," he nodded. And it was. "Don't think we should make a habit of it. But it's okay."
"Yeah?" Rusty asked hopefully.
"Yeah," he confirmed.
Rusty sighed. "Girls are - "
" - sure," he nodded with an easy smile.
"But they can also be - "
" - that's right."
Rusty sighed harder and Danny got the impression that he wasn't exactly in a hurry to go out and start kissing girls for fun.
He leaned forwards and the next time he spoke his voice was bright with anger. "So. Juliet Darcey?"
They'd spent the remains of the day in laziness, just enjoying themselves, being together and doing nothing. Once he'd managed to talk Danny a little way past his immediate anger and rage and helpless need to do something, that is. Once he'd managed to persuade Danny that there was nothing they could, should, do. That revenge wasn't an option. Once he'd got through trying to persuade Danny that it wasn't so very bad and that words didn't matter. Once he himself had finished leaning against Danny's shoulder and taking comfort in the simple truth that Danny liked him. Once they were done with all that, relaxation had been the object, and only a couple of times had their thoughts even turned to just how they were going to get Norris Carroll's sword.
It wasn't until lunchtime the next day, when they were sitting in the cafeteria, having just given Mike a progress report, that they moved on to the question of exactly how to persuade Norris that playing poker with them was the best idea he'd ever had.
"It shouldn't be us," Danny said suddenly.
Rusty looked at him and waited.
"What does Norris want?" Danny went on.
"Not to look stupid," Rusty answered promptly. "Which is - "
" - never going to happen," Danny agreed. "But he wants to be the big man. He wants to be popular."
He grinned with dawning understanding. "So if he thought - "
" - poker game - " Danny nodded.
" - with the cool kids - "
" - oh, that's - "
" - completely," he agreed and he leaned back in his chair with a smile.
Mike coughed politely. "So we can get the sword?" he asked hopefully.
"Yeah," Danny nodded. "No problem."
"A few problems," Rusty pointed out. "But we'll get there."
"Soon as we figure out who the cool kids are," Danny smiled.
John leaned forwards. "Other than you two, you mean?"
Rusty laughed. Danny shook his head. "Seriously, what do you think?"
"Football team?" Rusty suggested, glancing to the other side of the canteen.
Danny nodded slowly. "Could work."
Rusty sighed. "They're going to - "
" - bound to," Danny agreed with a grimace.
They stood up and started to walk away and Mike sighed behind them. "Still can't believe that your mom doesn't mind us throwing paint on her wedding dress."
They froze and looked at each other for a long moment. Then they turned round very, very slowly. "What?" Danny asked carefully.
"You know. At the end with the . . . " Mike seemed to read something in their expressions. "I told you about that, right?"
"No," Rusty said slowly. "No, you didn't."
Danny grimaced. "We can't - "
" - we can't," Rusty agreed immediately. He sighed and looked at Mike. "We'll get back to you," he said and they walked off.
As they'd thought, the football team wanted something. The moment they walked up to The Hulk and Jake Price and said they needed a favour, the two footballers looked at each other and frowned. "What are you going to do for us?" The Hulk demanded.
Rusty was aware of Danny biting back a groan, and he himself had to hide the smile. Seemed no one was willing to help a friend just for the hell of it. "What do you want?" he asked.
"We got this game with Hill Street coming up," Jake told them. "We heard they got some new plays. New players. We want to know what they've got and what we need to worry about."
"You can find out for us," The Hulk said, clearly needing it spelled out.
"They're playing tonight," Jake added.
"You can go watch them," The Hulk explained carefully.
He glanced sideways at Danny. They could. They would. "We will," they said in unison.
They'd skipped the last hour of the day and caught a train across town to Hill Street in time for football practice. Sneaking into the dressing rooms and getting a look at the flip-charts and the diagrams was easy enough. And Rusty would be able to redraw them later, no problem.
Now, hiding under the bleachers, Danny watched the Hill Street team run round and round after the ball and took notes.
"Don't think our team has a hope," Rusty commented after ten minutes.
Danny looked at them thoughtfully. "Well, this lot are faster. And stronger. And bigger. And they're dropping the ball less often."
"Yeah," Rusty nodded. "But I suppose our lot have more heart."
"And they're cheating," Danny added. "That's got to count for something."
"They take it seriously," Rusty commented thoughtfully.
Danny looked away from the sight of the field for a moment. "What?"
"Well, Mike wanting us to get all this stuff in the first place. Jake and The Hulk wanting us to get info on the opposing team. Just wonder what it's like to take something that seriously."
He paused and considered. "Are you suggesting that we should get a hobby?"
Rusty shrugged. "Lot of people seem to find something to care about. Football or plays or whatever."
"Not interested in anything like that," Danny pointed out. "And it's not like we'd have time." Just living took up enough time.
"Yeah," Rusty smiled. "You want to just keep on as we are?"
"Why not?" Danny said lightly. For as long as possible. Forever, if he had his way.
Teaching the football team to play poker took about three hours. Three very long hours. Coaching Jake on what to say to rope Norris into inviting them round the next evening took another half hour. Explaining to The Hulk why he couldn't be the one to talk to Norris took a good twenty minutes. Explaining the plan generally took an hour.
The Hulk ended up frowning at them. "So I get to win, right?"
"Right," Danny agreed with a smile.
"But you get the sword," The Hulk went on, the frown deepening.
"Uh huh," Rusty nodded calmly. That was the point.
There was a pause as The Hulk put his thoughts in order. "So why don't you just win?" he asked at last. "If you're fixing it anyway?"
Danny smiled a little more. "Because if we win, he'll kill us. If you win, he won't dare."
The Hulk's eyebrows knitted together threateningly. "That's not right," he said heavily. "He shouldn't try and hurt you. Just cos you win something off him, fair and square."
"But it's not fair and square, David," Jake said patiently. "They're going to be cheating."
The Hulk had taken a deep breath and Rusty had cut in hastily before the argument got anywhere and got them focussed again on exactly how to recognise a straight.
It was about half ten when they got back to Danny's house and stood outside. Two cars in the driveway. All the lights were on. Everything was very quiet.
"Too quiet," Danny said softly.
He nodded. There was a definite feeling of anticipation. "Think they're waiting for you?" he asked quietly
"Yeah," Danny nodded tersely. "Rus', you can't - "
" - I know," he cut in, and Danny looked miserable. "I'll be fine," he promised. "It's you - "
" - I'll keep my head down," Danny promised him back.
They looked at each other for a long moment, as if they were trying to engrave every last detail into their memories, and walked away from each other.
Danny wished he didn't have to walk into the living room. Wished he could just run upstairs and pretend that he didn't know his parents were lying in wait. Wished that he didn't know what they wanted to talk to him about. Wished, more than anything, wished, that Rusty was safe.
With a deep breath, he pushed the door open. His parents were sitting at opposite sides of the room, and they didn't look happy to see him.
"Come in, Daniel, and close the door behind you," Mom said stiffly.
He obeyed. Stood against the door. Waited.
"Your father tells me that Robert stayed the night on Monday," Mom began. "Is this true?"
He didn't have many options. "Yes," he admitted simply.
Her face twisted. "Daniel, we've talked about this before. You're not allowed to have friends over without asking permission first."
"And I'm not allowed to have Rusty over at all, right?" he asked with a smile.
Dad sighed. "Danny, no one wants to take away your friend," he said, carefully not looking at Danny's Mom. "But it's not acceptable for Rusty to spend all his time over here. Don't you think his father might worry?"
Danny stared and Dad had the grace to look away.
"Do not start that again, Daniel," Mom snapped. "You've been thoughtless, inconsiderate and rude. The pair of you. I do not want that boy hanging around here. People are talking, Daniel. And Juliet Darcey says he tried to force her daughter to smoke."
"More likely the other way round," Danny said with a short laugh. "Annette Darcey smokes like a chimney." He watched Mom's eyes light up at the gossip and told himself that he wasn't actually getting Annette into trouble. After all, he knew that Juliet Darcey wouldn't believe it from him. Or from Mom.
"Be that as it may," she said slowly and awfully. "Robert is a bad influence and I will not have the neighbours thinking that I can't control you."
"A bad influence?" he echoed involuntarily, his mouth tight, his body tense with anger.
"He is beneath you, Daniel. You need to cultivate other interests and more appropriate companions - "
" - he's my friend," Danny interrupted shortly.
Dad cleared his throat. "As I said, Danny. No one is trying to take your friend away from you. Though I agree with your mother; it would be good idea for you to expand your circle of friends."
Mom glared at Dad. "Oh, you agree with me, do you?"
"Not now," Dad snapped and Danny stared at the floor for a few moments as they argued like they'd forgotten he was there.
Eventually they turned back to look at him, and Mom's face was still alight with anger. "You will not bring Robert around here anymore," she snapped. "I don't even want you talking to him, do you understand? You're bad enough on your own. You need to learn discipline, young man. You need to learn to respect your elders and betters. You need to learn to be grateful and obedient and maybe then you'll stop being such a source of humiliation and disappointment to the people that love you."
It didn't hurt. Of course it didn't hurt. Why would it hurt? He glanced sideways, but Dad's mouth was firmly closed, and he didn't look like he was in any hurry to disagree with Mom. Didn't look like defending Danny was high up his list of priorities.
"You've been running wild all this week, Daniel," Mom went on. "Coming in late, not coming home straight after school. People have noticed. People are talking. And I will not have it."
"Really, Danny, it's not on," Dad said, stern and infinitely more gentle. "What do you have to say for yourself."
He kept his head down. "We - I've – been helping out with the school play all week."
There was a startled silence. "Really?" Mom asked suspiciously.
"Yeah," he said, looking up and looking surprised, as if it were obviously true.
"What are you doing?" Dad asked with a slight smile.
Danny shrugged. "Backstage stuff. Producing, really. But it's going really well." He smiled enthusiastically. "It's going to be fantastic."
Dad looked strangely happy. "Well, I'm glad to hear you've been doing something productive, Danny. Well done."
"You should have told us before, Daniel," Mom said, her lips pursed. "I could have had something to tell the neighbours."
"When is this play?" Dad asked.
"Friday night," Danny told him with a frown.
"Oh," Dad said thoughtfully. "I should be able to come and see it."
Danny blinked. "Really?"
"Yes, of course." Dad sounded surprised. "Since it's important to you."
"You don't have to work late or anything?" Danny asked hesitantly.
"No," Dad smiled reassuringly but he looked a little sad. "I'll be there. I promise."
"I'll be there too," Mom cut in, glaring at Dad.
Dad smiled unpleasantly at her. "Are you sure you can spare time out of your busy schedule? I'm sure Danny would hate to disrupt your social life."
"I don't have any plans for Friday," Mom snapped, rounding on him. "Not that it's any of your business."
Danny cleared his throat. "I'm just going upstairs," he said quietly. He didn't think they heard him. At any rate they didn't pay any attention. Or they didn't care.
He crept out of the room, and went upstairs as quietly as possible. The yelling erupted behind him. He curled up in bed, lonely and hating it, and wished he was with Rusty.
The apartment was cold and dark when he got in, much to his relief. No sign of Dad, and that could only be a good thing.
Hitting the light-switch, he discovered that the electricity had been cut off again. He sighed. Not much point in staying up in the dark. He took a bag of cookies from the cupboard and went to bed.
He was woken up a couple of hours later by the front door opening and the sound of loud, angry voices spilling into the apartment.
Dad was home. Dad was home and he'd brought friends.
There was the sound of glass breaking. The sound of drunken laughter. The sound of something – someone – crashing against his bedroom wall.
He bit his lip as hard as he could. He couldn't make a sound. He must not make a sound. Mustn't draw attention to himself, mustn't let them know he was here, mustn't let them know he existed, or it would . . . it would be bad. It would be bad and painful and awful and he wasn't going to go through it again.
Getting out of bed as quietly as possible, trying to pretend to himself that he wasn't shaking, he started to push his bed up against the door. Some kind of barricade. That's what he needed. There was another crash, this time against his door, and he flinched and started trembling that bit harder.
Finally, he got the bed in place. It wasn't enough. Not really. Dad, or his friends would be able to push that aside easy, if they wanted to. If they tried. He looked round the room and quickly snatched up a couple of cardboard boxes of clothes and books, and dumped them on top of the mattress. It might help. Might do. Might just give him enough time, while they tried to get through the door, to scramble out of the window and escape. He could only hope.
Pulling the blanket off the bed, he went and curled up under the window, lonely and hating it. He wished he was with Danny.
When he got to the Crossroads Diner the next morning, Rusty was already there, sitting at a table in the back, his head down on the table, on his outstretched arms, an untouched milkshake in front of him.
Danny ordered a coffee and settled down in the seat opposite. This place wasn't nearly as nice as Mabel's. The food wasn't so good. The company wasn't as friendly. But no one knew them here and no one cared, and though they'd never tried it, they were pretty sure that Mabel would have something to say if they showed up when they were supposed to be in school. And they weren't going to be in school today. Because they needed to get enough money to finance the football team's attempts to play poker, and they needed to find a wedding dress, and none of that could be accomplished by sitting in history class.
Rusty acknowledged him without actually raising his head, and Danny sighed and surreptitiously looked him over. He couldn't see any injuries and he gave up on subtlety and looked openly. He still couldn't see anything.
After a moment, Rusty sat up and smiled. "Rough night?" he asked lightly, taking a sip of milkshake.
Danny shrugged and wished he'd asked first. "Just loud," he said. "You?"
"Same." Rusty said, stretching as if it hurt. "They - "
" - nothing new," Danny told him. "Just the usual. Nothing I haven't heard before. Nothing we haven't dealt with before."
Rusty nodded slowly. "We lying low for a bit?"
"They don't want to see you," Danny agreed.
"They don't want you to see me," Rusty corrected astutely.
Danny shrugged. "Well, that's the way it goes sometimes. They're out of luck." He wasn't going to give up Rusty. Not for his parents. Not for anything.
Rusty smiled at him and put his head back down on his arms.
"Just the usual?" Danny asked after a moment.
"What's usual?" Rusty answered vacantly.
He nodded resignedly and sipped at his coffee.
Four o'clock and they were in Mabel's, having spent the past seven hours travelling to places in the city they'd never been to before and stealing as many wallets as possible before moving on. Probably tomorrow everywhere they'd been would be crawling with cops, but that was okay. They wouldn't need to be back for a bit. They'd just needed the extra money for tonight.
The last couple of hours they'd spent trudging round various thrift shops and second hand clothing stores, looking for anything that could even remotely be called a wedding dress. Eventually they'd struck . . . well, maybe not quite gold.
"It's a wedding dress," Rusty argued doubtfully, looking at the mass of white almost-silk spread over the table.
"It's got giant sunflowers on it," Danny pointed out, picking at the embroidery. "And the other side's all torn."
"You don't think Mike - "
" - he's going to want - "
" - well, we don't have - "
" - could you sew - "
" - by tomorrow?" Rusty frowned and shook his head. "Unlikely."
Danny sighed. "Well, we're stuck."
Rusty nodded and they sat in silence for a few moments until Mabel came over with their food. She smiled down at the sight of the wedding dress. "Something you want to tell me, boys?"
"We're helping out with the school play," Danny explained.
"Trying to help out," Rusty added.
"They need lots of - "
" - and a wedding dress - "
" - except they're going to - "
" - throw paint and so we found - "
" - but it's - "
" - daisies - "
" - sunflowers, and we can't - "
" - and there's a tear - "
" - and there's no time," Danny explained, a little wildly.
Mabel nodded, and smoothed out the wedding dress carefully. "You need it mended? And the embroidery unpicked? For tomorrow? I can do that."
There was a startled silence and then he and Rusty both spoke at once.
"Oh, Mabel, we weren't - "
" - we didn't mean - "
" - we'd never - "
" - we weren't asking," he insisted emphatically.
She straightened up and looked at each of them in turn. "Think I don't know that? Oh, sweethearts, I know you weren't asking for help. But you should've been."
Danny blinked. "Mabel?" he asked hesitantly, not really sure what she was meaning.
"I can do this for you," she said insistently. "Let me do this for you."
He glanced across the table at Rusty and caught the slight shrug and the faint smile. Wasn't like they had a lot of other choices. "Okay," he said with a sigh and smiled up at her. "Thank you, Mabel."
"Thank you," Rusty echoed.
She looked at them tenderly and picked up the dress. "Come by before school tomorrow and I'll have it ready for you," she promised.
At half seven, having distributed the money amongst the football team, and given last minute instructions, they stood behind Jake and The Hulk on Norris' front porch.
Rusty managed to resist the urge to look at Danny. This was really the first point where things could go disastrously wrong.
After a moment, Norris opened the door, a wide smile on his face. "Hi guys, great to . . . " he trailed off, glaring past the football players.
"Hi, Norris," Jake said carefully. "It's really good of you to invite us. My dad says we can't play at my house anymore." Not bad, Rusty thought. Maybe a little lacking in spontaneity, but at least he was remembering his lies.
Norris was still frowning. "What are they doing here?" he demanded, pointing at Rusty and Danny.
Jake shrugged. "They always play with us."
"They're cool," The Hulk rumbled.
Huh. An improvised lie from the most unlikely of corners.
"And we have the cards," Rusty added, holding a deck up by way of evidence.
"Can we come in or what?" The Hulk asked impatiently and with a grimace, Norris moved aside.
It was difficult not to show their relief as they followed Norris upstairs. There really had been a chance that he'd just refuse to let them in altogether. Fortunately he was out to impress.
The others – Eric, Sammy and Joe – were already there, sitting around Norris' bedroom, surrounded by snacks and soda. Rusty got the distinct impression that Norris had sent his mom out shopping.
He settled himself down and pulled some TastyKakes towards him. If he was going to have to listen to Eric and Sammy stammer their way through an explanation of the rules of the game, he was going to need some serious sugar reinforcements. After a second, Danny sat down next to him, and as Eric started talking, deliberately reached over him and took the snacks out of his reach. Oh. Oh, that was just mean. He tried to glare surreptitiously, but Danny was looking amused and annoying. He stared at the packet longingly, and felt his bottom lip quiver, just a little. With a sigh, and a look that proclaimed him a cheat, Danny passed the snacks back.
It was nice to win.
In the end, Norris seemed to pick up the rules faster than he would have expected. And, in the meantime, Jake had been looking round the room with an air of interest that was probably a little over-rehearsed. "Nice room, Norris." he said with carefully studied casualness. "Is that really a sword?" He nodded to the sword displayed on the wall over the desk; just where Doug had told them it would be.
Norris grinned. "Thanks. Yeah. My Dad got it for me. It's genuine," he boasted.
Genuine what? Rusty wondered. Beside him, Danny silently suggested that it was genuinely a sword.
"It's cool," The Hulk said, sounding impressed. "I wish that I had one."
Rusty resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief. "We going to play?" he asked and there was a general movement of agreement.
Poker was fun when you knew how the cards were going to fall. He dealt. Twelve hands and the very least Norris got was a straight. They wanted him falling over himself with exuberance and overconfidence. That part was easy.
"I like this game," Norris giggled, pouring himself another glass of Dr Pepper.
The football players, who already knew what was coming, who weren't even playing with their own money, still looked disgruntled. More so than their acting talents had previously suggested. Apparently they just didn't like losing.
"Want to up the stakes?" Jake suggested, with a snarl that they hadn't practised.
"Sure!" Norris agreed. "Where's the harm, right?"
"Right," Danny nodded lightly. "It's only money."
Another ten hands and Norris was losing. Not disastrously, but definitely, and now he was getting any hand better than a pair of fives. The pile of money in front of him was getting smaller; the piles in front of the other footballers - especially The Hulk - were getting bigger. He and Danny weren't doing noticeably well. Good to avoid as much suspicion as possible.
One more hand till showtime and Norris was definitely struggling. Definitely sweating.
Eric frowned at Norris. "You don't have so much money anymore, you know," he said heavily and the taunt was audible and stupid.
"Shut up," Norris snapped. He glanced round the table and smiled wildly. "Still have enough to buy Ryan's mom. Right, Ryan?"
It hurt. It was stupid and it hurt and the pain of it burned somewhere deep inside him, and he still thought – knew – to reach out and grab Danny's arm, dig his fingers in, stop Danny from diving across the room and killing Norris.
No, he told them both, and buried the anger somewhere he'd never find it again. It wasn't what mattered.
"That's not cool, Norrie," The Hulk said, very, very quietly.
The room fell silent. Norris flushed red. "Yeah, well," he muttered.
Rusty's hands hovered over the cards. Danny was still coiled and tense and furious at his side. And right now he should be . . . right now he couldn't. Right now Danny's mind was nowhere near the con. Right now Danny was stuck on hurting, humiliating. He bit his lip and with a twist of his fingers and a stab of betrayal, gave Danny a three and a seven instead of the two aces Danny was expecting.
The look was subtle. The disbelief was painful. The anger froze his soul.
He dealt himself the cards Danny had been waiting for, took as much of Norris' money as was necessary and no more. Then, next hand, with Norris holding a heart flush and renewed confidence and The Hulk frowning at four kings and probably wondering why he couldn't have five, the stage was well and truly set.
"You need to stick in another ten if you want to stay in the game," he told Norris, quiet and disinterested.
Norris stared from his cards to his money. Clearly he didn't have another twenty. Clearly he didn't want this little fact to stop him.
"You could always throw something else in the pot," Sammy suggested, leaning against the bed, having folded some time ago. "Something of equal value. I won Jake's baseball mitt last month."
Jake glared at Sammy. "Too bad you still can't catch."
"I'll bet my sword," Norris said suddenly. "If you win, you get to keep it. Okay, David?" he asked, looking at The Hulk.
Rusty's mind went blank. That wasn't what was supposed to happen. They were supposed to steer him in the right direction. Get him to offer a loan of the sword. They weren't supposed to just take his treasure. Hell.
"Fine," The Hulk said immediately, probably relieved that no more lying was called for.
Numbly, Rusty watched as the cards were laid out, as Norris' expression dissolved into horror and disbelief, as The Hulk took all of the money and the sword with a satisfied smile.
Beside him, Danny was grinning invisibly.
Apparently he and Norris were alone in seeing a problem.
They walked to the abandoned house in silence and he didn't look at Rusty once. Not once. If they were going to argue, they were going to argue somewhere that no one would overhear. Somewhere that at least felt safe.
Still. It wasn't like the anger faded in any way, and the moment they were over the threshhold, he dropped the sword and snarled. "You cut me out!"
"Yeah," Rusty agreed, looking at his shoes.
He took a deep breath. "That's - "
" - what I had to do," Rusty cut in, still not looking at him.
"What you had to do?" he demanded, enunciating each word clearly. "You had to change the plan? You had to - "
" - stop you from doing something stupid?" Rusty looked up at him, a hint of anger on his face. "Yeah. I did."
"I wasn't - " he began to protest.
" - you weren't going to take Norris for everything he doesn't have? You weren't going to try and take everything he has, you weren't going to try and hurt him, humiliate him?" Rusty's voice had an edge of fury that he rarely heard.
He paused. He had been. Of course he had been. He sighed; anger suddenly gone. "He - "
" - I know." And Rusty's voice was gentle now.
"I can't . . . " He couldn't stand it. Couldn't bear to hear Norris, insulting, taunting, trying to hurt.
"I know," Rusty said again. "Think I don't?"
He sighed heavily. "There would have been consequences," he admitted.
"He would have come after us," Rusty agreed. He paused. "But I'm - "
" - don't be sorry," Danny interrupted. "It's all right. It is." It was.
Rusty grinned happily and turned his attention to the sword, holding it aloft. "Behold!" he proclaimed. "I have returned. I am the once and future king, rightful ruler of the Britons."
Danny couldn't help but laugh. "Think the fact that you're American is going to count against you, Rus'."
With a glare at him, Rusty tried again. "I am the once and future king," he started, in the worst Cary Grant impression Danny had ever heard.
He dissolved into helpless laughter, and immediately found a sword pointing at him.
"On guard, scurrilous knave," Rusty said sternly.
Leaping backwards, he grabbed a pole from the ground behind him. "I shall defend myself in the name of my lord."
Rusty paused. "What's your lord's name?"
"Bob," Danny answered immediately.
They glanced at each other for a moment, smiling, then set to enthusiastically, clashing sword against pole, making as much noise as possible.
"Do you know any prayers, my friend?" Rusty snarled.
Danny grinned, recognising the movie. "I'll say one for you!" he answered immediately.
They skipped merrily around the ground floor of the house, leaping over rubble and broken furniture, striving to look as dramatic as possible.
"I see you're dressed for a funeral," Danny declared, carefully trapping Rusty against the wall.
"On the contrary . . . " Rusty countered, as he dodged happily out from under the pole with an overacted flourish. "The funeral will be yours!"
"Don't try to carve 'Z's on anything," Danny counselled quickly. "We need to give Norris the sword back, remember?"
"You'd rather give him something sharp than something blunted?" Rusty blinked.
"Good point," Danny nodded. "Incidentally, do we really need to give him it back?"
"Yeah, Danny," Rusty sighed.
"Damn," he said with a slight smile. Would serve Norris right if they'd just kept it.
Rusty grinned and pirouetted away. "And that, my friend, ends a partnership that should never have begun!" Rusty declared.
"Hey!" Danny protested. "We can't both be Errol Flynn!"
"Different movies," Rusty argued. "I wasn't being Errol Flynn, I was being Captain Blood."
Danny sighed and then grinned. "You want to - "
" - always," Rusty agreed, and he leapt back a step and put on a deeper voice. "We have a duty to suppress disorder and arrest brawlers. Put up your swords and come along with us."
"Impossible," Danny smiled.
Rusty moved to stand beside him, confronting the imaginary enemy. "Unthinkable," he added.
"Unlikely," they said in unison, and charged.
It was always better to be on the same side. Always better to be together.
The Drama Society presents "The Lizard Rises" A Play in Two Acts
Directed by Mike Katsen
Produced by Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan
"How come you get top billing?" Rusty complained, peering over his shoulder at the program.
"Alphabetical," Danny explained, surreptitiously staring over Rusty's shoulder, into the audience.
"Oh," Rusty said, apparently mollified.
"Also it sounds better," Danny added, and he grinned at the look he got.
"You think it's going to be good?" Rusty asked presently.
Danny shrugged. "No idea. At any rate, Mike seemed happy - "
" - with everything," Rusty agreed. He smiled in a way that Danny just hated. "You realise that tomorrow we're going to need to figure out how to put it all back without anyone realising?"
He groaned. "That's tomorrow's problem," he said insistently. He pretended to stretch and looked to his other side.
"Should I be pretending not to notice that you're looking for something?" Rusty asked. "Or just not asking what?"
He looked down at the program and flushed. "I mentioned to Dad and Mom that we were involved in this. They said they might show up." He didn't bother saying that they'd said that they would show up. That they'd promised. And he certainly didn't bother saying that they'd lied.
"Danny." And Rusty knew it anyway.
"Doesn't matter," he pointed out. "It's not like the play means anything to us anyway, right?"
"Right," Rusty agreed, and Danny took comfort in the understanding, in the unconditional, in the fact that Rusty was here and always would be.
"One of these days I'm going to . . . " He trailed off. One of these days he was going to stop hoping. One of these days he was going to stop expecting too much. One of these days he was going to stop dreaming the impossible.
The lights went down. Briefly Rusty's hand was in his. "Not as long as I can help it," Rusty promised him in a whisper.
Oh, and if anyone is planning on joining in the challenge on the forum, the deadline is Monday. Well. Mondayish.