Hey, a new little fic!
I had the temptation to write something new, and I thought the teenage Vince would be cool to write.
This probably won't be very long at all...a couple more chapters...or it might end up being like a novel. We'll see...
Tell me what you think!
His friends were laughing. Egging him on. They thought it was great, they didn't know what Vince was doing, but it was certainly making that lion mad. He was going crazy, giving bellowing roars and pouncing at the glass walls of his enclosure, only to hit the glass roughly and disorientate himself. Vince turned around to look at his friends. They were doubled over with laughter and he felt a bubble of happiness and pride at being able to impress his friends. Usually they were the type to slump behind the bike sheds with dead-pan expressions. Anyone who could entertain them was automatically cool. Vince knew that was now him.
"What...are you...doing?" One of his friends stuttered through bouts of uncontrollable laughter, as the lion tried in vain to claw his way through the thick glass walls.
Vince shrugged, still trying to maintain his cool and not-bothered exterior. He acted as if he couldn't care less that the coolest guys in the whole of his high school were in hysterics due to his joke. He turned to the lion and smiled his trademark cheeky smile. The one that the male teachers at school hated more than anything. He once got put in detention just for releasing that smile.
"Your hair looks shit," he chided, in an almost silent gravely voice that the lion could understand. He reacted immediately, curling his upper lip to reveal sharp fangs and retorted with some comment about ripping Vince to pieces. "Just try it!" Vince laughed in his lion-voice, tapping the glass of the lion enclosure with his fingernail.
"Did you see that?" Cackled another of the boys, "He thought he was actually gonna get Vince that time! He really thought! What a dumb shit..."
Vince winced when he knew the boys weren't looking. He felt bad taunting the lion like this. He had talked to him before...when he had first realised he could...and the lion had been nice enough to him. But whatever, Vince decided to himself, I'll never see this lion again, but I see these guys every day. Who would I rather have on my side? Vince was preparing another cutting comment for the lion when a figure dressed in green came dashing over, flinging his arms out between Vince and the lion enclosure.
"Excuse me sir, what do you think you are doing?" The man demanded an answer, his tone of voice suggested that he thought Vince certainly did not deserve the title of 'sir'. After all, Vince was the epitome of rebellious school children. His hair grown long enough for a mother to abandon all hope of convincing him to cut it. His black school trousers weren't school trousers, but black skinny jeans that he wore low enough to show off a good few inches of underwear and he decorated with a studded belt and some chains. His day wasn't complete until at least three teachers had told him that something about his appearance wasn't suitable.
Vince cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, but maintained the dead-pan mouth position. The cheeky smile would come in a minute. "You got a problem?" His asked, strands of his feathered hair drifting into his blue eyes.
The zoo keeper hesitated for a minute, before deciding he should be in control of this situation. "Yes sir, I do have a problem. You and your little friends are clearly distressing this animal. I think it would be wise if you vacated the premises."
"Ooh gosh, you think it wise, do you?" Vince applied a fake posh accent, despite the fact that the zoo keeper had a more northern accent. Then wham, the cheeky smile, making his friends on the bench splutter with suppressed giggles. The zoo keeper turned a slight shade of beetroot at being mocked, and Vince's smile widened as he knew his shot had hit it's target with excellent precision. "Well, you're lucky then, because we don't want to stay in your pathetic zoo...come on," he gestured to his friends, and in sheer awe from Vince's slick attitude, they followed him obediently towards the exit.
Vince spun round on his heels to make an arrogant gesture towards the zoo keeper, whose name tag read "Howard Moon" when he was frozen right in his tracks. He felt a chill race up his spine and right into his head. There, just behind Howard Moon's left ankle, was a slim sandy brown snake. His head reared, he was going to strike at any second. Vince didn't pause to think how the snake came to be there, although later he learned of a fault in it's enclosure, but he realised the species. It was a Western Taipan, the most poisonous snake in the world. Vince loved animals. He had entire shelves of books on them, although his new friends had no idea about that. He knew the type of snake and he knew there was no hope in saving this Howard if that snake bit him. He didn't think, he just acted.
"DON'T DO IT!" He hissed in his loudest snake voice, praying it was clear enough to get the snake's attention. It worked, he cocked his flat head in a way similar to Vince. Now he just had to convince the snake. "Don't do it...he's poisonous!" It didn't look convinced. "I once bit him, and look..." Vince opened his mouth wide to the snake, "My fangs fell right out, and I grew all wrong and mutated, look see?" Vince waved his arms and legs around. The snake gave a hiss of obvious disgust and placed it's body flat on the ground again, before slithering away and in the direction of the reptile house. By this time Howard had noticed the Taipan and had started sweating profusely and he hadn't exactly been reassured by the strange noises the boy in front of him had been making.
Vince let relief sink it's way through his body, unwinding all the muscles in him that had seemed to suddenly tense up to the consistency of steel. He turned to see his friends, worried about their reaction to the whole incident, and found they were no where to be seen. He let out a groan, worried that all the hard work he had put in to gain their admiration had been wasted.
"They ran off when they saw the snake," said Howard, seeming to read his mind. Howard looked the boy over, trying hard to over-ride his first impression of the teenager. He had, of course, assumed that such a boy had been up to no good. But now he was just confused. This boy had just made weird noises at this snake, and it had backed off as if Howard had repelled it. "What the hell did you do?" Howard asked Vince, desperate to receive an explanation from the boy, who seemed as clueless about his actions as Howard was.
Vince shrugged. He didn't want to explain himself to this guy. He needed to find his friends before they freaked out too much and didn't want anything to do with him. If there was one thing that Vince couldn't handle, it was social exclusion. Plus, it was making him uncomfortable the way that Howard Moon was staring him over like he was one of the animals in the exhibits. Vince knew he had a great rapport with animals, but it was just like a hobby or a little talent. He wasn't a freak. But Howard was still staring at him, dumbfounded by the rush of admiration he was feeling for a gawky teenage boy. He had never seen someone handle an animal like that, and he had been a zoo keeper since he was Vince's age.
"Listen...I have to go..." mumbled Vince, he turned around and almost sprinted away from Howard, feeling the zoo keeper's curiosity burning into his back as he jogged away.
Howard was left standing in the middle of the zoo walkway. He couldn't just forget about what he had seen Vince do. He had to talk to that boy again.