Chapter six: Where does it all come from?
A/N Well another chapter, this one actually went in several directions at first and I felt like I was pulling teeth until I decided to just shut up and write it my way.
You know how it is.
ANNE M MARTIN OWNS THE BSC, I OWN MORGAN RAVENLEE.
"I call this emergency meeting of the babysitters club alumni to order," I said hitting my squeaky gavel against the steering wheel of Watson's van. For the first time in nearly eighteen months every single member of the Babysitters club alumni had managed to be in the same place at the same time, this was because we were all heading to Claudia's art show together.
"Kristy should you be driving while holding a meeting?" Mary Anne asked gently.
"I can do two things at once! It's called multitasking," I snapped and I squealed with shock as Watson's insanely old cat Boo ran in front of the Van.
"Maybe you should let some one who has a license drive, as apposed to just a learners permit" Abby said and I sighed with defeat.
"Fine" I admitted undoing my seat belt.
We were driving to the art show in my stepfather Watson's mini van, he'd bought it after our fortieth trip to Shadow Lake deciding it would be a good investment. A month later a freak hurricane destroyed his cabin and he never got around to building a new one.
The good thing however was that we still had the van, it was perfect for whenever our entire group decided to get together.
Unfortunately due to conflicting schedules and Jessie's sudden desire to spend all her time with her "homies" this didn't happen that often.
"Ok I call this meeting to order," I said once I'd switched seats with Abby.
"Remind us again why we're having this meeting?" my neighbor Shannon asked flicking her blond hair over one shoulder. When we were thirteen Shannon had a somewhat interesting face and a ski jump nose, thankfully however by the time we were fifteen her father's wallet and a decent plastic surgeon took care of that landmark.
While we drove to the art gallery I told the BSC the entire story, I knew I could trust them. After all these were the girls we'd shared our life long secrets with and they were the only ones who knew I got my first period during the middle of Stacey's middle school graduation party.
"Cokie is so evil" Stacey said from where she was sitting next to Jessie in the third row.
"Damn it that hoe got shot up thehole by her man, dah mudda fucka deserves all da retribution she can whoop out on his ass" Jessie said, she followed this by giving us a very dramatic hand signal.
It was amazing what kind of language she'd picked up ever since she spent a whole summer with her cousin Keisha.
"Oh please every one knows that Cokie was whoring around for ages, she made out with Logan Bruno only two weeks ago! It's hypocritical for her to get upset over one kiss that happened while he was on drugs" Stacey said with the air of an expert.
"Still I feel bad for her! I mean it's always embarrassing when a boyfriend cheats on you" Mary Anne the kind hearted sniffed.
" People we're not here to bitch about Cokie!" I snapped.
"We're not?" Abby asked her eyes on the road.
"We're here to talk about what we're going to do, Cary may be a drug taking lying sneak but he shouldn't be punished when Jonathon's the real criminal" I said and the car was filled with a thoughtful silence.
During my career in high school politics I heard about social cliques who at this point would have given up, who would have accepted Jonathon had won and would have counted their losses.
But the former members of the babysitters club knew me better then anyone, which meant that they knew I would never give up so easily.
"How are we going to catch him?" Stacey asked in a bored tone of voice.
"How do you catch a kid when he's being bad?" I asked.
"Distract him with play dough" said Claudia.
"Whoop his punk ass" said Jessie.
"Write an insulting story about a frog and name it after him" said Mallory.
"Bribe him" said Stacey and Mary Anne lightly touched my shoulder with her hand before sharing a secret smile with me.
"Hand in the cookie jar" she said and I nodded.
"Kristy wants us to lay a trap" Mary Anne explained.
"A trap? Oh my lord that's so Nancy Drew!" Claudia cried.
"Way Dibble" Mallory grinned.
"Mallory nobody says Dibble anymore, honestly that word is so nineteen eighty-six" Stacey snorted.
"What kind of trap are we talking here? A giant net dropping down from the ceiling?" Abby laughed.
"No! he had to give Cokie back the money he stole from the dance fund which means he's lost some of his profits, he might try to steal them again and this time we'll have to catch him" I said confidently.
"And how exactly will we do that? We're not psychic's" Mallory pointed out.
"I don't know, I'll think of something" I said my mind still thinking, Claudia gave a small cough.
"Um should we ask Cary for help?" she asked.
"No! I mean he's already gotten in huge trouble, no one can tell him ok?" I asked.
"Are you sure? He can break into lockers, the boys a walking felony" Abby cracked and I shook my head.
"I don't want him to get expelled" I admitted.
"Hey guys we're almost here! Time to put on the costumes!" Claudia literally squealed with excitement.
When Claudia told us the original members of the Babysitters club were going to be a part of her new exhibit I was reluctant. I still hadn't forgotten the time she'd tried to cover us in chocolate.
But after she'd explained her concept I reluctantly agreed to help her. Turns out they were going for a post structuralism theme, and post structuralism was apparently all about taking phrases or words and turning them into a new concept. Sort of like those weird t-shirts you got in underground CD stores that had lines from comic books printed across the front. Harriet Maddison ( who started referring to herself as Morgan Ravenlee when she turned Goth) basically wrote an angsty teenage lust filled poem and it was Claudia's job to illustrate it by using art. She decided to turn us into her living canvas, each of us was wearing a hand made costume that represented a line of the poem with the stanza written across the front. If we all stood in line you could actually read the poem from start to finish. At the end of the first night Claudia was then going to put the costumes back onto these statues she'd created, which were supposed to look like us.
At first Morgan and Claudia had several clashes, Morgan's poem was a piece of angsty Linkin Park inspire crap complete with Tim Burton style gothic fairy tale references. Meanwhile Claudia's art tended to follow the bright bubbliness of Henri Matisse on crack.
Then fortunately for Claudia, Morgan ended up having to go to a clinic in Stamford for a nice long rest after she'd tried to kill herself by choking on a Frisbee.
Claudia had taken the poem and turned it from a weird piece of Goth torture into something that seemed like one of those dreams you tended to have at around four in the morning.
Mallory for example was dressed in red satin dress with a fitted bodice that ended in torn up shreds, her arms were covered with red and gold crisscrossed ribbons and Claudia had brushed out her normally very frizzy red hair so now it resembled an afro. Claudia explained that Mallory had been given the costume because she was the one who filled out the bodice. Mallory had proven that stocky eleven year olds really did grow giant boobs as soon as they turned fifteen. The word explosive has been written across her expansive cleavage in red lipstick.
I'd explained to Claudia that I flat out refused to wear anything too weird so she'd promptly put me in a black witches hat with a black t-shirt and red silk pajama pants. The words " Razor Blade Kisses" had been printed across the shirt in white cursive and she'd painted my lips blood red with another streak running across my left cheek.
Mary Anne was covered in white body paint and she was wearing a wedding dress with "Grazed snow white" painted on it in pink puffy paint.
Jessie was literally covered in mounds of gold "bling" and a fake road sign attached to her stomach read "gold turned black".
Abby had on a Greek toga thing over her regular jeans and her hair had a laurel wreath perched amongst the bushy curls, her own placard in the shape of a stone tablet read "Deep within the dark wood".
Stacey had flat out refused to wear her costume which was in fact made out of ginger bread, instead she'd shoved it onto an old rag doll. Personally I think she would have looked less stupid if she wore it. Her placard read "As the Oven Door Shut" in white frosting.
Claudia completely misinterpreting the English language had dressed up as the end of the poem or the line " fin" she looked like a cross between a toxic waste hazard and a mermaid.
In theory if we were all standing side by the side the piece of "art" should have read.
b In the deep dark wood explosive razor blade kisses grazed Snow White. Gold turned Black as the oven door shut-Fin. /b
I naturally thought that the poem was fucking stupid.
"Oh my god you guys look so awesome" Claudia cried waddling over in her mermaid fin.
"They look like extra's from a Marilyn Manson film clip" Shannon said.
"Hey Claudia can I keep the corset after the exhibit closes? It'll help motivate Ben to ask me out on a non library date" grinned Mallory.
Once I'd entered the gallery the first thing I did was promptly remove the witch's hat before heading off to the bathroom to wash off the crazy make up. I never made it however, some one grabbed me by the back of the shirt and dragged me into the boiler room.
"Get your hands off me you creep" I screeched stomping on my kidnappers toes before twisting out of his grip and kneeing him in the balls.
"You bitch" Alan Grey cried falling onto the dirty cement floor.
"Alan what the hell are you doing?" I yelled.
"I asked him to retrieve you, interesting shirt by the way.. Razor Blade Kisses?" some one else said and I glanced up.
Cary Retlin was sitting in the shadows in an old red velvet covered chair a bemused expression on his face.
Cokie Mason was standing next to him dressed in a red pleather mini skirt and a matching red blouse, she looked skanky and intimidating. The only thing ruining it was of course the bandage across her broken nose.
"What's going on?" I began uneasily and Cary smiled.
"I think it's time we let you in on everything" he grinned.
Once Bart Taylor and I had gone to see the movie Ocean's eleven, this was around a month before I figured out he was gay. Back then he'd sporadically ask me out every now and then just to hide what he really was, it was kind of weird how he chose me though considering I'm practically a boy without a dick. Anyway I usually went out with him, he was cute and he always paid for the tickets so it didn't really matter that he never really tried to cop a feel.
Anyway I remember actually sitting through the movie watching intently as Daniel Ocean orchestrated the huge elaborate plan to rob the casino.
It was without a doubt the dumbest thing I'd ever seen, if I robbed a Casino I would have just marched in their with my own army and a bunch of guns.
But after I watched it for the third time in the Den on DVD I realized that the criminals in Ocean's eleven didn't rob the casino for the money. They wanted to do something completely insane, elaborate and over the top just to see if they could get away with it.
The expression on Daniel Ocean's face when he explained the plan was the exact same one Cary was wearing.
"I thought you two broke up" I said my gaze flickering towards Cokie.
"We were never actually going out, do you think I'd really waste my time seriously dating an emo self-righteous mini protestor when I can have any rich boy in Stoneybrook" Cokie said examining her nails.
"Oh that hurts" Cary said rolling his eyes and clutching his hand to his chest.
"Well we weren't, a real boyfriend would have showered me with gifts instead of using me as a glorified sex toy" Cokie said in her familiar shrieking voice.
"Oh god I so didn't need to hear that" I said to Alan.
"Well a real girlfriend would have actually wanted to go out in public as apposed to driving around in her fathers car" Cary shot back smoothly.
"Okay I'm going to leave right now" I said to Alan but he stood in front of the door.
"You're not going anywhere Thomas" Cary said without even looking at me.
"Oh so she's involved as well? I might have known" Cokie growled.
"Actually I brought you both here to discuss the Mathews situation" Cary said shooting Cokie a hard look.
"Brought me here? You got your little stooge to lie and say Logan was waiting for me in here" Cokie snarled.
"Hey why didn't you just lie to me? Why did you grab my shirt?" I asked Alan.
"If I told you to follow me into a boiler room would you have said yes?" Alan asked.
"No" I admitted.
"Well if Logan isn't in here I'm leaving" Cokie snarled and Cary grabbed onto her wrist.
"You know I think I should be the one whose upset Cokie, after all you turned me over to the vice principal and framed me for a crime I didn't commit" he said in the same nonchalant voice.
I noticed that Cokie's other hand was twitching slightly.
"You deserved it" she said in a horse voice.
"Pot.Kettle.Black" Cary snapped back.
"Yeah he never accused you of shop lifting every time you went off with Logan Bruno, or Pete Black, or Trevor Whitehouse" Alan said defensively.
"Just because he's above revenge it doesn't mean I'm not" Cokie said her eyes falling on me and I couldn't look at her.
"Only one problem Cokie you forgot that you're dealing with me" Cary said with a small angry smile.
To me it looked like a grimace.
"I've never forgotten who I was dealing with but you can't touch me Cary, you've been suspended" Cokie said sounding almost brave for a second.
"Thomas?" He asked and my eyes darted upwards.
"Cary I'm not getting involved" I said.
"Even if it involves illegal student activity? Stuff the student court may be interested in?" he asked his eyes flickering towards Cokie and she paled.
"You wouldn't!" she hissed.
"You betrayed me and pay backs a bitch" he replied.
"You have no evidence" she hissed.
"Actually a I do, see I have an LG cell phone, the latest model which happens to have a video camera. It's very good for recording amateur footage in the girls locker room or evidence of young women who cheated on the schools honor system exam" he said and Cokie made a vague choking sound.
"Your daddy will be so disappointed Cokie, especially after he bought you that shiny knew car" Alan snickered.
"I knew you couldn't have beaten me on that exam" I said adding to the general mud slinging.
Cokie's eyes darted towards all of us and then fell on me, she knew the punishment for cheating on the honors exam was suspension with the possibility of expulsion if there had been previous discrepancies.
I could tell she was thinking about our fight freshmen year and the warnings the school counselor had given both of us.
"Kristy" she began.
"Cheating on an exam is a huge offence Cokie, of course if the student court was to proceed with judicial action they would need evidence, Cary would have to testify" I said and her eyes darted towards him.
"And I could accidentally delete the video footage if you were willing to do one or two minor things" Cary said and Cokie sighed as if defeated.
"What do you want?" she growled.
"First apologize to Kristy for stealing her clothes, no one deserves beanie baby pants" Cary said.
"Why should I apologize for that? She's still wearing Claudia's weirdo clothes now!" Cokie cried.
"Hello! It's called art, god even I knew that" Alan said with a small smirk.
"That's not art that's a Halloween costume" Cokie snorted.
"It's actually a piece of performance art which uses post structuralism to express the emotional intensity teenage girls feel towards relationships" I said repeating everything Claudia had told me when she made the costume.
Cokie blinked looking faintly stunned and I marched towards her.
"I wore that olive green tank top the first time I won the under fourteen cross country meet, it's my lucky shirt which means you better damn well apologize" I said and she stared down at me with her bruised nose.
"Fine, I'm sorry" she said with extreme reluctance.
"Good, isn't it nice when we're civil to each other?" I grinned and she grimaced.
"Is that it?" she asked glancing towards Cary and his gaze for the first time rested on me properly.
"I assume that your brain is already thinking up a new way to catch Mathews?" he asked and I nodded.
"Good then, until I say you can stop it's now your job to keep Jonathon Mathew's distracted at all times, he's not allowed to approach either Kristy or her friends and if he discovers anything I'll be forced to hand my evidence over" Cary said tapping his fingers against his chin.
"How am I supposed to keep him distracted?" Cokie Squawked.
"Think Cokie, think really hard" Alan grinned and she blushed bright red.
"I'm not going to go out with him just to please you, that would make me a whore" she pointed out.
"No accepting money would make you a whore, this would just make you a slut" Cary said.
"How can you be so sure I can distract him? The boy lives for student politics and I'm not even sure getting laid can change that" she finally said.
"I'm sure you'll be able to do it, or we could just ask Stacey" I pointed out and Cokie narrowed her eyes.
"No need to bring in the village bicycle" she said coolly.
"Say that again and I'll match your nose with a black eye" I shot back and we glared at each other, some things never changed.
"Kristy as much as I approve of you hitting Cokie her face needs to be perfect otherwise Mathews will ignore her" Cary said and Cokie shot him a venomous look.
"What did I ever see in you?" she growled.
"Well my physical appearance I suppose and my car, mostly my car" Cary replied and Cokie looked around the room one last time.
"Can I go now?" she hissed.
"Sure, sorry for keeping you so long Cokie and remember stab me in the back again and I'll stab you in the front" Cary said cheerfully.
Cokie practically growled at me as Alan let her out and I stared at Cary a vaguely confused expression on my face.
"Do you think it's wise to keep her on our side?" I asked raising my eyebrow.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" he said lazily his eyes half shut.
"Is that why you keep me around?" I asked and for a second his usual smug confident expression was uncertain.
"No I mean I was referring to her" he began.
"Let me out Alan, I'm a walking exhibit after all and Claudia will be pissed if I disappear all night" I said.
Some time later Cary found me while I was standing next to Abby so the poem read " In the deep dark wood razor blade kisses", yes it wasn't grammatically correct.
"Do you even know what Post Structuralism is?" was the first thing he said to me, he looked pretty upset.
"No but Cokie doesn't know either" I pointed out.
"I know what Post structuralism is" Abby said with the confidence of some one who was about to say something profound.
"No you don't stop showing off" I said with annoyance.
"Yes I do, Post structuralism is the idea that all language in the past will influence language in the future so there can be no such thing as an original idea" Abby said smugly.
"How on earth did you know that?" I asked and Cary rolled her eyes.
"Because Miss Portland told her, we're in the same English class" he said and Abby gave a small smug nod.
"Ok so I didn't know what Post structuralism was! But some one had to shut her up and at least this time I didn't hit her" I sighed folding my arms.
"Well next time you decide to shut her up just call her a slag, it always works" Abby said.
"Will you shut up?" I asked and she rolled her eyes.
"Sorry I didn't mean to make you look like an idiot in front of Cary" she said wiggling her eyebrows.
"I can't believe you're not shutting up" I hissed and Abby started to cough theatrically.
"Oh dear I do believe I'm coming down with an allergy attack, I best go and get a glass of water before my asthma kills me" she smirked.
"Your asthma can kill you?" Cary asked looking vaguely freaked out.
"Oh I'll be fine once I've had some medication, I'll leave you alone Kristy, with Cary" she said meaningfully and I groaned staring at the floor.
"I thought you were suspended" I finally said.
"From school, not life" he pointed out.
"I'm sorry about Cokie" I replied and he shrugged his shoulders.
"I was going to dump her sooner or later, she was only going out with me because she wanted all my cool alternative friends to vote for her as prom queen" he said after he sighed.
"That's terrible" I said sympathetically.
"Yeah they wouldn't have voted for her anyway, they believe that all forms of monarchy happen to be evil" he said.
"Then why did you go out with her?" I asked.
"Boredom mostly, Alan warned me about all the evil things she did but considering she did them all to the Baby Sitters Club I didn't take it that seriously" he finally said.
"Thanks a lot" I shot back.
"Well to be fair nearly every one at some point did something evil to the babysitters club" he reasoned.
"True" I reluctantly agreed.
"So what exactly is your costume supposed to represent?" he asked and I touched the witch's hat.
"Personally I think I'm supposed to symbolize those bitchy girls in high school who destroy lives, aka Cokie" I said.
"Deep" he said.
"The art critics seem to think so, they're all calling Claudia a genius for blending the worlds of fashion and art. The art students from Stamford community college are going nuts, one of them actually asked me out for coffee" I said with a small smile.
"You shouldn't go out with college guys" he said quickly.
"I said no" I reassured him.
"Good, I mean good that you said no, not that some sleazy college drug addict asked you out. Of course coffee isn't that bad, it can be good when you're drinking it with some one whose not.. on drugs" he said and my eyes swiveled towards him. Cary Retlin, the smoothest guy in the school who could spin words into gold was sweating.
And blushing.
I stared at the floor.
He stared at the floor.
Luckily for us it was covered in a tile mosaic so it was at least interesting.
"Besides he smelt like my brother Charlie's dope and I don't go out with guys who are high on drugs when they hit on me" I finally said.
"You don't?" he asked sounding embarrassed.
"No" I said quickly.
"So this plan involving Mathews, do you know what it is yet?" he asked.
"Of course I do, Jonathon has given Cokie back her clubs money which means his short which means he'll steal again, all we have to do is lay a trap and catch him" I said giving Mallory a brief nod who was waving at me from across the gallery.
"And how exactly will you catch him?" he asked and I sighed.
It wasn't as if I didn't want Cary's help, it was just he'd been suspended once and I didn't want that to happen again.
In the end despite his well confidence and intelligence he wasn't a member of the Baby sitters club. We'd dealt with being ship wrecked on Island's, we'd thwarted diamond thieves, middle school vandals and psychopaths who obsessed over their school dance twenty years ago.
Cary just didn't have our experience, or our resources.
"I'll let you know when I've thought of something" I said and my eyes flickered towards the entrance where I saw Emily Bernstein talking to Claudia.
She was wearing a t-shirt promoting the rock concert for the tsunami crisis, so far no one had bought tickets to the complete lack of interesting bands.
An idea flickered in my mind, a great idea, a Kristy Thomas idea.
"You could tell me now, I know you Thomas and I can tell by that expression you've already got an idea" I heard him say and I shook my head.
"I don't have to tell everything to the boy who still calls me by my last name" I pointed out coyly.
"I only call my friends by their first names, actually" he replied and I realized Claudia was signaling me.
It was time to change out of the costumes and unveil the statues.
It was also time to have a little chat with Emily.