hey guys, wow I'm really sorry I havent undated in ages, and this is the best reviewed story i have. I love you guys, thanks for reading and reviewing! and i know some of you do actually want me to finish this, so I'm really gonna try. After the exams I'm gonna do a load of writing, so expect alot more chapters! XD
Jojo watched Tiffany walk out of the park, waiting until she was out of sight before letting himself smile. It felt strange.
Hoisting himself to his feet, he made his way home, ignoring the bike he had abandoned on the steps of the hall. He had wanted a new project anyway, since the music box seemed a disaster.
He walked through the streets of Whoville; ignoring the neighbourly Whos calling good evening by staring at the blood-red sky, although everyone else in town would call it "strawberry". Sometimes this town is just too PG, he thought scornfully.
He savoured the silence, humming quietly to himself as he thought about his day, pulling notes randomly from his head. The sound came out happy, and he wondered if it was because of Tiffany.
She fascinated him. There was something...different about her. She was unlike the regular clones; there was something behind the happiness. He saw it when he talked about his family. For a moment her smile faded and there was a glimmer of wistfulness in her bright blue eyes, he was sure of it.
Then she laughed, expression lighting up her face. Her laugh was a melody all on its own. He hoped she hadn't noticed him staring, but for some reason he couldn't look away. He hated eye contact, but her eyes were mesmerising, and he blushed remembering how he had stuttered as he gazed at her. He wasn't used to talking at the best of times but today he could barley string together a sentence.
She hadn't seemed to notice and, amazingly, he had had a good time. It had been a long time since he had sat with someone and been so content. He was aware he had talked about himself a lot, and too late he realised he knew barley anything about her, not even her phone number. Who was she really?
Thinking back, he realised all her stories were very vague, hardly any mention of place, or family. She hadn't said where she had lived before she moved to Whoville.
It struck him how little he knew of her. Surely after spending an entire day he should know something? He frowned, deep in thought.
Maybe he had just taken up the whole day talking about himself, and he blushed in embarrassment again. No, he hadn't talked that much...had he?
He was still thinking about this as he walked down the manicured path to the McDodd house. The sky was growing cold and grey and the bright lights of the big house seemed cosy and welcoming.
Jojo took a deep breath, prepared himself and opened to door. All at once, he was attacked by the majority of his family, piling on top of him in a giant dog pile.
"For fricks sake..." he muttered under his breath as he hit the floor with a thud. He waited until the giggles had subsided before getting up, brushing off sisters like rubble. He didn't know why the girls had developed an attack-any-male-family-member-on-sight gene, but it was getting annoying. And painful.
"Son!" Ned McDodd appeared from the kitchen, dodging several shrieking daughters and jumping over an attempted dog pile of giggling girls. He had a lot more practice of dodging the girls then Jojo.
Ned looked stern, his usual cheery smile and sunny demeanour nowhere to be seen.
"Jojo, where were you today, you weren't at breakfast and you never showed up at work and- not now sweetie daddy's talking to Jojo- do you have a reason your behaviour? I can't-honey I'll see that in a minute- I can't hold down this job for you, you have to show up sometime."
Ned said all this while surrounded by chattering daughters, his berating frequently interrupted by insistent little girls.
Jojo looked at his father. Ned mc Dodd looked tired, extremely so. Here and there tufts of hair were beginning to go grey, and yet his eyes were bright and currently a spark of anger replaced their usual twinkle.
As always, Jojo was lost for words. He didn't want to say he had met a girl; he'd never live down the questions, the awkward talk about her with his father. She was only a friend after all (well, so far) but he'd never believe that.
So he shrugged, and looked away, and his father sighed, just like all the other times he'd tried to talk with him. Ever since the...Horton incident, there was a feeling that something should have changed, but it hadn't.
Whoville had pretty much gone back to the same as before, and the Horton incident had gone down as a freak accident in history, making Ned mc Dodd one of the greats and Jojo something of a local hero. It had died down after a year though, and the town has reverted back to its "nothing ever goes wrong" ways, constantly pretending that everything was ok.
Jojo knew the reason for his father's tiredness and stress was late nights spent in the office, covering up something that had gone wrong, making sure that the facade of perfection was maintained, so that the people of Whoville felt constantly safe, that their identical smiles remained stable.
Sure, there were a few neurotic Whos about, sometimes Jojo herd his dad making frantic phone calls about them late at night, discussing what to do about the Whos that knew what was really going on, or claimed the sky was falling. He never saw any of them; they were either taken away or banned from the town, to the "other side" of Whoville. Jojo had never been there, and from the whispered conversations he half-heard from his father's office, he didn't want to.
Then of course, part of his stress might have been Jojo's fault. -Might?-, thought Jojo, of course it was.
Jojo barley talked to his father, the years of awkward silence making it hard for them to even exchange a "good morning". It wasn't like he didn't want to talk to his dad, and even as he watched Ned walk away, loaded down with his younger sisters, he fought the urge to call out to him. He wanted to apologise, to tell him about his day. He wanted to admit to him his little crush on Tiffany, to ask how to deal with it. Maybe if he told him, Ned would act like a normal father and give a sincere smile and not one of his "overly-jolly-mayor" ones and have a nice casual chat with him, not make it into one of their "talks". But how did he know what would happen? It was better to have silence then a shared awkwardness, wasn't it?
As he stood in the entrance of the mc Dodd manor, Jojo became aware of someone behind him. Turning, he saw his mother standing quietly, a small slightly sad smile on her face. She held her arms out to Jojo and as he accepted his hug he realised he was taller than her. It came as a slight shock to him, as it always him whenever he remembered it.
When she stood back, she shook her head gently and brushed back his shaggy black hair.
"Jojo...your dad just wants to look after you. You have to try and communicate, he won't be here forever." She said softly, advising him like she had done so many times before.
Jojo sighed and ran a hand down his face, causing Sally to smile, the gesture so similar to his fathers.
"I...I know mom, it's just... I can't, I don't know what to say..." he mumbled, looking down at his feet, embarrassed to be confessing to his mother that he didn't know what to say to his own father, the man who always made time for him and started every possible conversation.
Even when Ned had stopped pressuring Jojo to be mayor there was no change. There was still mention of being mayor of course, over school grades which were mainly C's, except in construction and music, over his attitude. They were all one sided and Jojo never had the guts to tell his father that he still didn't want to be mayor, that the job would be better for one of his sisters, like Salina who was all for politics or Ruth who was the smartest who in Whoville NS.
Like he would ever listen anyway. But Jojo was close to his mom, and Sally's soft brown eyes and caring smile reassured him like they always did.
"Jojo, neither does he, not really. Someday your both going to have to learn about each other, and it's going to be soon I'm sure." She patted him on the cheek and started walking down the hallway calling over her shoulder as she went. "You missed dinner, but there's leftovers in the fridge, take them and don't spend all night in the observatory."
Jojo smirked, his mother had known he had stolen away to the observatory every night long before Ned had ever had the notion that Jojo even could climb out a window.
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