Chapter Five: The Last Moments of Eighth Grade

The two girls had turned fourteen. They both were brilliant, like their fathers. Hillary was the eighth grade representative for she, along with being bright, also had people skills and enjoyed talking like her mother, Mary-Jane. Anna, like her father, didn't like to be the center of attention; and usually wasn't. She was interested in just about everything but was especially intrigued by poetry and song. Anna didn't particularly enjoy math and science as Otto had wanted, but aced the tests nonetheless.

Otto had disciplined Anna with strict study habits to keep her from falling into sloppiness. Anna hated it, but it did help her achieve good grades.

It was the day before the eighth grade graduation. Hillary and her best friend, Grace, walked down the school hallway towards the auditorium for the graduation ceremony practice. One would have thought Hillary was singing the National Anthem the way she cracked her knuckles and chattered about it.

"Calm down, Hillary," her best friend comforted. "you're going to be fine."

"What if I don't make it? What if I'm late, or I trip, or…what if I'm not graduating at all?" Hillary Parker asked, looking at the ceiling in anxiety.

"Hey, chill. You're gonna make it. You've gotten good grades all year." Grace said.

"Nuh uh! Remember last semester? I got a D on a history test!"

"Which only brought your history score down to a, what? B?"

"B...minus," Hillary corrected.

"Whatever. The point is, you made it, and-" Grace was cut off by a boy walking up to Hillary.

The boy, John Avaud pulled one hand from his pocket and held it up in greeting. "Hey." he said simply.

Hillary's face lit up. Her feet went numb and she melted onto the floor, or at lease she felt like it. She had been trying to get this very boy to notice her all year. Could her attempts really have paid off? "Hi," she replied pulling her hair back behind her ear.

"I was wondering if I could ask you something, but I…" John laughed, taking her hand in his, "It might sound kinda weird."

Hillary stuttered a laugh. "I'm sure it's not weird."

Grace smiled knowingly and elbowed Hillary as she walked off to leave the two alone.

"I'm having a graduation party, you know, after graduation… and I'd love it if you-ack!" John's hands flew to his eyes and clawed at the sticky white threads covering the top half of his face.

Hillary just stared for a while. This nightmare had passed through her mind there and again, the sort of horrific dream of going to school in one's underwear.

"Oh my… gosh… John! I...let me... it's not…" Hillary ceased her frantic fractured statements and sped in the opposite direction, ducking into the girls' bathroom and shutting herself in the furthest stall. If one of her dad's enemies had crashed into the restroom and flattened her, she would have thanked him.

XXX

"It was so embarrassing!" Hillary exclaimed to her mom.

"I'm sure it'll all blow over." Mary-Jane comforted stroking her daughter's hair softly.

"It was bad enough that I shot web at someone, but it had to be the cutest guy in school! Plus he was gonna ask me to the dance!" She exclaimed hugging her mother.

"Well, tomorrow's graduation and you'll be going to a high school. Maybe John won't be going to the same school and everyone'll forget about it. Is Grace going with you?" Mary-Jane asked.

"No." Hillary said sadly.

"Oh," Mary-Jane realized, "Well, there'll be other girls there that'll be your friend." she comforted. Hillary still didn't seem satisfied. "I know it's hard to move from middle school to high school. I remember when I did. I was lucky enough to have a friend go to the same school as me."

"Who was that?" asked Hillary.

"Your dad. I didn't know he was my friend until the last month of school." Mary-Jane said with a smile. "Maybe that's true with you. Maybe there's a friend already that's following you into high school and you just don't know it. Or, maybe there's a good friend waiting for you in high school, and you just need to find her; or him for that matter."

"Thanks mom. That really helps," Hillary said getting up with a smile.

"Well, it's past ten o'clock. I should probably get to bed," she said running down the hall.

XXX

Anna sat hunched on her bed writing in the small green notebook she wrote all her song lyrics. Or, rather, she was trying to write, but her back was killing her. As Annabelle had grown, her back had taken an odd shape, she would almost call it a hump, if it didn't scare her to death to even consider it, and she had gained weight… somewhere. She never was an hourglass, but neither had she been chubby. She was just… round. Round and heavy.

But she didn't want to tell her dad. He and his actuators already watched her like security cameras, and to alert him would mean missing graduation. She could hide it well under the black coat she had chosen to go with her graduation dress. Anna would tell her parents after graduation and the trip.

We must preserve ourselves. The voices said. Her imaginary friends, except she didn't think that most people could actually talk with their imaginary friends and the ones who could ended up in padded rooms. But everyone complemented her on her active imagination: maybe she was just imagining them. If so, she didn't want to cause undue worry.

Anna carefully shifted onto her stomach, but having the pain increase, sat up again. Maybe she should just go to bed. She attempted to write for another few seconds before closing her notebook. She pulled back her covers, carefully climbed into bed and turned off the light.

Rosie watched secretly from the doorway. With a sigh, she continued down the hall and into the room she shared with Otto. The man in question sat on the opposite edge of the bed removing his modified tee-shirt with his back to her. The actuators noticed her first and alerted Otto. He smiled over his shoulder at his wife.

"Hi Rosie," he greeted.

Rosie took her hairbrush from the bathroom and sat beside Otto on the bed, causing the tentacles to shift and chirp. "Otto, Anna is beginning to worry me." She said letting her hair down and brushing it.

"Yes," Otto agreed. "She doesn't seem quite herself. But she is so private. She doesn't like us snooping. Whenever I ask her, she says she's fine."

Father, we have a theory.

Her voices, our voices.

Perhaps they are making her powerful.

Otto stared blankly, processing the actuators' words.

"Is something wrong?" Rosie asked.

What do you mean by that? Otto demanded his tentacles.

Just what we said. We did it.

We thought it a shame for us only to last one generation, so we programmed it into her.

"You couldn't have…" he said out loud. "How…how dare…"

"Otto, what are they saying?" Rosie asked alarmed.

Otto's face was one of utter dread, a kind Rosie had never seen command her husband's visage. "They… they've done something to her. From before birth. I don't actually understand what is going on—"

People love our children!

They call them imaginative and creative.

Otto was stunned. "Her imaginary friends… they…" he couldn't bring himself to form the words but Rosie knew what they would have been.

"No," she muttered, swallowing her panic. "How?"

"I don't know," Otto replied, anxiously, looking up at the family picture hanging above the dresser. Annabelle, sweet Annabelle. How could the actuators have done such a thing?

No tentacles will grow, right? He asked them, mentally grabbing fistfuls of their shirt collars. Since they had no shirt collars to grab, he sufficed to give each of them lethal looks.

They will not. The actuators replied. We only passed on our voices.

Why are you angry, Father? Don't you want her to be strong?

"Yes, but not like this!"

Rosie rubbed his arm and he sighed painfully.

"They only passed on their personalities," Otto explained. "Nothing physical."

Rosie rested her head on Otto's chest. "I know I should be relieved," she choked. "But—"

"I know, my love," Otto said stroking her hair. "At least now we know how to help Anna."

We do not understand your distress.

Annabelle is in superb condition.

You will not saw us off, will you Father?

You cannot. And we have not hurt Annabelle.

No, I'm not going to saw you off. But I can never forgive you for this.

The actuators lowered and peered at their host through submissive pinchers. Do not say that.

We have only our best interests in mind.

"I know." He stroked one of their heads. "I guess I can't blame you, since I created you that way."

The actuator being petted rose quickly and turned towards the doorway. The others joined it and they all opened their claws.

"What is it?" Otto asked them.

Pain. They replied. Annabelle.

Otto jumped up and helped bewildered Rosie to her feet. "Anna's in trouble," he explained as he pulled her into the hallway and into Anna's room.

Anna lay on her bed under the covers, writhing painfully. Her eyes opened in the darkness and took in the sight of her parents standing in the doorway.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" Otto asked gently.

Anna cringed and hugged herself. Tears were rolling down her cheek. "I don't know. I mean, I think so. My back really hurts, but I think I twisted it earlier today."

Otto glanced at his top right actuator.

We do not know what ails her. It promised.

Rosie hurried to her daughter's bedside and stroked her shoulder. "Should we go to the hospital?"

"No," Anna replied with sudden force. "I'm fine. It will pass. Th… it will pass soon. It's already ebbing, I think."

She thought wrong. A new wave of pain hit her and she cried out, trying to muffle it. Otto knelt at her bed beside Rosie. His actuators hovered over Anna. They really did care for her, Otto noted, though it was probably only because a little part of them was in their.

As Anna had assured them, the pain seemed to have died away in about ten minutes, leaving her bathed in sweat and exhausted, but otherwise fine.

"Sweetie," Otto said to Anna gently, "may I look at your back?"

Anna rolled carefully onto her stomach and the top left actuator slipped under her tee-shirt. Otto scrutinized the images of her back, seeing nothing but bony shoulders and bruising down her spine. He wondered at it, but his relief at having his daughter's pain alleviated pressed his concern to the bottom of his brain and made him optimistic. However, he couldn't shake the hard lessons life had taught him.