Disclaimer: I don't own The Rocky Horror Picture Show
A/N: According to Google Translate (which isn't the best source, I admit), 'Schlampe' means 'slut' and 'Arschloch' means 'asshole'. So you can probably guess who Fräulein Greta is referring to...
And, in case anyone was wondering, Herr Braune is indeed a tribute of sorts to Doc Brown from Back to the Future. I couldn't help but think how amusing it would be... especially since Doc always says 'Great Scott!'.
Thursday, March/?/1974
Dear Diary,
Today, I woke up to the sound of Fräulein Greta shouting. Being back at the castle momentarily sounded good compared to this nonsense.
"You are almost as bad as zat ex-student of Dr. Scott's! Looks at zat Arschloch of a boyfriend of her's all vrong. Zat Schlampe isn't ze sort of person anyvone should to be like. She pretends to be all innocent und good, but really she isn't!" the dreadful woman shrieked.
Eddie rolled his eyes. "We didn't do anythin', ya know. The sheets aren't even messed up."
"And they aren't all dirty. They would be if we'd actually done something. Anyway, our clothes aren't off!" I pointed out.
You see, I was trying to upset her. My reasoning at that point was that she annoyed me, so I deserved 'revenge'. And it worked...
"Nein! Nein! I von't here dirty zings out of your mouz!" Fräulein Greta wailed miserably.
I rolled my eyes.
Thankfully, she then left the room. A moment later I did too. I need to get dressed, and I'd found women's clothes only size or two too big in the other room's closet. That's where I'd gotten those faded grey pinstriped pajamas I'd worn last night.
Though those outfits weren't glittery and bright like my own, they'd do.
Most of them looked like something my mother might've worn. Prim wool pencil skirts… high-collared button down blouses… skin-tone stockings… stylish jackets with pretty buttons…
Awfully silly, the lot of it.
Soon enough I decided on an outfit. It consisted of a pink-and-white vertically striped blouse; a dark grey pencil skirt; and a button-down sweater the exact same color as the skirt. I didn't wear any stockings since they looked rather silly. And it's 1974, not the '50s!
After getting dressed I went back to Eddie's room.
He was already dressed. Somehow, he managed to find clothes that looked like the sort he always wore. I asked him how he'd found such clothes.
"This is my old room, ya know," he said. "So all my clothes are in the closet. O' course there all in boxes, but at least I found something to wear."
That's when I noticed a few cardboard boxes- overflowing with various items of clothing- in the corner of the room. Lucky him!
By then, the digital watch he'd found on the bedside table read 9:45. So we went downstairs in search of breakfast and Eddie's uncle.
"He might be at work by now," Eddie said as we walked down the stairs.
"What does he do, again?"
"Well, he works as a teacher at Denton High School. An' sometimes he teaches college level classes for people to retake. That's usually in the summer," he explained.
We soon found ourselves standing in the hallway just outside the kitchen. To my horror, I could hear Fräulein Greta ranting furiously about something. It was in German, of course, so I didn't understand a word of it. Once or twice I heard a male voice (that I didn't recognize) say something in reply.
"What's she saying?" I whispered to Eddie.
"You don't wanna know. Most of it seems to involve how much she doesn't like you," he replied wearily.
I was used to people saying awful things about me, of course. Not that I liked to here them, of course. So I avoided asking any more questions about her. Yet I couldn't help but wonder who that
"Who's the other person? The guy who she's talking to?" I asked.
"I'm guessin' that's Emil Braune. He's my uncle's best friend and assistant. Drives him around and stuff. They've known each other since they used to live in Germany all those years ago," Eddie replied.
I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure they aren't gay lovers?"
"Yeah, I'm very sure. Don't say anythin' like that in front of my uncle. It's a shock they let us stay here last night!"
At that moment, the door was opened by a man only slightly older than Eddie's uncle. His hair wasn't grey, like Dr. Scott's. No, it was white and stuck out a bit. He wore a ridiculous lab coat over a perfectly ordinary suit.
"Great Scott! What are you doing out here, Eddie?" the man said, in a perfectly American accent.
"Well, Herr Braune, we were lookin' for breakfast. But then we heard Fräulein Greta shouting and decided to wait here for a minute," Eddie explained.
"Ah! Well, we're having pancakes for breakfast. Fräulein Greta was just mixing the batter… right?"
"Ja! Ja! I vas! I vas!" came the unhappy reply.
And so, we had pancakes for breakfast. They weren't as good as pancakes Magenta cooks. In fact, they were hardly even as good as scrambled eggs that Mags cooked! I was beginning to miss the castle, to my horror.
Anyway, once we'd eaten breakfast, we went to speak with Eddie's uncle. Apparently he'd taken the day off because of all this.
According to Herr Braune, we were supposed to meet him in the study. Thankfully Eddie knew where that was.
Whatever.
And so, we went to the study. There, at the desk, Eddie's uncle was looking through some papers. I soon realized that they were school assignments of some kind. He appeared to be grading multiple-choice tests.
Eddie cleared his throat. "Uh, Uncle Everett."
At the sound of his nephew's voice, the man looked up. "Ja?"
"Herr Braune said you wanted to see us…"
Dr. Scott nodded. "Ja. I vanted to ask you about all zat's happened the last few veeks. Vhere have you been und everyzing."
So, Eddie began to tell the story. "Well… I had to deliver pizza to this one hotel room. Somehow I ended up eatin' dinner with the guy who'd ordered the pizza and then…"
As he told more and more of the story I zoned out. Even his uncle looked bored by it.
Then, almost too late, I realized that if he told his uncle about the castle, then they might send someone out to find it… and then Mags might go to prison or something.
"And the guy apparently lives in this castle, so-"
I kicked him in the shins.
"Ow! What was that for?" Eddie asked, quite unhappily.
"We can't let him hear about the castle," I whispered in his ear.
"Why?"
"Think of what might happen to Magenta! At this point I'm sure she wanted to help us leave, and only locked us in that room because she knew we'd be able to escape!"
Eddie stared at me in blank confusion. "Huh? How does that make any sense?"
"Well, you see…" I then realized that Eddie's uncle looked very suspicious of us. Oh dear, he could probably hear half of what we were saying…
"I'll explain later!" I whispered.
Thankfully, Eddie refused to answer any more of his uncle's questions. Soon enough we went back to his room to discuss everything. Somehow we managed to not encounter Fräulein Greta or Herr Braune as we walked through halls and up stairs.
"So… can ya explain now?" Eddie asked.
"I've figured it all out. Magenta was trying to help us escape and keep us from going back. That second door out of the room she locked us in doesn't have a lock. It only took us a few hours to figure a way out!"
Eddie still didn't seem to believe me. "But why not just show us the way out?"
"Because it would look suspicious. Magenta isn't the self-sacrificing sort. She could easily explained to Frank that she'd tried to lock us somewhere less pleasant," I explained. "And, now that I think about it, she sort of reenacted the famous short story The Cask Of Amontillado. That's a story of revenge! So, she's taking revenge on Frank- by helping us escape the dungeon- and, on a less symbolic level, it looks like she's taking revenge on us by locking us in an awfully dark room! So Frank won't suspect her! Come on, we were wearing motley and drinking wine mentioned in that story!"
"Why do ya all get to be so clever about things?" Eddie muttered, after a moment. "With all that symbolism an' revenge an'-"
Unfortunately, Fräulein Greta then showed up the door. Apparently it was time for lunch.
Lunch was uncomfortable- to say the least. I couldn't bring myself to eat, for one thing. Magenta's cooking is way better than Fräulein Greta's. And now I've figured out she never did anything to hurt me! Oh, how I keep wishing that I could be back in my own room, staring at the posters on the walls.
The castle really is my home.
Once lunch was over, I went to the study in search of a book to read. I was hoping for an old favorite, hopefully a 19th Century Gothic Novel.
I looked for everything from Carmilla to Wuthering Heights, from Dracula to The Picture of Dorian Gray!
Nothing.
The only classic fiction I found was by Jane bloody Austen. I tried reading Northanger Abbey, but it mocked my favorite genre far too much.
I spent the rest of the afternoon wishing I had my tap shoes and a place to practice. For some reason, I'm starting to miss the castle. Or maybe I'm just seeing it as the lesser of two evils? I'd take crazy aliens over crazy ex-Nazis any day!
Not that Dr. 'von' Scott (as I've been mentally referring to him as) is actually an ex-Nazi, I think. He works for the US government for some reason. He does something involving paperclips…
Whatever.
For dinner we had this spicy, red Hungarian stew called goulash. Fräulein Greta seemed very proud of her cooking, to my amusement. I didn't say anything nasty because it wasn't that bad. It was better than breakfast, at least. Mags could probably change the recipe around and make it a thousand times better.
I wish I were back at the castle. That's my real home.
- Columbia (a groupie)
A/N: I was reading the TV Tropes page for The Rocky Horror Picture Show when I came across mention of something called 'Operation Paperclip'. That was when the American government began recruiting Nazi scientists right after the war ended (the Soviets did the same thing). One of the people on TV Tropes said something about Dr. Scott probably being one of those scientists.
That's why Dr. 'von' Scott apparently 'does something involving paperclips'. Columbia heard someone say something about Operation Paperclip and misunderstood.
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