Title: The Cerberus Dialogues 2/3
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura
Series: Faces of the Moon
Summary: In an English boarding school in the fifties, a teacher is not at her best in the summer heat
Characters: Keroberous (Mr Cerberus), Yue (Miss Moongrass), Yamazaki (Daisy Reeve), Chiharu (Margaret Reeve);
Warnings: Original characters, wicked, wicked teachers, twin abuse
The Cerberus Dialogues 2/3
Summer, and the crack of a red leather cricket ball given what-for by a length of stout willow echoed through our classroom, bringing with it the scent of dry cut grass and rank weed from the low river nearby. Inside it was quiet, with dustmotes drifting lazily through the shafts of warm sunlight as the students worked stolidly through their set essays, their heads drooping one by one to their ugly, battered desks as they succumbed to the sleepy heat.
I was waiting for the last to fall and then (oh then) there would be a row and a conniption raised unto Heaven. I had my eye already set on the perfect book – large, red, and heavy, perfectly suited for dropping onto my desk with a sharp and ominous thud that would resonate through the echo chamber of the desk and the carefully arranged concert hall of my classroom to create lingering harmonics of DOOM. I had yet to drive one of my students into a heart attack, but, it added spice to the arduous round of my daily existence to try.
Alas, the Reeve twins were still at it, scribbling through their copy books with a hectic and unholy vigour. I already knew what the books would contain: one a pack of outrageous lies about their assigned Topic (was it Jersey cows this time?), the other a set of painstaking corrections of her sister's fabrications. I had yet to catch them consulting each other on this dual act, and had taken to choosing Topics at random to foil the pair, to no success. They never passed notes. Perhaps those long braided pigtails worked as antennae, or they really did only have a half-soul each, the which, resonating between them, conveyed the information necessary to confound me. No matter: I would get them yet.
The dusty summer heat swept over me like the hot breath of hell. I sneaked a sip of colourless liquid from my 'water' glass and relished the icy burn sliding down my throat. I fingered the red book lovingly and waited for my moment – not even the Reeves could last forever -
"My, someone's looking catty today..."
The cover of my red book lifted a trifle, and a pair of beady black eyes looked at me with what I refused to call amusement.
I dipped a pen in the well of blood-red ink I kept for corrections and penned a brief reply: I do not care overmuch for the summer heat.
"Your loss," Mr Cerberus murmured back, grinning. Out of the book stretched one lazy, tawny leg which flexed its claws one by one. "So who've you got today? That tall girl who's good at softball? The Trouble Trio, Little Miss Ginger? Them?"
He saw me frown, and said, in mock befuddlement, "Really, what is it about Them, Miss Moongrass?"
I am, of course, fair and impartial to all my stu-
The little beast read the note upside down and, catching that last, threw back his head and cackled, accidentally flipping the cover of his book up high. I slammed it down hurriedly, ignoring his squeak, then realised with horror that one of the Reeve twins was looking at me She sat with her back straight as a ladder, mouth pursed in a tiny O, watching. Her pen was very still, undoubtedly pooling a blot onto her page. I regained my composure and attained an appropriately dignified and severe countenance. Luckily, she was the twin that made up fanciful tales all the time. Daisy, was it? My little secret was safe. Unless it was Margaret. Oh dear.
A slip of paper fell out of the book, carefully scratched with words: But seriously, Miss Moongrass, why Them?
Pish and tosh. It was not that I disliked them per se, but the pair was indubitably creepy, with their antennae pigtails, and their chirpy little voices just enough off pitch that the ensuing discordance made their voices noticeable in any crowd, and their chirpiness, and their sneaking apples onto my desk, and their swiftly declining production of errors that could be excoriated with a flourish of my bloody pen forcing me to consult advanced grammar texts just to keep ahead, and their damnable chirpiness. I did not even like apples.
Not that I was willing to impart this information to a small fantastical voyeur. I replied simply, Matched sets are annoying, and, over the quiet snickering from the book, smiled graciously to the Reeve girl until her nerve broke and she got back to work.
Enough of this, said the next slip of paper spat from the book, I must see this miracle pair for myself. I meditated with thankfulness on the fact that Mr Cerberus was confined to the Book for the duration of his guardianship, however long that might be, whatever esoteric underworld he might be guarding. However, I experienced a brief moment of vertigo, and realised that the book appeared to be gliding to the edge of my desk because it really was, carried on four stealthy cat feet. I hurriedly hauled it back, and covered the grumble of "Let me go I want to see," with a fit of coughing and then set my elbows onto the book and leaned all of my weight onto it. I found myself sliding around like a drunk person. The Reeve girl was looking at me again – or was it the other Reeve girl? She stared, and then her eyes turned into happy crescents.
I thought with horror of the merry tales of poltergeist-ridden books and drunken teachers about to be spun through the common rooms and behind the bike sheds. The book beneath me heaved and the pages rattled outrageously – what signs and wonders would be unleashed when it finally, completely opened, what apocalypse was I sitting on, eh? I found myself wishing, urgently, not to find out.
I shouted, "It's only a pack of cards!"
And then I woke up, still sitting bolt upright in my chair. There was a stack of copybooks stacked neatly on my desk, and all my craven students had vanished. Outside the window came the sharp crack of a cricket bat hitting the ball. I sighed, and took another sip from my glass, only to find it empty. The big red book lurked innocuously on the desk; there were two shiny red apples on it, set either side of the golden lion blazon grinning at me.
The little wretches, I thought with disfavour. You may not have the manners to even pretend to be afraid of me, but I'll get you yet. Oh yes I will.
They were not bad, for apples.
NOTES:
Little Miss Ginger... It occurred to me after writing this that, in some parts of Great Britain, redheads are picked on for their hair-colour and that Miss Moongrass's offhand nickname could be perceived as genuinely hurtful by some readers. My apologies: I couldn't think of anything to replace it with, and the woman is supposed to be kinda mean. (I have no regrets picking on twins: being one myself I'm entitled.)
"It's only a pack of cards!"... Stolen from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.