Chapter 17: The Party
Saturday was soon arriving, with the Goth household now put on show; I dressed causal and took Claire to the party in a yellow and green taxi.
From a couple of blocks away, you could already hear the blaring Pop music, something I dislike but not everyone likes Classical anyway. Claire was already smiling and humming to the music, she was excited as this is her first social event she's been too. My experience has been quite terrible, it was just adults talking about non-sense stuff; business, the weather, nothing of interest and importance, it was only and all small talk, there was dancing and drinks but no-one seemed to pay attention to that.
But this party is different, it is chaotic, not at all civil, teenagers running amok, having fun and shouting 'Party Hardy', whatever that was about. I glanced at Claire, she just shrugged, even she didn't understand it what it meant either but I needed something to do so I nodded, "Let's dance." I ask her. She accepts and to terrible pop music, we do some romantic slow dancing compared to the fast moves the others around us are pulling. Time slowed down, it felt like we were all alone. Claire looked intently into my eyes, we are so different to one another but somehow she understands me, helps me through my problems, the red haired girl with freckles; my girlfriend.
I kissed her tenderly, something we hadn't done in a while, after all the arguments and fighting, things were finally starting to kick off. Mortimer appeared to me, "Thanks for coming to my, my party." His stutter implied that his was mesmerised by the mess created by all the guests; if this had happened to me, I would be furious, as I'm the only one who'd clean it up.
Claire was having a good time without me, eating cakes, jelly and a big turkey , having some drinks, dancing, she did the quite opposite to me. All I did was play chess at the chess table at the back of the house. Mortimer was sick of the party so he played with me too while both of our girlfriends had fun for themselves as they had both requested. They both danced and talked away while we avoided it all.
"So Bella wanted have fun by herself?" I ask Mortimer.
"Well yeah." He scratches his head, feeling like he made a mistake.
"Don't worry, I did the same thing, nothing will go wrong," I reassured him.
"It will, tomorrow they'll complain that we weren't with them!" Mortimer fired back at me.
I tried calming him down a little, "Maybe you're right but there's nothing we can do now anyway."
We went back to our chess game, I was clearly winning but Mortimer seemed to deny it. He was trying very hard to win against me, it made wonder what his logical skill was as I was about to checkmate him.
"Checkmate." I call out.
"Wait, what?" He questioned.
"Your king has nowhere to move, I've taken him down." As soon as I said that thunder came roaring into life with the world of Sunset Valley starting to rain. Mortimer was trying to rework his steps but he was concentrating too much about Bella, as usual.
It seemed that he did not care about the party he was holding or the rowdy house guests ruining the place with spoilt food and drinks. "Um, what do your parents think about holding this party?" I ask.
"My parents don't care too much, as long as the place is clean which won't take too long."
I walk down to the door and peer into the lounge, the place is a mess, puddles and grime all over. Yeah won't take too long, I think to myself.
Mortimer then teases me to play another game of chess with him; I already knew he was going to lose.
"So why you aren't at the party?" I ask. He's hosting the party without actually hosting it.
"I found out that partying isn't my thing, is that the same reason you're here?" He answers and flings the question back at me.
"Yeah, it is, Pop music is not my style, Classical is." I tell him.
"Really? Because it's funny that Classical is my favourite too. It's the violin that so soothing but it can also sound like fingernails across a chalkboard." Mortimer agrees to something I like, finally.
"The thin line between beautiful and ugliness." I point out.
"Contrast..." He tries to correct me.
I look down at the board and realise that he's finally winning; he's distracted himself from Bella and distracted me from the game. I could counter his move but it just seems unfair, otherwise there will be no next game.
"What do I call out when I win?" He asks, not remember what I said, which felt like only minutes before.
"Checkmate." I blatantly tell him.
"Well checkmate. I win." He finally wins; hopefully he won't start to brag.
"Another game?" I ask, wanting to definitely win the next one.
"Sure, losers go first." He says with a smug look.
5 minutes later, I completely knock all his pieces off the board and checkmate him. Again he was astonished at how I beat him, all I said was, "practice."
He knew what I had meant, I became worried that I have turned him into a chess monster until he talked about science which completely caught me off guard, how could the word 'Goth' be related to science? The word refers to the past, a type of architecture, grotesque, all of which have nothing to do with the now and the future.
. . .
Only after three hours, word got out that the Police were on their way to hear a public disturbance call. The party just went into damage control. Mortimer tried to calm everyone down but nothing worked, instead everyone just ran out of all of the doors and windows that were in the house, in a matter of moments everyone was gone. Bella, Mortimer, Claire and I were the only ones left, I checked the time, it was getting late, 9:00PM.
"Well we better leave before the Police take us home after curfew." I tell everyone.
"Okay, you can't go towards home using the roads though, the Enforcer might spot you." Bella advised us.
The Enforcer was a special Police officer/car that specialised in detaining troublesome teenagers; it was only a codename but nobody knew who he actually was. The theory was that it was Hank Goddard but... Pauline Wan wouldn't let him get away at night. After all the panicking, Mortimer took us to the back entrance that leads towards the Pleasant Rest Graveyard, a place that was definitely not pleasant, with some of my deceased relatives there, I had to avoid it.
"Oh, I forgot, thanks for coming to my party." Mortimer tells us as we leave, even though he had said that to us earlier.
"Not a problem." Claire and I said simultaneously.
"Claire, is there somewhere else we could go?" I ask.
The rain stopped pouring down. "We could go to Simhenge." Claire suggests.
"Simhenge? I've never heard of this place before." I start thinking if there is any sort of significance to me of this place.
"Well it's one of Sunset Valley's hidden gems." She says with a smirk.
I made me wonder what Sunset Valley other gems are, that I don't know about.
We both climbed up the massive hill towards Simhenge. It's a magnificent stone structure that is a ring of stone pillars, historians and archaeologists are baffled at how it was built and the use of the place, which are placed all across SimNation. The flowers were blooming even though it was dark. No lights to see anything out here.
"It's beautiful. How did you know about the place?" I asked in complete awe of the view of Sunset Valley from here.
"My mother took me here to catch butterflies. Some of the rare ones are here. It was a place to relax, especially when my mother attempted to deal with having me as a child and dumping my father." She remembers.
"You still don't know who he is." I tell her.
"I may not know his name, but he is an arrogant, senseless and a person who lacks ambition, has no decency to take care of ME!" Claire voice raised in anger of her father, she was getting angry over someone she doesn't even know about, other than what her mother tells her, which is biased.
Claire then decided we both go watch the stars together, to calm her down; we didn't have time to kill but what the heck. We look at the shooting stars that ran across, until I spotted something strange. I had spotted a meteor flying down crashing into Stoney Falls. "We have to go down and see it." I state.
"Fine, just be quick." She agrees.
And quick we were. We both ran down the hill towards the giant stone monolith. It was massive, I wish I could analysis what type of space rock it was but I have no idea, it looked like to be worth several thousands of Simoleons, something that Claire's mother needs but it would look silly when Claire comes home with a big wad of cash with no explanation at all. The meteor was tall compared to a Sim and was also very wide compared to a small table; I had no idea what we are going to do with it.
Soon after we arrived, reporters came wanting the latest news. Claire and I answered their mundane questions, like what were you doing here, how did you find this and we were allegedly to appear on the Monday morning news, not Sunday news, this is because no-one really watches the news on the weekends, everybody knows that. That only posed one problem; our parents would know where we've been. It's not like our faces are unrecognisable. A blonde haired boy and a red-haired girl, we're simply unmistakeable.
We have to think of something quickly. But Claire doesn't want to; you could already see it in her brown eyes.
"Don't worry Malcolm; we got tomorrow to think about what to do."
"Well Claire, take care. I'll think about it over the night" I tell her.
"Goodbye Malcolm." She gives me a tender kiss on the cheek, giving me reassurance that everything will be okay.
After the incident I rushed home to avoid being home too late, 10:00 wasn't too bad after the climbs up and down the hill, my parents were just happy that I was home. I was just happy that they weren't angry. I ran up to my bedroom, I was tired after what just happened, the party, running down the hill and talking to the reporters, I've had a jam-packed day.
Tomorrow is when we think about what to do about the television incident, why couldn't they have played it on today, it would have so much easier, with my parents' home, we never really watch that much television. Oh, but there's nothing I can do now.