Summary: How Skip went from being that scared kid in detention to Leon Bronstein's right-hand man.
Chapter two has arrived!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Trotsky or any of its characters. I'm just trying to change the world in my own tiny way.
"So. Social Justice." Caroline hopped up onto the desk, twirling her cigarette. "How does that work? As, like, a dance theme, not as a concept."
"We could have costumes," offered Tony.
"As, like, Mother Theresa and shit?"
"Oh, but social justice is a much broader concept than simply charity work," said Leon. "It's political activism, it's raising awareness, it's defending the weak. Battling against the status quo in any sphere."
"Like Dr. Horrible. The status is not quo." Caroline snorted with laughter. "Okay, that's cool. So we can tell people like great revolutionaries and humanitarian icons and anybody who's made a difference."
Skip was surprised by her intelligence. He felt like he had to add something. "We could donate the proceeds to the Rwandan genocide recovery efforts," he offered. Leon gave him a grateful smile.
"This is retarded."
"Shut up, Dwight. That's a great idea." Tony looked up at them all and smiled as if he could hardly believe it. "This could actually be cool. Like, really cool."
"But the most important thing is that we get people thinking," said Leon, who stood by the door with one hand stiff behind his back, head bent in thought, the picture of severity. "Nobody gets in unless they have a costume that's actually relevant and effortful."
"What're you going as?"
"I'd like to give it some more thought before I decided on anything."
"Oh, gosh, suspense." Caroline stifled a cough. "How about you, Skip?"
The question caught him off-guard, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Don Quixote?"
Leon's eyebrows shot up. "I take my hat off to you, sir."
"Wait, who the fuck is Don Quixote?"
Skip looked down at his shoes, up at Leon. Why is it always ME you question, Dwight?
Leon stepped in. "Dwight, Don Quixote resurrected the old chivalric ideal of the knight errant in order to protect the weak and fight injustice in contemporary Spain. He was mocked for it, but… he remained strong."
And he looked so moved that Skip didn't dare ask him whether he had actually read the book. Leon, whom Skip had seen devouring My Life the way the grade nine girls devoured Twilight, could not have missed the point so completely if he'd tried. But Skip kept his mouth shut, wondering who had ever dared to mock Leon Bronstein.
"O-kayy," muttered Dwight, rolling his eyes.
"I think I'd make a decent Malcolm X," said Tony, and Caroline threw a book at him.
If Leon did read Don Quixote he probably used antiphrasis and decided it was about him. And skimmed over the ending.