6

I was supposed to go to reheresal in the auditorium, but I was sent to Prinicpal Brown. To be honest, you'd expect a hairy furball like him to be menacing, yet I get the feeling you'll hug the fat bastard before thinking your ABC's.

He led me to my seat, which was pointless, considering I'd fall flat on my non-exsistant ass. He sat in his desk and tried to stare me down, almost like I was a criminal. Brown can't fool me, yet he can hopelessly try.

"Do you know how hard it has been today?" he asked.

"For me, or for you?"

"Both," he said. "While you have been the recent star of rumors, you have been a reckless pit of doom."

That just sounded silly. "So, what else is hip, Doc? You know what I mean?"

Now he looked confused, almost as if I was acting crazy.

"Carrie, look, I know it's been a rough day for you."

"Understatement of the fucking year."

"Hey!" Brown barked. "Whether it's called for or not, it doesn't give you the right to swear. Curse like that again, I'll send you down to detention for a week."

"Kind of like how you send Gumball down to detention when he burned your hair off with some kind of acid, though to be fair you did that to yourself, and you gave him eight hours of it. You're trying to send me off for a week for a curse word. What? Is this some kind of kid's show where you can show some brutal slapstick, yet foulmouth is like proclaiming yourself as a mad man?"

He looked at me, bugged-eyed now. "Why don't we keep focus on what's happening now than mindless ranting."

"Fair enough," I said.

"Right," he began as he opened an empty folder. I assumed he wanted to look professional, but he flinched and drew it away when I saw it. He cleared his throat, and said, "You have, today, been put in the middle of a bundle of situations."

"With what happened to Lexy? Why? Was she doing something she wasn't supposed to?"

"Actually, no. You see, off the record, you haven't been quite involved with students' dilemmas recently, unless you were the school's guidance couneslor."

He paused, giving me a chance to speak. All I said was I'm not.

He continued: "Mr. Small has brought to my attention that several students have bee having some issues, whether at home or with friends or even with some exams coming on."

I laughed: "Please, Bobert is the only one I can believe worrying about exams, and yet I know he doesn't stress about these things. He knows the work and isn't prone to human emotions, no offense."

"None taken, I'm not a robot."

"For a moment, I could confuse you for one."

It was a dumb joke, but he laughed nonetheless. "Still, what I'm trying to say is this: You're caught in the middle of these fiascos."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well," he began, "I'm breaking a couple rules here because I know how some things can get a little crazy. What I'm trying to do is warn you."

"From who?"

"Well if I knew I'd tell you. But I don't. Small knows, and he told me this, as to them, in confidence."

"And yet, you decided to change this incident of beating a lesbian to saving me?"

"Carrie, I'm letting you go. The girl you hit wasn't bleeding. She faked it."

That...doesn't add up. "How? She couldn't have faked something like this, especially since she had to have known I was gonna hit her. And even then, she—"

"Got hit by a ghost, one that can't physically touch others."

"But that still wouldn't add up—"

"Carrie!" he screamed. This actuallly brought chills, even if I didn't have blood flowing through skin. But I have ectoplasm. "Leave it be. Have your theories elsewhere. Piece it together later. Go to class. If anyone asks, you have eight hours of detention."

"Is that a little dark humor you're spreading through the air?"

"Call it whatever you want, as long as it gets a laugh out of you, and me."

I got back to class sooner than I had expected. But tension was growing. Gumball and Penny were on opposite stands of the stage with Rocky cordinating some of the backstage members on set. I was to help set the lights around for the play. All I knew about it was that it concerned about two star-crossed lovers and mindless mumbo-jumbo. They were the leads. I worked from behind.

I floated upwards and came across Darwin as he and Bobert were preparing to bring up the fake stands that were supposed to look like castles. They don't. They look like they were drawn with crayons. Which they were. Nonetheless, I went with Darwin and helped.

He saw me and smiled, "Oh, hello, Carrie. How you doing?"

"Could be worse. Still dead, but I'm not feeling pain."

He just smiled and said, "cheer up, it's Valentine's Day."

"Still?"

"What?" Darwin said.

"Nothing," I said. "So what scene are we preparing for?"

"The castle scene."

No shit. "Yeah, sorry I asked."

He just smiled again as we helped lift this up and let it stand proudly as a badly made prop. "No problem."

"Yeah," I said. "Do you know what's going on with Gumball and Penny? I heard they're not even speaking to each other."

"I don't know," he said naively. "Maybe over something stupid Gumball did."

"Why? Does he do so often?"

He laughed and smiled, "You have no idea."

Kathy and Kim walked up to me, discussing about their dates about their boyfriends, Bruce and Dante, and so forth. Afterwards, Penny walked up to me and asked for some help.

"What's the problem?"

"Nothing really," she said, "just try and tell Gumball to be careful with his lines. We don't want any accidents to happen."

"Just tell him yourself," I told her. "Cut the crap and get through this. This is school. Skip the drama and get on with it."

She stood there in silence. She finally said okay, she wi,ll.

"Really?" I said. "You're not going to try and say how, no you think Gumball is the jerk and all that blabber-mouth crap?"

"No," She said. "Not everything is like in the movies."

She walked away and started to talk to Gumball, again, and they smiled together. Whatever gets me less work, I'm all for it. Even if everyone is calm after someone actually died today. You know, this school could be just a very fucked up place.

Gumball and Penny began rehearsing their lines.

Gumball: "I can't even think about living one day without you."

Penny: "Then come with me. Nobody has to know. Not our family, not our friemds, nobody."

Gumball: "I can't. There's too much at stake. Everyone is all busted up about Lee, they forgot the pure enjoyment she brought out of others."

Penny: "Especially with Capote. He's dead, and nothing will bring him back."

Gumball: "But his legacy will, and hers will still live on."

Just before they could go on, and I could remember what the hell they would say, someone threw something at me. I checked around and saw no one around. I looked down, and even in the dark I saw the crumbled old ball of paper.

I unwrapped it, and it said:

"Roses are red/Violets are blue/Sugar is sweet and Carrie is the one for me."

It was written in crayon, and I thought of this person as a cheesy bastard.