What! Another chapter! Woot!
This one's a little longer than the one before so we can get to some more of the action!
Thanks to those who have been reading and even those who just joined! Hope you're enjoying yourself so far!
Fairer Tales: The Girl, That Girl
This morning had started out much like mornings before, where Alice awoke, got ready for school and made her way, in a zombie sort of fashion, downstairs to eat. By the time her breakfast had just started to settle she would have finally started to actually wake up and notice the world around her. Today however was slightly different than those before, because as she cleared her dishes off the table she heard the simple tolling of the doorbell and Georgie clambering off to answer it.
"ALICE! IT'S WILLIS!" the shout came from around the corner a moment later, bring Alice around the corner with almost break neck speed, crashing into the person who now stood in the doorway.
"Willis! You're back!" The brunette boy crushed her to his chest in his signature hug as a laugh boiled its way up out of his chest.
"Back from the dead you would think by looks of it." Gigi commented as she came around the corner holding Alice's backpack. "How are you feeling?"
"Much better thank you. Just a small bug, mom suggested I take the day off yesterday before it got too bad, you know, stop it before it stops you sort of thing."
"Sound planning."
"Well," Willis smiled turning his face back to the gray eyes in front of him. "You ready to head off? I brought my extra helmet, do you need to grab pants?"
Before Alice could answer Georgie appeared beside her holding a spare pair of jeans that she usually wore when she road with Willis to school; the blue uniforms were mandatory, but as long as she took the jeans off before school hours began it wasn't usually a big deal.
"I don't now!" Alice turned, grabbing the pants from Georgie, kicked off her shoes and proceeded to wiggle into them.
"Oh Alice really? At least go around the corner!" Gigi sighed, Willis had already turned his back and busied himself with the zipper of his jacket.
"No point now, they're on aren't they? Besides no point in making us late, right?" Alice grinned having put on her jacket as well and took her backpack from Gigi.
"Be safe you two!" Gigi called as Alice fell in step behind Willis as he went out the door and down the drive to the motorcycle that stood at the ready. "Wait Willis, that's not your bike. Where'd this one come from?"
"Dad, he got a new one not too long ago, and mine's in the shop for a bit, so he let me take his old one. Don't worry though, it handles the same as mine." He added checking Alice's helmet.
"That's not what I'm worried about," Gigi sighed as she gave the crotch rocket at the curb a once over. "Try to do the speed limit please."
"Always." Willis grinned. Having settled himself on the bike he waited patiently as Alice situated herself comfortably behind him. Satisfied with her seating, Alice leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her friends waist; putting down the visor on his helmet, Willis gave a salute to Gigi before pulling away from the curb and zipping down the street, pausing briefly at the stop sign before disappearing around the corner. Once out of sight, Gigi stopped waving, and turning to Georgie sighed.
"Come on you, have to get you off to school before you're late."
Riding with Willis was something that Alice found hard to describe. It was almost like flying, wind zipping past your face, but like running, churning your blood and making your heart race, everything around you a blur.
It was freedom.
On the rides like this to school, Alice could escape from everything, even the hectic nature of her mind. These brief moments on the back of Willis' bike were so serene, so calming that she almost found herself loathing the time when the ride would end, when that final turn into the school came and signaled the cease of the ride's calming nature.
"So how was school yesterday? I miss much?" Willis asked removing his helmet, preparing to help Alice with hers.
"Same, same; you didn't miss much. Dunaway's still grouchy and Abigail's still obnoxious." Alice gave up on the clasp of the helmet, resigning to let Willis deal with it, determined to let the calm feeling of the ride last as long as possible.
Willis chuckled, "Well glad to see nothing's changed. Speak of the devil, here comes Miss Connelly now."
Alice pulled the helmet off, and glanced up just in time to notice Abigail stepping out of the sports car of one of her friends. Rolling her eyes Alice sat her helmet down on the seat of the bike.
"ALICE!" A voice called out from within the maze of student cars and before she could react Alice was swept up in a bone crushing, lung collapsing hug.
"Jesus, Vince let her go before you kill her!"
"Buzz off Willis, it's not that bad!" Vincent joked as he sat Alice back down. "How are you by the way? Missed you!"
"Missed you too." Alice coughed as she regained air in her lungs. "Good by the way, thanks. Hey stand over there I need to take care of these." Barricading herself between Willis and Vincent, the bike and a nearby car, Alice wiggled out of her jeans and stuffed them into her backpack. Once she was done both boys turned around and proceeded to walk with her into the school. On their way they were joined by Ilex, the boisterous Amazon Alice had met in fifth grade, Eleanor the one person who seemed to always know how to calm everyone within the group down, Aldrick the quite observer and Tucker the youngest. "Hey Vincent I almost forgot how's your grandma doing?"
"Oh Gran-Gran's fine. She was more worried about how her sweet Codruta was doing."
"Codruta?" Eleanor chirped. "What's that?"
"It's a Romanian name, it means "little girl from the woods". She called Alice that when she first met her and it's stuck ever since." Vincent turned back to Alice. "I said you were fine, but she still wants you to come by the store more often, says she misses your visits, misses talking to you."
"Hey, Willis do you think…"
"Yeah we can make a detour after school."
"Awesome!"
"Well this is where we get off!" Vincent stated, looping his arm through Alice's and waving off Eleanor, Ilex, Aldrick, and Tucker. "See you kiddos at lunch then."
Vincent plopped down in his seat in next to Alice, starting in immediately on a crazy story about Gran-Gran and her little store, and how she had chased someone's child out with her cane, Willis slid into his seat behind her as the rest of the class filed in waiting for Dunaway to begin his usual drone. Leaning forward to get her attention Willis spotted something in Alice's backpack. Reaching down to retrieve it he glanced over the cover, holding it up he got Alice's attention.
"What's this?"
"Oh! That-"
"What's this? Is this little Orphan Alice's diary?" Abigail swooped in from seemingly nowhere and swiped the book from Willis' hand. "Did you write how you did it? Future generations I'm sure would love to know how you offed your parents Nelson."
"God Abigail, it's a book! Give it back!" Alice made a grab for it, only to have her pull it just out of the reach.
"Why should I?"
"Because it's mine!"
"Come on Abby it's a book, you know? I'm sure you've seen one before."
"Shut-up Vincent! And it's Abigail! Not Abby!"
"Give it back, now!" Alice got out of her desk, standing toe to toe with Abigail.
"'Gimme, gimme, never gets!'" Willis grabbed hold of Alice's wrist pulling her back from what he was sure was the last step she would take towards Abigail before hitting her.
"What's going on in here?" At some point the bell had tolled, summoning Dunaway from the dark recesses of the school. Seeing Abigail and Alice at odds and a little red book amidst the whole thing, Dunaway promptly snatched the book from Abigail and briefly flipped through it. "What's this Miss Nelson?"
"It's a book."
"As I can very well see, Miss Nelson. Where did you get it?"
"The library."
"I see no tag on it."
"It's on the inside, just before the title page. And there's another one on the inside of the back cover. I checked it out the other day."
"Hmm." Was all he said as he perused the pages for a moment longer before turning the book back over to Alice. "Put it away Miss Nelson, a book of such fancy and frivolities has no business in this classroom. Logic and pure sound reasoning are what are welcome here! Silly childhood notions of magic and fairy tale creatures such as goblins and the like are nothing but nonsense; nonsense that can easily be written off and proven false with fact."
And so began another lecture on logic and intelligence and the importance of both. Another lecture which Alice would pay absolutely not attention to, it was only homeroom after all; Vincent flagged her attention, leaning over the isle while Dunaway's back was turned so he could be heard better.
"Hey what's got Abigail the Awful so fired up with you?"
"Other than the usual?" Vincent nodded. "Gigi got a call yesterday. Apparently she got hurt by something and tried to pin it on me. She'd cornered me on the way home but when I left her she was fine."
"My opinion? You should have socked her when you had the chance."
"Vincent!" Mr. Dunaway paused in his morning rant when he realized that one of his students was not paying attention. "Would you like to share with the class what you find so interesting?"
"I-I was just saying that it was interesting that you chose teaching high school, you obviously seem much more suited for the higher academic field, college professor perhaps." Alice and Willis bit back the urge to laugh as Vincent pulled his response out of nowhere, turning on the charm, hoping that Dunaway would simply continue his lecture without much ado. Something in Vincent's blatant lie most have triggered something in the high school teacher because he beamed before launching into an epic tale on his experiences in high education and how he'd chosen his career path.
"Nice save." Alice whispered.
"Always." Vincent grinned back.
Wind tickling his wings Jareth's owl form sailed over the rolling landscape. He wasn't sure where he was going or what he was planning to do when he got there, but the fact that he was on the move was enough. Nanny had been right, the flight was proving to be the sedative that he needed; the soothing nature of the act a freedom from the churning, violent nature of his mind as of late.
For about the fourth time in his flight he pondered where he was actually headed and again no real answer came, just the urge to get somewhere was what kept him from turning around and going back to the Underground. The Above was so much different. It's lack of magic aside, everything from the sights and smells were different, there was a distinct pulse to the Aboveground and Jareth wasn't sure if it was because the world had pretty much forgotten magic or because it had created a magic of its own.
Alighting on the branch of a tall tree, the Goblin King's owl form sat erect and alert, looking for, he wasn't sure what, but scanning the terrain around him none the less. Taking in his surroundings he noted that he was on the edge of a forested area, the backside of what appeared to be a large sprawling building; picnic tables were scatter around with bins for garbage spotted near some of them. The vague fence line around the property, the arrangement of the building, and the sporting fields off to the sides of it Jareth surmised he had landed near a school. Somewhere a bell tolled and students came spilling out of the interior, some heading toward the picnic tables while others were making their ways to cars in the front of the building; by the looks of the students he finalized he was at what the humans in the Above called a high school.
Continuing to scan the area, the Goblin King prepped himself for takeoff when a small group caught his attention. A group of seven separated themselves from the others coming out to eat their meals, they immediately drifted to a picnic table that was pulled farther away from the others and proceeded to carry on as if in a world of their own. This act however was not enough to catch the attention of the Goblin King, but the fact that the other six seemed to be centered around one girl in the group. He watched, intrigued, as one helped her onto the picnic table and as she settled in took a seat next to her so he could watch her and the others. Three took various seats on the benches of the picnic table while the remaining two hovered around the table, seemingly trying to get attention of the girl and the one next to her. This behavior was so amusing, so interesting to Jareth, the only time he'd seen something like this was when he himself sat in his throne and the various goblins had vied for his attention; this pricked his curiosity, who was the girl?
"Alice!"
Oooh so close! Is it mean to bring you guys that close and then stop?
I don't know but things sure are starting to pick up aren't they! What are we five chapters in and Jareth final sees Alice? Doesn't even meet her, just sees her.
I promise I'm not trying to torture you guys! It's just how I write. :)
Stay tuned for more. And as always please review! :)