I nearly had to move this month without being evicted because of a crazy old lady.


Chapter 7

Nemo

Sitting on the edge of his seat, poor little Double-D did everything he could to not look at his friends, intently staring out the window of the school bus. He had a burning feeling at the back of his head, as if every person on the bus was staring at him, judging him. Of course, he knew that it wasn't true, that it was a preposterous thought. And yet the feeling didn't go away.

Chancing a small glance away from the window and over his shoulder he could see some of the kids from the cul-de-sac sitting about, doing their thing without even looking his direction. That didn't mean they didn't look though. From time to time, he could catch some of them; Nazz, Kevin, even Sarah and Jimmy, casting their curious glances in the Eds' direction. Not his direction. Their direction. It's to be expected really, given how the loudest loudmouth in the neighborhood is currently silent, not even moving a muscle as he's staring both daggers and hope into his sock clad friend. The tallest of the trio, as well, is silent as the bus brings them closer and closer to the one thing they all can agree to call 'Hell'… something they weren't able to do before, as someone in the trio normally would do his best to bring his friends' spirits up at the mere mention of said place: School. Honestly, the only good thing about this place at the moment is that the Kanker sisters are currently suspended after jumping some poor soul and doing their usual acts to them – only this time they had been caught by a teacher who had brought them to the principal and thus earned their long waited punishment. A shiver runs through Double-D's body, thinking about how things could've been so much worse had the sisters been running free in the school halls in the middle of this mess. He truly is grateful for only having to deal with one trauma at the time, though he would've preferred not having to deal with any at all.

The bus makes the infamous sharp turn up the school parking lot right before the sharp brake that signals they've arrived. Not taking the chance to be cornered in an empty school bus Edd picks up his bag as fast as he can, lifting the strap over his shoulder, and then makes a clean b-line towards the bus' door to get out. He can feel the stares of everyone burning in the back of his head, and this time he knows they're legit. It's not every day you get to see one of the Eds run for dear life away from the other two. Some confusion and raised eyebrows are to be expected from such an odd and unusual act. It's natural to be confused by something unnatural. How annoying that is.

As he reaches the entrance to the Junior High, Double-D notices that he is the first one to reach the school. A little surprised at his own speed and agility, he momentarily feels a sliver of pride over himself for proving himself somewhat greater than he thought he was. However he keeps the celebration short and quiet, not allowing it to interfere with his attempt to escape not only his tormentors, but also the faces of everyone around him. Just before he opens the door to enter and hopefully get out of everyone's sight, he catches something at the edge of his eye. Looking back at the bus, he can see Eddy and Ed leaving the bus, looking at him with worried expressions on their faces, behind them the rest of the cul-de-sac kids with similar faces only more curious than worried. That's not what his attention focuses on though, no.

Standing at the very last step of the small staircase at the bus' door, Mel is staring at him with a burning expression, her eyes ignited with a fire he's never seen in a human before – in any living creature. Locking eyes with her for not even a hundredth of a second and he can feel his knees weaken, leaving him unable to move. He forces himself to look away, lest he's going to be standing there the rest of the day as if he'd suddenly become invalid. Closing his eyes and with a sharp breath, he hurries inside the school's entrance, not looking back at any of the worried and confused faces, ignoring the ones that call after him.

Now standing outside of the school bus, Mel is looking directly at the door her brother escaped through. It's been… a difficult ride to school today. Forcing herself to sit at the back of the bus, where she found her natural seat not too long ago and claimed for herself, she could easily see everything that happened in the bus. She could see how her brother forced himself to stare out the window no matter what, how Eddy forced himself to remain still and quiet while thinking something through very thoroughly (a plan to reach his friend perhaps), and then how poor Ed had absolutely no idea what to do in order to help his friend who was aching and hurt but didn't want any help. To say that they attracted attention would be the understatement of mankind's history.

Mel spent the major part of the bus ride looking at the different kids in the cul-de-sac, observing them as they looked at the three friends for short periods of time again and again. Clearly they were curious as to what happened to the friends but still too shy or scared to go up and ask any of them about it. She can understand that. It was merely yesterday that they all got the news about Edd's broken body and shattered mind after all. Tension between them is to be expected.

Having to watch him flee out the bus, run for dear life up to the school, leaving everyone behind him… that had been heartbreaking. It had left Mel to shocked to act for a short moment, two seconds or so, which had been proven to be just enough for him to get away from both her and his friends, as they had been caught off guard by his speed as well. The small moment their eyes locked however gave her strength, motivation. She's absolutely certain that she must've looked like a beat in his eyes, and she would be lying if she said she didn't start to feel like one. A beast that's hungry for revenge… but sadly absolutely lost as to where to get it – or rather; give it. A loud honk from the bus nearly knocked her out of her socks. She turns around only to see the bus driver looking beyond pissed that she was standing so close to the bus and she rolled her eyes at him when he started throwing a fist in the air at her. Taking a massive step forward and then very pointedly glaring back at him she could only see him shaking his head in disapproval as he drove the bus away. She shook her head back at him, though she highly doubts he saw.

Venturing back into the here and now, Mel began walking up toward the entrance of the school that directly took you to the High School. She ignored all of the different stares she got from some of the students, some laughing at her incident with the bus, other's merely looking at her while talking about her. Even though she's been here for a while she has yet to make any friend at this place. Sure, there are a few girls who talks to her and claims to be her "friends", but she can see through their empty acts, their wishes to be the school's "mean girls" making her feel sick just by looking at them, at the way they're dressing. Seriously, do guys find that attractive? She merely shakes her head at the thought, keeping her head straight and focused on her task as she walks passed one of the said girl gangs that stand strategically at the entrance, forcing everyone who wants to enter to notice them in some way. They call out to her when she walks by, but she doesn't have time to dwell in their typical High School dramas. She has a brother to avenge! Something she doubts most of the girls in this building knows what the word even means. She's not saying that all of the girls here are dumb bimbos – she's just fascinated by their ability to make themselves noticeable while everyone else blends into the background somehow. It's at moments like these where she miss Amanda insanely much. That girl has the ability to make everyone become the greatest of friends, no matter how different they really are. Bimbos and punks, not a problem! She'd mend them together with the skills of a world famous blacksmith.

The bell rings, forcing people to start moving in their many different directions. Edd finds himself standing by his locker, organizing everything over again even though he already did it just this Monday. It's a nervous habit of his, and he can already see himself doing this many more times this week. There's still two more days before the weekend after all! He sighs heavily at the realization that he's going to have to deal with two overprotective friends and one overprotective sister for two more days before he's able to even think about rest. After all, who's to say they're going to actually leave him alone during the weekend? Not only does his friend literally live less than 50 feet from him, but Mel is living under the same roof as him! Why, it's perfect conditions for those who are watching over another person's every move!

Footsteps echo down the hall, drawing his attention as he notice they're headed directly towards him. He's not surprised to find Eddy and Ed looking worriedly at him, though he has to say he's a little surprised that they're still silent as they approach him. The scratch marks he caused himself from his restless sleep starts to ache the more they look at him and he finds it harder and harder to stand still for any longer.

"Gentlemen." He says with as steady of a voice as he can manage before he turns in the direction of their common class and starts walking. Their silence is deafening and the way they somehow loom over him makes it hard for him to breathe. It's going to be a long day. Unable to ignore the scratches any longer, Edd makes the mistake of unconsciously moving his right hand towards his left wrist and beginning to scratch. He doesn't manage to continue this for even a second as a hand suddenly grabs his and forces it away. Forced to turn around by the force, he's faced by a very aggressive worried Eddy who's got an iron grip on his wrist. "Eddy? Is there something wrong?" He asks, feeling his own aggression starting to rise.

"What's with the scratching?" Is all he receives from the shorter, the tallest of the three taking a step back as he can sense the tension growing thicker between the two. With no answer from his friend, Eddy uses his free hand to move the sleeve of Double-D's shirt upwards, revealing the scratches from last night. With his eyes wide of shock and horror, Eddy tightens his grip and looks up to meet Double-D's glare. "What is this?!" He demands, raising the wrist towards his friend. "Are you hurting yourself?!"

"No, I'm not!" Edd growls back at his friend and tugs hard at his arm to force him to let go of his wrist. "Now, I may have something that's called a 'nervous tick' which causes my skin to become ever so slightly more irritated and itchy than normal that it becomes very hard for me to ignore and resist scratching, especially if I happen to be asleep at the time!" He takes a deep breath. "And the reason why I happened to get this certain 'tick' to begin with just so happens to be the fact that I no longer can walk around in my own life without having either my two best friends or an overprotective sister looming over my shoulder, observing every single move that I make because they found out that I might be a little more broken than they first thought I was!" His breath is heavy as he finished, leaving the hallway completely empty after his sudden outburst, but he can't find it in himself to care. Instead he straightens himself, repositions the bag on his shoulder before heading towards his class, leaving his two friends behind.

Still staring after their genius of a friend, neither Eddy nor Ed notice when Kevin sneak his way up to them. "Dude…" He says in a low, shocked voice. "…what happened to Double-Dork?"

"I…" Eddy begins, but finds himself at a loss for words at the moment, which is more than enough to surprise Kevin, who's still somewhat waiting for the usual reaction to the 'Dork' naming thing. When nothing happens he looks down at the shortest Dork, who seems to be absolutely lost. "I don't know." He eventually says. "I don't know… and he refuses to tell."

Noticing how the usual flame and fire that makes up the whole Dork trio is not there anymore, Kevin focuses his gaze back in the direction the smartest of the dorks went before awkwardly departing from the remaining two to go to his own class. His class happens to be in the hallway that connects the Junior High to the High School, and as per usual there are a ton of older teens roaming in the hall, minding their own business while acting all "mature".

In the midst of the crowd he manages to catch a familiar copper head and hazel eyes, standing at the far end of the hallway in a corner. He can see the tense, unhappy expression on her face as she scans and observes every person that comes to close to her before a teacher shows up and opens the door to the classroom she's standing next to. Despite her being in position to be first one to head inside she remains where she's standing, watching everyone that heads inside until she's the last one. Before she heads inside she catches the eyes of the smaller, younger ginger that's staring at her. A sudden and strong feeling he can't name grabs his entire inside as he locks eyes with the older ginger, however, as sudden as the feeling came it leaves as she gives him a curt nod, acknowledging his existence before she heads inside the classroom. As the door closes behind her Kevin feels himself letting out a breath he didn't know he held in. What was with that expression on her face? Why did she observe, no, scan everyone that came within a certain distance from her? Could it have to do something with why Double-Dork is acting so bizarre?

The sudden calling of his name from his teacher wakes him up from his thoughts and he hurries inside the classroom where everyone is snickering at his flushed reaction. He ignores them, of course. He's one of the cool kids after all! He's not going to be affected by some snickering after his teacher knocked him out of his own head. Absolutely not! But as the class drags on and eventually reaches its end, as the next one begins and he finds himself sitting a few desks behind the genius of the dorks he returns to the thoughts from before. A moment when the teacher asks a question and waits for Edd to raise his hand to answer – something that he always does as soon as any teacher asks their class a question – and he completely ignores it, along with the surprised stares from both the teacher as well as some of the other students in the class when he does nothing, only spurs Kevin further down into his thoughts. And as soon as the class is over, Edd is the first one to leave, which certainly attracts attention as he always – ALWAYS – stays behind to talk to the teacher about the lesson and what a good job they did. The scene just about leaves Kevin standing still in motion, looking in the direction the dork left like a fool. Just what is going on with Double-Dork?

Lunch rolls around and Kevin gets to witness Mel sitting at a table, listening to something that a group of girls are saying to her. By the look on her face he can only assume that she is just as interested in their "conversation" about whatever as he is whenever Nazz starts rambling on about shoes and clothes. He's just about to go and get himself some food when the two original Eds make their way up to her table and Eddy immediately starts talking loudly, flailing his arms in the air as he makes his points clear to her. The sight somehow calms Kevin down a notch. Seems like something is somewhat normal at the very least. While Mel is listening intently to what the two boys have to say, the girls in the small group seem to be annoyed by them, rolling their eyes at their mere presence being so close to theirs. It doesn't take long before they talk back at them, telling them to go their mothers to clean up their booboos and to leave them alone. All the while Mel is giving them a glare that he would like to name: The Death Glare. However, it would seem like the girls are too stupid, or ignorant, to understand the warning that lies within that glare.

"Knock it off will ya?!" Eddy yells at the girls. "Can't you tell we're talking here?!"

"Um, sweetie, I don't know if you noticed," One of the girls says with a taunting tone to her voice. "But we were talking way before you two came here. So why don't you just run along with your babysitter and leave us be? Or what do you think, Mel?" The girl turns towards Mel with a sugarcoated smile on her pink glossed lips. She's not looking at her, keeping her eyes closed, but that doesn't stop Mel from staring daggers into her. The girl turns back to the Eds. "Like, seriously, leave. We're having an important discussion here and you can't, like, just come over here and interrupt."

"Yeah, cause talking about shoes is so important!" Kevin cuts in, drawing all of the attention towards him. He has no idea how he ended up here to defend the two dorks but he can only imagine that his face is the same as Mel right now: Complete Surprise.

"And you are…?" A different girl asks.

"A friend of the dorks." He says, immediately receiving a glare from Mel and he can feel himself falter. The girls notice her stare and the affect it has on him. They smirk.

"Aaww, did you come to help your besties?" The original girl says, mockingly. Mel's glare returns to her. "Isn't it cute how they think they're big and strong? Huh, Mel?"

Mel meets the girl's eyes, and for the first time she seems to notice the glare she's getting. Shrinking from the intense stare, the other girls begin to notice as well and turn to look at Mel. "On the contrary; I find it amusing how you think you have the right to speak to them like that." Keeping her eyes and voice cold, Mel makes sure the girls know that she's not in the mood for joking around and thus is not joking herself. "Nonetheless, I do have some really important things to discuss with these three young lads, and it would be very rude of you to sit here and listen in on it. In other words: Leave."

The girls don't move, being far to shocked to understand her words fully. Eddy on the other hand is beaming with joy at their loss. "HA! How does it feel to be on the loser team?!" He calls out loudly.

"What was that?" Mel responds right after, ending his celebration before it can blow up even more. She turns back to look at the girls, still sitting there, once she deems Eddy calm enough.

"Are you serious?" The second girl asks, clear shock in her voice, as if they've never been denied before, by another girl even! She doesn't answer them, merely giving them a cold stare while waiting for them to get out of her face. Weird expressions adorn their faces when they finally decide to leave, faces of what she can only imagine expresses their current inner thoughts about being shun away by her. Why they think she's someone they can just add to their group is beyond her, not to mention someone they're "looking up to" and "sees as someone superior to them" but that thought can wait. If they've decided to give her that kind of authority over them then she's going to abuse the heck out of it for as long as she can.

"Man those girls are weird." Kevin says, breaking the silence. "And here I thought Double-Dork was acting strange." Mel's eyes are on him in an instant. "I-eh mean: Double-D." Her eyes soften.

"So, you've noticed to?" She asks him.

"I'm pretty sure everyone from the cul-de-sac has by now." He confirms, telling her a little about what he's seen during the day of Double-D, how he acts like a completely different person. Then he stops, wondering if he should voice his thoughts or not.

"What is it?" Mel asks.

"I just…" He hesitates, scratches the back of his head before deciding to spill the beans. "You all seem really worried about him, and yet… where is he?"

A smile tugs at Mel's lips as Eddy steps into the conversation again. "Me and lumpy dragged him off to see the school nurse for some scratching wounds. He should be done any minute now, so we came here to talk to Mel about his… status."

Before Kevin has the chance to ask what they mean by that Mel stands up, sending her chair back behind her with a screech. Her eyes are focused behind them, causing them to all turn around at the same time. Double-Dork just entered the lunch room, appearing to be looking for something, or someone. He hasn't spotted them yet which seems to be in favor for Mel and the other two Eds as Kevin notice how the teenage girl and the shortest dork gives each other a certain look and nod before they depart. Mel leaves the lunch room while Eddy and big Ed hurries up to their friend, leaving Kevin standing alone by the table. With not much else to do he eventually makes his way to the lunch line and finds his friends to talk with them about the weird stuff happening in the dork department.

In the meantime Mel find herself on a stroll down the school's different hallways, searching for something that can give her some kind of a hint or clue as to where she can get to the bottom of this. Keeping her head slightly lowered and her gaze focused, no one seems to be interested in conversing with her as long as she appears to be on a mission. It gives her the space she needs in order to think. Usually, if you needed to find out about something you'd go to the library to find some sort of book that most likely had the information that you need, but where does one go to when the library is not an option?

Turns out you still end up going to the library, however not necessarily for the information, but rather for escaping a group of annoying jocks that hasn't noticed her yet. She eagerly waits for them to walk past the door so that she can leave and continue on with her search for clues. As she watches them walk by she can't help but notice the way they all seem to be "pumped" about something. Are they going to meet their girlfriends and get something "good"? Who cares? Probably the poor kid who happened to get in their way and got roughly shoved into the lockers lined with the wall with a loud bang before being dropped on the floor and left there. Hmm… Stepping out from her hiding spot, she hurries up to the poor little blond guy with thick glasses – man he's a cutie! He seems to be absolutely terrified of her as she approaches, looking even more adorable when he attempts to move away from her as she kneels by him.

"Are you okay?" She asks, willing her voice to be calm and kind sounding. It seems to work.

"Huh…? O-oh… yeah I'm fine." He says; his own voice a little shaky. "It wasn't so bad… this time…"

"This time?" She repeats while helping him collect his stuff from the floor. "They do that often?"

"N-not too often." He says quickly, nervously, before he turns more… grey. "But it does happen." Silence takes over for a short moment before he seems to notice and stands up quickly with half of his stuff in his arms. "B-but that's fine! Seriously, I'm usually the one to blame when it happens! Standing in the way and not seeing where I'm going and… yeah."

"Sounds like douchebag excuses to me." She twists her lips for a second, thinking. "And I highly doubt you're the only one they go after."

"I guess you're right…"

"Anyway, where are you heading?"

"Wh-huh?" He looks at her with big green eyes. "Oh! I-I was- I mean; I'm going to mechanics class with Mr. Lewis. Th-this way!"

"Sure thing. By the way, what's your name?" She asks, walking the kid to his next class.

"I'm Pete." He answers with a smile. "And you are…?"

"Melanie, Mel for shorts."

Once she's walked the kid, Pete, to his mechanics class and handed over the rest of his books, Mel returns to the hunt for answers, however this time she feels like she might be getting somewhat closer to the bottom. She just needs to keep a very close eye on the different jock gangs all around school just to see if they go after certain victims, and what type. She might also have to stalk Edd a little, from time to time, just to keep an eye out for him, make sure that nothing happens to him. Other than that, she can only hope that she will be in time to stop his next beating. Forcing him to tell who the guilty ones are has already failed her once, and she doubts repeating that process is going to do her any form of good.

Well… here's to hoping for the best.


Enter: One tiny Pete from the game Grounded – couldn't resist after I saw him in the game. He's so kyute! I'm not planning on giving him a major part of the story though. Not yet at least.

Song: Nemo

Singer/Group: Nightwish