Hi, everyone! Thanks for coming back for another chapter! :) Special thanks to Boris Yeltsin who reviewed on the last chapter - very appreciated!
Now, one of my favourite chapters so far - the Robarazzi/Sky Store episode, which is S1E8.
Happy Canada Day (a day late) to my fellow Canadians (like Beck!).
Now, enjoy watching Beck do some parenting.
...
Although Jade engaged in "parenting" more often, Beck had his moments when he was more involved. One of those times was the Sky Store situation.
At first it was just a typical Cat phase. Not unlike her feline namesake, Cat would get fixated on whatever was shiny and exciting to her at the moment. Today it was a Sky Store catalog that she had gotten when she travelled to see her uncles. She was so proud of her first purchase – a machine that made rather toxic fake snow. Jade was bitingly sarcastic in her opinion of the item, and although that seemed to frustrate Cat she was not offended. Beck too thought that it was a mostly impractical item, but he did not say so that Cat's face. He figured that it might have a few redeeming qualities. Someone was always performing around Hollywood Arts, and perhaps the machine could be helpful in setting a winter scene at some point.
Beck thought that it would be just one silly purchase and that would be the last that they heard of Sky Store. Still, he was not surprised when more packages started arriving for a certain Cat Valentine. He watched quietly, trying to figure out what was drawing Cat to keep ordering.
Cat must have seen that Beck had more tolerance for her shopping than most of the others, because she specifically waited for him to show him two of her newest items. Beck was startled when someone launched themselves onto his leg while he was walking to his locker. The sudden grip caused him to stumble a bit.
"Beck! Wait wait wait wait wait!"
Looking down, he saw Cat's grin and he laughed a little. "Oh, o-kay! Alright, you caught me! What?"
"I want to show you something!" she said brightly from the floor, still clinging to his ankle.
He laughed a little, still not knowing where this was going. "Sure."
She scrambled to her feet and arranged her necklace on her chest, beaming excitedly. "Okay! Now, walk toward me."
As he was not that far from her in the first place, he did so hesitantly.
"Closer."
He looked around, not wanting to look weird to bystanders. Jade may accuse him of flirting, but he definitely did not want anything like that to be said of this scenario. Jade would believe him - she knew well that he was a lot more of a "big brother"/unexpected caregiver to Cat - but he did not want the story getting around school that he was not firmly attached to Jade, especially after their last mini break-up. He also never wanted to make it look like Cat was going behind her best friend's back to flirt with Jade's boyfriend. Still, no one seemed to be looking at them, so he stepped forward again.
"Closer!" Cat squealed in anticipation.
Finally, when it seemed like he was about to bump into her, the necklace turned into a blaring alarm and he sprang back, hands in the air.
"STEP AWAY. YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THIS PERSON."
Cat started bouncing and clapping her hands, not noticing how embarrassed innocent Beck was as suddenly everyone in ear shot was staring at him.
"THE POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY."
"I didn't do anything," he nervously laughed as he explained to the public. He lowered his hands and turned back to Cat, gently asking her, "Would you turn that off?"
"MOVE BACK."
She obligingly tapped the necklace and it made a beep like a car being locked before it went silent.
"World's best alarm necklace!" she said proudly.
Beck did not say anything - what could be said that was going to remain gentle and calming? - and instead went to his locker to finish getting what he had been headed for when he was waylaid. Cat followed him like an over-eager puppy.
"Oh, look!" she said excitedly. "The world's brightest keychain."
He straightened and turned from his locker to see - and certainly did as she turned it on right in his face. Beck had a flashback to when he was five and got a new flashlight for Christmas. He had shone that thing everywhere, particularly in his dad's face whenever he came to say "good night" for the next week, until it was finally confiscated until he "learned how to use it without blinding people". He suddenly could understand his dad's side.
Sorry, Dad!
"Yeaaaugh!" he gasped, feeling like his retinas had just been burned. He turned away, blinking to see if any vision remained. "Owww! Okay, that's bright! You can turn that off now." At least he could still see, even if is was temporarily a daze of spotty colours.
"Too bright?" she asked.
"No. I love that," he laughed uncomfortably, still in pain.
Beck could not help but feel a little proud of Cat, despite being the "victim" of her new purchases. She had gotten some self-defense items, just like he had encouraged her a few weeks before when they had discussed how important it was for her to be safe, especially when talking to boys and inviting them to her house for parties/stealth interviews for her video series on the Slap. Beck had been concerned by the number of complete strangers showing up in her videos, and he had taken it upon himself to talk about it with her and her parents did not seem to be moderating her behaviour in a satisfactory manner. He could deal with some unintentional embarrassment and spots in his eyes for a few minutes to have certainty that Cat was being safe and smart. Still…
"Do you think, maybe ... you know ... you're buying too many things from Sky Store?" he asked, leaning against the lockers and looking down at her compassionately.
Cat brushed it off. "Nooo!" She turned to wander off to wherever it was that Cats wandered to in Hollywood Arts, but then she turned back to him.
"Oh, hey, can I borrow some money for lunch?"
He thought it over for a second, then replied. "Yeah, sure." He pulled out his wallet. "How much?"
When the answer was "$49.95 plus shipping" he took a moment to engage in feeling and frowning at her in exasperated. He could handle people ignoring what he said (if he couldn't, he wouldn't have survived a week as Jade's boyfriend), but it could be frustrating none the less.
He calmly turned Cat around by the shoulders and pushed her toward the Asphalt Café.
"Nice try, kid. I'm not enabling you, but I will get you lunch. C'mon. I'll get Jade some too and we can all eat together."
"Heard my name," Jade said, walking up and standing on tiptoe to kiss Beck's cheek. Cat giggled to the side, no longer moving since Beck was now hugging Jade instead of guiding her.
Jade pulled back from the kiss and looked at Beck with a little confusion. She could tell that he was exasperated, but she had not been teasing him just now so something else must have ….
"Jade! See my new Sky Store items!"
Ah. She understood now.
"You need to stop wasting your money on all that junk, Cat," she said bluntly.
"But these are good items!"
"No, they aren't!"
"You didn't even see them yet!"
"I don't care. They are dumb and you'd be better off throwing them in the garbage," Jade said with finality, now taking over lightly pushing Cat to the food truck. She was hungry herself and wanted food, and she had overheard the last part about Beck paying.
"These two items are actually self-defense ones. She tested them out on me five minutes ago, and they work well," Beck said calmly. Of everything that Cat had bought, these were the two things that he thought that she should actually keep.
Jade looked him up and down. "You appear to still be in one piece, so I won't bother asking, but yeah, keep self-defense items, Cat."
Beck could see that the idea of Cat being a little bit safer was as comforting to Jade as it was to him. He leaned forward and kissed the top of his girlfriend's head, then her lips when she looked up in response.
"Come on, Beck! Jade, he said he'd buy us food since he wouldn't give me money for buying something from Sky Store."
Jade rolled her eyes. "Good. You don't need any more of that junk, Cat."
"You seriously don't," Beck interjected, hopeful that this double intervention would help.
….
Unfortunately, it did not.
The packages were continuing to arrive – as proven by one slice of "juiced" pizza (Jade had the choice comment of "You're so screwed up", seeming to wonder at Cat's very sanity). He maintained his patience, but he did not drink the pizza.
After realizing that his own talks had not had effect, Beck then turned to Lane the guidance counsellor about Cat's budding addiction.
It was not much help when Lane then became fascinated with Cat's newest shipment of strange tennis supplies. He left her with a compliment on the good deals that she had gotten.
Beck groaned. Although Lane was awesome to talk to about most things, apparently he had a weakness for cool tennis products. His talk also had no effect, as proven by several Robarazzi clips starring a shopping-obsessed Cat.
It was clearly up to Beck to fix this mess.
…..
As Jade was busy with a vocal lesson at the end of school on Friday, Beck got intervention support from Tori (always willing to help) and Andre (always willing to help where Tori was helping). Together the three of them tracked down Cat.
"Sit down, Cat. We need to have a talk," Beck said authoritatively. She obediently plopped down on the stairs and looked up at him.
"Okay!"
Her sunny "okay" quickly turned to a pouty frown as the conversation went toward her never getting another Sky Store item for the rest of her life.
Tori and Andre sat down next to her for support, while Beck stood near the railing with her and gave her a stern look that kept her in her place when she started to stand up to make a "run for it" at one point. Finally, they convinced her that it was time to be done of Sky Store. After one final flip through, Beck held out his hand for the catalog.
"Come on. Let me have it," he said patiently, like a father trying to remove potentially dangerous Lego pieces from the grasp of a toddler.
"But maybe I can talk my parents into giving me my credit card back!" she protested hopefully.
"Cat." His tone was no-nonsense. This could happen the easy way or the hard way, but she was not leaving school with that catalog.
"It's time to say goodbye to Sky Store," Tori told her.
"Don't you think that's the best thing to do?" Andre coaxed.
Beck motioned for her to hand it over. She had about ten seconds more or he'd be taking it from her while Andre and Tori held her back. She thankfully went the easier route, petting the cover once before holding it up to him with a hurt squeak as she winced and turned away.
Beck's lips were pressed tightly together as he firmly ripped the catalog in two.
Good riddance!
Cat squeaked again and covered her mouth with her hands, eyes closed as if trying to block out an incredibly painful experience. He tried to be empathetic as Cat grieved her loss.
"I know it hurts now, but it'll feel better soon," Tori said, scooching over to wrap her arm around Cat to squeeze her shoulder.
"I know," Cat admitted with a sad sort of gasp.
"Want to come hang for awhile?" Andre offered.
Cat shook her head. "Nah, thanks. I just want to sit here."
"Okay," Tori said, patting Cat's head before getting up to leave. "Bye."
"Hey, sport," Beck said comfortingly, lightly tapping her arm with the torn catalog as he left to find a place to turn it into confetti and then dump it in the trash elsewhere in the school (he did not want her fishing it out of a can once his back was turned).
Andre patted her knee and then he left too, looking like dealing with the redhead for a brief confrontation was harder on him than caring for his grandmother for a week.
With Cat's insistence that she wanted to be alone, Beck went to find Jade after her lesson.
"We murdered the Sky Store catalog. Andre and Tori helped convince her, and I tore it up," he reported.
"Good. You should have done that one the first day."
Beck laughed at Jade's bluntness. "I'm glad that you approve, but Cat seemed pretty down. Maybe check on her later?"
"Why not you?" she asked curiously.
"She might be mad at me. I made her get rid of it and tore it up in front of her. Plus, you've been less involved in directly trying to get it away from her."
Jade rolled her eyes. "I don't think that doing that will make her hate you, Beck. You're like a big brother to her – you know, like, a sane one." She relented a little. "But I guess she might be upset. Yeah, sure, I'll call her later tonight. If she's upset at you, I'll try to settle things. She listens to me – mostly."
...
"Hey, Jade," Beck answered her call. "What's up?"
"I was just talking to Cat."
"Good. How was she?"
"She sounded pretty happy. Even when I mentioned that I heard you took away her catalog, she was still fairly … perky, I guess."
"That's good!"
Jade grunted a little. "Mmm, I don't know. I have a feeling…."
"What kind of feeling?"
"I don't know. Hey, did you hear about the horror movie being shown at the theater? You free next Wednesday?"
"On a school night?"
"Beck, when have I cared about being out late on a school night?!"
"My parents might if I am."
"You live in the RV so you don't have to follow their rules."
"You know what rules that fight was all about. Anyway, I could probably talk to my mom about it. She usually doesn't mind if I'm out late as long as it isn't too often or affecting my school too much."
Beck could practically hear Jade's eyes rolling as they continued the conversation, no longer focused on Cat and her potential schemes.
Maybe they should have stayed focused. Across town, Cat was making another round of secret purchases.
...
I'd love to hear what you think - do you think that Beck is better at parenting, or is Jade? Let me know!
You may be wondering why this ending might seem to be a non-ending. That's because this is a two-part section. :) The second part of this little storyline will be up soon (I will probably try for Monday, to give American readers something special on the 4th).
Have a great day! :)
