Hello everyone! I'm back with Chapter 5: The Axe about to fall! I apologize for the long wait, because as I've said earlier, my first week of high school has started and life happens. I thank you all for the supportive comments and the amount of views Actor has gotten so far really encourages me. Enjoy reading Actor Chapter 5: The Axe about to fall!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Loud House.
Luan woke up facing the light pink wall. She stretched and yawned, fully gaining consciousness. She sat up and looked out the window; it was a faint purple and pink from the rising sun, the kind of sunrise you could normally only find in paintings.
Luan rubbed her eyes and walked into the hallway. She would put on her clothes later, she was going to get ahead of the line and use the bathroom early. After using the bathroom, Luan walked back into her room to get changed.
Luna was still sleeping. After changing, Luan walked over to the light switch and started to flick it up and down.
"Dude, what the heck?" Luna asked in an annoyed yet sleepy voice.
"Rise and shine, sleepy," Luan chuckled as she left the room.
Walking downstairs, Luan saw that Lincoln and Lisa were already eating. Lincoln had a bowl of Zombie Bran with a cup of milk, while Lisa was eating fried eggs. She watched the two in the corner of her eye, trying her utmost to make sure they didn't know she was watching them.
These two were the only ones to know that something wasn't as it shouldn't be yesterday. Lincoln had sensed that Luan had been acting strangely and Lisa had unknowingly detected the gun she had got.
Grabbing a plate of buttered toast, Luan sat down next to them.
"Good morning Luan," Lincoln said
"Good morning Lincoln," Luan replied in her usual, cheerful tone.
Lincoln kept eating his cereal, not looking up. No quizzical looks or any questions. He seemed to have forgotten how she had been acting yesterday. "Perfect," Luan thought to herself. That was one less thing to worry about.
Now checking on Lisa, Luan asked, "Hey Lisa, have you solved that problem with your metal detector?"
"Metallic Mass Detector," Lisa corrected. "And no, I haven't. I keep calibrating and fine tuning, but I keep getting the same result."
Lisa paused, eating another egg with one hand while readjusting her glasses with the other.
"I'm now beginning to think the new metal detected was just somehow overlooked when the first list was made."
Luan relaxed, slouching a bit in her chair. Both of their suspicions had been laid to rest. Luan started to eat her toast with more enthusiasm than before. Finishing her breakfast, Luan disposed of the plates in the dishwasher and went to brush her teeth. She turned the corner and found Lucy standing there.
"Ahh!" Luan yelled, stumbling against the wall. Lucy stood there, with a small smirk on her face from the outburst.
Straightening herself up, Luan said, "One of these days we're going to put a bell on you."
"And good morning to you too." Lucy said in her flat monotone voice.
They both just stood there, Lucy standing in the middle of the hallway, blocking Luan.
"Are, um, you going to eat breakfast?" asked Luan, breaking the silence.
"Soon, but I wanted to talk to you."
"And that is?"
"I was communing with the spirits yesterday. They kept giving cryptic remarks about you in a negative way, so I was wondering if you could have done something to upset them. Could it have something to do with that noise that came from your room?"
Luan kept a smiling face, but on the inside was freaking out. "Goddammit," she thought. "Of all the things that would give me away, it had to be the ghosts that Lucy went on about!"
"Is there anything you would like to say about that?" Lucy said, still using her neutral tone.
"Is it April Fools day in the spirit world?" Luan blurted out.
Lucy opened her mouth to answer, but then shut it. "Maybe. Time works differently for them, after all." And with that, she walked past Luan to the dining room.
Luan sighed in relief. This was starting to get out of hand. First Lincoln, then Lisa and now Lucy. She couldn't believe that Lucy had taken that panicked joke seriously, though she wasn't complaining. This time, she walked upstairs to brush her teeth without getting interrupted.
Luan sat in Vanzilla, looking at the town of Royal Woods passing by through the window. It was just Lori, Leni, Luna and herself in the van. Sitting in the back, Luan could let her mind wander, without fear of someone looking back at her. She would have to deal with school for this day and the next three. It would cool down after that and some other poor bastard would take her place. 4 more days.
Luan felt the van begin to slow down as it pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the school. When the van came to a full stop, Leni, Luna and Luan climbed out and walked to their social groups again.
When Luan got the pantomime group, she was surprised to see that they were actually talking to one another. She overheard conversations about Julia Dreyfus. She was apparently popular among pantomime groups too; after all, she was a well rounded actor.
Luan found Benny behind one of the bushes. He was leaning against the tan brick wall, reading a paperback of No Country for Old Men.
"Hey Benny!"
Benny looked up and replied, "Hey Luan!"
Benny stood straight up. "How was your day?"
"It was, uh, uneventful," Luan said. "How about yours?"
"Mine was nice," Benny answered. Looking down at his phone to check the time, he looked back up and asked, "Hey, do you know if we can meet after school, where we were yesterday?"
"Yeah, I can do that," Luan said. The school bell rang and the school doors opened up. Luan and Benny said their goodbyes and Luan walked into the school.
Luan walked into the courtyard, heading for the steps surrounding the golden acorn in the center. Today was just like yesterday, except Ruby from theatre club had joined in on the fun. She was apparently still spiteful that Luan and Benny had taken the role of Romeo and Juliet from the same play.
Not that it made much difference; what was one more when you were already the laughingstock of the whole school?
Luan sat down at the steps of the golden acorn, waiting for Benny to appear. A few minutes later Benny walked out of a set of double doors on the right wing of the school. He walked over to and sat next to her.
"How was today?" he asked.
"The same as the usual," Luan answered.
Benny hesitated for a second, then asked, "I was, uh, wondering, do you want to come to the park with me later today?"
"Yeah, I could do that Benny. What time should we do it?"
"I was thinking about 8:15, so we can watch the sunset together."
Luan smiled at this, a warm feeling spreading through her.
"Yeah. That would be beautiful." Luan said with a grin on her face.
"Oh, and uh, one more thing. Can you come in your mime costume?"
"May I ask why?" Luan inquired.
"I wanted to, while we're there, to practice a mime routine about proposing."
"Oh, of course," Luan said, blushing. She sat and thought of that happy day in the future when Benny actually proposed to her.
Luan's phone vibrated, ending the moment. It was time to leave.
"Goodbye Benny!" Luan said.
"Goodbye Luan!" Benny said. "See you soon."
They both parted and went their separate ways, not knowing that Teri had been eavesdropping the whole time.
Luan sat in the van with a content smile on her face. She stared ideally out the window, daydreaming.
"Someone's happy today," Luna said. "What's up with you?"
"Me and Benny are having a date tonight, with a sunset and everything," Luan answered in a dreamy voice.
"OMG, that's totes adorable!" Leni squealed.
The Loud house came into view in the windshield. The van came to a stop and Leni, Luna and Luan walked out and into the house. Their parents were still at work, Lori needed to pick up Lily from preschool and the elementary and middle school buses had yet to reach Franklin avenue, so the three of them had the house to themselves.
Leni went to her room to create some new fashion masterpiece to sell at Rangers and Luna went to the garage to play some rock and roll. Luan sat on the couch, flipping through the channels on the TV. She was searching for either Dreamboat or Dessert Storm. She, however, came across the channel that The day with Dreyfus usually aired, so she stopped and waited to see if it would appear.
She wasn't disappointed. After some commercials, The day with Dreyfus started. The screen showed a room with a couch to the left, a plush seat in the middle and a mahogany desk with a leather office chair behind it.
Sitting at the desk was Julia Dreyfus herself. She was wearing a black yet shimmering dress that resembled stars in the night sky, which matched perfectly with her blond curls reaching down to her neck. In the middle seat was Brad Raine, another notable actor, who was wearing a snow white tuxedo with a rose in the breast pocket. Sitting at the couch was Stanly Bryant, a film director with outstanding talent, famous for his ability for practical special effects, who wore a charcoal colored business suit.
The former two were listening to a bicycle joke Stanly was telling them.
"And I'm just watching them when he says, 'Look ma! No brains!'"
The audience laughed at this, with the host and Brad chuckling. Luan laughed at this too and made herself comfy. After the laughter died down, Dreyfus started a new conversation.
"You know what the key to making jokes is?"
"I don't know," said Brad.
"What is it?" asked Stanly.
"The key is not making a joke out of the joke you're saying. However, this young lady has yet to learn that."
The feed suddenly switched to a recorded video. Luan froze, the smile that had been on her face gone in an instant. On screen was a video she had posted on Luan out Loud. There she was, standing on her stage in her room, with the mic in her right hand. She cleared her throat and began to talk.
"I saw an advertisement on a lamp post the other day, saying that someone was interested in selling a TV for a dollar. The only catch was that the TV was stuck on maximum volume. And I said, 'I can't turn that down!'"
The feed suddenly switched back to the studio, showing all three of them just staring at the TV.
"Well," Dreyfus started, breaking the silence, "I could." The audience roared with laughter.
Luan sat there, still frozen, watching herself get humiliated on live television.
"Hey, roll one more clip," Dreyfus said, turning to someone offscreen. Again a video began to play, another clip from Luan out Loud, this one a collaboration she did with Benny. On screen was Mr. Coconuts, Mrs. Appleblossom and the strings that moved them.
"I'm hungry," said in her British accent.
"Me too," said Mr. Coconuts.
"Why don't we make some food?" asked Mrs. Appleblossom.
"Beef stroganoff!"
"May I ask why?"
"I can't get Anoff of it!"
Again the feed cut back to the studio, which was silent.
"You know," Brad said, leaning forward. "I believe that joke was more wooden than those puppets!" The audience again roared at this. Luan's hands were trembling so much she couldn't hit the power button.
"I couldn't agree mo-," Dreyfus was saying when Luan finally turned the TV off.
Luan sat and thought about what the hell had just happened. Her star, the idol she had looked up to, had mocked her comedy for the whole world to see. She began to comprehend the sheer magnitude of it. Luan's platform, Luan out Loud, had 50,000 followers. That broadcast had easily 50 million viewers, and she was damned sure that someone from high school saw it. It was one thing to be humiliated by peers, but another to be mocked by celebrities. And to add insult to injury, Dreyfus was coming to her town.
Luan dropped the remote, stood straight up and walked to her room. Her torment at school now would continue well into the next month now.
Luan threw open the door of her room. She walked to the comedy stage and kicked the mic stand down in anger before trudging over to her bed. She sat there, trying to deal with the anger and sadness.
Later at 7:45, Luan was standing in front of the mirror in her room. She was wearing a black beret, horizontally striped black and white socks and shirt, black shoes, eyeliner and white gloves. She was mentally debating whether to wear a yellow or pink scarf.
"School's going to be rough," Luan thought to herself, "But I can at least salvage tonight with Benny."
Luan decided to wear the yellow scarf and walked over to the vanity. On it was a bundle of paper with roses on the inside. Lola, bless her heart, had picked them for her after hearing Luan was going on a date. The only problem was that the roses in question had been picked from Mr. Grouse's front yard. The old geezer should be asleep by now, but Luan was going to go the roundabout way, to be safe rather than sorry.
Luan grabbed the roses and started to walk out of the room when she paused. She looked at the open closet and saw the prank box laying on the floor. She had a gut instinct, a feeling to bring, as if a soft voice were whispering it into her ear. She opened the box and uncovered the gun. The dying light from the sun cast a soft glow on the metal through the window.
Checking to make sure that the safety was on, she placed it in her pocket in such a way so that it couldn't disengage on its own. In her pocket with the folds of the skirt covering it, no one could see it.
She opened the door to her room and walked downstairs
"I'm going now," she called out as she opened the door.
"Be back by nine!" Luan heard Mom say as she shut the door. She walked to the sidewalk and took a right turn, on her way to the park.
I hope you all enjoyed reading! I will be back soon with Chapter 6 of Actor. Comments are really appreciated.
