Hi, guys, here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy reading.

Chapter 17

A month later, and they were all back in Texas for the National Diamonds and Pearls Pageant. They were in Sheila's hotel room, where Janet was filming Tony applying Kyle's makeup. Janet silently gestured for the camera to zoom in on Kyle's face, almost a profile, to see the process; powder, blusher to give him some colour, concealer to cover his under eye circles, eye-liner, mascara, and lip balm.

They continued to film as Kyle cringed and grimaced as Tony applied the eyeliner. The film crew noticed that Kyle seemed to have lost what little pep he had when they had met him, and now there was almost nothing left behind his hollow gaze.

"And does he wear this for every pageant?" asked Janet.

"Yes, he does," said Sheila, leaning forward and giving Kyle 'the look', the one that told him to keep still. Kyle, for the most part, stopped fidgeting, but continued to lean away from the dreaded eyeliner pen. "We have to do Kyle's eye makeup first," Sheila tried not to laugh, "because it's so hard to keep him still, and we don't wanna ruin the rest of his makeup."

"Well, I don't like it. I hate wearing it," interjected Kyle an uncharacteristically empty look on his face.

"You should be used to it by now," Sheila told him, "so you need to stop making such a fuss over everything."

"I'm not making a fuss; I'm stating a fact."

"Well, you don't need to keep stating it over and over again, do you? You wear makeup for competitions, end of story."

"I don't want to wear it any more," said Kyle. He felt a mixture of adrenaline and nerves from denying his mother so publicly, though it did not show in his flat voice.

"It doesn't matter what you want; you're not competing without it, you'll lose."

Kyle didn't respond to that, and only looked down at the floor, his face and eyes expressionless.

Once they were finished, Tony removed the white sheet and Kyle stood and left the room. The first category that day was the interview, and he was wearing the official pageant T-shirt, and black jeans. Kyle walked down the hallway, with Tony and Sheila following him, painfully aware of the camera that was in front of him, just off to the side.

"What's your favourite colour?" asked Sheila, as he marched through the hall, looking down slightly.

"Green," he answered dutifully, staring at the floor, hoping that a headache would not come his way. He couldn't deal with that now.

"If you went to the moon, who would you take with you?"

"My little brother, because he's too small to go by himself."

"If you could be anyone in the world, who would you be?"

"Myself, so I can obtain my goals."

Throughout the entire trip down to the ballroom, Sheila kept the questions coming thick and fast, wanting him to be prepared for anything, and Kyle kept answering in a monotone, his face blank.

~ X ~

This competition went a lot better than the last one; Kyle was "back on form", as Sheila had said. Janet was pleased as she was getting some great footage of him here. She knew he was reluctant to be filmed, so her best shots were of him practising, performing, and zooming in with a long lens from far away when he didn't know he was being filmed.

At this particular pageant, she had footage of him sitting in the ballroom, watching the other contestants. He mostly looked bored, but he also looked lonely, stressed, annoyed, tired. She got a great shot of him sitting in the ballroom, crossing his arms and scowling angrily.

Janet and her crew headed backstage with Sheila and Kyle; they were lining up for the Beauty category, and Sheila was talking to Kyle.

"Right, let me see your smile," said Sheila, and Kyle turned to face her with his 'pageant smile'. "Good; it's gotta stay that way the whole time, okay?"

"I know," he said through gritted teeth. "You don't have to keep telling me!"

"Hey! You watch your attitude, mister!"

Kyle turned away from her, and the camera caught his annoyed face. Sheila left to go and watch, and Janet stayed. She captured Kyle behind the curtain, waiting for his name to be called. He was scowling, and the moment his name was called, he instantly switched on his pageant smile, and stepped out on stage.

~ X ~

Throughout the competition, the more miserable Kyle looked, the more Janet filmed him. She was certain she could use footage from this one pageant for her entire documentary if she wanted. When she'd started filming the Broflovskis', she had decided not to use any kind of narration, and her only spoken words would be the few short interviews. Now she knew that she had made the right choice; Kyle's face said more than words ever could.

At that moment, she was standing next to George, who had the camera pointing at Kyle. He was standing at the side of the stage, waiting to go on for Talent. He was watching another boy, whom Sheila said was his main competition, with an apprehensive, yet intent stare.

However, Janet wanted to capture some of the lighter moments as well; since Kyle looked the happiest when playing with his friends, she made sure to get it on film. She recorded him and Jake laughing together in between categories, telling jokes, and playing with toy cars. She captured Brianna holding his hand and hugging him, and Kyle teaching her how to do his basketball tricks. There was Brianna attempting to put some sparkly barrettes in Kyle's hair, Kyle smiling as he watched her dance, and Brianna cheering as she watched him perform.

The kids had so much pent up energy due to having to sit still for a large portion of the day, so whenever they had a chance, they would run through the hotel, playing, and letting off steam. Sheila wasn't too happy about it, but she thought it was good for Kyle to keep active. She had one rule; he was not allowed to mess up his hair or makeup. After competition, and after crowning, he was allowed to run around as much as he wanted.

Of course, Janet knew that no pageant documentary would be complete without footage of the overbearing stage mother. The interviews had been great, but she needed some candid stuff, like her talking to her son before he went on stage, sitting with the other pageant mothers, and organising all of Kyle's costumes and photos.

Whenever Kyle was stage, she stood right behind the judges table, watching him like a hawk, gesturing when he needed to lift his chin, to open his eyes a bit more, to look at the judges, and she would check her watch to make sure he wasn't going over the time limit.

But again, she didn't want to appear biased, so she managed to get footage of Sheila smiling and nodding in approval, and also of her clapping and cheering for him.

"You know, I think we got something great," she said to Tom and George while Sheila was watching Kyle on stage. They were standing off to the side of the room, Janet had her back resting against the wall, and they alternated between watching Sheila and watching Kyle.

"I think so, too," said George. "We've struck gold here."

"I mean, I don't want to brag, but I think we could even win an Emmy for this," Janet said.

"We might," Tom nodded. "So, how long are we gonna continue filming them for?"

"I don't know," Janet tilted her head. "We've got a lot; enough for a whole doc already. But this kid does nothing but compete, and I really want the viewers to understand that. He'll be twelve in a few months, so he's been doing this for years. I've already got an idea for a montage where we show all the different pageants and the States, just to get across how far these guys travel. That's what I want."

"Nice," said Tom. "Great idea. That will work nicely."

"I just – I really just want to avoid all that crazy editing and controversial stuff, and just show them for who they really are, you know?" said Janet. "So, I wanna get more footage of them, especially outside of the competitions."

~ X ~

When Kyle returned to school the following week, he was accompanied by Janet, Tom, and George. Not in the sense that they walked into the building with him, but they were in the classroom.

Naturally, all the kids were curious and excited to see the cameras.

"What's it for?" asked Bebe, as she and her friends gathered around it.

"We're shooting a documentary about school kids," Janet told her, "so we want you to act natural. Just pretend that we aren't here."

"Why did you choose us?" asked Wendy. "There must have been tonnes of great school in the city you could have picked."

"We want to show real kids, and how they really act," said Janet, and Wendy nodded and smiled, determined to be on her best behaviour. This could be a great opportunity to show people that those from small 'red-neck' towns were hard working and intelligent, and not walking stereotypes.

Many of them didn't act natural, sneaking glances at the camera every so often, smiling and waving, but Janet expected that, and she doubted that she would use this footage anyway. In fact, the only person who ignored the camera, apart from Wendy, was Kyle.

On the playground, Janet and her crew tried to remain inconspicuous, as they filmed Kyle, who looked more relaxed than he had been for ages. He was standing with Stan near the back of the playground, the two of them deep in conversation. Stan, remembering how upset Kyle had been at being left out, was filling in his friend on everything he had missed. It wasn't much; school was school after all, but Stan was doing his best to be a good friend.

"Hey, fairy boy," said Craig loudly as he walked past them, loud enough for the boom mic to pick up. Kyle's jaw dropped, but Craig had already gone.

"How you doing today, princess?" Clyde yelled from the bench, and his friends laughed. Kyle felt his cheeks burning.

"Just ignore it, dude," said Stan, gently nudging Kyle to get his attention. "They're just doing it because of that camera."

"Yeah, I know," said Kyle, shaking his head slightly. It was hard to resume the conversation when the boys were constantly shouting insults at him. The fact that all of it was being filmed just made it extra humiliating.

But just when Kyle thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

Eric Cartman. It was impossible to not see that fat lump of hatred anyway, but that particular day, he was marching back and forth, holding his iPad above his head. Upon closer inspection, he was showing everyone pictures of Kyle during his competitions.

"Kahl Broflovski does pageants! Kahl Broflovski, South Park's Miss America!" he yelled, making sure to turn the iPad towards the camera. "Our very own little ginger, Jewish, Jersey, diabetic pageant princess!" He, apparently, thought this was hilarious, as he began cackling loudly.

"Shut the fuck up, Cartman!" Kyle had stepped forward and was now a few feet in front of him. Cartman stopped laughing and straightened up. The other kids began to gather round, and Stan stood behind Kyle.

"Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do?" he asked, a malicious glint in his eye. "I'll put you in the hospital!"

"Yeah, right, you can't even put your coat on properly." Kyle pointed to Cartman's mismatched buttons.

"Well, you would know, Coco Chanel!"

"Good one, Eric!" Butters called from the side, and Kyle glared at him. The other kids were laughing, and he looked at Cartman once again.

"Seriously, shut your fat, fucking mouth, or I'm gonna shut it for you!" At this point, he did not care about the camera that he knew was filming.

"Bring it on, bitch-boy!" Cartman removed his jacket, panting, and held up his fists. "Let's go right now, come on! Come on!"

Kyle did not hesitate. With a scream of rage, he charged at Cartman, easily knocking him off his feet. The other kids jumped and cheered in sheer delight as Kyle punched and kicked Cartman repeatedly.

Cartman managed to get a few flabby punches in, but he was no match for an angry Kyle. When was he ever? "Kahl?! Kahl, enough! Stop!" he yelled, shielding his face, but Kyle didn't listen, and continued to punch him.

Kicking his legs, Cartman was able to scramble out of reach, but in a flash, Kyle was kneeling over him, and he continued to punch Cartman over and over again, the both of them cursing and grunting in anger.

Stan ran forward and dragged Kyle away, if only to prevent his friend from getting into more trouble.

Breathing heavily, Kyle wiped his sweaty face, and turned to the crowd.

"If you bastards don't cut it out, I swear I will kick your asses!" he promised, before he headed inside with Stan.

Now that the fun was other, the other kids slowly headed back to their games. Butters helped a whimpering, bruised and bleeding Cartman sit up, and escorted him to the nurse's office.

Still filming, Tom, George, and Janet silently glanced at one another, each knowing what the other two were thinking; that was definitely going in the documentary.

~ X ~

I know this was shorter than usual, but I hope you liked it. Kyle losing his dog hasreally affected him, hasn't it?

What did you think? I'd love to know!