Chapter 44
It was around 7:00 p.m. The sun had set a few hours ago and the darkness of night had once again cast its shadow over Rathink Court. It was a little shy of twelve hours since the blowup in the halls of Peach Creek Junior High, and the negative vibes caused by the intense emotions were still felt throughout the neighborhood.
Ed had just exited his house through his basement window, and was currently on his way to Double Dee's residence. Ed had already made a stop at Double Dees house earlier after his fight with Eddy and had attempted to reach Double Dee by entering his room through the window. The attempt was to no avail as Ed had climbed his drain pipe to find the window locked, and the blinds shut. His attempt to gain Double Dees attention by knocking on the front door was futile.
After a few unanswered telephone calls to Double Dees house, Ed had spent the last few hours sulking in his room, upset at the circumstances he was faced with. He loved Double Dee and Eddy, they were like brothers, two of the best brothers that he had never had. He couldn't believe that he had just had to make the difficult decision to choose between his two best friends. Nevertheless, even though Ed wasn't the best when it came to situations like this, he knew that Double Dee needed him, and that there was no excuse for Eddy's cruelty towards Double Dee and Marie.
Ed walked up the gravel path to Double Dee's house, stopping in front of the large brown door. He pushed the illuminated door bell button, causing the sound of the chimes to resonate from within the two story colonial styled home.
It had been a few seconds since the sound of the door chime had ceased and Double Dee had still not opened the door. Ed was upset, and was about to turn around and head back home, when he heard the sound of the doorknob turning. The door began opening while emitting a short squeaky sound, at which point, an extremely tired Double Dee emerged from behind the door.
The two boys stared at each other for a few seconds. Suddenly, Ed's lower lip shook and he began whimpering.
"DOUBLE DEE!" yelled Ed as he ran into his friends arms and gave him a gigantic bear hug. Double Dee was quite surprised as he was not prepared to be lifted off of the ground in such a tight squeeze. "I'm so sorry Double Dee, can you ever forgive me, you are my best friend in the whole wide world!" yelled Ed, "I didn't want this to happen, and now we are all not friends anymore. We were like the three amigos, three peas in a shoe, mashed potatos with three spoons of gravy!"
Double Dee stared at his highly upset friend, who was kneeling on the ground with his hands buried in his face. Double Dee placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, who looked up into his eyes.
"Ed, I have absolutely no qualms with you whatsoever," said Double Dee .
Ed's mood seemed to brighten up as Double Dee invited him into his house. Ed sat down on the living room couch, still appearing slightly upset, as Double Dee joined him.
"I know it was Eddy who was responsible for the events that transpired this morning at school." said Double Dee, "And quite frankly I am absolutely furious with him. I cannot even think straight!"
Double Dee turned to Ed quickly and put both of his hands on his shoulders.
"What has become of this world!" yelled Double Dee. Ed had no idea what to do and watched as his good friend literally cried on his shoulder.
"Why Ed?" asked Double Dee, "Why did this have to happen?"
"There there Double Dee." said Ed in his dopey sounding voice, "Everything is going to be okay."
"How can you possibly think that everything is going to be alright?" asked Double Dee, "There will never be another degree of normalcy in this cul-de-sac!"
Double Dee paused. Ed was trying as hard as he could to ease Double Dee's emotional pain, and he was frustrated that he couldn't find the right words to be able to do so.
"I have lost the love of the most beautiful, thoughtful and kind hearted young woman in existence." said Double Dee, "And to make matters worse, she will probably never even speak to me again after the circumstances we were forced to deal with. And now I know that I cannot even trust someone who I have always viewed as my best friend."
Double Dee once again buried his face into his hands. Poor Ed couldn't help but feel extremely saddened by Double Dee's display of emotions. Double Dee had really liked Marie, and Ed felt extremely sorry for his friend.
Double Dee looked took his face out of his hands.
"I apologize for shouting Ed," said Double Dee, "I just can't believe that Eddy could have been so heartless. Marie was extremely sensitive about her condition, and Eddy had no right to poke fun at her with his immature antics."
Ed placed his hand on Double Dee's shoulder, while he smiled.
"Double Dee, I am your best pal!" yelled Ed, "And I'm gonna help you win her back as best as I can, if my name isn't Marvin K. Mooney."
Double Dee smiled up at his friend. Ed's idiosyncrasies had just managed to allow him to somehow blend a sentence of his own creation, a common idiom, and a Dr. Seuss character to create his previous statement. The two friends looked at each other and managed to share a chuckle. Double Dee no longer felt alone in this matter right now, and at least knew that he had had Ed's loyalty and trust with him.
Around the same time that Ed had arrived at Double Dees front door, May and Lee were making a special trip of their very own to Eddy's house. The girls snuck into his backyard quietly by hoping over the fence and proceeded to walk towards Eddy's large bedroom window.
"Are ya sure he's gonna be here Lee?" asked May.
"He better be, cause I'm ready to give the shrimp a piece of my mind!" yelled Lee.
The girls peered into Eddy's bedroom. Eddy had left the lights on, and they could clearly see everything in his room. Eddy was nowhere to be found.
"He's not here Lee," said May.
"No shit Sherlock!" said Lee as she walked over to the door to Eddy's room. Lee tugged on the handle, and to her surprise, the door unlatched relatively easy.
"It's open." said Lee, "Looks like that little sneaky stud forgot to lockup before he left."
Lee grinned and chuckled before she opened the door completely.
"Come on, let's see what he's got that we can use against him." said Lee.
May followed her sister into Eddy's room. The room was of a decent size; the walls were painted a bright shade of magenta, and the floor was lined with a white shag carpet. The white ceiling contained recessed spotlights that pointed toward a mirror ball hanging in the center of the room. His king sized circular bed was adorned with purple sheets, and his lava lamp sat on a nightstand located directly next to it. On the other side of the bed was a circular fireplace, which seemed to date to the 70's. Across from his bed next to the entrance of his closet, his record player sat on top of his large dresser. The overall feel of the room screamed 1970's.
Although the girls had been in the room before, this was the first time that they were able to take a good look at their surroundings.
"Geez, who does this guy think he is Austin Powers?" asked Lee as she and May chuckled, "Come on May, let's start snoopin." said Lee as she began going through Eddy's dresser.
May made her way through the piles of Eddy's clothes that were situated all throughout the room. She approached his nightstand and opened the top drawer. Inside the drawer was a pile of magazines, the first of which had its cover ripped off. At first glance the lengthy article that was on the first page hinted that it was an ordinary run of the mill magazine.
"What are these?" asked May as she picked up the first magazine.
Lee walked over to her sister, staring at the first page of the magazine. May used both of her hands to open it to a random page; needless to say she was surprised by an extremely graphic photograph of an unclothed female in a suggestive position.
"EWWWWW!" yelled May as she dropped the magazine on the floor.
Lee picked up the magazine and scanned through it, before turning her attention to the rest of the magazines that were stored in the drawer. The rest of the books did in fact have covers, which depicted females who were at least covering small portions of their skin.
"This guy really needs to get laid," said Lee who, despite her dirty mind, was extremely surprised with the amount of explicit material that she had found in Eddy's room, "If he wants it so bad, why didn't he just come to me, I could handle him way better than any of these girls could!"
Lee laughed heavily before picking up the whole pile of magazines.
"Here May, take these!" yelled Lee.
"Gross!" yelled May, "I'm not touching these, why do ya even want these anyway!"
Lee grinned at her sister.
"These magazines are obviously important to him if he has so many of them." said Lee, "If they managed to get lost, or let's say fell into the hands of his parents, the little shrimp would be devastated!"
Lee winked at May while she chuckled. May grinned back at her.
"Alright, but you're carrying them!" yelled May, "Who knows where these things have been!"
The girls placed the magazines down on the bed, and continued their search. Lee was sure to listen for the sound of footsteps in the hallway as they did so for Eddy's parents were in the house.
"Hey May, let's check in here!" said Lee as she walked over to Eddy's closet.
Lee quickly flung open the shudder-like doors that led into Eddy's large walk-in closet. May followed her in as they searched through all of Eddy s clothes.
"What the hell, this guy's got more clothes than us and we're girls!" said Lee as she laughed.
"And look, he's even got a pair of high heels!" yelled May.
Eddy in fact did have a pair of high heeled shoes in his closet. They were his mothers, yet somehow managed to end up in his closet by mistake. May picked the pair of shoes up off of the floor.
"Hey, these are pretty nice shoes!" she said as she examined them, "I might take these home for myself!"
The girls snickered, at which point Lee laid her eyes on a series of small brown boxes located on one of the shelves in Eddy's closet. Lee grabbed the three brown boxes off of the shelf and examined each of them one by one. The boxes were quite dusty and after a quick puff to blow some of the dust away, Lee was able to read their labels. "What have we here?" said Lee, as she grinned slyly.
May walked over to her sister and stared at the boxes.
"Let's check it out." said May as the girls walked back out into Eddy's room. They placed the stack of boxes on Eddy's bed, and sat down to begin going through them. The three boxes were labeled as follows: "Edward", "Matthew", and "Family". The first two boxes undoubtedly contained photographs of the two McGee children as little boys; the last would contain photographs of the McGee family together.
"I think we hit the jackpot May!" said Lee as she took the lid off of the box labeled "Family"
The girls passed over a few photographs before they found a picture of the entire McGee family sitting on their living room couch. Young Eddy appeared to be around 5 years old, and was wearing a three piece suit. His hair was extremely long, and although it had somehow thinned out over the years, his hair was quite thick in the picture. He was sitting on a rather big boned woman's lap, who had short brown hair, and was smiling along with her youngest son. To her left was a rather large man, who appeared to have been at one point muscular, but let himself go and became overweight. Although the man had his arm around his wife, his face appeared extremely stern. The man's other arm was placed around the shoulder of a teenager who appeared to be around 16 years of age. The teenager greatly resembled Eddy, and appeared to be utterly miserable as if he wanted nothing to do with his family. He was dressed in all black, and wore a black ski hat. His lips and eyebrows were covered in various piercings, which had since been taken out.
Lee and May could care less about seeing the whole McGee family; their attention was on young Eddy and how much he looked like a little girl. The two girls cracked up.
"Oh my God!" said Lee as she laughed.
"Eddy's got longer hair than me!" yelled May.
The girls laughed some more before Lee confiscated the photograph.
"This is a keeper!" said Lee as she placed the photograph down her shirt, where she stored many things for safe keeping. She glanced over at her sister, before returning to searching through the boxes.
"Eddy likes using embarrassing pictures to hurt Marie's feelings?" said Lee, "Let's see how he likes it!"
"Right on Lee!" said May as she smiled.
Lee closed the "Family" box, finding nothing more of interest. She picked up the box labeled "Little Eddy". The girls went through the box, finding various pictures of an infant Eddy, as well as pictures of him as a toddler. None of the pictures were particularly embarrassing, and the girls were just about to give up until May stumbled on a highly unusual photograph. She began cracking up.
"What's so funny?" asked Lee, "Did ya get something!"
May laughed in a very adenoidal tone as she handed the picture to Lee. At the moment Lee laid eyes on the photograph, she began cracking up herself.
"Wow!" said Lee, "Whoever took this got him where the sun don't shine!" Lee comment caused even more laughter from the two girls. Eventually, they calmed down, and Lee returned the boxes back to their proper area within Eddy's closet. She kept the photo of Eddy and stored it in a similar fashion to the previous picture she had found.
"I think we got enough!" said Lee, "Let's get outta here May."
As promised, Lee picked up the "girly" magazines from Eddy's bed and led her sister out of his room and into his back yard.
"Now we just gotta find the little shrimp." said Lee as she snickered, "I got some important things I gotta discuss with him."
"How are we gonna find him Lee?" asked May, "He could be anywhere!"
"It's easy," said Lee as she put her arm around her sister, "We'll just ask!"
May stood confused as Lee set the magazines she was holding down in a safe haven behind the bushes that sat next to the wooden fence that separated Eddy and Kevin's yards. Lee led May around to the front of Eddy's house and up the stone path to his front door.
"Now just play along!" said Lee.
Lee pushed the button next to the door, causing an audible "Ding Dong" sound to resonate from within the McGee residence. After a few moments, the door flung open. Standing behind it was the same large man that the girls had seen in the photograph. He was quite tall, around 6'5". His face contained the same protruding chin and pointy nose that he had undoubtedly passed on to both of his sons. In addition, he also seemed to be the parent who his boys inherited their stringy black hair from. He stared at Lee and May with a stern look on his face.
"Excuse me Mr. McGee." said Lee in a calm, sweet sounding voice completely uncharacteristic of her, "We are sorry to bother you, but we were just wondering if you knew where Eddy was."
Eddy's father stared at the two girls for a few seconds before he breathed a sigh of relief, after which he looked towards the ceiling and made the comment, "Thank you Lord."
He was in fact relieved that two girls were at the door looking for his son, as he was beginning to think that Eddy was gay, something that Eddy's old school, conservative and domineering father would absolutely not tolerate in his house. He yelled into the house to ask his wife where Eddy was, with a deep powerful voice.
"Now I know where Eddy get's that big mouth from." whispered Lee to May as he conversed with his wife.
Eddy's mother had sent Eddy to the deli in the business district to pick up sandwiches for dinner and expected him back shortly.
"Thank you so much Mr. McGee," said Lee in her sweet voice as Mr. McGee began to close the door to his house. The girls began walking down the path.
"Lee you are one sneaky bitch." said May jokingly.
"Save the complements for later May!" said Lee as she playfully punched her sister in the arm.
As the girls made their way back to grab the magazines while sharing laughs, Lee heard voices coming from behind her.
"Get down!" said Lee, "Someone's coming."
The voices the girls heard were in fact Ed and Double Dee exchanging goodbyes for the night. After a few moments, Ed passed by the bush that the girls were hiding in.
"Look May," said Lee, "It's your man."
"I know," said May, "Isn't he handsome."
Lee glanced at her sister, and noticed for the first time a certain look in her eyes as she watched Ed walk past their position towards his house. Lee had seen that wide eyed look before on Marie's face whenever she talked about Double Dee. Lee couldn't help but crack a smile, as at that moment she had discovered May's little secret.
As May was drooling over her crush, Lee came up with a course of action that would benefit herself, May and Marie all at the same time.
"Hey May," said Lee.
May continued staring at Ed as he approached his front lawn.
"Yo May!" said Lee as she gently punched her in the shoulder.
"What's up?" asked a slightly confused May.
"I got a little plan that I think will satisfy all of us." said Lee, "I'm gonna go wait in the lane for our little friend to come home from his night out on the town. When he walks by, I'm gonna grab him and we're gonna sit down for a nice long chat." Lee chuckled as she moved closer to her sister.
"Now here's what you're gonna do." said Lee, "We saw earlier today and just now that Big Ed is on Double Dee's side with this one. While I work with Eddy, I want you to go over to his house and have a little talk with the big guy about the way he feels about this whole thing."
Lee paused.
"Here's how it's gonna work out. I'll handle things on Marie's end and "politely convince" Eddy to join the fight. While I'm doing that, you two are gonna work on Double Dee."
May was surprised that Lee had 'assigned' her to work with Ed. She was very nervous about approaching Ed about this whole matter, although she had longed to speak to him on good terms.
"But Lee, why can't I work with you on Eddy!" yelled May, "I wanna teach him a lesson too."
Lee put her arm on May's shoulder while grinning into her face.
"Trust me May," said Lee, "I think you'll be much happier being partnered with Ed!"
Lee winked at May, who sat speechless. She had no problem with Lee knowing that she harbored an intense genuine crush on Ed, but she had no idea it would be so easy for Lee to figure it out. May questioned Lee's realization.
"But how did you fin…"
"Don't worry about the details!" yelled Lee, cutting her sister off.
Both girls smiled at each other before Lee broke the silence.
"Alright, let's go!" said Lee as she got up off of the ground, "We got work to do!"
The sisters shared a hug as they split up to carry out their respective duties. As May marched towards Ed's front door, Lee picked up Eddy's stash of magazines and proceeded to the dark alleyway, where she would wait to carry out her plan. Eddy had absolutely no idea what he was in for.