Sally looked almost in hysterics as she was sprinting back home. She paid no attention to her surroundings and even crossed streets without watching for traffic. Fortunately though, she still managed to make it back safely. Though given how she felt right now, if someone were to tell her that she could've been hit by a car, she might have responded that she didn't care.
All Sally wanted right now was to basically disappear from existence.
Back at the house, Charlie Brown was putting on his jacket, just about ready to go and meet up with Schroeder. Just as he was zipping up his coat though, the front door slammed open. The sound was so loud that it made Charlie Brown jump a couple of inches. But by the time Charlie Brown had regained his senses, the person who had come in the door was already out of sight. He only knew who had shown up when he heard a door slam shut, also at an extraordinary high volume that made him flinch.
Oh boy.
For the next minute or so, Charlie Brown weighed the decision as to whether he should go see what was up, or if he should wait it out and check on her later. He decided on the latter, as he concluded that Sally was probably just really mad about something. If that were the case, she would have cooled off for the most part by the time he got back.
With that said, Charlie Brown proceeded forth with his plans for the afternoon.
As Charlie Brown was on his way to Schroeder's house, he saw Linus and Janice walking on the other sidewalk. He waved at them both, but both their responses seemed off for some reason. Janice's wave back felt lackluster and awkward, and Linus hardly acknowledged him at all, almost as though he was trying to avoid Charlie Brown.
Huh. That was a little strange? Charlie Brown thought as he watched them for several seconds.
This was quickly turning into a peculiar afternoon. First, Sally randomly bursts into the house and shuts herself in her room, and now Linus and Janice were acting strangely around him.
Fortunately though, the rest of the afternoon went by for Charlie Brown as he had expected it to. He spent a few hours doing different activities with Schroeder, including listening to the original music piece he was still working on. At about five o' clock, it was time to head back. Despite the odd things that had happened at the start of the afternoon, Charlie Brown had a pretty decent day.
The same could not be said for Sally though. Despite Charlie Brown's belief, Sally's emotions did not subside. She had kept herself locked up in her room all day, lying face down in her bed and bawling into her pillow. She was not willing to talk to anyone, including her mother, despite her mother trying multiple times to connect with her. She never wanted to leave the house again. How could life do this to her? It was the most unfair thing in the world to ever happen to her!
As Charlie Brown arrived back home, he could immediately detect the scent of dinner being prepared. It smelled to him like their mother was making Sally's favorite dinner tonight. Speaking of Sally, Charlie Brown glanced over towards the television. To his surprise, Sally was not sitting in the beanbag watching TV like she often did at this hour. Sally couldn't still be hiding up in her bedroom right now, would she?
He then heard the call of his mother telling him that dinner would be ready momentarily and to tell him to go and fetch Sally. Or rather, she said at least try to get Sally to come out for dinner, informing her that she was making her favorite food.
Becoming worried at this point as to what was up, Charlie Brown proceeded to find his little sister. He arrived at her bedroom door, which was shut tight. He gave a knock.
"Sally?" he asked.
There was no answer.
"Mom said to come out for dinner," Charlie Brown told her.
"I'm not hungry," Sally retorted from inside, her voice sounding very flat and monotonous.
Then, their mother's voice rang from the kitchen. "Sally, I know you're upset about something, but please at least come out for dinner. I made your favorite. You can even go right back up to your room after you're done if you want."
Charlie Brown heard a muffled groan. But a short time later, the door to the bedroom slowly crept open. There Sally stood, looking like an absolute disheveled mess. Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked to be in an almost zombie-like state.
"Good grief, Sally. What's up with you?" Charlie Brown asked her.
Sally didn't reply as she dragged herself out of the room and in the direction of the kitchen.
The atmosphere at dinner was unusually silent and awkward. Sally barely ate anything, mostly just poking at her food, while both Charlie Brown and their mother kept shooting glances at each other, as though expecting the other to say something. After a slow-moving forty-five minutes, and only having eaten half of her dinner, Sally had been excused, to which she stubbornly dragged herself back to her room.
Charlie Brown was at a loss as to what to do. Just what could have happened that put his sister into such a depressive state?
The mood at the Brown house did not change much over the remainder of the weekend. Sally continued to spend most of her time in her room, only coming out for meals, to use the bathroom, and at one instance, to watch television. She kept completely to herself, not wanting to socialize with anyone, and not willing to open up to anyone about what was bothering her.
Finally, Monday came and Linus and Lucy were at their stop, about to board the bus for school. Today, Linus had his blanket held tightly in his hand. Once he had calmed down from his anger at Sally on Saturday, his feelings shifted to dread about school on Monday.
He was not afraid because he was expecting something bad to happen at school, but rather, he was afraid to face Charlie Brown again after what he had done to his sister. He was sure that his life was about to end today. He was sure that Charlie Brown would have his head on a platter the moment he saw him. Silently, Linus was praying that the bus would for some reason not show up today, or that maybe Charlie Brown would be out sick today.
But his prayers were not answered as he saw the familiar yellow vehicle slowly approach their stop. Linus gave a heavy sigh.
Lucy took notice and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Linus, give it up with this nervousness of yours. Charlie Brown isn't going to kill you."
"How do you know?" Linus asked. "If someone had done to me what I had done to Sally, what would you have done?"
"You had to do it, Linus, otherwise she was never going to stop," Lucy retorted. "If you were on the other end of this rope, I would be understanding of the situation."
"So then, you wouldn't kill them?" Linus asked hopefully.
"Of course I would kill them!" Lucy almost shouted. "Nobody is allowed to crush my little brother like that... except me!"
Linus sighed again. "Thanks, Lucy."
The bus stopped at the Van Pelt bus stop and the door opened. Linus took a deep breath and clutched his blanket as he proceeded to board the bus. As he began making his way down the hall, he looked at Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown looked back at him, though to Linus' surprise, he didn't look angry at all upon seeing him. Instead, he looked curious.
Still though, Linus still was afraid and he found himself continuing on further down the lane. He came to stop at the same row that Mary and Heather were sitting in. Linus was relieved to see that the seat opposite to Heather and Mary was empty and he took his seat there.
"Hello, Linus," Heather said to him.
Although Heather and Mary smiled at him, the two of them were not completely able to mask their confusion.
"Hi, Heather. Hi, Mary," Linus greeted them. "You don't mind if I sit here with you guys today, do you?"
Mary looked at Heather with a raised eyebrow as Heather gave her answer.
"We don't mind at all," Heather replied. "But if I may ask, is everything alright? You always sit up near the front with Charlie Brown."
"Ye..." Linus began, but then stopped, realizing that there was no point in hiding anything. "Actually, no, not really. An altercation happened between me and Sally on Saturday, and with how I dealt with the situation, I fear that Charlie Brown wants to rip me a new one. And so, um... I'm... sort of trying to avoid him for right now."
"I see," Heather said, massaging her chin. "But you know, Linus, you're not going to be able to avoid Charlie Brown forever."
"Heather is right, Linus," Mary agreed. "Eventually, you're going to have to face Charlie Brown again. And I reckon that time will come sooner rather than later since he's a part of our group at lunch."
Linus nodded, knowing that the girls were right. "I understand."
"Just for clarification, Linus, does Charlie Brown actually know what happened between you and Sally?" Heather asked.
"To tell you the truth, I'm not completely certain," Linus replied.
"Well, if you're up for it, I have an idea," Heather told him. "At lunch, why don't we meet up in an area where it can just be the four of us: you, me, Mary, and Charlie Brown, and we can talk this situation out. I can say for a fact that Charlie Brown is not mad at you. Instead, he's wondering why you've been avoiding him. It makes him feel kind of sad to know that his best friend isn't acting normally around him."
"You really think so, Heather?" Linus asked.
Heather smiled and nodded. "I know so. He told me outright on the phone that he just wants to talk with you and find out everything that's been going on."
Upon taking in Heather's words, Linus felt the nervousness and stress slowly ebbing away. He smiled appreciatively at both Heather and Mary, once again thankful to them for being such good friends and sources of advice.
"Thank you girls," he said to them. "And I agree with your plan. I don't want things to get even messier than they already are."
And with that, the plan to meet in a secluded area during lunch period to talk things out was established.
A few hours later, it was lunchtime, and Charlie Brown, Linus, Heather, and Mary were congregating in an area not far from the cafeteria entrance. This meant that Schroeder and Janette were, for now, eating by themselves at the lunch table the group normally sat at.
"Okay," Mary said. "So, I think for the first order of business, if there are no objections, Linus should explain exactly what the current situation is so that everyone is on the same page as to where things stand."
Everyone nodded, and after taking a deep breath, Linus began to speak.
"Okay. Let's start from the beginning," he began. "So, on Saturday, Janice and I paid a visit to the park because Sally wanted to meet Janice there to tell her something."
Linus went on to explain everything in detail, from how the meeting at the park was Sally's latest attempt to coax Janice into cutting contact from Linus, to the major fallout between Sally and Linus that happened as a result of the whole mess, leading to Sally being in the depressed state she was in now. As he explained everything, Linus kept a close eye on Charlie Brown, praying to God that he wasn't going to lash out at him. In the end though, he seemed to be in the clear. Rather, Charlie Brown looked relieved as he came to finally understand what had been happening.
But that didn't stop Linus from apologizing though.
"I'm sorry, Charlie Brown. I'm sorry that Sally is in the state she is in now. It's my fault," he told him. "But it had to be done. While I may have gone to an extreme measure, I needed to drill it into Sally's head that she and I will not ever become a thing. I can't be her boyfriend, no matter how badly she wants me to."
"And nobody expects you to, Linus. That wouldn't be good for either of you," Heather said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Linus sighed. "So, Charlie Brown, can you ever forgive me for what I did to your sister?"
Charlie Brown didn't answer with words, but instead, by holding out his hand. Seeing the gesture, Linus smiled, seemingly feeling as though a visible weight was being lifted off his shoulders.
"We're good, Linus," Charlie Brown said.
And the two of them shook hands. Heather and Mary smiled fondly at both of them, happy that things worked out well and that their friendship was not seemingly in jeopardy anymore.
But although this issue had now been resolved, the thing to focus on now was going to be much more of challenge. And that was: what were they going to do about Sally? Currently, she remained practically without the will to live.
"So... about Sally," Charlie Brown began to say. "What are we going to do about her?"
Everyone went silent. Linus looked down at his feet wistfully, while Mary appeared to be thinking really hard about something.
"I feel a longing to do something for her, but I don't really know what I should be doing right now in regards to her," Linus said. "I really do want to at least be friends with Sally. I don't want to completely eliminate her from my life."
"I understand, Linus," Heather told him. "But for now, I think it would be best if you gave her some space."
"I may have an idea," Mary finally said after a short while. "Heather, do you remember soon after my tenth birthday, when my mom was going to have a baby?"
"Yeah, very much so," Heather replied, a small frown appearing on her face at the memory.
"But then, you know what happened, and she wound up no longer going to be having the baby. I too, was depressed for days-on-end because all I've wanted since I was about seven years old was to have a sibling," Mary continued. "But with what she and I finally did, I was able to begin to move on from it all and soon after I was feeling better."
"Oh yeah! I got to join you for the entire day," Heather added. "It was a major girls-day-out type of event. We had a lot of fun, and by the end of the day, you really felt like you were beginning to grow into a whole new person. You got a complete makeover and everything."
"Yep!" Mary said, smiling. "Anyway, I was thinking... what if you and I did something similar for Sally?"
"Oooh," Heather mused, bringing her hand to her chin.
"She's going to be eleven soon, right? And I hope I'm not crossing a line here by saying this," Mary said, glancing at Charlie Brown, "but Sally kind of still has the tendency to act and appear as a young child. I think the whole mess with Janice and her pendant is the most recent example of that."
"I see where you're going with this," Heather said, grinning. "So, you're suggesting that the two of us should take Sally out on a sort of "girls day out" event of her own. Perhaps maybe seeing about getting her a new hairdo and maybe even some new clothes? You know, go out and have a little fun with the big girls?"
Mary nodded. "Mm-hmm! I think this is the perfect opportunity to do such a thing. I believe Sally is in need of a fresh start, and I think this may be just the treatment the doctor is ordering right now.
"It sounds great, girls!" Linus said, smiling. And Charlie Brown nodded in agreement.
"The only question though is: when should we do this?" Heather asked.
"Well, I do believe that, given the current state of things, the sooner the better," Mary suggested. "You and I have nothing really going on after school today, since Schroeder cancelled today's club meeting... so we could do it after school today. We would just need to get Mrs. Brown's permission first. What do you think, Heather?"
"I don't have anything against that," Heather responded. "Charlie Brown, do you think your mom would mind if Mary and I did this?"
"I doubt it," Charlie Brown answered. "She has been trying to get Sally to get out of the house for a bit, so this would actually probably help that cause."
"Then it's decided!" Mary declared. "Right after school today, Heather and I will stop by your house to speak with your mom about this idea, and if she's on board, we will take Sally out for a few hours to Sparkyville Mall for some girl time."
"That sounds wonderful," Linus said, satisfied with the plan, to which the others nodded in agreement.
With everything now having been sorted out, and a plan having been set to start the healing process for Sally, the group made their way back into the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat before classes went back into session.
AN: And here we go. Tensions between everyone have cooled down, and Mary and Heather have something of a plan to hopefully help Sally begin to move on from Linus. This big Sally arc has just two chapters left, and by the end of it all, she will become like an entirely new person. Stay tuned!
Next Chapter: Chapter 27 - Fixing Up A Broken Babbooette Part 2