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HOT WIRES AND AWKWARD SITUATIONS Part 9 written by Little Horn and Flonnua7a
These characters are not mine. Nor do I claim them to be mine. Except the Kelleys of course. And if I catch anyone using my characters without my permission I will chop off their hands so they may write no more! Hahahaha!! Also, Yoda and Star Wars are probably property of George Lucas. I didn’t think them up. Nor do I claim to. I wish I had though. Cause then I'd be as rich as George Lucas. And that cannae be bad….
"A tremor in the pants… I haven’t felt this since the presence of my old master…"
Jubilee, Everett, Skin and Gloria sat tightly round the television watching Darth-Vader prance around on screen. Gloria gripped her copy of Empire tightly and kept looking feverently down at the page and pushing up her glasses. Jubilee yelped with excitement. Somehow, Gloria had officially been accepted by Jubilee, since she realised she was tolerable ever since they spent the day at the Mall. Gloria enjoyed having someone to talk Star-Wars and Quake with. And being accepted by Jubilee was as good as being accepted into their group.
"Argg!! Don’t go in the garbage shoot!! It’s just wrong!!"
Jubilee held up a small figure of Alec Guinness and waved it around madly. Gloria had the Yoda puppet on one hand.
"Use the force!! Just use the goddamn force!!"
Gloria looked down at her magazine again and smiled evilly.
"I told you that the ‘Ten-things in Star-Wars that are funny when you add ‘pants’’ would be useful if you kept it around………"
"How about the Star-Wars euphemisms…"
Skin looked over her shoulder.
"Polishing Vader’s helmet.."
Gloria and Jubilee erupted in snickers. Monet looked at them disdainfully over the top of the book she was reading.
"Will you children be quiet? Some of us want to pursue tranquil activities."
Angelo looked round at her and snorted, along with Gloria.
"C’mon Monet, don’t tell me you never saw Star-Wars when you were little?"
Monet looked actually offended. She creased her forehead.
"No. I was too busy studying."
Jubilee pointed at the screen and hoped around again.
"Aaaahhhhhhhhh!! Ben’s gonna die!!"
Skin and Gloria immediately snapped back to the television. A loud cry of ‘Noooooo!’ went up from the group. Monet sighed in desperation.
Jubilee smiled secretively to herself and then turned to the rest of them.
"Guys?"
"Hmm?"
"Summer holidays."
They fell silent. Gloria turned to Jubilee with genuine curiosity in her black rimmed, blue filled eyes.
"So.. what do you do in your Summer holidays?"
"Right kids."
Ms. Frost paced around the room, where all the Gen. X’ers had seated themselves. It was late and getting dark outside, most of the students were paying more attention to the comforting noise of the summer crickets, than Ms. Frost.
"You all know we go on an annual holiday to relax ourselves after all the trials of the year."
A couple of whoops from the Gen. X’ers as they remembered last summer’s excursion with Gen 13, were quickly silenced by a withering ‘Frosty’(N.B. Heehee!!) glare.
"Well, this year we have students in our school, normal students."
Skin quickly spoke up, in case their annual privilege was revoked.
"Ms. Frost, they’re all going home for the holidays, no-one except us is staying."
Frost sat down on the edge of her desk.
"Yes. Don’t worry children, we aren’t going o revoke your holiday-"
There were several relived sighs from the group, well, from all those who were still paying attention.
"But, be careful that you don’t tell anyone you’re going on a trip with the school. It will sound a little.. strange."
Jubilee snickered, which surprised Ms, Frost, because she didn’t seem to be listening.
"Yea, and we’d seem like complete losers."
Gloria stuck her tongue out at her.
"You are a complete loser Lee."
Jubilee stuck her tongue out back as well, but they settled when Ms. Frost graced them with an icy glance. She walked round to her seat, pulled it out and sat down.
"Now children.."
Jubilee and Gloria noticed a tiny flicker of a smile grace the edge of Ms. Frost’s red, (but toned down since she began with Gen. X.) lips. They looked at each other and back at Ms. Frost.
"Here is the part where I need your help."
Yep. There was definitely a smirk developing there. All the Gen. X’ers who had been ignoring the little speech immediately swung round from looking out the window to stare at Emma. Something about ‘holidays’ and ‘your help’ seemed to spark up some excitement in the kids. It was making the edge of Emma Frost’s lips quiver.
"You see, we have yet to come to a decision about where we might be going this year.."
Immediately all the kids in the room sat up and stared directly at Ms. Frost, looking hopeful.
"And , since you all improved greatly in grade averages this year, the faculty and I have decided …… that you get to choose the location of your holiday this ye-"
Skin and Jonothon jumped off their seats and slapped hands and someone had started hooting. Paige and Everett’s mouths were hanging wide and salivating at the very thought. A sudden, strange smile broke out on Gloria’s face and Jubilee threw her hands in the air.
"Woo-hoo!!"
"How about San Diego miss?"
Jubilee jumped up.
"No way, San Diego is soo last year, how about somewhere foreign?"
Ms. Frost sat back in amazement at the children jumping about and yelling suggestions. She had hardly ever seen any teenager this enthusiastic about . well.. anything.
"Um.. well, it’s up to you.."
"Australia?"
"Too hot."
"Mexico?"
"C’mon, who speaks Spanish here?"
"I do.."
"Shut up Angelo."
"Oh! Miss, how about somewhere like France?!"
Eve was jumping about now. She reminded Gloria of an excited dog. A thought had just come to mind.
"How about London?"
"Wow. Hard to believe my dumb ass sister came up with an idea like that."
Jubilee reached over Gloria to get the salt on the dinner table. It was the last day of school and hardly anyone had turned up, so the cafeteria was all but empty.
"Yea. I know, but London’s gonna be sooo cool."
Everett, Jonothon and Angelo had all pulled up their chairs around the Jubilee’s table and were digging into their last (albeit disgusting.) school dinner before the holidays.
Everett held up a small slab of meat on his fork and examined it.
"Y’know what this reminds me of?"
"Please don’t say Emma’s pancakes.. I’m still having nightmares."
Everett set it down and slid it to the edge of his plate.
"No, I think this was the rat we were experimenting on the other day."
Angelo and Jubilee immediately dropped their meat and pushed their plates away.
"At least little swampy went to a good home."
Paige and Monet walked casually over to the table from their seats. They had been coldly boycotting any Kelley since the trip to the Mall. Even Monet, who actually seemed to tolerate Eve.
"Jonothon, you must be excited at the prospect of going home? Have you told your parents yet?"
Jonothon pulled his earphones off.
{ Nope. That’s one thing I’m trying to avoid gel. If anyone thinks they’ve got embarrassing parents, they’ve never met mine.}
Gloria suddenly snickered into her lunch.
"Oh, c’mon Jonothon. You’ve met my Mom. How on earth could your parents be more embarrassing?"
"What were you saying about my mom?"
Eve stood coldly behind Gloria and ignored the scathing looks she was getting from Monet and Paige. She had been sitting on her own on the other side of the cafeteria. All her ‘friends’ had left school to go on their holidays.
Gloria turned round with a completely nonchalant face.
"I was saying that you and I share a mother. Or else something very strange is happening down at the Kelley household. But then again…" she looked her apathetically up and down. The other students began snickering into their dinner plates. Eve felt her face flush red and her eyes starting to sting again.
"I.. uh.. I have to go to the toilet."
Eve said, as she ran off towards the cafeteria door.
"God. You are awfully cruel to her." Everett said, looking after Eve’s form, sprinting away.
Gloria snorted indifferently and tucked into her meal. Jubilee and Jonothon looked around uncomfortably.
"So.. uh… what are the best bits in London Jono?"
Gloria stretched out on her bed. The first day of the summer holidays. No more school. No more homework. Life was good. She held her school report up to the window to tired to decide whether to open it or not. Jubilee was lying on the rug flicking through some girlie magazines. She looked like she was doing a quiz.
"E..=5… V=….22…"
Gloria peered curiously over the edge of the bed at whatever Jubilee was doing.
"Is that one of those quizzes where if your names add up to a certain number it’s whether he likes you or not?"
Jubilee blushed and yanked the magazine away from Gloria’s view. She hid it under her arm and continued counting.
"J= 13…"
Gloria smiled in a very ‘oh , I remember what it’s like to be fifteen. Er.. thirteen.. whatever..’ way to herself.
Se flicked the tv. on and turned it to one of those third rate chat shows.
"OoO. I slept with my mother in law’s daughter…"
She played around with her school report and half watched it. She wondered should she open it now, or prolong the torture for another minute? She decided to test the water a little.
"J?"
"Mmm?" she said, absently. She was still adding up the figures and checking the results. Gloria saw a slight smile and snickered to herself.
"Have you opened your report yet? And would it be nerdy of me to do so now?"
Jubilee looked up from her magazines. Where she had circled a conclusion in red.
"Ummmm.. could you wait till I open mine.. or.. well, it’s like this. If you open yours now and it’s great, I’ll feel bad when I open mine… but then, if I open mine first and then you open yours and it’s better, I’ll feel undermined."
Gloria nodded, still not paying any attention to the television.
"Aahhhh.. I see. In that case.." she picked her envelope up, got up off the bed and walked , carefully avoiding treading on Jubilee’s magazines, over to the door. She noticed a large red heart with ‘J.L and E.T. 4ever’ written inside the magazine she was hiding under her arm.
"I’ll go ask Jonothon about his.."
Jubilee looked up from her magazine, the one she was pretending to read, while secretly checking out the other one with the relationship quizzes in it.
" But then, with that poem you wrote for English class, maybe I won’t feel so undermined by your grades…."
Gloria stuck her tongue out at her as she left the room.
"Hey, if I’m old enough to hear it or see it, I’m old enough to satire it, ‘kay?"
Gloria tapped on the door of Jonothon’s room, she didn’t bother to wait or a response and walked in. he was sitting on the floor with Skin and Everett, comparing grades and watching that same crummy talk show on tv.
"Ah-ha, just the man, er, men I was looking for."
"What’s up chica?"
She plonked her self down between Jonothon and Angelo and made herself comfortable on the rug. She produced her white envelope containing her grades and threw it about in her hands.
"Well, I was wondering if I should open my report, and seeing that all you have.."
Jonothon looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she took a handful of popcorn.
{Just make yerself at home why don’t you.}
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"If I had popcorn and a nice comfy rug, you’d be welcome to it too."
"Y’gonna open that chica, or play about with it until next term?"
"Oh, right."
She carefully dug her fingernail into the envelope and ripped the top open. She pulled out the small piece of paper and examined it carefully. They all studied her face carefully.
"So.. what did you get?"
Jonothon made a grab for the paper but Gloria held it out of his reach and tucked it protectively under her leg.
"Um.. what did you get?"
Jonothon narrowed his eyes at her and looked dangerously at the piece of paper. Everett sighed and rolled onto his back.
"Well, Jono got all A’s and B’s ‘cept in French and Maths."
{Algebra is the tool of the devil.}
"Ev got the usual straight A’s…… and I got all A’s and B’s again."
Jonothon looked at the piece of paper dangerously again. Gloria leaned more heavily on it.
"Now that’s us.. what did you get?"
"Umm.."
Jonothon dived over the popcorn bowel and made a grab for her report Gloria dropped on her side in shock and made for a perfect opportunity for Skin to reach across and grab it. He held it close to himself and studied it carefully.
"All A’s? Geez, what is your problem?" He threw the report down in disgust and Ev picked it up.
"There’s no scandal in this!!" Everett rolled onto his back again and laughed.
Jonothon looked at her in disgust.
{You are weird.}
Angelo threw a handful of popcorn at her. She shook it out of her hair and grabbed the report back off Jonothon.
"Sorr-ee.. just that.. y’know.."
{I have no sympathy for anybody who worries over her perfect grades.}
"I can’t believe you still got that A in English after Adrienne went nuts over your poem." Everett had pulled himself up off the floor.
"Yea. Neither can I. Maybe she just didn’t have enough time to do them all out so she just stuck random grades on."
Angelo and Jonothon settled themselves back to watching tv. Gloria picked her report up from the floor and tucked it neatly back in it’s envelope.
"Can you believe this? Oprah tries to make herself more scandalous by calling her programs ‘I married my father in law’s son’. Geez."
"Hey Eve."
Eve was sitting alone in the rec. room of the girl’s dorm, she was feeding herself to a large bar of chocolate, lying on her stomach and watching ‘Jenny Jones’. Everett walked in, looking for Jubilee.
"Urmaffff.." Eve mumbled, her head buried in on eof the sofa’s pillows. She lifted her head to take another bite of chocolate and eyed Everett suspiciously. He sat down politely on the chair beside her. He really didn’t mine Eve that much, even though she did use him that day they went to the Mall. She just seemed a little.. lonely. Maybe the only friend she could get was a boyfriend. He nervously took a handful off chips from his bag and offered some to Eve.
"Urmff… no thank you."
"So…uh.. how was your report?"
She didn’t look up from the pillow, but kept her eyes fixed to the tv. She took another lump of chocolate.
".. Um….How was your report?"
Everett rolled his eyes and took another handful of chips. Yep. They were definitely sisters. No matter what Angelo came up with. She kept her eyes on the tv again, but started to talk.
"I got a bad report ok.? Is it a crime? Does it make me a bad person? Is it fair that my older sister should be smarter and wittier than me?" She stuffed her head huffily in her pillow and mumbled while banging her legs against the sofa.
‘Have their parents never thought about counciling?’
Everett gave up on making peace with Eve and concentrated on the tv. Why had he never had this problem with his siblings? Then again, Eve was very annoying and Gloria was irritatingly smart. Or just irritating.
‘Please Jubilee turn up soon. Please Jubilee turn up soon. Please Jubilee turn up now.’
"Hey Ev."
Jubilee charged into the rec. room, with Angelo, with her usual exuberance. She made a beeline for the pool table, stopping by to grab a few of Everett’s chips on the way.
"Mmmm.. cheesy poofs."
They immediately started into a heated game of Pool and started yelling over the noise of the tv., which Eve kept turning up to drown them out. Jubilee snapped round to her.
"Will you stop that? I can’t hear Angelo."
Eve made a nasty face at her and dropped the tv. volume. She thought about clicking her fingers to get Angelo for her personal slave, but then decided that it’d been done anyway. Jubilee made a face behind her back.
"Hello all."
Gloria popped her head round the door from the kitchen. She saw that all was clear and walked in. Jonothon followed her with a large bowl of assorted sweets and popcorn. Eve saw her sister out of the side of her eye.
" * cough * losers * cough *"
Gloria walked casually over to the sofa and sat down hard, and painfully ( For Eve , anyway.) on her legs. Eve repressed the urge to scream and kick her off. Jonothon threw himself on the floor with the bowl of food.
"True, maybe sister dear. But I’m not the one lying on the sofa lamenting my report card." She smiled patronisingly at her. Eve stuck her tongue out at her and kicked her of the sofa.
"Hey, are those cola-bottles?"
Everett walked over and examined the bowl carefully. He sat down beside Jonothon and looked hungrily at it. Jubilee and Angelo were eyeing it from the pool table.
"Where’d you get all this?"
Gloria quickly grabbed for a fizzy crocodile.
"Well, I borrowed Ms. Frost’s car, since it was the first day of the summer holidays, she let us go to the store and get some crap."
They dug in hungrily.
"I love crap."
"Candy?! Why was ah never told y’all had candy.. I mean…."
Paige and Monet pushed through the door and made a bee line for the door. They looked like they had just been through one of Mr. Corsi’s excruciating training sessions. Paige pushed in beside Jonothon, not quite realising she hadn’t spoken to him for weeks. Monet sat gracefully on one of the large wing chairs.
"Candy? Really.."
Jubilee flicked a sweetie banana at her head.
"Shut up Monet."
Monet grumbled something about children to herself. Eve leaned up from her pillow and stared at the bowl of gelatinous and sugared goodies.
"Gloria?" she asked, so quietly that no one else heard her.
"What?" Gloria hissed, snapping around. Eve leaned back pathetically on her seat. Just to ask couldn’t kill her could it..?
"Could you save me some milk duds? You know they’re my favourite."
Gloria’s face softened for a moment. Like she was very, very surprised. For a second she said nothing. Then she held out the handful of milk duds that she gathered.
"Sure."
"Thanks."
Next: the kiddies go to London!! Or something as exciting..
