Elizabeth
"So this is my Miho Obana chapter, huh?" |
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Keith
"Anime style, anyway. You know, if I could draw like her this serial would kick serious ass." |
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Elizabeth laid silently in her bed, asleep. Morning light shone in through the window, and a butterfly sailed lazily across the room and out the window. One of her eyes sprang open. For a moment all was still, and then she leaped to her feet and stood triumphantly on her bed, proclaiming, "Haaaaaa! It's morning!" She jumped up and down a few times, then bolted from her room and executed a precise backflip down the stairs, landing perfectly on the first floor. She spent a moment nodding happily to herself, then glanced down. "Hm," she said. "Maybe I should have put on some clothes..." She rushed back upstairs, threw on a t-shirt and some jeans, lept into a pair of sandals and slide down the bannister. Bursting into the kitchen, she tore open the door of the fridge and started to dig around inside. Her mother looked up from the magazine she was reading. "You're certainly in a good mood." "Uh huh! Happy-Happy Monkey-Monkey Lucky-Lucky!" She grabbed a popsicle from the freezer, shredded the wrapper and stuffed it in her mouth, slamming the fridge door shut. "Aren't you going to have anything with that?" her mother asked. "I dunno..." She glanced around. "Do we have any poptarts?" "No, I think we're all out." "No good then! Popsicles and poptarts! Pick apart a shopping cart! Every day I wake up great and six and seven don't make eight!" She lept onto the table, pounding out a rhythm with her fists as she kneeled, her eyes closed. "Even if it's real crappy I don't wanna get too sappy! All the world makes me happy! Happy happy HA-PPY-PPY!" She continued to sing spontaneous rhymes as her mother picked up her coffee and took it to the counter, wary of having it knocked over. "Do you want a ride to school?" "No, I'll walk! Or I'll run! No, I'll walk on my hands!" She somersaulted off the table, landing on her palms, then walked out of the room. "See you later, mom!" she yelled. "...See you." Angela let her glance linger on the door Elizabeth had exited by, eventually taking another sip of coffee. Outside the sun was shining, but after only half a block Elizabeth fell down and scraped her elbow. "Ow ow ow..." she said. "I fell down and my elbow's skinned... when I play a game I always... winned..." She wiped a small tear from her cheek, then sprang back to her feet. "I can't rhyme when I've got injuries! If I had a dog it might have fleas! There's a lotta people who don't like peas! If you want a scooter then you better say please!" She clapped her hands as she walked down the street, humming to herself. The school was coming into view, and she broke back into a run. "Hi, Lindsey!" she cried. "Hi Lenny and Carl! Hi Mr. Murphy! Hi!" Steven appeared beside her. "Hi Elizabeth..." "No!" She raised a hand to his face, looking away as she continued running. "I can't talk to you! You're a little kitty who makes me crazy! When I hang around you my brain gets hazy! You dress really funny and you're also lazy! Being with you makes me crazy crazy crazy!" "You already said crazy..." Steven mumbled, but she was long gone, already inside the school. She buzzed down the hallways, knocking people over and scattering paper, then stopped at a water fountain. She started to get a drink, then moved her face into the stream, laughing as it covered her face. She moved to get more water on her, soaking her hair, until someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around to see a boy staring at her. "What are you doing? he asked. "Nothing. What are you doing?" She brushed her wet hair back into a ponytail and asked, "Who the hell are you anyway?" He eyed her skeptically. "Why? Who are you?" "I'm Elizabeth!" she said, pounding her chest once. "I'm Queen of these parts, so you'd better answer my question!" She pointed her finger directly at him. Trying to keep his eye from ticking, he answered, "I'm Liam." "Liam! Liam! He's a boy and I've never seen him! I can't think of a rhyme for his name, he's a motherfucker and his clothes are lame!" He glanced down at his shirt as she darted away, a light dust cloud the only indication of what direction she'd left in. Her first class had already started, but everything ground to a halt as she burst through the door, flipping desks and tipping over a bookshelf. In the ensuing cloud of chalk dust no one noticed her quickly pile several desks in the middle of the classroom and leap on top. "Students!" she cried as the dust began to settle. "Are you sick of learning? Don't you hate this place?" She pointed down at the teacher and said, "Don't you wish that teacher would just drop dead with blood running from her ears and bugs crawling from her eyesockets? I know I do! Today I'm going to destroy the school! Is anybody with me?" A resounding cheer rose through the hallways, and Elizabeth reached into her duffle bag to pull out sledgehammers, lots of sledgehammers, hundreds of sledgehammers, enough for everyone in the school. "Alright!" she yelled once everyone was equipped, her eyes flickering with an inner flame. "It's time to burn this motherfucker down!" With that she slammed her sledgehammer into one of the desks she was standing on, igniting it into flames, then proceeded to swing at everything within reach, incinerating all in her path. The rest of the students followed suit, laying waste to the building while teachers scrambled away, trying to find somewhere to hide as the school around them was transformed into flaming rubble. All the while Elizabeth sang, "Fuck this school! Fuck this school! It's not cool to fuck with Zool! Safety first with power tools! That should be the golden rule!" Elizabeth laid silently in her bed, asleep. Morning light shone in through the window, and a butterfly sailed lazily across the room and out the window. One of her eyes opened slowly, and for a moment all was still. Then another moment, and another, and half an hour later she finally got up. Sluggishly she pulled on her clothes and dragged herself downstairs to see Steven at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal while he watched a portable tv. "Where did that come from?" she asked, gesturing at the tv as she got some toast. "It's mine. Though I guess it's ours now, since we're brother and sister. We should share and everything." "Jesus christ, shut the fuck up..." She poured herself a glass of milk and asked, "Why aren't you at school? You must be late by now." "School? It's Saturday." "Don't even fuck with me about that shit..." "I'm serious! Look," he said, pointing his spoon at the tv. "Cartoons!" "Fuck..." She put the milk away, glanced at the toaster still toasting, then turned around and went back upstairs. |
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