"YOUR MOTHER'S A BITCH WHO RAISED A PREMADONNA!!"
Gerard sighed and there was a knock on his door.
"Come in."
Mikey came in and sat down on the chair at Gerard's desk.
"How long before the neighbors complain this time do you think?" Mikey said.
"I don't know."
"I hate this."
"Me too. But there's not much we can do."
"Do you think Dad really hates Grandma Elena?"
"No, he just doesn't want to loose the argument."
"They won't be on very good terms if Mom and Dad get a divorce."
Mikey and Gerard were silent. Neither had ever mentioned to the other ever before about the possibility of their parents divorcing.
"If they do," Gerard said,"And by some miracle I graduate and go to that art school in New York that accepted me, just know you can call me. We're in this together."
"'K." Mikey said. Another silence. They hadn't ever talked about Gerard leaving before either. They both knew that if Charlotte's tutoring continued to be successful, Gerard would graduate and he'd be on his way to New York.
They herd the front door slam. They knew that Donald had left to go to the garage he worked at. That's where he always went to cool down after arguing with his wife. They herd Donna stomp up the stairs and slam her bedroom door closed.
The silence was like a ocean they were drowning in. Both of them frantically trying to think of a way to break the surface and breath again, break the silence, live life normally again.
The phone rang. Shattering the silence like a whine glass hitting the floor. Gerard reached for the phone and picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hi Gerard."
"Hey Charlotte."
"Did I call at a bad time?"
Gerard wondered if it was obvious, and what had given it away. "How'd you know?"
"I usually ask, just to make sure I'm not interrupting anything. I'll let you go. See you at school tomorrow. Oh, and is your hangover better?"
"Much better, thanks. We're studying at your place tomorrow right?"
"Yeah. See you then."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Gerard hung up the phone and the silence was back. Mikey took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses.
"Hey, Mike."
"Yeah?" Mikey said, putting his glasses back on.
"Thanks for not telling mom and dad about the... <i>inncodent</i> last night."
"You and Charlotte owe me."
"Deal. Give me my car keys."
Mikey gave Gerard the keys.
"So, Charlotte just said that you met us up here and she gave you my keys. What else happened?"
"Well, you threw up," Mikey said, ticking what had happened off of his fingers,"You asked why Charlotte was in the house, you told her she was pretty-"
"I told Charlotte she was pretty?"
"Yep. Then she said you must be really delusional. She apparently doesn't think she's pretty. She told me to give you water when you woke up and gave me the car keys, then she left."
"... and that's all that happened?"
"Yep."
"Okay." Gerard glanced twards the mirror and said,"Hey.... where's my left eyebrow?"
"I dunno, I didn't even notice, your hair was covering it."
Gerard looked back at the small mirror. Stupid jocks and their pranks. When he was asleep at the party they must have come and shaved off his left eyebrow.
"Ditto," Tracy said.
Josie walked over and said,"I <i>hate</i> Mondays."
"Who doesn't?" Charlotte said.
"Morning," Gerard said as he, Frank, and Bob walked over.
"Morning."
"Charlotte!" Simon said.
"Oh, hi," Charlotte said,"Sorry about ditching you at the party... I didn't even relise I did until the next day."
"It's okay, you were helping out your friends. I'd still like your number."
"Sure," She said, tearing out a piece of paper out of her notebook and scribbling her number on it.
"I'll call you," He said, putting the piece of paper away and walking to class.
"Oooh, Charlotte met a guy!" Tracy said in a sing-song voice.
"It's not a big deal," Charlotte said.
"Yes it is, he's cute," Josie said. The three girls watched him leave for a few seconds before giggling a little.
"Uh.... huh," Frank said.
"Oh, you guys are still here, sorry."
"Yeah, we never left..."
Josie went to whisper something into Charlotte's ear.
"Why are girls always whispering?" Gerard said.
"What's the big secret?" Bob said.
"You don't want me to whisper? Fine," Josie said,"Charlotte, Do you have a tampon? I desperately need one."
"What size?"
"Super."
"Okay," Charlotte said, taking one out of her backpack and giving it to Josie.
"Bet you wish we would have whispered now, don't you ?" Josie said. Gerard, Bob, and Frank looked seriously disturbed.
"Yes," They all said at once.
"Charlotte, they shaved off my eyebrow," Gerard said.
"Who?"
"Someone at that party," Gerard said, moving his bangs aside.
Charlotte held in her laughter,"Oh, no."
"Yeah..."
"Hold on," She said, taking out her eyeliner,"Stay still." She sketched another eyebrow on for him,"Okay, as long as your hair covers most of it and you don't touch it at all, no one should notice."
"Kinda," Frank said,"But she's right, don't touch it... someone may wonder why your eyebrow is smudged...."
"Okay... thanks."
"Mmhm," Charlotte said, putting her eyeliner away.
"Stupid burner," Gerard said.
"Do you want me to light it?" Charlotte said.
"Fine."
"Okay. Can you turn the gas on?"
"... you mean the entire time it wasn't lighting because I forgot to turn the gas on?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I don't know, I thought it would be better for you to figure it out on your own, but that obvioulsy didn't happen."
Gerard turned the knob on the side of the table and Charlotte clicked the metal device once and the spark lit the burner. She put their beaker on top of the flame in the ring stand and put a tiny thermometer in the beaker.
"Start the timer," Charlotte said and Gerard did. They had to record how long it took for their mixture to reach certain temperatures. Mr. Marcus walked by and again, was a bit shocked that Gerard was actually making a chart in his notes to record the temperature on.
"Charlotte, can I talk to you for a moment?" Mr. Marcus said.
"Sure."
She stood up and fallowed Mr. Marcus to his desk.
"I'd have thought you'd ask to change your partner by now," He said.
"I'm fine working with Gerard."
"I can see that, I just don't understand it. I can understand his willing-ness to work with you, you're a very intelligant young woman."
"Mmhm."
"I just thought you might want to work with someone up to your standards."
"I'm fine working with Gerard," She said again,"He's my friend, and I've been tutoring him in chemistry for about two weeks now."
"Just tutoring?"
"Yeah, and a little help in class, like in the experiments, but that's mainly it."
"So you aren't giving him answers to any quizzes?"
"No."
"I was mearly curious, he did very well on the last quiz, and I just assumed-"
"You don't give him enough credit Mr. Marcus. Gerard isn't stupid, he's actually pretty smart, the problem is that he just dosn't like this subject that much."
Mr. Marcus was silent for a moment and then said,"I'm sorry, Gerard's performance in this class is not of your concern, I shouldn't have pulled you away to discuss it. Go back to your experiment."
Charlotte did as her teacher said and went back to her seat. Gerard pushed his notebook towards her so she could copy his observations down.
"Hi."
Josie took out a pack of cards,"Anyone want to play 21?"
"You mean Blackjack?" Frank said.
"No, we can't call it Blackjack in school," Josie said,"We have to call it 21, as long as we do that and don't bet anything, they can't do anything to punish us."
"Oh..."
"Deal me in!" Tracy said.
"Me too," Charlotte said.
"Anyone else?" Josie said.
"I'll play," Ray said.
"Next game," Frank said.
"No thanks," Gerard said.
Once the cards were delt, they all took a look at them.
"Hit," Charlotte said.
"Hit," Ray said.
"Hit," Tracy said.
Josie gave them each another card. They all said hit again. "I'm out," Ray said, putting down his cards. He'd broken 21.
"Me too," Tracy said.
Charlotte and Josie put their cards out to see who was closer to 21. Charlotte had 17 and Josie had 19.
"I win," Josie said.
"Barely."
"Whatever." Charlotte walked up the stairs and sat down by Bob so Frank could take her place at cards.
"You notice that Mindy hates the letter G?" Josie said.
"Is this another one of your theories?" Bob said to the girls.
"Yes."
"What odd proof do you have of this one?" Mikey said.
"Well, when she was five, she had a petting zoo at her birthday party, and she wouldn't go near the goat," Charlotte said.
"How do you remember that?"
"I don't know."
"In fourth grade we had to do a report on animals and she asked for her animal to be changed from a giraffe to a tiger."
"She hates her middle name, which is Gina."
"She never uses the word 'glass' she always says 'cup'."
"She hates the color green."
"She hates having cheer practice out on the grass."
"When she went to Italy, she refused to go on the gondola rides-"
"How do you know that?" Bob said.
"She's one of thoe people who thinks that we all care about what they did over the summer so they announce it so loud that people on the west coast can hear."
"That's the only reson we know the other stuff too," Tracy said.
"What about Gerard? That starts with G," Frank said.
"I dunno how she feels about Gerard. I don't even know if she knows he's alive to be honest," Tracy said.
"Well, she and some of her friends were making fun of his hair..." Charlotte said.
Free Dress Friday
Starting this Friday, every other Friday will be free dress. The students will have the choice to wear clothes other then the uniform as long as they fallow the fallowing dress code:
All Skirts must be no more then five inches above the knee.
All sleaves must be at least two inches wide.
No shirts that are transparent, bare midriff, tank tops, muscle shirts, strapless, spaghetti straps, or low cut clothing
No skin must be showing between the bottom of the shirt and the top of the skirt/pants
No sagging
No clothing items that can be used as weapons (chained wallets, metal toed boots, etc.)
No clothing that promotes inappropriate items (sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.)
"So, after all that... it leaves us with... the uniform," Charlotte said.
"It seems like most of these apply to just the girls.... at least I hope so," Mikey said.
"Unless someone comes to school in drag," Gerard said.
"That would be funny.... and disturbing," Charlotte said.
"I kinda want to try that to see how differently people treat you," Gerard said.
"Uh-huh.... well, let's take one thing at a time, pass Chemistry now, dress in drag... in college please."
"Okay."
"Yeah, see, I have to live with him, you just have to put up with him," Mikey said.
"Yeah, Gerard, did you know all the Junior High kids know you as Mikey's weird hermit older brother?"
"Really?..... Cool."
"They all know you as Carly's smart, negative, goth sister," Mikey said to Charlotte.
"Yeah, I know," She said.
They left and got in their cars. Charlotte drove for a while before pulling her pick-up into her driveway. Gerard pulled in next to her. When the three of them were heading to the door, Mikey asked why she wanted a pick-up.
"I didn't to be honest, it's my dad's old car. It's about a year older then I am, but he keeps adding things to it. I have a radio and CD player in there now."
"Oh."
Charlotte opened the door and Buster was waiting to jump on them.
"Yes, hello Buster. We all missed you too," Charlotte said.
Once Buster had calmed down a little, they sat at the kitchen table to start their homework. Mikey usually just did his homework and then listened to his CD player in Charlotte's living room while she and Gerard studied.
"....and that would make the answer... 65?" Charlotte asked.
"Close."
".... 62?"
"Right."
"Oh, yeah, go me."
"See, you aren't that math stupid."
"And you aren't that chemistry stupid. Mr. Marcus told me that you did really well on the last quiz."
"I did? Maybe I won't fail after all."
"You'd better not, not after all we're going through trying to get your grade up."
"Okay, but you can't fail math either."
"Deal," She said,"By the way, Tracy and Josie want to know if you guys want to come bowling with us this Friday."
"Bowling? I'm not that good at bowling."
"Neither are me and Tracy. The entire point of bowling is hanging out with your friends and throwing heavy balls at pins."
"Sure."
"Okay. We'll see if we can drag Ray along, I think he's gonna marry that guitar."
"Is that legal?"
"Maybe if he's in international waters."
"Hm."
"I'm sure they'd be very happy together," Mikey said.
"Yes, and the children would be... lovely...." Gerard said.
Charlotte smirked and rolled her eyes.
"Trust Me"