Chapter Four: The wait
The school week had trudged on like if it was connected to a very heavy weight as they went uphill. That was what it felt like for Lor McQuarrie. Both the weekend, and simply Friday itself, seemed to be so far off even though it was finally the end of Thursday. The weekend was also looking not as good as usual.
For the entire week, Lor had kept her self busy with different things, but her thoughts still were with her, the feelings of confusion always at the forefront with almost every little thing that she did. Even the way she viewed her other school mates, in the group or other wise, was now drastically changed.
After basketball practice one day, the showering process had now taking on a very hard complexity to it. She always had looked around as the other girls were showering, but she found herself trying to almost hid her eyes while cleaning up, but still she was noting that she was very tingly in private places on herself when she did look at all of the naked bodies of the other girl’s as they showered around her. Sexual thoughts abounded, and she know was wondering if she always had done that.
The girls around her barely even noticed her marked change in the way that she was acting, but inside the blonde girl- she felt it like if it was a wall one hundred miles long and wide. She found herself drawn, and repelled at the same time. Even when she was in her usual daily classes, which she never really excelled in the first place, she found that she could not concentrate on nothing. The question that this all was posing on her, loomed in her head like a granite boulder.
She had seen Tish a few times through out the week, and saw that she was always studying the self same book that had gotten her to think like this. Lor simply gave the girl all the time she thought she needed, knowing that she needed to give the young academic the space to research things. She was grateful that Tish was doing this for her, but she also was getting impatient with it.
She did not like the feelings that this was all bringing up, but somehow she had at least managed to handle it to the best of her abilities... all the while Carver and Tino seemed oblivious of it all. It was like, they absolutely did not have a damned clue.
That suited Lor just fine. She was actually glad that the two seemed to be so dense in the head, made her life just a little easier to cope with.
It was at the end of this rather long Thursday, Lor was heading to her locker to gather things and then head home. With her basketball practice cancelled until the next week due to sickness, she was simply going to head home and try and dodge the raving maniacs that she called her brothers. She was not really wanting to try and handle the hooligans in any way or form, and was trying to figure out ways to actually do that.
She opened her locker door, reading herself for whatever might fall out of her very unorganized little space. To her relief, nothing came tumbling out, her mess was balanced just right. She smiled and opened the door wider to ditch her books and dig her backpack out without setting off an avalanche.
Peering into the wasteland of her locker, Lor found a folded piece of paper laying on the top shelf of her locker. She noted the precise and flowing writing on the front of it to be from Tish. She picked up the paper with trembling fingers, somehow thinking that the girl was contacting her that she had figured out how to help her out finally. She took a deep breath in, as she was now very sure of that fact in her head.
She was just going to open it up to read, when she heard the voice of Tino call out to her from nearby. She stuffed the not in her pant’s pocked rather swiftly, and turned to see what the lad was wanting.
" Hey, Lor." Said the lad, his happy disposition seemed to be just a little on the annoying side right then for Lor.
" Hey!" She just said, keeping her cool the best she could.
The lad leaned up against the row of lockers and smiled.
" Carv and I are going to grab a slice down at the pizza place later..." He started, smiling in the way he usually did. " Tish has some artsy-fartsy thing going on after-school and stuff... She said that it won’t be over until later this evening....and She said that she was busy for tomorrow too... So, wanna come with us?"
Lor nodded.
" I’m not doing anything... sure." She said, but her voice held a little bit of a waiver in it..
" Great!" Smirked the lad, seeming happy that Lor had chosen to come along with them. " Meet ya outside in ten then. Got some real exciting news about a Captain Dreadnaught thing at the mall tomorrow too."
" Gee, I am tingling with excitement." She replied dryly.
The lad hustled off, probably going to gather up the dark haired youth for their pizza appointment. Lor patted her pocket where the note was firmly put in. She sighed and hurried off to get a slice before going home. She would just have to wait to see just what her friend had came up with.
**********
Lor went upstairs and into her bedroom a little earlier than usual that evening, and closed the door. She had to go to her only little sanctuary, for more than just the one reason- she had twelve to start with.
Her home was in a state of sheer bedlam, as her brothers play wrestled with one another in almost ever part of the house to the point of anarchy. All she wanted to simply not be a part of it, or end up become one of their hapless target and finally get the time to read the note that had been in her pocket. It had been on her mind all afternoon, and she really wanted to know just what was in it.
She had gone with the guys for a few pieces of pizza with the guys, then ended up playing a little pool at their usual hangout. After a very rousing few games, where Lor had kicked their asses every single time, they walked her home, talking away about the Captain Dreadnaught thing at the mall the next day.
Once in front of her house, Lor watched them leave, before scurrying in to her house as quickly as she could. She was wanting nothing more than to take a few solitary moments for herself and read Tish’s message. That was the plan, but plans had a way of blowing up for her out of nowhere.
To her continued frustration, Her mom met her at the door almost the instant that she had stepped in the door. The second she seen her mother, she groaned, feeling that another delay was in the works for her again.
The woman told her she needed her to help around the house a little with a few chores, then they would all be having supper.
" Your father will be late getting home from work, and I need all the help I can get since I had to work late too..." The woman explained with a exasperated tone in her voice. " Your brothers are absolutely no help to me."
Resigning that she would simply have to wait even longer to see what Tish had written, Lor went with her mother to help with all of the tasks she was needing her for. Between the chores, dodging her wild bunch of brothers that were seemingly on a even more hyped up state than normal and then the long task of suppertime, that took her into the middle of the evening before she had a chance to escape.
Now having the chance she wanted so badly, she closed the door, and reveled in the muffling of the noises that her brothers made when they were this out of control. She locked the door and quickly sat down on the bed, bringing out the note from her pocket and mentally blocking out the muffled screams and swearing that her brothers were still causing around the house.
She stared at the neatly folded white lined paper she held for awhile, finding herself more than just a little scared to see just what her friend had wrote to her. She was fighting for the courage to open the paper up, not knowing what was contained in it or even if it did contain a simple nugget of advice for her to use.
Steeling herself, she unfolded the paper and looked at what it said with trembling hand, another first-she told herself.
" Lor:..." It started, as she read. " Meet me over at my house tomorrow right after school. Carver and Tino are going to be checking out some Captain Dreadnaught thing at the mall, and that would be perfect timing to talk to you. I told them that I was busy already." The note ended with Tish’s signature.
Lor read over the note a few times, trying to decipher whether or not the girl had came up with something. It seemed to her, that Tish had but was not going to say unless they met face to face, like she had asked in the note. She read it over one mor time, and still got only what she had figured out in the first place.
She folded up the note as neatly as she could and put it in her nightstand for the time being. She looked at it in the drawer for a moment or two, then made herself close the drawer before she could pull it back out to read over again.
She sat, pondering on just what the little brainy lass might have came up with, and felt both excited and frightened at it. She was excited, for Tish usually did have the best information, albeit sometimes odd in nature. Her fear came from what she might find out about herself in the process of getting the information, that was a very big part of what her mind was mulling on so intently.
Lor put her head in her hands, and took a long sigh. She felt so tired, so deep down tired that it was not funny.
" I hope she has something..." She told herself, her mind feeling a very deep heaviness. " She just has to!"
She heard a loud crash from downstairs, followed by the angry bellow of her Dad. She giggled, knowing very well that the boys were really in for it now. It was either a lamp or something that had hit the ground.
She layed back on the bed, and listened as the house had gotten very strangely silent in the last few seconds, the only sounds were of her Father raging on some of her siblings. She was glad of one thing, she was not any of her brothers at that moment.