Chapter 10: Making a Team

Chapter 10: Making a Team

Alistair and I met in the street. I asked, “Aren’t you wanted?”

“Yes, but I would kill myself looking for you. I was crazy to send you to school. When I can fly freely you can try to deal with cheerleaders.” He responded.

I kissed him. That remark could be construed as sexist, but I love him too much to not care. I just saw it as a protective thing, and a romantic one.

He smiled. “My wings may be wounded, but my heart still beats for you.” Okay, that one was romantic, no doubt.

“Are you all sewn up?” I asked, not romantic at all, just cautious and protective.

“Yes. And I have a makeshift cast too. No flying for awhile.” He rubbed his arm, during the awkward silence.

The awkward silence was broken by an awkward and horribly thought out sentence. “When you’re in love you have to make sacrifices.”

“What have you sacrificed in my name?”

“My parents’ sanity, my little sister’s innocence, all my time, nothing compared to the stuff you do for me.”

“Well, everything I do it do it for you.”  He stared into my eyes to say that. Tears welled up in my eyes. He held me as I cried happy tears. His wings surrounded me in their feathery fortress.

“I love you more than I could ever show.” I whispered, looking up to him.

“I love you too.” He whispered back.

After about a minute, Alistair whispered softly and gently into my ear “I don’t want you to get run over, and I would like one meeting of us in the street where I don’t get run over, so maybe we should move to the sidewalk.”

“Great idea.” I responded.

He took his arms and wings away from me, and took my hand o walk to the sidewalk.

Hannah yelled my name “ANNIE!” I knew it was Hannah, so I turned to hug her, in the running hug I knew she was going to give me.

 I yelled “HANNAH!!” I had a huge smile on my face. I missed my little sister so much, like you cannot believe.

Alistair smiled a huge smile at her. “Good thing your package came in today.” He took out a cardboard box with a bow on it. He handed her a pair of scissors.

She took them. She opened it. “Oh my god!! I can’t believe you remembered!!! Alistair I LOVE YOU!!!” She took out the still in box Justin Bieber doll and tour bus. “OMG!! AMBER WILL BE SO JEALOUS!!” She squealed. Alistair was startled.

She ran up to him and hugged him. It was so cute. It is always so cute when tall people hug little kids, but when the tall person is my boyfriend and the little kid is my little sister, a Kodak moment happens. Though a picture couldn’t capture the feelings I had looking at Alistair being nice to my little sister. I loved him even more.

Hannah smiled. “Oh I am SO HAPPY you remembered Alistair!! I am so on your side now!”

“We have plenty of space if you want to run away.” Alistair responded.

“I have to think about it. Maybe but I am definitely on your side.” She responded.

Darcy strutted into the scene with David, holding hands. Alistair nodded. “Holding hands. Wow she is serious.”

“Well, we need a strong resistance and in the process of defeathering David, I got a plan.” Darcy declared

“Now I hope she isn’t.” Alistair murmured to me.

“David and I wrote a protest song!” Darcy exclaimed.  “We want to perform it in front of our house on a loop until they give peace a chance.”

I nodded “I can do a peaceful protest. Like Occupy Pleasantville.”

David told us “I wanted to do Simon and Garfunkel, but she said no.”

‘Not even John Lennon!” Darcy exclaimed.

David rolled his eyes. “Mrs. Robinson may have gotten more religious people on our side.”

“Lennon was an Atheist like more than half this group!”

I pointed out “I’m Agnostic, my parents would kill me if I called myself Atheist.”

“Anyways, we wouldn’t sing a Simon and Garfunkel song originally written about a middle aged woman who seduces young guys.” Darcy pointed it out.

David’s eyes got huge. “I will never listen to that song the same way again.”

“Sweetheart, Lennon did LSD, Justin Bieber is secretly gay, all popes and priests steal church money or did some sort of scandal and even Jesus was secretly married to Mary Magdalene they think. Everyone has secrets and a dark side.”

David found his not so Pleasantville side. See, his mind had been closed to anything bad in the Pleasantville sense. When he saw Darcy getting tormented, the sense ripped through a bit. The sense had been ripping through more and more until Darcy exposed Mrs. Robinson to David. Then she made the cloak on his mind disappear. She literally made his mind become totally rewired. So David stood blankly for a while.

I asked, “So what does the song sound like?”

“Oh when David comes out of that stare thing, I am telling him we are NOT singing.” Darcy responded. Alistair made a pouty face.

David awoke from his stare. A boom box sat on the stoop. He turned it to the eighties rock station. It was BLARING Come on Feel The Noise. He screamed along to it and played air guitar to it.  Alistair joined him and played invisible drums, and was actually keeping pretty good time. We watched them make fools out of themselves for the first round of chorus then wound up singing back up. So by the end we were all screaming at the top of our lungs “Come on feel the noise! Girls rock your boys! We’ll get wild, wild, WILD! Wild, wild, WILD!

This was in front of the house. David found his inner rebel and that was what we needed. Even if it was a horribly tasteless song he found his rebellious side in, he still found it.

We didn’t get a positive reaction to our rock. The whole town dropped their jaws and anything in their hands. Then, they all grabbed something and formed a mob.

Then David looked into Darcy’s eyes. He had a sly smile. She almost mirrored it. They had a passionate kiss full of tongue. I looked disgusting until Alistair swung me over and gave me the same kiss, though there was much more presentation value in Alistair’s kiss. With the spark and the swung over kiss, I remembered why I loved him.

The mob’s reaction was not so good. They kept trying to rip us apart. When I was torn apart from Alistair, I fell and hit the concrete. Alistair tried to help me up, and make sure I was okay, but the crowd kept pushing him away. One hand took a firm grip to my arm. I saw my captor briefly while also seeing Darcy and David being taken away in opposite directions.

“Dad! What are you doing?” I asked.

He scowled at me. “You know damn good and well what you did. You ran away. You left your poor father alone with stupid Hannah who can never explain the jokes at the end of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. And you left him for that thing!”

“He’s not a thing! He is my one true love! Besides, he can actually take care of me. We have fun together when we aren’t tormented.  That was fun!” I exclaimed

“Singing at the top of your lungs then making-out?” He questioned. “This isn’t you, Annie. You are better than this, better than everyone. You are my daughter. What happened to the girl I loved five years ago?” He asked.

I stared him in the eyes. “She grew up. She became the stubborn girl who stands in front of you today. She loves Alistair Poe and nothing can change that. You need to leave.” He left.