Quinn’s irritation was clear as she said, “Stop following me, Daria.” A second later, she stressed, “You’re following me.”
Ranma saved Daria the trouble of retorting as he pointed out, “We all go to the same school.” The glare she shot at him reassured him of his reality, as did the lightly pleased surprise on Daria’s face as she glanced at him. He had to admit her intelligence frightened him at first, but seeing Daria as a person seemed to mitigate it. He wrote the entire experience off as a holdover from his unremembered past. He stayed silent for the moment as the three lapdogs from the speech came up. Their subsequent performance reminded him of other canine behaviors, if he were to be honest.
The foolishness started with Jeffy, such a weak, foolish name; nearly as bad as the Slayer in that show he watched last night. He blurted, “Hey, Quinn, can I carry your books?”
That was shortly followed upon by the other two followers. Joey chimed in with, “Hey, Quinn, can I carry your, ohm, pencil?”
Jamie’s weak finisher had Ranma thinking of boys in sports gear charging, for some reason, as the jock faltered out, “Hey, Quinn, can I carry your; ohm, got anything else?”
Ranma nearly gagged when he saw Quinn rummage about in her jeans pocket and finally pull out a single item. Her sweet, “A hair scrunchie?” had Daria rolling her eyes at Jamie’s gratefulness, he noted. After a bit, Ranma just thanked the fates that there were no chivalric knights left to take offense at the mocking of a lady giving favor.
Daria apparently couldn’t hold back her feelings on the subject. She fired off a monotone, “You don’t want to hurt yourself with that scrunchie.” She and Ranma stepped up the pace to leave the ridiculous court of appeal behind.
Unfortunately for his hopes of meeting intelligent people, Ranma still overheard the talk behind him, as Jamie asked, “Is that your sister, Quinn?”
Ranma scowled as he knew for a fact that (unlike Corey and his buddy, who the martial artist had pressure pointed into unconsciousness) Jamie had been there long enough to have heard Daria say just that at the self-esteem speech. His face twisted in disdain as Quinn’s, “Don’t pry, Joey.” managed to be both condescending and insulting at once. Her uncaring, “Whatever.” When Jamie tried to remind her of his name had him seeing flashes and feeling a mixture of pain and helplessness. Clearly, he had been treated like garbage and didn’t like others getting treated like that, however stupid the lad in question was.
Mack nearly snarled, “Don’t call me that, okay?” (Ranma worried about Kevin’s survival if he kept it up, to be honest.) He went on, “What’s this party for, anyway?” in a calmer tone. After Kevin muttered in thought, the football captain said, “Stop if it starts to hurt.” with a small smile.
Kevin chuckled, “Really. Ohm, her birthday was last month. I helped exchange all her presents.”
Mack checked, “You helped return your own present, as well?”
Kevin grinned and confirmed, “Yeah, I did. Then she had the sales lady explain the difference between perfume and cologne. Interesting stuff, bro.” While Ranma reeled over how fragmentary Kevin’s sentences were (and imagined two shrunken old ladies with that last line), Kevin closed his locker door. He said excitedly, “Now I remember! The party’s to celebrate her parents being out of town.” All unknown, Mack’s and Ranma’s faces shared the same look, expressing, “Well, that makes sense!” to the observant.
Kevin’s greeting to the three J’s proved there was no one observant around, however.
Ranma did raise an eyebrow as he noticed that Kevin also got Jamie’s name wrong. At least Kevin is genuinely dumb, not just shallow, Ranma thought. After Kevin reminded them that they were his teammates and thus invited to the party, Ranma went to Mack as Quinn got invited and the J’s fell all over them selves asking to be her date. He said, “Call it sick curiosity, but I’d like to see this. Since you wanted to get me on the team, should I come?” Kevin’s vapid smile and Mack’s bemused shrug were approval enough, he supposed.
Brittany was thanking Daria for helping out in art class. As Ranma was busy fending off requests to be a male model, he hadn’t noticed, but Daria seemed the sort to at least offer knowledge to people that needed it. He reasoned this was another example of that. He carefully avoided chuckling out loud as he heard Brittany’s and Daria’s conversation. Brittany offered, “Maybe I can help you out in something.”
As Daria’s monotone never sounded nasty, her shot of, “Well, you could show me how to twirl hair around my little finger and look vacant.” was apparently inoffensive.
Brittany nearly made Ranma laugh aloud as she did just that while saying, “I don’t know if that’s something you can teach.” He had the feeling she wasn’t nearly as stupid as her foolish behavior seemed to show. He smiled as Brittany tugged her spoon from the top of the cafeteria crew’s laughing pretense of dessert and grimaced, “Ugh! I hate it when the pudding has skin.”
Daria’s tone was dryer than the skin on the pudding as she said, “I know what you mean; and that scares me.”
Brittany seemed to consider that a cry for help as she said, “Hey, even though I’m much more popular, we do have some things in common.” Daria’s sarcastic comeback was simply ignored as Brittany further explained, “I mean, you’re not popular, but you’re not so unpopular that you couldn’t come to my party Saturday night.”
Daria asked, “Was that an invitation?”
Brittany thought aloud, “Yes! Just this once, though.”
Ranma tuned them out after that, wishing to keep a brain cell or two alive and working.
Daria said, “These are really good. I knew you studied life drawing, but this is really excellent.”
Jane replied, “Yeah, I studied during summer vacation last year.”
Ranma groaned, “Don’t remind me. I know you meant well, Jane, but now Ms. Defoe is really interested in my being a male model. Something in me rebels at the thought.”
Jane shrugged, “If I managed to hit a trauma you have buried in that amnesia, I’m sorry.” His smile showed the lack of hard feelings.
Daria started, and then pointed out one sketch. “Maybe it’s my noting perspective more after today’s lesson, but you really burst out of the picture plane here.”
Ranma fought to keep from bleeding from the nose as Jane looked and commented, “Oh, yeah. That particular model was quite bursty. In fact, I think she had her bursts done.”
Daria changed the subject to save Ranma. “Speaking of which, Brittany invited me to her party this weekend.”
Jane crooked an eyebrow as she asked, “No kidding, are you going to go?”
Daria started to deny it but didn’t as she saw the look in Ranma’s eye, instead saying, “As they doubtless invited Laughing Boy here, I think I might. Do you want to go?”
Jane smiled, “Well, I could try dream-conning Trent again as he sleep-practices the opening to Come As You Are, but I think I’d get some great sketches off that party.”
Ranma determinedly flipped through sketches to not get dragged in any further as Daria fired back, “Well, I am sure there will be a lot of people posing there. If you’d like to go, simply pretend you’re me. To the popular, all unpopular people look alike, anyway.”
He couldn’t avoid a snort as Jane borrowed Daria’s glasses and donned them while speaking in a monotone, saying, “Hi, I’m Daria. Go to Hell.” Jane returned the glasses as she mourned, “It wouldn’t work. My face is too expressive.”
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(Posted Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:35)
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