perfect family

thirteen

I think the most shocking thing that happened at school the next day was when I found out that Valerie is no longer a pussycat. And that Veronica is the new pussycat. After school, Betty and Jughead intercepted me, they said I had to come with them. As we sat on the bus, they explained to me that they had found out where Polly was from a card in Mum's pocket 'The Sisters of Quiet Mercy' and that was also the place where we were going. 

We got off at the right station and saw the house. It looked awful. "Hey, don't judge a home for troubled youths by its facade, right?" I chuckled about Jugheads trying to lighten the mood. Inside there was something like a reception, which Betty walked purposefully to. "Hi, my name is Elizabeth Cooper and this is my sister Katherina Cooper. We're here to see my sister Polly." "May I see some identification?" Betty and I took out our IDs and showed them to the woman. "Sign in here, please. He'll have to wait." Betty and I signed there. The woman showed us that we should come after her. "Polly's room is right this way, though right now is silent reflection time and she usually spends that time in the Garden of Deliverance." Outside the woman showed us where Polly was standing.

"Polly?" "Betty, Kat." She hugged us both. "Oh, my god. You're noth here. You found us."  She let go of us when I saw what she meant by 'us'. "You're ..?" I asked shocked. I didn't know anything about that. "Polly. You? With Jason's?" "Please be happy for me, Betty and you too Kat." "We are Polly. Trust me. I'll be an aunt!" "I'm, we're just .... we're so sorry that we didn't come sooner. We should've, but Mom and Dad, they stopped us." Polly interrupted Betty. "No. What'd they tell you both? That I was on drugs? Alcohol?" Polly was aware that Mum and Dad weren't telling us the truth. "They said you were sick. And tried to hurt yourself." I responded. "And they told me you didn't want to come and see me, which I knew was a lie." 

"So they locked you up because you were pregnant?" Betty asked shocked. "Because they couldn't control me, Betty. Mom and Dad hated that Jason and I were dating. They were thrilled when Jason dumped me. Jason's parents forced him to break up with me. Of course they didn't approve of a Blossom boy dating a Cooper girl. When I told him about the baby, our baby, he was so happy. We were gonna run away. Start our family in a beautiful place. So on July 4th, I woke up, packed a bag, and I went downstairs to start my new life just like Jason and I planned. We were gonna meet on the other side of Sweetwater River. But Mom and Dad found out about everything. When I went downstairs, there was a woman I didn't know sitting at the the kitchen tab'le drinking tea, with two men behind her. They threw me in the back of a van. I was screaming. I don't think I stopped screaming until I got here in this place. Have you talked to him? Does he know that I'm here?" She whispered the end. "Who, Polly?" I asked her. "Jason. If I give him a message, will you make sure it gets to him?" I swallowed. "Polly, Jason ..." Betty tried to explain. "What does he think happened? He knows I'm here because of Mom and Dad, right?" I took her hand in mine and swallowed. "Polly, you don't understand ..." "I can fix this Kat. I know I can. You both just have to help me get out of here. And then I'll go to meet him. Kat you are one of his best friends, can you get him to it? The car, on the lost highway off of Route 40. Pass the old 'marple syrup' sign and you're almost there. I'm packed. We're packed . We'll go to the farm, like we planned." "Polly, stop." Betty pulled her hands away from Polly. "What's the matter, Betty? What? What is it? Kat?" "Jason." I tried to explain. "What did something happen to him? Something bad? Oh, my god." She started to sob. "Oh, my god, I knew it. He's ... He's ... He's .." "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Polly." Betty said saddened. I tried to hug Polly when someone spoke. "Come with me, young ladies. Now." It was one of the nuns we spoke to at the beginning. 

We followed her in, where she locked us both in a room. Betty tried to reach Jughead, but there was no reception in here. We heard the door open and our mum stood in the frame. She closed the door behind her again. "Mom? What are you doing here?" Betty said suprised. "I pay the sisters good money. You think they don't notify me if Polly gets a visitor?" She pulled us both behind her and left the room. Jughead was behind us with a male nurse. Polly came out of the corridor next to us. She turned around. "Mom?" "Polly." Mum responded. "Jason's dead? And you didn't tell me? And you kept me in here?" Said Polly, walking towards Mom. "Baby, it's for you own good." "No! You always say that! It's not true!" The nurses pulled Polly away from us, Betty tried to hug her. "I'm gonna get you out of here, I swear to god. I love you, Polly." Polly screamed to let go of her while Betty and I looked behind with tears in our eyes. Mom held us both tight so we wouldn't follow Polly.

When I got home, Betty and I went to her room. Neither of us knew that Mom and Dad had been hiding from Polly that Jason was dead. And now she was pregnant from him too. Mom and Dad stood in front of us in Betty's room. He and Betty argued. "Polly needed to hear the truth. And we did too." Betty said. "So? Did you find what you were looking for?" Dad asked pissed off. "To be honest, Dad, no. We didn't. You hate the blossoms. You hated Jason. And now Polly is pregnant with his baby. That gives you a motive." I tried to calm down Betty, she's only making this situation worse." A motive? A motive for what?" "The night of the drive-in, did you break into Sheriff Keller's house and steal his case files?" Betty asked our dad. "What?" He asked shocked. "You weren't at the drive-in. You weren't with Mom when she put Ms. Grundy on trial, where we you?" Betty had tears in her eyes. "Betty, what do you think I did?" I told Betty that she should stop, she only made it worse. "Did you kill Jason Blossom?" Hal looked at her in shock while Mom started laughing. "Him? You think that he killed Jason? Your father? You think that he has the stomach for that?" Dad tried to stop her. "I wish he'd killed Jason. I wish I had, after what Jason did to Polly. "I was getting pissed off too." Stop it, Mum. Jason wasn't a bad person." "Shut up, Katherina. I swear, Elizabeth, you're sounding crazy, just like your sisters." A wonder, my mom is calling me crazy. "Stop saying that, Mom.Polly is not crazy and Kat neither." "Polly is crazy, Betty. She..... look, she is depressed and delusional. Did you actually believe the story she told you? About running off to Never Land and raising a family? That's a fantasy, Betty." I was so angry on them. "It wasn't a fantasy. They wanted to get out of this city and their troubled families. They didn't want the baby to grow up here." Mum rolled her eyes. "You have this fantasy, too. Jason was a bad person, accept that. And you both listen to us, after all we are your parents." Mum and Dad left Betty's room. I took Betty in my arms and tried to comfort her.

***

I was on my way to the Variety Show when Betty and Jughead caught me. Betty wanted to check out the car they were going to get away with. I had a flashlight in my hand, just like the others. We were looking for the old 'Blossom Maple Syrup' sign. When I shone to the top right I recognized the sign. "Here's the sign, guys." Betty and Jughead came up to me. We passed it and saw a car which was covered with a tarpaulin. The two took off the tarpaulin and opened the trunk. Everything was in the trunk. Jason's Bulldog jacket, suitcase and drugs that Betty had just discovered. "What are those?" "Drugs. Betty. You know what that is or?" I mocked her. "Wait, Jughead, put it down. This is evidence. This is all evidence." Jughead quickly put the drugs away. "Oh crap. This is a crime scene." Jughead took pictures on his cell phone. "We need to get to Sheriff Keller and then Polly." What we didn't know when we made our way to Sheriff Keller was that someone had followed us. At school we ran to Sheriff Keller and told him what we had found. When we got to the place where the car was, it was on fire. Betty and Jughead were going to get Polly out of the home. In the evening Betty told me what had happened. Polly ran away and nobody knows where she went.