Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter six

CHAPTER SIX

"High school is hell." Ingrid found it necessary to point out on Monday morning. I sighed. It was a heavy one. The picnic table we'd sat at the Friday before seemed good to us today at lunch, so we'd taken up its residence. I'd found myself wondering about the thing. The grass beneath it and around it was soft and lush. The table was smooth, and almost undamaged. So why did no one ever sit out here?

"People are so horrible and stupid. I mean literally just stupid. God, I hate high school." she wined, head tilted back and sunlight streaking her features.

"Its like that everywhere, Ingrid." I sighed again. "High school doesn't suck just because high school's high school. High school sucks because there are people in it. And wherever people go there's misery and greed and lies and cruelty. We just think its worse because they're younger and that makes them more arrogant." my voice was too weary for my years. She met my eyes then, through the tinted sunglasses on hers. I didn't know if she'd understand. I had my days when I saw the world as black and white lies. I felt myself consumed by the worry that something was very wrong with me on those days.

But today Ingrid looked at me, and cocked her head and gave me a sad twist of her lips, almost a smile. I don't know what she saw, but the words she said made something in me want to shatter.
"Well... you're just a cracked porcelain doll on the inside, so close to breaking apart behind the Bride of Chuckie exterior, aren't you?" she got up, put her hand down on mine, and paused to say
"High School is still a bitch." and then she walked inside, hips rocking better than a Country song. I thought about laughing. And I would have, if I hadn't noticed something flash beneath the cover of the trees across the road. I twisted my head and glared beneath the heavy green foliage. What the hell...

There was a second flash. Correction; a glint, and I narrowed my eyes. For a moment, I swore I saw a silhouette dressed in shadow and a -

Camera?

I rose to my feet, still squinting and my lips parted. A sharp wind blasted my hair away from my face and stung my eyes. I ignored it and half staggered a step forward in the green grass that was heavy and needed a mowing, tilting my head and eyes narrowed to slits. Yes, a person with a camera.

An engine's grumble shattered my zombie moment and my neck cracked as I cocked my head up to recognize the sound. I must have looked stupid. My stuff lying on the table and my hands to my sides, head tilted awkwardly looking off into the forest, pulling my face like a freak.

The car and its occupant were as fascinating to me as the hidden person taking photos of me from the forest.

Matthew was looking right at me. The Silverado's windows were open and his one arm was leaned on the door as he drove slowly past. It was more than likely hormone addled delusion but I swear I could see that caramel gold around his pupils that I remembered so vividly. As I stared back I tilted my head the other way. When he crossed right in front of the camera man's position, he broke the eye contact and looked off into the woods. I stared after him in a trans, and just before his truck left my line of sight, he looked back at me again. And then the car was gone. I still stared after it though, in my zombie like state.

For the second time in a space of 60 seconds, the world I'd been in shattered, this time by the most unwelcome ringing of the school bell. I jumped three feet in the air and whipped my head back and fourth in confusion like some spinning top cartoon character. And when I finally figured out what was going on, I looked back at the woods. It was gone. The shadowed shape with its camera was gone.

I was still reeling when I got home. My keys clattered into the goldfish bowl by the door, complete with castle, mermaid, plastic seaweed tree and multicolored sand at the bottom. The bowl lacked a fish and water. It'd had one named Mango when I was eight, but these were just remnants converted to a key bowl.

I could hear my mother in the kitchen. She and my father were laughing. "I cant believe I married someone who eats dead animals!" she cried, but her giggles were earnest.
"Your offspring eat this stuff too, you vegan witch!" my father mocked. I slowly moved to the kitchen.
"Well if you are what you eat, that makes you a roast pig!" she teased.
"And you, my love," my father roared comically "-are tree bark."

I walked in then to find them at the stove, with two pans on. One seared vegetables in a vegan butter, the other cooked thick fillet steaks, while my mother and father wrestle hugged to get to their respective crockery. I enjoyed my mothers herbal remedies and teas, and lived her healthy lifestyle, but few things made me happier than steak.
"For lunch? Really?" I asked, my voice skeptical.
"Oh! For lunch? Really?!" Tommy's voice right behind me echoed exactly my words, but his tone echoed extreme excitement.
"That's my man!" my dad cried and released my mom to high five Tommy.

"Go sit at the table." my mother ordered, taking the vegetables off the pan. We were sitting around the dining room table, all having already dished up my mothers veggies and mashed potatoes when my father came in holding the pan.
"The meat's ready in its varying stages of life." He slapped his peace of steak on his plate.
"Well done and burned so hard its black all the way through." he announced. Next he came to mine.
"Medium rare; cooked but still bleeding." the meat hit my plate with a happy thud that pulled my joyous heart-strings.
"Bleu- seared with a heartbeat." Tommy's was still bloody and red all the way through. He got to Marie, kissed her on the head and said; "Still alive, kicking and eating grass in a field somewhere." he returned the pan to the kitchen and sat down, and a steak-dinner-for-lunch commenced. It was then that I decided I wouldn't say anything about what had happened. They didn't need to deal with something that was probably just a fluke or a daydream anyway.

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