1 Otherwise known as the start, the beginning, but really do we know where things really began? I don't think so, the best we can do is come up with places where we noticed a change, a possible starting point or inciting event and usually we notice these only with the benefit of hindsight.
This story didn't end up starting or even beginning the way I Intended it to. Or ending or middling the way I first or last envisioned it; that's how real life is, that's how fiction goes. Maybe this will all be edited out in the final draft; maybe I won't live to see a final draft. Maybe you could call this kind of a confession. I should have never, ever done what I've did but I did it anyway, and what's more I'd do it again. Imagine you're in a library, like the one you may have found this in. Cobwebs everywhere, no Dewey decimal system to save you now and lines of shelves going off into the distant darkness. There's a book half out of the shelf, daring you to pull it off. And it has this story inside it, the one I'm telling you now, the one you never wanted to hear.
Victoria Barafort was quite rich. She was quite extremely rich, the kind of rich that makes you the target of kidnappers or hitmen in some stories. This isn't that kind of story. She was so rich, that she was able to get into the most prestigious boarding school in America. She was so intelligent that she was able to do it on her own merit, but she still used her allowance to buy the school and have them admit her by default because that was just the kind of thing she liked to do.
The school, the Tufbashe Academy was famous for many things that she had heard of and possibly even a few she hadn't and it was quite clear that it being on your permanent record was the kind of thing that looked good on that kind of record and therefore she was going to get it on hers. The school was on its own private island that was technically part of America by virtue of the fact that they said it was and nobody had enough nuclear weapons to suggest otherwise. She landed on that island on her own private airfield that she had bought for the occasion, riding in her own private jet. Victoria Barafort was tall, slim and beautiful, with long black hair and piercing eyes. She was constantly judging everyone else with them, and finding them inferior. Perhaps if everyone else had their own private jets and private airfields that they had bought just that morning for the occasion she would have felt differently. She strode down the ramp towards her waiting limousine, and a woman dressed in a French maid costume waited for her there.
"Oh, it's you," said Victoria in a tone of contempt. It was most likely the sort of tone she used with most people but in this case it was actually for a specific reason. Ashiyubi was weird. She probably would have had her fired by now, except Victoria spent so little time actually thinking about other people except when they were right in front of her that she fired less people than the usual condescending socialite.Ashiyubi opened the back door of the limousine for Victoria, and said, "What a lovely school uniform you're wearing, mistress," she said in a monotone. And it was quite lovely, it was the "official" school uniform of Tufbashe Academy, a blue vest over a white blouse and a blue shirt, all navy blue. It was the sort of thing you tended to see in cliché stories about boarding schools, and if it wasn't for the fact that even the handbook Victoria had gotten from the school and skimmed had referred to it as the "official" uniform in suspicious quotes like that, she wouldn't have felt the least bit suspicious. Ashiyubi continued without putting any emotion into her voice, "Does mistress want a foot rub?"
Victoria gave Ashiyubi her most condescending look as she entered the back of the limousine and leaned back in the seat. It was a large open area more like the inside of a bedroom or a parlor than a car and is the sort of thing that most of us will only be able to imagine or perhaps see in films. Victoria leaned back in the seat that was really more of a lounger, and put her legs up. "Put my luggage in the overhead compartment, I may need to do my makeup again later," she announced, ignoring the maid. Ashiyubi popped the extra storage compartment in the interior of the roof of the car and slid Victoria's suitcase in there, not even grunting despite the fact it weight as much as if a bunch of bowling balls had been packed inside it.
"We should be arriving at Tufbashe Academy in about three hours, Mistress," she said.
"They couldn't possibly have put this airfield any further away from the school," Victoria said, sighing to herself and floofing her hair in a theatrical manner like a movie star. "I'm going to insist they install a closer one as soon as I arrive,"
"Apparently they wish to have a buffer zone around the school, no flights are allowed to get anywhere near it, Mistress," said Ashiyubi. "Does mistress wish me to give her a foot massage while she waits?" She began to stare at her intently as Victoria removed her expensive boots and flexed her toes. She was barefoot underneath her boots because she had never found any socks that she found suitable. Ashiyubi's mouth curled into a chesire grin and Victoria glared at her.
"Stop being an imbecile and get into the front of the car, peasant," she growled. "I am not eager to sit around here all day listening to you blather on about this and that."
To Victoria, everyone was a peasant and needed to be frequently reminded of this. Ashiyubi was still enthusiastic however, as she skipped to the front of the vehicle with a spring in her step. Her mistress was in fine form today. The driver pretended to ignore the both of them, but as soon as Ashiyubi was in, he took off. The sooner they got to Tufbashe Academy, the better.
The private plane may have landed on a private airfield, but it and the Academy were not the only structure on the island. Outside of the three hour (by car) buffer zone, there were many residences, from the wealthy to the middle class. That's why it just so happened that as Victoria's limousine was beginning to pull out of the private airfield onto the public (but also private) road, an incident occurred. A young woman in a karate gi was on a bicycle in the road, and she crossed their path. The woman had short brown hair and a blue and white bandana wrapped around her head, but what was the most incredible was the speed she was going; The bicycle whipped in front of the limousine at forty miles an hour. The young woman's feet were bare and so large they were larger than her head and possibly as long as her torso. Most notably, whenever she pedaled the front half of her foot was so long it touched the ground and she pushed off like one of the Flintstones in their strange little cars so that she was half biking and half launching herself forward on foot. And yet she did this so quickly that one minute she was not there, and the next minute she was in front of the limousine; the driver slamming on the brakes.Victoria watched inside the car as a strange peasant girl in a white martial arts outfit of some sort pedaled like a maniac past, forcing her limo to screech to a halt. She first glared as she approached, "How dare that peasant cross my path!" she shrieked, but then was jolted backward when the limo made its abrupt stop. She would no doubt have continued to protest, but the overhead compartment, which had been improperly sealed, burst open at this point and Victoria had a single moment to contemplate her incredibly heavy luggage before it vaulted from its perch and struck her in the forehead. Her sight was filled with stars less like her friends from the movies and more like the night sky, and then everything went hazy and dim. A ring of chirping birds spun about her head, and she slumped backward in her seat. Victoria smiled dazedly, and her eyes decided to spin in their sockets like the birds and then she didn't know much of anything for a while.
Unaware of the mess she had caused, the young girl on the bicycle, who happened to be named Mika, muttered to herself, "I gotta hurry or I'm going to be late for school!" She pedaled faster.
YOU ARE READING
It Was Late And I Was Tired
HumorI'm not sure how to describe this yet, but it might include strange powers, an unusual high school, lots of head trauma, and maybe even love.