Veronica Stone

Pt. 13

BADOOM!!!

The shockwave interrupted her blubbering, flinging her and the shot up jet ski out of the water, about a meter away from the exploded  boat. She'd later hear insane stories about how high the fishing yacht flew in the air, from the other students that were either far enough away to see it or actually on the boat's deck when it happened. It was a miracle neither it nor the jet ski ever landed and crushed her, especially since she was dry on reinforcement pills. 

The large overturned boat lay in the water bearing a giant hole on its stomach where that Sandino fangirl planted the C4. Probably had her seal do it when the exam started. Early bloomers had an unfair advantage like that. But Veronica wouldn't be threatened by Elizabeth or Lizzie as the girls called her. She was still cut from a similar academic cloth to Madness (albeit for a different reason); meaning she had no chance at passing the exam let alone surpassing Veronica. To succeed at The Victoria Institute required some inkling of focus and her grades reflected how much of that she lacked. She wasn't particularly stupid, she just never wanted to be there in the first place and everyone could tell. The only thing she put much effort into was telling anyone within earshot about the time she ran away to "provide support" to the EDSN rebels, although she'd conveniently skim over what exactly that "support" entailed (Veronica couldn't imagine much a twelve year old girl could do to significantly assist a group like that). And as for WHY a Sandinista sympathizer would even find themselves on the Victoria, there was a clue in the one part of the story she always went into painstaking detail about; the part with her planting dynamite under one of the National Guard's vehicles and setting it off with an arrow, 15 meters away (or 20 or 30 depending on her mood that day). Veronica never totally bought it, but she knew some action of that sort, maybe less hyperbolized, made her wealthy mining-company-accountant daddy pack her up and send her off to The Victoria to knock the rebel out of her. Only thing was it never worked, they were an exam away from graduating and the only reason she participated was because Principal Cummins threatened to hand her over to U.S. agents if she was expelled without completing the curriculum. If she had to be there then creating chaos for everyone was a fair compromise in her mind, or at least that was the only way Veronica rationalized it. Lizzie wasn't even collecting the pendants.

"MY FA#$%&@ FOOT! MI GO KILL DAT SCU#$!", A muffled echoey explosion of expletives rattled the wreck in the distance. From the accent it must've been Andrea. The BGLU needed muscle, who better to send off to combat school than one of the union big-wig's daughters? Veronica could feel the weight on the girl's shoulders, she could hear it in her voice. She was to come back to Guyana to teach what she'd learnt. Hard enough she was a woman, she needed to be at the top of the course at least for the "fellas" back home to take her seriously. She and Veronica were similar in that sense. The pressure. 

"F@%#!", Veronica cried out.

Because while Veronica could hear the crashing and snapping sounds of a determined girl tearing away at the bowels of the boat to make her way out... trying to keep going in spite of adversity, Veronica was frozen, shuddering, whimpering like a child, doing utterly nothing. The funny thing was she used to be way ahead of Andrea too. The entire school was literally after her, this was not the place for a union head's daughter. Everyone knew it, and the faculty went out their way to remind the poor girl. Conveniently misplacing assignments, "randomly" putting her against monsters like Rochelle every mid-term tournament, even straight up harassment. And yet here she was. What was Veronica's excuse?

Just do sain man! 

She clenched her fists to the point they might break. 

The exam was almost half way through. Since the start she'd tried to go after the pendants like everyone else but her trembley hands strangling the jetski handlebars screamed to the rest of students that she hadn't gotten any better. She'd been spiralling all month. They said it might be anxiety, she refused to take the medicine because that was just admitting what everyone was thinking. Weakness. She couldn't keep it together, failing assignments, falling asleep in tests because of the insomnia from the cramming session the night before, standing in the tournament arena shaking and stammering until her opponent's pity faded. Falling from number two student to off the top ten certainly didn't help her mental situation and Rochelle's smug grins only made her hate herself even more. In fact it was Rochelle who zipped over to her on her jetski cackling and firing "warning shots" ridiculously close to Veronica's own. The nerves were too great, she dove off her vehicle to Rochelle's delight. All Veronica could do was bawl and punch at the water as she watched Rochelle perforate her jetski in twisted ecstasy. 

"MI AGO COME BACK FIH YA BABY GIRL!"

Rochelle's voice echoed in her mind. Veronica clung onto the jetski for comfort and to ease her legs from treading water. She was pathetic. There was no denying it.

As if to rub salt into the wound, Veronica felt something hard pressing between the body of jetski and her chest. The stupid whistle. Veronica had no clue why she hadn't pelted it in the sea yet. Maybe she was afraid of what Madness might do if she saw her without it. Her little joke.

It was just after Rochelle's harassment. Madness spun by, smirking her stupid smirk. She got off her jetski and paddled right up to a vexed Veronica.

"If yuh 'ave trouble just give Daba a call!", Madness winked after draping the whistle around Veronica's neck.

Veronica mustered to suck her teeth in defiance but Madness was already gone by then.

They all thought she was a joke. 

BRATATATATTTATATTATATATATATATTATA!

Jolene lay flattened onto her jetski swerving and winding it across the water trying to evade the spray of Marie's bullets chasing behind her. The two were getting closer to Veronica, and she couldn't help but shrink, almost to hide her shame behind her jetski. As they flew past, Veronica caught Marie glancing back. It was only for a flash, Marie was hell bent on stealing Jolene's pendants, but Veronica saw it, the smudge of pity on her face. That was how everyone saw her now. Probably how they had always seen her. A teary scream found itself banging on the walls of her throat. 

Before it could get out, a duo of unfamiliar ones interrupted her self loathing, whipping her attention back to where the two girls had gone. Veronica's eyes immediately popped open wide, gawking at the giant manta ray gliding through the air towards Jolene and Marie. They dove off their jetskis. Veronica understood. With the behemoth size of that thing and the way it was falling, they'd be crushed no matter how fast they went. The safest direction was down.

BOOM!!!!

It landed just ahead of the jetskis sending them flying across in a giant wave. 

"MIERDA!", Justina cackled atop her 30 ft wide familiar. 

Da f@#$ing c#@%.

She could have easily killed them. The rules allowed only one familiar and the invigilators regulated how they could be used. Yet Veronica glanced up to the helicopter hovering above the arena to confirm her suspicions. Not a peep from them. 

Her stomach bubbled hot. It wasn't fair. Justina barely wore her uniform and when she did it was all wrong, the smell of weed wafting into the hall during morning assembly let you know she had decided to wake early that day, and somehow no one ever noticed the unauthorised cruiser boat that stopped by the Victoria every two weeks to toss mysterious packages onto the deck for her to collect. Veronica spat. Maybe if her father ran coke for those Yankee government suits, her life at Victoria would be a cake walk too.