The campus fountain groaned and shrieked with the slippery, green water as Franki Button Shoeshine and her invisible friend, Chuck, walked about in the overcast afternoon air.
It had been an interesting day.
It started when the two woke before the sun -- and, boy, was he irate at being beaten to the punch! -- in order to get their early enough to figure out in which room the right classes were to be held, as they'd decided to stalk the downstairs vending machines, instead, last week.
Pulling into the lot, Franki was still mostly asleep, and not entirely lucid on the events of her driving. But she woke up rather quickly, when Chuck screamed, grabbing the steering wheel and lunging the great craft to the right, so as to avoid hitting the creature that had leapt out from behind an oblong shrub. Shrieking, herself, Franki punched Chuck squarely in the thorax, and regained control of the vehicle, just in time to narrowly pull into a spot between a semi trailer and a witch's broom.
Shaking and shocked, Franki and Chuck remained in her car for several minutes after it was shut off, silently staring straight ahead.
"Did I kill it?" Franki finally asked.
"No, I don't think so... Well, maybe... Probably... I don't know."
They found out for sure the next second, as a flash of black jumped onto the rust-rippled hood of Franki's car. It was a cat. A small, lean, scraggly cat with frazzled whiskeres, ears bigger than its head, one of which with a rat-sized bite out of it, and a bald patch in the middle of its tail.
Franki's heart immediately swelled for it. "Poor thing! He looks to be on his last life!"
Chuck was immediatly skeptical for it. "How do you know it's a 'he'?"
"Well, just look -- where have you seen bigger cat-bollocks?"
"I didn't know they even had them."
"Well, you know some of them have to have them. After all, they do keep ... happening..." Suddenly aware of the turn the conversation had taken, Franki blushed and changed the subject just slightly. "We should keep him!"
"How? Carry him from class to class? I doubt they'd let you do that... And besides, we don't need a cat."
"Who needs a cat? I want one!"
"Okay, then we can check out the pet shop when we get back home."
"No, those cats are all whimpy. This guy is perfect! He's tough, he's scrappy, he's got a little kitty chip on his shoulder, and he's -- he's -- gone! Where did he go?"
"With any luck, to the pound. Come on, let's go look for your first class."
Franki's first class was a boring contribution to the money-spending habbits of humans who have it, which was a tad depressing for the girl and the fata morgana who had not. Though, at what would be the hight of disinterest for her other classmates, Franki suddenly found something to amuse her in the worst way. For, you see, accross the room, she spied the one person she truely could not stand to be around; her prclaimed arch-enemy, the only human, she knew of, who could get under her thick and highly-decorated skin; the one person who managed to break through her cloud of confident dignity and introduce a poison of doubt that made her high school experience less than enjoyable.
Teeny Buzzkill.
"No! No! Not here! Why would she be here?" Franki propped up her economics textbook as a shield, whispering to Chuck, who still hadn't quite caught on, "Teeny! I thought she'd gone to a trade school to be a manicurist, or a model, or some such craziness! Why is she in community college? In an advanced class?"
Franki suddenly felt the deep need to hide, be anything but noticable, for fear of being called out by this evil enchantress who had made her so miserable. And, the worst, most discraceful fact of the whole situation was that Teeny, while entirely aware of her own cruelty, was blind as to the exact pain she'd wrought upon Franki's life; in fact, except for a passing aknowledgment of her strange attire, Franki's existance was barely a blip on her radar.
That fact lasted to make everything worse.
Franki's first class could not have gotten over soon enough, and as soon as the instructor uttered, "See ya in --," she was outa there, and if Teeny Buzzkill had seen her, she didn't appear to notice.
Lunch came after, and Franki did not have six dollars for a ham sandwich, so she went to the best-working hot-beverage vending machine (which she'd been sure to carefully map last week), and got a one-dollar cup of chicken noodle soup, and went out to the empty cafe' courtyard to eat it. It was too early for most students to want to eat lunch, but a more proper luch time for her was occupied by a class, so this time would have to do.
Franki sighed and sipped the boullion-water. "I can't believe she's here. Why would she be here?"
"Who?"
"Teeny Buzzkill!"
"Oh. You're still talking about her? I thought we were on to lunch."
"I can't get my mind off her. The injustice! We graduated over a year ago! I didn't complain when she job-shadowed my mother."
"Yes, you did."
"And I've all but forgotten the time she ran me off the road."
"Actually, you won't shut up about it."
"But, now she's here, of all places! I swear she's following me!"
"Delusion of grandeur. She doesn't even know who you are!"
"You're my invisible friend. Aren't you supposed to be supportive?"
"Says the girl who would fight with herself, just for the chance of opposition. This thing with Teeny is all in your head, and I guarrintee, if you got over it, the whole fued would end. Forget your obsessive-underdog syndrome, and ride the smooth road!"
Franki flailed her arms in outrage. "I do not have Obsessive-Underdog Syndrome! I swear, she really is out to get me!" Her chicken noodle soup went flying, and before it even hit the ground, another familiar black blur also came flying.
"Hey, look, Chuck!" Franki cried, distracted from her internal drama. "It's our friend!"
The scraggly feline smiled up at Franki, his crooked whiskers dripping with soup, and a noodle dangling half out of his mouth.
"Aren't you sweet!" She pet the cat, and the moment the two made contact, a bolt of electricity generated along the cat's fried whiskers, and shot out, just narrowly missing Franki. Chuck, however, was not so lucky.
"A-hem," Chuck wheezed and coughed. "Stop petting Sparky!"
The cat dropped his noodle, his once-bright eyes cataracted over, as his mind went somewhere else. His back arched, and fangs grew from his mouth, accompanied by a yowling hiss that would frighten a ghost.
"Ix-nay on the 'arky-spay,' Chuck! Try a different name -- like -- um -- Noodle-Puss!"
The cat immediately calmed down, eyes shining once more, and he appeared to be just another near-broken alley-cat that just wanted to be loved. He obviously approved of the name.
"Great. Nice name. But now we have to go to class, and leave Spark-- er, Noodle-Puss -- here."
Franki glanced at her watch. "Ooh, you're right! Bye, Noodle-Puss! Enjoy your lunch!"
It was later in the day, after another class, the pair attended the class that seemed the most relaxing, and most beneficial, as it payed for half her tuition: Chorus.
Music is always helpful for a sane mind (unless that mind is any of those of the famous Masters, who appeared to have gone mad with the music), though, Franki had secretly been looking forward to this class all summer for a different reason.
That reason's name was Trilby Carper.
Franki made sure to wear a fantastic hat on the first day, so that Trilby would recognise her from when they'd connected over hat talk last semester. Though, to her disappointment, if he had recognised her, he didn't come out and say it. And, despite her loud wardrobe, Franki was a tad too shy to go up and start the conversation. So she watched him from afar, all during the class.
He sat in the tennor's section, directly accross from her, in the alto's section (which placement seemed at least a little encouraging), and he was beautiful.
At this thought, Franki had to reel herself back in. There really was not much reason for her to like him, despite his large hands and great taste in millinery; he was rather cynnical, quiet, and often made stupid decisions whose bases lied in the sake of fashion, rather than reason.
They had too much in common, and she wasn't sure she liked that.
Still, when class was over, Trilby stayed after to talk to the director, and Franki stayed in the foyer of the auditorium, feigning fascination with the quilts on display, when she really couldn't care less -- all for just one more glance of Trilby Carper before leaving for the day.
"Just promise me you won't get all obsessed with him, okay?"
"With who? I'm just looking at this quilted, paisley-shaped place-mat."
"Come on. You'd have to be blind not to notice your owl-eye staring at that Carper guy in class."
"Sure, I guess he's cute... Okay, more than cute... But I'm not obsessed."
"Yes, you are! You're always obsessed. It might be with a new thing every day, but there has never been, nor will there ever be, a day when Franki Button Shoeshine is not obsessed. It's just your nature not to half-ass things like that."
"Well... is that a bad thing?"
"Most of the time, no. But the moment you get a crush, then, yeah, it can be."
"Hey, I just admitted he was attractive, nothing more!"
"Do you remember Jonas?"
"Beautiful Ginger-Jonas with the freckles and the feet?... No."
"You wouldn't smuggle your thumb-size spy camera into class just to take pictures of the back of any Jonas' head. And Lance?"
"Smart, word-smithy, public-speaky Lance? What about him?"
"You spent an entire year shoving secret admirer letters in his locker, but never speaking a word to his face. You even stole a lock of his hair."
"Well, how else would the voodoo doll work?"
"All I'm saying is, you tend to get a bit... Stalker-y, when you start liking someone."
"I am not stalker-y! And it doesn't last long, anyway! Six months, at the longest... Shut up! Not a stalker!"
"Franki, we've been standing her for half an hour, staring at the same stupid quilt."
"It's a nice quilt."
"In the perfect position to see when that guy leaves, and have the longest exposure time to his image."
"Coincidence. Anyway, how would you know?"
"Because he's coming right now."
"Eeep!" Franki hid partially behind an Elvis quilt, eyes on Trilby and his guitar case, hand fumbelling blindly for her cell phone and the camera it contained.
"Hey," Trilby waved a single finger at Franki, his head cocked with a half smile and questioningly-raised eyebrow.
"Hennyih..." Franki squeeked out, suddenly frozen.
Trilby made his way through the foyer, down the hall, up the stairs, around the corner, and out of Franki's view. Feeling both pathetic and creepy, Franki groaned and avoided eye contact with Chuck. He was right.
In the parking lot, Franki and Chuck got into her vessel, and drew a collective sigh. Franki glanced left, then popped an ironic chuckle. "Of course!" The license plate on the witch's broom parked beside them read "TEENY1". She dropped her head on the steering wheel, making the horn drone. Her tired dispair was interrupted as a familliar bolt of lightning shot Chuck from the back seat.
"Noodle-Puss!" Franki cried as she looked behind her. "What are you doing in here?"
"Mroaw."
"Do you wana come home with us?"
"Purr-r-rr-r-r-r..."
"Come on up here, kid! Chuck, hold him while I drive. I knew some good had to come of this day!"
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