"Only in the darkness can you see the stars" ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

😎😎😎

Wednesday - September 17th

Compared to all the fun of last week, it has been an oddly dull week in Hell so far. I've picked up yet another detention for "talking during Important Announcements" in homeroom, catching up on May's morning. So I think it's safe to say that Or'sir and I have pretty much established our loath/hate relationship at this point. Not that I particularly care about getting another detention. Especially seeing it gives me an extra hour a day to hang with May after school in Study Buddies.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but ever since what May insists on calling Blind Date Night has become a thing? I am starting to catch May smiling a little more ...maybe even sometimes at me? Conversely, her sinister sister scowls in disapproval even more than before. So much for all the time she spends practicing her cheer.

Per our usual custom, May and I are all alone on Devil May Care Island again for lunch. Someone's sinister sister has come and gone, without so much a word edgewise. May and I have been up to our usual retelling the tales of our respective morning's adventures here in Hell. When I check the time and see that lunch is almost at an end, I realize that I have lost nearly another hour of my day chatting away with May. Losing time was something that used to happen a lot when I was a kid. But I'm not really worried about the lost time when I am with May, as it is time well misspent.

"So looks like lunch is almost over?" I glance around the shelter, but I do not see May's bratty baby sister April anywhere to be found.

"That's too bad, cause I had a couple of really awkward blind dating stories left to tell." May snickers mischievously at the memory of my most recent bout with stupidity.

"Sorry May, but I'm afraid that any of your awkward adventure stories are just going to have to wait until after school." I sigh sadly.

"Oh, and what happens after school?" May inquires almost innocently

"Ah..." And like a fly in an amber web, I am now stuck in her trap. "...well, as you know I do have study buddies as usual? Or we could always blow that off and just hang out somewhere else? You know, if you don't have anything else going on?"

"Okay, just let me check my busy sightseeing calendar." May pretends to think this through for a heartbeat or two. "Nope, I'm all free till Somone's Sister gets out of practicing her cheer at Triangle Troops. So speaking of awkward periods, any sign of April Fool? I mean other than the trail of tears, broken boy's and torn balloon wrappers?"

"Hold on, let me check for signs of the cult of cheer. " I snort.

I stand up and scour the shelter for the Someone's Sister and her coven of fear. I finally spot what looks like May's sinister sister, hanging around a crowd of Junior Varsity jockstraps out by the baseball field fences. I immediately recognize Buster's big blonde bulbous head among the various hanger-on's that aren't yet good enough to sit with the varsity.

"Yeah, I think I see her with her coven having a gang war with the Spirit Squad over by the edge baseball field? You want me to go fetch her for you, before she claws someone else's dreams to death?"

"That would be cool of you to do." May pauses and a wicked quirk of her smirk. "Or on second thought, how do you feel about having some fun at Someone's Sister's expense for interrupting Blind Date Night?"

"Suddenly, I feel very positive about this fun at Someone's Sister's expense, you speak of." I perk up positively. 

In all honestly I really do enjoy a little mean-spirited fun at Someone's Sister's expense. As most of my interactions and reactions with April's Fool to date have been anything but chillax. Ever since our blind date night of late, I always feel like Someone's Sister and I are right on the edge of a nasty argument that I won't understand? But the bomb has yet to drop to get that party really started right.

"So do you think you are up to walking me to my locker, Mr. Devil?" May smiles slices.

"I think I might be able to manage that," I reply positively.

"Then let's do this thing, and have us a little adventure at little miss popular pod persona's expense." May stands up quite contritely and reaches out for my arm. "Because if I know my sister, when she realizes she lost track of time and of her Special Sister? She's going to lose even more of her cheer and maybe even freak the flock out a little. And that alone is worth the price of admission on our next little misadventure."

"Well, I think you already know my stance on Death by Misadventure." I laugh along lightly.

"I've always thought that misadventure had such a mysterious flavor to it?" She repeats my prophetic words with a wicked grin. "They say it's just a phase I'm going through? But I don't know, it just feels so right."

"Oh well, better luck next time." I heave up a sad sigh for her benefit.

"Exactly." She snorts in retort.

With that intonation, she graciously takes my arm again as we slow dance away from the shade of the lunch shelter and out into the sun. After weaving through the various flocks of Falcons towards the last pass gate, May finally flicks out her shark stick with a snap and starts to swing low and wide in slow graceful arcs. We approach the late pass gate to the interior of the school, only to find that the Late Lunch Gate is guarded by none other than my old foul friend and admirer, The Sleestak Queen.

"Well hello there, May Belle." The mean little church lady greets May pleasantly. But quickly turns sour as her reptilian bifocals slide down enough to give me the ol' nictitating once over. "And The Infamous, Mr. Dean."

"Hi Mrs. Saint C." May smiles back and starts explaining. "My sister got caught up with something and I need to go to my locker early, if you get my drift?"

"But of course, May Belle, anything you need dear." She unlatches the gate and holds it open for May to pass thru. "If you wish, I can have one of the lunch monitors walk you down dear."

"That's okay Mrs. Saint C. I think The Infamous Mr. Dean has escort duty covered for today." May beams brightly.

"Oh does he now?" The Sleestak Queen inquires dourly, as her cold scathing reptilian stare meets mine.

"Not a problem, it would be my honor." I bare my fangs back at the Sleestak Queen, just in case she is thinking about lunging for my jugular.

During my short time in the Valley of Death, I have learned that raisins like The Sleestak Queen love it when you speak their ancient tongue. I think it really makes them feel all relevant to reality again. Throw in a "ma'am" or "sir", and you can practically wish them well on their journey into the next life.

"So I see." She intones coldly. Then her dead eyes suddenly go wide, as she must have realized what she just said in front of a blind girl.

"Thank you, Mrs. Saint C." May singsongs pleasantly along as we walk thru the late pass gate and onto the empty grounds beyond. May smirks. "But don't let his beachy cool lifeguard looks fool you.The Infamous Mr. Dean is actually a pretty good guy, all things considered."

"Very well, May Belle, I'll have to take your word for that." The Sleestak Queen croaks back crocodilian. "And Mr. Dean, seeing that your such a good guy all things considered?  You will ensure May Belle arrives at her next class on time as well. Will you not?"

"Not I will." I nod nonce in passing through the gates of Hell.

"Oh yes, and after escorting May Belle to her class, you will then come to see me in the Main Office. In order to pick up your late pass back to class." She bares her sharp little yellowed fangs at me in a feral display of aggression. "Is that clear, Mr. Dean?"

"No problemo." I shrug her glare stare off me and keep moving.

I swear on the Sea and everything I hold sacred, as we pass away from the little church lady actually takes two hooked fingers and stabs at herself in the eyes. Then turns her twisted little clawed fingers of death right around at me and mouths silently, "I'm watching you!"

"I love Mrs. Saint C, she's so nice." May smiles wistfully, completely unaware of the silent death threat being made in my general direction.

"Well, she certainly seems to like you too." I have no reason to disagree with her point of view.

Truth be told, I don't have the heart to tell her I think that her Saint might be slightly psychotic, not to mention a very poor parent. I mean this little crazy lady did let her daughter marry a boy named Buzzard after all? But then again, maybe her daughter was seriously messed up in unimaginable ways. Like maybe she used to be in prison for killing puppies or something truly awful. Or maybe her daughter used to be a dude named Christian who went to Thailand on vacation and came back as Christina? After all according to Aces, Buzzy was in the Navy ...not that there's anything wrong with that? Even though Aces always smirks when he adds the traditional martial disparagement of the seafaring warmongers.

I cautiously escort May up the stairs into the halls and down the way to her locker. Which turns out is a nice tall double wide "special locker" at the end the F wing hallway, and conveniently located right next to the handicapped-accessible restroom. It seems to me that her locker is about the most inconvenient located in terms of a central locale to her classes. But then again it's also located right next to the only handicapped restroom on campus? Which I am thinking might be intentional, seeing that no one else is going to use it for convenience sake.

"Okay, so this is me." May smiles slowly. "So if you don't mind I think I gotta go. You know, freshen up my make up?"

"Okay. So I'll just wait here and walk you to class." I counter.

"That's really not necessary, Dare." She shakes me off with a smirk. "My next class is just down the hall from here. So you can just..."

"Naw not, it's totally cool." I quickly cut off her banishment. "Trust me my next class is a joke, and your buddy Mrs. St. Claire said I have to come to the office to get a late slip anyways. So in order to do the late slip thing, I kind of need to be late? So if it's all the same, I'll just hang with you, if that's cool?"

"It's your funeral, Mr. Misadventure." May quirks a smirk as she pushes through the door to her throne room. "So Bee-R-Bee."

It's not too long before May emerges from the bathroom. Maybe it's my imagination that tells me she is happy that I am sticking around to escort her around.

"Do I look okay?" She smiles, steeling herself for critique.

"Perfect." I try to put an extra smile sound into my voice because she really does look perfectly Maybe. With her pixie cut sort of spiked up, and rocking her dark Sith nightshades. It's not the first time I've noticed that she kind of has elongated "elfy" ears. But I have to suppress the sudden impulse to reach out and rub them once for luck. Something that I am pretty sure could get me a bad case of the beats with her Shaolin whippy-stick of death.

"Okay, The Infamous Mr. Dean, let's dance with the devil." May snorts and extends her hand for me to take and lead her astray.

Tap dancing with May down the eerily lifeless hallways, devoid of their usual clamor is an oddly interesting experience. Unlike our last dance at the movies, I don't lead her so much as follow along in her wake, as her walking stick taps echoes out onto the tiles and back. I am starting to get a better sense of why she has trouble echo-navigating the crowded hallways of Hell. It's not only the jostling of bodies throwing off her equilibrium, but the constant yelling people. Not to mention, the sharp startling reverberations from the slam-bang of lockers, that interferes with her echo ability to navigate. But in the absence of all that noise...

"You know, this is almost peaceful?" I observe.

"It can be at times." She halfheartedly agrees.

"Okay, so here we are at F-4." I point out unnecessarily opening the door for her.

"Yay me." May deadpans my successful navigation straight down the F-wing hallway from her locker.

"Front row next to the door, my old favorite spot." May intones dryly as she drops her bowling ball bag onto the floor.

"Hello, May Belle." May's teacher glances up at us with a serene smile and then goes back to doing what she was doing in the far corner of the classroom.

"Hello, Miss Fern." May smiles back sweetly.

At a glance, May's English teacher looks match her name a little too perfectly for my tastes. Miss Fern is a small woodland nymphy old looking hippy lady, who wears a lot of forest green. I have to wonder if her name was always Fern, or at some point during the 90's did she shorten Fernandez down to fit her new age little elf-self?

"Okay, bye Dare have fun with Mrs. Saint C," May smirks up at me.

"Yeah, yay me, Maybe?" I counter back dryly.

While May gets settled into her spot I look around and take in the totality of her classroom. Seems to me you can tell a lot about a teacher, from the way they decorate the border boards around their classroom. I hate to admit this, but Miss Fern's old English ensemble is way nicer than my class with Or'sir. Fern's boards are intricate and thoughtful effigies to dead English writing people. As opposed to the austere obedience starkness of Orsir's semi-temporary tyranny. As if somehow he and he alone is the inspiration behind the entire English language learning thing.

"Ummm, Darren?" May tilts her head up at me. "Why are you still here?"

"Sorry May, I was just checking out your classroom?" I try to justify my lingering.

"Okay...why?" May inquires curiously.

"Cause unless I am not mistaken I'm pretty sure this is what a real English class is supposed to look like?" I nod a compliment over to Fernelf, who smiles oddly back as if to say, "So you're the Infamous Dean boy? Somehow I thought you'd be crazier?"

I bare my fangs back at her, and so satisfied that I must indeed be the delinquent in question. Fern goes back to doing whatever teachers do when they're waiting for the rest of their students to arrive. Loading her blaze bowl up for a post-lunch haze session? Or maybe dropping a little more Courvoisier creamer in her "coffee". The first bell rings off, and soon enough the rest of the Flock will be flying high in the hallways of Hell.

"Okay May, catch ya later." I back away from the wholesomeness. 

"Okay Mr. Devil, see ya later after school in detention, dude." May waves me wickedly away from her good graces. 

"Coo'cool." I drone and drift out into the empty hall, just in time to see the crush of flocking Falcons returning from feed time.

Instead of fighting the flocks, I post up across from May's classroom and watch her go through her routine through the open door. She gets out her recorder from the bowling ball bag and sets it up on her desk just so. Watching over her, I can't help but notice that the eternal smirk she wears around me evaporates, as a sudden sadness washes over her face leaving behind nothing but stoic stone.

After that crucial task is complete, she then sighs deeply and leans her head down over her desk, like she is taking a siesta. As May settles in for her after lunch nap, her fellow classmates drift in and out of the door next to her. It strikes me slightly harsh that not one of these flocks bothers to say hello to her, nor even acknowledge her presence at all in passing. Like just because she is blind and can't see them, they all act like they can't see her either? Like she is just another part of the scenery of Hell.

I watch this scene play out from across the hallway, until I start to feel a little awkward for spying on her in her real life away from our lunches. While I am loathed to admit this, but one of the collateral benefits to May's blindness is that I can watch over her without freaking her out by staring at her all the time. I am also beginning to realize that I might not be the only one that needs our lunches to remain sane in this madhouse menagerie. While I've always been alone, I don't think until that moment watching May, did I really understand lonely.

After the flocks in the crowded hallways thin out a little, I make my way as slow as possible to the fishbowl front Office. I don't even bother to stop by my own locker to grab my book and notebook for Drone Strike's movie of the week. I figure with a late pass in hand, I will have plenty of time on the return trip to get myself sorted out. Besides what's the point being prepared for His-Story anyways? After all, Striker is just gonna read out of the big book or show another movie of the week anyways? Lately, he's been mixing it up with almost historically relevant made for TV miniseries. Pretty anything starring Elizabeth Taylor seems to be his thing. Whether it's historically relevant to the current chapter he's been reading out loud to us or not.

I wander into the Main Office and up to the desk sergeant, with the rhinestone bedazzled name tag that sparkles and scintillates "Miss Krystal". I sort of remember her from the first day shitshow, as the Sleestak Queen's sergeant-at-arms. The same one who was guarding her back at the barricade, while dealing with Freddy Falcons mother's broken dreams of advancement. This buxom bleachy blonde bimbo is a pushing thirty prototype, that reminds me more than a little of a few of the wilder drunks that pass for friends of my mothers.

Like who she is trying to be at the moment, isn't really who she is at all? But rather the almost two years sober version of the real deal Miss Krystal. Because the original model was a "woohoo" party girl. Who after a couple of shots of Jägermeister just might flash her ample bosom's on St Patrick's Day for green beads. Or New Year's Eve. Or Mardi Gras. Or even Cinco de Mayo. No regrets, so long as it's an alcoholic holiday somewhere to someone, and there are colored bead necklaces involved, cause she craves the adoration.

"Can I help you?" She eyes me suspiciously, through her bleached out blonde bangs.

"Yeah, the little lady that runs this place told me to come to the office for a late pass." I shrug her off.

"Well then, I suggest you take a seat and wait for her eminence return." Krystal click clacks her fake bedazzled red nails towards the old-fashioned wood pew bench in front of the glass fishbowl wall window. I think she might have meant emanate? But then again the Sleestak Queen is sort of a petite petty tyrant, so maybe I'm the one lost in translation?

I fade away from the front barricade, drifting back to a long line of wood benches against the glass fishbowl wall. Truth be told, I am instantly suspicious of this wood bench pew thing, that I have been directed to wait upon. Like the raptor dove above, it appears to be part of the original Inquisition decor that this place is forever rocking. Probably hailing back to when the conquistadors ran this cathedral of judgmental. Cause this thing most definitely has that twisted Torquemada vibe coming off it. Like this bench has been stained with years of penitent children's tears. I can already sense that the Inquisition bench really misses those Conquistador kids and their fear tears.

"So you're Irish Iris's grandson, The Infamous Dean Boy, right?" She blinks under her kinky 80's bleached blondie bangs.

"So they keep insisting on telling me." I blink back blankly.

"I went to high school with Brad and ...Dottie Hendricks." She informs me evenly, as if this is emphasis supposed to impress me on any level.

"Cool." I nod slowly, waiting to see where she's going with this irrelevancy.

"No, not really." She eyes me steely and then goes back to doing whatever it is that she does in the office when she is not actually doing something "officey", at least until the Sleestak Queen arrives to rip my head off my shoulders.

Backside note:

So at this point, you might be wondering why I didn't offer to take May's books for her? You might be thinking that I should be stepping up and carrying her books for her like a "Good Guy" should? Because what's a blind girl doing carrying all those books around, and possibly throwing her balance off right?

So here a fun fact to take with you: Blind people read in Braille, right? So yeah, they can read like everyone else ...cool ...right? No, not quite right.

Look around your house, maybe you got one of those Right books sitting on the shelf somewhere. What some folks call The King James version of the New Really Right. Yeah, that one "Let there be light" book with all the respect me rules. So your standard stolen hotel version roughly weighs around a pound and a half give or take. But the Braille version? Oh Holy Shiite!

The Braille Bible is 30 large binders and stacks up at about five feet tall, and weighs in at a little over two hundred pounds. The same weight that Mohamad Ali weighed in when he fought Sonny Liston for the Heavy Weight Title for the first time.

And the average school textbook? Two pounds, give or take? So yeah, do the math dummy.

So Maybe doesn't carry books ever. What May does do however is record all her classes. She's got the best mini micro gadgity things ever, which she cutely calls her "Mayflies". And they record everything that goes on around her ...even the things she doesn't want to know.