Title: Abnormality Rules
Author: KiwiTree
Disclaimer: All characters in this story belong to Chris Carter and 1013 and
all their lawyers, not me. So nobody sue me or anything.
Rating: PG
Summary: It's Fox and Dana's daughter's first day of sixth grade. Can she
come to terms with her family's weirdness and make a new friend at the same
time? Of course she can! This is Spooks and Dana's own flesh and blood here,
come on guys!
Abnormality Rules
I walked nervously in to the classroom and glanced around. Some kids were
standing timidly in the back of the room, some were shouting and laughing and
running around, and some were whispering and giggling with their little
friends. I picked a desk in the back, next to a nice-looking girl with black
hair. 'Calm, calm, calm,' I thought. I've done this, what, five times
before? It was just the first day of school. I was sure that by second
period I'd have new friends swarming around me like flies. Wait, friends
swarming around me like flies? What a horrible analogy. I should just stop
thinking.
I observed reluctantly as the teacher walked over, closed the door, then
walked up to the front of the classroom. I frowned as I observed her. The
bright magenta pants almost made my eyes hurt and the lime green pumps defied
description. The plump, rather old woman had flimsy brown hair and as far as
I could tell, her eyebrows had probably been applied this morning with a brown
sharpie marker. I cringed as she smiled a syrupy sweet smile and clasped her
hands in front of herself eagerly.
"Hello children! Welcome to your very first day of sixth grade! I'm Mrs.
Pryce, and I just can't WAIT to get started! We have SO much FUN in store for
us!"
I could hardly wait.
"I know a lot of you kids are meeting a lot of kids you never knew
before," she looked around the room at all of the restless children, making eye contact with a few of the more rowdy-looking ones, "So I've come up with a little game for you all!"
My defense mechanism kicked in. A game? Oh no. This cannot be good. Maybe
if I caught appendicitis all of the sudden....OW!!! ooo...my stomach...Yeah,
that'd be good, she'd believe that, right?...
"Every single child in the class will get to come up to the front of the
room and tell us about themselves! But one thing they say about themselves,
they'll just make up. And then the rest of the kids get to guess what about
you is true and what isn't. Now won't that be just GREAT?"
I frowned. No, appendicitis couldn't work. What about chicken pocks or the flu? Maybe a bad cold, or a cough. Maybe somebody drugged my milk? Maybe if
I hit my arm hard enough against the desk I could break it...
"And guess who gets to start us off for the day, kids????"
Oh God, please not me, please not me, please not me. I'll go to church
for the rest of my waking life, I'll donate cans of food to the homeless, I'll
volunteer at a hospital, I'll join the peace corps....
"SAMANTHA MULDER! COME ON DOWN!"
Thanks a whole lot, God! I said spitefully in my mind as I reluctantly
brushed a wisp of red hair back into my ponytail and lifted myself out of my
desk. I made my way slowly to the front of the classroom. Everybody must've
been staring at me, thinking I was weird. Thinking how dumb I looked. Feeling sorry for this poor 11-year-old sap who'd been chosen to go first for this god-awful game. I stopped and turned around, facing the class, when I got to the front of the classroom. I stared at my shoes and waited for something to happen. Mrs. Pryce looked at me with such a syrupy-sweet smile I thought my teeth would rot.
"So, Samantha, tell us about yourself!"
I shifted my weight nervously from one foot to another and looked timidly at
the class.
"My name is...uhh...Samantha Melissa Mulder..." I mumbled. "Speak up,
Samantha! Tell us some more!" Mrs. Pryce said encouragingly.
I glanced around the room with my mouth open, then started again. "My parents are...um...Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, they work in the FBI, I think."
No reaction.
"I live in an apartment with them."
A boy started picking his nose.
"I have a dog, he's a Pomeranian, his name is...um...Queequeg Junior."
Giggles sounded loudly from several corners of the classroom. Even Mrs. Pryce chuckled.
"How did you come up with that, um, very interesting name, Samantha????" she
interrogated, smiling.
"It wasn't my idea. It was my mom's. She named it after this dog she used
to have who got eaten by an alligator who my dad thought was a sea monster."
Mrs. Pryce seemed to choke, but recovered rather quickly. I heard small eruptions of suppressed laughter. I wished my parents weren't so weird.
"Yes..that's nice..." Mrs. Pryce said, the smile slowly draining from her face. "You are remembering our rule of only making up one thing about yourself, aren't you, Samantha dear?"
A small smile crept across my face.
"Yes!" I said. You know, maybe this wasn't so bad....
"Ummm...lets see...my favorite movie is Close Encounters Of the Third Kind,
my dad always used to show that to me when I was a kid..." My fellow
classmates back in their seats smiled and I was beginning to feel for the
first time since I'd left home today like maybe everybody wasn't going to hate
me, even if my family was a little weird.
"I'm 11 years old, I was born November 21st, and, uhh...I want to be a tax
consultant when I grow up." The whole class smiled and hands shot up like bullets to try and guess what about me wasn't true. 'Good luck' I thought with a smirk.
After about fifteen minutes of unsuccessful guessing by my peers, the girl I
had been sitting next to with the black hair raised her hand and Mrs. Pryce
called on her. "I'm not sure if this is right, but, you don't really want to
be a tax consultant, right?" she said. I smiled. "Right!" I exclaimed. "I
want to be a genetic engineer, and clone things!"
Mrs. Pryce lay sprawled on her desk chair. "You may, uh, go back to your
seat now, Samantha." I hopped to the back of the room and plopped down in my
chair, a wave of happiness spreading over me. Everybody didn't hate me! Wow!
How not what I'd expected!
"Hey Samantha" I heard a whisper to my right and turned my head, smiling, to the black-haired girl who'd guessed my lie correctly. "Hi! Good guess." I said.
"Thanks. My name's Maria Skinner. My guess, it really wasn't just a
guess. My dad works with your parents, he's kind of told me a little bit about them, even though he doesn't talk much about work."
"Cool!" I said enthusiastically. "I'll have to tell them!"
"So, what do you think of Mrs. Pryce?" Maria asked, holding back giggles.
I laughed out loud "Reminds me of Flukeman plus 50 pounds." Maria's face took on a confused expression. "Oh, sorry," I said. "Inside joke between me and my dad." I looked away nervously and cleared my throat.
*****************************
I took out my key and unlocked the door to my apartment, and threw my
backpack on the floor as I came in. I couldn't wait until mom and dad came
home so I could tell them that I'd actually made a new friend on my first day
of school. To think, all that whining I'd done about how if they really loved
me they'd home school me was for naught! I was so happy! I made my way to
the refrigerator, and read the note taped on it. 'Hey Sam' it read. 'Mom and
I are gonna have to work a little late today, sorry. That case we had, all
the leads turned out to be nothings. I know you understand. When we come
home you can tell us about school, but if we're not home by six-thirty, you
can order a pizza. See ya, Dad.'
I sighed, put the note on the table, and opened the refrigerator. I grabbed a
big bowl of sunflower seeds, plopped down on the couch, and flipped on the TV.
*************************
"Psychic phenomena??? How do you GET these things? Johnson killed those
people, Mulder, there is no other explanation!" Scully yelled, exasperated,
waving her hands as the two walked side by side down the hallway, away from
the jail's interrogation room.
"It's the PERFECT explanation! Just think, if he had psychic powers, it
would all tie together! The murders, the bloody shirt!" Mulder said, full of
energy. "Don't you see? He could have been in the room! It all ties
together!!!!"
Scully stopped and faced Mulder. "You have to think scientifically!!! There is a completely logical explanation!!!!!!" Scully all but screamed, standing on her tiptoes so she wouldn't have to strain her neck keeping eye contact with Mulder. The two looked to their left. A janitor looked away, coughed innocently, and resumed mopping the floors. Mulder and Scully began arguing again in a hushed tone for another several minutes until Mulder's cell phone rang. He reached violently in to his pocket, yanked it out, and pressed the on button. "What?" he snapped in to the receiver.
"Having another fight with mom about aliens?" said the voice on the other
side. Mulder's voice quieted. "Something like that, yeah." he said,
switching the phone over to his right hand.
"It's six-thirty, so I'm gonna order a pizza, but if you and mom are gonna be home by seven, I can get a large," said Samantha over the bad reception of the cell phone. "We're coming home now, actually, so we'll make dinner when we get home, you don't have to order anything. Okay?" Mulder said to his daughter.
"That's fine. Oh, and dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Johnson could have been in the room without the psychic powers. Remember
how it said in your case files about the air conditioning ducts and how at the
crime scenes they'd always be bent? Johnson could have climbed through them."
Mulder's mouth dropped wide open.
"Oh, by the way, I read your case files. Bye Dad!" said Samantha cheerfully
as she hung up.
Mulder lowered the phone from his ear and turned to face Scully, his mouth
hanging wide open. Scully raised her eyebrow at him questioningly. Mulder
dropped the cell phone.
*****************************
The door swung open to the Mulder-Scully apartment, and Samantha turned her
head to see her parents walk in the door. Her mother, Dana Scully, rushed up
to her and gave her a big smooch on the forehead. "Samantha, you are a genius!!!!" she shouted. "And your genius is not completely dependent on
alien or psychic phenomena! There is a God!!!"
"Very funny, dear." came a sarcastic voice from the doorway. Samantha's
father, Fox Mulder, walked in to the apartment carrying both their briefcases.
He let them drop to the floor with a thud. Samantha smiled sweetly and held
up a bowl to her father. "Seed?" she asked. Mulder grabbed a handful of them
and sat down on the couch next to her.
"Don't forget our bet, Mulder. Get cookin' that dinner!" said Scully enthusiatically. Samantha smiled. She was definitely not used to having her mother in such an energetic mood. Must be the thrill of having your partner/husband admit that you're right. Mulder lifted himself off the couch, grumbling, and walked over to the spice cabinet. Poor Dad, thought Samantha with a sympathetic smile.
*****************************
Samantha sat nervously at the dinner table next to her mother, watching as
smoke rose up from the giant pot of foul-smelling green glop her father was
stirring around on the stove. "Uhh, maybe I should just cook tonight..." said
Scully, as the stuff boiling on the stove popped and Mulder jumped back away
from it nervously. "No," said Mulder, as he reapproached the dish and dumped
another jar of oregano in to it. "I'm a grown man, I can fix one stupid main
course." Scully opened her mouth to challenge the statement, but decided
against it. Mulder poked the glop with a fork and jumped back when it began
to bubble. "Oh, screw this damn bean casserole." he yelled as he picked up
the pot and tossed it in the sink. "Where's my sunflower seeds and beer??"
Samantha and her mother let out inaudible breaths of relief. "I'll call for
pizza," said Samantha, gratefully picking up the phone.
*********************************
Samantha tiptoed out of bed in to the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of
water. She wondered if it was those three Cokes and cup of caffienated coffee
she'd had before bed that had kept her up. No, she thought. Must just be the
weather. She began to tiptoe back in to her room, but stopped when she heard
a soft snoring noise coming from the other room. She peeked in to the living
room. Laying there on the couch were her mother and father, heads resting on
each other's shoulder, arms around each other, sleeping. Samantha smiled.
Sometimes it was nice to have weird parents.
The end!
If anyone has ANY ideas or comments, send them to KiwiTree@aol.com
PLEASE! I thrive on feedback. Oh, and read my other stories!
© 1997 uberscully@mailexcite.com