(A wee bit of a rough start…)
Author’s note: Yup… you guessed it. More silliness!!!
Chibi-Wufei: Woman, I deeply resent you for giving me such a dumb role
Chibi-Duo: Shut up, Wuffie. You have it good! I’m still in the doghouse with Hilde…
Chibi-Wufei: It’s WU-FEI, you dimwit. Learn it already!
Author: Uh… guys… grow up…
Chibi-Duo and Chibi-Wufei (glaring): Don’t even go there, woman!
Author: Ahem… Aaaanywayz… Moving right along…
Heero had been quite distressed to find out that school meant sitting still at a desk for hours without making any noise. He looked out the window, coveting the jungle gym in the playground, wondering how long he had to go until recess. The teacher, Mr Chang, had made the boys sit on one side of the class and the girls on the other, so he couldn’t even sit by Relena. He pouted as he glanced across the room and noticed that she looked quite contented sitting by another little girl with long, really pale blond hair and a most interesting set of eyebrows.
"Some friend," he grumbled, feeling somewhat betrayed. And as if it weren’t enough, the little boy who was sitting beside him wouldn’t shut up for a second. That long-braided twit had already gotten him in trouble, for one thing. He had just wanted to tell him to bug off and leave him alone, but Mr. Chang somehow assumed that he was the one doing all the talking throughout his lesson.
"Heero Yui," he had thundered in a really scary voice, "Do you mind keeping it down so that at least the rest of the class can hear me?" He had tried to protest, pointing at the long-haired brat sitting beside him, grinning and looking all innocent, but Mr. Chang hadn’t even wanted to listen.
He sat at his desk, meditating revenge on that Maxwell freak, contemplating how he could make him eat one of Relena’s yummy-licious mud pies, or maybe he could show him how to play self-destruct with that snazzy brand-new-looking Deathscythe Gundam model he had inside his school bag. Or maybe… even better… His eyes glowed as they caught a glimpse of the ‘safe’ scissors that his mom had bought for him. They were supposed to be for his art classes, but they would surely work on that silly braid…
Lucrezia’s first class was cut short by the janitor barging in on her with an important phone call that could not wait.
"Can I call them back in 15 minutes, just as soon as class is over?" she asked, to which the janitor mumbled,
"Well, I don’t know, Miss Noin, but I think it’s about your son." She froze right where she stood, tossed the chalk on the desk, and ran out, leaving her books behind, and just barely giving herself enough time to holler, "Class dismissed" from half-way down the hallway.
"Gosh, I knew it… I knew something would go wrong," she reproached herself as she ran to her office, the janitor at her heels. Panting and heaving more with worry than fatigue, she picked up the receiver.
"Hi, Mrs. Yui? This is Chang Wufei, your son’s teacher," the voice at the other end greeted coldly.
"Uh… this is actually Lucrezia Noin, but, yes, I am Heero’s mother. What can I do for you, Mr. Chang?" she inquired, hoping he would get to the point fast and let her know whether Heero was alright.
"Could you please come pick up your little bugger… ahem, boy? It appears he got into a fight with a classmate," Mr. Chang explained, reproachfully.
"Oh, goodness," she mouthed, silently thinking, "I knew I had a bad feeling…" "Is he alright?" she inquired, worried.
Mr. Chang’s response was quick as lightning, "Oh, he’s fine, I assure you, but he did attempt to cut a little boy’s braid, AND give a little girl a black eye."
"You mean, cut a little girl’s braid and give a boy a black eye?" Lucrezia rephrased, confusedly.
"No, I mean exactly what I said. Were you even listening to me, Mrs. Yui?"
"Miss Noin," she corrected hesitantly, taken a bit by surprise by the sudden lash-out.
"Whatever," Mr. Chang continued on, "Perhaps you should teach your son about discipline before you send him out to a private school to wreak havoc among other kids. But then again, you ARE a single mother…"
"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" Lucrezia inquired, taking offense to the gratuitously chauvinistic comment.
"Exactly what it means," Mr. Chang spat back in one breath. He then proceeded to give her the sermon on the evils of one-parent families, "A child growing up without a father lacks the discipline and strength of character that only a paternal figure could provide…" "Waitasecond there," Lucrezia interrupted, indignated, "Are you implying that I’m not doing a good job raising my son?"
"Well, you tell me, Mrs. Yui," the elementary school teacher replied.
"Noin," she grumbled.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. What I mean is, I know enough about children to be able to tell that when a six-year-old acts like a little savage…"
"Are you calling my son a savage? I’m telling you, Mr. Chang, so far I’m not impressed with your methods," Lucrezia threatened.
"Figured as much," the teacher continued matter-of-factly, "as I was saying, when a child goes around beating up classmates and calling people names, it’s usually to call attention upon himself. Are you giving your child enough attention, Mrs. Yui?"
"It’s N… aw, heck, what’s the point?" Lucrezia mumbled to herself, rolling her eyes, then again voicing her indignation, "Of course I give my child enough attention, what kind of a question is that?"
"One in your child’s best interest. How do you cope with the pressures of compensating a career with child rearing?" Mr. Chang inquired, his tone suddenly shifting from heated to annoyingly paternalistic.
"Quite well, thank you very much, and I don’t need you making me feel like a criminal for whatever it is that really happened today," Lucrezia blurted out, her cheeks flushed with anger, "Because, really, you haven’t even told me yet, busy as you were ranting and raving about single working mothers as the source of all evil!" She then let out a deep breath, feeling really liberated for letting the steam out of her system.
"I read hostility in your tone, Mrs. Yui. What seems to be the problem?" Mr. Chang continued obstinately in his attempt to play shrink with her, silently muttering curses against hysterical women.
"I don’t believe this," Lucrezia snickered, rolling her eyes in exasperation, "You know what, Mr. Chang? I don’t believe that there is much of a point in this conversation going any further. I’ll be there to pick up my son in fifteen minutes sharp. Good day." With that, she slammed the receiver down so hard that a large stack of papers sitting on her desk came tumbling down because of the impact.
"Aaaaargh! The arrogance of this guy," she protested, taking her head in her hands and ruffling her short hair nervously.
"Something wrong, Luc?" a friendly male voice resounded inside her small office. She snapped up and groaned as she registered the dean himself, Mr. Khushrenade, standing in the doorway, his hand on his hip, smirking with his usual nonchalant expression.
"Oh, nothing, really," Lucrezia quickly dismissed his inquiry, "Just my son’s grade-one teacher’s overinflated ego. He thinks he can understand what makes him tick…" Treize would not budge, wanting to stick his nose into the matter a little further than Lucrezia was allowing him to.
"Oh, right," he commented casually, "It is your son’s first day of elementary school… Must be exciting."
"Well, actually," Lucrezia started, as she put on her coat and packed her briefcase.
"Yeeeesss?" Treize encouraged, still blocking the doorway, his expectation rising as fast as his curiosity.
"Never mind," Lucrezia evaded the question again, gently shoving him out of the way, "Could you send someone down to LB 302 to tell my next class not to go home if they don’t see me, since I’ll probably be 10 to 15 minutes late?" Treize blinked hard a couple of times, but did not have time to utter any protests, as Lucrezia had already darted down the hallway, fishing for her car keys in her pocket and exclaiming, "Thanks, you’re a pal!"
Heero sat cross-legged in the principal’s office, staring out the window, refusing to answer her questions.
"When’s my mom coming?" he limited himself to uttering from time to time.
"She should be here any time," the principal replied patiently. Well, she, for one thing, was a lot nicer than his teacher. In fact she could even be described as pretty. She had pale blue eyes and long blonde hair tied in two twists, and a gentle expression on her face. Mr. Chang had brought him in there kicking and screaming, scaring him all the way about all sorts of horrible things that happen to bad little boys who get sent to the principal’s office. But so far the scariest thing was Mr. Chang himself, and he was quite glad to be out of earshot of his long-winded rants.
His head snapped up as fast as lightning as a knock on the door was heard.
"Hi, mom," he greeted glumly, knowing he would be in deep trouble.
"Heero, dear, I’m so glad you’re ok," his mother replied instead, rushing over to hug him. Then she turned to the principal and introduced herself as Lucrezia Noin. The blonde lady smiled in a friendly way, then muttered,
"Funny… Mr. Chang kept referring to you as Mrs. Yui… Nice to meet you, Miss Noin. I’m Sally Po, the principal." She then motioned for her to sit down, and continued,
"I’m pretty sure Heero would like to tell you exactly what happened, since Mr. Chang was probably a little too frazzled for his explanation to be exhaustive." Lucrezia smiled politely and nodded, silently thankful for her non-accusatory tone.
"Nope," Heero simply said, and continued pouting.
"Ok," Sally smiled, then took a look at the confusing chicken-scratched report by Mr. Chang.
"Let’s see, from what it says here, it sounds like Heero got into a little squabble with a classmate… Hmmm… involving scissors… nobody got injured, yadda yadda yadda, except for a little girl with a black eye… Oh, boy, Wufei," she grunted softly to herself, then resumed her professional tone and asked, "Is that what happened, Heero?" He crossed his arms obstinately and refused to speak.
"Heero, we can’t help if you don’t tell us," his mother added as she took the little boy and sat him on her lap, wondering what the chances were of Relena being the little girl who got the black eye.
"He was bugging me the whole flippin’ time, alright?" Heero finally surrendered.
"Who was bugging you?" his mother asked.
"That Duo Maxwell freak. He wouldn’t shut up, so I told him to leave me alone, but Mr. Chang got mad at me for talking during class…" Sally nodded and took down more notes, as Lucrezia prompted her son to tell her more about it.
"Well, at recess I took the scissors and told him that if he bugged me again I would cut his stupid braid off, an’ then he started screaming for help an’ calling me a freak, so I started running after him with the scissors."
"Heero, what did I tell you the scissors were for?" Lucrezia scolded gently.
"But mommie, I didn’t really wanna cut his braid, just scare the heck out of him.. But *then* his friend, what’s her pickle, Hilda… no, Hilde… or something, she just started running after me and boy, does she ever run fast!"
"Interesting," Sally kept muttering, as she jotted down a note about Hilde Schbecker and the track and field team.
"An’ then she catches up with me an’ starts pulling my hair, saying she’ll make me bald if I hurt Duo. And then Relena hears me and comes over. Oh, and then Hilde starts pulling her hair instead, and Dorothy, the girl with the weird eyebrows, jumps in, and then Quatre too, right?"
"Ok," Lucrezia muttered, "I think I’m following you so far… Then what?"
"Then this other kid, Trowa, he’s the tallest, he jumps in too and then Dorothy grabs him by the bangs, ‘coz he’s got real long bangs. And then Catherine, Trowa’s big sister who’s in grade three, she pulls Dorothy’s hair, and Relena gets mad because she and Dorothy are friends, and pulls Catherine’s skirt up over her head."
Sally and Lucrezia looked at each other, trying to keep a straight face, all the while muttering, "Oh, dear…"
"Then everyone starts laughing because they saw her underwear, and she starts crying, and Trowa goes, "Hey, you!" to Relena and goes after her, and I wanna stop him, right?"
"Right," Lucrezia added, "That’s what good friends do, they stick up for each other."
"Yeah," Heero continued proudly with his confusing tale, "but then Duo jumps in front and goes, "I’m Shinigamiiiii!!!""
Sally and Lucrezia looked at each other quizzically, and repeated, "Shini…what?"
"Shinigami," Heero corrected impatiently, "the freak thinks he’s Death or something… He swings to whack me with his "invisible Deathscythe"thingy, but I duck, and behind there was Hilde sneaking up on me again to pull my hair and WHAMMM, Duo’s fist lands right on her face! Then Mr. Chang comes and starts yelling that I’m a troublemaker and that I’m baaaad, very bad, and that I’m gonna be in big trouble."
"That’ll be quite enough, thanks, Heero," the principal concluded, rubbing her temple as if to chase away a monster headache. Then she turned to the boy’s mother, and apologized, "well, it seems to me that Mr. Chang slightly overreacted to the situation. I’m sorry that you had to drive all the way here for this, it’s really not that big a deal… well, except for the scissors thingy… and the Schbecker girl with the black eye…" Lucrezia politely returned the apology, then turned to Heero and announced, "in fact, we’re going to go down to your class right now so you can apologize to both and put this silly fight in the past… Needless to say, I’ll confiscate the scissors."
As they walked out of the office and down the stairs, Heero looked up at his mother and asked, "What about Relena, mommy? Is she in trouble too? It’s not fair, you know, she was just helping me. She shouldn’t get in trouble… can you tell Mr. Chang it’s not her fault?" "I’ll see what I can do," she replied, cringing at the though of having to have another conversation with Mr. Chang.
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To be continued….