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Series One Episode Sixty-Six Melony Housman strolled down the cobbled roads of the open-air Bazaar with three girls from her soccer team and two of their boyfriends. They had decided the day before to spend their Saturday at the Bazaar, buying equipment. Their school, the Haunted Battle Academy, had plenty of gear for the teams to use (it being a major school for athletics); but Melony and their friends wanted some new stuff of their own. Melony herself knew her basketball was about to die on her. As they walked down the line of stores, passing other teachers free for the weekend, their talk moved easily through a variety of topics. "Melony, who's that odd girl who moved in with you? She looks weird," Nelly asked offhandedly as her boyfriend's tall frame hugged her to his waist. Melony scowled before replying. "That 'odd girl' is my friend, so don't mess with her." Nelly shrugged and looked away. Most of the girls on her team were decent enough, and even Nelly wasn't usually a snob. But since Ko-Kira Aiden had moved in with Melony, her sister Naomi, and their pets, people had been talking. Even if Even if Ko-Kira only came by the school once or twice to watch Melony play or go somewhere, folks were curious about the ‘scorman’, a human/scorchio hybrid. Everyone wanted to know how they’d met since Ko-Kira didn’t attend the HBA, but Melony couldn’t tell her friends that Ko-Kira was a fellow Sailor Neopet with nowhere else to go. So she just edited the truth, and told them she was runaway that she and Naomi had taken in. It still didn’t stop people from whispering. Luckily Melony took it all in stride, and their talk drifted to other matters. Coming up on Play it Again Gorm, the sporting goods store, the air became charged with excitement for the blue haired girl. Melony immediately entered and veered off to the lacrosse apparatus, causing her friends to chuckle. "Man, Melony can’t get enough of this stuff, can she?" Kenny, Hilda’s boyfriend and an ardent soccer fan, laughed. "Yeah, we’ll have to drag her out of here. But that’s why she’s so good for the team." Georgia said with an affectionate smile as they entered after their enthusiastic friend. "Marieta! Marieta, where are you?" Helen Darkwood called angrily to her step-daughter. Marieta, in her bedroom, sighed and looked desperately to her Tuskaninny SpongeMari for help. "Can't you distract her so I can go to the window?" "You know you'd have to come back at some point. You may as well answer," Mari (as Marieta called her pet) answered, as Helen's voice rose again. Marieta sighed again, and got up from her bed. "She just wants me to go shopping for new clothes for school. I already told her I don't need anything! Especially if it comes from her!" But she left the room, Mari following her with a sympathetic gaze. When Helen saw her coming down the hall of their spacious new Neopian home, she stalked up to the teen until she was within an inch of the girl's face. Marieta, used to such torment, plastered a neutral smile onto her face. "Where were you? I've been calling for ten minutes!" "I'm sorry, Mother. I was doing my homework. What did you need me for?" Helen's face softened a bit, since Marieta's grades were so important to all the adults in the girl's life. But she stille retained her haughty manner as she filled her stepdaughter in. "I need us to go and get you some decent clothes. You've had to go to school thus far in those horrible clothes your grandmother bought you, and it's high time I got you something respectable!" Marieta winced at this. Her paternal grandmother, the only one who understood her, had bought her some nice clothes at the beginning of the school year. Since she no lnoger had to wear a uniform, because she was going to the public and uniform-free Midvale High, Elsa Darkwood had brought her dark, brooding granddaughter some dresses, slacks, and other neat things to wear. But Helen had nearly thrown a fit when she'd seen them. "No stepdaughter of mine is going to go to school in all black and blue clothes! Everyone will think she's one of those mentally disturbed Goth kids!" Luckily for Marieta, Helen was often busy with her friends, or on the rare occasion she had to work. So Marieta had been allowed to wear her new clothes until helen could "find some time to get you better ones." That day had come, it seemed. "I really don't want to make you spend money . . ." Marieta began, trying to hide the hopeful smile that threatened to break out on her face. Helen was a cheapskate in anything that had to do with children (including her own), so Marieta just might get away with it. "I haven't a choice. Thanks to your grandmother, I have to spend good money on some acceptable clothes for you. Let's go, Marieta. And leave 'that' here." Helen had finally bothered to notice Mari, who was trying to remain inconspicuous behind Marieta's legs. Marieta knew how her stepmother felt about Neopets. They were nothing more than workers for humans, as far as Helen Darkwood was concerned. She herself didn’t have a pet, and almost always, without fail, demanded Marieta leave Mari behind when they went anywhere. Mari said she didn’t mind, but it still stung Marieta that she couldn’t even stand up for her best friend. "Yes, Mother. Mari, you can hang out in my room, okay?" Mari silently nodded, never daring to speak in Helen's presence, and returned to Marieta's room. She then turned back to the imposing older woman, after controlling the bitter tears in her dark brown eyes. "Where are the kids? Are they coming with us?" 'The kids' were Lily and Steven, her younger half-siblings, Helen's children. Her real mother also had two children with her new husband, and all four were younger than Marieta by years. No matter who she was with at the time, however, Marieta would be expected to take care of her siblings. She loved the kids dearly, but having to be their on-call nanny made her resent them deeply. This in itself made Marieta feel guiltier; so it was a relief when Helen replied in the negative. "No, they're both in day care. I wanted to make sure I had the time to get you your clothes." As they spoke, they walked into the garage, where the family bicycles stood gleaming and well-oiled. They did have a family carriage, but her father Walter currently had it as his means of getting to Shoyrux Enterprises, where he worked as a consultant. Marieta's bike, lovingly nicknamed Fly-Away, stood proud and beautifully lemon yellow as she pulled it out into the late-morning sunshine. She and Helen rode to the Bazaar in silence, only broken by their wheels turning and Helen's occasional snide remark about someone they saw. When they arrived, they parked their bikes into the communal rack, and Helen immediately grabbed Marieta's arm and pulled her towards The Zeenana Republic. If Marieta had ever doubted that she would hate this trip, she doubted no longer. The first piece of clothing Helen grabbed was a bright pink T-shirt with a smiling picture of the pop group M*YNCI on it. "Doesn't this look cute? And even you would look good in this!" Of course, she was wrong. Marieta, with her short, dark hair, and dark, honey-brown skin, would look horrible in bright pink. Of course, she almost disappeared in black and blue, but she liked those colors, and they didn't clash with her 'season', as Helen would say. Even a light green would be better than the atrocities Helen was pulling from the shelves and racks. But Marieta knew she could never work up the nerve to tell her stepmother no. So she suffered in silence for a full hour, going from store to store, until Helen ran into a friend from one of her clubs. After introducing Marieta ("This is my husband's daughter"), she ignored the teen. Marieta, however, didn't care; it gave her a chance to sit down and be away from her stepmother for at least a little while. She sat down on one of the benches that lined the paths and took out a book that she had brought for just such an occasion, then read until she felt someone sit down beside her. She looked up from her book to see a vaguely familiar girl sitting net to her. Her blue hair was orange at the tips, and she had fiery brown eyes that made her seem to be on the verge of a great battle. The girl looked over, saw Marieta staring, and smiled back, but with a gleam of challenge in her eye. "Hi, I'm Melony. What's your name?" "Marieta Darkwood. Sorry for staring, but you look familiar somehow. Do you go to Midvale High School? In the Haunted Woods?" Melony laughed and shook her head. "No, I go to Haunted Battle, but that's pretty close to Midvale, isn't it?" "Oh yeah, now I know where I've seen you from! Your school has played ours a couple of times! You guys always creamed us." "Yeah, we did, didn't we? Are you in any sports?" Marieta almost didn't tell her. She wasn't ashamed to be on the baseball team at Midvale, but she didn't want to seem inferior in the eyes of this total athlete. She knew, from when she'd been trying to find a school to attend after Haunted Woods Elementary, that HBA was crazy about sports. And having seen Melony in action, she could guess how good a player the muscular girl was. But she herself wasn't a bad player, so she told her the truth after some hesitation. "Yeah. Baseball." "Good for you! Are you here getting equipment?" It was only then that Marieta noticed they were across from the sporting goods store. "No, I'm here with my stepmother getting clothes for school. Why, are you here for equipment" "Yep. The Bazaar has the best sports equipment store; otherwise I'd go to the one in the Woods. But I already got my stuff; I'm just waiting on some friends. I didn't want to stay in the store - I knew I'd end up spending more than I can afford." She gestured down at the bulging bags at her feet. "What all did you get to wear?" Now Marieta was ashamed. But Melony was looking expectantly at her bags. So Marieta slowly pulled out the pastel blue summer dress Helen had picked out for her. It wasn't as bad as some of her choices, but it still wasn't Marieta's favorite. And Melony looked at it like it was going to bite her. "My stepmother picked it out, not me," she explained quickly. Melony laughed again. "Oh, I can see that. You don't look like the frilly type either." Here a group of girls and boys about Marieta's age came out of the store. Melony got up to leave, but pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of her pocket and jotted down a username on it. She handed it to Marieta. "Hey, I gotta go. But if you ever want to get together, call me. We can talk sports!" "I'll do that," Marieta said as Melony waved and joined her friends. As she left, Helen finally said goodbye to her friend and came to collect Marieta. She stared after Melony with a look of disdain as she grabbed a bag or two. "Who was that manly girl you were talking to? She looks quite scruffy." Until then Marieta had thought nothing more of Melony, and wasn't too inclined to call the older girl. But now she had all the reason in the world to call her, as long as her stepmother didn't like her. "Oh, just a girl I met while you were talking." She'll be my friend, too, if I can work it out, she thought to herself as they walked towards another shop. And suddenly their trip didn't seem so bleak any longer. "Go Melony!" Marieta called as she watched Melony block a particularly hard shot just between two of her teammates. The stands erupted, and Melony flashed a smile towards the seats where Marieta was. Along with her were Melony's sister, a bunch of Melony's friends from school (those that weren't on the team), and an odd, scaly girl whom Melony had introduced as Ko-Kira before the game. Luckily, if there was one thing her stepmother had taught her (albeit by indirectly teasing such people herself), it was that those who are different are more likely to be ostracized. Marieta knew, from having seen it happen at her old school, that someone like this girl was sure to be taunted. So she took it on herself to be gracious and she felt herself growing to like Ko-Kira for herself, not just as Melony's friend. Naomi, Melony's sister, was a little harder to warm up to if only because she was even older than Melony herself, but she seemed nice enough. And it was a pleasant change to be with people her own age, instead of her siblings or her parents' friends. "Look! Melony blocked it again!" Ko-Kira shrieked over the noise. It was an unusually clear day for the Haunted Woods, and Marieta was glad she'd neomailed Melony after all, even if she did feel a little guilty for only calling her to make her stepmother angry. But now, after a few weeks of hanging out with her and watching her pound Midvale into the dust at games, Marieta really liked Melony. Of course, she was having some strange lapses where she would envision Melony in some sort of uniform that seemed both familiar and frightening, usually when Melony was gearing up for a kick or leaping to block a kick. However, they were rare occurrences, and Marieta just figured the concept of the Sailor Neopets (those heroic, sailor-suited girls that had appeared last year) was messing with her head. So she enjoyed her first real friend outside her own circle at school, and started to feel better about the way things had ended up for her. Yes, she still hated her parents, and she still couldn't find a backbone with them, but those things would change with time. As she watched Melony and her team win another game, Marieta looked up at the lemon-yellow sun hanging in the indigo sky and smiled. "I think I may like the way my life is going after all." |