Memory Lane's Got Some Potholes... [locked]

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"And now we play the waiting game," says Jaime, lounging around Paco's bed with Brenda. Brainy's left them alone, but hovering nearby in case he's needed again. Right now, they're hoping the real Paco's being entertained by the pointless babble and that the Sub-Visser's annoyed.

"Shame we don't have any Scrabble. How about charades?"

Comments

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

"The last time we played charades your mom came down on us for our 'frankly irresponsible' misuse of living room furniture. Plus it's no fun if Paco can't do interpretive dance." She tilted her head a little, curiously. "No cards on the meatship? We could rope Brainy and Supergirl into Euchre."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

There was no way that the Sub-Visser would be able to trick anyone into releasing him with these two around. Especially after the attempt with Brenda.

The Sub-Visser glowered at them both, working Paco's jaw silently behind the muzzle.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Nah, I think if we tried to play cards with them, they'd whine about how human card games are beneath their alien intellects."

There's an indignant sniff from Brainy, over where he's busy, when Jaime says that, and it only makes Jaime's grin widen.

"Maybe we can have a sing-a-long. We can pick songs Paco likes so he can sing along in his head."

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

Brenda ponders this, rubbing her chin as she studies The Sub-Visser's cold expression on Paco's face.

"The question is are the songs Paco likes best appropriate for public hearing. Maybe we should regale him with happy tales of our misspent youth instead. Surely happy children would piss off yerks, right?"

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

The Sub-Visser rolled his eyes at them both. "Yes, yes, I'm sure we'll all be very entertained by the inane adventures that Francisco shared with you nitwits. And maybe I'll share with you some of the thoughts he's kept to himself all these years."

[cityship]

"Are you sure he didn't call? No text messages? Do you remember the last conversation you had with him?" asks the police officer. Paco's sisters are outside the door, listening in, no doubt, even if they're doing it silently, and Paco and his mother sit at the kitchen table as the two police officers ask their questions.

It's been a week since Jaime disappeared. You see, because of the Crisis. Normally, they wait 48 hours, but there's so much mass chaos out there, so much strange phenomenon. It took a week of Bianca Reyes throwing her verbal weight around to finally get them to start searching for their son.

Jaime never would go missing a whole week by choice.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

No officer, I totally forgot that my best friend called me to say that he hasn't been kidnapped or vaporized, is what Paco didn't say. He didn't exactly want to get arrested, and he wanted his mom to kill him even less.

"No phone calls, no texts," he said, shaking his head. "And the last thing we talked about was who could beat who in Halo."

Come on, it wasn't like Jaime would have run away from home. Why aren't they out there looking for him?!

[cityship]

"Do you know if Jaime ever got into any trouble? Maybe drugs?"

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"No!" Paco said. "Jaime would never do anything like that. A) He's Jaime, and B) his mom would kill him, raise him from the dead, and then kill him again."

[cityship]

The one cop snickers, mainly because he's talk to Bianca Reyes, and yes, she probably would.

The other, however, says, "Look, from all we've seen, he's a good kid. No one's saying he isn't. But a kid like that, straight A student, babysitting his sister--sometimes kids like that look elsewhere for something to keep them going all the time. And it means they can fall in with a bad crowd, can meet people that might hurt them--are you sure he wasn't on anything? Did he ever ditch you and your other friend to go somewhere alone? You ever see him talking to anyone suspicious?"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Paco?"

They're still there. They haven't left him. They won't leave him.

"It's going through your memories, isn't it. Making you go through the bad ones."

That's okay.

"I guess it doesn't realize how strong you are. It probably doesn't realize how great your good memories are, so that it all balances out."

A smile.

"Remember when we all met? And that first playdate where I got run over by that kid on his bike when we chased after the ice cream truck?"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Rogers C. Giffen Elementary is no different from any other elementary school out there, and its current kindergarten classes are no different from any other other kindergarten classes. There's crayons and crying, and storytime, and the alphabet and learning to color between the lines. There's kids becoming friends, sometimes just for this grade, sometimes for all of their school years, and sometimes becoming friends for life.

There's also the Weird Kid. Every kindergarten class has one or two. The one that borders somewhere between teacher's pet and kindergarten social pariah. The one that always volunteer first to be teacher's helper, yet makes no efforts to talk to the other students, and is always reading a little book a grade level or two ahead during free time, that doesn't play soccer during recess and instead just...finds somewhere on the playground to squat down and do whatever the heck it is they're doing. Sometimes they even eat glue.

This year that weird kid is a quiet little boy with floppy hair named Jaime Reyes. There's significant emphasis on "little." He's turning 5 juuuust in time to make this year's kindergarten class (three days before the November cutoff), so he's younger than most of the other students, plus he's just naturally small.

And shy. Emphasis must be put on the shyness.

Today, Jaime is squatting in the corner of the playground, poking at something with a stick. This is how it usually goes.

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

Brenda Del Vecchio is one of those kids.

Her teachers call her 'enthusiastic' which she will find out by the time she's in third grade is really just code for 'hard to handle'. Her mother says she's 'fearless' though, which is a bit closer to the mark. Brenda has little interest in playing house, in skip-rope games, or in drawing with sidewalk chalk. (Although if she gave the skip-rope a try she'd be quite good at it). She likes to play tag but she always wants to be it. She likes to play pirates but always has to be the captain. Most other kids simply can't handle her intense personality.

She's bossy, to put a finer point on it, and nobody else on the playground has so far been able to knock her down a peg. So she's alone today like on most days and has settled in the sandbox, shoveling intently.

Then a shadow falls over her.

The boy that has set down next to her is probably twice her size but that doesn't phase a girl like Brenda in the slightest. He's just stepped on her carefully crafted roadway and that's about all she's concerned with.

"That was my ROAD!" she snaps, her voice loud and high, with that 'how DARE you' tone that only a small girl with a serious streak of superiority can muster. She draws herself up and GLARES at him, daring him to explain himself.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

There was always about half a dozen little boys who get bored during reading time and made a happy mess of the craft section before running around outside pretending to be super heroes or cartoon characters or dinosaurs. All three of those look pretty much the same.

The particular boy who had so offended Brenda, Paco Guzmán, was currently a dinosaur with sand in his sneakers.

"You can fix it," he said, focused more on the cool sound that the velcro on his shoes made when he separated the two halves.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Jaime peeks sidelong, shaggy hair falling slightly in his eyes, and making him push it ineffectually out of his face again. He watches in a way where they likely won't realize he's watching them, occasionally peeking back at what he's poking at in the dirt.

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

Brenda fixed her face into an even more intense scowl at Paco and stood up.

"But you STEPPED on it!" she yelled, then grabbed her bucket and dumped it's sandy contents on his head. "Don't play on my road!"

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Hah, Paco said. Like that? You can only go so far, 'Subby'. Then they're in your way.

Don't challenge me, Francisco, the Sub-Visser retorted. There's plenty in here for me to play with.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Man, I bet he is having trouble finding bad memories where we didn't nose in, huh."

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

"I don't doubt it. That's what happens when you have nosy nosy friends. We show up everywhere." She smiled a little, laying her hand carefully on Paco's arm. "You'd think the brain slugs would realize they can't compete with friends that will follow each other to horrible meatships in space."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Whatever makes you happiest to believe," the Sub-Visser sneered.

He was having a bit of trouble, though. Paco had spent a lot of his life with Jaime and Brenda. They were pretty nosy.

Of course, he could always stop the memory replay at a place before they showed up.

Why don't we talk about your father, Francisco?

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Twelve-year-old Paco Guzmán hadn't seen his father in awhile. Well, no he'd seen him the last two evenings, when he'd showed up and somehow talked his way back into the house.

His dad had said he wanted to make it up to him, his being gone. His dropping out of the lives of Paco and his sisters, but he especially wanted to make it up to Paco.

So he was at the bus stop. Waiting. He'd actually gotten an A on a project that Brenda or Jaime hadn't helped him on, he'd brought the grade sheet to show.

[cityship]

Quite a bit of time passes. Buses come and go. The shadows get longer like they do during those hot, dusty afternoons.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco waited. And waited. And kept waiting. Finally though, when the sun started getting near enough to the horizon that red sky was turning faintly purple, Paco picked himself up off the bench and walked back home. When he got there, he climbed in through his bedroom window and shut the door.

He didn't want to talk to his mother right now.

---

It's not over, Paco spat. You can't just end it before it's over when I know damn well what happens next!

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

They climb up through the window. His mom--crying--had said his door is locked, and they know how he gets, so...

There's something moving in the bushes outside.

[shes-intense.livejournal.com]

Brenda scoffs at Jaime's nervousness and gets up on her tip-toes to push the window open a crack, then she starts scaling the few feet of trellis there like it's her own personal ladder.