Fan Fiction ❯ Don't Kid a Kidder ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Don’t Kid a Kidder

by Rosy the Cat


Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own X-men and the various comics titles and movies, etc.. They belong to Marvel. I do, however, own in the creative sense Margaret Kidder, her family and any other original characters I end up writing into this story. Steal anything of mine without permission, and I’ll round up a lynch mob of my fellow writers. This story was inspired by Gevaisa’s “Minion” and “Lady Doom,” which both kick ass, as does she. Before anybody launches any protests, she knows quite well what I’m doing and she’s probably more excited about it than I am. In fact, as of last chapter this story has joined continuities with the “Minion” saga. Huzzah for friendships in fandoms!


Chapter 4


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July 15th, 2005:


Dear Diary,

A lot has happened in the world since the last time I wrote. For starters, Doctor Doom of Latveria’s getting married in less than a week--that’s part of what Magneto was talking about when he barged in on Xavier’s “talk” with me. I personally don’t see why so many people here at the school--including Kitty--are so shocked by this. Aren’t monarchs supposed to get married? And besides, it’s not like she’s being forced to marry him, though the clip of her at the announcement a few days back made her look kind of bemused and overwhelmed. I suppose anybody would be thrown for a loop a bit if they were proposed to by a world leader, really. Ms. Florescu seems like a really smart woman; Xavier showed a clip from a Sixty Minutes interview she did a while back when people started asking just who she was and all.

There have been rumors floating around the school that Mr. Summers and Miss Frost are dating--or worse. I don’t know what to do, really. On the one hand, Miss Frost could be making Mr. Summers be with her and thus is a victim, but on the other hand he could be doing that willingly, which is a betrayal of Dr. Grey. Anybody who saw Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers together--even me, and I didn’t even know them as a couple for very long--could tell that they were absolutely gaga about each other. I don’t think Miss Frost is controlling Mr. Summers, because surely Xavier wouldn’t let her do something like that; not in his own school. As such, he’s cheating on his barely-in-the-grave wife, and she’s a skanky hoochie-mama.

May the glaring commence.

TTFN,

Margaret Kidder.


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July 16th, 2005:


Dear Diary,

I spent a good chunk of the morning talking to Mom on the phone. My parents can only afford to call me once every two weeks, so we had a lot to catch up on. We talked about lots of things, but the main issue is that I’m going to have to pay for Carnation’s Vet bills out of my allowance, which stinks. I wish Daddy’s job’s insurance covered medical bills for pets, and for what the Vet’s work is going to cost me, Lockheed had better keep away from me or declare a truce with Carnation, because going without book money for more than three months will have me cranky beyond belief.

Anyway, Mom found the story Marie told me about Magneto’s latest fight--apparently she overheard the rest of Magneto’s rant with Xavier after I left, or somebody else did and told her--with Doctor Doom weird. I don’t know why, personally; the soon-to-be Mrs. Doom sounds wicked smart and resourceful. And, best of all, she doesn’t wander around covered in spandex--sorry, “unstable molecules”--like so many people I seem to be around of late. I’ve seen the economic statistics on Latveria--one thing Xavier’s is good for is 24-hour internet access, which my parents can’t afford and I only got during school hours at my old school--and they’re doing quite well. Genosha will be far better off economically if they let Latveria help them out, though they’d be a heck of a lot better off politically if President--or whatever his political title is--Lensherr aka Magneto would shut up about mutant superiority. It makes him sound like a Nazi. Besides, I know having to hear other people’s thoughts every time I put my shields down doesn’t make *me* feel superior. More like I’m being invaded. The man has no idea what he’s talking about, honestly.

And Xavier really shoul


I blinked. What had happened? One second I was writing in my diary, the next there was a weird flash of light and now...I’m sitting on my butt in the middle of my dorm room. That wasn’t so different...


“Gah! CARNATION! THERE’S A RAT!!!” I screeched in fright as I tush-scooted back along the carpet. Dirty carpet. Dirty carpet that was leaving trails of filth and cobwebs on my jeans. Eww. I leapt to my feet, jumping around and alternating between kicking in the rat’s general direction and thwacking my hands across my behind to knock free the dirt and debris. Once the rat scurried off to wherever he was going that wasn’t my room, I paused my pants-smacking and got a good look at the rest of the room. The steel bed frames were almost falling apart and the springs that normally supported the mattresses were rusty. Another thing: the mattresses were all long gone, as well as any sign the room had ever been inhabited by three teenaged girls and their eclectic band of pets.


I was officially wigged. Fortunately for me, I managed to squish my panic back down as far as it could go, reached for calmness, and carefully lowered my shields.


Nothing.


I then tried actually reaching out, which I’d only ever really done at the request of a teacher while working on my control.


‘Xavier? Sir, if you can hear me, please answer because you know I have to be desperate to be trying for you! Miss Frost?’


Nothing.


‘...Buehler...Buehler...? Crap.’


I had no idea what had happened, what was going on, or what I should do. This was completely beyond my knowledge or experience: there was no text book to study, no pattern to follow, no adult for guidance. It was just me and my disgustingly-distended room. I couldn’t even see my diary, which I had just been writing in. All I had on me was a cheap sports watch around my left wrist, my baptismal cross hanging from my neck, my glasses, and well-worn--ah yes, and dirty--jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers.


Oh, and my crappy telepathy. Can’t forget that, as it’s so darn useful. Sarcastic, moi? Perish the thought.


I had to force the door open, the latch had rusted that bad. Once out in the hall, the neglect the school was under was...disturbing. Every surface was covered in dust, except where you saw occasional old and new animal tracks, with a few scattered piles of droppings here and there. I hurried toward the center hall on the first glimpse of a mouse skull in what I presume were owl feces.


“Eww!” couldn’t even begin to vocalize the disgust I felt. Sure, I’d grown up poor and in a mouse-and-roach-infested environment--namely relatively cheap apartment housing in New York City--but, well, to be quite frank, that was how we and several of our neighbors could afford to keep a cat without spending too much on cat food. My moving to the school had put a disturbing increase on my pet expenses, as Carnation was both an excellent mouser/ratter, and a large fifteen-pound cat used to an all-meat diet.


Not to mention that my mother was incredibly dedicated to keeping our home as clean as possible. At the time I assumed she was a neat-freak; now I wasn’t nearly so sure.


I wanted to be home; I wanted my parents and even my three annoying little brothers. At this point, if Omi or my uncles showed up, I’d cling to them and not let go until we were out of this place. And considering how much I’m annoyed with the Goldberg side of the family, that’s saying a lot. Yes, I loved them--they’re family, of course I loved them!--but you can love a person with all your heart, in my experience, and still heartily dislike them, even hate them. I loved Omi: Chanukah and Passover were some of my favorite days of the year when I was little. Candles being lit, and good food, and exploring Omi and Opa’s massive house in Connecticut. It wasn’t until Opa died and Omi moved to Fort Lauderdale that I realized just how...cruel...my mother’s family was. Yes, we were welcome for the major holidays, but I think that was mainly the family’s way of rubbing in all of what Mom had lost when she became Catholic, and later when she married Daddy and I was born. To Omi, I’m not her only granddaughter: I’m the ultimate symbol of her “failure” as a mother. The Dweebs don’t register nearly as much on that scale as me, because they’re just more grandsons, and she has oh...cousin Micah and cousin Leo make five...nine other grandsons. Yes, the Goldberg men are just as fertile as the Goldberg woman. No, they aren’t picked on for it; they’re all but praised in song every time one of my aunts pops out another whiney cousin, but Mom’s dismissed as a failure and her children are used as tools to point out all that she lacks when we are given holiday and birthday gifts.


Bitter, me? No, I just hate the hypocritical shmendricks. Uncle David--Mom’s middle brother--knocked up his girlfriend in college, but they were both welcomed by the family with open arms, because she was a “good” Jewish girl from a “good” family. And Omi spends a disturbing amount of time bewailing her time in Auschwitz, and the cruelties of the Nazis. Yeah, well, the history books agree with you, Omi, but could you stop using that as an excuse for, oh say, EVERYTHING?


In the time it took for me to think all of that, I’d made it to the main entrance hall. The chandelier was swamped with cobwebs. When I finally managed to shift the door bolts and shove it open, I was giddy at the first wafts of fresh air, and the warm sunshine didn’t hurt either.


The front courtyard and driveway also showed signs of neglect, but they weren’t nearly as bad as the inside of the school. I attributed that to nature’s tendency to clean up after itself with rain and a proper food web and nitrogen cycle.


I made straight for the garage, but there weren’t any cars. The best I could manage was a--notice a theme?--slightly-rusty bike, with both a front basket and saddle bag-style baskets in back. I say slightly-rusty because really only the metal of the tire rims and spokes were affected; everything else was either stainless steel or had been well-oiled some time before being abandoned. After utilizing a overly-dusty bike pump, I made my careful way into town.


Things there, while not as bad as the school, were pretty bad in comparison to what I saw on my prior visit last night, when I went to Friday night choir rehearsals. Or, I think it was last night. Whatever happened, I don’t know, but I need to find out.


My first stop was the public library, where fortunately my recently-acquired card still worked. That made me feel a lot better.


What I found out while making internet searches for news information made me feel...disturbed. Mutants were the majority group, because most of the humans--really, that’s an odd distinction; aren’t we human too?--non-empowered types were dead. Magneto of all people ruled the world. I looked up my parents and brothers. They’re dead. I had to turn away from the computer screen and curl up in a ball on my chair, so I never got around to checking for Grandma Kidder or Omi or the rest of my family.


I wanted my mom so bad, for her to hug me and tell me that everything would be all right, and we’d curl up on the sofa watching her old “Princess Bride” video on the battered T.V., drinking instant hot cocoa, the kind that had the little bitty marshmallows already in the packet. But that would never happen again, because Magneto didn’t think my mommy and daddy and brothers didn’t MATTER as much as mutants. Weren’t his parents normal? Didn’t he love them? Didn’t he cry when he found out his entire world had changed, and there was no going back? So why the HELL did he think he had the right to take away MY family?! ANYBODY’S family?!


Apparently my crying had attracted some serious attention from the people around me. The librarian had tried to get my attention so she could tell me to quiet down, but as I got more and more upset, my powers went wonky. People started backing away, pointing and staring and getting scared or angry and...I couldn’t take it. I bolted out of the library, barely managing to pull myself completely onto “my” bike, and rode out of town as fast as I could. I had to get away, find some place as far from people as I could get, where they’d be safe from my powers and I could work to make my shields stronger, better, than I’d ever had them. Maybe if I shielded myself well enough, I could stop and properly mourn for my family. Until then, however, I’d have to push it away and gain control of my self, because I clearly had no control over the world around me, and this was the best I could do.


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Author’s notes: And thus we enter the House of M arc. Good? Bad? Depressingly sad?

Oh, and in case any of my relatives find their way to my writing: any and all similarity between my Uncle David and Meg's Uncle David is superficial and completely unintentional. I didn't even notice I'd used his name until I was formatting the text files for uploading.

Dedications and thank-yous and virtual snickerdoodles go to my buddy/beta/continuity guru Gevaisa.

-- Rosy the Cat

3-18-06