Homework
by Caira
Oh hi. I suppose I should tell you my name. But I can't be bothered.
Usually when a story starts like this the poor sucker of a narrator
will spend two lines introducing him/herself and then proceed to
gruesomely detail the unfortunate situation he/she is/was in. Luckily
for me I'm not in one, unless you count that Math assignment that's
slowly driving me insane, so this may not be the most exciting story
you ever read. If that's what you're looking for, you can get crappy
thriller novels for twenty cents at K-Mart.
—Mom, you've been reading way too much Enid Blyton...
—What's that, Mom?
—No, of course I don't mind having little Kerry with me
for the next...
—Carrie, whatever. Do her parents read Stephen King?
—Really? I think it's hilarious.
—Don't worry, there aren't any farms for a fifty-mile radius and
the sight of blood makes me squeamish.
—I'm sure you don't, Mom. Now please, I've got homework to do.
You remember what I said about that unfortunate situation thing
earlier? I should have known better. My father's sister has finally
had that mental breakdown she's several months overdue for (or
something like that, I wasn't really listening) and the reason for
said breakdown, some kind of cute, fourteen-year-old pack animal will
be living with us until the flying pink donkeys go away. It's going
to be like all those children's stories where a whole bunch of
sickeningly adorable kids have some annoying young relative come to
stay, except this specimen won't turn out to have a heart of gold at
the end. Wait, it gets better. She'll be sharing my room. Not my
ever-beloved sister's, of course. Never her.
—No, Mom, it's no problem whatsoever. It's a line from some
crappy movie they made us watch in English. It's...
—You can never abuse sarcasm, Mom. Didn't they teach you
anything in school?
—Let me guess. you can make my life hell if you so desire. Guess
what, Mom... I'm turning eighteen in two months, I have colleges
fighting like my sister's boyfriends, the ones whose names all begin
with the same letter, to give me the best scholarship, If I so
desire, I can leave you behind totally!
—Enjoy your rant, Mum. I've got homework to avoid. See ya!
—Don't worry, Mum, I'll get round to it sooner or later...
—Whatever. Gimme that broom and I'll see if I'm still as good at...
—I'm going, I'm going. Love that shout, by the way, Mom. Keep it
up and you could join a punk band.
Go over my room with a shovel. Well, if nothing else comes out of
this whole Carrie thing it'll be good to know that whenever you have
a good cleanup, you can always find something horrendously
embarrassing. The first CD I ever bought. A CD I would now be quite
happy to take a knife to in public... Oh, joy. She has
arrived. This should be fun.
—Uhm... hi?
—Yeah, that would be me. Why do you ask?
—Yes, I found it quite humorous as well.
—That was sarcasm, you idiot.
—You blind? There's the bed, there's the floor, there's the stereo...
—Turn it off? Why?
—Oh no. No way. I've got homework to do. Math. Did Mom tell you
about Ms Li? I need this on to think.
—What? On your first day there? Let me come over and put you out
of your misery...
—No. Way. In. Hell. Are. You. Putting. That. CD. On. I was gonna
burn it before I managed to lose it under my bed, I only found it
when Mom made me clean up 'cause you were coming.
—*sigh* Yeah, I know I'm being a bitch. Sorry, it's just that
with Li and DeMartino making like pressure cookers, I'm so
stressed...
—No, I guess I'm not that bad, not as bad as my sister.
But when did you meet Daria?
Questions? Comments? Death threats? Feed me.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
I was digging through some of my old writing, and this was a piece
from when I was in year ten. Aside from my usual creative formatting,
to call which "idiosyncratic" or "unique" would be to miss a
perfectly good opportunity to use the phrase "bloody weird and
confusing as all hell", I noticed that I was doing (IMO, anyway) a
damn good line in sarcasm, especially considering that at the time I
had seen exactly three Daria episodes and had no particular
compulsion to see any more. Hell, I thought, this could be
Daria or Tom or Jane writing, really, couldn't it? So I set about
Americanising as necessary to post in the various fora for comment.
And then thought, no, it really couldn't be Daria or Tom or
Jane. Given that and the fact the original ending could define lame,
one of the twists I seem to be incapable of writing anything new
without was necessary.
So, naturally, I ripped off John Takis' "The Last Word". My apologies
to him, and to everyone who hasn't read that story yet (then again,
it's your own fault for not being able to pick quality fanfic from a
highly ambiguous one-line blurb. ;o) (Yes, it was Quinn doing the
narration, not that lost Morgendorffer sister Cincgreen seems to have
a thing for.) As for explaining Quinn's behaviour — in my
experience, the next step in the aspiring academe's career after
"Wow, I can learn, this is fun!" is "Okay, I need this for a
good uni/college" followed by "This is so bloody frustrating I may
turn violent" (depicted here). Besides, just because Quinn's proved
herself to be a reasonable student at English and History doesn't
mean she's a total, all-around genius. (Though that's what the
scholarship fight would imply... d'oh!) Especially if Li and co.
started putting the pressure on (which, I suspect, she'd have a far
harder time saying "no" to than would Daria). Why not make Ms
Li a Maths teacher? Oh, and I couldn't resist taking a shot at the
old Daria-leaves-an-uncaring-Helen-and-home cliché, though I
really should make Daria the bitch sometime. It's not that hard, I'm
surprised no-one else has done it.
Or: I suppose I owe you all an explanation...
(contains spoilers for one of John Takis' fanfics. I won't say which,
in case you haven't read it. But if you have read it, you already
know which. If not... well, if you haven't read his entire
back catalogue, more fool you. Of course, I still haven't
got around to "A Stitch In Time" yet, so...)