Noelle - Da 178 (RMS and EXCITMENT!!)

HELLO!!!
I AM SO HAPPY!!!  Why?

Well, first of all, I have a candy cane right now...and candy canes make everything better.  And so does lemon zinger tea.  Which I happen to also have right now.

Second, the week is over, and I survived!  RMS is BACK!!!

And thirdly, there's a Park Day tomorrow.  Don't know what a Park Day is?
 Featured only when gym class is canceled, a free-for all traditionally held at the almighty Wacky World (the best park our base can offer us).  In the past days, it was usually a nerf battle (probably girls-vs-boys, with me chilling in the middle as a weapons dealer and multi-purpose spy)  However, as the homeschool generation grows up, less and less of us show up and most nerf battles these days are walking up to little kids with a gun and seeing how many you can scare - which is also a time-honored tradition, at which I hold the record (8 kids, btw)  At any rate, its supposed to be wettish tomorrow, so instead of said nerf war, we're planning on scooter/rollerblading.  :)

For those of you who don't know me that well, roller blading is my thing.  *evil grin*

NJ Homeschoolers: comment with what you do at Park Day!

Anyway, here's an RMS part, because during this anti-RMS week, I wrote five more chapters.  I'm now about half way through chapter nine while you're puttering around at the end of chapter four.  Let's get you caught up, shall we?  (no, not an RMS marathon, don't worry)

The Survivors (Part 21)

She cried.

It had finally happened, and Jess had always knew it would.  She had been preparing for it for two years now.  She should have been ready.  But as her wings carried her home, she found herself sobbing.

She could practically hear Nick Fury’s voice:  See?  I told you so!  Don’t make friends with them...it’s a weakness.  It's for everybody's own good.

Jess knew what happened next - the same story over again.  S.H.I.E.L.D. would erase her and she was given the ‘privilege’ of restarting.  Her restrictions would become tighter.  Her family gone.  Probably wouldn’t even be allowed near Avengers Tower again.

She rubbed her wet cheeks and let herself go into a free fall.  Might as well enjoy her wings while she still could, right?  The world flashed between grey and human and an idea sprang into her head, strange and alien.  What if....

A bolt of brilliant blue light shot past her right wing.  Nova.  Took him long enough.  Jess rolled left, then tucked her wings and dropped face first again towards the concrete below.   The farther she fell, the more her new idea made sense.  It sounded almost...nice.

Inches away from the ground, Jess flipped her wings open again, but she mistimed it and crunched into the ground.  Several people around her screamed.  She tucked her wings, making them vanish and slipped in among the fleeing crowd, screaming like any other hysterical girl.  She flipped her sweatshirt over her black hair and ducked into a nearby hair salon.

“Do you have time for a quick bleach?”  Jess asked the cashier.  “I’ll pay extra.”

The blue-haired girl, not much older than Jess herself, considered it, then bumped Jess up to the top of the cue.

Forty-five minutes later, a blonde Jess slapped a fifty dollar bill on the counter and thanked the dubious hair stylist.  The doorbell jingled cheerfully as she left.

She wandered past an alley way, avoiding any prying eyes, and casually said, “You can come out now, Sam.”

“Dangit.”  Sam did appear, dressed in normal clothes.

“You were waiting there the whole time?”

“Yeah.”

Jess kept her eyes glued on the sidewalk, but she had heard the forceful uniformity in Nova’s voice and was braced for it.

“Jess, I’m going to have to take you in,” Sam said, sounding suspiciously like a policeman in a spy movie.

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t make this hard on yourself.”

Still no answer.

“Jess!?”

Finally, she looked up and glared, long and hard at him.  “I’m not going back, Sam.  Not now, not ever.”

§§§

I'll be posting more tomorrow, don't worry! :P Another thing to be excited for? In 22 days, we'll have reached the 200 day mark! We'll have to think of something special to do, I guess. Thank you everybody for your comments, support, and posts! If we can keep this up for another 180 days, we'll be finished! Don't forget to comment, and see you tomorrow for another 365 post, as usual.