The Grantville Gazette - Volume 4 Part 5

Mom looked a little strange, kind of shaken up or something. She didn't even complain that Millicent had been rude, just stood aside and let her leave the bathroom.

* * * Anita stared at her own reflection while she washed her hands. When she realized that she was looking for wrinkles or gray hair, she shook her head at her own vanity. Of course she was getting older; everyone did, unless they died young. She just hadn't thought about Millicent being a part of "everyone." She was going to have to rethink some things. Millie, No, Millicent she corrected, might be small, but she definitely wasn't a little girl any more.

* * * The young trainees, Blake and Bill, knew the correct procedures and called in the person Donna needed to see. After Marvin Tipton finished taking Justine's statement and left, the boys stayed for a few minutes, talking to Brandy.

Noting that Justine and her brother were having an intense, emotional conversation, Donna drifted a bit closer. If Henning was blaming Justine for what had happened, he was going to get an old-fas.h.i.+oned chewing out.

In fact, Henning was blaming himself. "No, Henning, is not your fault," Justine was insisting. "There was no other thing to do. He did not touch me, after that time. He never touched me at our rooms, not until today, when I would not listen to him."

"What!" said Donna. "You've been forced to live with this wretch! It's going to be a little crowded, Justine, but you and Brandy can share her room. Henning, you can sleep on the couch. Neither one of you is going back to anyplace this guy might be able to get into. You'll just have to stay here until he's caught."

Donna overrode any protests, and directed Blake to go with Henning to collect any belongings, right now, and hurry up about it. Henning and Justine gave in with good grace and a show of relief. Bill Magen would stay at the house and wait for Blake and Henning to get back, just in case.

* * * Arend Nebel stood silently in the deepest shadow he could find, seething to himself. So far, he had managed to avoid the police. He had returned to his rooms only to see Henning and the young MP leaving the premises. That they were burdened with bundles and bags as they left only made Arend angrier. They were going to pay for this. They were all going to pay.

His jumbled thoughts settled on one object of his anger. The blonde girl, the one who had stolen his stock that day, she was the responsible one. Yes, that one, the girl who had acted as though the stock was worthless until he dropped the price, she would be the first to die. Arend fingered the knife he carried. When he finished with the blonde, he would take care of the other witches, the faithless Justine who had gotten away, and then the Gundelfinger woman.

* * * "Oh, yes, I am too going to work," Brandy said. "And so is Justine, so is Henning and so are you, Mom. We're not going to live in fear of that creep. We're still going to have our celebration this weekend, too. I just got my normal life back, and I'm going to keep it. No cowardly little weasel is going to stop me."

Donna smiled inwardly as she looked at her daughter. Brandy might not be completely healed, but she was improving, just a little bit, every day. So was Justine. Living life the way you wanted to was the best revenge against a bully. Never let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds get you down, Donna thought.

"Fine, Brandy," she answered. "You will be careful, though? You won't go running off alone, or into

dark alleys, stuff like that?"

"Yes, Mom, we'll all be careful. We'll either be on the bus or in some other public place all the time. Just don't worry."

"Frau Bates," Henning began, "I must talk to you. It is not right, that you should open your home to us

this way and not accept some payment. You must let me . . ."

Donna interrupted, brusquely, "Henning, I'm not going to charge someone for a bed on the couch. It wouldn't be right. But, I have been thinking about something, and maybe you could help. This isn't a very big house, and it's been around a few years, so it isn't very fancy. Now that we're here and cars are pretty useless, so is the garage, at least as a garage. I think we could make that s.p.a.ce into a bedroom, or maybe even an apartment to rent to you and Justine. Do you know anything about that sort of thing?"

Henning grinned. "I learn. I learn the electric, for the 'Kelly Construction.' I learn it so I may teach, someday, that all may have the lights. I will ask my friends. Maybe I can get, what is it, a discount."

Vicky was preoccupied as she walked toward another meeting with her friends and Helene. The last few days had been really busy and very informative. She had learned that her parents just didn't understand business, and that they knew it. They were even a little intimidated by the thought of investing. There wasn't that much in the family savings account, although there should have been more. Her parents had good jobs that paid pretty well, but they tended to spend most of their salaries.

Most of the family's wealth was tied up in equity on the house and in a boatload of up-time equipment stored in the garage. Back when she had realized that she had sold her Barbie dolls too soon, and for too little money, she had made a comment about selling stuff too quickly. So, Mom and Dad hadn't sold anything, just stored it. Vicky hadn't realized that they were waiting for her to tell them what they should do.

The realization that her parents weren't uninterested in her, that they were just not sure what to do, was a shock. Mom and Dad didn't want to mess up her chances by trying to second-guess her decisions. They were proud of her but didn't want to put any pressure on her.

Vicky was so busy thinking and planning that the arm that snaked out and grabbed her was a complete surprise. The rage on the man's face scared her and being thrown hard against the building made her see stars for a couple of seconds. She felt the front of her blouse being grabbed and then she was being dragged into the s.p.a.ce between two buildings.

"b.i.t.c.h, harlot, thieving Daughter of Eve," he hissed. "You thought you could cheat me, destroy me, all to buy pretty clothes. You will not do this, not to me. I am a man, not one of you whimpering, soft up- timers. You hide behind evil magic. You cheat me. You use your looks to trap me. Maybe I fix the looks."

Vicky felt a sting on her cheek and saw a knife in front of her eye. The man giggled, with a high-pitched insane sound. The face was familiar, but she couldn't place him. Her head hurt and she couldn't remember.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this? Let me go," she screamed, trying to pull away.

He threw her against the wall again, hissing "You do not remember Badenburg, little wh.o.r.e? You stole my life in Badenburg. I steal your life now. I will use your beauty, yes, and then I will destroy you."

Vicky felt him grab her blouse again and saw the knife begin to come up. "No!" she screamed and

pushed him as hard as she could.

He fell back a little and she felt the blouse tear. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a nightstick came down. It hit

the wrist of his knife hand and she heard the sound of cracking wood as the knife flew away. Then there was a blur as someone else pushed the madman away.

Tears still blurred her vision and she blinked rapidly to clear them. Blake Haggerty and another young

man were handcuffing the madman, even while he struggled and kept screaming that she was a demon

and had destroyed his life.

Another policeman, this one in civilian clothes, had arrived and was helping Blake control the lunatic.

The other uniformed young man approached Vicky and pressed a clean cloth to the cut on her cheek.

She realized that her blouse was torn to a rag when the young man handed her his jacket. The madman was screaming, "She destroyed me. She stole my life to buy clothes. Women, they are all wh.o.r.es."

Vicky looked down at the expensive rag she wore and began to wonder if some of what he screamed was true.

Susan and Judy were the first of the Barbie Consortium to arrive at the mob scene that the street had become. By the time they learned that Vicky had been attacked the rest of the girls had shown up, as well as half a dozen police officers. The police officers were trying to weed out the real witnesses from the crowd and telling people to move along, trying to clear the area. The officers told the girls that they could take Vicky to the doctor's office and then home. They also reminded Vicky that they would need to take her statement.

* * * Doc Adams cleaned and bandaged the cut on Vicky's cheek, but insisted on calling her mother. "She'll want to know, Vicky," he responded in answer to her protests, "and she needs to know. You are a minor, after all"

The cut wasn't especially deep, so only cleaning and bandaging was needed. "She just needs to be careful and keep the cut clean and dry. Yes, she'll have a very faint scar for a while, but it should fade in time," Doc Adams said, in answer to Judy's worried questions.

* * * Mary Emerson, frantic with worry, met the girls as they were leaving the doctor's office. "My G.o.d, Vicky, what's going on? The nurse said you were attacked! Who did this?"

"I'm fine, Mom, just fine," Vicky said, as the rest of her friends cl.u.s.tered around her. "Mom, let's just go

home, please. We'll talk about it there, okay?"

Once at home, Mary heard the whole story. After the explanations, Vicky said, "We drove him to it, Mom. It's our fault. If we hadn't taken advantage of him, and of other people like him, it wouldn't have happened."

"What are you talking about, Vicky?" Heather asked. "You know as well as I do that a whole bunch of people laughed themselves silly when we bought their stock. They thought we were a bunch of stupid kids. They were glad to sell, and didn't care if we took a big loss. I heard some of them laugh about it, when they thought we couldn't hear them."

"Not everyone, Heather. Some of them were just regular people who were scared, and afraid of losing everything. We encouraged it and we took advantage of it. Some people asked for a lot less than they should have. You know they did," Vicky said.

"We paid them what they asked for, Vicky. It's not our fault if they didn't know what they were doing,"

Heather insisted stubbornly. "All they had to do was hold on, and everything would have been okay. I'm not taking blame when someone acts like an idiot."

"Don't you think we should have told them?" Vicky asked, earnestly. "Maybe we should have tried to

teach them, not just take advantage."

"Everyone we bought stock from was selling that stock for more than they thought it was worth," Judy said. "It didn't matter if they were rich or not. It didn't matter if they were in a panic or not. The one thing we know about every person that sold us stock that day is that they were willing to dump what they thought was worthless paper on anyone who would buy it. If they were willing to dump it on people they thought were a bunch of dumb girls who didn't know any better, they don't get any sympathy from me.

"I did tell a couple of people, you know. I tried to tell one guy, some cousin of the mayor of Eisenach. He was scared to death about his investment, but he wouldn't dump it on someone he thought didn't know what it was worth. He wouldn't listen to me so I got Mr. Kunze to explain it to him. Besides, I agreed to pay what they asked. It's just like a run on the stock market back up-time. Some people panic and some people . . ."

Bang! Bang! Bang! The knock on the door sounded like gun shots and startled everyone. Mary, not at all amused, went to answer the door.

"Do we really have to do this, Bill?"

Bill got a really stubborn look on his face. "We will. I wish to know about this Vicky, und how she is.

We have only to knock on the door and ask that she is all right. Then we will leave."

Blake wasn't convinced that things were going to be that easy. Girls still made him a little nervous. They just didn't think the way he did. Still, he followed Bill up the walk to the Emerson house, determined to see this through.

It wasn't Vicky who opened the door. It was her mother. Bill stumbled a bit, introducing himself, and Blake stepped in to explain that Bill wanted to check on the welfare of her daughter. Mary Emerson's eyes seemed to see right through Blake's lame explanation.

"Come on in, officers," Mrs. Emerson said, with an odd emphasis on the word "officers." "I'm sure the girls will be glad to see you."

"Girls?" Blake asked.

"Oh, yes, didn't you know? All of Vicky's little friends are here. They brought her home and stayed to make sure she's okay." Again, there was a funny emphasis, this time on the word "little." Blake had the feeling that that Mrs. Emerson might be trying to send him some sort of message.

The young men followed her into the living room, and found a cl.u.s.ter of girls, all talking at once. The girls fell quiet for a moment, until Vicky recognized Bill as the man who had saved her from harm. She even stood up and thanked him sincerely for saving her life. Blake was just a little miffed by this. After all, he was the one who hit Arend Nebel with his baton. Bill hadn't been the only one there.

Blake came out of his momentary rush of memory only to hear Bill inviting everyone to Mrs. Bates'

celebration, tomorrow afternoon. Somehow, Bill had phrased his invitation to include everyone in the room, as well as anyone else who wanted to come. Mrs. Emerson, faced with the joint acceptance of all seven girls, didn't say anything right away, but she did drag Blake into the hall for a quick talk. His ears still burning, Blake left with Bill a few moments later.