All female high school gang wars, 3 factions that have been fighting each other ever since the establishment of the school back in the 1880’s. Now in the times of 1990 and technology and science ever-changing, new pranks and ways to battle each other have been changing. Here comes our main character, Lea. She, by no means, has not pledged to any of the factions, she has basically been put herself in the middle of the battlefield. The only thing she just wants to do is be on her lab all day without a bother. One day, because of a mishap from one of the girls from a faction, decided it’ll be funny to throw unknown chemicals to Lea she thought, she was going to be fine…that was back then and now telling her story as one of the leader’s of a new faction. “Bust up”
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I’ve got to give her credit-at least she’s not sobbing.
That’s almost always what happens. They get to this point, and turn on the water works. Their make up runs, and they give me these big wet eyes. Sometimes they ask for mercy. Sometimes they tell me they’re sorry. But this girl, she’s got her jaw clenched. She’s got her eyes on me, sure. There’s not a drop of sadness there though. Just pure, unadulterated rage. I know if she could move, she’d just rip into me. Suspension or no.
It’s so adorable I can’t help but smile. I cross my legs, and finger a button on my blouse. Her eyes cut to it for all of a second, then back to me. She snarls, and tries to twist her way out of Milenda’s grip. That’s the other thing they all do-try to escape. They always get the dumb idea that if they just twist hard enough, they can break free.
Milenda was on the wrestling team. Despite her massive baps, she could run circles around anyone here. During class, she’d sit with her boots propped on her desk, a weight clamp in one hand. She’d squeeze, release, and toss it to the other hand.
She did this all day, every day. Even when she was doing class work, she’d just use her free hand for it. The other would be right under the desk, veins bulging as it flexed.
In the four years I had been here?
No one ever got out of her grip.
Not even once.
She liked to play with them, though. She would smirk, and let the girl twist for a moment. Then she would just adjust her grip. Her fingers would sink through the uniform, right into the soft flesh of their shoulder. She’d hook her index finger into a joint, a socket. Right against a nerve. The girls would yelp, then go limp.
The only reason this girl didn’t?
It was Lizzy. Thin Lizzy, at that. Appearances were everything to her lot. She didn’t drop or flail even by a degree-but she did stop twisting. She sat there, Milenda’s finger hooked into her collar bones, and just glared at me.
I finally smiled, and slid from the desk. My breasts smacked against my knees, but I didn’t pay them any mind. Lizzy? Her eyes went right to them. All the malice, all the hate she held for me gave way to a tinge at her cheeks. Redder and redder she became as I stepped closer, my finger idle at my buttons.
I giggled, and decided to quote the old girl. I rolled my tongue over my lips, and said something she had told me years ago.
“Let’s make a deal, okay sweetie?”
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They keep the lawn so you don’t notice the bars.
Adora High, it’s not a nice place. It just imitates one. They keep the lawn trim, and fresh flowers out. Roses of every shade without a hint of wither. They bunch them right around a wooden sign, ragged with age. It’s quaint, though. Cut into the shape of a butterfly, it has our school’s name right on our mascot. Go Monarchs.
But peek past that, and you see the bars behind the windows. Yep-bars on the inside. They were there the first day of class. Then came the metal detectors, the drug dogs. Someone told me that there was even a bomb disposal bots on sight. I didn’t believe them.
In retrospect? I should have. Maybe if I had actually listened, I wouldn’t be here right now. Typing away, trying to make sense of it. Sometimes I wonder if other people felt like this-that prattling away their own history was weird. In trying to stay objective about what happened, realizing there’s no real way to do that.
Maybe that’s all life really is. Trying to find the one version of your story that doesn’t make you look like an asshole. Me? I wasn’t an asshole. Not always. No, really. That first day going in, I’d heard the rumors. But I figured if I kept my head low, I’d make it out. I’d be in the graduating class of ‘94, and then off to MIT.
If you’re a freshie and you’re reading this, let that be your first lesson:
Don’t plan. Seriously, just don’t. It’s not going to happen. You’ll survive, sure. But all these goals and aspirations you pretend to have, toss them out right now. Be real with yourself from day one.
Be smarter than I was.
Adora High, with flowers and bars. Telling so much in a single view that took me years to understand. But I stepped past the glass doors that day, backpack on one arm. I pushed my glasses up, and took a deep breath.
The halls were choked with bodies. Uniforms of all shapes and sizes going here, there. At seven-thirty AM, class still hadn’t started. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out my schedule. In barely legible dot-matrix type, I read HMERM-A2-LAURELS. I glanced up, and stared ahead. Over the roar of the crowd and trampling of feet, I realized I was at a four-way cross of halls.
Without a single sign to point the way. I swallowed, my stomach fluttering for just a moment. But I stepped forward-I told myself I had this. I was a junior honors student. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.
Yeah, I know. I said I wasn’t an asshole-but I didn’t say a bit about ego, did I?
I exhaled, and join the mass of bodies. I walked right into the cross section, my bag getting smacked and jostled all the while. Someone walked by in a hurry and almost ripped my schedule from my hands. They hadn’t even looked at my way-just walked forward like they were Sonic. I turned with them as they passed and my eyes bolted open.
“H-Hey!” I stammered.
The stranger-with perfect, straight blonde hair, thin as a rail-stopped. They had two other girls by their side, just a bit shorter. They all held still, and I felt all the air get sucked from my lungs. When they turned, my heart turned to a lead thud in my ears.
Have you ever seen that movie They Live? The cheesy one with Roddy Piper? So like, the monsters in the movie, they were these aliens. Roddy knew something was off because of how stiff and perfect they were. These girls, they looked just like that. The center one had a smile that looked wooden, painted on. Her bangs were even over her thin eyebrows, which rigid these emerald eyes. Her chin was sharp enough to stab someone, and dimpled. Her little cohorts looked exactly alike, just with their bangs cut in sideways swoops. The center girl stepped forward, her pleated skirt stiff over her knee.
The whole time, she just kept smiling. Big and full, her teeth gleaming in the hall light. Every step she took made the fourway feel distant. Quiet. She was about a foot away from me before she stopped. Her head tilted, her eyes bouncing between my schedule and my face. I swallowed hard, and tried to take a step back.
She took one forward, and spoke in a tone that felt as forced as the rest of her.
“Oh, look girls. We’ve a freshie! Isn’t that nice?”
My schedule trembled, and I wanted to recoil all the way into my bag. The two other girls stepped past her. They flanked either side of me, keeping pace as I stepped back.
“That’s what you are, right? A little lost freshie, just tossed into the jungle? Do you know why they nicknamed the school that? Do you?”
“I-” I stammered as my eyes bounced in their sockets. “-No I don’t. Why’d they call it that?”
Miss freaky, with her perfect smile and doll-like eyes, she didn’t blink. Not even as I backed into a locker, my bag rattling against the door.
“Because of the song. You’ve heard it, right? Guns and Roses?”
I gave her a nod as she and the others pulled in closer still. Close enough for me to smell their perfume-an overpowering mix of wildflower and spite. My knees started to wobble, and miss perfect pinched my schedule between her index finger and thumb. She tugged it out of my hands, the edges of it tearing away in her speed. She glanced it over, and her smile grew wide as she looked back at me.
“Awww, look at that. We have home room together. Why don’t I walk you there?”
“That’s uh,” I said, “That’s okay. I can get there on my own,”
There was a moment of quiet. Then the girls threw back their heads and erupted into shrieking laughter. It went on for tens of seconds, long enough for my face to grow hot. Then it dropped abruptly-first with Miss Perfect, then her cronies.
“I said we’re taking you to class. You’re walking with us. Got it?”
I swallowed, and shook my head. Even with my heart pounding, the thought of keeping pace with her-of looking like those others-curdled my breakfast.
“No, thank you. I’ve got it,” I said. I tried to step between her and the others-but they just sidestepped, and blocked the way. The smiles they once had, they were gone. In their place was nothing but a gaze of a curled jungle cat.
Then came the yanked at my back pack.
If it was Miss Perfect or one of the others, I couldn’t say. But the yank took me to the floor-and sent my bag spilling.
“Awww, baby fell down,” said miss perfect. I heard my books get kicked down the hall, and tried to sit up. As I did, the bottom of a shoe met my chest-and pressed me right back against the tile.
Miss Perfect leaned on her knee, her caramel thighs splaying as she looked at me. Her face twisted into a sneer, and she spat as she spoke.
“Listen to me, you little shit. This is the jungle. Jungles eat. They don’t forgive, they don’t hold your hand. You either follow the food chain, or get turned into ground chuck. But lucky for you? I wanna make a deal. Are you going to play nice, or-”
I’d been squirming, trying to just breath. Trying to get out from the stabbing pain of a sneak on my diaphragm-and like that it was gone. I took a deep breath as my eyes jerked open.
The first thing I saw was feet. Dangling Adidas in the air, kicking and pedaling. Next was the massive arm. It wrapped under Miss Perfect’s armpit, right around her neck. As it flexed, I watched as she gasped. As she struggled to breathe. She slapped useless against the arm, and it just flexed tighter.
Then it turned, and tossed her onto the floor. Miss Perfect clutched at her face as her friends came to her side. She screeched and batted at them, as she snarled, and looked towards who had been gripping her.
She had to tilt her head up.
Standing in front of both of us was a mountain. All muscle and chest stuffed into a uniform, one far too small to contain her. Her skin was blasted by the sun-not a tanning booth. Red hair was braided into a pony-heart, pulled high on her scalp. Coupled with the scar at her smirking lips, I felt something I’d not felt all morning.
Relief.
“ ‘Ello Liz,” said the girl, her voice a rasp. “Believe you were making a sweetheart deal, aye? You know better, don’t you?”
Miss Perfect-Liz, Thin Lizzy I’d come to call her-scrambled to her feet. She spat at the girl’s face. The loogie landed on her cheek, but the girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t so much as move as Lizzy tore ass down the hall, screeching at her friends.
The girl lifted her hand, and wiped the spit away on her coat. She turned to me, her smirk giving way to concern.
“Well, ‘ello there,” she said.
“U-uh. Hi,” I answered back.
“Looks like you dropped something,” she said. She gave a nod to my backpack, one I returned.
“Would you like some help, love?”
I sat up, and gave a small nod. The massive girl bent to pick my books up-and I watched as the crowd parted for her. I reached a hand against the lockers, and lifted myself up. By the time my legs were steady, she had already gathered my stuff. She extended her arms, and I took them.
“I-um, I don’t really know what to say,”
The girl shrugged, and gave a small grin.
“Well, fortunately I do. Hi! I’m Mum,” she said, thrusting a hand towards me. I stared at it a moment, then took it into my grip. I would have squeezed it, but I stopped when I realized how callus her hands were.
“Lea,” I said, my voice breaking.
“First day in the jungle?” said Mum.
I nodded, and watched as she crossed her arms. For a second, I wasn’t sure where to look. At the muscles on her forearms as they rippled-or the button that strained to hold the rest of her back. Mum laughed, and tilted her head down the hall.
“I spied your schedule. You’re this way. Follow me, aye?”
She turned on her heel, her skirt twirling as she started to march. I fell in lock step behind her, and marveled at how people pulled to the side.
If it was to avoid her anger, or just her in general, I couldn’t say. Years later, and I still just don’t know. But of all the things I learned about Mum, that first day taught the biggest lesson. You can change what people think of you simply with your presence.
@@@
Mum graduated by the end of the year. She was shipping off to the marines, which she seemed all too eager for. All of us met her right there on the field when she walked. We damn near drowned her in hugs and kisses. She tried to hold it in, but she let the tears flow. Which made all of us cry that much harder. She yelled over the fifteen of us that there was going to be a party at her house-so we went.
It was just us-her girls, I mean. Her folks were away on some kind of trip. I almost tripped over the cooler full of Guiness when I opened the door.
It was one of six-and we drank every single last can. We laughed, we told jokes. We kissed, we tasted the most tender and wild parts of each other. Being in Mum’s girls, it was just like that. Free and full. I loved that about her. Still do. When things started to finally die down around three in the morning, I went on the back porch to get some air. I’d been there just long enough to fill my lungs when I heard someone slur behind me.
“Aye, Lea? Issat you, love?”
I turned around, my braid smacking at my shoulders. I never used to wear my hair like that. But halfway through the year, Mum sat me down on the bleachers. She’d twisted it and talked, telling me how to care for it. I wore it like that every day after.
I smiled, and waved over at her. I leaned heavily against the rail, and tried not to stagger.
“Hey girl. What’s up?”
Mum chuckled, then broke into a wet cough. It’s then I smelled it-distinct, rancid pine. A cherry glowed in the dark, and I watched as Mum came into the light. Her eyes were red, but she chiefed another drag down. Every step took hours, but she came to stand next to me. She gripped the rail, and handed the joint towards me.
I wasn’t one to smoke-but when Mum offered you something, you took it.
Mum knew best, after all.
I took a deep drag, and held it in. I handed her back the joint, and she smiled as she pinched it. I finally let the smoke out, and we stood there for a long while. Just staring at the stars
When Mum finally spoke, it wasn’t with her usual loud bravado.
“Lea, love. I’m scared,” she said, her voice a tiny whisper.
I didn’t know what to say for a moment. I stood there, and rolled my shoulders. “Well I mean, yeah. The marines are pretty damn scary. I can see why you’re-”
“Oi, that ain’t it,” she said. Dank plumed from her nose as she turned towards me. “I ain’t fear no war or man. I fear for you. For the girls,”
She turned to me, and for the first time in a year her eyes were wet. She let out a low exhale, and sagged against the rail. While the others weren’t afraid of being hormonal?
It was the first time I had ever seen Mum upset. Normally she was smiling or snarling, but this-this was new. I rolled my tongue over my lips, the sour taste of Guinness still there. I took a step forward, and wrapped my arm around her.
“We’re going to be okay. You know that, right?” I said. It was a lie-I didn’t have any idea what next year was going to be like. With Mum gone, that left the rest of us wide open.
Being Mum’s friend, it was an understanding of sorts. We helped Mum with the Lizzies, and she kept them off our backs. It was a reciprocal arrangement, sure. But being around Mum also meant learning just what Adora High was really like. Something that, hopefully, you’ve grasped by now.
They say public education is a dual enrollment around here. On the surface, you’re trying to turn into one of those roses. The pretty ones near the sign. You’re trying to preen yourself for the real world, for what’s to come. But then there’s what lay just a few feet away. Bars, hard as steel. Drug dogs roaming the halls. Metal detectors at every entrance, at the library. You’re a flower-but your roots settle in the grime and muck of the place.
Just what kind of growth do you think that creates?
Mum snickered, and rose. She turned to me with a half smile as she raised the joint to her lips. She jabbed a finger at my chest, and gave a nod.
“That’s true. ‘Cause you’re going to look after every chicken-headed ninny for me, ain’tcha?”
I blinked, and choked as she blew smoke in my face. “I-uhm, what?”
“I said, you’re gonna lead ‘em Lea. You’re the smartest of the lot. It only makes sense,”
“I heard that,” I muttered, raising my hand to my forehead. I raised my palm up as my brow arched. “But like-Mum, what do you mean? Like, lead who? I thought we were all just friends, you know?”
Mum turned to me, and gave a snort. “Don’t tell me ye’ survived freshman year and earnestly think that. Not now, Lea. You’ve got to have some idea-ye’ think the Lizzies hate you because of me? Do ya’?”
“Well, I mean, that’s some of it at least, right?” I said. I crossed my arms, and leaned against the rail. Mum turned, and plopped herself down in a chair. She snorted, and crossed her massive legs as she looked at me.
“Aye, it is. But that ain’t the lot of it, and you know it. So. Tell me, my little egghead. What exactly do you think of Adora high? Ye’ had a whole year. Surely you get it by now,”
“I-” I started, “-it’s gross. Really fucking gross, and nobody talks about it. Like all the girls kind of…well, they-”
“Segregate based on clothing? On styles? Ye’ are on to something. So say it,” she said, a smirk on her face widening.
I’d known.
I’d known since week one, but I’d never uttered the word out loud. At the time, it felt so wrong. So sleazy to describe Mum, to describe all of us. Because when you’re friends-when people really care about you?
You ignore the obvious. But I swallowed hard, and forced the word from my lips.
“A gang?”
Mum’s smile was genuine-but all teeth. A curl of lips I’d never seen before. She lifted her arms, the joint still burning as she parted them wide.
“That’s what we are. And a damned good one at that,” she said. She brought the joint in for a final drag, and jerked a thumb at the seat beside her.
I pushed from the rails, and sat down.
We spent the rest of the night talking, Mum and me. She told me how it had all started. She had met Lizzie her freshman year. They had been in the same homeroom.
Lizzie hadn’t liked that Mum-whose real name was Sifa-had got close to one of her girls. So she had cornered her, and given Mum her scars. The one at her lips, it was one of dozens. All because Lizzie couldn’t stand someone having more attention than her.
She started lifting weights, taking self defense classes. Judo, Tae Kwon Do. Krav Maga. Wrestling. She said every time she looked in the mirror, every time her scars hurt, she went to do reps. She spared, she practiced with the sandbag.
Then came the day she saw Lizzie and her goons cornering another girl. By then, Lizzie had forgotten all about her.
Mum smirked, staring off into the sky as she talked about it. But I watched as her fists curled. Even in the faint light of the house, I could see just how white every knuckle got.
“Ye’ know what I did then? I did a prank of my own. I reached into her skirt, and hooked a finger right on her bloomers. Then I yanked-and hung her arse on a coat hanger,”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it-but I stopped when I realized Mum wasn’t laughing. Her smile had faded, and she sank back into her chair. Her palm met her forehead, and she let out a massive sigh. She turned to me, and nodded.
“That’s why it’s got to be you. Ye’ got to be smarter than I was, Love. We could’ve avoided the whole lot if I’d kept my hands to myself, but here we are,”
“Well, it’s not all bad, right?” I said, “I mean, if you hadn’t done that-then maybe we wouldn’t have met. Maybe I wouldn’t even be here, you know? Or like-maybe I’d be one of them,”
Mum gave a dramatic shiver, and shook her head. “Ewww, don’t give me such a cursed thought. Not tonight,” she said. She busted into a chuckle, and eased back into her chair.
“Go back in now, agra. Drink, get warm with someone. We’ll talk more in the morning, ya’?”
“Okay. Uh, you sure you’re going to be okay out here? You want me to bring you a blanket, or-”
Mum waved me away with her hand, and a smile. “Nah. I’ll be fine. Go be worry-free for one more night. But do find Melinda-and talk to her,”
I stood, my face screwed in puzzlement. “Uh, okay. She’s the one with the-”
“Big arms, right. Find her, and talk to her. Become friends if you can. Just trust me, alright?”
I nodded, and turned towards the door. I paused, then turned back on my heel and came to her. I leaned down, and wrapped my arms tight around the girl. Mum laughed, and lifted her hands to embrace me back.
Then-spur of the moment as it was-I kissed her head. I pulled back, suddenly all too aware of how weird I was being. I took a step back, my cheeks far too warm for the chill night.
“I-just-just thank you. For everything. For being good and being there for me,”
Mum snorted, her eyelids drooping. “Aye, I love you too. Now go find Melinda, alright?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Sure,”
And like that, I stepped back into the house, the noise, and the warmth of everyone I’d gotten to know.
If you’d told me then that we were a gang, that I was a gang leader, I’d have laughed in your face. I’d have made fun of you. If history is just finding which version of your story doesn’t make you an asshole, it would have been this one. This night.
It was the last time I felt sure of absolutely anything.
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The start of next year, I learned two things very quickly. And you, the gal reading this? I’m going to tell you precisely what they are. I want you to take them to heart-or at the least, learn them quicker than I did.
One, if someone puts a responsibility on you? You live up to it. You can do it willfully, or get forced into it. But if they trust you enough, neither motive matters in the end. You become the thing they want, or get your shit kicked in.
You don’t wanna get your shit kicked in, right?
Second, there’s a reason we don’t have a chemistry class anymore. You’ve probably heard all kinds of bullshit about it. Not a shred of it is true, though. What happened in that room, it’s the entire reason I’m writing this.
Just as Mum told me how her girls started, I’m carrying that story to you. You need to know it, be aware of it. While what happened to me isn’t going to define you-it can give you a guide. At Adora High, that’s as good as kevlar.
Here’s the thing-we weren’t always “Bust Up”. I wasn’t always a G-cup. Trust me, puberty didn’t have shit to do with this.
In the beginning, we just kept on. We were Mums, and we were pretty damn happy with that. We looked after our own. We stomped and snarled at the Lizzies when they stepped out of line. So, every day. Melinda and I got to be close. She had been with Mum a LOT longer than I had, and knew the ins and outs. I flat out asked her to lead, but she just shook her head and laughed. She said if she did that, Mum would get discharged just to come home and beat her ass.
I believed her, too.
For the most part, everything during sophomore year was calm. Calm as could be in a gang, at any rate. We took a few freshies in, lost a few girls to graduation. We drank and partied, and tried to keep our grades up. We were still in school, even if it was a shit hole. It wasn’t a problem for me-but the other girls, they struggled with some subjects.
Chemistry being foremost among them.
I mean, I get it. Chemistry is this thing that looks really cool until you try to do it. Then comes the math and measurements. A few of the girls-the real roughnecks-could barely read. So I went to our professor, and tried my best to be a pretty little flower. When I asked if I could stay after class to tutor some of them? My professor didn’t bat an eye. She just stepped back, smiled real awkwardly and raised her hands. Like I was some kind of rabid dog.
“U-uh, sure thing Lea. You girls can have access to the lab-y-you want my key? I’ll give you my key, how about that?”
I took it, and thanked them. I started to plan some lessons in my head, real basic things. Stuff to just keep people with a C average. That should have been it, the whole thing.
But then I wouldn’t be telling you this. Would I?
Adora High, it’s not a nice place. Sure. You know that by now. But when it comes to actual violence? We had a few scraps. A few girls got tossed to the ground, but never anything serious. Nobody got sent to the hospital, stabbed, shot. The real reason wasn’t that we valued other people. If you were a Lizzie, you were dirt. No, it’s that we didn’t want to serve jail time. Despite being as hard as we were, the end game was still clear. Graduate. Get out. Go live.
Instead, there was the pranks. Now, I know you’re looking at that word. You’re probably a little puzzled, maybe laughing. But this wasn’t whoopee cushions and super glue. Pranks at Adora High weren’t about cheap gags.
They were about humiliation on a grand, public stage. They flayed whatever rep you had from your bones in a matter of seconds. Sometimes people bounced back and got respect. Sometimes they didn’t. The pranks came all the same, and no one was ever spared. Ever.
My dad, he’s a biologist. He has this sexist joke that goes something like, “I’d way rather get in a fight with a male than a female. Males just tear you. Females though, they gut you and watch you bleed out”.
If you’ve survived freshman year? If you’ve made it far enough to be reading this? You probably know that’s not a joke.
So. The chemistry lab.
It had been a oddly quiet week. The Lizzies had kept to themselves. They hadn’t so much as harassed a freshie. We should have been happy for the peace, but when gangs go quiet like that? They’re planning. Don’t ever think for a moment they aren’t.
I was in the lab, mixing a few things. Growth hormones mostly, experimental stuff. I was trying to show the value of chemical induced mutation in single cell organisms. With the lug-heads I was tutoring, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. I had to break it down to the bare essentials, and go slow. I was at a table, waiting for my bunsen to get a tube bubbling.
I heard a scuff in the hallway. It was the kind of noise you learn to tune out in High School. If you paid attention to it, it’d just drive you crazy. So I didn’t think anything about it, even when it happened again. And again. When the door knob to the lab turned, though? I finally looked up.
In the three seconds before it happened, I could have braced the door with a chair. I could have bolted out the window. I could have done anything, but I didn’t. I got. It happens to the best of us.
Consider that lesson number four.
The door swung in, and three girls stepped forward. Three girls so damn pretty and well manicured they looked like dolls-not a spot or scar of acne on any of them. The one in the middle was a bit taller. Those to the side, they looked like smaller versions of her, their bangs swept to the side. I took a deep breath, and closed my notebook. I laced my fingers together, and looked over at them.
“Hi Elizabeth. To what do I owe the displeasure?” I said.
Lizzie smirked. She stepped forward, her heels clacking against the tile as her hands met her hips.
“Well aren’t you a sore sight? Having to teach your dumb-dumbs how to math, that it?”
“This is a chemistry lab, you illiterate cunt,” I said. Perhaps a bit firmer than I should have-but her insult was so fucking lame I could barely hold back my contempt.
Lizzie just smiled wider, and reached into her bag. She pulled out a plastic bottle, and raised it. Inside, something solid and grey crackled. Lizzie gripped the end tight between her fingers, her eyes setting upon me.
“Oh, I know. See, you’re not the only one a bit gifted in the subject. I love chemistry. I love it so, so much because you can do so many things with so little. Like this right here? Just dry ice and a few other things. Wanna see what happens when you add motion?”
I opened my mouth to speak. I can’t even remember what I was going to say now. Probably some stupid retort. But by the time it hit my brain, Lizzie had already tossed the bottle. Right at the table, at me.
She missed, and hit the tube instead. I turned, and tried to shield my eyes with my hands. The bottle made contact, and smashed the tube and itself. Both hit the flame, and a deafening pop sent me to the floor. My head cracked against the floor, just as my shirt was drenched in chemicals and glass.
As my eyes turned dark, I tilted my head towards the door. Now open, still banging in it’s hinges.
The girls were gone, and all went black.
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I was lucky.
I was really, really lucky.
The janitor-an steel-haired, shrewd hobbit of a woman we called Gram-found me. She said she came when she heard the blast. Before she pushed a mop, Gram had pushed gurneys as an EMT. She got me up, checked me for cuts and scrapes. Aside from a few knicks and holes in my shirt, I was okay.
Gram looked at me, the crows feet at her eyes narrowing. “You tell me who did this-was it those prissy bitches? I can fix them. I’ll talk to the head master, and-”
But I held up a hand. I got to my feet on my own, glass tinkling as I did. I lapped my lips, throat dry as I turned to her. I opened my mouth, and felt my throat cracking.
“Water,” I rasped. Gram obliged.
I drank it down, Gram fluttering about like a magpie. She gathered up the glass, the beakers. She picked up the shattered bottles and stared at it, then me.
“Missy, are you sure you don’t want some help? This-they could have killed you. Blinded you,” she said.
I shook my head, and slammed down the measuring cup turned tumblr. Gram got me another drink, and gave the blasted bottle an absent glance before chucking it in the bin. She finished cleaning as I gulped down another cup. Mop in hand, she took a deep breath.
“At least let me walk you out. Can I do that for you?”
I was too dazed to argue. Gram walked near and extended an arm, but I waved it away. We made it to the door before she spoke again. Her feeble hand gripped my shoulder, and I swiveled my head towards her. Her face was stitched in concern, her mealy mouth a thin line.
“Go to the hospital-please, alright?”
I gave a weak smile and nodded.
Then I staggered my way home. I clambered into my house, my parents still at their shifts. I met the bed, and passed out. I rolled on to my back, the street lights cutting amber glows from my blinds. My eyelids were heavy, and fell.
They didn’t rise again until I heard the ripping.
See, I’d forgotten to take my shirt off.
My shirt, drenched in growth hormones meant for something much, much smaller.
Shake your head in disbelief all you want. Roll your eyes, crack a joke. But I said puberty didn’t have anything to do with this-and considering this was just a year ago?
What the fuck do you think happened?
At first I thought it was just a dream. You get those sometimes, you know? Your body doing weird stuff. But when I clutched my hands at my chest, I knew. It wasn’t dream fluff that met my fingers, but flesh. Warm, jiggling flesh. I gasped as I found my nipples, my finger swirling over them. Feeling the warmth radiating from the center out to the rest. That warmth, it got bigger.
And bigger.
It kept growing until it billowed out of my hands, over them. Until it smacked against my navel, until it was hard to breathe. I rolled over on my side, one smacking hard and full against the other.
I didn’t go to school the next day. Melinda stopped by, but I was passed out. She left a note, wanting to know where I was. How I was doing.
What I wanted to do about the Lizzies.
It hadn’t occurred to me until I sat there, reading her notes. With my breasts heavy over my lap, covering my thighs. If Melinda knew-that meant the other girls knew, too. Our crew, the Lizzies. The entire school. They may not know what, but they knew something had happened.
Knowing was just enough when it came to rep. I’d been struck, struck bad enough to warrant Melinda coming to see me. Things were gnarly, and they needed fixed. Right away.
Which brings us to lesson five:
If you have to make a plan, you can either have it be quick or good. Quick works, but the results are fleeting. Good plans, though? Those last forever. Right until the end, right ‘til graduation takes you.
You can be a flower, or you can be the bars.
Flowers are quick.
Bars aren’t.
@@@
She isn’t sobbing, but she sure as hell doesn’t look calm.
Thin Lizzie, she’s squirming still. Squirming against Melinda’s hook despite the pain. As I slip from the table I was on, every part of me bouncing, that’s when I catch it. For the first time in the four years I’d been at Adora, Lizzy was afraid.
It made me wet watching her.
I snapped my fingers, and one of my girls came to my side about ten feet away. She set up the tripod and camera I gave her, and flicked them on. She gave me a thumbs up, and I smiled. I turned back towards Lizzie, and watched as her face reddened.
I bent low enough for my breasts to smack right against her face. She twisted and kicked, glaring up at me. All the girls-my girls-the busted into laughter. I joined them, but then held up a hand. The laughing died right away.
My girls, though? They were still enjoying this. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as they cupped themselves. Each other. A few bras snapped and met the floor.
They had been so eager to be just like me. God knows how much growth hormones we stole from the lab.
“Eight months,” I said, inches away from Lizzie’s face. “Eight months I’ve been planning this. Literally since the start of this year. Did you know that?”
Lizzie, she wasn’t kicking anymore. She just stared at me, her nostrils flaring as rage flooded her. But it didn’t matter. Not as long as Melinda had her.
“And you know,” I said as I fingered the hem of my skirt. “I thought about giving it up. I really did-but then you called me cow tits. You threw milk at me. Almost every day. Remember that?”
I watched as her throat bobbed, as her eyes widened. My skirt met the ground, and I kicked it away. Melinda smiled as I rose, and yanked my shirt off.
There was a point in my life I was really sensitive about my body. About any part of me being naked around people. But here I was, cupping my massive nipples. Moaning as a finger rolled against my clit, slipping into my cunt. I heard the snap of more bras, of skirts being unbuttoned.
I pulled my finger from between my thighs, and smeared it on Lizzie’s lips. She squirmed-and made the dumb mistake of opening her mouth. I pressed my fingers in, and watched as disgust gave way to something far more terrible. Her eyes widened, and her whole body slackened.
People knew about the growth. Lizzie had taken a decent guess about me lactating.
But only my girls knew about the taste.
It’s what kept them loyal, plump and mewling for me.
I smirked, and leaned forward. As my breasts smacked her in the face again, Lizzie didn’t squirm. She didn’t kick.
She gasped, opening her mouth wide instead.
I cupped my breasts, and pulled them right up to her lips. I squeezed and squeezed, trying to contain myself as I poured into the spiteful bitch that had made my life hell for four years. Within just a few minutes, Melinda didn’t have to hold her anymore.
Lizzie was pinned by me, just as she had pinned me that first day. She was far more eager with this role than anyone ever could have imagined. I laid against her, and looked back up at the camera. I smirked, and gave it a thumbs up as she greedily suckled.
“Whose the fucking best, bitch?” I said. When Lizzie mewled in response, I sat up. My nipple left her lips with a wet pop. I lifted my leaking tit, and smacked her in the face with it.
“Speak. Whose the fucking best?”
“Y-you are,” she muttered, her eyes rolling as she stared up at me.
“Who runs the fucking school?”
“B-bu…bu-”
I smacked her again, this time getting a gasp from her.
“Say it. You want a fucking drink, you need to say it. Hear me?”
“BUST UP!” she shouted. She met my eyes for just a moment, then pressed her head back. Her lips wrapped around me, and she drank her fill.
Even as the girls around us circled in, even as their hands found her cunt. Their breasts, her tongue. Even as she came, her hips spasming as she rode their faces. We kept going. We kept filming.
We kept winning.
Now, you’re probably wondering what the prank here was. I get it, it’s not obvious. There’s no whoopee cushion, no laugh track. See, a few of my girls? They were in our AV club. They tended to make mass copies of VHS tapes for teachers. When your budget is spread over all kinds of security equipment, you can’t always afford multiple copies of tapes. Piracy made that an easy fix.
One tape became thirty. First there was one in every classroom.
Then there was one on every video rental place in a thirty mile radius.
We even mailed ones to her parent’s jobs, and her home.
Lizzie didn’t walk at graduation. She graduated, sure. But after those tapes came out, well.
She suddenly didn’t want to be at Adora anymore.
We’d offered her a deal-and she’d taken it. Get out of Adora. Forever.
Her cronies were easy to sway. They came over to us, wringing their hands. Begging forgiveness, touting loyalty. We took them in, and that was that.
So now that we’ve reached the end here, I hope you get it. I hope you realize just what you’re getting into here at Adora. Don’t fall for those flowers outside, don’t get trapped by the bars.
Be pretty, but be hard.
And never fucking forget your loyalties.
-L