Chapter Twenty-Eight → Butterflies are free to fly and so they fly away

The day of Peanut and Michael's wedding arrived sooner than anyone was ready to admit and to put it kindly it was an unmitigated disaster, the venue was over booked, the cake never arrived, the family was late and by the time the Talliways actually found their way to the secluded beach side park it was already dusk and the quests had left thinking the groom had done a runner, given that he was crazy and all. But Peanut and Michael pressed on, getting married right there under the stars, with a group of overly stressed and slightly under dressed family watching.

By the end, only Cora and Michael's elderly aunt Katharine were watching. Zane was busy laying into Jarvis for breaking a punishment that Cora had laid down for him, Noah and Boinky were both exhausted and skipping out to head home to bed while Tamara, well no one knew what she was doing, she might have been high.

By the time the wedding was over it was well past midnight, Tamara and Jarvis didn't even bother trying to get to their beds, the two just camping out in the living room while Zane drove the newly weds to their new home.

The next morning Cora called everyone in sick and let them have a day off, given that none of them had slept much the night before. Noah couldn't have been happier, sleeping until noon, he spent the rest of day alternating between playing on the Slip 'N' Slide and trying to beat the boss on a level of his video game, bastard had a respawn timer that was killer.

Tamara and Jarvis, on the other hand, spent the day catching up on homework that they had not done the day before thanks to the wedding. "You're parents suck." Jarvis muttered sullenly, staring down at the work book in front of him.

"Yeah, i know." Tamara agreed, parents in general kinda sucked.

Later on, Cora cornered Jarvis in Michael's old room. The boy thought he was going to get another privilege taking away, he already lost tv for a day, what now? Instead the woman just patted him on the shoulder and spoke kindly. "Honey, I know Zane and I have been on your butt a lot about school. But when we saw that you were failing, we became concerned. Both your parents are teachers, while not great parents, i know they're at the very least, decent teachers. So the fact that you're a D student worries us, we'd like you to try harder is all, okay?"

Jarvis nodded. "I will." He promised, before he hadn't worried about grades but now that he was living with a family that actually gave a damn, well, it a different. "I promise, i'll do better."

Cora smiled. "Good."

The next day it was back to the daily grind, the kids going to school and Zane and Cora both heading off to work. Zane was still reigning champ of 'snazziest lab coat', a title he wore with pride. "See you tonight birthday girl." He said on his way out.

"You just had to remind me, didn't you." Cora said as she read through the latest medical journal.

Cora wasn't a fan of her birthdays or growing old, so Zane didn't push her to make a big deal out of it. Although he did bring home a cake for her, the two celebrating before the teens were home from their after school activities.

Okay, so maybe birthdays weren't so bad.

"So, there goes my looks." Cora joked gently while in the kitchen, putting away the left over cake.

"I've not idea what you're talking about." Zane said, looking at her lovingly. "You're stunning."

Meanwhile... Boinky was in a bit of a mood, so he skipped out on school and everything else that he had to do that day and decided to hang out at the cemetery of all places. (seriously, i've no idea why he was there)  What he wasn't expecting was to find someone else there, his age, sitting in the midst of gravestones, doing homework. 

It took him a few minutes to get up the nerve to go talk to her. (way to be a creepy stalker Boinky)

"Hey." He said, walking up to her, the girl standing when she saw him. "You're Katina right? You're in my English Lit class."

"Yeah." She nodded before thinking for a moment. "Oh, you're that guy that sits in the back but always has all the answers."

"Yeah! Yep, uh, i mean, yeah, that's uh, that's me." He was so smooth with girls.

"You're name's um.... B... Barkely? Bon...."

"Boinky."

The girl instantly started to giggle before catching herself. "Sorry."

Boinky's mood instantly dropped slightly when she laughed, but really, he should have been use to it. "No, it's, it's all right. It's a stupid name, i didn't pick it."

"Yeah, but it's still not nice to laugh, sorry." Katina reiterated.

"So, what are you doing here? I mean, cemetery's not exactly the nicest place to do homework."

"Not the nicest place to read either." She pointed out, making obvious that she had noticed him before he had spoken to her.

"Yeah, but i'm weird." He said with a little smile.

"Well, maybe so am I." Katina teased.

"We could always go somewhere else, if you want too. Somewhere among the living." Katina just smiled at his offer, seemed like her afternoon wasn't going to be dull after all.

"Nice car." She said with a smirk.

"It's my cousins." He said, since everyone at school thought Tamara and Noah were his cousins, which he was fine with. Much easier to go with that lie than to try and explain he was the reincarnated ghost of a child who died over a century ago that had been trapped in the body of a doll and brought to life via a highly dangerous chemical compound.

"Your cousin's Barbie?" Katina teased, Boinky laughing.

Okay, so maybe 'somewhere among the living' was a high hope, since The Grind was pretty much dead. But hey, free drinks.

Night fell too quickly for either of them, and not waiting the day to end, they chanced breaking curfew for some star gazing. Although Boinky seemed to do more 'Katina gazing' than anything else. "The stars are up there goofball." She said playfully, seeing him watching her out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh, uh, sorry." He said, catching himself quickly.

"It's okay." She said as she scooted over closer to him, the two staring up at the sky. "I had fun."

"Me too." Boinky agreed.

"I don't normally do this."

"Skip school and drink underage? Yeah, me too."

"No, i skip all the time, i meant hang out with random guys i meet in cemeteries." Katina clarified.

"Oh, yeah, i mean, me too. I skip all the time." Boinky said, lying badly. She just smirked, she knew he was lying, he was a good boy, obviously, it was kind of endearing. Her normal type were bad boys, but she ran with the thugs in town, not exactly a lot of good boys there.

"We better get going." She said with a sigh.

"Yeah, curfew." Boinky agreed. Katina smiled again, it was so cute that he was afraid of being picked up by the cops.

"Thanks for a good time man." She said as she hugged him.

"Anytime." Boinky said.

"You can kiss me." She said against his ear, smirking cause she could feel his hangs shaking nervously against her back.

Okay, so he kissed like a nine year old who was playing doctor for the first time, but it was cute none the less.

At home, Cora looked up from her book as she realized someone was missing. "Anyone seen Boinky!?" She shouted for the whole house to hear, a chorus of unworried 'noes' following before Tamara could be heard shouting. "HOLY SHIT!" 

"What's wrong?" Cora called down to her daughter.

"He wasn't lying." Seemed like Michael's invisible snake really wasn't as invisible as everyone thought it was.

Chapter Notes:

Random ending, i know, but i was drawing a blank so sue me lol. I didn't want to end on Boinky's date, because i hadn't meant to spend that much time on it anyway, but it seemed i had like a million pictures from it so i figured, why not let him get a spot in the story for once, the poor non-heirs never get any screen time. Katina's cute, i dressed her and gave her better hair in Stylist, but i didn't change a thing about her feature wise. She looks vaguely Hispanic, i like her. But she's a thug, so is Nicholas surprisingly, i blame the fact that i put him in a spiked leather jacket. While so very Village People, it's also very bad ass, so really, it's my fault that SP has given the town a gay thug fairy with wings. More to come later ^_^