This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [11A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[12A]
For the Primary Branch [12]

But the two of them were stopped by Britney before they made it very far into the main hall. This time, Giselle braced herself for the oncoming flying hug takedown. Britney seemed to restrain herself or perhaps, with the early hour, she didn’t have quite as much energy. The incoming hug was exuberant but barely made her stagger compared to being knocked over otherwise.

“Oh my gosh! You’re here too! You need ears as well!” Before Giselle could properly respond to what Britney meant by that, the girl dual-wielded what looked like silver and gold visors out of her bag. She plunked one down on top of Giselle‘s head and then did the same with Olivia.

The item felt like a strange headband and Giselle moved quickly to adjust it the same way. In the approximate year and a half of global concern when Jeremy had no options for a proper haircut either from Lily or anyone else, he had to tame and deal with shoulder-length hair and a hairband was one of the things he had to essentially learn about. Brittany restrained her efforts to adjust it and explained, “You may not have seen these around campus before, but now they’re being sold to everyone. They’re cat ears!”

Britney’s introduction of a small mirror from her bag explained somewhat. Plush, furry cartoon-style cat ears rested on the top of Giselle‘s head as an absurd punctuation. They were rather stiflingly warm already, but Gisele tolerated the situation and let them remain with just a few scratches from the itchiness. Olivia darted her eyes around and mimicked Giselle‘s scratching.

It wasn’t long before Brittany retrieved a third pair and joined the proceedings. Hers were pure black, while Olivia‘s were an oddly-appropriate icy-blue with an odd curl to one of the ears, and Giselle wore something akin to a Bengal tiger, which contrasted well with her blonde locks.

Brushing down her lean top and settling her hands on her hips, Brittany shut her eyes and lowered her head, as though she were a ballerina about to prepare for a performance. An instant later, her eyes popped open wide with a playful curl of her mouth and an innocent expression.

“…nya…mya…nyaha!” Her hands curled up in front of her like the imitation of cat paws as she rubbed at her face and then brushed her ears gently in feline pantomime. A little more of this performance continued until she spread out her hands and encouraged, “Your turn!”

The old man that Jeremy was, on many levels, wanted to roll his eyes and grumble about the absurdity of all this. However, at the moment, she was a preteen girl in a crazy school and in an even crazier life in front of a self-professed witch who cast some sort of good hex on her. The only moments in her upcoming day which didn’t feel mind-numbing were likely few and far between. So…

“Nya….nuuhhaaa meeeeeeuuuuw mehow…”

Giselle did her best even as she was vividly aware that other people passing by turned to look at what she was doing. On the one hand, she didn’t care what a bunch of random kids thought. On every other, the dense social nervousness that sometimes clung to her felt even sweatier against her skin than the ears. She also did her best to jangle and show off the allegedly magical wristband Britney had gifted her.

Britney judged her performance accordingly, “Good posture. Fair energy. Rather stiff. Just a novice catgirl. Work on it or you’ll never become my familiar. What about you?” She gestured next to Olivia.

Olivia just stood there and let her eyes dart between the various proceedings. She paused and then adopted wiggly paws which settled right next to her blank, almost frowning face as she managed a subdued, “Nya…nya…meow…nyanya…”

Britney‘s heart leaped and she clapped while proclaiming, “Perfecto! Inhabiting the mood exactly! Gi, you must become her Padawan and learn this technique!”

Giselle only had a vague notion that was some sort of Star Wars reference but nodded and scrunched up her eyes before thanking Britney for the ear and finally wondering what on earth they were.

It didn’t take long for Giselle to put together that their school mascot was a tiger and this was for the Friday rally and after-school games. As punishment and training for being outperformed by Olivia, Britney explained that she had to keep her ears on for all of first period. They parted soon after. Giselle reached up to the top of her head to remove the pair when Britney was out of sight, but Olivia stopped her with wide eyes of concern and tilted her head while still wearing her pair.

With low grumbles, Gisele kept hers on but warned that the art teacher would probably require them to remove the ears. It turned out she was perfectly fine with the hats and encouraged “GO TIGERS”. Sketching the opening assignment with a wobbly, sweaty-hot weight just barely clinging to her hair wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but Olivia continued to make it look effortless. Of course, with that thrown down as an unintended gauntlet, there was no way that Giselle was going to lose a pointless competition.

Aside from that, it didn’t take much explanation for Olivia to be casually welcomed into the class. She scrutinized the prompt on the board about sketching out a random example of a forest before glancing over at Giselle‘s work-in-progress. Giselle encouraged her to try something for herself instead of just following her example. This mildly bewildered Olivia, who shifted her pencil around.

The teacher appeared to conclude that Olivia was somewhere on the autistic spectrum, so for her and the others in the class who were actually affected by that, she went over methods of abstraction when it came to trees as well as presenting fine details without “getting lost in the woods”. Olivia toiled for several minutes before they were out of time.

What she created looked like an exacting image of a section of wilderness not too far from the road that Rachel drove to bring them here. Olivia‘s creation was quite the stand-out as the teacher presented it around but also gave feedback regarding Olivia‘s angle of the forest from the edge of the road rather than within it and encouraged her to consider different perspectives.

Olivia seemed lost on that for the rest of the class. Giselle caught a few people nearby, especially girls, tittering about Olivia‘s hair color and “coldness”. She suppressed the desire to give Olivia permission to blast them with blue electricity. That was not a complication they needed. Besides, a handful of trash people didn’t deserve to be remembered that way.

The teacher gave Giselle‘s cousin from far away special attention with technique and ideas. When the class came to an end, Olivia was confused that they were leaving. She wanted to continue to practice and refine this “human technique”, a comment that would’ve increased her apparent strangeness if anyone was still lingering around to listen.

Before they left, the teacher loitered over by their side of the room and inquired about their next class. Gisele explained it was gym and she was still trying to figure out how that would work. With a clap, the teacher explained that she would be willing to look after Olivia as she had a break period for second and she welcomed the company.

Giselle wasn’t particularly happy with the notion but understood that there really was no good alternative. Olivia looked around warily as the room emptied and Giselle did her best to explain that the next class would be very difficult to include her because it was extreme physical activity and a change of clothing and a lot of other complicated…

“Okay, I will stay here with Mrs. Weller.”

When the teacher was on the other side of the room, Giselle whispered to her and made sure Olivia was comfortable. She picked up on Giselle‘s intent and wrote on a piece of paper, “My entire life has been about not being caught. I am good at not raising suspicion.”

All she could do was trust her at her word and hope that she didn’t need to refuel and cause any mayhem. Gym without Olivia started out rather nervously as she became the focus of attention, comments, and hints again that someone had a crush on her. And a name slipped out, giggled between fingers.

Dennis. She still didn’t care and even felt resolve to find the guy and put an end to any feelings. It would be better in the long run, because it was impossible. He was actually in her third period class, she soon discovered. After way more volleyball than she ever wanted to minimally participate in, Giselle bolted across campus to the art room to pick up Olivia.

When they allowed her in, Olivia was sitting there with practically a ring of artistic implements and a cup of tea set to the side. The creations she had to show ran an interesting gamut from highly detailed restroom perspectives with a little girl in a fetal position in the corner, as though hiding. To people sitting and glowing. To life drawings of Rachel, Giselle, the police officers the other day, and even a few of Britney smiling.

The teacher laughed uproariously and had finished half of her own tea. She urged Olivia to finish hers, but Olivia politely declined. Mrs. Weller explained that she had a delightful time between the usual chores giving artistic advice and sharing stories with her cousin. She also simply advised, “Please look out for your dear cousin. You probably know this, but she’s had a very challenging life and I hope you have better days ahead, my dear. Remember what I told you.”

Of course, Giselle wanted to know exactly what the teacher told Olivia, but Olivia initially kept mum on it. She at least got the passing assurance that everything went fine. In the hallway, they again ran into Brittany briefly as she was headed to her English class. She encouraged them to put the ears back on. They’d taken them off at the end of class and Giselle hadn’t bothered to put hers on again for Gym, even though there were some girls and a handful of guys in volleyball who had them around for cheering purposes.

Thinking back that Olivia expressed she was near death in the morning, Giselle asked about whether she used the “blue lightning” and how was her energy level. In reflection, she thought that definitely sounded like she was talking to her in code about drugs. Fortunately, no one noticed.

Olivia calmly and clearly expressed, “Mrs. Wells was a generous host. She laughed, delighted, quietly told stories, and actually teared up at one point. The full swath of her emotions was all that I needed. She advised me, if I am in a bad situation, that running and fighting are always better than just accepting pain and suffering and worse. She was quite pleasant. I didn’t need much, but I am especially energetic for the rest of today.”

Through vague terms, Olivia reiterated that being here and talking did far more than just “sitting and waiting alone”. Giselle wondered, with a solemn shake of her head, if the creatures with controlling intentions (she wasn’t quite as good at hiding the nature of what she talked about, but she did her best) kept things the way they were because they knew that if those like her were free then they would easily achieve their hopes and goals. Olivia nodded in understanding.

“Without love, without kindness, without the softer emotions, the truly strong ones, it clearly takes a long time to find your way. It’s easy to be lost in the dark and the cold for a long time and not make it. Like my sister. But I still have hope for her. Evil cannot persevere because it does not love itself, in all its life, as the good and kind share love in a single instant. Like a cold acidic glow against a flash of warming radiance.”

The teacher, who was within earshot, quickly asked her if that was from a WWII novel. Olivia explained that it was just something she thought of in feeling sadness. He put his hand around her shoulder and soon got the whole story about a cousin from far away who wanted to keep up with her education and so forth. Giselle did her best not to think about this supposed Dennis who would be showing up in class as the door opened and they were invited in.

It took less than a few minutes of the teacher calling up random students to return graded tests (she marveled at a 99% grade on hers) for the guy in question to emerge.

Dennis sat towards the back of the room on the other side. He wore slim glasses and had fluffy fair blonde hair in a tumbleweed poof. He was small with a trim shape, strong legs, and long fingers. He basically looked exactly like Jeremy at this age but with a mysterious sense of innate confidence. Giselle caught herself watching his shape from behind as he listened to the teacher on notes from the test and added little reminders about what he did wrong.

To her shock, Giselle realized that whatever crush that Dennis may have had on her, this dumb little tween girl that she was had it just as bad. 

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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