Sarah Mayspring (sg_sarah) wrote in supergleerpg, @ 2012-01-10 14:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !type: narrative, -2012: january, former character: sarah mayspring, ~complete |
Narrative - post-opening hours shopping (with dead people)
Who: Sarah, Adam & pals (aka, dead people)
When: Jan 10th, middle of night
Where: Sarah's house, then around town.
What: Waking up to small ghosts being creepy and ghosty isn't new anymore, but being talked into felonies by should-be fourteen year olds is.
Warning: Potentially grotesque imagery, dead people talking, the mouth of a 'former' Puckerman.
After the talk with Faith, Sarah wasn't surprised that James didn't show up that night to talk. Sometimes he did it, just to get things off his chest. For some reason, most of the others were staying away too. Heather, Sarah was sure, was downstairs though, thinking. She didn't want to start this thing where she spoke to the ones they left behind, people would think she was crazy. Talking to Faith wasn't too bad because James had told her, he'd explained that Faith would believe her, would understand. It must be nice having that kind of faith in someone.
But she was already preparing herself to explain it to them, that she couldn't just show up on doorsteps around Lima and Ohio, telling people that their loved ones were okay and that there was money hidden in the rafters (Hector did that, getting that from him was bloody hard since he had no bottom jaw and she was scared out of her mind when she saw him).
It meant she'd been able to sleep at a decent time that night though, curling up in bed and just drifting off without a bunch of ghosts sitting around her room. It was somewhere around three in the morning when her skin started to tingle though. And she felt a little cold. Blinking awake she took one look over towards her window and promptly toppled out of bed with a scream. She was going to have to start closing her bedroom window, not that it was likely to help, since they could just walk in the front door.
"Sarah, honey?"
"I'm fine, Daddy." She tried her hardest to smile over at him, where he peeked through her door to check on her. "Bad dream, I'll be okay."
"Ok sweetie, sleep tight." The door clicked shut and her dad went back down the hall to his and her mother's room, Sarah waiting until she heard the other door close before she climbed up from the floor, glaring over her bed.
"What did I say about creeping?"
"How else am I supposed to get your attention? Ring the doorbell? I can't touch anything." She didn't like the logic in his argument, but she didn't say anything more. "Nice P-Jays." The smirk on his face did not belong to a seven year old boy, it looked horrifically out of place and Sarah frowned before looking at herself and realising the moonlight and cold air hid nothing.
"Oh, shut your eyes." She stalked over to her wardrobe, grabbing her nightgown to pull it on. She wasn't going to send him away, even if it was the middle of the night and she was tired and had school in the morning. She just never seemed able to send them away.
"Don't bother, put some clothes on." Adam was walking around her room, looking at her books and her music and some of her little clippings. "We're going out."
"Where on earth did you learn to ask a girl out?" It was long after everything was closed, most people in town would be in bed. Maybe he had something important to show her. Maybe it had taken him so long to come and see her because he was thinking about it. She decided not to argue, just grabbing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and hoodie. It wasn't her usual style, not by a long shot, but in the middle of the night with a ghost, who on earth would see her?
"It's not a date, I'm dead and you're like, weird and stuff."
"Really? That's the only reason you can think of? I'm weird? How about I'm at least twice your apparent age."
"Older chicks are hot." Sarah just had to roll her eyes, where the hell was he getting this stuff? She sat down to pull on her boots, watching him look at her family photos on the dresser, the way his hand almost reached out. "You ready?" He looked over at her and nodded. "Good, lets go." Then he just vanished.
This was the part she hated, how they could just do that and she had to work out how a flesh and blood body was supposed to get out of this situation. Her dad would hear her walking down the stairs, and the door creaked anyway. So that left...her window. "This is ridiculous." She'd never snuck out before, not at Madame Fairweathers, not when she was home for summers, none of it. She was not the type of girl that crept out of the house for anything.
"Would you hurry up?"
"Why? It's not like you're ageing." Oh, this boy was going to drive her mad. "Now shush while I climb down." She had to use the guttering, grateful for the incline on her wall, the odd slant that seemed to affect that side of the house. The fact that her father and grandmother had talked her mother out of rose bushes at this side of the house. She was also aware that he was watching her butt, again, as she climbed down.
Once she was on the ground -and Lord how was she meant to get back in the house?- Adam nodded his head for them to start walking. He was quiet the whole time, and Sarah figured that this must be important, because he was gnawing on his lip the whole walk. She didn't expect him to lead her to the local seven-eleven.
"Why are we here?" He just nodded to the pharmacy beside the convenience store.
"I need your help with something. Since you're the only person who can see me, I need you to help me get things. For my brother." Okay, this was getting out of hand.
"Do you want me to write a list and come back in the morning? We could've done this after school tomorrow Adam." He just shook his head and walked through the doors to the pharmacy. "Oh no, no no no. I am not being an accessory to a ghost in committing a felony. No." She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. "Adam. Adam, get back here right now."
"Would you chill out? I know how you can get in. I know the codes for the alarm and what window to climb in. Just come on." Seeing his head poke through the wall just reminded her how utterly insane her life was becoming. "Seriously, it's almost four, they open at seven. Would you move?" There she was, standing in front of a closed store, on a Tuesday morning, with a ghost goading her into breaking in. This was going to land her in jail.
"I am not stealing money, no matter what you say, I'm not." She trailed around the building until she stood under the window. "How am I to get in?"
"Stand on that box," Adam came back through the wall, pointing to one of the crates beside the wall, "put it under the window and just pull yourself up." She grabbed the box, trying to avoid putting her finger tips on it and using her hoodie to hold the sides of it. It did put her at an okay height to pull herself up and in, "There's a table underneath, stand on that for a second." The table creaked a little, but held as Sarah stood before crouching down.
"Now what?" The place was pitch black, she could barely make out anything in the room, there were cupboards at the far side and computers along the back wall, but that was all she could really see.
"Okay, can you see the panel on the wall?" It was beside the door into the store, leading out of the back room. Sarah nodded, the light from the keypad showing her where it was. "You need to get over there as quick as you can once your feet touch the ground, then hit the A button and put in the code 8-9-3-0, okay?"
"Okay," seriously, ghosts and felonies, who would believe her if she was caught? Sarah drew her hand into her sleeve, covering her index finger before sitting on the desk and taking a breath. "Okay." She slid off the desk and quickly made her way over to the far wall, bumping into the corner of something on the way before just moving again, ignoring the mild flare of pain in her hip. She almost forgot to hit the A button before the others until it dawned on her again and she quickly put in the code Adam had told her.
"Flick the switch closest to the door." She was a little hesitant, what if someone saw the light, it was a light switch, wasn't it? What if someone saw that and called the police or came to see what it was? "Just flick it."
"Okay, okay." It was lights, but it was dull, not too bright. "What now?" Really, what would someone need in a pharmacy? Unless his brother was sick now too? That would be a shame, maybe they didn't have the money to get the medication he needed and Sarah was going to be a felon but help save Adam's brother? "What're we here for?"
"It's in here, c'mon, I'll show you." The here he was talking about was a large store room, around the back of the shop. There were shelves of the every day stuff, none of the behind the counter medications though, so at least she wasn't feeding a drug habit or whatever. "It's at the back."
She followed him quietly, not too keen on making a lot of noise, so she didn't ask too many questions. The store room in the pharmacy wasn't all that big. They had large boxes with labels and things, a few smaller boxes on shelves and items stocked up randomly in places. But at the back, past the boxes of feminine care items, there were more feminine care items of a different sort.
"We're stealing diapers?" There were large bags, smaller bags, new born, two month onwards, training nappies, all sorts.
"No, well, not just them. You see, he's gonna have a baby. And they're gonna keep it. I just, I wanna help, cause you know, this stuff is expensive." Sarah agreed there, she'd seen the price of some of these things and wow, okay, apparently you had to have money to have kids these days.
"I am so very, very against this. You're turning me into a criminal. I'm a felon if I walk out of here with these things. I can't believe you." She noticed she wasn't leaving though. She was still just standing there, staring at the stuff. "What do you think they'll need?"
That was how she ended up grabbing one of the baby bags, loading in the bottles for milk, grabbing some rattles, the creams for nappy rash, two big bags of new born nappies were put aside and Sarah just started getting some stuff that was there for babies; little cuddly toys, baby thermometers, baby wipes, nappy bags, this adorable onesie that she figures why not? she might as well be useful, and packed it all in this massive bag.
"Think that's enough?"
"Dude, you picked more stuff than me." She looked at the stock, blushing a little.
"Nana Charlotte says if you're going to do something you might as well do it right." Adam just smirked at her, although it almost looked like a smile this time. "C'mon, we better get out of here." She had to drag the bag through to the back room, climbing on the table to drop it out the back room and them the bags of diapers following them. "What's the code to lock up?"
"Same one, just don't hit the A." Adam waiting for her by the table, his silhouette giving her a guide for where to go once she flicked the light off and set the alarm. She bumped into the same corner on her way back, giving her matching sore points on each side before she scrambled up the desk and out the back window. "You okay?"
Her heart was pounding in her chest, the same way it had done when she'd first seen Richard, right as two girls ran through him. She steadied the strap on her shoulder, letting the bag rest against her ass as she held the two bags in her hands and marched back across town.
"I think so, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I can help you and I want to. That's probably the point of being able to see you." She was glad the streets were still mostly empty, since she'd be talking to herself while carrying stolen baby goods. "But I'm not so keen on breaking the law, and that was massively breaking the law."
"What else am I meant to do? I can't touch things, and I'm dead so I can't make money. But, well, you said we could play."
"I didn't mean play criminals. Just, okay, no more breaking into places, okay? I have money you know."
"That you'd spend on a dead kids brothers baby?"
"Maybe." Maybe if she knew his brother, or something. Or maybe you know, she could just buy the baby something. "Okay, this is fine. We've done it now." Probably at least a few hundred dollars worth of baby stuff, "but no more stealing okay? We'll find other ways to do things."
"You'll still help me?"
"Yeah, course." He looked exactly like a seven-year-old then, and Sarah felt bad that he had to deal with all this. "I'll give the stuff to your brother at school. What's his name?"
"You can't just give it to him. He'll think you're loopier than you are." Her eyebrow raised at that. Couldn't this kid just stop calling her weird? "Like, hide it somewhere and leave a note for him, but like don't let him know who it's from. Cause then he'll ask you questions and shit."
"Don't swear." Although it did sound like a much better idea than walking into school and handing a complete stranger baby stuff. Cause that was weird. "Right, I'll do that. Okay."
She left the stuff in the garage, beside her car where her dad and mom wouldn't look, closing up the garage again and sighing. Adam stood under the window she'd climbed out of and watched her. "You going back up there?" It would be completely innocent if he wasn't leering at her.
"I swear, you are the most confusing boy I've ever met." Getting her hands into the hooks for the guttering was hard, and she probably ripped the skin off all of her knuckles on the way up. Her foot slipped just as she got to her window and her knee scrapped on the wall, only slightly protected by her jeans before she pulled herself in her window. Adam was standing by her wardrobe. "I hate when you guys do that."
"I wish you wore a skirt." She couldn't help the laugh, swatting her hand in his direction. It was nearly seven, her parents would be getting up soon, and then she'd be getting up to get ready for school.
"You want to stay a while?"
"Can I?" Sarah just nodded, folding her legs under her and sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed. "Wanna hear about Noah?" In the space of an hour, Sarah learned that even when he wasn't alive, Adam idolised his older brother, more than he did when he was alive, and suddenly stealing all that stuff wasn't so bad anymore.