// The Right Combination
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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Angel post-"Not Fade Away" and Veronica Mars post-S1 crossover. Veronica Mars and an unexpected guest. For Vonnie. PG.
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Someone rearranged the inside of my locker. Again. It might even have been me--no, I keep track of these things.
If I keep having locker misadventures, I'll write a memoir with one of those lame punny titles, and retire rich. Oh, wait, I should graduate first. Besides, I've spent too much time looking at other people's words to write down very many of my words. This sounds obvious, but words say things. And they say more than you wanted to say, and people like me and my dad like to use our bonus decoder rings on you.
This is all in my head, right? I get to have internal monologues. Keeps you from getting lonely on a long stakeout.
Wallace claps me on the shoulder and says, "Didn't know you were into all that girly stuff, Veronica."
I roll my eyes. Which he can't see, because he's at my back, but these things have ways of communicating themselves. "You never know what you learn from the lipstick and weight-loss advertisements." Even when they're from three years ago? Weird. And: "You want our math test scores to go head to head?" Not that I would know all the grades he hasn't shared with me. Not at all.
Actually, this is Wallace. He knows me. That's why he doesn't bother telling me outright. It must be some kind of friendship thing, that he thinks I think it's fun.
Okay, so I think it's fun.
"Math is totally girly," he says, and heads off to class chortling to himself. Oh, yeah, that was such a hot comeback.
For some reason, I don't think he's the culprit.
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It's really lame to spy on your own locker. Especially when nothing happens. I give up. I still have to write that essay for English and I haven't come up with a title that contains enough literary allusions to annoy the teacher.
I go to open the locker. The lock click-click-clicks and eases itself to the floor. It opens itself for me.
Okay, that's never good. I've seen the horror movies. But the horror movies don't have fashion magazines hanging in the air and flipping their own pages. Do they? I have to ask Dad tonight. If there is a tonight. There better be a tonight. I have an English essay to write.
A pencil lifts itself from the locker, too. I can't remember the last time I sharpened that thing. It's sort of there to convince people that I use pencils to write stuff. Never mind. It's a Mars thing.
Since the pencil hasn't stabbed me through the heart yet, I get closer. I tell the whoever-whatever, "You do know this is seriously weird and that if anyone's taping this, I will look like a candidate for psychiatric assessment?"
The pencil taps impatiently.
"All right, all right."
It points to letters, one by one. Mostly in order, down the page.
MY NAME IS DENNIS STOP
What is this, a telegram?
I AM A GHOST STOP I NEED A HOME STOP THIS SEEMED LIKE A GOOD PLACE STOP
"My locker?"
I LOST ONE FRIEND STOP AND THE REST ARE GONE STOP NONE OF THEM ARE GHOSTS STOP IT GETS LONELY STOP
Lost. Gone. And a ghost. I think of asking, Why fashion magazines? I think better of it. For some reason I don't think it has to do with transvestism. Or voyeurism. Or whatever it is ghosts do.
"My locker."
IT SEEMED IN NEED OF WATCHING STOP
Ain't that the truth. Especially if school principals and ghosts are rummaging through it on a regular basis. Ghosts. Isn't that a mind-expanding experience. I have a lot of those.
"Okay," I say, "you're on. I could always use an intern." It doesn't take a starving Russian nuclear scientist to see the possibilities here.
Maybe we can adopt this Dennis. Especially if he knows how to write without leaving words.
Dad's so gonna kill me when he finds out. And he will. He's a Mars, too.
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