Disclaimers: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, and only this story and the few characters I create belong to me.
This story is dedicated to Emily.
* denotes thought.
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Little Sister
Part 5
By Marie-chan
In Ms. Haruna’s classroom, Amy, Serena, and Ashleigh
come in. She’s finished grading
the tests. She calls them up one by one, handing back Molly’s
and Melvin’s tests, then Amy’s--
congratulating her on another 100%-- then Ashleigh, who she says did
a great job. Ashleigh
brings it back to her seat and everyone sees that she got 100% too;
this is quite and
accomplishment because it was a really hard algebra test, and most
of the other kids did bad on it.
Then Ms. Haruna calls Serena up. Serena has her eyes closed and
her fingers crossed, and is
whispering to herself, “Please don’t let me fail.” over and over again.
Ms. Haruna hands her the
test. She opens her eyes. It’s a 94%. “I got an 'A'?!
This has never happened before in my
entire life!” Ms. Haruna says she needs to talk to her about
it, and she doesn’t seem too happy
about it. Ashleigh and Amy see this. Molly asks them what
they think the problem is. Ashleigh
says, “I don’t know, but I hope she didn’t fail it. She studied
so hard, and I was sure she
understood it.” Suddenly Ms. Haruna calls her up, too.
Serena looks like she’s gonna cry.
Ashleigh asks Ms. Haruna what the problem is, and Serena says, “She’s
accusing me of cheating!”
Ashleigh cries, “What!!?” Serena says, “I told her that I really
know it, since you helped me
study!” Ms. Haruna asks if this is true. Ashleigh says
it is. Ms. Haruna says, “Well girls, I don’t
know what to do, I mean, I only have your word to go on, and you have
to admit, it’s pretty
suspicious. Serena’s failed every other algebra test, and suddenly
you come, Ashleigh, and she
gets an 'A'? For all I know, you two are cheating together!”
Ashleigh fumes in a rare show of her
temper, “I would never cheat on a test!” then Serena adds, “Yeah, if
I was gonna cheat, I’d at
least make sure I got 100% on it!”
Meanwhile, Amy has overheard the girls’ angry shouts
and came over. “Ms. Haruna, I
couldn’t help but overhear. I know Serena would never cheat,
and neither would Ashleigh. She
learned all this stuff when she was little and Darien was in junior
high and she helped him study.
She’s really good at helping people understand, and that’s what she
did for Serena.” Ms. Haruna
says, “I’d like to believe that, girls, but there’s just no evidence.”
Then Amy gets an idea. “Well,
what if there was proof that Serena did these problems on her own?
I suggest you give her a few
problems to work on, and we’ll prove she knows how to do it!”
Serena says, “I don’t know,
guys, what if I get them wrong?” “You won’t, Serena. I
know you know how to do it. And
you’ve got special motivation, too; we could get expelled for cheating.”
Ashleigh reassures her.
Serena agrees, “Well, O.K.” Then Ms. Haruna says, “All right,
girls, I believe that’s a fair test to
prove if you’ve cheated.” She gets out a piece of paper an writes
down a few problems for
Serena. She sits her down at a desk and Serena starts working
on them. She’s concentrating
even harder than she did on the first test. Everyone is watching,
and at last she’s done. Ms.
Haruna takes the paper and looks it over. In a minute she says,
rather incredulously, “Girls, I
apologize for accusing you of cheating. The only thing someone
is guilty of here is lack of faith,
and that’s me. She got all of them right!” The three girls
hug each other laughing. Ashleigh
thanks Amy for the great idea.
After school, all the girls, plus Darien are going
shopping. Darien reminds Ashleigh and
Serena that they said they’d tell him why they were so angry when they
got home. A flashback of
the scene pops out of their heads.
~~Flashback to earlier the same afternoon~~
Darien is waiting for the girls when they get home.
He asks them how their test went, and
side-by-side they walk straight past him, too angry to speak.
Darien facefaults.
~~End of flashback~~
Ashleigh tells Darien that they just didn’t want
to be reminded of the test at that time.
Darien asks, “Why? I thought you both got ‘A’s.” Mina tells
him that that was only after they
had proved that they’d both earned their own grades. Now Darien
is really confused and asks
them what in the world they’re talking about. Lita explains that
Ms. Haruna accused Ashleigh of
helping Serena cheat on the test. Ashleigh has been carefully
watching his reaction throughout
this exchange, and when he hears this last statement, he goes ballistic.
Ashleigh tells him to calm
down, but he’s reacting worse than when the police questioned Ashleigh.
Amy decides to play devil’s advocate, “You have
to admit, it was pretty suspicious.
Serena’s always failed math tests, now suddenly a new student comes
and she gets an ‘A’? Ms.
Haruna was only doing what she thought was right.” Darien says
that just because someone has
failed tests in the past, doesn’t mean that they’ll always fail!
The fact that Ashleigh just came to
the class only shows that she’s been a good influence on Serena, and
that she’s a better teacher
than Ms. Haruna! Raye suddenly sees a really cute outfit in the
store down the street, and decides
to defuse the argument by getting all the girls to come help Ashleigh
try on clothes. Darien is left
with no one to argue with.
Inside a store, the girls are all picking out clothes
for Ashleigh to try on. They’ve made
Darien wait in another part of the store until they’re ready.
Serena brings over a really adorable
outfit--a light pink pleated mini-skirt with a violet short-sleeve
blouse that has a small flower
embroidered on it, and knee socks. Ashleigh’s not sure she could
wear it, then Raye brings over
an outfit that’s so short that Ashleigh’s SURE she can’t wear it.
While the older girls crowd around
Ashleigh showing her outfits, Renie is behind them holding a dress,
trying to get their attention,
but she’s too short. Ashleigh notices her and shouts for everyone
to be quiet, it’s Renie’s turn.
They part and let her through, and Renie shows her the dress she’s
found. It’s SO cute, and
perfect for Ashleigh. It’s white with a design of tiny blue flowers
all over it, with a large, ruffly
white collar, slightly puffy sleeves, a high waistline, with a bow
that ties in the back. The skirt
part is pretty short, but everyone can tell that it’s going to look
adorable on Ashleigh, especially
with her figure. Ashleigh tells Renie that it’s perfect, and
decides to try it on right away. She
goes into the dressing room and puts on the dress then comes out and
asks someone to button it
up and tie the bow. Mina does, and they have Ashleigh face them.
The dress looks perfect on
her, and they all agree that she should get it. Renie and Lita
go off to find the perfect socks and
shoes to go with it, while the others find more outfits to be tried
on. Ashleigh tells them to find
some things for themselves, too, but they say that it’s her shopping
trip.
Finally, they’re ready to show Darien what they’ve
picked out (not much, at Ashleigh’s
insistence). Renie pulls him over to the dressing area.
Ashleigh tries on the blue-flowered dress
with some lacy white socks with small blue bows, and shiny black Mary
Janes. Darien agrees that
she looks totally adorable in it, and insists that she get it.
After the shopping is done, everyone is walking
home. Ashleigh bought the dress, the
skirt and blouse Serena picked out, plus two other skirts, another
blouse, and a sweater. She also
got a pink and grey jogging suit and running shoes, some socks, the
black shoes, and some little
barrettes with blue flowers on them that Mina found at the last minute.
On the UFO, Rubeus sees a wonderful opportunity with
all of the girls, plus the “Rabbit”,
the mysterious girl (who had now been identified), and Darien being
together at one time. He had
noticed that the girls were often around when there was trouble from
the Scouts.
Suddenly, as the group is walking down the sidewalk
and chatting amiably, Rubeus
appears in front of them. Lita asks the nega-trash what he’s
doing there. He tells her, “You
needn’t concern yourself, Human, I’m only interested in one thing;
the Princess.”
Naturally assuming that he meant Serena, they arrange
themselves around her in a
defensive formation, except for Ashleigh and Renie, the former taking
the latter over to the side of
a building in the background and off to the side. Ashleigh has
the strange feeling that she must
protect Renie, and so stands in front of her, facing out. The
other girls transform into the Scouts
and Darien into Tuxedo Mask.
Unexpectedly, Rubeus laughs and tells them, “Well,
Sailor Scouts, an unforeseen surprise,
however, it will be nice to destroy you, too. You aren’t what
I was looking for though.” The
girls are confused. Sailor Moon suggests that maybe he’s looking
for Renie, but this only
confuses them more, since Serena’s the only one who knows about Renie
being a princess. But
Tuxedo Mask thinks she’s right. Before they can react, Rubeus
sends a blast of energy at them
and disappears. They dodge it, then look around, but it takes
a second for them to realize he’s
behind them, talking to Ashleigh.
“So, little brat, I’ve been checking up on you.”
he tells her. “So what have you found
out?” she asks angrily.
“I searched the ancient records of the Silver Millennium,”
he tells her, “and found out that
you were a very bad little girl.”
Ashleigh wonders to herself, *So I had a past life,
too?* Rubeus continues his story,
“You were so jealous of the Moon Princess that you decided to get revenge
by taking away her
kingdom!”
Everyone looks shocked (most of all Darien), except
for Ashleigh, who just looks kind of blank.
Rubeus continues, “That accusation was never proven, but it was highly
probable, since you were
one of the few people who were away when Beryl attacked. Even
in the future, you’re still an
annoyance. Causing trouble for the Black Moon, trying to make
amends for your past crimes.
You were the traitor that betrayed the Moon Kingdom to the Negaverse.
You are responsible for
the destruction of the Silver Millennium!”
To be continued.....