Quoted By:
The lights are already off. Except, of course, for the light of the secret cellphone. Which she helped snatch from one of the carekeepers and is now used like a bonfire in the dark. When Helen sees that light glinting from the eyes on the kids that should be sleeping, she walks straight towards them instead of going to bed.
Jimmy: Got caught? Did you kiss the director to get out?
Jimmy Two: Did you suck his dick?
Jimmy Two laughs at his own joke but is promptly bitch-slapped by the Original Jimmy, the one and only. Who he then stares at, red-eyed.
Jimmy Two: I didn't like you doing that.
Jimmy: You are going to wake everyone up dumbass.
Jimmy Two: Say sorry to me or I'll kill you.
As it gets awkward, one of the girls has the courtesy of flinging a notebook at Helen, which she catches without batting an eye. A pen lingers from it, stuck to its corner through a wire. She writes on a page without haste.
Helen: "They want to send me to a madhouse."
They all stare intently at the wide-open notebook, which includes a crude drawing. In it, a guy in a building is stabbing himself in the eye and smiling.
Anna: Well I would. Stop fighting you retards. You made up the Ghost, true or false?
Helen: "False."
Anna: Well stupid, Ballsack says ghosts are stupid and that movies-
She didn't even notice Helen approaching, who gently reaches out for her ear.
Helen: It can hear you.
When she leaned back, Anna was perfectly silent. Even the Jimmies could tell something was wrong, but said nothing as Helen kept on drawing.
Helen: "The Ghost doesn't want money or food from you. If you want to be safe from the Ghost you need one of these."
She draws, from the pocket, two small green balls. Marbles; known to any kid, the first step to gambling hard cash.
Helen: "The green marbles do nothing. They arent magic and any green marble works. The Ghost left his only friend a special marble that was green to keep him safe from himself. It can't tell them apart now."
Jimmy: She's lying again.
But he looks scared.
Helen: "I only have one more. Any you can find works."
And she gives it to Anna, the ceiling tinted green for a second as she carries it over the cellphone's light. Then Helen writes again.
Helen: "Next time be nice."
Jimmy Two: I think she's lying too.
Anna: Me too.
Jimmy: Then give me the marble.
Anna: If you touch my marble me and Jimmy Two will turn you into Cesar Two.
Whose first iteration was watching at them from the corner. Barely seen under the moonlight, Julius Cesar was missing the top half of his cranium, the surface on his head smooth enough to carry a beer. Everybody knows that if you stare at him long enough he screams and shits himself.
Helen: "I'm going to bed. If I don't have my marble tomorrow I will stab the three of you before the Ghost takes me. Goodnight."
Turning around from the makeshift bonfire, Helen heads to bed. Green marbles are very hard to come by and she just happens to have plenty. Very convenient.
(cont!)
