(Untitled)

[1000_cranes]

Charlie wasn't in a good mood. She wasn't in a good mood at all. After her own fiance got all mean and wouldn't screw her, she'd poured herself into a really hot dress. She'd even managed to scare up a cigarette. She was sitting on the steps of her house in the Hamlet, smoking and staring at the sky, sighing dramatically from time to time.

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[polly_okeefe]

The day didn't get better after leaving the disturbingly friendly stranger who was now occupying Captain Mal's body in the kitchen. I went to the preschool and found young Sam waiting for me, his mother... and no one else. Where was Charlie? She _never_ missed preschool.

I couldn't leave my post, so I took in Young Sam for his two hours, chasing after him the whole time. After I sent him off with his mother, I set out on the path (a little winded) towards Charlie's hut in the Hamlet, just to be sure she was all right.

I found her... smoking. Smoking! And -- what the heck was she wearing?

I paused in my astonishment, then decided to get to the bottom of this. I stepped forward. "Hey, Charlie. Um... What are you doing?"

[1000_cranes]

"What does it look like I'm doing, sugar?" said Charlie, leaning back on one elbow against the step and blowing a long, deliberate plume of grey smoke up towards the sky.

"I'm sitting here and smoking my fuckin' cigarette."

[polly_okeefe]

I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic. Charlie's tone of voice just grated against my spine. But then she swore, and the words stuck in my throat. I'd _never_ seen Charlie swear. She seemed like a person who was incapable of it.

Something was wrong.

I looked at Charlie warily. The dress, the cigarette, the attitude? What was going on?!

"You missed preschool," I said. "I wanted to make sure you were all right. Um... _are_ you all right?"

[1000_cranes]

"Oh, shit, yeah," said Charlie, stifling a yawn against her wrist and flexing her fingers. "I'm feelin' fine. I just didn't feel like chasin' brats around all morning."

[polly_okeefe]

Okaaay, I thought. We definitely have a problem. Young Sam was _not_ a brat. Not much, anyway.

"Charlie," I said, my voice measured. "Something is wrong here. Two days ago, you would not have said that."

[OOC: Note continuity error: Polly did not, in fact, talk to Mal first thing in the morning. We'll say it was someone else]

[1000_cranes]

"And now I'm saying it. Jesus, what is it about this place that a person can't just up and change? It's as bad as Midland."

Charlie sniffed and took a drag on her cigarette.

"You always so damn stuffy, Pol?"

[polly_okeefe]

I was rapidly losing my patience. My first encounter with this Island's strangeness today had put me on edge, and this echo from high school was just about more than I could take.

"I'm not stuffy!" I snapped. "I just think that when we take responsibility for children, we don't just blow it all off without telling anyone!"

[1000_cranes]

"His goddamn mother was there," snapped Charlie, looking decidedly bored. "It's not like he was playin' with fuckin' matches."

[polly_okeefe]

"She was _not_ there all the time," I shouted. "She left, and I was left alone with him, and--" I raised my hands. "No. You know what? If that's the way you feel about the preschool, you don't have to come. You don't have to come at all."

[1000_cranes]

"I am pretty sure you can handle one goddamn brat with me." Charlie hauled herself up off the step.

"You about done, Polly? 'cause, frankly, you're about boring the shit out of me."

[polly_okeefe]

My hands flopped to my side and I stared at Charlie in disbelief. "Yeah, I'm done," I said at last. "Goodbye, Charlie." And I turned on my heel and stalked off.

To my shame, it was only later, when I'd started calming down, that I began to connect Charlie's change of character to the Island's strangeness. That's when I felt my pang of regret.