Lucine Kennedy

1.       Lucine Kennedy

Lucine Kennedy was the most popular girl at Shelly’s workplace. She was slightly plump, though not fat, rosy cheeked and stunning. Her hair was thick, dark, glossy brown and in the most beautifully delicate ringlets that anyone could ever want. She never sunburnt, but tanned evenly, with nut brown eyes to match, and although she was lightly freckled, there were no impurities on her perfect skin. Her teeth were clinically cleaned, her lips thick, skin smooth and nose petite.

All the men working there were fighting for a place at her side, or at least trying to admire her from a long way off in vain hope that she would take a liking to them, which was next to impossible with the hordes around her. Then all the women came to be friends with all the men, and so on and so on. Of course, there was the odd geeky nerd who didn’t care for Lucine at all, but then, of course, they would get snobbed by everyone who worked there who liked Lucine, just like Shelly.

But Shelly was very different.

Lucine loathed Shelly in a way that she could never loathe the other ‘non-followers’, who couldn’t care less for the three feet of makeup Lucine loaded on her face.

And Shelly loathed Lucine in a way that could never be expressed with words. Because Shelly stood up to Lucine, and she was the only one who did.

If everyone who didn’t like Lucine stood up to her, there might be broken or split heads all over the place. But in saying so, more than half the people only tagged along so that they wouldn’t be pestered by Lucine and her gang. And others because their friends tagged along. And so on and so forth.

And then there was Shelly Hatterson.

And Dr. Lily Harbour.

And then there was Alan Kloet.

Alan Kloet was a young, goofy man who worked at Shelly’s work, in the grade slightly above her. Supposedly handsome, Lucine had at first mentally claimed him as her own, then, finally, after about two year’s careful avoiding of Lucine on Alan’s part, she gave up. Though Lucine, it was very clear, still considered him as ‘hers’ by the way she never teased, bullied or cast leering glances his way. Instead, whenever her walked past, she would hurriedly giggle uncontrollably and call out a flirty “Hey, Alan!” as she hurriedly smeared more of her overpriced, designer lipstick on her (by then) bright, thick, blood-red lips.         To which Alan walked straight on, a mirthful smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. Alan had a loud, quite recognisable merry laugh that boomed out and sent new acquaintances into a more cautious state of friendliness. He was friends with everyone there, and tried to make friends of those who he didn’t know. Everyone liked his sociable nature, and he seemed to know that.

And then there was Shelly.

Hard Shelly, Dedicated Shelly, Stern Shelly, Snappy Shelly, By-the-book Shelly, Smart Shelly, Friendless Shelly.

No-one could stand Shelly, really, except maybe for Dr. Harbour, Mr. Eastman and perhaps Alan Kloet (But he didn’t count to Shelly). But Shelly didn’t care because she didn’t have friends and hadn’t since she was first nominated by the SESFA to join them and proceeded to ace her exams and win the Dux of her year group. At this point in time, Lucine Kennedy was aching to be her best friend but when Shelly shooed her off like a troublesome fly, Lucine abruptly changed tactic and shunned Shelly from that day forth. Shelly didn’t mind. Shelly hated friends for their distracting ways, their endless chatter that seemed to drive her mad and stop her usually relentless charge at the work she was given.

Like right now.

Shelly was busy shuffling and organising her already perfectly ordered papers and documents in a violent manner that seemed dull compared to her righteous rage. How DARE the chief gang up on her like that! She would be the laughing stock for weeks at headquarters. And that’s not to mention Lucine Kennedy and her followers…

At that very moment, the very same Lucine Kennedy walked out of the entrance to the waiting room of the chief’s office as though her life-long goal was complete. Christmas had come early. Alan Kloet liked her. Everything was perfect. Her cheeks were filled with a bright glow, the most triumphant, malicious smile on her face that anyone could ever want. Almost at once, a swarm of admirers swooped down upon her. A few scattered screams of dutiful laughter and surprise flew through the crowd, with a few tittering; leering glances cast Shelly’s way. Shelly knew that in a few minutes, the crowd would start to move towards her. She had at least 3 and half minutes to spare. Thinking quickly, she nimbly vaulted over the waist-high divider that divided all the individual workspaces up into a grid of offices. Maybe there were some advantages to having her workspace right next to Lucines’.

She landed silently on the floor of the office. She had now had about a minute and a half until they realised that she was in the wrong office. Shelly grimaced at the photos of many celebrities and Alan Kloet on the short walls around the office, the messy state of her now invisible desk. using the most minimal amount of fingers necessary, she picked lightly through the papers, skimming page after page in practised ease until she found what she was looking for.

Lucine Kennedy’s Diary.

Dear Diary Today, Guess what? Shelly returned from her last assignment. What a disaster! She was sooo bad injured, she had been �"listen to this �" nearly blown up by her OWN bomb! Lol! What a joke! She went straight to that stuffy nurse and came out looking much worse than her disguise had looked on her. I mean seriously, she’s that ugly, I don’t see what anyone could see in that conceited face of hers. I mean seriously? What a conceited little bug that she is!

Simply grinning in anticipation, Shelly typed in a guessed password (I love Kloet) and read, starting from the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Diary OMG! Do you know what that stupid little squirt, mud-worthy, idiot, stuipid, horrible, conceited, proud little nincompoop ‘Miss Shelly Hatterson’ just called me? A suck-up! A stupid, ill-begotten (whatever that means, I heard it once before, but I think that it’s an insult. I’m not sure), trashy, idiotic, stupid little miniature suck-up! A suck-up, to Alan Kloet? Me? Seriously, quit fooling around. I LOVE Alan Kloet. I ADORE Alan. Little Allie is amazing! I LOVE him! And you know what she called me? A suck-up. A suck-up, mind you. Oh…if I could kill her any normal day, I would torture her to a thousand deaths today…

Shelly flipped a few pages back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Diary Guess what? Today, Alan Kloet looked at me! His eyes full of yearning, his face a passionate blossom! He loves me, Diary, I know he does! And guess what?

Chuckling with the memory, Shelly read gleefully on.

 

 

 

Shelly read on, confused. “Today Alan” this, “Shelly Hatterson” that. Was there no substance to this silly diary? What did Lucine write in it all day? Flipping to the beginning with a quick glance over her shoulder, Shelly read on.

Dear Diary It’s that day after the crash. My head still aches and my right foot will be wounded for life, the doctor says. I shall forever have a smashed right foot. I mean seriously, what doctor couldn’t mend a broken foot? Well, apparently this one can’t. There is no need to tell you that I am just in the slightest bit annoyed. Anyway, last night something very strange happened with that stupid, hateable Smiths kid. Listen to this…

Not daring to read anymore, and with a goal in sight, Shelly carefully placed the book in the exact same position and walked out of the office toward the bathrooms. They were further away than the other Bathrooms, but closer to the Kennedy group. They were sure to intercept Shelly. Walking as straight and maturely as possible, Shelly walked straight for the bathrooms as she always did, looking to them and nothing else, head high. Soon, a cacophony of giggling voices cut through her clear mind and clouded it with uncertainties and a slight apprehension. But above those stupid titters, there rang an imperious, stuck up voice that silenced them all.

Shelly stood, arms folded across her chest, staring ruthlessly into the eyes of Lucine Kennedy, looming up before her.

“So.” Lucine bared her perfect teeth in an attempt at a grin. “You’ve heard the news?” A familiar sneer seized her mouth in an icy grip.

“By the way, I have!” Shelly suddenly said in a humouring voice, as though she had only just remembered. “You are currently violating section 37, law 12, part b of the SESFA code of conduct. It’s quite new, so you must of only heard of it recently too! To my understanding, It states: ‘No agents under the SESFA rules and restrictions or who have subjected loyalty to the SESFA code of conduct are ever allowed to hinder or inhibit the act of another SESFA agent applying to the code in the matter of the second being in an urgent situation and in dire need of being somewhere or doing, utilizing or following commands to act in any matter with haste.’ So what that means, Lucine, is that you are inhibiting a certain SESFA code follower in an urgent situation.” Here Shelly pointed to the bathroom door amidst unsuppressed laughter. “And that means, Miss Lucine Kennedy, that you are breaking the SESFA code of conduct, and liable for throwing out of the SESFA. Wonderful news, is it not?” Shelly smiled endearingly at the enraged other.

 “No, that is not by far the best news, Miss Hatterson;” said Lucine, spitting each individual word out of her cherry red mouth in a pitiful attempt at being daunting. “You have heard about your next, or your originally next, assignment?” Shelly glared defiantly at Lucine, who took a step backwards. “You have been rejected from your next mission because you failed the last one so drastically  that you had to take months off work, sending the whole mission and the SESFA backwards. But the chief knew that I, of course, would be capable to patch up the mission after you had gone through. You do realise, of course, that it is a great dishonour to be excluded from a mission you had already started!” Lucine smiled primly at Shelly, to which Shelly suddenly laughed loudly in the now slightly unnerved Lucine’s face.

“You don’t actually believe that you will succeed, do you? With a smashed foot like that? I can’t believe you could think that!”

After a few seconds of confusion on Lucine’s part, her prim smile dropped like a leaden boulder, and in swift competition confusion, fear, confusion again, and then anger took control of her livid face.

“What!?” Lucine said vehemently, cold hatred on her face “WHAT!? Did you say?” Lucine screamed at Shelly. Lucine took a step forwards. Shelly held her ground.

“You heard me, Lucine Kennedy, I don’t think that you would be able to accomplish the assignment adequately with a deformed foot.” Shelly smiled inwardly at Lucine’s livid facial expression.

Lucine pulled herself up to her full height, not caring about shielding her anger and blasted a barrage of words at Shelly about what Shelly could say about her foot and how to respect fellow agents and all that Shelly had ever said to her; all of which have been omitted from this book. She yelled and screamed at Shelly, who had never seen Lucine half as angry, and consequently took a cautious step backwards. The onlooking crowd had slowly dwindled down to only a few now very cautious key supporters of Lucine. Shelly had stood there the entire time, a blank expression on her face and at the end, while Lucine was catching her long-lost breath, said sweetly:

“Yes, but that still does not alter the fact that I am in an urgent situation and you are impending me and therefore breaking the SESFA code. I’m sorry, Lucine, but you really need to learn a few things.” Which, after saying, Shelly thought was cruel, but then, considering some of the few things that Lucine had said about her, thought it was a just punishment. Lucine glared at her, but before anything else was said, Alan Kloet arrived on the scene.

Lucine was now not only gasping to regain her breath. Shelly stood there awkwardly, trying to edge away towards the bathroom. The onlookers fled as fast as they possibly could (then hid behind desks in earshot). Alan Kloet looked upon all of this is a kind of humoured supercilious stare that Shelly regarded as pompously attempting to be comical and failing dramatically.

“I heard a great deal of Lucine-like screaming coming from this corner of the offices. Surely my hearing was mistaken, Lucine, Shelly?” He turned from one to the other.

Lucine waved her hands pathetically in a fan-like motion, as if trying to cool herself down. “What? Oh, sorry. I was just, ah, exercising my, ah, lungs, and, um the” Lucine pulled out her tube of red lipstick and blotched it all over her thick lips, “singing organs, like, yeah. Very good for the, like, the singing! (yes, the singing, that’s right)” Lucine blushed scarlet. “I, ah, work part-time as a, um, ah, like a, like, singer? Yeah, that’s it. I, like, work as a singer. That’s my cover.”

“But apparently, yelling is bad for the lungs as it over-exerts the muscles and strains especially the ‘singing organs’; which don’t really exist, but I’ll not mention that right now.” Kloet smiled mockingly.

Lucine, who hated in every respect being contradicted, and momentarily forgot that she was both putting on lipstick and speaking to her to-be-boyfriend, grew indignant and consequently told all within a mile’s radius that shouting was rather good for the singing”, though it is doubtable that anyone believed her, and that singing organs most certainly did exist, and really no one did believe her at that point; then she melted at the realisation that she was talking to her husband-to-be, and reassured Kloet that her singing teacher should never really be trusted and that he was really right. In about twenty seconds she was gone, complaining of an extreme headache, still dolling on lipstick.

Once she was out of hearing range, Alan Kloet raised a questioning, humoured eyebrow at Shelly, to which she smiles suddenly, forgetting that she shouldn’t smile. After a moment, Shelly suddenly remembered herself and frowned at her behaviour. She tried to say something, but ended in a hacking cough. Alan looked concerned.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m just tired. And I have a cough. I’m fine. Thanks.” Shelly replied indifferently, only saying the last word over a sizable amount of contemplation on her part.

“Okay. Sure you’re fine?”

“Um…yeah? I am fine. Okay.” said Shelly trying to walk away. Alan seemed to not realise this and they awkwardly stood there both trying to edge away politely until suddenly Alan made it even more awkward by saying;

“So yeah. Bye. Or, well, see you around.” Alan said, walking off. He paused, and looked like he was about to say something, but then decided against it.

Shelly finally walked back to her desk, still not having gone to the bathroom. Passing Lucine, she smiled in the same prim manner that Lucine had earlier that day. Needless to say, Lucine was not amused.

Author's Note

Please comment about especialy story structure and grammar, thank you!!!