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Episode: Double Dipper Sixer

Aggie swung her skinny legs through the spindles of the landing, looking down into the party. She'd gotten one too many weird glances from people and one too many thinly veiled insults, so she opted to stay out of everyone's way. She would have left, but her Ma wasn't going to come back for her until their agreed upon rendezvous time. She'd have to wait it out.

She sighs, resting her forehead on the spindles. Even after making a few friends, she's still finding it impossible to just exist among other kids. At least the boys' Great Aunt was nice to her and had given her permission to duck into the shack if she needed a break, but she didn't want a break. She wanted to be down there, with the other kids, being normal. But one mean look and one insult had her sitting all alone. Just another freak, by herself, as usual.

She'd seen Sixer come by a few times- like, a lot of times, actually. Odd, considering he was supposed to be running the ticket stand. She'd seen Stanley earlier, and he'd seen her- but he'd been in the middle of talking to someone so all that passed between them was a wave.

Being blind has a small number of perks, the biggest being the heightening of all his other senses. And Bobby knew the smell of gasoline, and the smell of fireworks, and although he can't prove it, he's pretty sure he can smell a lie. He folds his arms, "glaring" in the direction of the smell behind thick dark sunglasses.

He was trying real hard to like this guy, this guy who his mom was so sweet on and that Olive apparently looked up to, but Bobby isn't really seeing it. Literally and figuratively. He sniffs, scrunching up his nose. "That's a lot of gun powder, Mr. Pines." He couldn't bring himself to call the guy Stan. "I hope you weren't planning on lighting all that up here." He usually has a hard time sounding stern and fatherly, but he's executing it pretty well right now. "You'll give my ma a heart attack." He steps right up to him, stopping just shy of bumping into him. "And I really hope you're not planning on lighting those off with my twelve year old daughter." He knows his kid, and he knows that if someone is lighting off fireworks, she will be right there with a lit punk in one hand a roman candle in the other.

“Whuh-Aggie? Is the fight over?”

The boys head is spinning, his vision whirling around like he’s been stuck on a carnival ride for several hours. Blood streams out on one nostril, dotting his white and red striped t-shirt.

He pushes up from his sprawled position where he lays in the dirt to a sitting one. He gazes at his palms, all scuffed up from where he had obviously tried to use them to break his fall. What had even happened?

“Where’s Jesse?” Stan asks, squinting as he tries to look around for his assailant. He looks at the concerned face of his friend. “Did I win?”

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Stan may just be coming around, but Aggie has been kneeling beside him for the better part of three minutes, frantically trying to rouse her friend who seemed to be somewhere between conscious and not.

"Yeah, it's over." She roughly scrubs at her eyes, wiping tears away so he doesn't see that she'd been crying. Now that he's upright she scooches closer to him in the dirt to get a better look at his injuries. She doesn't know enough about such things to tell if his nose is broken but by the amount of blood coming out of it, she has her concerns.

"He ran off." She explains as she takes one of his hands to look at the raw skin of his palms. "When you didn't get up right away, I think he got scared that he'd killed ya." She takes his other hand to look at it. "I threw some rocks at him. Mighta hit him, I dunno." Of course she did hit him, and she'd made him trip several times as he fled. But that was all she could risk doing.

She gives him something of a sad look, not wanting to say you definitely lost but the sad look in her eyes says it all.

"What does she know, anyhow?" Aggie looks at him, brows furrowed. The same guidance counselor had tried coaxing her career aspirations out of her but she'd never given any sort of answer. "Her whole career is sitting in a stuffy office handing out aptitude tests." When he looks at her, her expression has to soften.

"Do you really think he's got all that?" She asks, genuinely confused on how he could possibly think that. Stanley was clever, always good with a trick or prank. He was funny, able to hold the attention of just about anyone with a joke or story. He was boundlessly creative. He was loyal, a great brother, a great friend.. Maybe he wasn't so good at stuff like math, but neither was she. "Cuz I don't. At all." She gets up too, dusting sand off her knees. She'd always been skinny, but as she'd grown a bit taller its even more pronounced. "I think you could change the world if you wanna." She looks out to the ocean. "When you're out there, who knows what you'll do? Or find?" She offers a smile, "And I bet that when you're out on adventures, punching comes in handy." As if to demonstrate, she throws a couple punches the way he'd taught her. Her fist hangs in the air for a moment as she looks at him. They'd been the same height a year ago but now she'd have to stand on tiptoe for that to be the case. Her hand drops. He was growing up, and he was going to have a normal life. And where would she be? Was there a place in the world for a freak like her? She looks out towards the sea again.

"And you know I wouldn't drop a body in the Mojave. It's buried at sea or nothing, buster. Mafioso style. With the rocks in the pockets and cement shoes."

She takes another bite. "Damn, I am good at baking." She mutters before putting her attention back on him.

"Oh darn, and I just ran out of corpses I need chucked into the ocean." She shakes her head solemnly. "I guess I'll just have to settle for asking for your company, if you're up for the task. I know it's a pretty big ask, but you will be rewarded handsomely for your service." The nudges the pie at him with a magic'd flick of the finger.