Lavo Standard (22) (11-12-09)

Via the contact with the red slime, Suzan yet substantially gathered how much and why Crystal missed kids, and that this personal longing led to kidnapping Daryl and confining him to the state of cat. Even though there may be part that deserved sympathy, to the perpetrator a punishment would soon be administered.

Leaving Juno in a rabbit state on the floor, Suzan, without making a word, stepped forward and slapped Crystal’s left cheek.

“Take Daryl here,” ordered Suzan with an unwavering conviction that she was his authentic mother.

But Crystal, whose head was turned right by the impact, kept looking into Suzan’s eyes, quietly; Crystal’s corneas were reflecting the body of Suzan.

“Did you prefer it by this?,” Suzan turned just her right arm and hand into those of the bear and flexed them.

In spite of the physical reproach, Crystal retained her cool enough to allow her to recollect some old memories and said, “Even my mother didn’t slap me on the face when I got mad.” Crystal scoffed at her own embarrassment.

Crystal, much younger than now, was with her mother in a large park during the daytime. In the wide grassy field which was encircled by trees and mild hills, people were spending time in different fashions: those were having lunch on spread plastic sheets; kids were playing around, some with a soccer ball, one with a kite; and dogs were running.

At once, a soccer ball which strayed from a clump of kids reached Crystal in a wheelchair. Although she wanted to catch the ball and throw it back to the kids, the action was something impossible for her. Instead, her mother who was pushing the wheelchair grabbed the ball and tossed it to the kids. “Thank you,” a boy who received the ball said in large volume to the mother and resumed playing. While the mother was smiling and waving to the kid, Crystal was looking at her own visually and functionally crippled arms and hands.

A while later on the event, still within the park on the way home, Crystal finally confided what helplessly developed inside: “I should not, have, been, born.”

“What did you say, Crystal?”

“If, I can’t doo anything normal, as they doo, and, joinn them, is there any, reason too mee, too live?”

Having stopped pushing the wheelchair, moved into front of Crystal, stooped and looked her in the eye, the mother said, “Don’t make such a pessimistic word, Crystal. You have me and friends at the school, don’t you? It’s not an expression I wanna hear again.”

Crystal was sobbing, yet.

“Mom, can you say, that, I will go to a university, have a job, and, get married, to, to have a baby in the future?”

The mother refused to respond.

“Are what I said, not normal things?”

“Can you say, I deserve, life?”

Hardly contained, the sob grew up to be a wail in the arms of the mother.

“Please, kill mee, kill mee, kill mee!”

“Crystal!,” back to the present situation, unaffected by the shouting of Tim standing on the right side of her and caring, Crystal was yet ready to bring into effect her refined hatred against Suzan.

In response, although Suzan intuited from Crystal’s eyes that she would pay her back, she didn’t step back and chose to have her left cheek receive a slap square on.

“Daryl,” with anger held down, regardless of Juno restlessly beholding her mother, Suzan, having begun advancing, was passing Crystal on her left side.

“Wait,” to stop the further intrusion, Crystal’s hands caught Suzan’s left forearm. To appear as if an instinctive reaction, Suzan’s right fist, the bear’s blow, sprang to Crystal’s face, but Crystal escaped the attack with her head pulled backward.

What was unpredictable to Suzan, utilizing the momentum of the punch, Crystal pressed the back of Suzan’s left arm and levered her body onto the floor.

“Confirming your dead body, Daryl must realize who deserves motherhood for him,” Crystal said while trying to stabilize the locking.

“Mom!,” intolerant of just being an observer, Juno mutated into a semi-human state--with her torso covered with rabbit fur, and wings--to help Suzan squeeze her way out of the submission, but Tim interposed himself between them.

Juno, then, heard Suzan shout from behind Tim, “Juno, I’m O.K., go free Daryl!”

“(Juno, we should go),” subsequently Libro chimed in with Suzan’s order and Juno, with a revised sense of responsibility, got determined and rushed to rescue her younger brother.

“Tim! Catch her!” Crystal commanded, and Tim went after Juno.