Rebel Without A Cause

➶ chapter four

CHAPTER FOUR

Toni's point of view

•Wednesday October 6th•

I took off everything that had metal on it, so that I could enter the wretched doors of Southside High.  However, today was different than most days. I was not dreading sitting in this school for seven hours, because I knew that I would be able to see Madison again at some point. I may have the serpents as my family, but Madison is also my family. After not seeing each other for years we had a lot of catching up to do.

I walked through Southside High and found Sweet Pea, Jughead, and Fangs all standing at lockers and I came over to see what they were up to. Jughead, Fangs, and Sweet Pea are without a doubt my best friends.

"Glad you're actually here" Sweet Pea snarled at me.  Jughead and Sweet Pea were the only ones that knew Madison was a northsider. Fangs and the rest of the serpents had no idea.  His tone quickly changed after I glared at him and he said, "I thought you're bike was busted after riding all night"

"Shove it Sweet Pea....I got some pictures this morning of the Ghoulies and their Jingle Jangle that I was hoping Jughead could write an article about"

Jughead just rolled his eyes at me, "Come on Toni....you know Mr. Phillips won't let me write about Jingle Jangle.  Hell the man won't even let me write about the Ghoulies"

"Why don't you guys just take this shit news to an actual newspaper?" Fangs suggested in his always calm non-serpent like voice

"You're joking right!  Alice Cooper the fucking traitor herself bashes us for shit that's never our fault!  If that bitch even sees us by the Riverdale Register she'll say we tried to burn it down" Sweet Pea exclaimed angrily due to his hatred for the north side

Sweet Pea got so angry that he slammed his fist into the locker behind him causing Jughead, Fangs, and I to jump out of our skin.  The four of us started walking towards our classes which was english.  We hoped Sweet Pea would calm down by the time we got to class.

Our classes were not like everyone else's in Riverdale.  Southside High has the Serpents and the Ghoulies. Anyone else was considered an outsider and did not belong.  In English, Mr. Phillips, was standing at the front of the room ready to start his lesson for the day.  Jughead and I sat next to each other, because we were the only two that actually bothered to either pay attention, or even just simply answer a question.  Sweet Pea was sitting on top of his desk facing away from Mr. Phillip typing on his phone.  Fangs, being the goody two shoes that he is, was sitting in the front of the classroom; yet he still wasn't even paying attention to Mr. Phillips.

"Fahrenheit 451. By one of my favorite authors Ray Bradbury.  Let's start easy with the title.  Can anyone tell me its significance?

Nobody answered his question, but instead Sweet Pea shouted, "what? Damn it!" as he bolted out of the classroom not bothering to say anything else

"People, there's a burning book on the cover...." he said waving the book around like it was some kind of flag

I looked over at Jughead who was just itching to give the answer. I shook my head warning him not to, because we had Ghoulies in our class, but he went ahead and said, "Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns"

I rolled my eyes at his knowledge for literature, but what Jughead forgot about his good friend, me, is that I am just a little bit better. "It was a pleasure to burn" I said

"Very good Mr. Jones and Miss Topaz.  Nice to see the two of you working together again"

After class Fangs, Jughead, and I went to go find Sweet Pea in the hopes of finding out why he freaked out during class and just left.  We found him in the cafeteria at our usual serpent table, but he would not talk to us. He gave us the cold shoulder until we pressured him even more for the answer we wanted.

Sweet Pea and I were the closest, so I crossed my arms and said, "Sweet Pea if you don't tell me what's up I'm gonna drown you at the quarry"

"Fuck you Topaz" Sweet Pea smirked. "They're bringing me down to the police station later. Someone apparently broke a window on the north side by where my mom lives"

"Was it you?" Jughead asked while laughing at the stupidity of how much the north side cared about one window. Sweet Pea shook his head and said it was the same night Madison and I were in his trailer. "So screw them if they want to think it's you. Sweet Pea you don't got anything to hide from the police"

"Well I gotta go....catch you losers later" I said grabbing my stuff to start leaving Southside High for the day. Sadly I had some family issues to deal with before anything about the serpents went down

[]

I walked to Sunnyside trailer park and went to my old trailer. The trailer I had with my mom and dad before my dad flat left us all. I do not actually have any hard feelings against my dad at this point, because he lives with Sweet Pea's mom now and they are happy. The only thing I hate the man for is for walking out on the serpents and walking out on his only daughter. He tries to get me to leave the serpents in order for us to be a family again, but what he doesn't comprehend is that the serpents are my family. They are everything to me.

Madison and I developed a plan for her to stay on the Southside whenever she needed. I asked Jughead that if we needed to say anything we would say that Madison is living in his trailer. We are also going to say that she is a Topaz and not a Wilkens. Hopefully once Madison came, if she could, then we would be set on the plan and no one would ever know a thing.

My trailer was practically empty. My mother still owned just one couch and one coffee table. The entire coffee table and most of the floor was cover in empty beer bottles and bottle caps. My mother was not home, so I assumed she was out drinking at the Whyte Wyrm because we ran out of alcohol here. I filled two garbage bags with bottles and bottle caps and disinfected them all before sealing the bag. Since I can not find any other job then working with Sweet Pea and Fangs at the Whyte Wyrm - I also collect the lovely five cents per bottle that my mother drinks. Either way I made the trailer immaculate before hopping on my bike and riding down to the quarry to meet Sweet Pea.

"Hey Sweet Pea, where's Fangs?" I asked turning the engine of my bike off and going closer to the water where Sweet Pea was sitting. He looked different right now. He looked almost upset. "What crawled up your ass and died?"

"I gotta go see my mom tomorrow" he whined rolling his eyes in fury

"Just don't talk to her Pea. Tell the police you didn't shatter the window and if you see my dad there too flip him off for me will ya"

Sweet Pea chuckled as he threw his arm around me and we slightly hugged each other. Sweet Pea and I were not the type to discuss feelings or any type of emotions with one another, but the guy was my best friend. I had his back and he had mine. Besides Sweet Pea and I were practically family now. His mom and my dad were getting ready to tie the knot, so soon we would be step siblings. I loved the idea of having Sweet Pea in my life permanently. However, I would never say that out loud.

Soon we heard the roaring of another motorcycle engine and finally Fangs showed up. "How are my favorite siblings doing?" he asked coming down to meet us at the river bank where we were standing

"Not siblings yet Fangs, but once that knot is tied hopefully Pea and I could use the knot to whack our parents asses"

The three of us laughed and wondered where Jughead was.  Jughead for some reason could not come and said he would meet us later on.

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-shorter of a chapter just to give some background on Toni's life-
-None of the background I'm using for this story has been said in the show-