Deadline ((Jughead Jones)) 4

8

They say every town gets the hero it deserves. Riverdale's was Archie Andrews. High school athlete by day, would-be crime fighter by night, patrolling the shadows of Sketch Alley down by the Southside Docks where Archie's community centre is. You wouldn't want to be caught there too long after dark. That's when the rats came out.

When Jughead came home from school, he began to frantically search the bookshelf. He hadn't seen me all week and all I get is a kiss on the head before he's flicking through book after book. Thinking nothing of it, I returned to wrapping the small teddy I had gotten for Bean, who was turning two.
"Hey dad, have you seen my Baxter Brother's books? I could have sworn I took them out of the trailer before it burned." He announced. FP was sitting beside me, his finger holding the wrapping paper in place while I got a small length of tape to hold them together.
"I don't know. Might have thrown them away." FP replied, returning to reading through a file in front of him. From the look on Jughead's face as he turned around, I assumed that FP had just killed a puppy in front of him. Jug was horrified and distraught.

"You threw away my books?" He said, and I placed the wrapping gift into the gift bag I had. Then, seeing Jughead looking angry, I stood from my place to reach his side and try and calm him down. I placed my hand on his arm as he kept his eyes locked on his dad.
"Alright, calm down, boy. Before you accuse me of book-burning, why don't you check the storage room in the basement?" Jug took my hand in his and began to lead me down to the basement. I looked back at FP who waved sarcastically at me, then returned to his work.

We did find them in the basement. He grabbed the box and ran upstairs with them before I could even ask him what was so important. Jug dropped them on the table, telling me how much he worshipped the writers and the characters.
"While other kids wanted to be superheroes, I wanted to be a Baxter Brother." I picked out one of the books, eyeing the blurb and seeing that they were all mysteries, with the Baxter Brothers solving them.
"I think you're basically living one of these books," I told him, flicking through the pages and seeing how worn they were from being read so many times.
"My dad used to get me one of these every year for my birthday." He commented before turning to his dad asking why he stopped.

FP was holding that look, the one that held secrets and stories he didn't wish to tell. Maybe the secret caused him pain. That was often the way with secrets, they had a way of holding the weight of the world and came with buckets of pain.
"You outgrew them, boy." Jughead cast me a glance, clearly sensing that there was more to that story than FP let on, before he disappeared out the door. Instead of dwelling on it, J turned to me telling me that he would never outgrow the books.

The next day, when Jughead went back to school, I had a delivery to make. It felt strange, returning to the trailer park. Now I was so used to Elm Street and the flowing current of the Northside, that I had almost forgotten what it was like to walk the cracked pavements to the trailer park.

That was often the way I supposed. When you live in a nice street where every house is framed with white picket fences and perfectly pruned bushes, you forget that places like this exist. And when one does stumble upon these settlements, the Northsider may stop, express how sad it was for the children who reside there, and then go about their day. Not me. As I made my way across the gravel to where Button had told me his trailer was, I vowed I wouldn't be that Northsider. I would be the Serpent Queen who worked to get the children out of the loop, the loop being them stuck in the same trailer park and the same minimal pay jobs as their parents and grandparents.

I stepped up the steps towards the door, hearing a baby crying inside. Bean. I knocked on the trailer door and stepped back, waiting for a reply. There was none. After knocking for the third time, I was starting to think the worst. Was Button hurt? Had they left Bean on her own? Had there been a break in? Was trouble lurking behind the door?

Suddenly the door was ripped open, revealing Button, messy hair, dark circles under his eyes, holding a screaming Bean.
"Thank the Lord you're here! I was about to call you!" He expressed, passing me Bean straight away. I was planning on dropping Bean's present off, greeting Button's parents and then leaving. Apparently that was out of the question now. "She won't stop crying, and I can't call my parents because they will come home from work, and the rent is due this week..."