Chapter 6 written by Katie Anderson
Yes, Tony Stark. THAT Tony Stark. You know the one.
That’s right. Anthony “Tony Stark” Starkly, the illustrious former vice-vice principal of the equally illustrious, and equally as washed-up, Newnan School For Super Smart Students And Stuff (NSSSS). True, the school had only lasted a few years before being shut down for E-SPLOST tax evasion, but it still competed heavily with whatever Linda Mink was up to for top educational news of the day. These days, the abandoned school building educated way more young armadillos and opossums than it did young humans, but that was to be expected as it was technically within the Turin city limits.
Anyway, none of that history mattered now. What mattered is that Newnan (and the world) needed to know the truth. And no one would believe it while Santa was out here dancing with sugar plums and putting kids down for long winter’s naps. (Or however that story went. Lima had never been known for her reading comprehension scores.)
Lima pulled the straps of her little black dress up and spun around in circles a few times in front of the mirror. It wasn’t to get a better look at herself, though. The stupid zipper up the back was just out of her reach. Finally, she gripped it and tugged it the rest of the way up. Grimacing as she rubbed the ache out of her bicep, she did take a moment for vanity at the vanity. She blotted her blood red lipstick, finger-combed her curls, and slipped her feet into her size 11 Doc Martens.
Getting outside was surprisingly easy. After Master Crook had left, the rest of her family had drifted back into the kitchen. Lima’s mother was now watching Paddington eat a giant plate of bacon the way any mother would watch their infant trying their very first solid food. Lima’s father was shoveling eggs into his mouth while scrolling through the latest Fox News headlines on his cracked iphone 5. All Lima had to do was walk down the stairs and out the door without making too much noise. In her size 11 Doc Martens.
Luckily, Tone had prepared her for this moment through hours and hours of dance-based training. Lima was out the door and on the sidewalk along Greenville Street before anyone was the wiser. She took a deep breath and set off down the broken pavement, letting her size 11 Doc Martens be her guide back towards downtown.
Downtown was deserted. Not in a post-apocalyptic way. Or even in a “Santa was very recently almost a murder victim” way. Just in the usual way that downtown always is before 10 am on any given Sunday. All the good people of Newnan were still inside their homes, prepping for a morning of church services and an afternoon of harassing underpaid wait staff at local restaurants. (All the less-good people of Newnan were already at the 8:30 am services, repenting in advance for how many customers’ meals they were about to spit in that afternoon.)
Lima’s size 11 Doc Martens echoed along the empty streets in the same way that a duck’s quack echoes inside a soundproofed box. She knew exactly where to find him. Santa may have ridden into town on a fire truck and he may have slid along city streets in his sleigh, but all those county-maintained roads could only lead to one place.
Lima was going to walk right in, shout his name, and finish the job that she had been sent home to do. There was no time left for distractions. No time left for waiting for crosswalk lights. No time left for reading historic plaques nailed to brick walls. No time left even for waffles.
No. The time was now. She was here. Santa was here. They were going to finish this.
Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep steadying breath, Lima pulled hard on the metal and glass doors and strode inside the dimly-lit room, letting the door to The Alamo swing shut slowly and softly on its safety-engineered hinges behind her.
Newnan Time with Harold 