Welcome to Gaia! ::

Howdy, neighbor! Looks like your new to the neighborhood! Need a look around? A guide to the community pool? Someone to explain the activities specifically designed to keep your rowdy teen happy, healthy, and academically enriched? Well, Susie-Q is the girl for you!



Susie-Q is the perfect young lady. She's polite, pretty, well-educated, and knows her place among her elders and peers. She has been perfectly conditioned by her parents to be the ideal role model for all, be they young or old, black or white, straight or "sexually challenged". And if you misbehave or stray from the path of good-neighborlyness, she will find and report you to the proper authorities to have your mind adjusted to the proper settings.

Susie-Q is not any particular young lady in the neighborhood. She is every young lady in the neighborhood. Every daughter is named Susanne-Quinnlyn, and every son is named Johnny-Quinnlyn. All outsiders are obligatorily renamed.

All caught trying to leave will be shot.

Welcome to Pleasantville!

Wow, just kidding, that would be crazy, huh? But everyone in Swallow Springs does believe certain things about their kids. Young people should not be heard, and should not be seen. They should spend their time at the local pool, keeping out of trouble, or in their rooms reading. There is a strict curfew of 8:30, sharp, in which all kids have to be inside with the lights out or all privileges will be taken away. But really, the only privilege is the pool.

It's summer in Swallow Springs - or, as Susie calls it, 'Shallow Springs' - and there are dozens if not hundreds of teenagers crammed into the pool, waiting for something exciting to happen. That's when Susie works her magic.

A new family has moved into Swallow Springs for the first time in years; the last time someone new moved in there had been a different "Susie" to lead the teen rebellion, and they had been so thoroughly tampered down that the rebellion might as well not even exist. The kids are too scared of being sent away to do anything outside of school, but Susie is the exception, and she's determined to meet the new kid first, and show him that there's more to life than rules.

It was hot. Dreadfully so. And the pool was full. Not in the delightful, refreshing, dive-in-the-water's-fine way, either, but full of people. They were all standing in the water, letting it slosh around them without moving, because there was no room to move. Their faces were blank and slack with boredom, their bathing suits not even damp from the chest up. Only one figure was seen outside the gates of the pool, blond hair tied back and "frowned-upon" clothes ruffled.

Susie was leaning heavily against the hurricane fence surrounding the pool, her fingers laced around the links and biting her lip. How could they all just stand there, doing nothing, just because their parents had told them to? There wasn't a single adult over 19 in the whole neighborhood until 6, and they were still as brainless as if their parents were hovering over their shoulders, watching them.

Carefully, Susie treaded in her Chucks through the grass and behind the backs of all the other teenagers (they even stared blankly in the same direction!) to go home. If they saw her, they would inform on her for not participating in pool-time. Once out of sight of the others, she took to a quick trot and then collapsed in the lush green grass in her front yard. Tugging her denim shorts down a bit, she splayed her arms out and watched the guys in the moving van unload the new family's stuff. At least something exciting came from the heat; sweaty, muscley men in movers' uniforms. Mmm.

Susie sat up when a boy who wasn't part of the moving crew jumped out the van, squinted, and smiled at her. Her insides churned unpleasantly, and her lip curled at him beneath her dark-lined eyes. He was too young to be an adult, but too old to be a kid. Why here of all places for a young man to move?

She flicked a stray curl from her eye and scowled before pulling a black Sharpie from her pocket, doodling little flowers on the white spots of her Chucks. The sun blared down on her but she didn't go inside. She'd rather eat nails than go in that house a second before curfew.

Susie's eyes flickered up at the boy, reeking of indifference. "You are a man-child, therefore I know not if I can trust you," she muttered monotonously before turning back to her Chucks. However, there wasn't much space left for coloring in, so her only option was to look up at Jake - or was it Jack?

In one fluid movement she was on her feet, arms crossed and legs splayed in an intimidating stance even though this guy was almost a head taller than her. "So what are you?" She picked up a random stick from the ground and poised it like a sword at him. "Be you child or beastly man?" The right corner of her mouth turned upward in a smirk.

Susie's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Just because your age ends in "-teen" doesn't mean you can be trusted," she pointed out. "Do you live here on your own, or with your parents?"

"Hey, I am not--!"

Susie stopped herself short and took an aggressive breath inward. This was a comrade, wasn't it? She would have to be...nice.

Straightening herself to her full 5-foot-four height, Susie forced her eyes to un-narrow themselves, grabbed the boy's upper arm, and started pulling him down the street. "Trust me, you don't want to know," she muttered darkly before using her best Yoda-voice. "Much to learn you have, young Jack-o. Come, show you I will."

In one fluid motion that seemed rather like a dance-move, Susie turned on her heel, still holding the boy by the arm, and let momentum carry him until her face was only centimeters away from his...neck. No matter. She looked up into his eyes and deliberately put a finger to her lips. "If they hear you, you're on your own, so I suggest you shut your face-hole. We can talk when we get there."

Business taken care of, she turned and continued her dragging of him, making sure to go behind the pool, but still in sight of it, so the new kid could see just what the teen-life was like. Christ, Kaylee Breas is red as a freshly-boiled lobster and she still isn't moving! she thought with disgust, taking a hard left at the pool and guiding the boy into the woods.

Susie stared unflinchingly back into the new kid's eyes, as if to ask honestly? She didn't even blink. She'd lived all her life in this place; it wasn't like she hadn't seen her fair share of cold glares.

Slowly and deliberately, she raised her finger to her lips again, and loudly "Shhh"-ed him. Then she pulled back, yanked her arm out of his grip, kicked a tree, and started climbing the rope ladder that fell from one of the branches leading up to the tree house. "Now get up here, dumbass; this is the only Susie-Q-certified safe-spot in the whole tri-street area, so I suggest you make yourself comfy."