Excerpt: Following the Gay Umbrella

If Ada Isabella Fields had a diary, it would have begun with the following words:

“Dear diary,
I’m not a normal person. I’ve never been. You see, it’s my umbrella;
My umbrella’s gay.”

* * *

“Sometimes I really wish I had a dick, so I could more clearly express the admiration I have for certain people,” said a high, defined sort of female voice with a wistful quality to it. Ada startled, almost tripping over her own shoes. Was that… What?

“With ‘dick’, dear ladies and gentlemen,” began to clarify another voice, this one definitely male, speaking in a sarcastic, jester-like tone, “she refers to what even I have between my legs, and the bodily function of—”

“I mean,” continued the first voice, effectively cutting off the rest of the explanation (that certainly left nothing for imagination, thought Ada, pressing her back snugly against the wall and trying to seem as small as possible), “I’ve always wanted to pull off that ‘are you just happy to see me’-joke, but nobody ever seems to be that happy to see me. See, even Nic there is just sleeping away—”

“Shut up, you heretic, and allow honest people their sleep,” came the half-heartedly angry, sort of mumbled reply from a lanky frame of a male sprawled across the school corridor in the group’s feet.

“Mr Collier certainly seems not to be too happy to see you,” commented the sarcastic voice, incredibly helpfully, and Ada saw the first speaker, a slim, short-ish girl with short, red (probably dyed, since it was entirely too bright to be natural, Ada decided) hair proudly present her middle finger to the blonde-haired boy, the one with the self-righteous and egoistic tone of speech. She also saw the other girl at the scene, the girl with hair a lighter brown than Ada’s, and on a neat plait, eye this red-haired girl incredulously, and then shake her head chidingly, before going back to reading whatever book she was currently holding.

“Honestly?” asked the boy lying on the floor, in a defeated manner, slinging a long arm over his eyes, “I don’t mind seeing her, but the hearing part I could do without.”

* * *

“Come along now, you specimens of subspecies of snails,” Sebastian called from somewhere around the corner, his blonde-haired and smirking-faced head peeking from around there, “I have no idea where I’m going, but I would rather be there already! Also, Dee,” he continued, turning to face somewhere Ada, Sophie and Nicholas could not see, his tone of voice turning icy, “If you don’t stop that soon, I’m going to call rape.”

* * *

“Narrator, you say?” he asked, not quite as politely as Ada, but with enough courtesy not to sound rude - well, rude in a way that teenaged children would usually sound when unexpectedly arriving on an unknown island through a door that was supposed to lead into a mall, without recognising the surroundings and never having heard of an island with nothing but a giant door on it. Besides, and as he had said out loud, Narrator?

* * *

“So we’ll just keep on walking until we find the edge of the - oh, sorry, I mean this - world?” asked Sebastian sarcastically, rebelliously kicking the nearest root he could see sticking out of the ground, and hiding the pain he felt at the surprising density and hardness of the object of his violence very expertly.

“Either that, or we could always flee with our tails between our legs,” taunted Dee, sticking her tongue out at Sebastian, who made a face in retort. There was an argument in the air, Sophie knew - but that argument was very abruptly dissolved by the sudden rustling and then the appearance of a tall, brunette male from the dense bushes just ahead the five friends. As per usual, they could do nothing but stare - but this time, it seemed that they had a valid excuse, as the male did not appear (or almost somersault into view, however one wanted to see it) alone, but accompanied by a whimpering gray wolf, a silent wildcat and a couple of dozens of aggressive-looking squirrels, seemingly attempting to cling to the man’s clothing in a desperate way.

* * *

“It’s the male counterpoint of a Mary Sue,” Nicholas was explaining to Sebastian, who had asked exactly that in that direct manner he had, “And a Mary Sue is, well, as I take it, a very stereotypical character who is good at roundabout everything, has an easy time doing what everybody else does but has a tragic past, like, exemplii gratia, has been orphaned by a raid, and is now on a quest to redeem him or herself - when speaking about Gary and Mary, respectively - and— what’s so funny?” he asked, looking over to a giggling Dee, wounded.

“It’s just that you look positively manic,” she answered light-heartedly, grinning at him apologetically. “And besides,” she continued, “Your explanation is a little too rushed to be accurate. A Mary Sue is a common phenomenon especially in fanfiction - it’s just a poorly rounded character with all the safe choices made to make her interesting to the audience.” Nicholas blinked.

“I guess,” he began, slowly, but Dee just laughed again, her laughter ringing high and tempting Ada to join her (and that was one of the qualities Dee had - when she smiled, it was difficult not to smile, and when she laughed, it was easy to laugh just out of the joy of hearing her laugh), and waved her hand dismissively in the air.

“Don’t worry about it, Nic-dear. You must know better than I do, and if you say he’s a Gary Stu, he’s a Gary Stu, for all we know.” Nicholas nodded to himself, content with this, and fished his pocket-encyclopedia from where such a gadget logically will be situated (his pocket), and began fiddling with it, a happy smile on his face. Ada, however, shuffled indiscreetly closer to Dee, and whispered close to her ear, brows knit together:

“So what’s a Gary Stu, again?”