"Just Another Day In Paradise"

A Piece Of Daria Fanfiction By

Brandon League

(Brnleague@aol.com)

Legalese-Daria Morgendorffer and her pals are owned by MTV/Viacom and NOT me. There, you happy?

Summary-Two little girls meet for the first time in a day care center.

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Carla DeVille sighed as she watched the shy four-year-old girl staring apprehensively out the window. She knew what the little girl was afraid of; she had seen it a thousand times before.

The poor thing was afraid that her mother would never return.

Carla had worked at the 'Playland Paradise' day care center for over eight years and she had long ago learned to spot the signs of this very common fear. It broke her heart to see that black-haired little girl fighting back tears as she looked in vain for a mother that would not come to pick her up for another two hours.

She needs to make a friend or two, Carla told herself. She looked at the little girl and frowned. Carla knew that was easier said than done. Of all the kids at the center, she's easily the most introverted...but damnit, she needs to do more than just cry and look out the window! She needs to...

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Carla almost jumped. She gathered herself quickly and turned to see who had addressed her.

It was a young Asian woman. She appeared to be in her mid-to-late twenties. She was dressed rather casually, in blue jeans and a red sweater. Holding her hand for dear life was a very young Asian girl. The little girl wore a white, lacy dress and stared up at Carla with huge, friendly eyes. She was simply adorable, and Carla wasn't afraid to say so.

"She's gorgeous!" Carla gasped, putting her hands to her cheeks. "My, isn't that a pretty dress!"

The young woman flushed with pleasure and turned to her daughter. "Say thank you, Tiffany."

The little girl looked up at Carla, and after about ten seconds of staring, she said softly, "Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetie."

The young Asian woman stared at Carla for a few seconds, almost as if she were sizing her up, and said, "I'm Diana Blum-Deckler. I spoke to you on the phone."

Carla consulted the Rolodex on her desk. "Let's see here. Bartlett. Bingham. Blackburn. Ah! Here we are. Blum-Deckler!"

"I usually don't leave Tiffany with strangers," Diana said, looking rather sheepish, "but her father was in a freak accident. His office is on the second floor of the new Professional Building and he fell down a flight of stairs. They think he broke his wrist."

"That's awful!" Carla exclaimed. She put a reassuring hand on top of Diana's hand. "Don't worry, honey. We're HARDLY strange here."

Diana looked embarrassed. "No, no, I didn't mean..."

Carla chuckled. "I know, I know. I have a daughter myself. She's a freshman at Lawndale High now, but when she was Tiffany's age, I was very protective of her."

Diana looked relieved.

Carla cleared her throat and immediately got down to business. "Okay, how long do you need Tiffany to stay with us?"

Diana thought a minute. "Well her father is in the emergency room at Cedars Of Lawndale and we ALL know about the wait in an emergency room..."

Carla snorted. "Tell me about it."

Diana thought a little longer and finally said, "Could you watch her a couple of hours? I'll come back and get her around five o'clock."

Carla nodded. "That would be fine."

The two women finalized the deal. Diana signed a couple of legal forms and they discussed the day care center's rates and then, that done, Diana knelt down and put her hands on her daughter's shoulders.

"Tiffany, baby. You're going to stay here for a couple of hours, while I go and see about your Daddy. This nice lady here is going to take good care of you, okay. Will you be a good girl?"

Tiffany blinked. She thought hard for a moment and said airily, "Okay, Mommy. Hurry back."

Diana kissed her daughter and pulled her into a fierce hug. "I love you, baby."

Carla smiled. She had seen this a thousand times as well. Mothers tended to be that way. "Now, now...Mrs. Blum-Deckler. Tiffany is going to be fine. We're going to have lots of fun, aren't we Tiffany?"

Diana took a deep breath and released her daughter. "I'll be back later, okay?"

Tiffany smiled at her mother. "Okay, Mommy."

Diana gave one last look to her daughter, and then she turned and rushed out the door. Tiffany stared after her for a long minute and then turned those huge, amicable eyes toward Carla. Now what?

For a few seconds, Carla was completely at a loss for ideas. Then, a doozy of an idea hit her. She came around the desk and knelt in front of Tiffany.

"Tiffany. Would you like to make a new friend?"

Tiffany regarded Carla for a moment. Carla thought, and hated herself for thinking it, that the little girl looked like a Pomeranian trying to do an algebra problem.

"Sure." Tiffany smiled warmly at Carla.

Carla took Tiffany by the hand and led her over to where the shy, sad little girl was staring wistfully out of the window. She looked up and sniffed sadly as she looked at Carla.

"Tiffany Blum-Deckler. I'd like you to meet Jane Lane."

The two little girls stared at each other for a long moment. Carla stood over them, a triumphant smile on her face. She had done the right thing. She had gotten Jane away from the window and now things would be better.

Jane was studying Tiffany with a curious look. Finally she spoke.

"What's wrong with your eyes? They're crooked."

"Jane!" Carla was shocked.

Jane looked up at Carla, a look of confusion on her face. "What? They ARE crooked."

Carla sighed and put her hand on Jane's shoulder. "Jane, honey. Her eyes are not 'crooked.' She's Asian. They're supposed to look like that."

During this exchange, Tiffany just stood there nonplussed. Even though she had never heard her eyes referred to as 'crooked' before, it didn't really bother her. Finally, she looked up at Carla and said, "My eyes are fine."

Carla looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole. "I know they are sweetie. I just...I, um, well..."

Frantically, she changed the subject. "Would you girls like to play a game?"

Jane's face lit up. "We could play poker! My brother Wind showed me how!"

Tiffany looked puzzled. "Poke her? Poke who?"

Carla bit her lip. Hiding in a hole was starting to look better and better with every passing moment.

"Um," Carla said lamely, "We don't have any cards Jane."

"Oh." Jane looked crestfallen.

"Do you like any other games, Jane?"

Jane thought. After a moment she smiled and said, "Trent plays 'Hungry Hungry Hippos' with me all the time. The loser has to wash the dishes."

Carla smiled at that. They had a 'Hungry Hungry Hippos' board here at the center. As she led Jane and Tiffany over to the closet to retrieve it, Carla asked Jane, "Who's Trent?"

"He's my brother too," Jane said matter-of-factly. "I have two brothers AND two sisters."

"I see." Carla could relate. She had three older sisters herself.

"What's 'Hungry Hungry Hippos'?" Tiffany had never heard of such a thing.

"It's a game," Jane told her. "You put these little white marbles on a board and then you hit a button to make the hippo eat the marbles. If you get the most, you win."

Tiffany pondered these instructions for a few seconds, blinked, and asked, "What's a hippo?"

"It's an animal," Jane told her, "I think they live far away, like Europe or Seattle."

"Oh," Tiffany said mildly.

Carla retrieved the 'Hungry Hungry Hippos' game from the closet and led the two girls over to a small table in the corner. She set the game up for them and when she was sure that they would be all right, she left them alone to check on some of the other children.

Tiffany stared at the game with wide-eyed interest. "These are hippos?"

"Yeah," Jane told her. "You see that black thing on his neck? Push it down and he opens his mouth."

Timidly, Tiffany pushed the little black lever on her hippo and with a sharp *CLACK* the hippo's mouth snapped open.

Tiffany was delighted.

"See," Jane told her. "Now you do that as fast as you can, and whoever gets the most marbles wins!"

Tiffany looked at Jane with something like awe. "You can count?" She asked in a hushed whisper.

For the first time, Jane looked uncertain. "Trent usually counts for me."

Tiffany looked at her in silence.

"I...I can count to eleven, though," Jane said, as though that solved everything.

"We can ask that lady to count," Tiffany said quietly.

Jane's eyes widened. "Hey! Yeah! You're really smart, Tiffany!"

They played the game for over an hour. Tiffany turned out to be rather gifted. They would play through a game and call Carla over. She would count the marbles and declare the winner. When the hour was up, and they had both grown tired and weary of the game, Tiffany had won twenty-one games and Jane had won twenty. Jane was impressed.

"Wow! You're good at this, Tiffany!"

Tiffany smiled at Jane. No one had ever praised her like that before, except for her mother...and sometimes her father, when he wasn't yelling. Jane was so nice and she was so much fun! Maybe, just maybe, she could be her best friend?

"What do you want to do now?" Tiffany asked Jane.

Suddenly, a brainstorm hit Jane. She knew exactly what she wanted to do. She had been so caught up in playing with Tiffany that it had completely slipped her mind!

"Tiffany. Do you want to paint with me?"

"Okay." That sounded like fun.

"I'll be right back." Jane jumped up, and quick as a hiccup, she darted over to Carla and tugged on her dress. Jane said something to her, and Carla smiled and nodded. Seconds later, Jane returned with a miniature paint kit, two brushes, and a half-dozen sheets of paper. She also carried two pieces of cardboard.

Noticing Tiffany's stare, Jane told her, "We have to put the cardboard under our paper or the paint goes through. See?"

She pointed to a small, faded purple streak on the surface of the table and two smaller red streaks next to it. "Carla was a little upset," she told Tiffany. "It just wouldn't come off. She tried five different cleaners, but the paint wouldn't come off." A look came over Jane's face then that was half-wistful and half-satisfied.

"I think the table looks better with the colors," Tiffany said.

"Me too," said Jane.

They painted in silence for a little while, and Tiffany asked, "Jane, why were you crying earlier? Your Mommy will be back you know."

Jane looked indignant. "I wasn't crying! I was just thinking hard."

Tiffany blinked. "Oh. Okay."

Jane sighed. "I wasn't crying, but I sorta felt like it."

"Why?"

Jane didn't answer right away. She was staring off into space. Finally she shook her head, looked at Tiffany, and whispered softly...

"What if she forgets me?"

Tiffany was dumbfounded. In her three-and-a-half years of life, her parents had never forgotten her. This concept was totally alien to her. She felt that she had to at least try to be reassuring.

"Why would your Mommy forget you? My Mommy never does." Tiffany was dumbfounded.

Even at the tender age of four, Jane was already beginning to suspect that maybe; just maybe HER Mommy was different from other Mommies.

"My Mommy...is...always busy," Jane murmured quietly. "She's a sculptor and she makes things out of clay."

Tiffany wanted to make Jane feel better, so she said, "My Daddy stays busy a lot, but my Mommy makes time for me."

Jane stared down at her paintbrush and asked, "You have a Daddy?"

Tiffany's eyes went wide. "Of course I have a Daddy! He has a mustache and drives a black car."

Jane continued to stare at her paintbrush. "You're lucky. I've never met my Daddy. Mommy says that he takes pictures for magazines."

Tiffany knew a little something about magazines. "You mean, magazines like 'Highlights'?"

Jane shrugged. "I guess so."

Both girls blinked and stared at their paper. They had been so caught up in talking about Mommies and Daddies that neither one of them had so much as drawn a single line. Jane opened her mouth to comment but the words never came. She was staring towards the front of the day care center. Tiffany followed her gaze.

There was an older girl standing there talking to Carla. She looked rather angry about something, but nonetheless, she was getting her point across.

Jane sighed. "She sent Penny. That's the second time this month that my Mommy sent Penny to pick me up."

Tiffany studied Penny for a long moment. "Who is she?"

"She's my sister. She's eleven."

Their conversation ended abruptly as Carla and Penny swept over to their table. Penny glared at her little sister and said, "Come on, Jane. Mom told me to stop by and get you. She's...putting two new clay plates in the kiln today." Penny rolled her eyes.

"Okay, Penny."

Jane got up. Before she left, she turned to Tiffany and smiled.

"I'll see you around, I guess. I had fun playing with you. Bye!"

Jane was gone before Tiffany could blink.

Tiffany sat alone at the table. She had made a new friend! She smiled down at her blank piece of paper, and thought about all the fun that she had had. Maybe, I'll see her again sometime. Maybe tomorrow!

Tiffany had a sudden inspiration. She would draw a picture of her new friend, and give it to her the next time they saw each other!

They would be best friends forever!

Humming to herself, Tiffany Blum-Deckler dipped her paintbrush into the black paint and went to work.

THE END.

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End Notes: Well, what do you think? At first, I had NO intention of doing a follow-up chapter. I thought that the first chapter would stand on sentimentality and a shock-value ending alone. But no! The Daria Fanfiction crew informed me otherwise! They said that they liked my idea but that I had to continue. So...for Thea Zara, Roger E. Moore, Deref, Wildgoose and even the moody Ace Trax, here is my answer to your prayers. It's chock full of warmth, angst and the godly INTERACTION, which a lot of you craved. Now...enjoy!

Or, I'll kill you slow! (Just Kidding)

Brandon League

Somewhere In West Georgia

December 2, 2002

2:52 p.m.