Clare De Loon, Part 2
By Missy

RATING: PG (not much in the way of anything naughty)
PART: 2 of 4
DISTRIBUTION: To Squeaky and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Â Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"
Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their adress and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
NOTES: My answer to the Squiggy gets the girl challenge.
CATEGORY: Squiggy/other character romance
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The gang buys Squiggy some clairenet lessons for his birthday, resulting in him getting the hots for his sophisticated but down-to-earth teacher.

****

"Allegro, Andrew, allegro," She urged him softly. He peered up with a look of confusion; he still didn't quite get what in the world "Allegra" was supposed to mean. Her patience was amazing; this was the twentieth time he'd expressed confusion at something in the lesson. But there she stood, each time, with practical expression. "Don't blow into the clarinet so hard, I mean." She pressed her own lips to her clarinet as she crossed the room, sitting behind a brass music stand as she blew one long, clear, controlled note. The sound that reverberated inside of Clare's appartment was haunting; every hair on Squiggy's arm stood up and at attention.

"Now you," she urged gently.

He blew into the instrument, hard, causing it to squeal mercilessly. Clare didn't shrink back from the noise; she placed her clarinet back on the music stand and walked around the hassock Squiggy sat on.

"Ahhh; here's your trouble," He glared at her when she suggested there was a problem, which she pretended not to notice, "You're blowing into it too hard." She placed her hands on his arms, drawing the clarinet up and out; he almost dropped it from the shock of her touch; Classy women never touched him willingly. "Breathe shallow, Andrew..hold your fingering...Now blow.." Cautiously, he let a careful amount of air into the reed of the instrument...and was rewarded by a short, sweet, sharp and clear note.

He didn't even know which note it was, but it made his teacher clap her hands in girlish glee. "You did it!!" She cried.

He frowned, "All I made was one lousy note," He said.

"One note," she said, "Is all you need to start with. All you need to learn how to do now is move your fingers." She smiled, sounding satisfied. With that, an egg timer rang on her mantle and she exhaled, glancing at the clock, "Oh dear, I'm afraid your time is up for the week." She began to dismantle her stand and tuck away her instrument, "Make sure to practice that note, Andrew! One hour a day, every day; I don't care how annoying it might seem; you need to practice your breath control." In a daze, he gathered up his clarinet and walked to the door. "You're a very promising student, Andrew," She said sweetly, closing the door behind him.

He stood standing at her door for a silent minute, his eyes boring into the impenetrable wood surface.

"Practice" was exactly what Squiggy did; the same, smooth, toneless note; every day for an hour. He got to be very good at it, too; could send it echoing through the apartment for a good five minutes or toot it out in rapid sucession.

Laverne interrupted him one Saturday, yelling that Shirley was grinding her teeth down to nubs listening to that note of his.

"I can't stop, Laverne," He said, "I gotta gettit right for..." His voice changed in modulation, "CLARE."

Laverne snickered, "Ya like that Miss Clare, dontya?"

"Nah.."

But she was already sing-songing, "Squiggy likes Clare! Squiggy likes Clare!"

Squiggy kept protesting, finally ending his gripings on a threatening, "WOMAN!"

Lenny had to drag her out of the appartment, promising the girls a round of beers down at the Pizza Bowl. It left Squiggy alone to think which, for him, was a life-threatening risk.

Infatuation had always carried a numbing effect for Squiggy; it made him softer, nicer, more generous. While he was by most accounts an OK guy, he wore a lacquer of perversion and dirt to protect himself from the wrath of others. Years of his mother's pampering-cum-subordination and the alienation of his father had made him the person who lay on the top bunk of a set of bunkbeds, staring at the ceiling with his clarinet across his stomach.

He was going to have to do something about her. And as his mind feverishly worked out each thought until smoke seemed to be pouring from his very brain. He had to hold a pillow over his head, praying that the noise would drown, unheard, in his mind.

****

A week later, he stood at her doorstep, holding his clarinet, trying out a variety of attitudes, from seductive to hopeful. Knocking on the door, he knew that Laverne's words spoke truth; he had a crush on Clare DeBusay, and it wasn't his style just to sit around and let things happen.

The door opened suddenly; there stood Clare, in a candy pink sweater and soft plaid skirt.

With three-year-old child in her arms.

To Part 3

To Part 1










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