Jenny wore boots but everyone still towered over her. She bounced them against her chair’s legs. She was pocked, puckered, but dressed like silks on a shabby stuffed animal, but that wasn’t the reason everyone stared.
Her hands traded palmy sweat with kids almost twice her age and adults almost twice her size. A man approached her smiling suavely. “Excuse me, could you sign my copy please?” He said dapperly. Everyone besides him and her (again, despite her boots and glitter, they both looked sharp) dressed in outrageously neon summer clothing. A few kids bolted around in costumes of the title character of this mentioned “copy”, pointing toy plasma guns at the lights and artwork.
She had been able to hold a smile up until now. Up close, beneath the glitter eyeshadow, was a child in grief. “For old time’s sake?” He held the comic book towards her face, the bright lights in the showroom gleamed on the glossy pages. She could see her father’s name nearly touching her nose. She gently took the comic book from his hand, lightly placed it on the table between herself and the crowd, stood up from her chair, and stretched her legs.
“Shocked to see me? Bit of a formidable sight aren’t I?” the man joked, but he only heard himself. Jenny Carter calmly climbed onto the chair, climbed onto the table, and before the man could break into a run away from her, pounced onto him.
They fell backwards on the wooden floor. Smack!
Horrified guests tried to intervene but they writhed too much. The man pried the girl’s arms clinging to his neck as her hands dug into his face. She clawed at his eyes. He wrung her tiny wrists and the strangled appendages stiffened. She kicked and screeched with his back squishing her down flat.
He turned right-side over to knock her out, but the brief release allowed her to land a nasty blow from her boot to his jaw. It also allowed another man time to grab him and pull him off before he could throw an enraged fist back at the little girl.
“Get off me!” The man’s voice alerted everyone of his lost dignity. His hands flew over his face. One of his eyes were bleeding. The screams like a wave, spread from the man and the girl to everyone else in the room. All of the kids were pulled away by their parents yet they pulled back to stay but the show was already over. Another grownup forced Jenny to sit in a chair as the man succumbed to a raging coughing fit.
The security officer who had just arrived blocked the girl while remaining nosey guests were ushered out. Jenny and the man were panting and shaking. He couldn’t find inner peace until he shook a finger at her and said: “You’ve only humiliated your father more so! He hardly had kept a legacy and you blotted it with pithy bloodshed!” Some woman was shouting at him with a notepad and pen in her hand. “Mr. _! Sir! Mr. _! Are you going to press charges?”
“No.”
“Is it because she’s just a child sir?”
“No,” he croaked again. “It’s because her father’s an old friend of mine.”
“FUCK YOU!” Jenny roared and had to be pinned down again.
And this time, the man actually had a look of fear in his eyes, like someone who needed to file a restraining order.
Her head faced the floor, a few drops of blood on her pink fingernails, with glitter tears dripping into her hands.
Vivid, interesting writing, as always. Keep going, that novel will eventually work itself out and fall into place (at least that's what I keep telling myself about my apparently never-ending project).
One thing in your story here that possibly might want a rethink is the line about how he couldn't find inner peace until he shook his finger and said....
I kinda think it works better without this line, as until now the main protagonist is the girl, and it's her head and her perceptions that we have access to, and the man is more of an external character. But as soon as we go into his thoughts/feelings, he loses a bit of his mystery. I don't know if I'm making sense. I might be talking nonsense. Anyway... thanks for posting. Enjoyed it as always.