Dealing With Miss Hannigan/'Grande Cuore Vuoto' (Large Empty Heart)
*FINALLY*. Home sweet home... (Not really. Not anymore than Privet Drive or Lima.)
Once they'd both shimmied up the fire escape to an open window on the second floor, Annie raised the window *very quietly* and snuck inside, Pinocchio quickly and silently following after her. The apartment was dark and silent- at least, it seemed that way so far. But just as Annie took a deep breath, touched the doorknob to her room, and turned it...
A light flashed on and their guardian and Pinocchio's boss Colleen Agatha Hannigan called out "*FREEZE*!" in the middle of the song she was singing. Pinocchio flinched and inwardly groaned as Cameron Diaz's double stomped into the hallway.
"*I said 'FREEZE'*, you little rat! I know you heard me!" she yelled.
"I thought it was part of the song," Annie said as innocent and sweet as you please.
Of course Miss Hannigan wasn't buying it for one minute- given she next yanked Annie by her backpack and dragged her down the hall past dozens of framed pictures of a younger her happily singing and dancing. She was still awful pretty underneath layers of bleach-blonde, make-up, and costume jewelry, ...but she also looked not just TIRED, but *DONE*. Honestly (yes, pun semi-intended)? At times, Pinocchio couldn't really blame her.
In Miss Hannigan's office, Annie pulled a few wilting white daisies from her backpack, petals drifting to the floor. "Here- these are from Lou."
(Senor Lou was the Georges Hautcourts to Miss Hannigan's Madame Adelaide Bonfamille back in the day, and the owner of the nice little bodega down the street. -And he was *STILL sweet on* her. At times, Pinocchio was tempted to play matchmaker ...but didn't dare risk his guardian's touchy temper or ego. So he just obeyed her and smiled, waved, and chatted with him as always.)
"They *look like* they're from Lou," Miss Hannigan countered before dumping them on her desk.
"I'll tell him you loved 'em!"
"You always gotta *be SMART*- always *run your mouth*," Miss Hannigan snapped. "You think the world wants a smart-mouthed little girl?! *NO*! Or else you wouldn't be here! And the only reason you *ARE here* and still are is because I get one hundred fifty-seven dollars a week from the State! -Which is not even NEAR worth the torment you put me through...!"
"Sorry I was a little late."
"-'A little late'??! It's three hours *PAST curfew*!" Miss Hannigan angrily cried in response to Annie's contriteness. "Out *all by yourself* in the big city... And if GOD FORBID something happens to you or any of your other foster-siblings, -*I* don't get paid! I oughta put you ON A LEASH, you little rat!"
She lunged for Annie, but Annie was one jump ahead a la Aladdin, Pinocchio could tell. She'd done this song and dance before, and she was pretty sure she knew JUST how to play it. But it all depended on how many glasses of wine or bottles of wine-coolers Miss Hannigan had drunk that evening...
(At least it wasn't bathtub gin, beer, or whiskey, and there were no actual beatings.)
Quick as a wink, Annie reached out and grabbed hold of one of Miss Hannigan's prized photos that showed a younger her singing on stage with a famous pop group from the early 1990's called 'C+C Music Factory'. "You're *so PRETTY*..." she gushed, touching the glass with one finger.
Pinocchio watched and waited with bated breath...
-*Phew*! It worked! Miss Hannigan was instantly distracted, pulling the picture from Annie's hand and gazing down at it longingly.
"I used to be a bright star... I was gonna sing the NUMBER ONE song in the country. Getting ready to go on the Arsenio Hall Show..."
"On September sixteenth, 1991!"
"*And HERE THEY ARE*: C+C Music Factory...!"
"Featuring *Colleen Hannigan*!"
Then Miss Hannigan began to sing and dance wildly. Annie cheered and clapped.
Suddenly, she stopped and drooped as much as Senor Lou's flowers while flopping down into her chair behind her desk. "...But I was too good for them. C+C was SCARED OF their factory. *Fired* me before I went on- and wouldn't let me sing." Drunken yet genuine tears shimmered in her blue eyes as she murmured sadly, "I'll die with my secret..."
This always hurt Pinocchio's heart to hear, even if it kinda hit a little too close to home. The same thing yet not had happened to his semi-birth-mother Ilaria Belmagio when she was sixteen- only she had been late to her audition for the Madrigal Conservatory (the music school of her dreams) and not given Signora Maria Linda and Maestro Lully the 'spark' they were looking for that made the listener *FEEL*... Hence part of how and why she had then become a half-Heartless i.e. Fae equivalent of a Death Eater.
Now Pinocchio spoke up. "You- You have an awful pretty voice," he complimented quietly, meaning it.
She just smiled a little sadly and tearfully in reply. Though she then came back down to Earth with a 'THUMP' when she noticed Annie slowly backing down the hall and edging towards her room. "GET BACK HERE, you monster! I'm not done with you yet!"
But once again, Annie was too quick for her. She zipped into the dorm and locked the door.
Miss Hannigan angrily pounded on the other side. "*DOUBLE CHORES for you tomorrow*!" she yelled. "Do you hear me?! I'm gonna make you SWEAT, you little rat!"
Pinocchio sighed and shook his head while rubbing at his temple. While he wished that Miss Hannigan would be a little nicer, -she DID unfortunately have a point. Annie had been *LATE* tonight, and she *did* have a smart mouth. (At least she didn't swear like a sailor on leave...) And *THIS foster guardian* didn't nastily call the orphans 'little pig-droppings' even if she got drunk too often for Pinocchio's liking, so- pros to cons, you know?
Miss Hannigan growled at being foiled *AGAIN*- then stalked back to her office where Pinocchio still was. She opened her lipsticked-and-glossed mouth to snap at HIM, but then seemed to think better of it since she HAD from the first told him to follow Annie every Friday evening. So instead, she just mumbled, "*'Bout damn time*, Edward Scissorhands. Still didn't find Mommy and Daddy Twist with the other half of her precious broken locket yet?"
"N-No, ma'am," Pinocchio said quietly, fingering and tugging a lock of his now much-longer black hair while rubbing his lip between his teeth.
"No- of course *she DIDN'T*. Otherwise, she'd be coming home early or late obnoxiously singing and dancing with that big bright stupid grin on her face. -I'm done *with YOU*. YOU were more or less a good boy, Potter. Get to bed yourself ...and set an alarm for six-fuckin'-thirty, because Inspection's coming tomorrow. You and those other little rats make sure that this dump *shines like the top of the Chrysler Building*, y' hear me?"
"'Si', Signorina Colleen. Um... g-goodnight."
"Yeah, sure; sleep tight, sweet dreams, and all that jazz. *Now SCRAM*, puppet-boy."
'Scram' Pinocchio instantly did. He ran like a goat-kid until he reached *his CUPBOARD* which he'd fashioned into a makeshift room since there were only two bedrooms in the apartment. It was brighter and more cozy than Harry's, at least- and there were *no spiders*... Good thing he was just naturally small-framed, though, or else he'd be CRAMPED like nobody's business.
He sighed sadly as he curled up on his nest of spare blankets and pillows that was his bed and cuddled a worn stuffed Bagheera over his aching lonely heart. Annie and their foster-sisters might be CROWDED from floor to three bunk-beds- but there was *warmth, friendship, affection, and love* in that actual room. In contrast, Pinocchio was all on his lonesome as he had been from the beginning ...and felt as cold as though he were in a bare cardboard box out in the streets like any other hobo.
As isolated and alone as Erik, Quasimodo, Dottore Victor Frankenstein's Creature/Monster with no true real *CANONICAL name*, Harry, Sara, Cinderella, or even Haru in more dire bleak circumstances than canon...
He wasn't really part of a family- hadn't been since That Day. Or, well, *EVER*, to be painfully honest. All his ex-father had ever wanted was to have *Carlo* back one way or another, -and SHE had never once wanted children of her own. *NEITHER OF them* had wanted *just Pinocchio for himself*, much less loved him!
The 'Blue Fairy' had just semi-brought him to life before disappearing into thin air... and it was likely against The Rules for such a powerful Sprite to ADOPT a human child. Even if she did look after the little lost broken things in the world...
By now, Annie was surely reading her parents' note to little Molly and the others again before they went to sleep. He ENVIED Annie's hugs and high-fives, and the rare cheek or head-kiss to one of her sisters. What was it like, to be hugged by one's family...??
Pinocchio swallowed hard and sniffled as he futilely blinked away tears, pouring his own Dream out into Bagheera's unhearing ear while gazing way down the hall out the living-room window where he could *just* see the faint diamond shimmer of a Wishing Star through the smog, darkness, and tall apartment buildings of New York City.
~"I know my heart is large;
That's why it feels *so EMPTY*-
If I could have * just one wish* come true,
I'd fill this empty heart...
I fill my days with work-
I fill my nights with dreaming,
And *WAIT* in hopes
Of a *someone* who
Can fill this empty heart...
Like an open shell on the shore,
Like a riverbed dried up of all water,
*NOTHING'S* growing here anymore...
Is it TOO LATE
For life to start...?
On such a magic night
When all the world is shining,
My *FOOLISH prayer*,
May it travel far...
I even *wish on the Wishing Star*
-To fill this empty heart..."~
For him, a thrown-away Creation who was practically an orphan himself despite both *HIS parents* being alive and well, would 'maybe' ever become *'today' or 'tomorrow'* instead??
-He doubted it, by this point. The only family he'd surely EVER have was the eventual one with Nuka, his future in-laws, and any little cubs or kids they had once Pinocchio was old enough to marry his Mate.
Still... He couldn't help wishing, hoping, praying, and dreaming *HARD* to one day be adopted same as hopefully his foster-sisters. And so, just before he drifted to the Shores of Sleep and dreamed bittersweet dreams, he whispered longingly,
"Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight...
I wish I may- I wish *I MIGHT*;
Have the wish I make tonight..." 'I wish- *I wish for LOVE*... Family- a *REAL home*...'
(He still *made sure* to set his alarm, though. There would be *HELL* to pay plus INTEREST if he didn't wake up in time. Thank you, no-!)