Hey Clementine
By: Lulu
A/N: Thanks to Skillz for encouraging my madness.

Clementine lived with two of the strangest women she had ever met in her entire nine-year-old life – and that was putting it nicely. Despite the fact that they were barely pushing fifty, they were demented, daffy, and, she suspected, slightly deranged.

She sometimes wondered what they did while she was in school, but ultimately decided she was better off not knowing.

For example, every Wednesday when she got off the bus, they were in the backyard practicing cheers from their junior high days – stunts and uniforms included, although they usually went without underwear, since it was often hanging on the clothesline, no matter how many times Clementine reminded them that they owned a fully functional dryer. She wasn't sure how they got those old William McKinley uniforms anyway, which, with the exception of their sagging breasts, still fit.

Other times they'd watch old shows and movies and start to cry for no reason. Then an ancient song would come on the radio and they'd smile that loopy smile and squeeze Clementine tight. She hated those hugs, but she'd let them do it anyway, because she knew it probably meant a lot to them.

They were her grandmothers after all.

Grandma Brittany, or Brittzle, as she insisted being called, worried Clementine. She owned six cats, three pigs, and a dachshund named the Duke of Windsor, and somehow managed to keep up with all of them, but would lose just about everything – including her glasses which were almost always on top of her head. When Clementine asked her why she liked the name Brittzle, she'd merely reply, "Because I'm a pretzel." Then she'd contort her body into different shapes until Clementine wondered why she even bothered asking in the first place.

Grandma Santana went by Granny Snix, which confused the hell out of Clementine, but she refused to be known as anything else. Clementine had called her Abuela once, because her class was learning Spanish that quarter, but soon realized that was a mistake. "I'm not your goddamn Abuela, Clem," she'd said, then proceeded to cry on the kitchen floor, only to brush it off moments later. "Sorry 'bout that, sweetie. What do you say we go flip the bird at the homophobes across the street?"

Clementine certainly had her hands full looking after Granny Snix and Brittzle, but they were the only family she had. Her father – who Granny Snix only ever described as a dipshit – died when Clementine was only a few months old and her mother, Sugar, disappeared shortly after her first birthday.

Her grandmothers, those basket cases, claimed she was stuck in the past.

"She's trapped in 2011," Granny Snix would always say, but Brittzle disagreed.

"2012, honey, although I suppose either way she's forever doomed to repeat tenth grade."

That was another thing that confused Clementine. Her mom had her when she was in high school. How was that even possible? Again, her grandmothers had the answer.

"She took after Aunt Quinn a little too much," they'd lament. Then one would say, "But if she'd taken after us, we wouldn't have you, Clem, now would we?" and they'd both laugh until their sides hurt.

Oh yes, Clementine lived with the strangest women alive, but they were her grandmothers.

And she loved them all the same.