June Bug
The Angst Guy challenged Angelinhel to "write a short Daria fanfic about someone having a kitchen remodeled! Fill it with angst! Fill it with stupidity! I don't care, just write it! You are challenged!"
Plot Summary[edit]
Warning: The following may contain plot or ending details.
Set during summer in Highland, Texas when the Daria and Quinn were ten and eight years old, respectively. The girls are enrolled in a summer day camp since both their parents work, though Jake has taken a week off to oversee the kitchen remodel going on.
Even at this early age, Quinn is the more popular of the two, making many friends at camp while Daria resents being forced into group activities. Thinking a boy had fallen under her charms, Quinn happily joins him and his friends at just before a nature hike, thinking they had brought her a 'special bug spray' to keep her safe from creepy crawlies. Unfortunately, the boys are at the age when pranks are more important than girls and use the chance to dump a bag full of dead and dying June Bugs all over Quinn. Hysterical at being covered in bugs, Quinn screams, upsetting the rest of the girls in her group and most of the younger campers. Counselors attempt to calm everyone, punishing the boys and coralling the rest of the campers. Taken away from her own group, Daria is forced to sit through Quinn's art and crafts, Daria's least favorite camp activity, in order to help soothe her sister.
Once home, Quinn is still upset over the incident and reacts violently whenever bugs are mentioned. Knowing her sister will be unbearable if she doesn't intervene, Daria makes her a special bug catcher out of an empty peanut butter jar and takes her outside after dinner. Patiently, Daria coaxes Quinn to allow a ladybug onto her hand, to help relieve her fear of bugs. Afterwards, Quinn agrees to catch lightning bugs (fireflies) with Daria, her fear of bugs forgotten.
The next day at camp Quinn informs Daria the boy who tricked her got poison ivy on the hike and she felt he had been justly rewarded for his prank. Daria, thinking otherwise, tricks the boy by giving him a bunch of leaves she tells him are 'an old Indian remedy for poison ivy', but which are in fact, poison oak. Satisfied the boy had learned his lesson, Daria returns to her own camp group.
The last paragraph shows high-school age Quinn cleaning out her closet and finding the peanut butter bug jar she had saved. In a moment of nostalgia brought on by Daria's imminent move to college, she invites her sister to catch fireflies with her again.