Teapot: A James and Cindy story

Cindy was eating with James' family. Mom and dad had a special meeting, something about creating synthogoo based dinosaurs for a theme park after DNAmy's offer to make real ones backfired.

"Oh yeah." Mr. Possible-Stoppable had said. "It backfired alright….She just couldn't resist adding in little additions."

"Like what?"

"Fire breathing dinosaurs." Kim said. Cindy blinked. Her best friend's mother's hair seemed a little shorter than normal… like maybe it had been charred and then quickly trimmed.

"It didn't go so well." Kim said, seeing where Cindy was looking.

"Oh." Cindy said. "Why didn't she just include a shut down system, like a stunner collar?"

"Cindy, Cindy, Cindy…" Ron said, "Mad scientists don't generally include safety as a primary motivating factor even when they're trying to go legit."

The ten year old nodded seriously, and when Kim and Ron were bringing out dinner, quickly noted in her PDA:

Note to self. All lairs must conform to OSHA regulations.

Then they dug in. Ron had made ribs, and there were stories about how he'd once caught several would be world conquerors by putting out a plate of Ribs. In fact, that was his main job, coming up with new recipes and such. He had a kitchen that made some labs look primitive… and then there was the microwave, designed to be utterly foolproof, that Mrs. Possible-Stoppable got to use.

In fact, from the scorch marks it looked like she had tried to use it recently.

James and Cindy dug in, and so did Ron.

Kim was having a salad, with low cal dressing and a glass of water. Cindy blinked at that. She didn't look like she needed a diet.

"Um…" Cindy asked.

Kim grinned. "You don't have to know…"

"She made a bet with your mom." Ron supplied, as James sighed. "The one that loses the most weight by the end of the month has to do…something." He paused, "I'm not certain what."

"Oh. No wonder Mom was working so hard after last nights steak-"

Cindy was cut off by Kim's "YES!" as she pumped a hand in the air. "See, SEE, Ron, I told you she didn't have my determination, my force of will, my-"

"I know." Cindy said, turning to James, "I mean, she had to run her fire for almost an hour to burn off all the calories."

Kim's cheering stopped. "Say what?"

"Oh." Cindy said, getting another Rib. "Mom doesn't have to burn energy from her body, something about tapping into another energy, but she can…so after she eats a lot if she doesn't feel like exercising, she just goes into the back yard or charges up one of Dad's gadgets." She paused, "She was laughing too, but wouldn't tell me why."

"Um…" Kim's fork had stopped on its way up to her mouth.

"Well, how much can she eat if she does this?" Ron asked.

"Oh, as much as she wants." Cindy said.

"Oh." Kim said. She turned, took her plate, walked to the sink and dumped the salad in. Then she came back, sat down, and pulled four ribs off the main platter and started eating them.

"So um…" Ron paused, "You gonna call it because she didn't let you know?"

"Nope." Kim said around a mouthful of rib, "I didn't ask."

"Oh. So by the end of the month…"

"Nope, I'm gonna concede tomorrow morning, I don't want to give her time to think up something nasty and I really don't want to eat salad for the next thirty days."

"Oh boy." James said. He looked over at Cindy. She looked back at him.

"Well, at least they're not destroying cars with public fights anymore." She said.

James didn't feel confident.

The next morning, at the Middleton Weiner Dog Memorial elementary school (don't ask about the name, it wasn't pretty), James was looking out the window. He blinked.

"Cindy, isn't that your mom's SUV?"

"Yeah…isn't that your mom, James?"

"Yeah." Kim came stomping out, followed by a grinning Shego. Shego set up a holo camera, while Kim put down a stool and got up on it.

"What are they-oh no…" James said. "The bet, Mom was going to tell your mom right about now. What are they gonna-"

"Listen, she's starting to-"

And that's when Kim opened her mouth. "I'm a little Teapot Short and Stout…" her singing echoed into the room where every student and the teacher' eyes were glued to Kim who was now doing the "pouring motions" with her arms.

As the song continued, James moaned, putting his head down on the desk. Cindy looked at him sympathetically.

"Look on the bright side James, if you ever want to turn evil, it beats getting dumped in a vat of chemicals as an origin story…."

"Moan…"

The End.