"Two kings and three fives," Bobby smirked, relaxing for the first time since the game started and massaging his bandaged hand. "You so can't beat that, Slim."
Slim leaned back in his chair smugly and slapped his hand face-up on the table. Bobby gawked, blinked, then gawked again. "You can't possibly. . ." He gestured wildly at Warren. "He's got three aces."
"I can see that." Warren was calm with acceptance, as he had already folded. Hank sighed. "Fearless leader, indeed. He has to cheat to win so much."
"You've got to be cheating," Bobby growled, pointing a finger at Slim. "No way you can get triples, of face cards, four times in a row."
"What can I say? Lady luck likes me."
Bobby groaned. "I am dead. Dead as a doornail."
Slim shrugged and scooped up the cards.
"But it's not fair! It was your fault in the first place."
"That was our agreement, loser takes the fall."
"I'm going to have to agree with Slim on this one," Warren said, mouth twitching as he failed to keep a straight face.
Bobby glared at him. "I know you like this, fly boy."
Warren spread his hands disarmingly. "Hey, it's not everyday it get to see Jean beat the tar of you. I'm going to enjoy every minute of it."
The kitchen door swung up and Jean stepped in. "Hey, what's going on in here?"
Bobby and Hank jumped up simultaneously.
"Whoa!" Bobby said. "Private guy time currently in session!"
Jean crossed her arms. "Okay, important things first: Who murdered my flowerbed?"
Hank, Warren, and Bobby glanced at each other uneasily. Slim covered his face with his hand.
"Well, I'm waiting."
"You discovered that?" Bobby said innocently.
"Yes. I got home from the mall and they're the first thing I see: all crushed and smashed and destroyed."
"You want a pizza at Jacob's Pizzeria?" Hank asked.
Jean rolled her eyes. "Moron. You don't bribe a girl with pizza. And I refuse to be bribed, anyway. I want an answer so I can punish whoever did it."
"How about flowers and chocolate?" Warren suggested. "And a candle-lit dinner at that Italian diner?" A pack of cards flew up from the table and rammed into his shoulder. "Ouch!"
"I said I wasn't going to be bribed." She looked at Slim. "Straight answer."
Slim nodded and rocked forward so the front legs of his chair hit the floor with a resounding clap. "Straight answer, right. It's a long story. Bobby doodled a mustache and hearts all over Warren's driver's license picture so Warren decided to kill him. This was to get Warren back for that meatball and ice cream incident last week."
Jean cringed in remembrance of that particular debacle.
"While fly boy here was busy attempting murder, Hank was down in the lab trying to animate his own Frankenstein."
"It wasn't a Frankenstein," Hank protested. "I was trying to ascertain whether electrical currents can be harnessed to stimulate specific muscles in deceased mice."
Scott waved him away. "Case in point. Anyway, I was forced to go down to the lab to get the blowtorch, because Bobby had deep-frozen Warren to the flag pole. And apparently, mice can fry from electrical overload and when they do, they explode. Not a pretty sight, and there are an incredible amount of innards for such a small creature. I was wearing a white shirt, my only white shirt, that I had promised the Professor on my honor that I would not ruin before the dinner thing this weekend. And now it has mice guts all over it. So I got upset with Hank."
"Upset, phssst," Hank scoffed. "So was Julius Caesar when he noticed Brutus' knife sticking out of his chest. He went postal."
"Hank started yelling and I lost my temper and the back-up generator was destroyed. Just a little bit, though. We can fix it in no time. Back to what happened, Hank placed great value on his life and started running, so I chased him. When we were on the ground floor, we heard screaming and maniacal laughter coming from outside and were forced to make a truce to see what Warren and Bobby were up to.
"Warren was still frozen to top of the flag pole, and Bobby was using him as a living dart board, throwing icicles at him. I guess one had just missed his cheek and that's when he started yelling for help."
"Screaming like a girl was what he was doing," Bobby interjected.
"Shut up," Warrren growled. Bobby poked out his tongue.
"I realized I had forgotten the blowtorch and sent Hank to go get it. Then I ordered Bobby to stop giving Warren probable cause for a lawsuit and that's when the Jehovah Witnesses came. Talk about bad timing. For all the time those guys spend running around babbling at people who couldn't care less about what they're saying, I bet they've never seen anything like what they saw today. A boy with wings was attached with ice to a flag pole, another boy was yelling and brandishing sharp weapons, and yet another was covered in blood and guts. They must have thought we were in the middle of some pagan ritual or something. They threw some tracts on the ground–I guess they were trying to get half a credit—and ran away screaming. On the plus side, I don't think we'll be seeing any Jehovah's around any time soon.
"Then Hank came back and I started heating the pole to melt the ice. Then the Petersens' foul dog got out of their yard again and came charging over to where I was using an open flame. Because the dog's an idiot, it tried to bite me. Purely by reflex, I pulled away and accidentally shifted the blow torch a little bit. But don't worry; I heard that dogs don't really need their tails. Bobby tried to grab the dog just at the moment I was defending myself and got his sleeve caught on fire. Fortunately, fire doesn't bother the Iceman much, but it made him ridiculously angry at me and he tackled me. I don't how many times I need to stress that I was still using an open flame. On the positive side, the heat from the torch melted the ice enough that Warren fell off the flag pole just in time for us not to have to leave him hanging up there while we took Bobby to the emergency room. By the way, Nurse Marshall said hi and asked about your arm. She said she hadn't seen you in awhile and hoped you hadn't died or anything. I told her you were your usual sensitive, temperamental self."
"And what does this have to do with my flowerbed?" Jean interrupted.
"I'm getting there. After the doctor fixed up Bobby's hand, we decided to get a pizza. Now who do you think was at Jacob's? Sam Harrison. Yet again, he accused us of deliberately ruining his car and yet again, we insisted it was his own fault. Which it was. Technically. We got out of there just before Bobby and Sam started yelling. Actually, it was after they starting yelling, but before they started insulting each other's antecendents to the twelfth degree.
"Turns out, Warren was still mad at Bobby about freezing him to the flag pole, so they started fighting in the back seat halfway down Greymalkin. Warren grabbed Bobby and flew into the air and hooked him on a tree branch so he was dangling by his collar. Somehow, he managed to find the tallest tree in New York and then sat there laughing as Bobby was slowly being strangled. It took awhile, but Hank was able to climb up and get him down.
"But while we were busy saving Bobby's life, Warren hijacked the car and took off. It's a good thing no one was the road because—well, I'll just say it wasn't pleasant. Eventually, Bobby froze the wheels to the road, then we got in and threw Warren out, who then flew overhead yelling threats. Finally we got home and I told Bobby and Warren if they couldn't behave themselves I'd lock them in the Danger Room together. They didn't pay any attention and immediately attacked each other right in the garage. Then Bobby scratched my car."
Slim glared at Bobby and took a deep breath to calm himself down. "I still haven't forgiven him for that."
"It wasn't the car, it was the paint," Bobby said.
"And it wasn't you I blasted, it was your knee," Slim retorted. He turned to Jean. "We stopped fighting when the power shut off and since the back-up generator wasn't working we were in the dark. Hank suggested we go down to the basement to see if we could find out what was wrong. Remember those Frankenstein mice? Turns out, 'electrical stimulation' actually works and since Hank had left the power on, they had been mechanically chewing through the electrical wiring the whole time. There's nothing quite like walking into a dark room and shining a flashlight to see a bunch of dead mice chewing desperately through cords. Hank shut the demon mice off and Bobby suggested we feed them to Westley."
Jean wrinkled her nose. It was a well known fact that she hated snakes, especially Bobby's pet corn snake.
"So Hank gave the mice to Bobby, who went up to his room. A few minutes later he came running down saying that Westley had escape and he wanted us to help him find it. Hank finally spotted Westley down in your flowerbed so we rushed out to grab it. Then the Petersen's other insane dog came tearing across the lawn and jumped on Bobby, knocking him over in the middle of your flowerbed."
Jean stared at him in disbelief. "All that damage came from Bobby being knocked down?"
"No, I'm getting to the rest of it. Warren was standing in front of Bobby so he got knocked down too. I grabbed the dog's collar just as it started trying to kill Westley. Westley began burrowing into the dirt and while Hank was trying to grab it, he tripped over the dog and sprawled face first in your flowers. He said they smell very nice. I managed to pin the dog down, which I guess ruined what was left of your flowers, while it occurred to Bobby to come help me with the dog."
Jean tapped her foot and folded her arms, her face growing red with anger. "So I guess I can just kill you all then."
"No!" Hank and Warren said at the same time. "Bobby lost the game," Warren added.
"Which means what?"
"So he has to take all of whatever punishment you decide to dish out," Hank explained.
Bobby looked terrified. "Hey, look, you wouldn't hurt me, would you? I'm small and cute, and it's really unfair for you all to gang up on the youngest person here."
"Of course not," Jean said, with false sweetness. "So Slim and Warren have to replant my flowerbed, Hank has to proof my research paper with no charge, and Bobby has to wash my car. That'll teach you." She nodded firmly and flounced out of the room, toward the stairs. A minute later the boys heard a scream shrieking from her room.
Hank looked at Warren guilty. "We never did get Westley, did we?"
Bobby snickered and nodded firmly. "That'll teach her."