Even after just a day living with Mabel, they knew she wasn't a strict person. The way she acts, dresses, the things she liked.
She even approved them making a blanket fort, a thing which their Pa (and sometimes even Ma) would complain about, loudly. Mabel was exactly the opposite.
"If you guys need more blankets, just tell me!" She said, dropping another armful of blankets and sheets on one of their beds.
Stan peeked out of their fort-in-progress. "I think we're good. Ford?"
Ford appeared from the other side and glanced at the pile. "Yeah, totally. We might just cover the entire room if you give us more!"
"Well, if you still can reach your beds, I wouldn't mind." Mabel declared with a giggle.
"We could just camp here forever!" Stan added excitedly.
Mabel grinned. "Oh, boy! If you do, count me in! It's been a while since I've seen such a good blanket fort since, well..." She smiled smugly. "...the ones I made!"
"Did you have blankets made out of sabertooth tiger fur?" Stan teased, and Mabel laughed.
"All you two are missing now is a good snack! I think I'm fresh out of marshmallows, shame on me… But! I still have cereal with mini marshmallows!"
The twins beamed.
Mabel left them to their own devices in the kitchen, telling them they could have as much cereal as they wanted.
"Didn't know an old person could like sugar that much." Stan said as he fetched the box of cereal from a cabinet. It was sitting beside about a dozen bags of candy.
"Yup." Ford was in front of the fridge getting milk from behind a pitcher of Mabel Juice.
Stan winced at the juice.
They armed themselves with spoons and bowls as well, so they were ready to enjoy lots of sugar and artificial colors from the unassailable Fortress of Stan.
Ford, however, decided to pour his cereal in the kitchen, so he could leave the milk in the fridge.
"Dude, seriously?" Stan groaned. "Who pours the milk before the cereal?"
"It's my cereal and I'll eat it as I please."
Stan rolled his eyes, opened the box, and poured himself some cereal.
"What? Boo!"
"What's wrong?"
Stan looked down at his bowl and frowned. No marshmallows came along with the flakes! "There's no bits of artificial sugar in here!" He stuck his face in the box.
Ford laughed snickered. "I got plenty. Maybe the entities of cereal agree with me about the milk."
"I sincerely doubt that."
Suddenly the phone rang.
"I think it might be Ma," Ford said. "We didn't get to talk to her yet, she might be worried."
Their mom worked as a phone psychic. She spent plenty of time making calls (even though that mostly served fulfill her natural need to lie). It had just been a day since they'd left, but Stan had to admit he was kinda missing her already.
"I got it." Stan tossed his spoon in his bowl and went to the den for the phone. "Hello? Uh, Mystery Shack?" He added, just in case it wasn't their mom.
"Stanley?"
It really was Ma! Stan stood on his tippy toes, happy to hear her voice. "Hey, Ma!"
"Oh, good, finally I can talk to you. Sorry, I've been getting so many calls recently. But you two arrived alright? How was the flight?"
Just remembering that made his stomach turn. "It was… Fine."
"What do you think of Mabel?"
In the meantime, Ford was sitting at the kitchen table, already savoring the sugary flakes and mini marshmallows. He was doodling in his notebook with his free hand while he ate. He loved multitasking.
The window beside him was open just a crack, letting the cooler air of the night refresh the room.
Suddenly, a small creature pounced through the window and into the house, landing hard on the table. Ford jerked with a cry and just managed not to spill his cereal.
The creature had the body of a very small horse and the face of a - well, a stereotypical leprechaun: bearded, pointy-eared, with a green top hat. It even had a four-leaf clover on the hat. The horse tail matched its the emerald green of its beard, and there was a unicorn horn sprouting from the exact middle of its forehead.
"What on Earth are you?" Ford whispered, shrinking in on himself to appear less intimidating. He quickly reached for his notebook. He had to get a sketch!
The creature spotted his cereal and gave a garbled squeal of delight. It went for the bowl and started eating.
"Looks like a cross between a leprechaun and a unicorn…" He added a few notes to his sketch. "What do we call you? Oh - 'Leprecorn'! That'll work!"
The leprecorn inhaled the last marshmallow and looked up at Ford. "TOP OF THE MORNIN' TO YA!" It bellowed, and then immediately jumped straight at Ford's face to chew on his hair.
"Wh- Hey! Ow! HEY!"
"Ford!" Stan called suddenly. "It's Ma! She wants to talk to you!"
Ford couldn't answer because his mouth was full of leprecorn tail. He felt around frantically, found its horn, pried it from hits head and hurled it across the kitchen. It hit the cabinets and slumped to the floor in an explosion of gold coins.
"Where did those - Oh shoot, did I just kill you?!"
For a second Ford's stomach twisted - he hadn't meant to kill it - and then the leprecorn stood up like nothing had happened and zoomed right back to Ford, this time determined to chew on his pants.
"Oh no you don't!"
Ford grabbed at the cereal box and jerked it, spewing cereal bits across the floor. The leprecorn veered, going for the whole-grain crunch.
"STANLEY!" Ford shouted, jumping onto a chair. "I NEED ASSISTANCE!"
Stan had pondered Ma's question about Mabel, scratching his chin.
Mabel always sent him and Ford sweaters and other things she made herself, but neither Ma nor Pa had talked much about her. Ma lied about everything, so even when she'd said that Mabel was nice, Stan hadn't really paid attention. Pa barely said two words about anybody unless they were bad customers or idiots, and the one comment he'd made about Mabel was that her sweaters were too "girly" for Pines boys to wear.
With all of that, it had been scary getting shipped off to spend the summer with some person they barely knew. But…
"She's… Pretty cool, actually." he said. "We built a blanket fort and everything. Hey! Bet I could get her to knit a blanket that says 'Fort Stan' on it!"
"Good," Ma said. "I think you two would get along well. So, where's your brother?"
"Just a second, hang on-" Stan covered the speaker. "Ford! It's Ma! She wants to talk to you!"
There was a loud yelp and a crash, then a noise like glass or metal breaking over the floor.
"Ford?"
"Is something wrong?" Ma asked.
What a great time for her to develop real psychic powers!
"Uh…" Stan stalled while scooting away from the phone, trying to see what was happening in the kitchen. He could hear plates, cutlery and other objects being knocked around. What the heck was his brother doing?
"Stanley, what's happening? Where's your brother?"
"STANLEY, I NEED ASSISTANCE!" Ford shouted from the kitchen. Stan caught a glimpse of his brother chasing something around the kitchen.
"Ummm… We'll call you back in a minute! Alright, love you, bye!"
"Stanley, don't you dare hang-"
Stan hung up and ran to the kitchen.
"Ford I don't know what you're doing but you better fix it because Ma just-"
"TOP OF THE MORNIN' TO YA!"
He skidded to a halt. "FORD, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"
Stan imagined maybe an opossum or something ran into the kitchen, but instead there was some creepy googoo-eyed man-horse running around trying to eat everything in sight.
Ford had hopped up on the table and was throwing cereal at it to keep it at bay. "I thought about calling it a leprecorn! Get it? He looks like a leprechaun with a horn and the horse body-"
Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Stop nerding out, geez! We gotta get it out of here!"
"My thoughts precisely!"
Stan looked around and grabbed a broom from a corner. He swung it at the leprecorn, trying to beat it back, but apparently the critter thought this was a new game and leapt at the bristles, a look of euphoria on its face.
Ford gestured emphatically at the leprecorn with the cereal box. "Get it, hit- Go down, it's running around you!"
"I can see that!" Stan panted. "Now zip it unless you have something helpful to say!"
"Just herd it over here!"
Ford scrambled across the table and pulled the window open all the way. Stan reared back, and just as the leprecorn leaped for the broom, Stan swung for all he was worth. The creature sailed out the window with a very satisfying yelp.
"BOYS! What happened?!"
They froze.
Mabel.
The kitchen was a mess: cabinets open, pots and cereal boxes spilling out, crumbs and fake gold coins all over the floor. Ford was still kneeling on the table and Stan had stopped at the end of his swing, the broom still in his hands.
Ford rallied to explain. "Grauntie Mabel! You- You wouldn't believe it! There was this giant possum that got in to get our cereal and we-"
Mabel shook her head. "An opossum tried to fight you guys over cereal? Look, I said you two could have as much cereal as you wanted, but this is a bit ridiculous."
"You're tellin' me." Stan muttered glumly, lowering the broom. He started sweeping immediately. Ford quietly got down off the table and started to help.
Mabel left them to it. To their surprise, once the kitchen was clean, she didn't threaten to send them back home or even ground them. She did call their Ma about it, and both twins listened intently to the conversation - but Mabel made it sound like the cereal had just spilled a little, and the two of them were cleaning it up responsibly.
Stan looked at Ford. "Well, we are cleaning it up, but…"
"... She's really not going to get us in trouble?" Ford finished.
"Kids!" Mabel called. "Your Ma wants to talk to you!"
They winced, but whatever Mabel had said really did the trick. Ma didn't ask to many questions, although she didn't seem to believe the possum story, and she hung up after promising to call them again soon.
It was a while before the twins got back up to their Fort. Mabel banned them from cereal for the next 24 hours, but she did let them bring up some chips.
"So," Stan said, ripping open a bag of Doribos. "That horse thing, huh? What I can't believe is all those coins turned out to be fake. For a second I thought they were actually real! It's like the world's most annoying supernatural thingie ever."
"Let us never speak of it again." Ford said darkly, glaring at his notebook.
"You got it."
Outside, a song started playing faintly.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…