Gah! Either I've become delirious from studying too much for finals, or I blew a couple brain fuses after doing one too many extra problems for chemistry. Either way, somehow I managed to come up with this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
"Bored….bored….bored….bored….bored…..bored…bored….."
Bloo droned on repeatedly while he lay sprawled atop Mac's bed, staring up blankly at the ceiling.
"Bored…. bored…so very bored…"
The little creature continued to chant this monotonously over and over, obviously not realizing the extreme aggravation he was causing his creator, or the lanky redhead present as well. Mac just shook his head wearily as he hunched over his desk, working furiously to complete an unusually irksome math assignment from school. Frankie meanwhile just breathed a heavy sigh as she sat cross-legged upon the floor, busily sorting through a basket of laundry. Originally she had decided to complete her chore there for the mere sake of having some company as she worked, but at the moment she honestly doubted whether that had been a good idea at all, considering her circumstances.
"Hey, Frankie?" Bloo whined, sitting up and waving a blobbish appendage to try and catch her eye. Almost immediately the redhead frowned and tried to avert her gaze, clearly in no mood to hear what he had to say.
"Oh, no…not again…don't say it…" she grumbled darkly under her breath to herself.
"This is boriiiiiing!" the little creature sniveled mercilessly. Meanwhile, caught in the middle of trying to work out an extremely bothersome math problem with very little success, Mac placed his head upon his desk and let out a loud groan.
"Bloo, please…." He pleaded wearily.
"I'm serious!" the child's imaginary friend just continued. "This is so dumb! You guys have been doing this for like, a half-hour already! It's stupid! Why don't we just go play some video games in the arcade or something?"
"I really need to finish this, Bloo, will you please just-" Mac tried to protest, but to little avail.
"I mean, come on! I wait around all day, but as soon as you get home, all you do is-"
Frankie finally snapped, completely fed up with rhe imaginary friend's incessant whining.
"Will you put a sock in it already?" she snarled, hurling a half-folded shirt in the direction of the little imaginary friend. "We can't just up and go with you to play some stupid arcade games! For the very last time, we can't! And we won't!"
"But why?" Bloo just moaned unhappily as he lazily dodged the projectile, hardly fazed by her fierce response. Frankie glared daggers and fiercely gritted her teeth in her rabid frustration.
"I told you, and I'll say it again only once more! I can't do a thing right now because the rabbit needs me to finish the laundry, and Mac still has his homework to do! We're both busy right now! So will you please just knock it off already?" The girl practically screamed, clenching her fists so tightly they sported a perfect shade of pale white.
However, her frenzied outburst hardly had the originally intended effect.
"That's it?" the little azure blob just asked bemusedly, looking up at her in surprise. Frankie just rolled her eyes in annoyance while Mac heaved an exasperated sigh.
"Yeah, that's it." He grumbled unhappily as he turned to focus his attention back upon his troublesome math work.
"Lucky us." The caretaker muttered sarcastically to herself as she resumed her sorting.
"Wait…if that's it, why didn't you just say so?" Bloo inquired, looking terribly confused. Immediately both young woman and child looked up to shoot him a pair of equally bewildered glances.
"Uh…." Mac grunted, unsure of how to respond.
"Why are you asking that, exactly?" Frankie asked warily, cocking an eyebrow. Bloo stared back blankly for a few moments before a large grin abruptly plastered itself upon his features.
"Because I can help!" he trilled happily, much to the shock of the duo before him.
"You? Help us?" Frankie asked incredulously, but the words had barely rolled off her tongue before the little imaginary friend promptly jumped off the bed, practically bursting with enthusiasm.
"Yup, not a problem! Hold on a sec, I'll be right back!"
And with this valiant proclamation, Bloo hastily exited the room, rushing into the hallway with a look of enthused determination and leaving behind two very perplexed siblings.
Frankie stared slack-jawed into space for a few moments before she finally turned her gaze towards the puzzled eight-year-old nearby.
"Um…did he just offer to do what I think he offered to do?" she inquired in complete disbelief. Mac returned the blank stare for a few seconds before cracking a wan grin.
"Hey…help is help." He replied simply. Frankie chuckled weakly as she got to her feet.
"Well, I guess I can't really argue with that." She murmured, ruffling the boy's hair affectionately as she strolled over to his side. "I'll wait 'til Bloo gets back. You still having trouble?"
"Yeah." Mac muttered with an irked frown, jabbing at a particularly bothersome math equation. "I'm totally stumped here. Can you help me, Frankie?"
"Sure thing, pal." Frankie agreed warmly, thoughtfully gazing over his work. "Hmmmm….I think I see what you're doing wrong here. The thing is that when you're doing long division, you always gotta remember to-"
WHOOSH!
Mac jumped a little in his chair with a squeak of shock while Frankie jerked violently in her surprise upon hearing the peculiar sound.
"What on earth is-AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!" the girl shrieked to the high heavens as soon as she whirled about.
At that very moment, she wished with every part of her soul that the scene before her was nothing more than a terrible, terrible trick her eyes were playing on her. Alas, her vision did not lie. For right there, in the middle of Mac's room, spewing from the laundry basket was a hideous spurt of fire, glowing fiendishly in a full hellish blaze.
And right there, next to the miniature inferno, still wearing that stupid grin, was an all-too-familiar little imaginary friend, now proudly displaying a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches in his blobbish appendages.
"BLOOOOOOO!" Frankie elicited an earsplitting scream in her absolute horror. "OH MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Bloo just smiled happily at the hysterical caretaker. "How can the rabbit make you do laundry when that very same laundry's been burned out of existence? Huh, am I right here?"
As the flames devoured the lighter fluid-soaked garments, both girl and child stared at the little creature with twin expressions of total disbelief.
"Bloo…YOU LIT A FIRE INSIDE THE LAUNDRY BASKET!" Mac yelled at the top of his lungs.
"Yup!" his creation only agreed warmly in complete affirmation.
"ARE YOU CRAZY? OR JUST STUPID?" Frankie screeched, tugging at her crimson hair in her dumb shock.
"Hey, what gives?" Bloo immediately protested her harsh accusation. "I help you finish you chores early, and all you do is-"
"THERE'S A FIRE! IN MY ROOM!" Mac hollered in hysterical aggravation. "A FIRE! IN MY ROOM! DON'T YOU GET IT?"
"Hey, hey, what's wrong with you two?" The little imaginary friend demanded, folding his arms with a huff.
"JESUS CHRIST, BLOO! IT'S GROWING BIGGER!" Frankie wailed, ripping off her sweater and rushing over to the blaze, desperately trying to smother it with her garment. "FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY! AUGH! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!" she screamed, beating at the flames furiously.
"Maybe I should go get help!" Mac suggested frantically, leaping from his seat. "Hold on, I'll just-OH NO! WAIT! WAIT! STOP! OH, PLEASE, NO!"
The child's blood ran cold as soon as he turned about and saw the terrible vision before him. Despite his creator's frenzied pleas, Bloo only grinned stupidly from where he now sat in Mac's chair, a lit match burning away in his hand.
"Don't worry, Mac!" he reassured his hysterical best friend calmly. "Soon, you won't have to worry about this dumb homework any more!"
"No, no, no! I worked so hard on it, and-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Mac screamed in dismay as the top of his desk abruptly transformed into a fiery inferno.
"HOLY SHIT, BLOO!" Frankie screeched as soon as she spotted the second blaze, unable to censor herself properly in her gut-wrenching panic. "NOT ANOTHER ONE! OH GOD, WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU'RE-EEEEEK!"
The redhead elicited another earsplitting shriek as the burning laundry began to blaze with renewed vigor, making her slapdash attempt to put it out completely futile. As she furtively struggled to battle it out of existence with her garment, Mac sprung forward towards the newest flame in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save his schoolwork.
"No! Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no!" He wailed heartbreakingly as he scrambled atop his chair to try and pull some charred worksheets to safety, looking as if he was ready to dive headfirst into the inferno. "Please, no! Not this! I've worked too hard! Not now! Not-Hey! NOOOO!"
The eight-year-old squealed unhappily as he felt a pair of arms wrap themselves tightly around his waist and swiftly yank him out of reach of the ever-growing blaze.
"No Mac, don't do it!" Frankie screamed, having already given up her attempt to quell the incandescent laundry. "It's not worth it! It's not worth it! Let it go, pal!"
"No! No, you can't!" the boy protested frantically, struggling wildly within her iron grip, reaching out feebly towards his burning schoolwork. "I gotta go back! I gotta go back! You can't do this to me! Please, Frankie! No! No! No! No! No!"
His anguished cries of objection were all lamented completely in vain. No sooner had she gathered him into the safety of her arms, Frankie had immediately whirled about and made a beeline for the door, wailing like a banshee at the top of her lungs as she sprinted pell-mell down the winding hallways of Foster's.
"MISTER HERRIMAN! GRANDMA! ANYONE! FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE IN THE HOUSE! SOMEONE GET A HOUSE! A BUCKET! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! ANYTHING! ANYTHING AT ALL! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRE!"
"MY HOMEWORK! MY HOMEWORK! SOMEBODY PLEASE, SAVE MY HOMEWORK!" Mac sobbed hysterically as he was hefted along in the young woman's tight embrace. As Frankie carried the child off to safety, shrieking to the high heavens, Bloo just remained where he was standing smack in the middle of the twin blazes. The little blob observed his handiwork for a second, than grinned as he casually plodded out of the increasingly smoked-filled room.
"So now that's all taken care of, are you guys still up for a couple rounds of Super Mario Brothers?"
"…And then question number five is three hundred an' twenty-five, divided by-"
"Hold on, hold on!" Mac quickly cut off Goo in mid-sentence as he furiously scribbled an equation down on a blank sheet of paper. "Gimme a sec or too, I haven't finishing writing down number four yet."
"No problem!" The quirky little girl squeaked in reply. Never one to sit still for a moment, the child grabbed her heels and rocked back and forth, humming an improvised tune she composed herself as she waited patiently for her friend to finish.
"Hey, Goo?" Mac asked, looking up from his work.
"Yeah, Mac?"
"Uh….I just wanna….y'know, thank you for….well, maybe I should apologize for having to call you over here, I never planned on-"
"Not a problem!" Goo just waved his stammered apology aside, flashing the boy her trademark toothy grin. " "Sides, Mac, what are friends for anyway?"
The eight-year-old boy returned the expression with a weak nod and a wan grin. "Thanks, Goo."
"Yup! You all set to copy down the next question yet?"
"Gimme a few more seconds, number four's taking me a while."
"Okay!" she squealed happily in compliance. "Not a problem! Uh….while you're doing that, can I just ask you one thing?"
"What?" Mac replied absentmindedly, busily copying their school assignment.
"Um, are you guys gonna tell me-"
"Trust me, you're not gonna believe us what happened." An aggravated feminine voice cut the child off. Goo looked up in the direction of an extremely wearied-looking Frankie. The haggard caretaker looked like she was trying to focus on the book in her hands, but the little girl couldn't help notice how the lanky redhead kept repositioning herself upon the upturned laundry basket she was using as a seat, and a partially melted laundry basket at that.
"C'mon….I only wanted to help…." Bloo whined piteously as he sat dejectedly inside his makeshift holding pen. The twenty-two-year-old immediately rapped the sides of the basket sharply, signaling for him to stop.
"Keep it up, Blooregard, I don't plan on even letting you out of my sight any time soon." Frankie declared bluntly.
"Awww…." The little imaginary friend whimpered.
After witnessing this utterly bizarre scene, Goo cocked her head, looking helplessly bewildered.
"Can't you even gimme a hint about what happened?" she pleaded, shooting Frankie a pair of what she hoped would pass for puppy-dog eyes in an attempt to pry out some answers. The young woman just sighed heavily and shot the girl a stern warning glare.
"Look, all I'm gonna say is this; if this little cretin ever offers you any help….always make sure the matches are hidden before you let him do anything."
The End
I thin I've temporarily lost hold of my sanity.
Thanks for reading, though! Please review, any feedback is greatly appreciated!