AN: What the heck am I thinking with starting a multi-chapter story? I'm just digging myself a hole here. I've gotta stop using one single joke as my whole excuse to write a fic. As usual, I hope you all review and remember that I don't bite (much) and I swear no substances were involved in the creation of this piece; just insomnia.
Liz, Elizabeth, and Deb…you guys just rock my socks. To you and everyone else that's reviewed me in the last week or so thanks bunches and bunches. Sports candy for all!
Disclaimer: I do not own LazyTown or the characters therein. Never even been to Iceland, but any places mentioned are looked up on the internet. However, this sickness is all mine, so don't steal – go find your own.
Spring Cleaning
By Chiba Apey
Up in the airship, Sportacus did a flip and kicked off a button on the wall into a back flip. He righted himself, smiling with his Oh-So-Shiny-Clean teeth (gleam), before an avalanche of random items came spilling out of the now open closet onto him. Beneath the rubble he groaned in pain and the pile remained stationary for a moment while he regained his bearings. Protective goggles in place, Sportacus's head eventually fought its way to the top of the mountain. "Ptui!" he spat out a stray ping-pong ball and shook his head. "I really need to clean out the airship!"
Back down in LazyTown, the denizens of the area were doing a little cleaning of their own. Pixel was cleaning his electronics with a can of compressed air. Stingy was shining up his beloved Piggy. Ziggy was organizing his taffy collection by make and color. Bessie was supervising Mayor Meanswell as he attempted to clean out her basement. As for Trixie and Robbie…well, Trixie was really making more of a mess tagging all the posters around city hall and Robbie was wallowing in his own filth.
Robbie: Snort! (rolls over in his chair)
At the mayor's house, Stephanie was busy in her room, rearranging her pink sock drawer while singing a house cleaning version of "Go for It!"
"Turn your cleaning into play – go all the waaaaaaaaaaaay!" she belted out, slamming the door shut. "Get up on your – hey!" Something had flown in through the window and was now sticking out of the back of her large pouf of pink hair. "What in the world?" She reached back and retrieved the object in question, which turned out to be a blue paper airplane. Naturally, she recognized it as a note from Sportacus. It read as follows:
Stephanie,
Help! I'm up to my moustache in messiness! I need help cleaning my airship, would you mind lending me a hand?
Sportacus
Stephanie squealed. "Wow, Sportacus needs ME to help him with something!" She was positively glowing. "I better send him a message back right away."
The pink blur zoomed over to the mailbox at top speed before skidding to a halt at the airmail chute. Furiously scribbling a reply, Stephanie shoved the pink stationary into one of those tubes she always seems to carry and shot it off into the sky.
A couple minutes later Sportacus flew down on his sky bike. "Hello, Stephanie."
"Hi, Sportacus!" cheered Stephanie, "So, you needed my help with your spring cleaning?"
"Yes, my airship is such a mess. I guess that I spend so much time down here saving people and having fun with you kids that I haven't had time to clean it up. Hop on."
Stephanie nearly died right there. Ride on the sky bike with him? Too cool! "Okay!" She climbed on behind him, clinging tighter to his back than she probably should've been. He began peddling the little steppers again and away they went up to the airship. When they got near to the side, he called for the door/platform to lower and let her hop off before cartwheeling his own way on. The sky bike sped off to wherever it goes when he's not riding it.
When they got inside, Stephanie began to understand why Sportacus had called for reinforcements. There was sports equipment, clothing, paper airplane bowling balls, and other assorted items EVERYWHERE. Apparently, ol' Sporty had decided to just rearrange everything and therefore had dumped all of his worldly possessions into a heap on the floor. Bachelors…
"Well," said Sportacus, coming in behind her, "let's get started, shall we?"
A couple hours later and they had barely made it through the sports equipment alive. The settings kept rebuking Stephanie's efforts to replace the badminton set and she was eventually forced to take cover while Sportacus fended off a barrage of birdies. Now the two were engaged in separate activities; Sportacus was replacing his clothes in his wardrobe and Stephanie was putting back all of his books. Currently she was shirking her duties by scanning the big book of LazyTown records. "Wow, Sportacus, you hold the records for almost everything!"
Sportacus just smiled at her from across the ship and continued putting away his Sportabriefs.
Stephanie hummed for a few minutes, flipping the pages until she came across an award she didn't recognize. "Sportacus, what's 'tantra'?"
(HYURK) An unsuspecting Sportacus twitched visibly at this innocent inquiry and raced over to the curious girl. "I think we're done with the books for now," he said with a bit too much enthusiasm, "It's time for lunch!" He slammed the book and plucked it from her hands, tucking it behind his back. Geez, one night on Laugavegur and you're never done paying for it.
He led Stephanie over to his food table, leaving her to decide what she wanted while he snuck the blabbermouth book back onto the shelf. "Hey, Sportacus, can I have some fruit?"
A bit preoccupied, Sportacus called to her over his shoulder. "Sure, Stephanie, eat whatever you like." He was now scanning the rest of the books in the pile to see if there was any more incriminating evidence hiding within them. 'Hmm, "The Oxford Book of Proteans", "The Pop-Up Kama Sutra", "Toning Your PC Muscle"…why do I own all of these?' He opened up his goggle drawer and began tossing books in while an oblivious Stephanie fixed herself some food.
"Aren't you going to eat?" asked Stephanie as she finished off her sports smoothies.
"What?" he asked, slamming the drawer. "Oh, I'm coming." He bounced over to the counter and tapped her on the shoulder. "What are we eating?"
Stephanie turned around and handed him a smoothie. "A little bit of everything. Drink up!"
With a broad grin, he drank a big gulp of the drink. Somewhere between when the substance hit his tongue and swallowing it occurred to him that perhaps carrots and bananas were not meant to be mixed in passion fruit juice. He did his best to smile weakly for the small girl as she beamed up at him, oozing adoration. When she turned to get her own drink, however, his face scrunched up like he'd taken a big bite out of his own sweat socks. He quickly disposed of the drink before she turned around, then grabbed a sports candy and took a big bite. "How was it, Sportacus?"
"Ohm, ish wash dwawishush," he nodded, chewing frantically.
She giggled and finished her drink. "C'mon, Sportacus, let's finish cleaning!" She set down her glass and pranced back to the pile of books. Sportacus wiped the sweat that had formed on his brow and threw out his apple core, closing the eating station.
It was getting pretty late by the time the duo finished. Luckily for the above average hero there hadn't been any more close calls like the one earlier. Glancing at the clock, Sportacus knew that he had to get Stephanie home soon or else the mayor would get worried. He shuffled the last few items into the now sectionalized closet and shut the door. "All right, Stephanie, time to go home."
Stephanie stuck out her lower lip in an adorable little pink pout. "Aww, can't I stay just a little bit longer?"
"I'm sorry but we have to get you back to your uncle." He stuck up his index finger. "But, I promise that I will see you again tomorrow."
The little pink pixie sighed and followed the Sport Elf out the door of the airship and back down into the down aboard his sky bike. 'Man, he needs to readjust the posture on this thing…'
When they reached her uncle's house, she walked right in. "Uncle? OH, uncle MIL-fooooooooorrrrrrd!" She went through all the rooms but there was no sign of her uncle. Her emotions were a combative mix of jubilation and curiosity. She ran outside and searched the skies, finding her blue elf still pedaling his way through the sky. "SPORTACUS!" she called.
The sky bike stumbled in midair momentarily, nearly tossing Sportacus. He turned the bike back around and touched down before her once again. "Yes, Stephanie, what is it?"
"I can't find my uncle," she replied, "He's not at home."
"Really?" Sportacus thought for a moment, "Do you remember where he was today?"
"Yeah, he was helping Bessie with some more chores around her house."
Sportacus got off the sky bike. "You stay here; I'll go see where he is." Then he did his little superhero arm trick and flipped off to Bessie's place.
The lights were on when he got there, but he couldn't detect any movement inside. He knocked and waited…and waited…
Eventually, the door opened to reveal Mayor Milford Meanswell standing there looking rather disheveled in Ms. Busybody's favorite bathrobe. "Mayor?"
"Ah, Sportacus!" said the mayor nervously, "What, uh, what brings you to my, that is, to Bes – uh, Ms. Busybody's house?"
Sportacus had thought that nothing could be worse than the records' book this morning. He was wrong. "Sorry to interrupt, mayor, but I brought Stephanie home for the evening and no one was in."
"Oh, yes, Stephanie. Dear girl, wonderful girl." The mayor fiddled with the belt on the bathrobe and avoided the superhero's ice blue stare. "Do you think I could trouble you to watch her for the evening? You see, something has come up over here and you know how Bes – er – Ms. Busybody can be."
Sportacus held up a hand to put an end to his ramblings. "Yes, well, I had better be going then, Mayor." He gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. "Have a good evening."
The mayor nodded and mumbled something that sounded like "Yes, right" then shut the door.
After listening for his retreating footsteps, Sportacus turned around and shuddered. 'Now there is a mental image I could have done without.'
AN: And with that, we conclude part one. I think I'm beyond saving at this point. smiles Ah well, go where the muse takes ya. Hey, fun game in the meantime: one of those books was real, guess which one?