Author's Warning: Like everything else, this takes place in my series, set up by the events in my first story "More Than My Friend" where the big event is that Frankie adopts Mac as her "little brother". If you haven't read that story yet, I strongly suggest you do so now, or else you might get confused.
"….Glycolic WHAT?" Wilt yelped uncontrollably in his massive disbelief at what he had just heard, nearly dropping a load of plates freshly unloaded from the dishwasher in the process. Eliciting a horrified squeak of dismay, an extremely frantic-looking redhead hastily held up her finger to her lips, motioning desperately for the startled imaginary friend to keep his voice down.
"Shhhhhh!" Frances "Frankie" Foster shushed the lanky creature hurriedly, looking absolutely mortified that someone might've heard him. "You wanna let the entire house know?"
Swiftly depositing his load of dishes aside, Wilt quickly clamped his hand tightly over his mouth, whimpering pitifully in his utter dismay.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he instinctively began to babble through his fingers in rapid-fire apology. "I'm so sorry, I didn't-"
"Will you please just calm down?" Frankie snapped, gesturing frantically for her friend to gain some semblance of a hold over himself. "I just wanted some advice, that's all! Not for you to tell everyone about-"
"Acid?" Wilt just murmured incredulously, letting his arm fall limply at his side like a wet noodle as he struggled in vain to try and comprehend what he had just heard. "You seriously want me to keep clam while you talk to me about dumping acid over yourself?"
The young woman shuddered violently as she tugged frenziedly at her crimson locks in deep aggravation.
"Will you please stop putting it like that?" she pleaded in a low whine. "That's not what I'm thinking of doing at all! The way the glycolic acid procedure goes is-"
"I'm sorry Frankie, but it's really, really hard for me to just stand here and keep me cool while you try and talk to me about pouring burning liquid all over you skin!" Wilt scolded the caretaker like an austere father reprimanding an insolent daughter. "Oh of all things that are not okay in this world, that is really not-"
"ARRRGH!" Frankie groaned, banging her fists hard upon the counter. "Please Wilt, I know you don't like talking about this, but if you'd just listen to me-"
"I can't! I can't!" Wilt confessed miserably, waving his arm wildly and making no secret of his intense displeasure. "I can't stand here and listen about how you plan to-"
"Well, what else do you want me to do?" The girl moaned unhappily. "I don't have enough money to shell out for laser surgery, so when it comes to my limited choices, I-"
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Wilt wailed as he began to conjure up images of his friend getting fried alive by futuristic weaponry. "I don't wanna hear it! Please, Frankie, stop-"
"Wilt, I gotta do something!" Frankie emphasized fiercely. "In case you've forgotten, I have a bright pink rose permanently imprinted on the middle of my back! I don't know about you, but I have no plans to walk around for the rest of my life with a constant reminder of junior year of college! It was nothing but a huge mistake since the start, and I-"
"Frankie-"
"Wilt, I gotta get rid of my old tattoo!" The caretaker nearly screamed in her exasperation, jabbing furiously at her back. "I-"
"Tattoo? What tattoo?"
The instant the innocent inquiry echoed throughout the kitchen, both caretaker and imaginary friend went dead silent. Wilt's eye nearly bulged to the size of a dinner plate in his dumb shock, while Frankie's jaw looked like it was about to hit the floor in her mortified horror. As her features suddenly began to shine brightly with a vibrant shade of crimson, the girl took a nervous gulp as she craned her neck slowly in the direction of the unexpected visitor.
"I…I…I-I mean, w-we were…" Frankie began to stammer moronically, her heart palpitating like mad as she struggled in vain to improvise a somewhat decent slipshod excuse to try and cover her terrible secret. "Wilt and I, w-we were j-just…um, just….er…we….oh thank goodness! It's only you."
The instant the familiar chesnut-haired little eight-year-old peered out curiously from behind the open fridge door, Frankie cried out in tremendous relief as she leaned heavily upon and gripped her chest, as if she had nearly suffered a minor heart attack.
"Frankie, are you okay?" Mac instinctively inquired, frowning in deep concern. The girl nodded wearily as she recovered from her nasty shock, taking in heavy gulps of air as if she had nearly been forcibly drowned.
"Yeah…yeah, I'm fine, pal. I'll be alright." She wheezed, reaching into a nearby cupboard to fetch herself a glass of water. As the duo quickly brushed off the entire incident with relative ease, Wilt couldn't help but gaze dumbly, utterly flabbergasted by how calmly they were handling the situation, and the fact that neither "sibling" seemed to be even slightly unnerved by the other's presence in so odd a situation.
"Mac," he began, pointing at the eight-year-old. "You-"
"What?" the child responded confusedly, posing as the model of ignorant innocence. "Wait, what's going on? Were you talking about Frankie's tattoo, or is this someone else's tattoo you're talking ab-"
"Wait!" Wilt gasped, unable to believe what he just heard out of the mouth of a mere eight-year-old. "You mean you know abou-"
"The rose one on her back...is that it?" Mac checked politely with the frazzled redhead.
"Bingo." Frankie grunted with a light nod as she took a sip of water, their seemingly far-too-casual exchange practically causing Wilt's head to spin in his absolute perplexity.
"Mac!" he managed to croak, jabbing a finger at the child. "When did Frankie tell you about-"
"I didn't." Frankie cut in very matter-of-factly as she deposited her glass in the sink, to which the child hastily confirmed with a furious nod of his head – and a blatant scarlet blush glowing upon his cheeks.
"Yeah….yeah, that's right." He murmured sheepishly, withdrawing his head a little back behind the fridge door as he pretended to continue his search for a mid-afternoon snack in order to avoid the others' gazes in his swiftly growing embarrassment.
"Wait, what?" Wilt yelped, his bafflement knowing no bounds at this point. "So if you didn't tell him, then how in the world-"
"Didn't need to." Frankie explained rather laconically.
"….Kinda saw it all firsthand." Mac murmured meekly, still struggling to hide his face and its vibrant crimson shine.
"WHAT? But how-"
However, the lanky imaginary friend didn't speak so much as one word more as both caretaker and eight-year-old suddenly assaulted him with a two-pronged barrage of frosty glares, unexpectedly showing off the reality that they were far more flustered by the situation than the scarlet creature himself. Fortunately though, Wilt had no need to stew in his extreme mystification for any longer as soon as comprehension hit him like a runway bus.
"Ohhhhhhhhh….right, the shower incident." Wilt murmured, smiling apologetically at the stonefaced two as the memory of the rather peculiar incident came back to him, much to his displeasure.
"Gee, you think?" Frankie snapped, remembering the bizarre event none-too-fondly either as clearly revealed by her hideous scowl.
"Look, I said I was sorry!" the lanky creature pleaded with the sorely offended duo. "It's just that I was really, really surprised that Mac knew, so at first I-"
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on….Shower incident?" Someone suddenly blurted out excitedly in a high-pitched squeak. "Ooooh, what was that all about? Pleeeeeease, can you tell me-"
"Trust me," Another voice answered with a weary groan, "I really don't think you wanna know."
"Awwwwwww, why not? C'monnnnn, I just-"
"Look, I'm only gonna say it again, you're not gonna wanna know what…"
Upon awful realization that Mac hadn't made his trip to the kitchen alone, Frankie's skin rapidly paled to the point where it was practically translucent in her intense shock. While she stood stock-still, stiff as a steel beam and absolutely speechless with horror, a severely stunned Wilt warily plodded over, pushed the fridge door shut – and thus revealed where a certain imaginary friend and his pigtailed female companion had been securely hidden the entire time.
"C'monnnnnnnnn! Please, just tell me!" Goo whined, performing a mad dance of impatience as Bloo just shook his head resolutely, as if he was a stern, azure blob of a parent.
"No. I'm telling you the truth, that's the last thing I wanna remember." Bloo announced resolutely, extremely unwilling to bring up the trauma of that peculiar incident.
"No fair! No fair! No fair! No fair! No fair!" the hyperactive little girl protested unhappily. "I wasn't there when it happened, why can't I- ooooooh! Ooooooh!" She squealed excitedly the instant she caught sight of the ashen-faced caretaker gawking mutely at them nearby. Instantly the child lit up into a massive toothy grin as she waved her arms furiously in greeting.
"Hiiiiiiii Frankie! Hiya, Wilt!" she trilled, bouncing up and down ecstatically while Bloo merely folded his blobby appendages and broke out into a jubilant smirk.
"So….what's this we hear about a tattoo?" he asked with a fiendish chuckle, much to the mortified Frankie's complete despair.
"Oh, for the love of…" she began to mutter sadly, burying her face in her hands. Quickly realizing the full extent of her horrendous plight, Mac quickly swung into action to try and reign in his friends and thus save a shred of his adoptive older sister's dignity.
"Hey, c'mon guys!" he begged. "Knock it off, it's just-"
"Ooooooh, that's right! That's right! That's right!" Goo yelped in pure elation. "We heard! We heard that you got a big ol' tattoo! Can we see? Please? Pretty please? Can we see it? Huh? Can we? Just a peek? Pleeeeeeease…"
"Oh yes, do show us." Bloo chimed in, grinning from nonexistent ear to nonexistent ear in his triumph.
"Quit it!" Mac snapped fiercely in defense of the distraught redhead, whose blush was nearly perfectly matching her flaming scarlet hair at this point.
"Oh God, this isn't happening to me, this isn't happening to me, this isn't happening to m- HEY! What th– oh no you don't! Get off! Get off! Let go! Why you…"
Frankie desperately battled the tremendous urge to curse a blue streak as without warning, Goo darted forward with the speed of a striking hawk and latched onto her emerald jacket. The instant she had nabbed the garment in her tenacious hold, the beaming little girl broke out into a terrific bout of the giggles as she began to try and tug it clean off.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, let's see!" she pleaded, much to the young woman's complete dread.
"Goo, let go! Let go!" Frankie snarled as she combated the little one's efforts ardently. "Ooooh, didn't even think that you're gonna try and – BLOO, NO!"
Ignoring the enraged screams that nearly rocked the entire house of its very foundations with their record-breaking volume, Bloo earnestly joined the terrific battle as he zipped behind the besieged Frankie and expertly clamped on to her white T-shirt with an iron grip.
"We wanna see it! We wanna see it!" he cried excitedly, eager to catch a glimpse of the caretaker's mark of shame. "C'mon Frankie, lighten up and let us have a peek!"
"NO!" the young woman shrieked to the high heavens in flat-out refusal as she did fought against the pesky duo, frantically trying to pry them off. "GET OFF, NOW!"
That wasn't to say though that Frankie was hopelessly trapped in a pitiful two-on-one struggle. In reality, she unfortunately was hopelessly trapped in a ridiculous two-on-three struggle.
"Bloo, let go of her!" Wilt scolded harshly as he joined the fray, wrapping a snaking arm about the determined little blob.
"Never!" Bloo denied the poor creature flatly as he latched onto the poor girl like a metal screw to an industrial-sized magnet. "You just try and stop me!"
As the two imaginary friends struggled against one another, at least Wilt was making a semblance of progress as he tugged and pulled upon the stubborn little creature. The second Goo had entrapped Frankie in her hold, Mac had immediately come to his guardian's aid and had tried to yank his hyperactive friend off. Unfortunately, all he managed to accomplish was to resemble an oversized backpack as he clung onto Goo doggedly in a comically feeble attempt to bring her down.
"Goo, please!" he reasoned desperately with her. "Let go of Frankie! Let go! Let go! This isn't right! Please! This isn't right!"
However, his rationality was hopelessly drowned out by the little girl's incessant chatter, as she babbled constantly all the while she conflicted to disrobe the stricken caretaker of her sweater.
"So what's it look like? Huh? What is it?" Goo jabbered nonstop. "C'monnnnnnn, you can't fool us, it can't just be some dumb ol' rose! Liar, liar, pants on fire! Is the rose all thorny and wrapped about a big snake with huge fangs an' stuff? Or a skull? Yeah, is it bein' clenched in the teeth by a big flamin' skull, like my uncle's tattoo he got in the navy? Ooooh! Oooooh! Or did you get it 'cuz you were part of some super-secret society when you went to college? Yeah! Yeah! Ooooooh, that'd be so cool if you were actually-"
"No, no, and NO!" Frankie shot down each suggestion as ruthlessly as an anti-aircraft battery firing upon a bunch of balloons as she continued to unsuccessfully try and pry her attackers off.
"Please, make them stop!" she begged, gazing pleadingly upon her two would-be rescuers.
"What's it look like we're doing?" Mac yelped as he clung on tightly and renewed his feeble efforts to take Goo down. "Goo, let Frankie go! Now!"
"One lil' look-see, that's all I want!" The little girl beseeched pitifully.
"Yeah, c'mon!" Bloo wailed as Wilt nearly stretched the obstinate imaginary friend twice his length in order to tear him off. "A peek! Give us a peek!"
"NO!" Frankie screeched as a wave of volcanic fury surged through every ounce of her being. "I swear, I'm only gonna say this one time, okay? You're not gonna see it now, and you never will, because I promise, as soon as I can, this thing's comin' right off of me, and-"
"If you really want it off so badly, dear, then you might want to try this place downtown." Someone suddenly suggested gently in the midst of the ludicrous chaos. "They're wonderful, they were able to get mine off quick and easily, and the price was-"
"Urgh!" Frankie groaned in agonized frustration through tightly gritted teeth as she tried to pry Goo's little fingers off one by one. "Look, this really isn't the time for-"
Just like that, the momentous battle to reveal the young woman's hidden secret came to an instant halt, as everyone went stock-still in near-exact unison as comprehension dawned upon the group about exactly who was speaking. As expressions of unfathomable horror slowly took hold on all their features, Madame Foster simply elicited a light chuckle and a sly wink as she calmly fixed herself a steaming cup of chamomile tea.
"And you think you're shocked to hear about this?" the old woman joked playfully. "My goodness, you should've seen the look on this wrinkled face as soon as I heard we had such a place right here intown, I thought my jaw was about to hit the floor. And the price to take care of it, they practically removed that faded old heart off me for free! I just hope the cost hasn't jumped or anything since I was there…after all, it was well over two years since I've-"
Within moments, Goo suddenly realized she wasn't exactly so fascinated by the notions of tattoo and tattoo removal as she had been a minute ago. Looking as if she had just come face-to-face with a ghost, the child abruptly let go of Frankie's jacket and hastily dashed out of the kitchen, mumbling a slipshod excuse under her breath about suddenly feeling the urge to go play outside.
Bloo, however, made up no such alibi – even if he could improvise one in his dumb shock, he wouldn't be able to tell a single soul, seeing as how he had tightly clamped his blobby stubs over his mouth. As his azure tone paled rapidly, the disgusted little creature made a pitiful squeak before he shot off in the direction of the dearest bathroom in a blur, desperately hoping he could control his churning gut for a few precious seconds.
Despite the duo's absolute abhorrence, oddly enough, they were two of the luckier ones.
At least in their shock, they had maintained consciousness.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, FRANKIE!" Wilt yelped in fright the moment the caretaker's eyes rolled into the back of her head as she toppled to the floor like a giant crimson-haired rag doll. The distraught creature quickly tried to make a heroic grab, but to his terror the fainting girl plummeted rapidly out of his reach.
Fortunately, despite the unbearable nausea that swept through him like a hail of machine-gun fire, Mac quickly managed to comprehend the blaring fact that his older sister was dropping like a stone. Instinctively he darted forward and acted as a makeshift cushion, successfully catching her from beneath right before Frankie's head smacked against the kitchen tile.
"AUGH!" the eight-year-old yelped in distress the second he felt the full brunt of the unconscious twenty-two-year-old's weight descend upon him, practically flattening him in the process. "Heavy! She's heavy! Someone help! Help! Hel-"
"I got her! I got her!" Wilt cried, relieving the poor child of his burden and tenderly placing Frankie's limp figure upon the floor.
"Quick, make room!" Madame Foster barked, letting her teacup shatter into a dozen shards as she reached for her cane and hastily hobbled to her stricken grandchild's side, taking complete control of the situation before the others could so much as blink.
"Please, give the her some air!" the old woman pleaded, as she doddered forward, and without a word both boy and imaginary friend scrambled back a few paces as Madame Foster gently picked up and cradled Frankie's head.
"Frankie…Frankie, dear…" she whispered, softly patting the side of her face in an effort to force the girl to come around. "Frankie….Frankie, wake up-"
No sooner had the words rolled off her tongue when as if by magic, the young woman stirred gently with a groan. After a few tense moments, Frankie's eyelids fluttered open, instantly bringing her face to face with the most frantic-looking trio she'd ever laid eyes upon.
"Frankie?" Mac asked softly as he held her hand. "Frankie, you feeling okay?"
For a second or so, she just stared at them all blankly as she waited for her horribly blurred vision to focus. The instant she was able to make out the form of her grandmother however, Frankie instantly broke out into a weak grin as she asked with polite sincerity,
"…You wouldn't happen to remember the address of that place you went to, would you, Grandma?"
The End
Minor Notes:
All references made to "The Shower Incident" was meant for one of my earlier one-shots, "Can You Spell Awkward?"
Plus, the glycolic acid was spoken of in reference to an alternate method of tattoo removal, where it's tattooed into the skin and pushes the ink to the surface of the skin - or so Wikipedia tells me.
Thanks for reading, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!