Disclaimer: I do not own Inkheart or any of its characters…and that applies for all chapters because I'm lazy.
Firefox, Basta, Violante, Balbulus and the Black Prince had gone with Elinor and Darius to the shops to get what they needed to look after the large amount of children, or Inkbabies, as they seemed to have been named.
But the rest have them had just been left in the garden.
"Kitty!" Yelled the overexcited Dustfinger, having noticed a grey cat trying to remain hidden in the bushes. He grabbed it by the tail and pulled it towards him, picking it up and stroking its fur backwards.
"Hello mister kitty!" He said happily, almost pulling its skin back off its skull as he petted it.
Several of the other children gathered around to watch, all pushing each other to pull, poke, or attempt to pet any part of the unfortunate cat they could reach. But after a few seconds they all began screaming and ran off again.
Meggie, passing a window on her way outside, glimpsed a burning cat running across the lawn and a forlorn looking ginger child sitting in a small pile of smoking fur.
When she reached the garden, Capricorn, being the sweet, innocent little 8 year old that he was, was laughing hysterically at the burning feline, and attempting to kick the Piper into Elinor's pond.
"Capricorn, stop that!" she shouted. But she realised she was too late when the Piper emerged from the pond with a goldfish on his head and glaring at Capricorn.
Meggie sighed and reached out to try and pull him out of the pond, but he pulled himself out and walked off.
"Piss off! I don't need your help!!" He shouted back, his voice sounded even stranger than it had in the Inkworld due to the fact that he had been reversed to the age of 14, and his voice was starting to break. Of all the characters that could have been turned into a stroppy teenager, it had to be him.
Well, at least some of the others had turned ages that weren't so annoying, Jacopo didn't even exist anymore, that was a relief.
"Capricorn, you shouldn't have done that, it was a very bad thing to do!" She scolded, well, it was best to at least try to discipline them, right?
"No, he's good like that!" Shouted an angry, black-haired girl. She walked over to Capricorn and squeezed him so tight he began choking. "I want him to be that way!" The 11 year old Mortola, poked Meggie in the stomach (which was the highest part of her she could reach) and went back to bothering her only 3-years-younger-than-her son.
"I'm hunnnggrryyy." She began whining. "When's dinner?"
"Later." Said Meggie coldly, glaring at Mortola. She didn't care if she was just a child right now; she still hated her as much as ever.
"Fine! I'll eat my own food then!" She grabbed a fistful off small black seeds and shoved them into her mouth.
Seconds later a small, pink, featherless bird was lying on the floor and screeching loudly.
Mortola was now nothing more than a helpless baby Magpie, a young, innocent creature that nobody would ever think of harming.
Except Meggie, who picked the noisy thing up and threw it in the same direction the burning cat had run off in.
"Yay, annoying naggy mummy lady is gone!" Capricorn applauded, smiling around at everything. However this happy, peaceful attitude was gone in seconds as he started hitting the nearest child to him round the head as hard as he could, which wasn't very.
But Meggie did nothing to stop this, as she was now running across the garden yelling
"Roxane, stop eating dirt!!"
Roxane just stuck her tongue out and went back over to Dustfinger, who was not just also eating dirt; he was cooking it, and then eating it.
"Oh my god…" Meggie wished Mo or Resa would come to her aid, but Mo was in his office and Resa, when asked for help, had just smiled and told her daughter that it was important for young girls to learn how to be mothers when they were older.
"Look, just stop eating it!!" She shouted.
"WORM PIE!" was the only response she got.
Worms and mud…she really didn't know why her mother was so upset about not having been able to look after her all those years, shouldn't it have been a blessing?
She picked Dustfinger up and carried him back towards the door; hopefully he wouldn't find anything to eat indoors now that Elinor had hidden the matchsticks.
Speak of the devil, Meggie heard the sound of wheels on gravel, Elinor and Darius were back! She ran over to the drive, not noticing that Dustfinger was now chewing on her hair.
The two adults climbed out of the car after the children, all of them had been carrying bags of shopping, with the exception of Firefox, who was just hugging a fox plushie.
"You got him a fox?" She asked, putting the young fire-eater down, and yelping when her hair got pulled on.
"Yes, we got all them something as they were so nice to help us." She said, seeming almost like a normal, kind, child-loving old lady. "Unlike all the others." She glared round at them.
Nope, still the same old Elinor.
"So, did the little brats cause much chaos while I was out?"
"Well, not much actually….well, the piper got pushed into your pond, we had to lock the Adderhead in the cellar for the time being, Mortola turned into a baby Magpie and Dustfinger's probably got about five different types of food poisoning as well as setting a cat on fire…but apart from, that, they've been almost good!"
They stared for a few seconds before deciding to just take the rest of the shopping back into the house. It was so much easier than having to think about the amount of destruction the Inkbabies were yet to bring.
A few hours later all the children had been brought into the dining room to eat. (Elinor's table had expanded somehow….maybe Mo read someone out of Harry Potter to do it; I'll let you decide how it happened for yourselves.)
So far, it wasn't going great; the Adderhead had "accidentally" dropped three plates already, the Black Prince was sulking because his Bear had to eat from a dog bowl, and Firefox, who was being constantly distracted by the name of his orange juice, kept calling Capricorn "Capri Sun" by mistake.
"Elbows off the table!" Elinor snapped for the three hundred and twenty-eighth time that evening. When would she learn that it wasn't making any difference?
"And you eat something!" She prodded Dustfinger's shoulder.
His plate was still full, but the tablecloth surrounding it was suddenly full of suspicious holes…holes surrounded with teeth marks.
Meggie sighed, please, please let them go soon!
If you didn't know what Capri Sun was, it's a type of juice. I almost typoed Capricorns name like that, which is why I put it in there .
Please review and tell me what you think! ^-^