3/10/12 –

Okay, I'm here. Again. Sooooo, here we go. This part is about Trouble and Foaly. For all those who don't remember and/or don't feel like looking back to see what they were doing, I'll just refresh your memories now. Trouble and Foaly were told to go down to the creek to get a bucket of water and some large stones to use to make a ring around the soon-to-be campfire.

And now, thank you to:

Luna Kelly

2whitie

Nathaniel

Harry Artemis Jackson

LEPrecon

WolfButler

Captain Holly Short 16,or as I hear you go by now, The Black Rose 98

bkaddictjk

Hope Diamond

sunfall

LunaLovegood167

Troublelover16

BLURPENSKIRF boom

For the reviews. Also to:

The Black Rose 98 – for making me a Favorite Author AND putting this on Story Alert.

SirGambit – for putting this on Story Alert.

ilovemybunnyrabbit – for making this a Favorite Story

DarkeRose – for putting this on Story Alert.

LunaLovegood167 – for making this a Favorite Story AND making me a Favorite Author

Troublelover16 – for making this a Favorite Story AND putting this on Story Alert.

BLURPENSKIRF boom– for making this a Favorite Story

You people make me smile (and get up to check my e-mail). I hope to hear from you all soon!

DISCLAIMER: I own a laptop, not a criminal mastermind.

Okay, here comes the part that you all actually care about!


Trouble and Foaly were currently walking alongside a creek at the campsite. The creek surrounded the whole camp, and eventually led into a lake. It was generally shallow, only about a foot deep in most places. Although, in some places, the creek would drop off without warning, producing depths of eight to ten feet. Foaly and Trouble realized this after wading in what they thought was shallow water, then spotting a large catfish lazily swimming around in seven foot deep water about ten paces to their left. This was the reason that they were walking next to the creek, not in it.

Trouble and Foaly both looked like humans. Trouble now resembled a tall, thin man in his late twenties with short, messy, dark brown hair. He still had purple eyes. He was wearing a black and red Nike's muscle shirt, black and red swim trunks, and flip-flops. Foaly looked the same as he did in the car, except now he was also wearing flip-flops and had on green and black swim trunks instead of jeans. They had already gotten a few buckets of water and dropped them back off at the camp. They currently had four more buckets to fill with big rocks, which was what they were looking for now.

Trouble, now bored after walking so far and finding nothing, began to lob one of his empty pails higher and higher, seeing how many times he could make it flip in the air before catching it.

"You know, eventually that's going to get stuck in a tree if you keep throwing it that high," commented Foaly, his eyes following the plastic container's path in the sky.

"It'll be fine," Trouble replied, tossing the bucket even higher into the trees to prove Foaly wrong. He put out his hands to catch it when it came back down.

It didn't come back down.

"Told you," smirked Foaly.

The bucket's handle was caught on a branch, which would have been fine, had said branch not have been twenty feet above their heads.

"Just shut up and help me get it down," said Trouble, scooping up a few stones.

Trouble regained possession of his bucket seven minutes and thirty five throws later.

"Impressive," said Foaly, surveying the bucket's fourteen new dents.

"You know," said Trouble, sticking his hand inside the pail to pop out the dents, "at least half of these dents are from the rocks you threw."

"Which I wouldn't have needed to throw if you hadn't gotten the thing stuck in a tree in the first place," countered Foaly.

"Hey, look, there are some rocks," said Trouble, hastily changing the subject.

"Where?" asked Foaly, looking around.

"Across the creek. See them under the water?" said Trouble, pointing to them.

"Oh," said Foaly. He took three steps into the creek to cross, and the water immediately rose up to his knees.

"Okay," he said, as he backed out. "We're not going that way."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," replied Trouble, searching for another route. A few seconds later, he found one. "Let's go that way."

A yard away was a fallen tree. It basically made a bridge across the deep part of the creek. It was just about as thick as an adult human foot. Plus, the tree forked out at the beginning of the side of the creek that they were on, so two people could walk on it at once.

"Are you crazy!" exclaimed Foaly. "I'm still getting used to walking on two feet! I can't walk across that!"

"Do you have a better idea?" Trouble asked, putting one foot on the left side of the fork to test its strength.

"Yes, actually," answered Foaly. "We could walk ten feet to that shallow part and cross there."

"No, I'm already on the log. You can be a baby and go over there if you want to."

Foaly didn't appreciate being called a baby, but there was no way he was going to embarrass himself by probably having to crawl across that tree.

"I will," said Foaly, walking towards the shallow stretch of the creek. "Have fun on your slippery little bridge."

"It's not slippery," said Trouble, moonwalking across the limb to show off to Foaly. Not that Foaly was watching. Foaly was already halfway across the creek.

A disadvantage of moonwalking was that Trouble was walking backwards, so he couldn't see the spot on the log that had recently been splashed with water due to the day's high winds.

"D'ARVIT!"Trouble screamed as he slipped.

Foaly heard the curse followed by a very loud splash, and turned to find Trouble submerged up to his chin. He would have gone all the way under, but he had fallen to the right, in between the two branches of the fork, and had flung out his arms on the way down to catch himself.

"Nice job," snickered Foaly, almost falling into the creek from laughing so hard.

"Shut . . . up . . . Ponyboy," grunted Trouble, hoisting himself out of the water and onto the log, then crawling across. He was completely drenched.

Foaly continued to laugh while Trouble walked over. With every step, Trouble vigorously shook whatever leg he was lifting, trying in vain to dry off. Foaly laughed until he ran out of air. Then Trouble punched him.

"Just pick up the rocks and let's get out of here. I need to change. It's really cold."

"Now who's the baby?" asked Foaly, earning a glare from Trouble, who was too busy picking up rocks to hit him.

With Trouble's new motive for collecting rocks at top speed, they had filled up three buckets with good-sized stones in only fifteen minutes. Then Foaly flipped over large rock in the creek.

"D'ARVIT!" he yelled, dropping the rock and jumping back in shock.

"What?" asked Trouble, wading over. "Whoa!"

Sticking out from under the stone that Foaly had dropped was a crawfish claw that was at least the length of his pinkie finger. They had encountered a few before, but this was by far the biggest.

"Should we try to catch it?" asked Trouble.

"NO! Why would we try?" asked Foaly.

"Because, nobody will believe that we saw one this big unless they see it themselves," said Trouble matter-of-factly.

"Fine," relented Foaly. "One try."

"Okay," said Trouble. "Get that bucket. Oh, and Foaly?"

"What?" he asked, coming back with the bucket.

"Do you know how to catch a crawfish?"

Foaly sighed.

"Do I know how to catch a crawfish? I've patented countless inventions, outsmarted Opal Koboi more than once, and helped save the world on multiple occasions, and you don't know if I know how to do something as simple as catch a crawfish?"

"I was looking for a 'yes' or 'no' answer," said Trouble.

"Yes," said Foaly. Then he muttered, "My genius is so unappreciated."

"So, what do I do?" asked Trouble.

"Pick up a stone or something. I'm going to hold this bucket behind the crawfish. What people don't know is that crawfish swim backwards. When you jab the stone down in front of it, you'll scare it, and it will launch itself backwards, into the bucket. Simple."

"Okay," said Trouble, picking up a stone, then carefully overturning the rock that the crawfish was hiding under. "Ready?"

"Yep," said Foaly, standing behind the animal and lining up the bucket. "And . . . NOW!"

Trouble slammed the rock down. True to Foaly's prediction, the crawfish catapulted backwards towards the bucket. It would have gone in, but Foaly hadn't set the bucket down completely, and the crawfish went under it. Thinking it went inside, Foaly lifted the bucket out of the water.

"Hey," he said, confused. "Where'd it go?"

"It's on your foot!" said Trouble.

Foaly screamed and jumped out of the creek, kicking the creature off his foot, where it scampered under another rock.

Now it was Trouble's turn to crack up.

"You scream like a pixie," he laughed, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Shut up, crawfish are creepy," said Foaly, pouting. "Three buckets of rocks is enough. If not, Myles will make it work. He's a genius, too. Let's go."

When they got back to camp, Trouble was still soaking wet, but he was still laughing. The tents were pitched, but one looked like it had duct tape on it. Trouble and Foaly turned into fairies again.

"Here are the rocks," called Foaly to the twins.

They squealed with delight and ran over. They took the buckets with the stone and sat down in the grass, dumping them all out and getting to work. Butler and Juliet walked over. The humans and fairies looked at each other curiously for a second.

"Why does that tent have duct tape on it?" asked Foaly.

At the same time, Butler and Juliet asked their questions.

"Why were you laughing?" Juliet asked Trouble.

"Why are you dripping wet?" asked Butler.

Upon hearing each other's questions, everyone's faces darkened.

"I don't want to talk about it," they all answered in unison.


And there you have it. Chapter 3. Typed up all nice. And . . . I didn't even mess up my manicure while doing it! YAY! I'm trying and failing miserably to make the chapters go in some sort of chronological order because eventually it looks like they'll all loop together, like Trouble and Foaly getting back to camp with the Butlers and the twins. Unfortunately, most of the things that go on with the other pairs happen simultaneously, so I'll try to give you a heads-up in the beginning of the next chapters for the timing. I'm planning that the next chapter will either be about Mulch and No1 or Myles and Beckett.

I apologize for mistakes, once more, it's 11 pm, and I'm trying to proofread and watch Jack and Jill at the same time. Jack and Jill is getting more of my attention.

Okay, so, um, review please. I'll mention you in the next chapter's author's note if you do! I always like to see new names!

It's that time again. Spring Ahead. Grrrr. One less hour of sleep. Now, how does that help anyone? I mean, really! I can already feel myself getting into a bad mood.

That's it for now.

Sayonara, Sweethearts :-P