Tuddrussel walked down the corridors to Larry's room. He didn't really want to go, but if he wanted to talk about the things that had been going on, he wanted it done privately. Tuddrussel was perfectly able to talk to Larry about their situation over Otto; they had done it before, when he first appeared into their lives.
"I don't want him to think he can just do what he pleases, he's only here for a trial, and honestly he's already starting to wear thin on my patience."
The memory of Larry's harsh tone of voice echoed through Tuddrussel's mind. It was almost two years ago when that happened, he thought. A lot of things had changed since then, there was no doubt about that. He found it really funny how Larry was so uptight about Otto at first, considering him as only a liability and not an asset. It almost seemed unreal that Larry would be so different now, and with himself, he realized that his attitude had changed too. He did care for Otto, even if didn't think about it much or showed it at the best of times. But he tried to show that by just talking to Larry about it all, and that was good enough for him.
Tuddrussel went to Larry's door and knocked on it. "Come in." Larry called. Tuddrussel sighed, putting his best foot forward he pressed the button to Larry's door and went in. Tuddrussel cringed at the sight of the décor, purple and pink dominated the area with a vengeance. Practically having forgotten how vivid Larry liked his things he almost regretted asking to talk in here, but he couldn't back out of it now.
"Well, don't just stand there, sit down." Larry said. He had just put on a rosy pink robe, tightening the sash uneasily as Tuddrussel gawked. Tuddrussel mumbled under his breath as he took a seat from the one chair that didn't have lace or other frills on it and sat down. "So, how was he?" Tuddrussel asked.
Larry turned away from him, walking to the door to type in the lock code.
"Hmm- well, he's calmed down from what had happened, and other than being a little moody I think he's okay for now." Tuddrussel slouched in the chair. Larry typed in the code quickly and turned back around to have a seat on the fainting couch so he could see Tuddrussel directly across from him.
"So, where do we begin?" Larry asked. An uncomfortable silence followed with the grandfather clock's ticking being the only audible sound in the room. It was irritating to Larry. Tuddrussel shifted his eyes away from Larry's soft blue glare and tried to focus on the tiles, the Persian rugs, and the sewing basket- anything but the robot. Larry stared at him, waiting for some response. "Well?" Larry asked. Tuddrussel narrowed his eyes back to Larry's gaze.
Tuddrussel rested his head on his knuckle and asked plainly, "Larry, what are we doing here?"
Larry shifted in his seat, unnerved by Tuddrussel he scoffed, "What do you think? You didn't want to have this conversation in the kitchen"-
"No, I mean what are we tryin' to pull? This looks stupid."
"Stupid? Now that's a laugh!"
"Larry . . . "
"I'm sorry. But I don't see how trying to hatch an intervention on a child could be considered anything of the sort." Silence fell on them once again. Seconds seemed like minutes before Tuddrussel managed to blurt something out.
"You know, when we first agreed to keep him, we said it wouldn't get weird." Tuddrussel said.
"Excuse me?"
"Remember? After we brought him back, and let him stay here, we talked about how things weren't going to get weird. We weren't going to get attached or anything. He was just here to tell us how to do our job. Well ya' know, Larry, things have gotten weird. I mean, look at us! We're actually talking about him, as if we cared about him like he was important!"
"Well he is!" Larry replied.
"I know! That's what I'm gettin' at!" Tuddrussel shouted. Larry sat straight up, looking absolutely confused. Tuddrussel frowned, quietly adding, " Did you think you'd actually care about the little pipsqueak when he came?"
Larry was unsure of how to answer that. "Well, I-I suppose not." He guiltily admitted. "He was such a handful, running about and touching everything, always asking questions, talking incessantly . . . he just sort of grew on me I guess." Larry turned away, embarrassed. "And what about you? You can't possibly say that he hasn't had the same effect on you too."
"Yeah, you could say that I'm fond of the kid." Tuddrussel admitted, lifting his head up and smiled. "He's got a lot of nerve, ya' know? " Frowning again, he abruptly stood up and walked away from Larry and went over to the window, looking at the vastness that was outer space. Larry was perplexed about the strange behavior that Tuddrussel has shown. He got up and walked over to Tuddrussel and nervously placed a hand on his shoulder. "So do you."
"Yeah, he gets it from me!" Tuddrussel said, humoring himself.
"Tsk- don't flatter yourself." Larry replied severely.
Tuddrussel placed his hand on Larry's, looking uneasily away from him and concentrated on the rather dull scenery from outside the window. "Like I said, things have gotten weird." Moving Larry's hand off he turned to look at him, whose worried face seemed glued to Tuddrussel's every movement. Tuddrussel held Larry's hand and sighed. "We've had him for almost two years now, and look what's happened to us. It's kinda crazy, don't cha think?"
Larry let go of Tuddrussel's hand and drew the curtain to the window. "I agree that it's a bit surreal now that you mention it. And maybe we have treated Otto far different from we had planned." Larry said calmly. "But it's for the best, I think."
"Sure, right. For the best." Tuddrussel stumbled in agreement.
Larry, who knew it would be unwise, felt compelled to ask Tuddrussel about what had happened between him and Otto before.
"Tuddrussel." Larry said. Tuddrussel looked down at him as he spoke his name.
"I just want to know, about earlier, what made you change your mind about him?" Larry asked. Tuddrussel turned away, quietly mumbling something that was unintelligible. Larry stepped back from him, fearful that Tuddrussel would yell at him. Tuddrussel rolled his eyes, not at all happy with Larry's question.
"I don't know. I really don't. I guess when we found him again and he just started saying sorry about this and that, and making promises about being good and letting me do whatever, it really made me feel for him. But when he saw what was going on, and how bent out of shape he got over it I thought he was just being really jealous over nothin' and dramatic, to the point I was thinking about just dumping him back at the orphanage for another hour, it seemed to work for a little while before." Tuddrussel sheepishly admitted with a rather bad taste in his mouth. Larry's irked expression told Tuddrussel what he thought about that. He cringed as Larry commented with sarcasm, "Oh, well I'm sure that would have gone over well!" Tuddrussel didn't defend, only added on with-
"Yeah, not real smart. I even said a few things about that aloud later, while just blowing off some steam in the gym. I didn't know Otto was around to hear and he caught some of that." Larry covered his face with his hand, he could feel a migraine kicking in, he wished that he hadn't asked. "Great, just great." Larry said.
"I'm not exactly proud of that if you're wanting me to admit it." Tuddrussel stammered out. " But anyway, when he finally just broke and let me have it, it made me feel pretty lousy. And the rest is history I guess." Tuddrussel turned back to look at Larry to ask, "You didn't tell him about those other orphans, did you?"
"No, I thought we were going to keep that quiet." Larry said.
"Well the cat's out of the bag, when I talked to him he got on to me about it." Tuddrussel said with resentment. "Must of been that Columbus guy, damn explorers" Tuddrussel trailed off into silence.
"Hmm- well, hasn't this been a fine day." Larry said dryly "I suppose were just going to have to give him the facts whether or not he needs to know them then."
"I guess so." Tuddrussel said as he backed away from Larry, very much tired he went back to the chair hoping try to get this over with soon.
"Tuddrussel, there's something I need to ask." Larry said ominously. He crossed his arms, walking slowly back to Tuddrussel.
"About what?" Tuddrussel asked. Larry shot a concerned look at Tuddrussel, making him sink into the chair in fear.
Larry sat down on the fainting couch. "This is difficult to explain, and I hardly understand any of this. In fact, I feel that I need to ask you a few questions about earlier tonight, you don't mind?"
Tuddrussel shrugged, he thought there was nothing to hide by now. "Shoot."
Larry was pleased, for now. "I know I've asked this before, but I want you to be more concise about it. What were you doing with Otto's scrap book earlier?"
Tuddrussel raised an eyebrow. "Nothin'. I was just looking at it. You were why shouldn't I? You were making a big deal about it and I was just curious."
Larry fidgeted with his fingers, making soft clinging sounds that seemed loud to Tuddrussel's ears within the still silence. "Will you knock that off?" Tuddrussel grumbled. Larry immediately stopped to ask another question.
"You weren't planning to do anything to it?"
"Nah., like I said, I was curious and wanted to look." Larry nodded in understanding.
"Okay. Did you happen to take anything out?" Larry asked cautiously.
"No." Tuddrussel answered affirmatively. He eyed the robot with suspicion now, wondering why that mattered.
"Why do you ask?"
Larry was beginning to grow anxious of this conversation, he didn't want to continue any further but he had gone too far to stop now. "Well when I went to get the album there were several pictures that had fallen out on the chair and surrounding floor, but there was also this one lone photo across the room." Larry paused, watching Tuddrussel as he grew more suspicious of Larry, his eye brows furrowed in question as to where the conversation was leading. "It had looked like it been stepped on, and I was wondering if you had looked at it." Larry tried to off handedly mention it, seeing if Tuddrussel was guilty of taking the picture out. Tuddrussel had an idea of Larry was talking about now, but very confused to why that picture mattered for discussion. "Oh, that? I was flipping through the book and it fell out, I tried to pick it up but Otto was coming and so I just stepped on it." Tuddrussel said nonchalantly.
"So you didn't look at it?" Larry asked.
"No, I didn't." Tuddrussel replied. "Lar, what are you gettin' at?"
Larry grew still, if he were human he'd look absolutely pale with fear.
"It was a picture of his parents." Larry said quietly. Tuddrussel's eyes widened.
"What?" Tuddrussel managed to say.
Larry stood up and began to walk around the room. He couldn't bare to sit still any longer. "I know I shouldn't feel this way, I mean it was in there. If Otto didn't want anyone to see it, he wouldn't have put it there, right? But after all this fuss with him I feel so terrible about it. And the fact that he's never talked about them, it just came as such as a big shock. I just wanted to know if you saw it."
"I had no idea." Tuddrussel said.
Relieved to know that Tuddrussel hadn't done anything wrong, Larry's gears from within slowed down as he relaxed a bit. "Well that's a load off my mind. I was afraid you were going to do something horrible with it!" Larry exclaimed. Having blurted this out, Larry immediately realized how bad that sounded and regretted it. Tuddrussel glared at Larry. "You are so lucky that I don't have the energy to kick your metal butt right now, you really thought I'd do something like that to Otto?"
"Excuse my rudeness, but can you blame me for thinking that? I hope Otto doesn't think the same thing for your sake, and if he does ask you just say that you don't have any idea about what he's talking about, got it?"
Tuddrussel sighed, leaning back and looked up at the ceiling he said, "Un freakin' believable, well I'll tell him I didn't see it, because it's true, but what about you? You just gonna say that you didn't ether?"
"I suppose I'll have to won't I?" Larry said. Tuddrussel yawned, looking up at the clock he tried to excuse himself from this conversation that clearly had gone South.
"Are we close to ending this? All this talk is getting old."
"Oh shut it, Tuddrussel." Larry snapped at him. Tuddrussel popped his knuckles, saying, "Hey, no offense, I'm just getting tired and I've been wondering about all this, do you really think that we're helping Otto instead of just making it worse?"
"Well, we've got to try." Larry said. "Buck, he's a child that obviously has needs for a family that's not going to disappear on him, I think we could at least manage to give him reason to believe that we can provide him that."
"Yeah, sense his last crack at one didn't turn out so well."
"You leave them out of this. Really Tuddrussel, have some respect." Larry said, scowling. He waved his hand in a motion as if to say "forget it" and continued on. "Well what's done is done; I think it would be best to retire for the night, I think we've embarrassed ourselves quite enough for one day."
Even Larry was starting to feel overheated from all of this, very much tired he sought to end the conversation very soon for both his and Tuddrussel's sake.
"I suppose we can both agree to never talk about this meeting, right?" Larry said with a twinge of anxiety. Tuddrussel nodded. "Right."
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Otto fumbled around in the drawer that Larry kept the adhesives in for all occasions. He found the roll of invisible scotch tape, which was good enough, and honestly the least messy of his options.
He had originally thought about just fixing his scrap book at a later time, but after calming himself down again and being hungry he decided to just get a bunch of chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen. While hap hazardly getting the package down from the pantry he considered the prospect of getting the job done and just worry about hiding the book tomorrow. So there he was in the art room rummaging through glue and tape hoping he wouldn't get caught. He didn't know where Tuddrussel and Larry were, and he liked it that way for the time being. He put the tape in his pocket and grabbed the plastic bag of cookies that he left on the easel and quickly headed back to his room. He went in half expecting Tuddrussel to be in the room, but he still hadn't come back. Relieved, Otto dragged the book out from under the bed and sat down on the edge crossed legged with the book laying secure between his legs. Opening the book he set to work on it while grabbing a cookie to eat. Flipping through it casually, he planned on taking his time.
-END OF PART 1 OF CHAPTER 4-