Chapter 4, Poisonous Milk
The next day, Reggie and Angelica spent a day at the Devilles' house.
"Now you be a good girl for Betty and Howard." Said Drew, as he dropped off Angelica at the door.
"Don't worry daddy, I'll be a perfect little angel." Said Angelica, as she smiled innocently up at her father.
"And that goes for you too." Said Rhonda to Reggie.
"Don't worry mommy, like Angelica, I'll be good." Said Reggie.
Drew and Rhonda gave their kids kisses on the forehead before they left and Betty closed the door.
"The kids are in the living room Ange." Said Betty, as she went back upstairs to the office slash exercise area to finish her morning aerobics.
Angelica and Reggie went into the living room to find Phil and Lil coloring some pictures in a Reptar coloring book, and Zack was also there for the day.
"Oh, hi Angelica and Reggie." Muttered Zack as he looked up from his coloring to see the two evil ones approaching.
"Hi Zack, how goes things?" Reggie asked.
"Fine, I guess." Zack replied, before returning to his coloring.
"We're coloring Reptar pictures!" Said Phil excitedly.
"Wanna color with us?" Lil asked, as she held up some crayons.
"No, I'm not coloring with a bunch of stupid babies, I've got better things to do, like finding cookies to eat." Said Angelica, as she went off into the kitchen, thankful to find it was deserted.
Reggie followed Angelica into the kitchen, where he reached up to a top shelf in the cubbard and pulled down a box of cookies. The two bullies sat down at a table and started munching on the cookies while coming up with a strategy to injur Phil and Lil, and possibly
Zack, since they had another shot of hurting him, which failed the previous day, despite leaving a mark on everyone else.
"So Angelica, ready to bully more babies today?" Reggie asked in between bites of cookies.
"You bet I am. I certainly wanna get Phil and Lil after they fed me dog biskits." Said Angelica.
"Oh? And when did they feed you dog biskits?" Reggie asked.
"Remember how the other day I told you about the time I ran away from home?" Angelica asked.
Reggie nodded, as he put another cookie into his mouth.
"Well, I told the babies to go into the kitchen and get me some cookies. Well they did, but after finding out where they came from, I soon learned they had fed me dog biskits. This left me royally angry, and I found out that Phil and Lil actually liked eating those things." Said Angelica.
"Wow! Very interesting. What else do they like?" Reggie asked.
"Well they like to eat bugs, mud and worms. And oh yeah, back when I attended my cousin Tommy's firstest birthday party, he didn't want cake and ice cream, he wanted dog food. Don't ask me now why I went along with his stupid plan, but in the end, we all ate the dog food, which I didn't like, but Phil and Lil, did." Said Angelica.
"And have they done anything in the time you've known them that you'd like to get back at them for?" Reggie asked.
"Oh have they ever! One time, I spent the day playing here, but Phil and Lil would only play with each other. So I told them about favorites and rejects. Another time, Lil wanted to be different, so she decided to try to act like me. The short version of that story? She's terrible at it, and would rather be nice. What an idiot. And then, after we went to Paris, I met some big kids at the park. They thought Phil was cute, so they agreed to let me play with them if I let them play with one of the babies. In exchanging of having Phil play with us, I said I'd be nice to the babies forever. Well all those stupid babies wanted was everyone to play mud pie factory, and Phil was their best patter or something. In the end, they didn't care about me being nice to them, they just wanted disgusting old Phil back. Well, if they don't care about my being so nice, then maybe they'd be happy if they never saw Phil and Lil again! After all, they're gross and always arguing. Yep, the world would be a lot better off without Phil and Lil around." Said Angelica.
Reggie was grinning from ear to ear, amazed at Angelica's ambition.
"Ok Angelica, you tell me that Phil and Lil like to eat strange and unusual things. Do you know if they've ever tried drinking any of the stuff from under neath the kitchen sink?" Reggie asked.
"What do you mean?" Angelica asked.
"Well, we all know that growed ups hide stuff they take away from us on the top shelf of the upstairs closet, but beneath the kitchen sink, they keep unsafe products for cleaning. That's why they're latched shut with those special locks that they think we can't undo. However, I know how to undo those with a snap and get into unsafe cleaning products." Said Reggie.
"So you're saying that if we convince Phil and Lil to drink something dangerous, they'll disappear forever?" Angelica asked.
"Maybe, but there's only one way to find out. Come on." Said Reggie, as he got up from the kitchen table, and went over to the cabinets beneath the sink.
No sooner did he have the child proof lock undone on the cabinets and was glancing at the products inside, when he found just what he was looking for. A bottle of Clorox Bleech. He pulled it out on to the floor, unscrewed the cap, and showed it to Angelica.
"See this? Growed ups use this stuff to clean the toilet." Said Reggie, showing Angelica the bottle of bleech.
"Well, Phil and Lil do like to drink out of the potty." Said Angelica.
"Then it's settled then. Today at nap time, you feed them their bottles, which will be filled with this stuff, which, does look like milk, and they'll be going down for a very long nap." Said Reggie, as he glaired an evil glair at Angelica.
"Hmmm, that's not a bad idea!" Said Angelica, as she smiled evilly back at him.
They then, got operation poisonous bottles ready. Since Reggie was taller, he reached up to the cabinets above the counter, where he found the baby bottles were kept. He found a blue one for Phil and a pink one for Lil. He also found a white one for Zack.
"Hey, wait a minute, I thought we were only giving this stuff to Phil and Lil." Said Angelica, noticing the three bottles on the counter.
"Hey, why not give this stuff to Zack too. He seems to be the one who can't stand our meanies the most. Get rid of him, and you'll be free to rule the world." Said Reggie.
Angelica liked the sound of that. And it was true, ever since she had met Zack not long after her cousin Tommy had been struck with The Gray Plague roughly a year ago now, he did seem the least tolerable of her bullyings, making it more difficult to pick on him and get away with it. She couldn't even call them dumb babies without him back talking to her every single time.
"That's it, it's time, to get rid of Zack." Angelica thought to herself, as she and Reggie filled the baby bottles up to the top with the bleech, then put on the nipples.
Once the bottles were prepared, they hid them in the backpacks they had brought with them so that nobody would find them. After everybody had lunch, and Betty took Phil, Lil, and Zack upstairs to put them down for their nap, she realized she forgot their bottles downstairs.
"Oh dear I forgot to fix the babies hot milk." Said Betty, as she tucked Phil and Lil into their toddler beds that they slept in now, and Zack into a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor.
"I can get them Misses Deville." Said Angelica, who was standing at the door and overheard Betty's comment.
"Thank you ange." Said Betty.
"Yes." Angelica thought to herself, as she went downstairs, got the bottles out of her backpack, and went back up to the babies room, where she handed Betty the bottles.
"Here you go." Said Angelica.
Betty gave the bottles to each of the babies, told them to have a nice nap, and left the room. Phil and Lil started drinking their bottles immediately, only for Lil to stop.
"This milk don't taste the same." Said Lil.
"Yeah, it taste different." Added Phil, who stopped drinking right after Lil did.
"Babies, it's new milk that your mommy just bought for you at the store. And, you'd better drink every last drop if you wanna have sweet dreams during your nap." Lied Angelica.
"You know, come to think of it, this milk tastes like the potty! Yeah! I'll drink it Angelica." Said Phil, as he put the bottle back into his mouth.
Lil followed, but Zack hadn't drunk an ounce. Uninterested in back talking to Angelica, as he was still pretty mad at her for what she had done the previous day at the beach, he quietly snuck out of the bedroom into the bathroom, where he poured the contents of his bottle out into the toilet, flushed it, then returned to Phil and Lil's room with an empty bottle. Angelica happened to look down and noticed that Zack had returned.
"Oh, finished already little baby boo?" Angelica asked teasingly.
"Don't talk to me like that Angelica, and yes, I'm finished." Said Zack, as he lay down in his sleeping bag, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
Soon after, Phil and Lil had emptied the contents of their bottles, unaware that they had swallowed a poisonous substance at this point. Once Angelica had seen that all of the babies were asleep, she left the room and went off to find Reggie, who was down in the living room, watching a Reptar DVD and coloring pictures in a Reptar coloring book.
"Well, operation poisoning babies, is complete." Said Angelica, as she took a seat on the couch next to Reggie.
As the afternoon wore on, Reggie and Angelica silently enjoyed one another's company, as they colored in coloring books and watched TV. When the twins hadn't awakened though after a couple of hours, Howard, who had come home from work early that day to take a half day of holiday time he needed to use up, went in to check on the twins, only to notice their heads felt really warm.
"Uh, Betty, you might wanna get in here." Cried Howard.
"What is it Howie?" Betty asked, as she came charging quickly into the room.
"I think Phil and Lil might be sick." Said Howard.
Betty felt their foreheads to notice they felt warm, and they did seem unresponsive. She then took their temperature to find they had very high fevers.
"Oh my gosh Howie you're right! I'd better see if Stu and Didi will take Zack, Reggie and Angelica while we take the twins to the hospital." Said Betty, as she ran off to give them a call.
Turns out Stu and Didi had to go out, but that grandpa Lou was there watching the boyds, so Betty rounded up Reggie, Angelica and Zack, and had Didi run by to pick them up so she and Howard could take the twins to the hospital.
"I hope Phil and Lil are going to be ok." Said Didi.
"Awe I'm sure they'll be fine, they're probably just, dehydrated from all of this hot weather we've been having lately." Said Betty, as she rushed out to the car carrying a twin in each arm, Howard staggering out the door behind her, as they got into the car, and rushed out of the driveway quicker than one could do the tango.
Didi carried Zack and led Angelica and Reggie by the hand back over to her house, taking them into the living room, where as usual, grandpa Lou was asleep in a chair, and his fishing show was on the TV.
"Now you kids be good. And don't go waking up Tommy and Dil, I just put them down upstairs for their nap." Said Didi, as she then left the house and joined Stu in the car to go run their Aarons.
While Zack was a bit disappointed, Reggie and Angelica didn't seem to mind, since they had already left their mark on them. Yet though, while the boring fishing show carried on on the television, Angelica couldn't help but notice a feeling of unpleasantness wash over her. However, she couldn't figure out why.
Reggie pulled out a Captain Squash coloring book from his backpack and kept himself busy, while Angelica was lost in thought, trying to figure out why she felt so awful. Even glancing over at Reggie every so often, and noticing that he'd look up and smile at her every once in a while didn't seem to help the bad feeling go away. Zack found Tommy's toy electronic laptop on the floor, put on the Super Why game, and played with it for a while. He picked that game since Tommy was out of sight, and it's the one game on his toy he'd never be caught dead playing if his life depended on it. Yet though, Zack had the same toy back home, and on his electric toy laptop, the Super Why game was his absolute favorite!
Later that night, after Zack had gone home, Reggie had been picked up by his mother and went back to his uncle's, and Angelica was sitting down with her parents at dinner, Charlotte received a call on her cell phone from Betty.
"Yes?" Charlotte said into the phone.
Minutes of silence passed as Angelica slowly ate the chicken and rice that lay before her on her dinner plate, being quiet and not making much eye contact or conversation with one another.
"Oh that's wonderful, I'm glad they're going to be ok. And I've invited everybody to come to the lunchon on Friday if interested. It's the day after tomorrow if you find that the twins are feeling better and are up to coming." Said Charlotte into the phone.
More silence passed, before Charlotte wrapped up the phone call with Betty.
"Ok, bye." Said Charlotte, as she hung up her phone.
"What was that all about?" Drew asked.
"Oh that was Betty Deville checking in. Apparently Phil and Lil had drunk some bleech and had to have their stomachs pumped at the hospital. She tells me they got there just in time." Said Charlotte.
"Are they ok?" Drew asked.
"They seem to be fine now, but they're still running fevers. Betty's gonna keep them indoors and have them take it easy tomorrow." Said Charlotte.
The two adults noticed that Angelica seemed unusually quiet that night.
"You're unusually quiet tonight Princess, something wrong?" Drew asked out of concern.
Angelica just looked up at her father, forced a smile and nodded before returning to the chicken on her plate.
"Well, you'll get to play with your new little playmate again tomorrow, uh, what's his name again?" Drew asked.
"Reggie." Angelica replied.
"Oh yes, you and Reggie, will get to go play tomorrow at Chuckie and Kimi's house. Won't that be fun?" Drew asked.
Angelica gulped. She now realized why she felt so miserable. But then, she'd remember that she'd be getting a tasty ice cream prize at the end of the week if she continued to follow Reggie's orders. But seriously? Having to be with Chuckie and Kimi for the day? Sure she's always picked on Chuckie in the past, but what she's done so far this week to Tommy, Dil, Jesse, Phil and Lil was far worse than anything she's ever done before she met Reggie. Even almost getting that mean French lady Coco to marry Chaz and become Chuckie's new mommy when they went to Paris didn't even compare to the stuff that Reggie has had her do this week. But then her mind would drift off to all of those times she tricked the babies to get what she wanted, only for it to fail. All of those times they back talked to her, didn't believe what she said, and when she'd get blamed for messes the babies made. She then looked up at her parents after finishing her plate.
"Mommy, daddy, may I be excused?" Angelica asked.
Noticing she had cleaned her plate, her parents looked at their daughter.
"Well don't you want dessert Angelica?" Charlotte asked.
"No." Angelica replied, as she stood up from her place at the table.
This shocked both of her parents. It was not like Angelica to turn down dessert, but deep down, Angelica didn't feel she deserved any dessert.
"I'm fine, I guess, I'm just, really tired from my playdate today with Phil and Lil. Well, night night." Said Angelica, as she yawned and headed up to bed, where she slipped into her pajamas, grabbed up her Cynthia doll, slumped down on her bed, buried her face in her pillow, and quietly cried herself to sleep.
And this, ends chaptrer 4. What will happen the next day at the Finsters? The answer, will be revealed in chapter 5.