Chapter 6: Washing Up Before Supper

All the talk about cooking reminded Lana about the pot she'd put on the stove. She flew down and opened it up as she took a sip of what she was making.

The seven children then walked out and sniffed.

"SOUP!" They called out and rushed down. They then sat down and fought over the bread, except Dick, who was fighting to try and get a seat.

"Uh-uh-uh." Lana said, before anyone could have a bite. "Wait a moment. Supper's not quite ready yet, so you'll have just enough time to wash."

"Wash?" Everyone asked. They'd only washed about once a week as that seemed enough.

"I knew there was a catch." Rachel muttered.

"Why do we have to wash?" Jaime asked the gang in low voices, so Starfire wouldn't hear.

"We're not going anywhere." Barbara said.

"It's not New Year or Christmas." Mia agreed.

"Oh, have you washed already?" Lana asked.

"Uh… Yes." Mia said.

"Okay, when?" Lana asked with her hands on her hips.

"When?" Mia asked. "When? Um… Last week, no month, no I mean… Recently."

"Yes." They all said. "Recently."

"Oh, recently." Lana said with a coy smile. "Then let me see your hands."

They all gulped and held their hands behind their backs.

"Let me see your hands." Lana said firmly as if she was their mother.

Mia sighed and removed his gloves to show fairly dirty hands.

"Why Mia." Lana said. "I'm surprised at you."

"Ah… Well…" Mia said nervously.

"Come on, let's see them." Lana said, and Jaime showed fairly dirty hands.

"Oh Jaime." Lana sighed. "And you, Conner?"

Conner then showed his hands to be among the dirtiest ones so far.

"Tch, tch, tch." Lana said.

Before she got to her, Barbara rubbed her hands against her pants and showed them to her, sure that it would work.

"It's worse than I thought." Lana said as she looked at Barbara's extra dirty hands.

Dick eagerly took off his gloves to show her, and they were, maybe the cleanest, but still very dirty.

Megan then showed her hands, and for someone who spent most of their day using telekinesis over hands, it was hard to believe how dirty they'd gotten.

"How shocking!" Lana exclaimed before Megan looked down and hid her hands behind her back. "This'll never do. Now you kids go straight outside and wash, or you will not get a bite to eat."

"Let's go." Mia said dejectedly.

Everyone except Rachel left, with Dick slamming into wall because he was looking more at Lana.

"Well," Lana asked. "Aren't you going to wash?"

Rachel just turned his head away. Who did she think she was, her mother? She was only a few years older than her.

"What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" Lana asked with a smile, and Rachel just walked out to get away from her for a few minutes.

She then ended up slamming her face into a door.

"Oh, did you hurt yourself?" Lana asked, but Rachel just kept walking until she was out of the house. "Aliens!" She muttered.

()()()()()

"Okay guys, courage." Mia said. "Don't be nervous."

"Are we really gonna do this?" Jaime asked.

"Well, it'll please Starfire." Mia said.

"I'm sure she has our best interests at heart." Barbara said.

"Me too." Everyone else agreed.

"I'm telling you guys," Rachel said. "Give that girl an inch, and she'll walk all over you."

"Ah, don't listen to that sour puss." Mia said dismissively. "Come on, guys."

"How hard should we scrub?" Conner asked.

"Will our fingers shrink?" Megan asked with a yawn.

"Should we get in the tub?" Dick asked.

"Should we wash where it doesn't show?" Jaime asked.

"Now don't get excited, here we go." Mia explained.

Step up to the tub.

It's not a disgrace.

Just pull up your sleeves,

And get 'em in place.

Then scoop up the water,

And rub it on your face,

And go, blurb, blurb, blurb!

Mia went first to demonstrate, and everyone else did as she did.

Pick up the soap,

Now don't try to bluff.

Work up a lather,

And when you get enough,

Get a handful of water.

You snout and you snout,

And so, blurb, blurb, blurb.

Get doused and soused.

Rub and scrub.

Splutter and splash all over the tub.

You may be cold and wet when you're done,

But you've gotta admit, it's gonna be fun.

A fly came around Megan and she tricked it into going onto the soap where it ended up looking like Santa clause because of the suds.

So splash with all your might.

It's not any trick.

As soon as you're through,

You'll feel mighty slick.

"You bunch of nanny goats make me sick going, blurb, blurb, blurb!" Rachel stated.

They then washed up their hair after washing their hands and faces as they figured they should do it right, but they'd save a proper bath for tomorrow evening.

"Next thing you know, she'll be having us dress up in sailor outfits or pink dresses, as the case may be, and squirt us all with that perfume stuff." Rachel said.

"I don't mind wearing pink." Megan said.

"Oh don't listen to Rachel." Barbara said. "She's just being a big grump."

Dick then spat out all the water he'd accidentally swallowed.

"A nice group of water-lilies you guys turned out to be." Rachel said with a smirk as Mia looked up. "I'd like to see anybody make me wash if I didn't wanna."

Mia then smiled mischievously as she whispered to the others. They all smiled and walked up to Batboy as they whistled.

"GET HER!" Mia shouted out, and they all held Rachel up as Conner, Barbara, Jaime, and Mia held her limbs, so she couldn't get away.

"Hey let me go!" Rachel called out.

"Dick, set the soap." Mia said.

"Okay!" Dick said as he ran off. He grabbed the soap and was about to bring it when it slipped out of his hand, and he tried to catch it before it knocked him in the head. He then tried to pounce on it, but it just slipped and went into his mouth. "Ah man!" Dick called out. "And I didn't even say anything bad!"

He then hiccupped as several soap bubbles popped up.

Meanwhile, everyone else was giving Rachel a nice hands and face washing.

Now scrub good and hard.

It can't be denied,

That he'll look might cool,

As soon as he's dried.

With a scrap and a howl,

And a blurb, blurb, blurb!

Rachel was then let out as everyone laughed.

"She smells like a petunia." Conner said with a laugh that was shared with everyone else.

"You sure look cute, Rachel!" Barbara teased as she put her hood back on.

"Oh, you're all gonna pay for this!" Rachel shouted.

"Supper!" Lana called out from the house.

"Supper!" They all called out and ran off, leaving Rachel woozy by the tub.

"Eh." Rachel said after a while and walked in.

()()()()()

Isobel walked back to the mirror that very night as Hawkman gave her the box with her heart in it.

"Oh mirror, mirror, on the wall, who now is the fairest one of all?" Isobel asked with a smug smile.

"Far off on the planet Earth, beyond the Seventh Fall, in the cottage of the Young Titans dwells Lana Lang. The fairest one of all." Slade said.

"Lana's dead in a forest." Isobel said with a smirk. "Hawkman, Carter Hall, had brought me prove." Isobel opened the box and showed it to the mirror. "Behold, her heart."

"Lana still lives, the fairest in the land." Slade insisted. "It's the heart of a pig you hold in your hands."

"The heart of a pig?!" Isobel shouted as she threw the box down. "That hawk tricked me!"

Isobel then walked down a secret flight of stairs to her lab as her servant from Earth, Brother Blood waited.

"Whoa, who spit in your caviar?" Blood asked.

"Shut up!" Isobel said. "That sentimental fool gave me the heart of a pig instead of Lana's! Looks like if I want someone killed around here, I'll have to do it myself! I'll go to the brats' cottage in such a perfect disguise that no one will ever suspect it's me."

"How perfect?" Blood asked.

"A potion." Isobel said as she took a book labeled Disguises. "A potion to turn my beauty into a grimace. To change my queenly array into a peddler's cloak."

Isobel found a perfect little recipe. It also had a 72 hour limit, which would give her time to make a perfect way to kill Lana, and she'd just turn back to her beautiful self afterwards.

"Mummy dust, to make me old." Isobel said as she grabbed said dust from a drawer. "To shroud my clothes, the black of night."

Isobel put in the mummy dust and added a pitch black liquid that easily became the dominant color.

"To age my voice, an old hag's cackle." Isobel said as she turned on a burner underneath a phial that held a red liquid. After it had been turned on, a bit of the red liquid shot up and laughed like an old crone and entered the goblet Isobel had put the potion into. This turned the potion red.

"To whiten my hair, a scream of fright!" Isobel turned the knob on a faucet, and a white substance poured out as a scream echoed throughout the chamber, and the potion was now a venomous green.

"A blast of wind to fan my age!" As Isobel held the goblet to the window and wind suddenly blew through it, and over the goblet. "And a thunderbolt to mix it well!"

As if on cue, a thunderbolt sounded as the potion rippled and bubbled.

"Now…" Isobel said calmly. "Begin thy magic spell."

Isobel then consumed the concoction and gasped. The room appeared to be spinning, she saw her hair flying around her face and glimpsed it turning white as salt.

"My hands!" Isobel called out as she looked at her hands and saw them become incredibly thin and claw-like. Her clothes also turned into a black musty cloak, and her very skin turned incredibly pale.

Isobel sighed, hoping for the seventy-two hours to pass quickly and heard her own sigh.

"My voice." She croaked. Her voice had become high and raspy. "My voice…"

Isobel laughed. The potion had worked. She looked into a mirror and saw an old hag with bulging green eyes and a long hook nose with a large wart on it.

"Yes!" Isobel called out. "A perfect disguise!"

Isobel turned to Blood who backed into a wall.

"HOLY CAP!" Blood called out.

"And now…" Isobel said as she pulled out a book on death potions. "A special sort of death for one so fair."

"AH!" She called out very soon. "A poisoned apple. Laced with the draught of the sleeping death."

"Huh?" Blood asked.

"'One taste of the poisoned apple, and the victim's eyes will close forever in the sleeping death…'" Isobel said as she looked up and smirked wickedly. The Wicked Witch of the West had nothing on her.