Nicky noticed himself constantly looking over his shoulder as he waited for Mae. He had a sick feeling filling him, and as he always did when he was nervous, he started drumming his fingers on what he had his hand on; the saddle of Dawn's bike this time. He had ended his school day ten minutes early, meaning he had to wait for Mae.
One might think that this would make things better, because you would have time to go over what you would do. But in Nicky's case, it only made him more anxious, because instead of going over what he was going to do with Mae, he went over everything that could do wrong.
Everything could go wrong while he would ride Dawn's bike, since he couldn't do that.
The ice cream at Coneye West was so awful, he would barely be able to eat it without gagging. But that wouldn't make sense, since Dawn loves the ice cream there.
And the very worst thing; He could accidentally give the whole thing away.
"Hey Dawn"
Nicky flinched. He turned his head, and there was Mae, standing there with her bike. She frowned at him.
"What were you staring off, thinking about?"
"Noth-... Nothing"
"Then let's go" Mae swung her leg onto her bike.
"Yeah... Let's go"
Nicky tried to repeat Mae's action, and with a few slips he succeeded to get onto the bike, while Mae gave him a few concerned looks.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Positive"
Mae started tramping away with ease, while Nicky's heart just sped up. He took several deep breaths before even tramping once. Extremely wobbly and unsure, he started riding. Right now it didn't matter that Mae gave him constant confused looks over her shoulder. He just cared about not falling, and staying as steady as he could. The last thing he wanted was to fall and hurt himself badly. Then he would have to go to a hospital; Basically the paradise of germs.
With that thought in mind, he half-steadily, half-wobbly followed close behind Mae. When they reached the ice cream place in the middle of town, he had only fallen twice. The worst thing that had happened was that his knee was scratched, and that was nothing. At least according to Mae. It really could get infected, which meant Nicky would have to go to the germ house.
Slightly limping, Nicky and Mae went into the ice cream shop. They went up to the counter.
"Hey Neil!" Mae greeted the server behind the ice cream counter.
Oh yeah, Nicky forgot: Dawn and Mae go there a lot. They must have made friends with one of the waiters. Neil looked young, which probably was the reason for them getting to know each other.
"Hi Mae. Hi Dawn" The waiter; Neil smiled at them. "The usual?"
"Of course! What else could I get?" Mae glanced down at one of the flavors. "Raspberry?"
Mae and Neil laughed.
"I know! It barely tastes like cream!" Neil took a break to say.
He then turned to Nicky.
"The usual, Dawn?"
Nicky had no idea what the usual was, but Dawn loved cream, so it was probably the most fat-tasting flavors there were.
"I'll just have raspberry" Nicky thought about his decision.
Mae frowned at him.
"Raspberry? Really Dawn?"
"I... I want to try it"
"Last month you did, and you didn't even finish the bowl"
"Tastes can change. You know if you eat something enough times, you'll eventually trick your mind into liking it for real" Nicky blurted out, realizing what he had done first when he saw Mae's puzzled face.
"Since when do you know things about food?"
"I... I... Nicky told me" Nicky hoped he sounded believable.
Mae just shrugged, and waved goodbye to Neil. They then walked out of the store, and sat down at a table. Mae immediately leaned her elbows on the table, and gave Nicky a serious look.
"Dawn. What's going on with you?"
"What do you mean? I'm perfectly normal"
Mae's expression turned into an 'are-you-serious' face.
"Really Dawn? You were jumpy when I said hi, you could barely ride your bike, and now you got raspberry ice cream"
"I'm just... getting ill or something. You know, jumpy dizzy, and I don't want too much cream, in case I'll feel sick"
"I guess that works" Mae dug into her cookie dough ice cream.
Nicky took a little from the raspberry on his spoon, and put it in his mouth. He was pleasantly surprised as the ice cream didn't taste so horrible.
"How's the raspberry?" Mae asked, still with the sassy face.
"Better than I thought it would be"
"So you don't want to throw up because of the cream?"
"I never want to throw up. Especially not from ice cream"
"How weird is it that Dawn once ate the creamiest ice cream here, when she was on the verge of throwing up"
"Umm..." Nicky didn't know what to do in the situation.
Then he realized something.
"Wait, why did you talk about Daw-Me in third person?"
Mae giggled.
"Because Dawn isn't here, is she?" She looked right into Nicky's eyes. "Right... Nicky?"
Nicky flopped his arms down.
"No. She isn't. She's at Dicky's skateboard class. And I'm Nicky. It's just... We're just... Everything just... How did you know anyway?"
"I heard you and... whoever is in your body talking in the corridor outside Mr. Wigglesworth's classroom"
"Ricky"
"What?"
"Ricky's me right now" Nicky explained. "I'm Dawn, Dawn's Dicky, Dicky's Ricky, and Ricky's me"
"Wow" Mae sat back. "That's confusing"
Nicky nodded.
"I don't even know who I'm talking to fifty percent of the time"
"Yeah. Right now it's like I'm talking to Nicky and Dawn"
"We gotta tell the others you know"
Mae nodded.
"Then let's get going"
Ten minutes later, the two of them were back at the Harper house, in front of Dawn, Dicky and Ricky on the couch.
"Mae knows" Nicky revealed, without any hesitation.
The other three's jaws slightly dropped.
"How?" Ricky asked.
"She heard us talking outside cooking class" Nicky bit his lip.
Dawn giggled.
"You were eavesdropping on them?"
"Accidentally!" Mae replied, laughing as well.
The two of them broke out into a laughing fit, while the others watched in confusion, and in Dicky's case; disgust.
"I never want to see myself doing that again"
I'm back! Wow, I'm back, it's a miracle!
I have a simple explanation to why I haven't uploaded anything in... a really long time.
I finished A Series of Unfortunate Events, and a million ideas flew into my head at once, and I just had to write them into stories. I finished two whole ASOUE stories, then I remembered I'm still in this fandom too, and I had an ongoing story, which I seemed to have abandoned.
So now, I'm going to be uploading chapters both here, and to my new ASOUE oneshot collection.
Hope you like that, and hope you liked this chapter!
