Chapter Nine: A Normal Day...
Piper sighed as she leaned against the counter of a bar in her club. She had just got off the phone with band for that night. They would be there in an hour to set up. She was slightly bored as her two employees bustled happily about as if nothing was happening, which they should have been, but it made her sad to see them so happy when she was so depressed. They could obviously feel and see how down she was, but were slightly afraid to ask.
Finally one of Piper's younger employees, Jacob walked up to her. Piper knew the employee pretty well since he had moved into her neighborhood a couple months back. Piper saw him all the time and noticed that he had been looking for a job. She jumped at hiring him.
The 24 year old spoke up. "Piper, is something wrong? You aren't your usual cheerful self." He asked, teasing slightly.
Piper noticed the tease and smiled. She nodded. "Yeah. My daughter was, uh... kidnapped last night." She said, biting her lower lip.
"Oh no! Did you contact the police!" He asked, shocked.
Piper had to lie a bit here, considering she couldn't just go to the police and tell them a demon had taken her daughter. Even Daryl wouldn't be able to help. "Yes. We have, but we haven't heard anything back yet."
"That's terrible. I couldn't imagine having to go through that, Piper! I hope she is okay." Jacob exclaimed, sincerely.
Piper smiled, faintly. "Thank you. Now get back to work! I don't pay you to do nothing!" Piper teased in mock assertiveness.
Jacob smirked. "Yes, Ma'me!" He replied giving a mock salute in return. He then turned to go back to what he was doing- helping the other employee move the boxes of stock to the back room. Wyatt and Chris were still in classes today and wouldn't be around to help until later.
"Hey guys! I'm going to go check out the restaurant and see how they are doing." Piper said. She turned to her manager, Dave. "The band will be here in an hour. Help them set up and I won't be back to open the club tonight. My sons should be here to help out in 45 minutes, but otherwise it's just you guys tonight."
Dave and Jacob nodded as they went back to work. Piper grabbed her keys and headed out to her car. She soon arrived at her restaurant, The Elemental. The woman grabbed all of her stuff, trying to carry all of it. She walked about half way to the door before she dropped her keys. They fell to the concrete with a thud.
Piper became frustrated at this simple thing. It was what pushed her over the edge for the day.
"Ugh! Damn it!" She said out loud, irritated. She yelled at the sky. "You knew about this and you could have prevented it! I am a great mother and I do NOT deserve this! Why? Why?" She yelled, breaking into tears again. She fell to her knees and cried into her hands.
Wyatt orbed in from out of nowhere. He looked around, worried. "Mom? Are you okay? What happened?" He asked.
Piper looked up and it only made her cry more. Wyatt helped his mother up from the hard ground. He held her in his arms, repeating himself. Piper couldn't respond. She just cried as Wyatt hugged her in the middle of the parking lot. Piper sniffled and made a couple weird noises as she tried to stop crying.
"It's okay, mom. I know." Wyatt said, calming her. Piper pulled away a couple moments later to wipe her tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She looked up at her tall son.
"Wy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break down like that." Piper apologized.
"No, mom. Don't apologize. Mel was captured by a demon. You should be sad and upset. I was last night. Still am. Sometimes you just need a good cry." Wyatt said to his mother.
Piper looked up with a sad smile. "Wy, I didn't know you were such a good advice giver. You are really intuitive." She was kind of surprised.
"I'm not. I just know you. Now come on, you can't hide out here in the parking lot forever." Wyatt said. "And I have to get back to school. I'll see you tonight."
Piper nodded as Wyatt orbed away. She bit her lip and picked up the stuff from the ground. Piper took a deep breath and walked into the restaurant she had opened years ago. It still looked brand new to her. She looked around at the happy customers and smiled. Piper headed back into the kitchen to see how things were going.
At the same time, Leo was back at Magic School, teaching a class on teleportation to high school kids. He happened to have Penelope and Henry Jr in his class. The mixed grade classes were not unusual to the students or even the school for that matter.
Leo pointed to the board and it began to write down what Leo was saying. "There are many different types of teleportation. For the most part, one species will generally all have the same form of teleportation, but this rule is beginning to form more and more exceptions due to different magical species having children together. Most types are categorized by which species they generally belong to, which isn't always as black and white as it seems." Leo turned toward the board as he continued to talk and wrote a list of species with teleporting powers. "Now keep in mind what I just said, but on this board we will generalize the powers. For example, white lighters usually orb. What teleporting power do normal demons generally have." Leo pointed to a younger girl towards the left side of the room.
The girl spoke up, firm, but still gentle. "Demons most commonly have the power to shimmer. Upper level demons sometimes have the ability to flame instead of shimmer."
"Very good, Crystie. Would someone like to demonstrate flaming?" Leo asked his students. A larger guy towards the back stood up and flamed to the door and back to his seat. "Thank you, Chester. Now as you may or may not have already realized that Chester is clearly not evil. If he were evil, he wouldn't be able to enter the school. I will repeat myself again as well; everything is not as black and white as it used to be. Anyone like to demonstrate a common cupid's form of teleporting and explain what it's called?"
Patience sighed, clearly bored with the class. She beamed out and back in. "And that would be called beaming." She said, simply. The kids were a bit too excited as the bell finally rang. Patience immediately beamed out and into the Halliwell Manor, Penelope soon following.
"Okay, let's go. We have to make those brownies before Piper gets home with or without Mel's help. She is under enough stress already. We don't want to stress her out more. Now, let's get to it. So what do we need?" Patience asked, looking for Piper's brownie recipe.
"Well, we need flour for sure." Penelope said, grabbing the flour out of the cabinet above the fridge. "What else do we need?" Penelope asked
"I have seen her use sugar, butter and obviously chocolate. Um... What else? How about vanilla extract. She uses that too, doesn't she? And um, there is one more... Oh! Salt. Now we just have to figure out how much." Patience said, biting her lip. She was beginning to regret eating the brownies as she pulled out more of the ingredients.
"Why don't we just go get a box of brownie mix and make it that way. Sure, it won't taste like Piper's, but with all the stuff she has been going through, I don't think she will be able to tell the difference. Plus, isn't that usually faster?" Penelope asked.
"Sure, how much cash do you have on you? We will split the cost." Patience asked.
"Uh..." Penelope dug through her pockets. "5 bucks. What about you?"
"A ten." Patience replied. "Oh, well. Let's just go. We only have a limited amount of time." Patience said, taking her sister's hand. They beamed into the alley behind the grocery store, walking around to the front door. The walked inside, trying to act as normal as possible. The soon found the brownie aisle and looked for the right kind.
"Quaker? Betty Crocker? Duncan Hines? What do we get?" Penelope asked.
Patience picked up a store variety. "These are really cheap. I say we buy these."
Penelope was skeptical. "I don't know. Why don't we get a name brand to be on the safe side?" She asked.
"Because these are cheaper, and brownies are brownies!" Patience explained. "We don't have much time, either. Let's just get out of here. Okay?"
Penelope sighed, giving in due to lack of time. "Fine." She said, taking the box. The girls walked up the closest register, and luckily, they didn't have to wait too long in line. They check out and headed out to the alley where they had beamed in. Patience took her younger sister's hand and beamed out. The girls walked into the kitchen.
"Woah! It's 4:23 already! Come on. We have to hurry." Patience exclaimed, opening the box. "What does it say? What do we need?"
"Well, what size pan is that?" Penelope asked, pointing to the pan with the old brownies. She stuffed a couple in her mouth as she did this. Patience didn't yell at her though, instead she stuffed a couple in her mouth as well.
"It's a 13 by 9, I think." Patience said. "So we preheat the oven to 350 degrees." Patience went over to the oven and preheated it. Penelope took out a bowl and dumped the mix into it.
"So, we need..." Penelope skimmed the ingredients list. "A half cup of vegetable oil and a fourth cup of water." She said, accidentally missing the eggs. The young girl went to grab the measuring cups as Patience grabbed the vegetable oil out. The older sister measured out a half cup of the oil, pouring it into the bowl. Penelope went over to the sink to measure out a fourth cup of water. She walked slowly over to the bowl too pour it in.
"Perfect." Patience said grabbing a spoon to stir up the mix. It only took a couple minutes to mix it up, but both were on edge the entire time. They had to get the brownies in the oven. Quickly. They shoved the brownies into the oven.
Twenty minutes later, a bell went off and Patience sprung at the oven, flinging it open. The girl accidentally grabbed the pan, burning herself.
"Ow!" She screamed, pulling her hand back. She shook it to cool it off. It had only been a split second burn, but it hurt like hell. She began to cry as she waved air at her hand. Penelope freaked out a bit as she saw the burn mark on her older sister's hand. The girl was scared, unsure what to do. She beamed upstairs to the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit. Penelope beamed back downstairs then.
"Here." She said, ripping into a package of burn cream. She smoothed it out on Patience's hand and Patience slowly began to calm, feeling the cooling sensation of the burn. She assessed the burn, thankful that it hadn't been worst. The young adult was more relaxed, as she took a couple deep breaths. Penelope grabbed a pot holder and picked up the brownies, pulling them out of the oven. She set them onto of the oven to let them cool. The brownies looked different than their aunt Piper's which they figured it would be, but Patience just shrugged.
"Are you okay?" Someone asked from the door way. Both girls jumped, turning to see their cousins, Wyatt and Chris studying them.
"I-I'm fine." Patience winced as she said this. She hid her hand behind her back.
"You don't look fine." Chris pointed out, stepping forward. He noted the wetness in her eyes and the first aid kit on the counter along with the oven open and a fresh batch of brownies on the counter. "What did you guys do?"
"Well, we uh, decided to make brownies for Piper since she uh, is so stressed out about Mel." Penelope explained, nodding her head nervously. Wyatt nodded.
"Sure. That's why there are packets of burn cream and a first aid kit on the counter. That makes perfect sense. It looks you guys were in a hurry. Now tell us the truth." Wyatt said as he leaned against the counter.
Patience licked her lips before starting. "Last night, we found the brownies in the cupboard and decided to eat them. Piper came upstairs to ask us if we had seen them and we hid them right in time. Mel did a great job of redirecting the attention on us to on you..."
"Wait, us! Why us! And what do you mean 'redirected the attention from you to us'?" Wyatt asked.
"We meant that we told Piper that you guys stole them." Penelope bit her lip. "She went to question you guys and we went back to thinking up this plan."
"She never went to question us. Right, Wy?" Chris asked.
"He is actually right. She never even said anything to us. Wyatt said, confused.
"Maybe she knew the whole time." Chris pointed out.
Patience stared at Chris like he was crazy. "Why didn't she bust us right there, then! And how would... Never mind. I already know. She saw us when we beamed out. Probably heard us too."
Chris shrugged. "Maybe she wanted to teach you guys a lesson or something. She knew you would have to come up with a way to fix it or come clean."
"Crap! This sucks. Well, let's let her think it's working. Want to help us clean up?" Patience asked.
"Nope." Wyatt said, turning to leave.
"What? Why not? You can't just come in here and lecture us and then not help us! That's not FAIR!" Patience whined. Both of the boys ignored her and kept walking. Chris stopped at the door and only turned around to say one thing.
"Yes we can. Life's not fair so deal with it. And this isn't our lesson to learn. It's yours. Besides, we have had enough life lessons. Bye." Chris chirped, before turning back around and leaving with his brother.
Patience stomped her foot. "You can't do this. If I go down, I'm dragging you with me." She muttered, putting some dishes into the dishwasher. Penelope widened an eye at her sister's fit. Wasn't she supposed to be the adult one? She rolled her eyes and went to help her older sister clean up. Penelope grabbed a handful of ingredients and went to put them away. She then went to put the first aid kit away.
It took them ten minutes to clean up, just in time as Piper walked through the front door. Patience heard the door open and pushed Penelope towards the brownies to get her to put them away as she dried the counter. They grabbed hands and beamed out as Piper walked into the kitchen. Piper smirked, looking at the running dishwasher.
"They found a way to fix it. Now, we just have to wait for dinner." Piper said to her herself as she went to grab the brownies. The pan was still pretty warm, but not hot enough to burn her.
