You weren't getting out of this. Holey moley, would there be no amount of supremely gutsy parental persuasion that could possibly make John's father and, somewhat more importantly, your father forget about this inconvenient meeting. You haven't meant for this to happen. It was supposed to be something like a reunion! You were supposed to be the gumshoe that had sleuthed her way through all the ectobiological nonsense and weird plot shit to reunite the fated families once again.
You'd reveal the mobster—the archetypical bad guy in this mystery—to be the fifteen mile car ride to the small suburb of Maple Valley that separated the predestined Egbert's and Crocker's. Being the intrepid detective you were, you (and your faithful sidekick) had planned a sting to outwit the forgetfulness of the fathers and restore peace to the world.
However, via complex verbal ensnarement and untimely consequences, it seemed, your beautifully planned sting operation had been made. Damn that stern fatherly disapproval.
"Jane!" your faithful sidekick hissed, gesturing subtly with his eyes between your father and his. 'Do something!' you wagered he was wildly thinking at you. Maybe, in this situation, it'd be wise to play dumb and let the sidekick to the talking. Hell no! You'd never let him take the blame for this truly inopportune and premature get-together. What kind of sleuth would you be if you left an innocent pedestrian to take the blame? Besides, the blame rested nowhere but your own hands. The blame couldn't be thrust into John's hands. The blame was yours and yours only. Damn that blame.
Clearing your throat of the blame you fixed your eyes on Mr. Egbert and quickly assembled a response to ease the tension. He was staring at your father straight in the eyes—'like a respectable man', your father would say had he not been otherwise currently busy with a staring match. They weren't even saying anything. Just staring. Maybe they were in shock.
"Why don't we go inside and John and I can do some explaining…?" it wasn't supposed to be a question. Then again it wasn't supposed to have ended up like this but there wasn't an issue on earth or anywhere in the Incipisphere that you couldn't handle, right?
"Jane's right, dad. And, ah, I'll explain Rose and Dave's visit as well." John has your back, you realize, just as soundly and as faithfully as any sidekick. Or at least that was the impression you were under as he gently tugs on his father's pristine white shirt sleeve as if encouraging him to draw his staring match to an unadorned close. And yet the two statues remained just that—stony figures that were as stubborn to move as they were oblivious to the outside world.
Perhaps they were communicating via telepathy, you briefly waged. One father thinking forth fatherly thoughts to the other father and vise versa. Perhaps they were discussing Barbasol application techniques or the proper angel to tilt one's fedora at a passing young lady. Just the usual mental communication topics that went unnoticed and unheard to watching bystanders. Telepathy. Dirk and Roxy did that occasionally. Or at least it seemed as if one fully understood what the other was thinking while in your presence on occasion.
"Jonathon, would you mind taking your friend inside for a moment?" Mr. Egbert says sternly with the correct amount of fatherly grim firmness to queue him in to the guiding father to wayward son discussion they would be having later. Even though consequences and quite possible circumstances would be rather different 'later' and that perhaps now would be more suited for a familial chat if one was to beginning getting overly domestic.
You were, in fact, quit certain that you would be receiving a similar talking to from your dad. Maybe Mr. Egbert would even team up with your father to unite in a round of stern fatherly disciplining in a x2 combo of ectobiological tag teaming. Boy, was your ass grass, so to speak.
"Dad, no! Listen, my friends and I will explain everything." John provides once more as you watch feebly from the backdrop. The rookie was taking the lead on this sting, you noted, and he, so far, seemed to hold his ground against the boss whilst you stood by idly. Proudly, you glanced at him with stern grandmotherly approval as his father breaks the staring match to give his son a cursory glance…
…before his eyes moved to you. If you were to understand and completely comprehend all this ectobiological/weird plot shit, you were to realize that this was your…son? Ew, gross, you thought, being a Nanna without the age, wrinkles, and cookie baking charm. Or maybe you did have that last one, but still. Would he like you? Would he point and laugh along with your jokes with a son's motherly admiration? Would it be weird to think about that? Of course it is Jane Crocker! Start taking action you sobbing familial romantic!
You pushed your glasses up your nose quickly without thinking, thanking whatever god out there that the frigid air would keep you from wildly blushing. Speaking of, it was absolutely freezing out here! You'd nearly forgotten how cold the weather could be in Washington and how startling the crunch of snow could be when you shifted your weight from foot to foot awkwardly.
"John, I'm sorry about this. I never meant to ruin our plans." You say looking down and avoiding his father's blank stare by setting your eyes on the small boy who stood just inside the Egbert home. He was looking at you too, you noticed, and practically begging you with those eyes of his to make shit happen. You could do that, now couldn't you?
You were not some crumb who would stand by idly obeying the law without taking drastic risk! If either Egbert had yet to pull a heater out on you and ask you to 23-skidoo then you might as well had been safe. It wouldn't be too difficult to make light of this increasingly awkward situation and pull forth the household reunion from the clutches of ruin.
"Can we stop acting like children on the playground and go inside for a chat?" you add a little more forcefully than you'd intentionally intended yet still acting on the moments bravery to turn this shindig around. Clearing your throat you firmly loop your elbow around your father's arm and use your free hand to pat his shoulder reassuringly. As if he needed reassurance, you ventured to think. Why he had yet to say a word.
"Come on!" you finish pulling him from his statue like state with the proper amount of force to encourage him to take a step over the threshold that Mr. Egbert and his son has since vacated with your last sentence. Mr. Egbert had taken a step back and opened the door wider as any polite gentleman presenting his home for a stranger and a doppelganger would. His son had also followed his stiff and hesitant lead, receding into the house and positioning himself by the hat rack.
For the moment, you kept yourself from looking around the house and instead focused on the fatal weight of the silence along with the two gentlemen currently humbly offering you their gentlemanly services. As you enter their home, you began unbuttoning your grey pea coat perhaps little too aggressively as your frost touched cheeks redden with the warmth of the indoors and the marvel of central heating.
It seemed reflexive, you deliberated, as John's father assisted you in removing your jacket and thus folding it along with your scarf over this arm. The gentleman does the same with your father's thicker wool coat and hands them to John to hang up on the hat rack. John drapes the coats on the proper pegs, keeping your cyan knit scarf last within his grasp and looking back to his father. He was wringing his hands nervously with the scarf, looking between the two fathers as yours decidedly removed his fedora.
Mr. Crocker held his hat between his hands, turning it by the brim adroitly and surveying the living room of the house. You however did not venture your eyes around the room nor did you examine any article within the home as any appropriately qualified gumshoe would have set to work doing right off the bat. Instead, you kept your eyes trained on John as he smoothed your scarf absentmindedly.
He understood, you reasoned, that you didn't feel just quite ready to look around at the home you hadn't been to in, god, how long? Three, four, maybe five years. You'd lost track somewhere along the way after embarrassing yourself with Jake at your birthday party since your birthday was really the only indication to the time passing. Not that any of those years or parties mattered anymore, you reasoned, as you'd returned to an earth in a time that was set only days before the Beta kids had begun the game and at the age you had been only days before you and the Alpha kids had begun the game. Thus, you were a young teen again.
"Harlequins?" your father asks, somewhat surprising you from your thoughts and directionless worry. He was still by your side and still—you ventured to guess—looking around the house just as you were still staring at John. Of course he didn't mind though, in fact the small smile and nod he gave you was the strength you needed to break your eyes away from him. You were audacious and brave and more than willing to recklessly plunge yourself into the memories of the once before when not burning the Betty Crocker cake in the oven was your only greatest worry.
"John's interests." Mr. Egbert supplies to your father's question politely yet you noticed how tersely he'd said it. Defensively almost, as if he was waiting for someone to jump out and tell him that that too was just a pigment of his imagination or a lie. However as they progressively grew colder with each other you felt yourself drifting off.
It seemed you where leading yourself in the direction of an entirely different conversation apart from there's. Their tense chatter dropped away and as if from a distance you surveyed the living room intently. The question vaguely popped into your mind as well. Harlequins? Of course when this had been your home, foxy mustachioed detectives had adorned those frames yet other components of the room seemed identical; the furniture, the wallpaper, and even that hideous area rug that festooned the carpet in front of the couch. Those saloon style doors still dictated the kitchen entry just as that unsightly tiffany lamp claimed the side table adjacent to the couch.
The fire place was in use, you attentively noticed, when the crackle of the embers settling into the hearth begged your curiosity. It was not, in your best interest, the brightest thing to turn your mind to as your eyes moved to the mantle. You'd expected to see the beloved Poppop—as it was in your home—yet instead you were met with something a little less pleasing.
Setting atop the oak surface of the mantle was an ordinate urn that was marvelously polished and only a preface to the photo of an elderly woman that was framed on the wall behind the urn. She was smiling, something you wagered she'd done quite often in her lifetime by the laugh lines that habitually settled into a rounder face brimming with adoration. She wore cyan framed bifocals that perched on her small nose by a string of pearls.
"It's good to see you again, Janey." John says, a little too loudly for pleasant conversation, yet you gathered he was merely trying to pull you from your transfixed gaze on the mantle. If anything, you wagered he'd had to repeat himself. Why, you'd seen him just last week when the two of you had finally convinced your fathers to embark on the short 30 minute drive to a shopping mall in Seattle where you had exclusively met up in the food court there.
But you couldn't go alone! Your cover story was to go shopping with Roxy, who caught a cab to your home after using John's transportalizer. John went with Jake (after a shaky meeting) 'to show the new exchange student from school a good time around town'. Mr. Egbert had bought it naively and concluded his son was growing into a nice man what with showing a foreigner around. Likewise, your father was none the wiser to your funny business in recognizing Roxy from descriptions you'd given him before the game had gone down.
Strangely, you thought, he didn't remember too many select details from before the game. In fact, it had rather struck you as peculiarly idiosyncratic that his memory didn't seem to be as top notch as it had been pre-sburb. Maybe this was an incredibly significant detail that you should've taken into account. Ironically, it was probably an incredibly significant detail that you should take into account.
"Uhm, yeah. You to John…" after setting the socially appropriate half smile on your lips you trail off. It wasn't as if you were uninterested in engaging in his polite gentleman's chat; you were merely otherwise occupied at the moment considering certain important things and statistically categorizing their importance.
You watched your father and calculated his body language easily. He wasn't comfortable in the slightest yet as compared to earlier when you wagered he was ready to bump someone off, you were rather grateful for his calmer façade. He had his left hand in the pocket of his black suit pants and his arms looked stiff at the elbow were they were bent. His jaw, too, was hard set, mirroring John's fathers to a T.
They had distanced themselves from each other considerably; Mr. Egbert choosing to stay by the coat rack with a hand perched a little too securely atop his son's shoulder and your father by your side near the door with his hand firmly pressed into the space just below your scapulars. You could just lightly feel the brim of his fedora that he held in that hand pressing into your back.
It almost seemed threatening, anyone might assume, but you knew this was a protective stance of a father to his offspring. In addition, John had told you that everything would be okay and he was on the level about nearly everything, as far as you knew. You trusted John Egbert. Even with his wisecracks and pranks, you knew him to be a dependable partner in crime stopping.
"Make yourselves comfortable." Mr. Egbert says, indicating to you and Rose with a small, chivalrous nod that the young ladies should, of course, be allowed to occupy the couch whilst the men made themselves useful in standing about. Finding some comfort in this, you wordlessly watched Rose noiselessly descend the remaining stairs as you made your way to the couch. She took a seat gracefully, perching herself at the edge as if expecting conflict yet remaining deceptively calm in doing so. You, however, felt at home (this was your home too, at a time) and sat back into the sofa, crossing your legs as you did so.
Rose offered you a small, assuring smile as you sat beside her that you returned shakily. To distract yourself, your eyes then followed John as he crossed the room to the stairs and took a seat on the bottom step. Dave, his friend—or boyfriend, so far as Roxy had made a bet with Dirk—mutely sat down beside him. He wore shades indoors too, you remembered, like Dirk did and for good reason at that.
If you hadn't been looking for it you might just had missed how both boys clasped their hands together in the space between them that was surely hidden from Mr. Egbert and your father. You wagered Roxy would win that bet that they were dating just as you figured his father hadn't the slightest clue about his son's boyfriend. That seemed to be another secret his was hiding from his father.
Speaking of which, Mr. Egbert had moved and was now leaning against the left side of the fireplace that was closest to the kitchen entrance. His arms were folded over his chest resolutely as he stiffly leaned against the corner of the mantel piece and brick structure of the fireplace. Similarly, your father firmly occupied the opposite space of the fireplace with just as much stern fatherly disapproval as Mr. Egbert.
His stance was no more open than his supposed twin either. Mr. Crocker held his fedora by the brim between his hands and sporadically flipped the hat in slow methodical movements. The rest of his stature—during the slight movements of his hands—remained severe. By their stances, you wagered this house would be once again in full fatherly lockdown mode within so much time as a blink. Both father's rigid demeanor seemed to be the only fixed point within the room and yet their eyes seemed to be searching for clues to what the big idea was.
You didn't need to take a fleeting glance at your faithful sidekick to know that he wouldn't spill the beans before the time was ripe. Like you'd confirmed with yourself earlier; you trusted John no matter what. However, it was certainly time for coming clean and explaining to these two men what they had forgotten when they'd reawakened—here; on earth.
When Mr. Egbert had gotten out of bed on a Thursday morning and set about preparing customary morning coffee while his son awoke in a blind panic on the railed balcony outside. When your father had been roused from unconsciousness at his station behind the cash register by the bell that signaled a customer entering his shop and you had stirred awake to find yourself lying in a disheveled mess on the floor in isle 4.
Similarly, it seemed, both fathers had regained consciousness without the slightest clue as to what in god's name had gone down without his consent.
You'd often wondered why it had happened like that—everything sliding back into place without so much as neither a protest nor indication to its means. Honestly, your primary question when you'd awoken was why you weren't in your own home. You were well aware it wasn't your house in Maple valley even if a considerable stretch of time separated you from the last time you'd lived in that house.
None the less, it had been somewhat of a shock when your eyes had cracked open to view the bottom of a cardboard display of whoopee cushions and a shopping isle on cyan tiled floors. Why were you lying on the floor? You hadn't the slightest clue what the 'Prankster's Gambit' was or why in the ever loving fuck your dad owned a practical joke store, but you were back and your dad was standing behind the register and he was giving you a confused look but he was alive.
And so you cleared your throat and began to steel yourself for your next words. For the 'present' generation of Crocker/Egbert tag teaming of elucidating, clearing up and news breaking that was as inescapable as it was inevitable. You figured, with some vague reassurance, that Rose and Dave would offer their assistance when needed. It was a long story, you realized, and would certainly require help telling.
