"I thought you said that Ryan couldn't cook." Phoebe said cautiously as she peeked around the table to where Ryan was staring intently at an oven timer wearing a blue apron of Gerdie's.
Helga shrugged as she leaned back into her seat and sipped at her Yahoo. "She can't, but she's trying to learn."
"Then why isn't she trying with something simple like…pasta?" Arnold asked nervously.
"Who cares!" Harold whined. "Just bring out the pie already!"
Stinky raised an eyebrow at Harold, "How'd you even get invited anyway? You and Ryan fight more than two badgers."
"There's pie." was the only answer Harold gave them.
"I've made pie!" Ryan squealed, prancing into the room with a pumpkin pie in her hands.
Helga stared at the pie. "Wow, Ry. It actually looks like a pie. I'm impressed."
"Let's just hope it's as good as it looks." Harold said, his mouth watering.
Ryan glared at him. "Who the hell invited him?"
Everyone looked around and no one confessed. Ryan rolled her eyes and sliced into the cake. "Whatever. Let's eat. But at the same time." Ryan's eyes narrowed.
Eventually, everyone but Ryan had a slice of pie. She twisted her apron around her hands in anticipation.
Everyone took a bite of their pie and then the room echoed in hacking, spitting, and revolted sounds. Ryan looked disappointed, but before anyone could stop her, she snuck a bite off of Sid's plate. She cringed. "Oh god, I'm so sorry everyone!" she spat the mouthful back into Sid's plate as he put another bite into his mouth, a grimace on his face. Ryan took his fork away and slammed it into the table. "Stop eating it! Are you daft, mate?"
Harold hadn't' stopped shoveling the pie into his mouth for one second. "This is great!" he shouted enthusiastically.
Ryan shoved Sid's plate in Harold's direction. "It's all yours, tubby." Ryan recoiled and gagged, "It tastes like I put toothpaste in it. I don't understand what went wrong!" She fell into the seat next to Sid, burying her face into her hands.
"If it's any conciliation, it looked great, at least." Arnold said, trying to be optimistic. "Next pie you bake will be amazing, I'm sure of it."
"But it did taste like you put toothpaste in there." Helga added before rinsing the taste down her throat with a glass of water.
Stinky took off to the kitchen to get a new glass of water and he came back with a jar of tan spices in his hand. "Hey Ryan, did you use all the spices out on that there counter?" He asked, staring at the bottle.
Ryan glared up at him. "That's why they're out. Why do you ask?"
Stinky held the bottle out to her. "I just don't reckon that powdered mustard goes in pumpkin pie."
Ryan's eyes went wide and she looked around the table, finding everyone staring at her blankly and Helga biting back a laugh. "That's nutmeg, I swear." She snatched the bottle away, reading it before looking up with, eyes wide and filled with horror. "Oh god it's not nutmeg…..I MADE A MUSTARD PIE!"
Sid and Helga doubled over laughing and Ryan slammed her face into the table. "I'm never baking again."
"Boy howdy, I've got an idea!" Sid exclaimed.
"No you don't." Ryan snapped.
Sid narrowed his eyes. "It is so a great idea."
"Well if I were to agree with you, we'd both be wrong." came Ryan's short reply.
"Give the other pie to Rhonda as a peace offering." Sid said before Ryan could cut him off again.
The room went quiet and Ryan blinked a few times. "You did make two pies, right?"
"Yeah." Came the brief answer.
"She'll never be able to tell it's disgusting…no offense." Sid said cautiously.
Helga chuckled. "That's actually a pretty great idea."
"Is that really necessary?" Arnold asked cautiously.
Ryan crossed her arms over her chest. "She filled my locker with condoms and wrote 'whore' on it in pink lipstick."
Arnold looked at everyone around the table. Ryan and Helga had both tried making nice with Gerald, but he wasn't their biggest fan. They only really tolerated each other because of Phoebe, so he was the only one missing. "Alright, fine, but I'm not delivering it."
Helga had delivered the pie personally and laughed hysterically when Rhonda almost vomited after her first bite.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Lila and Rhonda had ended up having a sleepover after shamefully making an appearance at the Sadie Hawkins without dates. Rhonda was still sleeping soundly, but Lila had snuck into the kitchen to make coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, turning on the news for background noise as she worked.
A story came on that caught her attention and she paused the DVR, rewound it, and played it twice more before she went up to Rhonda's room and woke her friend up.
"Lila, don't you think it can wait?" Rhonda yawned as Lila dragged her into the kitchen.
"I'm ever so certain it can't, Rhonda." Lila pressed play.
"Early this morning in Phoenix, the body of Ryan Jane was found on the fire escape of the Phoenix Police Department. Ryan was one of six girls having been abducted by one Benjamin Shaffer. Her murder is already nearly solved, one of Ryan's fellow survivors, Harley Quinten, having admitted to sneaking out of her holdings in the Phoenix mental institution and completing the act."
The scene cut to a Phoenix police officer. "No one really knows how Harley got out, or Ryan for that matter. We're doing our best to investigate."
The interviewer asked from behind the camera, "Do you know the cause of death, by any chance?"
The officer sighed and almost rolled his eyes. "There are some wounds on Ryan's arm, but nothing enough to kill her. We assume it's poison of some kind, but we won't know for a few days."
The scene cut to Helga, who had broken away from Arnold's hold and had struck Harley in the face with a three-hole punch. Harley only laughed, which deepened Helga's anger. However, before Helga could attack Harley again, Arnold had his arm around her waist and was dragging her away. She broke away from him and began storming away. The interviewer tried asking Helga for a few words, but the only words Helga had to say were bleeped out. Arnold was asked for some input, but he merely waved his hands and rushed after Helga.
"You! Young man!" The camera zoomed in on a dazed and distant looking Sid.
Sid looked up. "Huh?"
"Were you Ryan Jane's boyfriend?" the interviewer asked bluntly.
Sid's already sad face grew gloomier. "I wanted to be." He stood up and waved the interviewer off before vanishing in the same room Helga and Arnold had gone into.
Lila turned off the TV and for once in her life, Rhonda Lloyd was speechless. When Rhonda finally composed herself she finally said, "Well I suppose that explains some things. I didn't even like the girl and I feel bad for her."
Lila nodded, "I was ever so certain that she was dead, but the news said that they'd been rescued. It's just so sad that she was murdered."
"We should call Arnold and apologize for the way we acted last night." Rhonda said, pulling her phone out.
"I couldn't agree more, but I'm ever so certain we should wait at least a little while." Lila offered gently.
Rhonda considered it for a moment. "How silly of me, Lila. Of course you're right. They're probably much too busy for such things now anyway. Besides, I'd like to go back to bed."
Lila nodded.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Terry was as strange as his job, always reading into conspiracy theories and things of the like. He was also the only straight man he knew that read romance novels. He had to do something. He'd never been able to keep a girlfriend for very long in his fourty-three years.
He took the dead very seriously. He always thought they had incredible stories to tell.
He stared at the young girl on his table. She was a pretty little thing, far too young to die of natural causes. He normally had no problem slicing open new corpses, but something kept him from getting his work started on Ryan Jane.
It was clear that her cause of death was some kind of poison. He didn't need to go about poking into her organs for things like that. Instead, he made an extensive study of her body while he waited for the blood work to come back. There her bruises on her neck, based on their shape probably from the hammer the CSI had found on the roof. There was dirt and blood under her fingernails and much more. However, what baffled him most was the carving she'd etched into her own arm with a shard of glass found in her hand.
Don't hate me. I love you…please review and let me know what ya think, even though I already know there's gunna be a few people not happy with me. Just stay tuned is all I can really say.