Chapter Twenty-Five - If You Go Down To The Woods Today

"Ta da!"

Greg and Peridot froze in the doorway as Lapis landed on the ground in front of them, arms outstretched in welcome and a wide grin on her face. Then Peridot took a closer look at the barn interior and smiled back. "You repaired the platform!"

"That's right!" Lapis said, injecting her voice with all the enforced cheer of a children's television presenter. "I put all your stuff back up there and fixed the kitchen counter too!"

Peridot's smiled wavered slightly as she looked at the kitchen counter, which had a badly cut plank patching the two halves together, but she valiantly bit back her criticisms. "Thank you," she said instead, internally vowing to fix it properly as soon as she could.

"It's the least I could do," Lapis said demurely. "After all, I'm the one who broke it. And I'm sorry about that." She fixed the other gem with an earnest gaze, careful not to look in Greg's direction in case she appeared insincere. "I was just so excited to help you!"

"Well, I appreciate that," Peridot said, cautiously stepping underneath the platform. She examined the repairs and quickly deduced that they were adequate for the time being, although she'd have to reinforce the support beams in the near future. "I think for the time being though, it would be best if I trained with Pearl."

"Yeah, that's fair enough," Lapis agreed. "But hey, once she's trained you up, you're welcome to practise with the water clones, any time. Outside," she added with a small smile.

Peridot forced out a laugh, privately vowing to never fight the water clones ever again if she could help it, whether they be inside, outside or in antigravity. "We should bring the bathtub in now," she said, changing the subject. "As the upper level is back where it belongs, I can get straight to work plumbing it in."

"Do you want a hand with that at all?" Greg offered. "I don't have a great deal of experience with plumbing, but I did install Steven's bathroom."

"I can help too," Lapis added immediately. "If I hold back the water, that should make things easier, right?"

Peridot nodded. "That would be immensely helpful, yes. Very well!" She clapped her hands authoritatively. "I accept your generous offers of assistance!"

With three pairs of hands, one of which could stop water, the work was quickly completed, until all that was left to do was build a wall around the newly plumbed-in bathroom suite. "I based it on the bathroom back at the beach house, although of course, that one lacks a Jacuzzi," Peridot was saying as she measured boards for a fourth time to make sure they were all still the right length. "As he spends so much time expelling, I thought it best to make sure the design was somewhat familiar."

"It looks good," Greg said encouragingly. "I think Steven's going to like it." He began gathering up the few tools he'd brought in to help with the job. "I'd better head back to town now, it's getting on a bit."

Peridot glanced up from the tape measure. "Thank you for the help."

"And the duct tape," Lapis added, tearing off a strip and wrapping it around one of the support beams to reinforce her earlier repairs.

After he'd left, the two gems continued to work for a while. After measuring the boards a sixth time, Peridot finally accepted that all the boards were correct and they began putting the walls up.

"Hey, Peridot?" Lapis said, breaking the silence. "It's still daylight, when we're done here, do you want to go back into the woods and look for your beads?"

xXxXx

"I think it was around here?" Peridot turned in a slow circle, trying to find something recognisable. "I'm sure I recall finding the 't' bead near that bush."

"OK," Lapis said vaguely. She was more interested in looking at the different leaves than anything else, but every now and then, she gave the ground a cursory glace, just in case. She knew that even if she did look properly, it was highly unlikely they'd find any more beads.

Just as she comforted herself with that thought, Peridot suddenly pounced on something in the undergrowth and screeched in delight. "Look Lapis, look! I found an 'o'!"

"Huh." Lapis peered down at the bead in Peridot's outstretched hands in surprise. "That was lucky."

"Lucky!? Pah!" Peridot scoffed, popping the bead into her gem for safekeeping. "Lucky had nothing to do with it. While I was recapping events in my dairy, I had the idea to calculate the likely distribution of the beads, factoring in our approximate speed, distance from the ground, and air resistance, and taking into account the locations of the beads we did find," she explained with a smug smile.

Lapis frowned slowly. "You worked out where your beads fell? That's uh, that's certainly something."

"I know, right?" Peridot said gleefully. "Obviously there is a small margin of error, but I believe I've managed to calculate a fairly close approximation of where to find them."

"That's great!" Lapis lied. "So where's the next one?"

Peridot scanned the area critically and then pointed into the trees. "It should be somewhere in that direction. Follow me."

Lapis did as she was told and watched in amazement as Peridot strode confidently through the woodland, stopped, and began to look closely at the ground. A few seconds later, she held another bead aloft. "I found the 'r'!"

"Wow." Lapis forced a smile onto her face. "You really did it. I'm impressed," she grudgingly admitted.

"That's five beads we've found now," Peridot said happily. "That's more than half of them! If we can find the other four, I'll be able to repair the bracelet and Steven will never need to know it got broken. Come on!" she ordered, plunging into the undergrowth. "The next one should be this way!"

This time, however, Lapis was prepared. As soon as Peridot stopped again, she began looking as well, desperate to find the next bead before the other gem did. She finally spotted it, half-hidden beneath some leaf mulch. Pretending to help search, she poked it into the ground until it was hidden from sight. "I don't see it," she said, straightening up.

"I don't either." Peridot looked up at the surrounding trees and did a few mental calculations. "It's possible it ricocheted off of one of these trees. Let's try over there."

They spent half an hour checking several other possible locations before Peridot admitted defeat and moved on to the next bead. This time, Lapis wasn't so lucky, and Peridot found it first, but she was able to hide the final two beads before the other gem could find them. The sun was beginning to set by this point and as visibility fell, Peridot reluctantly gave up. "I'll have to recalculate," she grumbled as they began heading back to the barn. "I'll add the locations of the three beads we did find, that should help to narrow things down."

"But hey, look on the bright side," Lapis said encouragingly. "You have six beads now, that's two-thirds. I'm sure we'll find them next time."

It was a filthy lie, and Lapis fully intended to dig the beads up and put them in a safe place as soon as she was alone, but Peridot looked reassured and began to chatter away about her remaining plans for the barn. Lapis smiled and nodded as best she could, but by the time they got back, she was heartily sick of the sound of the other gem's voice.

"-and I can then use the remaining wood to construct a small fence around the garden," Peridot finished happily.

"Yeah, that's a great idea," Lapis agreed. She had no idea what Peridot had been talking about and she didn't particularly care either. "I'm gonna head up to my room now, OK? I'll see you tomorrow."

She took off before the words "OK, see you tomorrow" had finished coming out of Peridot's mouth, and flew in through the window. Then she sagged onto the floor and groaned with relief. "I'm sure she didn't talk this much on the ship," she muttered after a moment, climbing to her knees and removing the cushions from her window seat. The lid came off a moment later and she carefully took out the bubbled gem hidden in the hollow. "What about you, hmm? Did you find her annoying too?"

Of course, there was no answer from Jasper, but Lapis continued to talk to the other gem anyway. "Today was fun though. I made her fight my water clones." She laughed at the memory. "You should've seen her face! It was hilarious! But then Greg showed up and I had to play nice. I suppose it was for the best though, I was getting a bit carried away. It would've been a bit awkward to explain if her physical form was destroyed; she's supposed to be training with Pearl tomorrow." She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "It's weird she can't summon a weapon though. Do you know what that's all about?"

She paused as if waiting for a reply. "You're no help," she muttered after a few seconds of silence, and placed the bubble back in the hollow next to the other objects hidden there. "And yet, somehow, you're still a better conversationalist now than you ever were before."

xXx

That's harsh, Lapis.

Anyway, while I was uploading this weeks chapters, I realised I'd titled them both as 'Chapter Twenty-Five' which means I've actually written a chapter more than I thought I had. Which means I have enough chapters for the next three weeks rather than the next two-and-a-half. Hooray!