I'm also partaking in this flurry of activity to make up for the two weeks in the near future in which I will be totally unable to post even if I remembered that I really wanted to. As I shall be leaving on an overseas trip in just three weeks.

Lead, follow, stand, sit. Do something other than back flips please!

"Would you turn that down please! I'm trying to sleep!" Ed yelled. I looked up from my book. He was standing at the door to one of the sitting rooms and he looked mad. I picked up the remote next to me and pointed it at the stereo; Uranus, the Magician from Holst's The Planets descended to a bearable level.

"What was that Ed? That music was a little loud." I said Ed glowered at me and walked back out of the room. It was currently eleven at night and I was still too happy to be back home to sleep. I was curled up in a chair with a book soaking in the feel of my castle again.

Al and Oryx had come over for a while but they had to get some sleep. I stayed up until I finished my book, two hours later. I sat on my bed cross-legged in the early hours of the morning, listening to nothing in particular. I started when Hayashi jumped up onto my lap.

"Hey there Yashi." I whispered, he hadn't come to visit the castle since I vanished according to Ed and I was glad to see him. Hayashi mewed quietly at me and nudged me in the direction of my pillow. "What, are you my mother now? Fine I'll sleep." I slid between the familiar covers and fell asleep with Hayashi's purrs in my ears.

You cancelled the what?

The party of the liberation of all stick insects.

"I'm bored Edo-kun! This is boring, come up with something fun to do!" Ed looked over the top of his book disdainfully.

"You sound like a two-year old. A really whiny one."

"Aww, you're mean." I crossed my arms over my chest and sat down huffily on the library floor. Silence enveloped the library for a full five seconds. "Hey Ed?" I whispered, he looked up again, glaring at me.

"What is it, Frog?" He asked warily, I took a deep breath.

"What are you reading! Is it good? Is it interesting! It looks thick and boring! Is it thick and boring! 'Cause it looks like it is!" Ed snapped the book shut and glowered fiercely at me. He stood up and pushed me towards and out of the library door.

"Just go away and find someone else to annoy! I'm trying to work!" He said angrily and shut the door loudly.

"Fine!" I said snippily, sighed, and meandered off down the hall in the general direction of the bathroom; maybe Jack won't be working so hard. But he was. When I tapped the mirror and Halloween Town swam into view all I got was a "Can't talk now, busy!" called from another room. I tapped the mirror off again and leant against the shower stall to my right. I stared blankly at my reflection in the mirror, zoning out.

But when it blinked without me blinking first I naturally jumped backwards, my reflection did the same. Curious, and wondering if I had imagined it, I leant in close to the mirror and waved my arm around experimentally. The reflection copied it, just like it had always done. Because it was simply my image reflected back at me; nothing special.

But then it blinked again. Knowing I hadn't imagined it this time I stretched out my hand and tentatively touched the shiny surface. A bright light flashed and I flinched back, dropping my hand. I was standing exactly where I was before, but something was off. First of all, my reflection's hand hadn't dropped at all; it was still outstretched towards the mirror.

Slowly the reflections hand drew back from the mirror and down to its side. It smiled in a definitely creepy way as I stared transfixed. I watched in silent awe as the figure turned and walked quickly to the door and reached out to open it. The reflection did it slowly, as if they were afraid it wasn't going to open, and when the door swung open the smile on their face grew from creepy to downright terrifying.

My reflection walked back over to stand in front of the mirror. We stood there watching one another for what seemed like a millennia before my reflection finally spoke.

"Hello Frog, my name is Courtney." Its, or her, voice was an exact copy of mine. A mirror image I suppose you could say. Her voice was like a slap in the face; I reeled backwards, stumbling towards my left; towards the door. But instead of my hands finding the cool metal handle I ran headlong into the shower stall. I cried out in shock and stumbled backwards again, running into the door this time. I heard the reflection, Courtney, laughing and faced the mirror again.

"What's going on?" I said, my voice shaking and whispery. Courtney giggled almost hysterically.

"I've been waiting for this chance for so long!" she said gleefully. "Ever since I got stuck inside that mirror all I wanted was to get out. Oh yes, a mirror. You're inside a mirror." Again she giggled, bordering on manically this time.

"And you'll never get out; because you don't know how. And even if you did you wouldn't be able to. So why don't you just make yourself comfortable and I'll be sure to come back and give you regular updates on how I'm ruining your life for you. Have fun! Oh, and don't even entertain the hope that anyone other than me'll be able to see you, because they won't. Bye now!"

And with this last comment she darted out of the door and closed it behind her.

I stared after her for a while before my brain kicked back somewhat into gear and I ran, to my right, to the door. But no matter how hard I tugged it wouldn't open. The handle wouldn't even turn. I looked around the room, it was just a bathroom. I

t was pretty ordinary as bathrooms go, very white and clean looking. I asked the minions a little while ago if they wouldn't mind giving the castle a bit of a clean every now and then if it took their fancy. Turns out that they're very appreciative of a clean living space so the castle stays pretty spotless. Though they mostly leave any cooking utensils I use and leave lying around in the kitchen where they are, and they never clean up after parties. I sat down on the toilet and put my head in my hands.

"So now I'm stuck in a bathroom, and I can't get out of it." I said quietly to myself, "Well isn't that just excellent! I'm even more bored now! What does she expect me to do while she runs around pretending to be me? Write poetry? No way! And what am I supposed to do for food?"

This last one stopped me short, after all Courtney must have had a food source somewhere. Water I was fine for, the tap and the shower provided plenty, but I wasn't yet strange enough to keep food in my bathroom constantly.

I only kept food in here occasionally. Now wasn't one of those times. "But she must have had some kind of food source." I muttered, but how?

Probably the same way she knows where she's going in the castle, which I assume she does, and the same way she managed to swap us in the first place. But how had she done that? I rummaged in my pocket and pulled out a notebook and pencil; time to brainstorm.

Filled with balloons?

That's right! The whole pit!

But who could have done this?

Ed turned the page of his book, not looking up from it as he door to the library opened and shut again. Probably Frog back from finding something to amuse herself. Quiet footsteps made their way slowly across the floor towards him at an even, calm pace.

This was what made him look up; the steady, even tread without a hint of falling or stumbles. Frog was walking calmly across the library towards him, immediately he was suspicious, but he quickly pressed his face into an expression of calm.

"Hey." He said shortly, she nodded and sat down opposite him. Another odd thing, but then again Frog's whole reason to be was being erratic. Still; something was off, and Ed had learned to trust his instincts. So for the next hour or so while Frog read her fantasy novel and petted Hayashi he observed carefully any out of the ordinary behaviour she exhibited.

By the end of the sixty minutes his head contained a list of exactly twenty-two points. Frog decided to go to bed early so she could do some work on her small garden plot before it got too sunny tomorrow and left without saying goodnight to Hayashi; twenty-three.

Ed shook his head as he cleared away his book and notes. He needed to think about this uninterruptedly. A shower was always the right way to go when he needed to think, so it would help now. Ed walked towards the nearest bathroom to the library, pulling his hair out of its braid as he went. He was handed a towel by a minion who happened to be passing the bathroom door and thanked her kindly. Ed stepped into the bathroom, shed his clothes, and stepped gratefully under the stream of warm water.

A direct e leads you to the heart of matters.

"Or maybe she ate soap!" I muttered, scribbling busily on my paper. Somehow though, I didn't think Courtney would stoop so low as to eat soap so I put a question mark next to that one. I heard the door open and looked up hastily, could it be Courtney back already to tell me what havoc she had wrought?

But it was Ed. I wondered what he was doing in here, and if it was possible that he could have figured it out already he wasn't a child prodigy for nothing after all. He pulled his shirt up and over his head and I stared blankly in confusion. It was only when he walked over to the shower that I clued in.

Bathroom. Shower. Right. He reached for his pants and I busied myself with reading back over my ideas until I heard the water running and Ed step in. The glass that made the shower cubicle was cloudy and fragmented so once the door closed I began scanning the room for something I could use or do.

This was getting more and more difficult to do as steam built up on the mirror surface. Impatiently I swiped at it with my hand, and a clear patch grew. I stared at the small now translucent patch and an idea sparked inside my brain.

I reached out and traced a finger across the clear surface, a small line appeared. I grinned triumphantly and traced my finger over the mirror again, forming words this time. 'Help, I'm trapped! She isn't who she says she is!'

Now I was relying on Ed's genius to save me. I read over my note, then realised something very important; my note would be backwards on Ed's side. I studied the note even more closely and attempted to write it backwards.

I managed to produce some worm-like squiggles and a small throbbing headache. I wiped the squiggles away irritably and pulled myself up onto the counter to wait for Ed to get out of the shower. When he did I waited a few more seconds before turning around to look again. Ed was standing in the middle of the bathroom, lower half wrapped in his towel, combing his hair with his fingers.

Small rivulets of water slipped off of the end of the yellow locks and trickled down over his scarred, sculpted chest and stomach. He caught sight of the mirror out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to look at it. I watched in hope as his eyes scanned the words a few times. He narrowed his eyes slightly, obviously thinking, but he seemed to brush whatever it was off.

"I didn't know Frog could write backwards." Ed said quietly as he gathered his clothes and walked out of the bathroom. I stared after him, ready to scream in frustration, which I then proceeded to do.

Edwarf.

Ed walked out of the bathroom with his mind racing. He really hadn't known that Frog could write backwards. Though sometimes he doubted her ability to write forwards, but that was Frog for you.

He mulled over this as he lay in bed. He could hear Frog's breathing as she slept. She was here being her usual strange self, not being held captive in the bathroom mirror. He assured himself of this as he fell asleep, and that for a while at least there would be some degree of normalcy around the castle.

But the next morning when Ed awoke he knew his prediction to be false, for something was indeed amiss. Hayashi sat on the end of his bed with his shining pale-green eyes slitted and his plumed forest-patterned tail lashing feverishly.

"What is it Yashi?" He asked, looking around the room or the source of the trouble, Fog's bed was empty; she must have woken up and left earlier. Hayashi lifted his left paw up and proffered it to Ed, the fur of the paw was matted and as Ed watched a small droplet of bright red blood fell from the tip of one of the partially extended claws and onto the bed sheets. Ed sprang forwards and picked up the cat. "How did that happen? And why hasn't Frog already taken care of it?"

No matter where she was Frog would have sensed this 'disturbance of the Force' as she liked to call them and come running. Hayashi meowed loudly, as if agreeing to Ed's thoughts.

He continued to watch Ed almost impatiently as he washed the cut. It was long, and fairly deep, but the magical bandages in the first aid kit Ed found hidden in a bookcase took care of it. He sat on the floor holding Hayashi in his lap for a while after, thinking about this latest development.

If Frog hadn't known about this, then she wasn't the same as she had been. If she wasn't the same as she had been could it stand to reason that she was a whole different person? But wouldn't he have noticed if she had been replaced?

But he had noticed things, quite a few, which pointed to something strange. This included. Ed stood up, placing Hayashi back on the ground where he walked away with only the slightest trace of a limp, and went to look for Frog, or whoever it was, though he had not idea what he was going to do when he got there and found them.

He found Frog working, as she had said she would be for once, in the garden. She was busily pulling up weeds as he approached but stopped when he got nearer. He forced his face into a carefree smile and schooled his body into a more relaxed position.

"How're you doing?" He asked her casually, she smiled up at him from the flower bed.

"Oh fine, have you seen Hayashi lately? I can't seem to find him." Ed thought almost seriously about telling her about Hayashi's injury but considered that she might already know.

"Nah, why do you need to see him?" She shrugged and turned back to her work. So he continued. "One would think that you'd know where he was anyway, being master of this dimension." She looked up quickly and Ed almost thought he saw a flash of fear in her eyes. But if it was ever there it was gone in an instant.

Groundhog

Courtney cursed silently; she had forgotten her counterpart's control over this place. Would the master of this dimension be able to get out of her mirror?

Her mirror. Her mirror, not Frog's. She probably couldn't control the mirrors anymore than Courtney could control the castle. She relaxed and forced herself to smile up at the golden-haired boy; Edward.

"But where's the fun in that, right?" He seemed satisfied with her answer and made off somewhere. Courtney went back to her work, planning exactly what she would do to him when the time was right to begin her destruction. The time was not now, but it would be soon.

Next time on CCC: The plot thickens! Or not… I don't really know…