Enough Chapter 22: "No Bad Ideas"
Louie fumed as he was shoved inside the same cell as his brothers and Webby, fighting the eggheads holding him and biting them.
"LET ME GOOOOOOOOO!" He screamed.
Bradford grinned with cruel glee in the background, "Oh, as you wish, Prince Louie." He snapped his fingers and the eggheads dropped him on the floor and closed the barred door. Louie fumed.
"Why would you do this, Bradford?! We were friends!"
Bradford looked up from the diamond he was toying with. Raising his eyebrows, he set it on his desk and leaned closer to Louie, "Louie, do you think I really wanted to be friends? I only ever wanted the Third Eye Diamond." He grabbed it from the shelf, "And now I have it."
"You're greedy and selfish! You don't care for anyone but yourself!" Louie yelled in a state of bitter fury.
Bradford looked at him, eyes twinkling, "Sound familiar?" Louie's face contorted in shock and realization as it dawned on him, "This is your fault, Louie. Not mine." He tossed the diamond in the air a few times, and caught it, as if to show off and rub his victory in Louie's face.
"Yeah…well…um…" Louie thought for a second then said, "I have your precious journal! Haha!"
Bradford cocked his head slyly and narrowed his eyes, "Do you really think I would trust you with a piece of information that valuable? Of course not! I made copies of it, Llewellyn." Bradford was then handed a remote control by one of his crony eggheads. Suddenly, the ground beneath the kids' feet started shaking, and they yelped, fleeing to the right side of the cage-like enclosure.
Bradford bellowed, "HEY EGGHEADS KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE WILL YOU?!" He cleared his throat and looked at the kids with a smile, "Sorry. There's construction going on in room 27."
Louie banged his fists against then bars, ignoring him.
"Anyways, as I was saying…" Bradford said, returning back to his villainous self, "You were a fool for trusting me." At that, Della disappeared and appeared next to Bradford, "Like it, eh? I can control people, and make them appear where I want them to. Pretty neat, if I do say so myself!"
"Let us out!"
"Nah, I'm afraid I can't do that. Well, love to stay here and chat, but unfortunately I've got other plans." Bradford got up, walking away with the eggheads.
"Nooooooo!" Louie howled, pressing himself against the bars of the prison, but knew that it was hopeless.
Dewey curled his beak at him, "You should have thought this over before you betrayed the whole family! You know, Bradford's right, you ARE selfish!" Dewey whimpered before sitting down, breathing heavy. Webby rested her hand on his shoulder as Dewey closed his eyes, still angry.
Huey started, "People-"
"There is no 'people' about it, Huey! Literally! Della and June are gone! And I bet Louie doesn't even care!"
"Of course I care!" Louie bristled, "Do you think I WANTED for them to get captured?!"
"Knowing you, then yes!"
"The you don't know me at all!"
"Oh yeah? You seriously believed a manipulative JERK! June risked her life to try and finally get us on our side, and even now, you're arguing with us!"
"You started it!" Louie retorted.
"Don't you at the very least feel bad for her?! She's GONE Louie, GONE! She cared so much about you that she would sacrifice herself to save you!"
"But she said that she didn't have faith in m-"
"She was bluffing, Louie! Of course she had faith in you! Isn't that obvious?! June practically WORSHIPS you!"
Louie stayed silent.
"And who knows what's going to happen to US?!" Dewey continued, his voice barely a whisper, "To mom?"
Louie stared at his feet. A few eggheads had walked inside and were now eating popcorn while watching.
"What are we going to do?" Webby asked.
"I-I…I don't know, okay!" Louie yelled suddenly. He hugged himself, "You guys all have your talents! But what about me? What am I supposed to do?"
The group stayed silent.
"What…What would mom want?" He put sat down and rested his head on his knees. His eyes widened suddenly and he got up, "Wait! That's it!" He pulled himself together, wiping his tears with his hoodie sleeve.
Showtime.
"Hey, fellas." Louie chirped, leaning against the bars of the cage, "Liked our little performance there? I call it 'Crocodile Tears.'" Louie made hand motions with his hands similar to those of a businessman exaggerating a product's worth.
The eggheads looked at each other. Finally, one spoke.
"Yeah, I loved it!" He cheered. All of his stupid friends cheered along as well. A couple in crowd looked like they had been hyped up on sugar, and some of them looked drunk. Louie took a cautious step back, wondering if maybe that was what they were always like and they were just always that crazy.
"Cool cool cool, so um, how would you guys like to see another?" He put his elbow on a metal piece and flipped his hair back, earning an eye roll from Dewey.
They cheered.
"Only one problem…there isn't much elbow room in here…" He pretended to trip over Webby's foot, "Ow, my leg!"
The eggheads looked at each other, and Louie dusted himself off sheepishly. He clasped his hands together, "If you let me out, I could perform again." Louie hoped that they wouldn't question the fact that he 'performed' before and why he couldn't perform now.
"But you performed before." One slightly smarter egghead pointed out. Louie mentally face-palmed.
"Well…yes, but…"
Huey jumped in, "He could perform better if you let us out! Maybe you could even take us into the halls! Great acoustics there!"
The egghead frowned, "I suppose we could-"
"HECK YEAH!" One of them took the keys and opened the cell door.
Louie and the kids burst through.
"Bye creepy egg people!" Webby shouted over her shoulder as she slammed open the door, "Quick, Louie, where's a safe space?"
"Um, somewhere there's no cameras to watch us…my room, maybe?" Louie suggested. He dug in the pocket of his soot-black hoodie until he found the keycard. Taking a left turn, he found his room and ran inside, letting the others in.
"Okay, we need to figure something out." Huey said, taking charge. Louie bent his neck a little, thinking that he would be the one who would have said that.
"We should call the adults." Dewey suggested. He took out his phone, "DEAD BATTERY."
Dewey groaned, "Next idea."
"Why don't we rappel down from the window and swing down?" Webby suggested.
"Webby, there is no window. To remind you, in case you aren't aware of the situation, we are underneath a building!" Huey crossed his arms.
"Plus, FOWL took all of our supplies. We'd need Webby's grappling hook for that." Dewey said.
Everyone looked at Louie.
Louie rubbed his arm, "Well, I've got one idea…but I don't know if it's good or not…"
"Nonsense, there's no such thing as a bad idea." Huey said, holding up his index finger as if he was teaching.
Webby lit up and opened her beak to talk, but Huey interrupted.
"I'm sure your idea's good, Louie. Why don't you tell us?" He looked sympathetically at his little brother.
Louie sighed, "Okay…I have an idea…listen up…."
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