Chapter 11: Secrets in the Kitchen

In the morning, now that the sun had finally peeked into the relatively hidden bedroom, Eddy begrudgingly opened his crusted eyes; his vision was largely hazy and his pupils sluggishly darted around at the white walls. Fighting against the urge to simply pull the covers back over him and drift off into the world of dreams once more, the small Ed lifted his head upon hearing a rustling in the closet beside him.

Next to him, Double d was calmly shuffling through the contents of his clothes for school; Eddy sighed and rubbed his eyes as he sat up in bed.

"What time is it?" he asked, causing a startled Double d to look over at him.

"Oh, it seems that you have awakened from your blissful slumber; quite prematurely I might add," he quipped, pulling out a folded article of clothing. "It is unusual for you to be up this early."

"What time is it?" Eddy repeated, unaware of exactly what Double d had said.

"It's 8:15 am," the smart teen replied with a slight grin.

Sitting up, significantly more awake now, Eddy peered over the side of the bed down at a sleeping Ed, who didn't look the least bit disturbed.

"Geez. This freakin' guy could sleep for days on end if nobody woke him up," Eddy said, ending with a chuckle.

Following Eddy's gaze down to Ed, Double d couldn't help but smile as well.

"I must concur, Eddy," he began, "Ed's threshold for most stimuli is quite high. I doubt he would wake up without outside intervention."

Eddy didn't catch everything that his friend said, but he knew that it was meant to be a joke. Letting out a short laugh, Eddy then watched as Double d pilled the articles of clothing on top of one another, folding them across his arm.

"Doesn't your school start at like 7:00am, or somethin'? You're a little late," Eddy pointed out as he slid himself off the side of the bed and onto the floor.

"I'm touched that you have taken such an invested interest in my academic performance, Eddy; however, I only woke up early the first day due to the program introduction – now, all of the classes begin at 9:15am."

"…still kind of early," the short Ed muttered to himself as he headed to the door.

Exiting the room, he walked out into the open space of the Living Room that led to the empty kitchen; Sheriff Bronson had either already left the house or he was still asleep in his own room, assuming that he even came home last night at all. Heading straight for the refrigerator, Eddy mindlessly opened the door of the fridge and scanned the food items that lined the shelves within. The first thing he noticed, and something that he was thankful for, was that Sheriff Bronson apparently really liked meat – there were at least seven different kinds of meat that decorated the inside of the refrigerator. There were also some containers full of fruits and vegetables – strawberries, lettuce, blueberries, and a few more - were pushed to the back of the fridge, as though they had been forgotten.

Small, cylindrical cans of beer sat on the inside of the door, along with lonely pickle jars and solitary ketchup packets. For a short moment, Eddy wondered if Sheriff Bronson would recognize one less beer in his fridge. The answer was 'yes, he would probably find out' - so Eddy decided against it. Underage drinking being illegal really sucked.

Reaching for a bag of bread, he took out two slices and gently placed them into a white toaster that sat on the counter beside him. Waiting for the machine to do its work, he then leaned on the nearby countertop and needlessly peered around the room.

Sheriff Bronson wasn't one for decorating, which was obvious given the overall emptiness of the walls and lack of attention to aesthetics; the only object that most closely acted like decor was a framed mirror that was positioned directly to the left of the refrigerator. The ornate intricacies that were inscribed into the golden color of the frame seemed to betray the blankness of the mirror itself – it looked….off.

'Hey, to each his own,' Eddy thought to himself with a shrug. It definitely wouldn't have been his first choice.

The spring-like sound of the bread resurfacing from the chambers in the toaster attracted Eddy's attention once more; going through the cabinets in search of a plate, the short teen was happy to find a thin, blue saucer. Placing the toast on the plate, he then retrieved an entire bar of butter from the refrigerator; pulling out a relatively dull knife, Eddy spread some butter over the surface of the bread with a rushed sense of hunger.

It was a bit nice – not having to listen to parents telling you what to eat – that was the definition of freedom. Allowing the butter to fully melt into the texture of the toast, Eddy then stuck his head into the fridge once again, looking for something to drink. Surprisingly, there wasn't much to offer in terms of drinks; granted, there was some water at the bottom along with small containers of white wine.

"Doesn't this dude have any milk? Sheesh. I'd even go for some orange juice at this point," he mumbled to himself in annoyance.

As he carefully rummaged around through the refrigerator, Double d emerged from the bedroom fully clothed; like last time, he wore school-appropriate attire that was very different from his standard look. Walking past the kitchen on his way to the front door, he looked over at a cursing Eddy who angrily looked through the fridge; Double d was aware that Sheriff Bronson didn't care if they took whatever food they needed, but under principle, he didn't like the idea of simply taking what wasn't his. He was glad Eddy was enjoying himself, though.

"Alright, Eddy, I'll be leaving in a few minutes," he said after greeting the short Ed, "Please…make sure that you don't do anything irresponsible while I'm gone."

"'Irresponsible?'" Eddy questioned without removing his eyes from within the fridge, "Do I look like the type of person who's 'irresponsible'?" he said, with the term 'irresponsible' in air-quotes.

Double d had to bite his tongue to keep himself from outright saying 'yes'. Instead, he just met his friend with a short, yet unsure nod before returning to the bedroom to retrieve his backpack. After emerging from the room once again, he said his goodbyes to Eddy as he headed out the door.

Relatively unaffected by the departure of his friend, Eddy continued to sift through the random items that filled the space within the refrigerator; it took a few more minutes until he finally gave up, believing the only drinks there were water and wine – two of the worst possible choices. Given the fact that he couldn't exactly take some of the beer without Bronson noticing was really what disappointed Eddy the most, so in the end he decided to pour himself a glass of water.

Dejectedly, he held the cup full of water in his left hand and picked up the plate of toast with his right. As he turned around, he was startled by someone's voice directly next to his ear.

"MORNING EDDY!" Ed screamed, causing his short friend to stumble away in fright.

The events of the next few seconds passed almost in slow motion, with Eddy losing his balance and falling against the wall, and Ed keeping his happy-go-lucky expression all the way through. Losing his hold of the plate and the glass, Eddy spread out his arms in an attempt to catch himself before he hit anything – but it was already too late. The sound of shattering glass erupted throughout the house as Eddy slammed against a wall and fell to the ground. Looking around, his face turned a sickly white as he laid his eyes upon the framed mirror to the left of the refrigerator that had now been shattered. It may have just been decoration, but Eddy knew the Sheriff would still be mad…really mad.

His remained frozen, staring down at the result of his clumsiness, or rather, Ed's sudden intrusion of personal space; glass shards now laid motionlessly on the tile ground, fallen from the golden frame. Slowly lifting himself off of the floor, Eddy swallowed with an inherent sense of nervousness – this was bad.

"Blockhead! What the hell did you do that for?!" Eddy demanded, turning his rage onto an unsuspecting Ed.

"S-sorry, Eddy. I just wanted to tell you 'good morning'," Ed murmured with a newfound understanding of the situation.

"Idiot. Don't you know not to sneak up on people and just randomly yell at them? What's wrong with you?" he returned.

"Sorry, Eddy," Ed tried once more.

The short teen let a low moan escape his lips to express his irritation as he turned to examine the mess of fractured glass. Eddy's heart was pounding; he wasn't particularly excited to inform Sheriff Bronson that his golden framed mirror had been broken due to an 'accident'. Nervously scratching the back of his head as he paced back and forth across the floor, Eddy quickly tried to come up with something – anything to soften the inevitable blow of Bronson's rage.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap," he repeated feverishly as his pacing quickened.

Would Bronson accept the whole 'this was an accident' excuse? Or maybe 'it was Ed's fault' was even better – no, no, no….how about 'aliens came down suddenly and tried to attack them, but in order to survive the lasers, they had to use the mirror'…ok, that can go in the 'maybe' file.

While Eddy's mind was racing and his back-and-forth pacing started to get more and more frantic, he didn't even realize that Ed had long since approached the now broken golden frame and was curiously examining the object. A few smaller shards of broken glass still remained alongside the innermost edges of the frame, their jagged shapes denoting a dangerously sharp addition to the mess. Gently gripping the side of the golden metal, Ed's mouth remained agape in wonder as he pushed the broken mirror to the right. Rotating along the pin that kept it against the wall, the mirror frame moved to reveal a dark area beyond the surface of the wall itself. It was a hole, or more specifically – a square-shaped chamber. Although it was quite small, much too small to hide anything of significant value, it still seemed as though its purpose was definitely to conceal something from view.

"Eddy, look at this," Ed hummed aloud, turning to his still nervous friend.

Eddy turned his head, "What do you want, blockhead?" he growled. He was much too irritated to calmly respond to his larger friend.

"Eddy, look," Ed repeated once more.

"WHAT?!" Eddy screamed, finally turning his attention whole-heartedly to the flinching Ed. The pitch of his voice carried throughout the house as his shout echoed away from the kitchen.

"Uhhh,…l-look," Ed responded, now feeling a bit diminished in size.

Eddy's head shot up to where Ed was gesturing but he kept his angry expression to further prove his rage. Examining the small, box-shaped compartment in the wall, Eddy's face slightly softened as he stared at the chamber with relative intrigue. Taking a step closer, causing Ed to move out of the way, Eddy tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in obvious confusion.

"What is this?" he asked, although it was more to himself than Ed.

The big oaf still decided to answer, "It's a hole, Eddy."

"Yeah, good observation, blockhead," Eddy sarcastically said with a frown.

"What's it for?" he continued, this time not bothered at all by Ed's response.

"Maybe it's where keeps his 'special stuff'," the large Ed boy posited.

Over the years, Eddy had come to realize that when Ed said 'special stuff', he was really just referring to things that people valued. For instance, Eddy's 'special stuff' was money, Ed's 'special stuff' was comics, and Double d's 'special stuff' was books.

Eddy put a finger on his chin as he thought quietly to himself; technically, Ed might be right – although in a somewhat elementary way. Most adults usually had places where they would stash and hide valuable things, things that they didn't want anyone to take. In some houses, the adult would even hide their money in safes….is that what this was? A safe?

Curious, Eddy reached his hand into the chamber as he peered down into the compartment, looking for anything that could possibly be worthwhile. The inside of the chamber was full of a variety of items, the majority of which didn't concern Eddy in the least. Near the front of the chamber were brown, woven bags that were made of thick nit materials; they were tied at the end by red, ribbon-like strings that wrapped tightly around the top. To the right, but still at the front of the compartment, there was a small, black box, the contents of which were a mystery to Eddy. Finally, at the back end, practically touching the wall, was a medium-sized chest that had an obvious lock mechanism along the outer lip of the lid – it probably needed a key to be opened.

As Eddy quietly inspected the items, his heart jumped upon hearing the garage slowly open up from beyond the door - Sheriff Bronson had come home.

End of Chapter 11

Author's Note: Hey, everyone! I know I didn't mention this in the last chapter, but i'll say it now. If you follow my profile at all, you'll know that the biggest story I have going on right now is the Avatar: Last Airbender & Toaru Majutsu no Index crossover, titled "Accelerator: The Last Esper". Due to this, the majority of my creative focus has been on continuing that storyline, so I haven't had as much time to work on some of the other stories I had going on - even the ones I really wanted to work on. Hopefully, I'll have more time in the coming future to work on some other stuff, but just know that I will still probably be working on my bigger stories.

P.S: Comment, just comment. Even something as simple as "Hi" or "You suck" would be appreciated. Thanks!