Part 12 – An Ace Up Minty's Sleeve

Minty's Green Apple Condominium was a marvel of structural design and candy mixed into one. It was a shiny and modern 3-storey building featuring the scent of fresh apples and a rich glaze finish that was just green, green, green. It was very spacious; perfect for someone like Minty to practice her flips and famous somersaults anytime she liked. She performed these moves even when she was simply walking to her bedroom or strolling to the kitchen to prepare a snack. It was just something her programming had turned into a habit. Her basement featured a home-gym where she exercised every morning before the arcade opened and kicked back with a relaxing work-out after a long day of racing. A miniature caramel waterfall flowed from her second floor to a caramel pond in her backyard, which featured a beautiful garden, filled with shrubs of sour candy and several green apple trees. The golden pond was perfect for dipping ripened apples during harvest time. When she was by herself, Minty often spent her time tending to her beloved candy plants. Sometimes, Jubileena and Adorabeezle would lend her a hand during picking season, but today, her two best friends were not here to help with the garden. They were here for a very different purpose.

It was from Minty's 3rd storey bedroom window where Jubileena Bing-Bing stood, letting the refreshing breeze waft pleasantly into the room and play with the ends of her crimson pigtails. Though she loved the speed and thrills of racing around in her Cherriot, there were times like this when she enjoyed listening to the sounds of silence and letting the world take the wheel for a change.

"So…you finally figured it out, huh?" she said at last with a satisfied smirk of approval.

Minty Zaki didn't avert her eyes. She was lying on her lime Jell-O bed and staring at the ceiling, which featured several dents following her various miscalculated flips and somersaults over the years. It was amazing that the place didn't come crashing down on her after all the damage that it had sustained. She ought to tell Daddy sometime and ask him to come over with his hammer.

"Yeah," she sighed wistfully.

Jubi turned around and leaned against the windowsill, gazing at her. "Took you long enough."

Minty finally sat up and looked at her friend. "I guess I always knew…but I just didn't admit it to myself."

"So what are you waiting for?" Adorabeezle Winterpop asked, who was examining Minty's impressive collection of sparkly bows arranged neatly on the shelf. There were over 30 of them. "What's stopping you? We've always known you've had a crush on him."

Minty shifted uncomfortably. "I know…but…"

"But what?" the winter-themed girl demanded.

"But I don't know if he has one on me."

Silence.

"You've got to be kidding me," Adorabeezle snorted. "Have you been dunked in your own caramel pool? Or have your somersaults somehow flipped your big brain around? Of course he does! We've all seen the way he acts around you. He practically treats you like the Queen of the Ice Cream."

"But…but he treats all the girls like that, Dora," Minty argued. "Swizzy doesn't exactly hide his charm whenever he gets the chance to display it."

Jubileena stroked one of her crimson pigtails thoughtfully. "True," she agreed, "but Swizzle treats you even more special than the rest of us. He smiles whenever he and I hang out…but his smiles are shinier and softer whenever you're around."

Minty wanted to protest against this too, but she couldn't: Jubileena was the expert on stuff like this. Her programming granted her the natural ability to notice and pick up subtle signs of friendship and affection, and she had the feeling that this was no exception.

"How long have you known, Jubi?" she asked her red-haired friend.

"Since forever," Jubileena answered simply. "But you know…ever since we were unplugged, I began seeing more signs. Ones that were more obvious. That dance I saw you guys do…that wasn't just any dance. You felt something that day, didn't you?"

Minty smiled sheepishly and nodded. Adorabeezle was listening intently.

"And that same night at Dad's apartment, I saw you two sneaking out. There was a reason why you wanted to be with Swizzle alone."

Then Jubileena flashed Minty a devilish smirk. "I saw that kiss, by the way."

Minty blushed a furious scarlet.

"Kiss? What kiss?!" exclaimed Adorabeezle. "Don't leave me hanging, girlfriend!"

Jubileena grinned cheekily at her. "I'll tell you later," she said before turning back to Minty.

"It's as clear as pure sugar glass, Mints," she said, trying hard to hold a straight face that was quickly being cast off in exchange for some girly squeals. "Swizzle loves you. And you already know that you love him."

Adorabeezle nodded encouragingly. "Exactly. Now all that's left to do is to make sure he knows that too."

It was like they were trying to sketch out a plan for battle. The green-haired tomboy looked at her two best friends and sighed. "I know. And trust me, that's what I've wanted to do since forever. It's what I've been trying to figure out how to do…"

"What do you mean?" Jubi asked curiously.

Minty's eyes drifted to the view of the outdoors through her window. "I want to thank Swizzle. He's done so much for me ever since we met in the Gulch. He's taken me on so many cool adventures and shown me tons of wicked places. And after we got unplugged, he went out of his way to cheer me up. He lifted me out of the gutter when I needed him the most. He danced with me. He told me everything would be all right. He touched my heart that night on the bridge. And then he saved my life! I…I had never felt so happy to have him around…and that feeling hasn't gone away; it's still here. But I haven't done anything to repay him for everything he's done for me all my life. And now I want to more than ever."

With her confession out, Minty got off the bed and trudged over to the window. She gazed out at Swizzle's tree house next door. Ever since she had taken an interest in the boy, she had always wondered what it would be like to build a zipline that led straight out her window and right through his so she could visit him in a flash whenever she felt like it. She knew that Swizz would not mind that at all.

"Well," Adorabeezle said carefully, "if you can figure out the perfect way to thank him for everything he did, maybe then you can confess to him."

Jubileena sighed happily. "How romantic," she gushed. Not even trying to hold back now, she squealed and giggled like a pesky alarm clock setting off; Adorabeezle joined hands with her as they jumped up and down happily like crazed fangirls at a boy band concert. "Fancy that: our own Minty in love!"

Minty scrunched up her face and ignored them. She was definitely not the giggly girly kind of girl, yet it didn't seem to affect her friendship with the two racers currently dancing about in her bedroom. She wandered to her bedside table where two rectangular photos in gingerbread frames stood. The lengthwise photo was of her, Jubi, Dora, and rest of the racers posing with Felix and Calhoun. While the parents sat on Felix's chair, the racers had gathered around them for the picture. Jubi and Dora were seated back-to-back off to the side and Minty herself was right in the centre with her hand resting on Swizzle's shoulder. This was their family portrait and it meant a lot to her. But not as much as the second photo, which was much smaller and height-wise. Standing happily with arms looped around each other and silly expressions on their faces were herself and Swizzle. This moment had been captured at one of their many frequent trips to Dance Dance Revolution, courtesy of Emi, who had become something of an older sister to Minty over the last year or so. Remembering how the dancing teenager had mistaken Swizzle for Minty's boyfriend all those months ago when they had first stumbled into DDR, it would seem that she wasn't so far off the mark after all.

"The thing is, girls," Minty sighed, "I don't know how to thank him. Swizzle's taken me everywhere. How do I top that and make my adventure for him even cooler?"

Jubi and Dora snapped out of their happy daze when Minty dropped this bomb.

"Hmm, that's tough," Jubileena answered. "You guys have scoured all of Sugar Rush already."

"And you've game-jumped all of Litwak's other games," Adorabeezle added, twisting her long braid in thought.

"Maybe we can ask Snowanna to play some music while you have a romantic dinner," Jubileena said with a goofy grin. "They do that all the time in the movies!"

"That won't work," Adorabeezle said immediately. "Everyone knows that Swizzle hates sitting still. It's gotta be something super cool to WOW his socks off!"

"Exactly," Minty said, sitting on the bed again. Her hands gently held the photo of her and Swizzle. "I don't know what I can do to impress him more than he's impressed me."

Jubi sat down on her left while Dora sat on her right, sandwiching her in the middle, just like when they had ridden the train to Fix-It Felix Jr. to find a place to live after their game had been unplugged. That now felt so long ago.

"Minty, Swizzle has always been impressed by you," Jubi stated in a serious tone. "Everyone knows that it's not easy to impress The Swizz, 'cuz not just anything catches his attention. So you've already accomplished that ever since he first took notice of you. Being yourself was and still is all that really counts."

"I know, but I want to do this…" Minty sighed. "I just wish I could do something more. Just once. Just for him…"

She trailed off as she thought of all the fantastic places she and Swizzle had visited together, but not one of them had been her ideas. They were always places that he had chosen to explore and taken her with him so that they could discover buried riches together. If only she could think of some great unknown where she could take him…somewhere cool that they had not explored together yet…something big and awesome to show him how much she loved him…"

Suddenly, Minty's eyes sparked.

"I know that look," Jubileena said, noticing immediately. "You just found an ace up your sleeve, didn't you?"

"What is it?" Adorabeezle asked with earnest.

Minty stood up and placed the framed photo back where it belonged. Then she headed for the door, almost forgetting that her friends were still sitting right there.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Adorabeezle called after her.

She paused at the threshold and turned her head to look at them. "I'm going to talk to Vanellope."

Ever since Vanellope had taken leave to live in Slaughter Race, the racers of Sugar Rush were only 10 among many who missed her greatly. Ralph, however, had brought back a modern phone that he called a Buzzzphone so that he could still keep in contact with his best friend. Ironically, ditzy little Candlehead had been the first of the racers to boldly step up and ask for his permission to borrow it so that she could talk to their long-lost friend, a request that Ralph had happily granted. This had happened about a month after Ralph had returned home, and since then, the wrecker had received lots of visitors to his shack, all asking to borrow his phone so they could see Vanellope's smiling face again. Taffyta, Candlehead, and Rancis had spent many evenings talking to their former president, chatting away to share the news, and in Taffyta's case, to ask for advice on how to lead Sugar Rush. Minty herself had had her share of phone time with Vanellope on several occasions, but this time, was different. This time, she was on a mission.

After leaving Jubileena and Adorabeezle behind at her condo, she raced down her walkway where her beloved speed demon kart was waiting. She performed her usual leap into the air, followed by a double-backflip to land right into the driver's seat…only to yelp out in surprised pain when she landed on something that wasn't seat material.

"Ow! What the…?"

Minty irritably reached under her and extracted what she had sat on: a blue gumball. Though greatly annoyed at first, she suddenly smiled. The colour reminded her of Swizzle.

Slipping the mysterious gumball into her glove compartment and deciding to beat Gloyd up later for his annoying prank, Minty drove off towards the game exit. The wind whipped through her green hair, but it just prompted her to drive faster.

Like a green flash, she was away. Off of Racers' Ave. and past the Candy Floss hedge mazes. A quick shortcut across their familiar Royal Raceway and then on the dusty gingerbread lane that led to the sloping, glittery rainbow ribbon road bordered by the overhead sign reading 'Parting is such sweet sorrow…come back soon!'

Minty didn't stop when she reached the foot of the rainbow; in fact, she floored the gas and took the incline at full speed. Up the steep road of sparkling colours she went, nearing the exit portal cut in the large waffle cone peak of the mountain range and kicking up a trail of air-borne glitter in her tracks. The sunlight gleamed off the Veloci-Wrapper's green glaze as she travelled higher and higher. So high up she was in the world, it made Minty feel free.

She was almost at the top when she noticed that a second kart was already there: a large slice of birthday cake with mint-chip ice cream wheels, exhaust candles, and the number 7. And there was its driver, kneeling on the blue stripe of the rainbow road…with a shovel and pail?

Minty slowed her kart and parked it next to the Ice Screamer. Candlehead looked up and waved happily at her. The bow-wearing girl somersaulted herself out.

"Candlehead? What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

"I'm digging!" she answered brightly, as if this answered everything. She held her little shovel out as proof.

Minty frowned. "I can see that, but…why?"

Candlehead suddenly blushed. "Just getting some glitter. So I can finish my scarf for Rancis."

It took Minty a moment to clue in on what that meant. Then she remembered the scarf Candlehead had been fiddling with for weeks now. All throughout the past year, the racers had been making friends with the other arcade characters and were now expanding their leisure activities after work each day, some even developing new interests outside of their programming. Jubileena and Candlehead were learning how to crochet from Nicelander Deanna. After a lot of practice, Jubi had managed to produce a beautiful red scarf which she often wore whenever they attended the Friday night socials. Felix couldn't stop going on and on about her fine craftsmanship and how proud of her that he was. Candlehead, meanwhile, had been working on a blue scarf for a long time.

"It's almost done," the cupcake girl explained. "But I want to add glitter to it to make it extra shiny. Rancis likes shiny stuff."

Minty placed one hand on her hip and smirked. "So that scarf you've been making is for Rancis, huh?"

Candlehead nodded earnestly. "Yep! It's a thank-you present for when he took me out to explore Sugar Rush and for getting me a new engine to race with! It's the bestest engine I've ever used and he still won't tell me where he got it!" She struck the blue stripe with her shovel to load a small pile of sparkly glitter into her pail.

This news brought a big smile to Minty's face as she suddenly saw a bit of herself in Candlehead. "Well…thanking a good friend is always important. I know that's true. Good for you, Candi."

The girl beamed. "Thanks!"

Suddenly, she looked nervous. "Do you…do you think Rancis will like this?" She sounded unsure.

Upon hearing this question, Minty was once again reminded strongly of herself…except now she felt like she was standing in Jubi's boots. She cleared her throat and answered truthfully. "If it's a gift from you, then I know Rancis will love it."

Candlehead smiled, looking a little more confident. "Thank you, Minty! Hey, what are you doing up here anyway?"

Minty looked down the dark tunnel that led to the terminal housing the candy train. "Oh, I just felt like talking to Vanellope today."

"Really? Me too! But I need more glitter first," Candlehead answered as she shoveled another scoopful of blue particles into her partially-filled bucket. Minty smiled.

"Then I'll leave you to it. See you later!" she called as she scurried down the dark passageway with Candlehead waving goodbye.

A/N: This will be my last thing published for 2020. Goodness knows that I did a lot of work for Fanfiction this year! It was a blast. And the pandemic did help by granting me time to write more and dream bigger. Now...on to 2021 for even bigger dreams!