Taylor came into the kitchen and sat down, then stared at her plate. "Hey, where's my bacon?" she asked, sounding puzzled.
Danny sighed faintly, while the tiny dragon, which was sitting on her shoulder with its eyes fixed on him, made a giggling noise that sounded like Vista on helium.
"It was yummy," the micro-dragon said.
His daughter turned her head to look at her passenger. "That's not very nice, you could have left me some."
""Why? It all goes to the same place in the end."
"That's not the point, is it? Now I have eggs on toast, and no bacon to go with them."
"Sucks to be you, then." The black dragonlet looked satisfied. After a short pause, it leaned closer to Taylor's ear and whispered, just loudly enough for Danny to hear it, "He's staring at me."
"That's because you're being greedy, you idiot," Taylor whispered back. Both of them looked at him, pretty much identical smiles appearing.
"Question?" he said in long suffering tone, raising a finger.
"Hmm?" She looked innocent.
He pointed at the micro-dragon. "How?" He was rubbing his brow with resignation with his other hand, a slow massaging action that didn't really help. He didn't get headaches these days, thanks to Amy, but be felt he should have one, and the memory of past ones was still with him.
She looked puzzled, then glanced at the flying lizard sitting on her shoulder. It was now looking around in a manner that implied it had no idea what he was upset about and was doing its best to whistle in a casual fashion. This wasn't very successful as it didn't really have lips.
"I'm not sure what you're asking, Dad."
"Oh, god, why me?" he moaned quietly. More loudly, he added, "Please explain the very small dragon sitting on your shoulder," in tones that implied he was speaking to a dim eight year old.
Taylor started laughing once more, as did the dragon. She held up her arm and it ran along it to sit on her hand. "Hi!" the thing said brightly, waving at him.
"Cool, isn't it?" she asked, regarding it with pride.
"I really really am," the dragon stated, striking a pose with its wings half-spread and its long neck curled back. "Growl. Snarl. I am Death From Above. Fear me, human. Growl. Hiss."
It didn't make the noises, it said them. Danny sighed.
"How the hell did you manage this?" he asked plaintively. "You told me weeks ago that your base form was as compact as you could go in a shape-shift. How did you get a teeny little dragon out of your ridiculously overpowered bag of tricks?" He watched as the dragon jumped down onto the table, then trotted over to peer up at him.
"You look weird from this angle," she commented. "I can see right up your nose."
Peering down at the small creature, he watched as she cocked her head, smirking, then raised his eyes and met his daughter's amused gaze. "It came to me early this morning," she explained. "I can't shift smaller than my base form, true. Unless we use some fractal dimensional shenanigans, which we're still working on..." She appeared thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head. "Not important right now. Anyway, I suddenly realized that with the two body trick, the second body didn't have that limitation. Any size secondary aspect is actually a shift to a larger size, overall, since it's still all part of the whole thing which is me. Varga agreed, we experimented, and..."
The small dragon sat on her haunches and waved at him. "I'm the result. Neat, isn't it? This perspective is bizarre, everything's so big."
While he gaped, she looked mischievous, then vanished. Danny felt a weight on his head. A long neck with an upside-down head on the end lowered itself into his field of view as he froze, tiny claws prickling on his scalp. "Hi, Dad," Taylor's diminutive draconic aspect chirped.
"And it can teleport too," he sighed. "You've been reading those McCaffery books again, haven't you?"
"Might have been," both of them giggled. The dragonlet vanished and reappeared back on her shoulder. "And some other ones as well. We came up with a few good forms," the human-form version added.
Jumping down to the table, the dragon-Taylor suddenly shrank to the size of a starling, before leaping into the air and flying around the room with a sound like a hummingbird. He held out his hand and she landed in it, wrapping her tail around his wrist and looking pleased again. "I have to say, this is not what I was expecting to see at breakfast this morning," he muttered, lifting his hand and studying the tiny flying lizard. It crossed its eyes as he held it close to his face, looking down its snout. A moment later she popped out of existence and ended up flying around the room again. He watched as she strafed the table, a six inch long, painfully bright white flame coming out of her mouth with a sound like a blowtorch and setting fire to the toast on the plate in the middle.
He recoiled in shock, watching the cloud of white smoke rise to the ceiling. "Oops," the seated Taylor said mildly, reaching out and pouring some of the water from her glass over the flaming bread. "Magnesium flames are hot."
Danny sighed yet again as the smoke detector went off. The tiny dragon flew up, hung upside down from it, and pressed the button to reset it. "Sorry," it squeaked at him. Dropping from the ceiling she flipped over and glided back to the table.
"You are a definite hazard to sanity, and apparently to anything flammable," he told her. She dipped her head, looking apologetic. The full-size Taylor reached out and gently patted her on the head with the tip of one finger.
"That's all right, me, he didn't mean it."
"I did," he said, grinning. "You have the makings here of the most ridiculous stage act ever."
Both of them laughed, the dragon growing back to the original foot and a half size in the process and the pitch of her voice sliding down in the process in a comical way. "This is so much fun," the dragon-Taylor remarked happily.
"So, to recap," he commented, leaning back with his coffee mug in both hands, "You can be a teleporting, invisible, indestructible, fire-breathing, mini-dragon, even while you're sitting being what passes in you for a normal person as well?"
Both aspects nodded.
"We're doomed."
"Varga doesn't agree, he thinks it's hilarious," his daughter said through her human mouth.
"Of course he does. Why would I expect otherwise?" Having finished his coffee, he put the mug down. "You mentioned other new forms?"
"Oh, right, yeah. We're not sure about when we'll use them, but this gives some interesting possibilities. Look at this," the draconic variant of his daughter smiled, before changing. He stared at the three-foot-long brightly colored snake that was now coiled up in the middle of the table. It uncoiled, unfurling membranous wings in the process, and darted its tongue at him.
"A flying snake," he stated. "Oh, god, you didn't."
"I did," Taylor laughed. "Mom liked those books, and I do as well."
Danny watched his daughter's version of one of the Alaspinian minidrags out of the Alan Dean Foster Commonwealth books slither across the table, then climb up Taylor's outstretched arm, to end up wrapped across her shoulders. It fitted the description he remembered perfectly. "I suppose you made the venom too?"
"Yep. Verisimilitude, that's the key, when you're making fantasy animals."
The unblinking gaze of the fictional snake staring at him was unnerving, even knowing it was his daughter's mind behind those eyes. "The books say it's not only incredibly toxic but unbelievably corrosive too," he pointed out a little uneasily.
She nodded. The snake did as well.
"We were curious to see if it was possible. It is." It was a little worrying how pleased she looked about this.
"What else do you have?"
He wasn't entirely certain he wanted to know, but curiosity drove him to ask. The snake vanished, a new creature appearing next to the table. It was about the size of a large dog, long and slender on strong hind legs with a long tail, and looked like a small variant of something that might have evolved into Saurial. It was partially feathered and brightly colored. "What the hell is that?"
"An actual Velociraptor," it said, with a stronger accent than Saurial had. "As far as I can work out from the research I can find on the internet." This version of Taylor tilted her head to the side, looking at him with one eye. "Weird, it feels a bit like Saurial but not nearly as flexible." She snapped her jaws a couple of times. "Good bite, though."
"Hollywood would love you," he smiled. Reaching out he felt the feathers on her head with one hand, curious. "Interesting."
"It might come in handy at some point, but it was mostly because I wanted to see what would happen," the other aspect of his daughter commented. "We tried half a dozen small dinosaurs just for fun. A few other things as well. Like this."
Danny watched with amusement as the dinosaur disappeared, then a foot tall version of Saurial appeared on the table, complete with armor and holding a pair of swords. She bowed, went through a blindingly quick kata of some form that looked like an intricate yet wildly dangerous dance, then grinned. She was instantly replaced with an eight inch high copy of Taylor in her base form, who stood with her hands on her hips seeming very satisfied with things.
"All right, I admit that's pretty astounding," he laughed. "I assume that you can survive being stepped on?"
"Oh, sure, I'm still tough enough to take almost anything like this, and I bet I could lift several hundred pounds even now." Looking around, the mini-Taylor picked up a fork and tied it into a knot.
"Thanks, dear," he sighed as he accepted the implement and inspected it. "That helped."
"I'll make a new one," she giggled, doing so. "Here's a cool form." She changed again.
He pushed his chair back from the table with an involuntary yelp, staring at the tentacled scaly horror that had appeared in the middle of it. The thing looked slightly hurt, somehow, and made a motion with one tentacle. "Too much?" it said. He nodded jerkily. "I did mention I was working on tentacles, didn't I?" He shook his head, just as jerkily, not looking away. "Oh. I'm working on tentacles. We seem to have cracked it."
"Why did you want to make a microshoggoth?" he asked with forced calm.
The creature, somehow, shrugged. "Just in case?"
"In case of what?" he asked incredulously.
"You know..." It waved a couple of tentacles idly. "In case. You never know when a microshoggoth might come in handy. Or a full scale one, but the last time I tried that, Lisa fell over."
"Please go back to being a dragon," he begged. "That, at least, I can deal with."
"Oh, all right," it huffed. "I didn't even get to say Tekeli-li." The last word was hissed in an eerie voice that made him shudder. The horrifying, albeit small, Lovecraftian creature turned back into the equally small dragon, which was grinning widely.
"What do you think?" she asked. He shook his head, then got up, taking his plate to the sink.
"I think you're completely nuts, and that you only have twenty minutes to finish your breakfast before you need to leave for school." The dragon giggled and disappeared, while the 'real' Taylor, assuming that was even vaguely accurate now, quickly ate the remaining food on her plate. She helped him wash up, kissed his cheek, bowed to him, and vanished.
"And don't freak out your friends," he called loudly.
"I'll try not to, Dad," she called back from upstairs just before the shower started.
Smiling a little, still trying to come to grips with her latest trick, he put the crockery away and went into his office to retrieve his briefcase.
Chris leaned his head on his hand, half-listening to the remedial math lesson as he idly sketched various concepts in the margins of his workbook. He knew he should really be working more on the math, since he was awful at it due to his dyscalculia, but ever since his breakthrough he'd found it more difficult than normal to think of much other than all the cool things he could make now. It was a common Tinker malady, one exacerbated in his case since he'd been mentally spinning his wheels since he'd Triggered, not really knowing his specialization.
Now, thanks to some insight brought on by a massive overdose of caffeine, sleep deprivation, and watching Saurial casually violate a significant number of the commonly accepted rules of reality with aplomb, he was certain he knew his main ability. It seemed, in the end, to revolve around what he thought of subassembly design.
Armsmaster had called it modularity when he'd discussed it with the elder Tinker, his nominal mentor in the field. The older man had seemed genuinely pleased for him, and also relieved that he finally knew it. Mutterings of 'This will increase your overall efficiency to an acceptable level' were heard, which considering the source was probably meant as a compliment.
Dragon had emoted a smile even through her power armor, somehow, and shook his hand in congratulation. He'd spent some time discussing the breakthrough with them and had come away with a much better idea of what it meant.
He still had no idea where that fucking pizza oven and doughnut making machine had come from, though. Or what, if anything, they were subassemblies of. Perhaps some sort of robotic fast food place? Whatever, without replicating the state of mind during which he'd created them, something he was reluctant to do if only because Amy would do something horrible to him when she found out, he didn't think he could either repeat the process or work out what he'd done.
And he just knew Amy would find out if he tried again…
Both machines were still working perfectly, the pizza maker becoming extremely popular and currently the subject of a petition, started by Assault and co-signed by Dennis, to have it permanently fitted to the cafeteria in the PRT building. Almost every staff member in the place had signed it, having tasted the pizza.
The doughnut maker was safely under lock and key in his secure storage area, as an anti-Missy precaution. She was hyper enough at the best of times, but when she'd gone through a box of pastries… He shuddered a little. No, that way lay even more madness than her weird drawings portended.
Although, now that he thought about it, she was walking around the day before with a bag of chocolate doughnuts and a smirk. Perhaps he needed to check the security again?
Missy was definitely different recently. More… contented, perhaps. Like she'd also worked out something that left her pleased.
Chris shook his head slightly. Whatever was going on with his younger friend was probably something only a girl could understand and hence something he should try to stay away from. He had more important things to concentrate on. Sketching yet another version of a universal interconnect unit, while trying to decide on the best mix of power and data paths, he jumped when someone beside him cleared their throat.
"Am I boring you, Mr Jacobs?" a voice said.
He guiltily looked up, to see the teacher glaring at him.
"Ah… No, sir, not at all."
"Perhaps if you paid more attention to the mathematics and less to daydreaming we might be more able to overcome your problems," the man said, somewhat sarcastically. Chris flushed slightly.
"Sorry, sir," he muttered.
"Please try to pay attention. This is for your own benefit." The man didn't really look angry, more a bit resigned, as he headed back to the front of the room. Several of Chris's classmates were looking at him with sympathy and amusement mixed together. Sighing inaudibly he put his pencil down, folded his hands on the desk, and did his best to listen. And resist the urge to pick the writing implement up again and resume drawing.
He was so close to the perfect design!
Amy looked up at an odd crunching sound, yipped in shock, and recoiled. Everyone in the geography class turned to stare at her.
"Cramp again, Ames?" Vicky said with a broad grin.
Not looking away from the small black dragon that was thoughtfully chewing on one of her pencils, perched on the corner of her desk, Amy nodded. "Cramp again. Sorry." She reached down and massaged her leg to drive home the point, while glaring daggers at the small reptilian menace.
"Maybe you should get that checked out," her sister said, giggling.
"Settle down, class," the teacher remarked as several people laughed. "Eyes front. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, western Canada. On the 13th of June 1886, Vancouver suffered a massive fire which destroyed most of the city as it was at that time, yet..."
Amy paid little attention. The tiny version of Taylor's dragon-form finished eating the pencil, belched discreetly, then looked contemplatively at the other one on the desk next to where the first had been. She reached out and grabbed it, putting it out of reach. "How the fuck are you doing this?" she hissed under her breath.
The dragon smirked at her. "Brilliant, isn't it?" she chirped happily. "Watch!"
Amy blinked as the creature disappeared, then looked wildly around. Eventually she spotted it sitting on the teacher's desk exploring the contents. Picking up one of the textbooks, which was widely regarded as possibly the most boring book in the school, the dragon leafed through it for a few seconds. It looked ridiculous, the book was massive by comparison. Eventually shaking her head in disgust, Taylor-dragon closed the book again, then experimentally nibbled one corner of it. Amy winced at the toothmarks left behind, before glaring as loudly as she could manage.
Not dissuaded, Taylor explored some more, before vanishing again. This time she reappeared on Vicky's desk, peering up at the blonde girl who was looking right past her without seeing her. Amy watched, trying not to be too obvious about it, as the small lizard rearranged the various things on her sister's desk, while wearing an evil grin. When she finished moving everything around, she looked at Amy, then back to Vicky, getting a thoughtful look again.
Amy groaned internally. She knew that look, it meant something weird was going to happen. Which, considering her best friend was currently a foot and a half long black dragon patterned on something from a movie, sitting on her sister's desk, was saying something.
Taylor walked delicately across the desk, then dived into Vicky's backpack, which was propped on the floor against one leg. Only her tail stuck out, the appendage moving around as she rummaged in the bag. After ten seconds or so, she popped out again holding an ink pad, which the blonde girl used with a stamp that had her name engraved into it to stamp all her books. That was something of a fad at the moment.
Vicky's pad used a rather nice violet ink, something she'd special-ordered and that was quite distinctive. Amy sighed as she watched her friend put the pad on the desk, open it, put one forepaw/hand onto the surface, then press down. With a grin she lifted the hand and applied it to the front of Vicky's notebook having closed it, lifting the hand to reveal a perfect tiny clawed handprint in violet ink. Giving it a second or two to dry she opened the book again to the correct place.
'Oh, for god's sake, you lunatic,' Amy thought. 'Are you trying to make her think something is going on?'
There was very little chance of anyone working out what was happening, of course, but they'd know something was.
Taylor looked over at her and winked, then blinked away. Amy sighed, looking around to see where she'd ended up. This turned out to be on Dennis's desk, where she was engaged in repeating the hand-print trick, this time on one of his books, several times. Lifting her hand she looked at the results with satisfaction. After a moment, she reached out and wiped some of the violet ink along the side of his left hand, where it was resting on the desk, as if he'd slipped when cleaning up. He didn't twitch, not noticing at all thanks to the cloak spell.
The small dragon grinned, stole his monographed pen, flew back to Vicky's desk and put it neatly next to her own writing tools, returned the pad to the backpack, then popped across to Amy's desk. "I wonder what they'll think about that?" she asked.
"You really are trying to start a prank war, aren't you?" Amy mumbled under her breath, looking at the small dragon, which shrugged.
"Got bored with English lit," she explained.
"And the tiny little dragon form?"
"I'll explain later, but it's really cool." Her friend's miniature aspect giggled, then jumped into the air and flew around the room, before diving at the window, which was closed. Just before impact she vanished again, reappearing on the other side and flying off. Amy groaned quietly.
This was going to be weird.
And she was incredibly envious...
Taylor flew around the school grounds, leaving the Varga in nominal charge of their normal 'Taylor' aspect as she sat through the lesson on a book she'd read and discussed with her mother when she was ten. Keeping part of her attention in that direction if she needed to answer any questions, her other aspect did loops and rolls around the place, enjoying the light breeze and March sunshine.
'This is so much fun,' she chortled. 'It's weird, but being so small makes it better in some ways.'
"A different perspective on the world, perhaps?" the Varga suggested.
'Maybe. It's different when I'm much bigger too, but somehow this is stranger.' She landed on top of the flagpole and perched there, looking around. Motion on the street caught her attention. It turned out to be a large cat that had been cornered by a pack of stray dogs, which were taking turns to dart in and try to bite it. The cat was giving as good as it was getting, lashing out with claws extended and smacking the dogs across the face, but there were enough of them that it would eventually get worn down if it couldn't escape.
Since she liked cats, Taylor decided to intervene, dropping from the pole and extending her wings. She glided down towards the fight, modifying the spell on the way so that the animals could perceive her yet no one else could. Landing between them, facing the dogs, she spread her wings and hissed loudly, which made them all spring back and look surprised. Behind her, the cat was growling loudly, spitting and hissing as well, but fell abruptly silent at her arrival.
"Fuck off, dogs," she snapped. She didn't want to hurt them, but also didn't want to see them kill or injure the cat. One of the dogs overcame its surprise enough to lunge at her, the enormous-at-this-scale jaws opening. Spinning on the spot she smacked it with the end of her tail, then fired a blast of magnesium-fueled flame towards the others. They all yelped and turned tail, running off like the devil was on their trail.
Satisfied, she nodded. "Typical gang," she muttered, more than a little amused at the parallels. Looking over her shoulder she saw the cat staring at her from a couple of yards away, its eyes wide and its fur bottled out still. "Calm down, kitty, I'm not going to hurt you," she added soothingly.
They faced each other as she turned around, the cat looking like it would bolt at any moment. "Here, kitty, kitty," she called, sitting on her haunches and beckoning to it, while conscious of how ridiculous this would look to an observer. In her head, the Varga was snickering constantly.
The cat merely stared at her, although it was starting to smell more curious than scared. She could see the fur gradually lowering as it relaxed a little.
"Maybe this will help," she said, reverting to a miniature Saurial form. The animal twitched, then stared in what seemed to be surprise. After another half minute, it very slowly crept forward, extending its neck and carefully sniffing her.
Twenty minutes later she was leaning on the cat scratching it between the ears, with the animal purring loudly and looking as ecstatic as a cat can look. It was stretched out on the ground in a patch of sunlight, apparently completely over its near-death at the jaws of the dogs.
Watching it, she grinned. Another satisfied customer.
An idea came to her. She stepped back and regarded the animal thoughtfully, while it looked reproachfully at her and stopped purring, clearly wanting more scratches. "Want to help me with a funny prank on a friend?" she asked it. The cat perked up its ears and stared at her. "This would be easier if you were smarter," she added reflectively, forming something between her hands. "But I think we can come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement."
As it turned out, they could, but it took a lot of persuading...
"Where did that cat come from?"
"Look out, it's crazy!"
"Hey!"
"Ow! Damn it, what was that?"
Amy turned around in her seat, looking across the cafeteria towards the commotion. She stared, gaping, then very slowly turned back to look at Taylor who was also watching with a tiny smile on her face.
"I hate you sometimes," Amy growled softly enough that her friend was the only one that heard her.
"No, you don't, Amy," Taylor replied, grinning more widely.
They watched as the large cat bounded around the room, students, teachers, and the janitor all trying to corral it and herd it outside. Amy was sure that she was the only one to see that the animal had a weird-looking tiny saddle on it, which in turn contained a miniature Saurial who was holding a set of reins with one hand and waving a minute Stetson hat with the other while whooping with glee. She put a hand over her face as the cat got up onto one of the tables and charged along it, scattering food everywhere and leaving footprints in someone's dessert.
Shouts, screams, and wild laughter followed the pair around the room until one of the people had the wit to open a window. The cat leaped up onto the sill, mini-Saurial pulling on the reins that led to a bridle around its head, causing it to momentarily stop. She put the hat back on, waved to Amy with a massive grin, then vanished as the cat jumped down onto the ground and disappeared.
"That was weird," Taylor commented mildly as she turned back to the table. Mandy nodded, still looking after the cat. Lucy, Eric, and Rich were bent over laughing and ignored her. Over at the Ward's table Dennis was clapping and shouting "Encore!," which made Carlos reach out and slap the back of his head.
"You are..." Amy gave up and shook her head in despair. "Very you."
"Thanks," Taylor grinned.
None of their friends noticed as they were too busy either laughing or watching the chaos unfold, as everyone else ran around trying to save their lunches.
"How the hell did you persuade a cat to let you saddle it?" Amy whispered.
"A lot of scratching of the ears, and some tuna," Taylor whispered back, still grinning. "Saving him from the dogs probably helped too."
Shaking her head in wonder, the healer went back to her lunch, more curious than ever about how her friend had managed to manifest miniature versions of herself. Yet again, they were definitely going to have to have a long, long talk.
Vicky looked at her notebook, confused. What the hell?
Where had that stamp come from? She didn't remember doing it, although it was in her special ink, she was sure. And who the hell would make a stamp that looked like a tiny little lizard's…
She froze, then very carefully inspected the mark. She could see tiny claws on the fingertips, all faithfully replicated in ink. With an internal shiver, she looked carefully around. The cafeteria was noisier than usual, due to the stray cat that had caused total uproar twenty minutes ago. People were still picking things up, quite a few students volunteering to help as the janitor handed out mops. She could see Taylor sweeping up some spilled french fries over by the serving area and smiled faintly. It was very much like her friend to help out after something like this.
Considering the girl, she wondered yet again if any of her suppositions about her were accurate. And if the Family was somehow responsible for the odd things that had happened here over the last couple of days. They did seem to share a theme, after all.
But on reflection she really couldn't see how Saurial or her relatives could possibly be leaving little drawings of smiling lizards around the place, or violet footprints on her book. Or why, for that matter.
No, it had to be someone a little closer to home. Someone like…
"Hey, where's my good pen?" Dennis muttered, looking through his backpack with a frown. Rummaging around, he started emptying it onto the table, stacking books and pieces of paper next to him. Vicky spotted a flash of a familiar color and reached out to grab one of the notebooks, seeing it had a very familiar appearing reptilian handprint on it in a shade of ink she recognized instantly. She stared at it, then raised her eyes to Dennis, who was still poking through his stuff. Her eyes widened slightly before narrowing again.
"Dennis?" she asked calmly.
"Hmm?" He didn't look at her, just made a sound of acknowledgment, as he kept searching.
"Why do you have violet ink on your hand?"
"Ink?" He turned to look at her, then down at his hands. "Where?"
"There." She pointed. "Violet ink. Just like this little mark here on my book." She held it up and tapped the offending spot with her manicured fingernail. "Ink exactly like the stuff I use on my pad." Reaching into her bag having put the book down, she felt around, grabbed the loose stuff at the bottom of it having lost patience, and dumped it all on the table. Picking up the pad she waved it at him. "This pad right here."
"I..." He seemed lost. "What?"
"You stole my pad and made this mark on my book to freak me out, didn't you?" she demanded.
"...What?" He looked completely befuddled now. Their friends were looking between them alternately, appearing puzzled as well.
"I can see where you were practicing on your own damn book," she snapped, pointing at it. He looked there as well and seemed even more confused, picking it up and staring at it.
Turning to her after a few seconds, he shrugged helplessly, opening his mouth to deny everything. His eyes dropped, then he stopped dead. After a short pause, he pointed.
"That's my pen," he said slowly, causing Vicky to stare in turn, then follow his finger. Sure enough, in the stuff she'd dumped on the table, a gold fountain pen with the name 'Dennis' written down the cap glinted in among her other pens and pencils. She picked it up and gaped at it.
"How did you get my pen?" he asked.
"How did you stamp my book with my own ink pad?" she retorted.
They glared at each other, then as one turned to look at Mike at the next table, who was obviously listening with interest, as were his friends. He held up his hands in protest. "Whoa, whoa, it wasn't me."
"Sure it wasn't," Dennis gritted. "That's two. My revenge will be awesome."
"Our revenge," Vicky stated, putting her hand on his arm.
"Our revenge. Yes. Fear the team-up of Dennis and Vicky, you pale imitator of a prankster," Dennis hissed with an evil smile. Mike mock-cowered and covered his head as his friends laughed. Carlos sighed quietly, Dean looked confused, and Chris was grinning. "We will strike when you least expect it, and we will be merciless!"
"As long as there's no cabbage involved, go ahead," Mike snarked, looking suddenly very amused. Vicky growled at him.
Hearing a repetitive thudding sound, she looked around to see her sister gently banging her head on her table while Taylor, who had finished sweeping up, rubbed her back comfortingly. The tall girl looked over to Vicky and shrugged.
Dismissing it as yet another odd thing her sister sometimes did, the blonde put her head next to Dennis's and started plotting, having given him his pen back.
Something had to be done about Mike.