A/N: A cute lil' (okay, sorta big) fic I wrote because I felt like writing odd fluff. This was slightly inspired by the movie Held Up, which I love because it was so funny...anyways. Read on, my friends!
Disclaimer: I don't own Held Up, McDonalds, Digimon, any of the Digimon characters, Jack In The Box, the Teenage Wolves, or Miko.
I do own Jed's Groceries (if there is a store out there with this name it's a coincidence and I didn't know), Madame Belinka's Fortune Shop (see the one before this), and all of the characters except for the Digimon characters.
Destiny Plays In Grocery Stores
Tai woke up that morning smiling. It was Saturday at last. He had Monday off, so he had a three-day weekend to look forward to. He got out of bed and pulled a t-shirt and jeans on, slipped his shoes on, and went into the kitchen. He was looking forward to a large, satisfying breakfast, so that he would have plenty of energy to have a grueling soccer game later on with the rest of the team. They had arranged to meet at the park at two, and it was noon already.
He opened the fridge and looked around inside, and his smile slowly disappeared and formed a pout. There was nothing to eat! Well, there was a bunch of stuff in there, but still...there really was *nothing* to eat. Besides, who *knew* how long that stuff had been in there? Some of it wasn't even recognizable! He could have classified them as the green glob, the mushy brown stuff, and the bowl of what looked like orange jello. He did not remember ever seeing orange jello in there before, and he checked if the fridge's contents changed every chance he got.
He pulled his head back out of the fridge and closed it, remembering the last time he had forgotten to pull his head out first and hurt his neck. He'd never do that again, that's for sure.
"Mom!" he yelled. "There is no food!"
"Then go and get some!"
Tai groaned, thinking he shouldn't have mentioned the empty fridge. His mother walked into the kitchen, her hair still wet from the shower.
"I'll get you some money, and you can go to the grocery store, okay?"
"No, not okay. I was going to meet the guys at the park for soccer!"
"Tai, you play soccer enough. You should take a break. And if you don't go get the groceries I won't let you play soccer with your friends for an entire week."
Tai gasped. The ultimate punishment. Who was this cruel woman? Surely not his mother. No, he didn't know her anymore.
"Okay."
He grabbed the money from her hand and went to the door. He opened it, and ran into Matt Ishida, who had been about to knock on the door when Tai pulled it open.
"Hey, funny running into you here," Tai said, grinning.
Matt rolled his eyes. "Are you going somewhere? I was coming over to ask if you wanted to hang out, because I have nothing to do."
"Great, you can come grocery shopping with me!" Tai grabbed Matt's arm and dragged him down the hall.
"Grocery shopping?" Matt asked, letting himself be dragged for about a foot before pulling his arm from Tai's grasp and walking along beside him, hands shoved in his pockets as usual.
"Yeah, there's nothing to eat."
"Hmph, that happens a lot."
"Yeah, I know."
~ ~ ~ ~
"Are you sure you don't mind?"
"Of course not, Mrs. Daidouji! We'll take good care of Muffin, don't worry."
The old lady smiled at the two girls. "I'm glad I know I'm leaving him in good hands. I'll be back tomorrow around five. Now, don't you give these nice girls any trouble, Muffin!"
She gave the puppy a last pat on the head before standing and leaving. Sora and Mimi waved goodbye and then looked down at the cute-looking puppy.
"This should be a piece of cake."
"Twenty bucks just for taking care of this little guy. Gosh, I hope it isn't because he's disobedient?"
"What, this cutie pie?" Mimi lifted the puppy into her arms and cuddled him. "Isn't he the sweetest thing you've ever seen?"
Sora smiled and scratched the puppy's back. "He is pretty adorable."
"Muffin is a sort of odd name to give to a male dog, though."
Sora shrugged and scratched behind the puppy's ears. The puppy scrambled out of Mimi's arms and took off through the house. Sora and Mimi watched it run off and disappear around a corner.
"He *is* an indoor dog, right?"
"Mrs. Daidouji said he was..."
They were at Mimi's house, which was full of expensive glass furniture. If the puppy knocked a vase over or anything, they would be in big trouble.
They walked into Mimi's room to see the puppy was already there. He was pulling the silken bed sheets of Mimi's bed off, dragging them onto the floor. Mimi tried to get the sheets away from the dog without tearing the soft silk. When she finally did, she made a face at the dog drool and holes where the dog had bitten through the thin material.
"Oh, gross! Bad dog!"
As soon as Mimi said this, the puppy gave this sort of noise and ran out of the room. Soon, the girls heard a crashing noise, and they looked at each other.
"Uh oh."
"Do you think dogs can hold grudges?"
"I really, really hope not."
They scrambled from the room in the direction of the noise. The dog had knocked over a lamp, which was flickering where it lay on the carpet. Mimi was suddenly glad they didn't have hard tile in the living room. She slowly lifted the lamp so that it was upright and turned the light off. She decided not to mention to her parents exactly *how* it fell over and turned to glare at the puppy.
"You had better not mess anything else up! You are not going to get me into trouble. One more mistake, and I'm locking you in the laundry room!"
In Mimi's house, even the laundry room was large and luxurious, but that was besides the point. In response to Mimi's outburst, the puppy stared at her awhile, turned to the side, lifted its leg, and sent a small stream of urine her way. Mimi's screech could be heard all the way down the block.
~ ~ ~ ~
Back at the Yagami household, Kari was getting ready to go out for a day of shopping with Yolei. She brushed her hair, parted it to the side, and slid the pink clip she always wore into her hair, snapping it shut. She turned to each side, looking over her profile, and smiled in approval. She gave a small tug at the bottom of her shirt and walked out of the bathroom, going into her room. She slid her delicate feet into the black platform sandals that TK cringed at whenever he saw them.
"How could you stand to walk in those all day?" he once asked.
She had simply answered, "I'm a girl. Girls can take that kind of stuff easily."
She grabbed her purse and pulled her cell phone out. She went down the list of phone numbers stored onto her phone's memory until she reached Yolei's number, and pressed Dial. She lifted the phone to her ear, tucking her hair behind her ear.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings, and then a click. "Hello?"
"You almost ready?"
"I'm always ready!" Kari smiled at her friend's everlasting enthusiasm.
"Great, I'm coming to pick you up then. My mom'll drop us off and pick us up again at five."
"Okay. Bye."
"See you later."
Kari hung up and slid the phone back into her purse, closing it. She walked into her parent's bedroom and watched her mother pull her shoes on and stand, then turned and walked down the hall, opened the door, and went to the elevator, hearing her mother close and lock the apartment door behind her.
They picked Yolei up, and then her mother dropped them off at the entrance to the mall. Kari and Yolei walked inside, chatting away about what they were going to buy and where to go first.
~ ~ ~ ~
"So anyways, there are, like, three big guys, they're about to beat him up, he's freaking out, and-"
"I've heard this joke before."
Cody gave Ken an annoyed look. "You could have waited until I was done."
"Why? It would have been a waste of time."
"Everything is a waste of time to you."
Ken turned to Cody to raise his eyebrow - something that he had been doing an awful lot lately, sort of like a new habit - and changed the song that was playing on the CD player.
"I liked that song."
"Hmm. Too bad, my car. My CD player."
"My CD."
"Two against one. Majority rules."
Cody shook his head in wonderment at the boy sitting next to him. Sometimes it was a wonder he could stand his sarcasm and negativity, but at other times, he felt like it was drawing him to Ken. Sometimes he felt like that was the reason he and Ken were such good friends - they could list the faults of the entire world together - but at other times, it was sort of annoying when you got the feeling you were talking to someone who acts and thinks almost exactly like you, only even worse.
"Can I at least pick the next song?"
Ken thought for awhile, then shrugged. "Whatever." The use of that word was also becoming a habit for Ken. Cody thought he must have picked up both the eyebrow-raising and the word "Whatever" from Matt. He wondered if Matt drove Tai crazy because he was like Matt's opposite in so many ways. If Ken drove him crazy and they were so alike, wouldn't it be torture to have Matt for a best friend and try to be so bright and cheery all the time?
Cody began to wonder about how much Tai really was like Matt's opposite. Tai had dark skin, he was muscular, he had soft brown eyes, and he had messy brown hair, while Matt had pale skin, was as skinny as a rail - like Ken, only Matt could definitely pack a punch. He had deep blue eyes that made you shiver with how cold they could be one moment and stare into them and try to get lost the next. His hair was blonde and sleek, as if each strand had been brushed ten times to give it a perfect, smooth look, and usually fell forward over his ear, no matter how many times the blonde tried to tuck it behind his ear. Tai was perpetually sunny, while Matt was always being rained on. Tai could make you cry from laughing so hard; Matt could make you cry with all of the sorrow he could hold in his eyes, if he'd only let you see it there.
Cody was thrown out of his trance when he realized Ken was talking.
"Cody? Earth to Cody? I *said* you can change the song now. My song is over."
Cody turned to look at Ken. He blinked once, and Ken laughed.
"Oh, sorry, did I interrupt your thoughts again?"
Cody smiled slightly and changed the song to one he liked.
Ken looked over at his shorter friend and wondered briefly what he thought about all day. He seemed to always be in a deep thinking state, unless he was having a conversation with you, which Cody doesn't do very often. Cody just didn't like talking, although, if scientists ever invented a way for people to be able to communicate telepathically, you probably wouldn't be able to shut Cody up.
The two boys were on their way to Jack In The Box for a burger. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to eat in any refrigerators that day. They drove along in silence, letting the heavy beat of the drums, guitar, bass, and vocals fill it instead of their voices. Sometimes rock music was perfect for carrying on conversations for you. You'd sit there and listen, and then begin to sing along under your breath or hum, and you wouldn't have to talk to anyone. Ken thought maybe that was the reason he, Cody, Matt, and Izzy adored rock music. As long as you had a good song on, you didn't need to tell anybody about your day, because it was no longer important. All that was important was the music pounding in the background of your life.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Can you please explain to me again why we are doing this?"
"Because I want to see if these people are for real. I've heard people say they tell the truth and people say that they're just fakers out for your money-"
"I'd believe the latter."
"Well, we'll see soon, won't we?"
Davis dragged TK along to the shop. TK looked up at the sign above his head as they walked in through the door. It said "Madame Belinka's Fortune Shop".
"What kind of a name is Madame Belinka? It reminds me of Madame Tinkerbell or something. I still think this is a waste of time and money."
Davis gave TK an irritated look. "Will you shut up and go along with it? I won't ever bother you about it again."
"You had better not."
The two boys stopped walking and talking when a middle-aged looking woman with long black hair and a purple and red dress stepped out from behind a curtain.
"Welcome to Madame Belinka's Fortune Shop," she said in a weird accent that TK thought was the Universal Fortune Teller's Voice. He rolled his eyes, which luckily wasn't caught by the woman because she was listening to Davis.
"We'd like to have our fortunes told. See, we're nervous about this test coming up in school, and-"
"Fear not!" she cried. "I will tell your fortunes and help your souls rest once again."
"Uh huh," Davis said, rubbing his arm with a 'this-woman-is-nuts' look on his face.
"Come, come!" She ushered them into the back room and closed the curtain behind them.
She pulled up two chairs to a table with a crystal ball resting in the middle of it and motioned for them to take a seat. They plopped down onto their respective chairs and she sat in the one that was across from them, in front of the table.
"I am Madame Belinka," she began, and TK made a sort of laughing noise. She looked at him and gave him an annoyed look.
"Really? We couldn't tell from the huge sign outside that said 'Madame Belinka's For-'"
"Quiet, child! You are disturbing the spirits!"
TK shut up and gave her an absurd look. She shook herself, and then went on as if she hadn't been interrupted.
"I am Madame Belinka and I shall tell you your fortunes for the next week."
"Just for the next week?"
"You only gave me five dollars."
Davis raised an eyebrow. "Okay, fine. One week. Right, so go on."
Madame Belinka shut her eyes and moved her hands in circles over the crystal ball. TK fought the urge to start chanting, "Wax on, wax off." After a while she opened her eyes again and looked at TK strangely.
"A blonde you know will die today."
TK raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"
Madame Belinka nodded sagely, and then looked at Davis. "Oh, and you aren't going to pass your test."
Davis thought, 'Oh, yeah, what a prediction. Like I didn't already know that.'
"Oh, really? That sucks."
"I'm sorry," she replied in a way that made Davis think she wasn't.
"Is that it? That's all you can tell us?"
"Oh, and you're going to trip and fall on Monday, make a fool of yourself on Tuesday, and that bad thing you've been dreading is going to happen on Thursday."
"Really. Wow, that's bad. I'll stay in bed all day Thursday, then." Davis really had no idea what he could possibly be dreading to happen, but he figured he shouldn't take any chances, and besides, it was an excuse to stay home from school. Yeah, he could imagine it. 'Mom, Dad, I have to stay home from school today because this insane fortune teller lady named Madame Belinka said something bad's gonna happen today.'
"And you," Madame Belinka continued, looking at TK, "are going to get slapped by a girl on Wednesday, only to reconcile on Thursday, and on Friday, you're going to win the lottery." She paused and squinted, looking harder into the crystal ball. "No, wait, that isn't you. No, you're just going to have a nightmare Friday night."
"Gee, thanks for the warning," TK replied dryly, and Madame Belinka glared back at him.
"That's all I can tell you," she went on in a way that clearly stated, 'Get out.'
Davis and TK got the picture and stood. They waved at her and walked out of the store, then paused outside the door, looking at each other.
"She really didn't like us, did she? She didn't predict anything nice for us."
"Okay, so you're right. They aren't real."
TK grinned at him as they walked down the sidewalk. "There is no way fortune tellers are real."
~ ~ ~ ~
Matt and Tai reached the small grocery store/gas station and went inside. There were only a few people there, since the store had only opened an hour ago and it didn't get much business. Matt hadn't ever even heard of it before Tai had dragged him there. Matt looked around and checked out everyone in the store.
There was the old man behind the counter, the young woman and her small daughter, and a teenage boy. Not much business at all. Matt and Tai wandered over to the area that had shopping carts and pulled one out, and Tai pulled a grocery list out of his pocket.
"Right, so we need bread, milk, eggs, and a lot of other stuff. Let's go get the bread first."
Matt shrugged and followed Tai to the first aisle, dragging his feet. He glanced behind himself towards the cash register and noticed that a young man had entered and was standing there.
The young man looked around, looking kind of nervous, and then pulled a gun out of his jacket. The young woman saw it and screamed, and the little girl started crying. Tai and Matt raced back to see what was happening and they froze where they stood, behind and to the side of the young man with a gun.
The young man looked almost apologetic and smiled, and then asked in a surprisingly nice voice, "Can I please have all of the money in the cash register?"
The old man behind the counter hurriedly opened it and handed it over, and the young man took it and smiled at him, tucking it into his jacket.
"Oh, thank you very much. I really needed that."
The old man raised an eyebrow at him. "Why're you being so nice to me?"
The young man gave him a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"You're holding up my grocery store - which isn't very busy today, as you can see - and you're doing it while smiling and saying 'Please' and 'Thank you'."
"So?"
The old man shrugged. "It's sort of weird."
The young guy frowned. "It isn't weird, it's just me." Then he smiled and held his hand out, and the young woman screamed again. The young guy realized he'd held out the one with the gun in it and put the gun down on the table, then stretched his hand out.
"Sorry," he called sideways, to the young woman, and then smiled at the old man again. "Nice to meet you. I'm Carlos."
The old man gave him an absurd look. "What kind of a robber are you, telling me your name?"
"Oh, don't call me a robber, please. I don't like it. It makes me sound mean." Carlos pouted.
Tai and Matt looked at each other oddly. Who *was* this guy?! They heard sirens coming from outside, and Carlos turned to look at the windows, as if scared.
"Uh oh. Okay, everybody hide, quick!"
Everyone dropped to their feet and began scrambling around, ducking in aisles and such. The old man ducked behind the counter. Carlos ducked where he stood and crawled to the window, then lifted his head very slightly so he could just see over the bottom of the window to the outside. Police cars were parking in front of the store and police were getting out.
"Oh, great. Just what I needed." Carlos sighed and rubbed his head.
Tai and Matt looked at each other. This was going to be a long day.
~ ~ ~ ~
TK and Davis walked into TK's house and plopped down on the couch.
"Let's watch TV," Davis suggested, and TK turned the TV on. Automatically, what looked like a newsflash came out on the TV, showing the grocery store near Tai's house.
"Isn't that Jed's Groceries?"
"Yeah, it is. It looks like it's being held up."
TK looked interested. "Let's watch this."
Davis shrugged. "Okay, whatever."
The reporter talked about how they had just arrived on the scene and there were hostages inside of the grocery store. She said there was a woman, a young girl, three teenagers, and an old man, along with the man holding the store up. They showed a clip of everyone in the store standing around and then ducking down to be hidden by the area of wall underneath the window. TK gasped and nearly fell out of his seat.
"Did you see that?!"
Davis looked at him. "What?"
The replay came out again and TK pointed, and then Davis saw it. There was no mistaking the blonde and brunette ducking down on the TV screen. No one in the world had Tai's hair, and no one in the world had Matt's Teenage Wolves shirt in a black color made especially for him.
~ ~ ~ ~
"What? TK, slow down. What do you mean Matt's going to die?"
"We went to a fortune teller and she said a blonde I know is going to die and now Matt and Tai are trapped at a grocery store being held up and I'll never doubt Madame Belinka ever again-"
"What *are* you talking about?! Look, we'll come over. Just hold on."
Kari hung up and shoved the cell phone into her purse.
"Come on, we have to cut the shopping trip short and do this another day. TK is freaking out because Madame Something-or-another told him Matt's going to die and he believes her."
Yolei gave her an odd look.
"Don't look at me, I don't know what he's talking about."
The purple-haired girl sighed and placed a shirt back on the rack, then began walking with Kari to the entrance of the store. They walked out at the same time as this blonde girl with a large bag, and the alarm went off. Kari and Yolei stopped and looked around, and a security guard came to check them out. He made them empty their bags. Kari immediately did, but Yolei would have none of that, and refused to allow the security guard access to her purse.
"Yolei! Just do what the man tells you to!"
"Look, we saw this blonde girl exit the store at the same time we did. Didn't you see her? She had a big bag. I'm sure she was the shoplifter."
The guard looked around and then looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "I don't see a blonde girl anywhere."
"That's because she's not here anymore."
"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take you in if you won't let me search your purse."
"Yolei, just let him search your purse already!"
"No! It's none of his business what I carry in my purse."
The security guard sighed and pulled out handcuffs, and Kari gave Yolei a "I'm going to kill you later" glare and held her arms out, sighing.
~ ~ ~ ~
Joe and Izzy walked to the park, Joe carrying books and Izzy carrying a picnic basket. They had decided to celebrate the three-day weekend by having a study picnic. They settled themselves onto the blanket on the grass and got their sandwiches out.
"This is a nice day. I can just taste the food already, I'm so hungry."
Izzy grinned. "I know. Well, let's start eating and open our books."
They began to do just that when they heard screeching and barking coming from their right.
"Watch out!"
Joe and Izzy turned just in time to watch a puppy leap onto their picnic and begin eating their sandwiches.
"ARGH!"
Joe tried to pull the puppy off and the puppy growled and bit his arm.
"Ow!" He tried pulling his arm out of the puppy's mouth and Sora and Mimi ran up breathlessly.
Sora held the puppy's jaws apart and Joe pulled his arm free, clutching it and moaning.
"What was that about?" he asked angrily, after he was done moaning and groaning in pain.
"I'm so sorry, Joe. He's young," Sora said as a sort of apology.
"Young? Young?! I'm young, and I still need this arm!"
Joe stood up and brushed himself off, glaring at the demon puppy, which was trying to look as innocent as possible.
"We're babysitting, and we got the puppy from hell. We've been trying to control him all morning, and we finally decided we couldn't keep him inside because he would mess the entire house up, and the second we brought him outside, he ran away from us and we've been chasing him for about half an hour."
Mimi pouted. "My poor house. Oh, my poor, poor house."
"Okay, okay, we get it. The puppy is bad. Now that our picnic is basically ruined, what should we do?" Izzy asked, glaring at the puppy.
"I don't know, go home? Eat sandwiches there, where it's safe?" Joe suggested.
"We're really sorry. In fact, we'll buy you lunch. Just to say how sorry we are," Sora said.
Joe and Izzy looked at each other a while, then shrugged. "Okay."
"Great!" Mimi got the puppy's leash out and snapped it onto him, then tied the end of the leash tightly to a pole.
The four of them walked to a restaurant across the street, figuring the puppy wouldn't be able to get free. As soon as they disappeared into the restaurant, the puppy slipped out of the loose collar and ran down the street.
~ ~ ~ ~
They all sat on the floor in aisle 10. Carlos was trying to get them all more comfortable.
"So, what are everyone's names?"
They all looked at each other, and the old man that owned the store cleared his throat.
"My name is Jed. But you could probably tell that from the sign outside that says Jed's Groceries."
"My name is Lila," the young woman said, "and this is my daughter, Iris." The little girl on the woman's lap smiled at them all.
"Hi," she said shyly.
Carlos smiled at her. "She's very cute."
Iris giggled and looked down. "Thank you."
"What about you three?" he asked the teenage boy, Tai, and Matt.
"My name is Blinky," the teenage boy responded slowly.
Carlos looked at him. "Is that your real name?"
"No, my real name is Josh, but I like to be called Blinky."
"Both Blinky and Josh are nice names," Carlos told him, and Blinky just shrugged and looked down.
"And I'm Tai," Tai said, smiling and pointing at himself.
"Matt," the blonde said simply, staring at the floor.
"Let me guess, you two are best friends, but Tai is always happy and Matt is always sullen."
"Yeah, that's exactly it," Tai responded, and Matt glared at him.
"Well, it is," the brunette continued.
Carlos laughed. "I like you guys."
"So Carlos, what're you doing holding up a gas station? You don't seem the type."
Carlos smiled sadly. "I'm not. I really needed money, though, and my uncle said that the best way to get money fast is to hold up a gas station, and this place seemed to not have too many customers, so I'd have less people involved, and I came here."
"Why didn't you get a job?"
"I don't have time. I work in the fields as a job already, and that takes up a lot of my time, but it isn't good pay at all."
Carlos frowned. "I'm sorry I had to involve all of you in this. I just wanted to get the money, apologize, and get out, but it seems someone saw us through the window and called the police."
He glanced at the window. "I should have realized that would happen, with those windows positioned like that..."
Lila shifted where she sat and stretched her arms out. "Jed, do you have plastic swimming pools?"
Jed looked at her and nodded, then pointed to the back of the store. "Over there."
She looked at Carlos. "Can I go get one and drag it over here?"
Carlos nodded and shrugged. "You guys can do whatever you want, just be careful. We don't want to be seen by the police and have them think something is up and shoot or anything."
Tai crawled to the stand by the cash register and pulled a deck of cards from it, then crawled back to the others. He looked at Jed, as if asking for permission to open it, and Jed nodded. He opened the package and got the cards out, then began shuffling them.
"Anyone up for Go Fish?"
Matt, Blinky, Jed, and Carlos held their hands up, and Tai began dealing. Iris watched with sudden interest, and her mother pulled the swimming pool up a few feet away, and then went away again. She returned again with a couple of jugs of water and opened one, then began pouring the water in. Carlos and Blinky looked up to give her an odd look and she shrugged and laughed.
"I felt like taking a bath."
They both went back to their game, eyebrows raised, as if saying, "Suit yourself."
After Lila had emptied a few jugs and the pool was full, she got in, fully clothed, and began splashing around. Iris climbed in with her and they both relaxed in the swimming pool.
"Do you have any threes?"
"Nope, sorry. Go fish."
"Aw, man. It's okay." Carlos smiled and ruffled Tai's hair.
"Hey!" Tai covered his hair with his arms and smirked at Carlos. "Don't mess it up more than it already is."
"I like your hair," Carlos protested, and ruffled it again. Tai laughed.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ken and Cody slid into a booth at Jack In The Box and sipped at their cokes. They waited in silence for their meal, and as they did, they heard the TV in the corner getting louder as someone turned the volume up.
They turned to watch the TV, and saw that a news report was on, saying something about a grocery store being held up.
It looked interesting, so they began talking about it as they watched it. They heard that an old man, a woman, a child, and three teenagers were trapped in there with a robber that was armed and dangerous.
Their food soon arrived and they diverted their attention to it, not paying attention to the TV, and therefore missing the replay they played once again of the people standing inside and then ducking suddenly.
~ ~ ~ ~
Kari and Yolei stared at the floor in the office they had been taken to. Kari wasn't speaking to Yolei because of the trouble she had gotten them into, and Yolei wasn't speaking to Kari because she thought her friend should understand why she refused to allow the security guard to search her purse.
The guard entered the room and sat down across the table from them, setting his arms on the table and clasping his hands together as he leant forward over the table towards them.
"Now, tell me everything that happened, and exactly why you would not allow me to search your purse."
Kari sighed and began telling him everything from the moment they had entered the store.
~ ~ ~ ~
Sora, Mimi, Joe, and Izzy were running around town, searching for the puppy. Joe and Izzy were wondering how they let themselves get caught in the middle of these things, and Sora and Mimi were thinking about how angry Mrs. Daidouji would be if they lost her precious Muffin.
Suddenly they thought they saw the puppy run around a corner, and Sora pointed and yelled. They all sprinted down the sidewalk after the puppy, and they saw that he was running towards a grocery store. They all ran after him, going in through the back door, since it was open and they figured the puppy had run into it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, the police out in front of the store had no idea what to do. Finally, someone had arrived with a megaphone, and the police chief took it and turned it on.
"Hello in there. This is the Chief of the Police Department. If there is anything specific you want from us, we can get it for you, if you let a few of the hostages go."
Carlos looked towards the window and thought for awhile. He turned to everyone else.
"Are any of you guys hungry?"
They all said yes, having munched on grocery snacks all that morning and now being tired of them and hungry again.
Carlos asked Jed if he had a megaphone or a speaker and Jed said he did. Jed led him to the machine that was connected to the speaker outside and told him how to make it work. Carlos turned it on and said, "Can we get some McDonalds?"
The police chief stared, baffled, at the grocery store, remembered his megaphone, and replied, "Uh, sure. If that's what you really want. What do you want from McDonalds?"
Carlos turned and got orders, repeating them through the speaker. One of the policemen wrote it all down and then left to go to the McDonalds drive-thru.
"Is that all you want?"
"Yeah, that's about it. Thank you very much."
"Uh, you're welcome."
Carlos turned the speaker off and sat on the floor, rubbing his hands together. "Oh, boy. McDonalds."
Tai smirked and raised his fist into the air. "I'm gonna get a Big Mac for free! Yeah!"
"I feel sort of bad for making them pay for it all," Carlos admitted, and Jed shook his head.
"You are the strangest, but nicest, robber I've ever seen."
"Thank you."
Jed laughed.
Then, they heard voices coming from the back of the store. Carlos and Jed got to their feet and began inching towards the back, Carlos ready to protect the others, and Jed, his store.
Then, four teenagers came stumbling out from the back of the store, and looked at them all oddly.
"Hey, it's Tai and Matt!"
Tai and Matt gawked at them. "Sora? Mimi? Joe? Izzy? What are *you* guys doing here?!"
"The back door was unlocked. Have you guys seen a dog come through here?"
They all looked at each other. "Noooo...."
"Oh. Who're all these people, and why are there police outside?"
Carlos told them to duck down and they did, and then they all crawled back towards the circle of people in aisle 10. Tai and Matt told them the whole story, and they laughed.
"Do you want me to order for you guys, too?" Carlos asked them.
Sora shook her head and held a hand up. "Don't bother. We just ate, and we're stuffed."
"I can't believe the police don't just come through the back door," Matt said slowly.
"Oh, no one knows about the back door. Well, now you all do," Jed said, smiling. "It's a sort of secret entrance or exit, in case of emergency."
"Why don't we, like, leave then? Get Carlos out of here so he doesn't get into trouble?" Tai suggested.
They all stared at each other.
"I never thought of that."
"We'd better stay for awhile longer and leave later. The police will think it's weird if they tell us our food is ready and we don't answer."
They all nodded and decided to wait for their food to arrive.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ken and Cody drove down the road of Cody's neighborhood, heading toward his house to drop him off. It was dusk already, and it would soon start getting dark.
"I wonder how that grocery store hold-up is going along," Cody mused.
Ken shrugged. Out of nowhere, what looked like an orange cat ran in front of the car. Ken swore and swerved the car to the right, but he ended up hitting the animal anyways, and Ken slammed to a stop. Ken and Cody hurriedly undid their seatbelts and threw their doors open, going to inspect the animal.
Ken turned to look at the front of the car and groaned when he saw it had gotten dented, and Cody looked over the animal on the side of the road. He gasped and then muttered, "Oh, man. Oh, man, not this."
"What is it?" Ken asked sadly, running his hand over his car.
"I think we ran over Tai's cat."
Ken jerked around and stared at the cat lying on the floor, dead. He walked over and looked it over more closely, then swore loudly and leapt to his feet.
"It *is* Tai's cat!"
"Oh, man, Tai's going to kill us! Kari loved that cat to death!"
"Let's take it somewhere and bury it or something."
Ken and Cody made faces of disgust and reluctantly grabbed the end of one of the cat's legs, dragging it into the brush on the side of the road.
~ ~ ~ ~
Kari and Yolei had just been let out of the mall, after the security guard had caught the real culprit. He apologized profusely to Yolei, and she waved him off, walking out of the mall after Kari.
TK and Davis had agreed to take them home earlier, and they were waiting for the boys to show up. Eventually, Davis's car drove up and they got in.
TK immediately began recounting the story of the visit to Madame Belinka. Kari and Yolei both believed she was just guessing, and the whole Matt-in-a-grocery-store-hold-up was just a coincidence, but Kari was very worried about her brother, and soon she and TK were both chattering nervously about how they hoped their brothers were alright.
They drove along, and then they noticed that Ken's car was parked on the side of the road and Ken and Cody were both standing in the brush at the side of the road.
Davis pulled over to see if they needed help with something, and the second Ken and Cody saw the four of them getting out of their car, they scrambled out of the brush and stood there with guilty looks on their faces.
"What were you guys doing?" TK asked.
The two boys glanced behind them and then forward again. "Nothing."
"Very funny. What were you doing?" Davis asked, a little harsher than TK.
"Nothing! Just forget about it and go home. We can do this on our own, really," Cody said, waving them off.
"We're definitely not leaving you here. Your car is dented, and I'm not sure if I should let you drive that car home. What if it breaks down halfway there?"
TK walked over to inspect the car and Davis followed him, and Kari and Yolei walked up to Ken and Cody and tried to see around them at what they were hiding.
"Come on, guys. You can tell us what you were doing over there."
"Really, I'd prefer to keep it between us two and not involve you all. You wouldn't want to be involved anyways."
"Ooh, now I'm interested," Yolei smirked.
Ken groaned and dragged a hand down his face and Cody sighed, defeated.
"Let's just show them, Ken."
"You're going to be mad at us, Kari."
"Very, very mad."
Kari looked confused and crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one foot. "Why?"
"We sort of hit your cat with the car...and killed it."
"You killed Miko?"
"Yeah, but we're really sorry. We tried to swerve out of the way, but it was too late."
Kari looked even more confused. "Miko's an indoor cat. What would she be doing outside?"
"Uh...I don't know?"
"I'd like to see this cat that you guys hit."
Ken and Cody slowly led them into the brush, where the hole was halfway dug, and the cat was laying to the side of it.
Kari looked the cat over and blinked, then looked up at Ken and Cody. "That's not Miko."
"It *isn't*?!"
Ken and Cody both groaned and kicked at the dirt.
"All of that for nothing?"
"Might as well leave it like this."
"No, we are not leaving it like that! You're going to finish burying it, and we're giving it a nice little funeral."
"What?! Why? We don't even know who this cat belonged to."
"That's why we've got to bury it, just in case it was a nice little boy or girl or something."
Ken and Cody reluctantly began to dig again, and TK and Davis wandered over to them.
Kari and Yolei filled them in on what they had been doing, and the boys both laughed at the mix-up, but then the girls made them help dig the grave and they shut up and grumbled the way Ken and Cody were.
Soon, they had buried the cat, said a few nice words, and left it to rest in peace in the dirt. They decided to follow Ken and Cody home, just in case the car broke down, and they luckily made it all the way home.
They all automatically began watching the TV again to check up on Matt, Tai, and the rest of the poor souls trapped in the grocery store.
~ ~ ~ ~
"We have your food out here."
"Yeah, McDonalds! Woo hoo!"
Carlos scratched his head. "How am I going to go get the food, though?"
"I'll go pick it up," Blinky offered, and got to his feet.
Carlos gave him a worried look and Blinky smiled warmly. "I promise I'll be back."
"It's not that..."
"Don't worry about me. I'll be back safe and sound."
Carlos sighed. "Maybe I should go with you."
Lila, Tai, Matt, Jed, Blinky, Iris, Sora, Mimi, Joe, and Izzy all shook their heads.
"No way!"
"They might capture you."
"You need to stay safe, in here."
"I'll be okay, really. I'll be right back."
Blinky crawled to the door, stood, and slipped out.
The police officers and crowd gathered outside all cheered wildly, and Blinky walked up to the chief, who held the McDonalds bags in his arms.
Blinky took them from his arms, smiled, said 'Thank you', and walked back to the store. The police officers called him back, saying this was the perfect opportunity to help him escape, and he turned back towards them.
"Why would I want to do that? Carlos is the coolest person I've ever met. I don't want to leave him or any of the people in there, and besides, they want their food."
Blinky turned and walked back into the store, leaving the chief baffled and wondering if he'd heard right when he heard the teenage boy say Carlos was the coolest person he'd ever met.
The gang inside cheered as he walked in and sat on the floor with them, passing out the food from the bags. They all ate hungrily, smiling and talking in between mouthfuls.
When they were done, they began discussing an escape route. "We could use the back door."
"My car is in the front, though!"
"Mine, too."
Soon, they had all agreed that they would sneak out the back door, walk all the way around the block, and then approach the store's parking lot, get into their cars, and drive away, unnoticed.
"Before we all separate, I just want to say that you're all welcome at the store any time you all want to go and just talk," Jed told them.
They all agreed that they would go to that store and that store only from then on, whenever they needed to get groceries. When they had all hugged, said goodbye to the store, and Carlos had given Jed back all of the money he had taken from the register earlier that day, they decided to carry out their plan.
They crawled out the back door, then got to their feet and all began sneaking away around the building in back of the grocery store. They snuck around that building, around the building to the side of the grocery store, and then around the back of the crowd, towards the cars in the parking lot.
The customers climbed into their cars, and Tai, Matt, Sora, Mimi, Joe, and Izzy all waved goodbye to them all. Carlos graciously offered them a ride home, and they accepted.
They turned the radio on and all sang songs at the top of their lungs, and then Mimi remembered she had her cell phone with her in her purse.
They turned the radio down, stopped singing, and Mimi decided to call Kari. Kari answered and told Mimi she was at hers and Tai's house, with TK, Davis, Yolei, Ken, and Cody, and they told Carlos the directions to Tai's house so they could all gather there together. Kari put TK on the phone and Mimi let Matt talk to him, and Matt assured his brother that he was definitely alive. The two chattered all the way until they reached the house, then they hung up.
The kids in the car all said goodbye to Carlos, reluctantly getting out of the car. Carlos waved goodbye to them, smiling a little sadly, and then backed out of the driveway and drove off. They stood on the lawn and watched him drive away, remembering how wonderful he was to all of them, and how odd it was that they had to meet him that way. They talked about the games of charades, cards, and even karaoke they had played.
Their thinking was cut short, however, when the kids inside the house burst out of the door and enveloped Tai and Matt in bear hugs. Once they were inside, they began exchanging their stories of what had happened to them that day. The ones who hadn't met Carlos were all very surprised to hear about what a nice guy he was and how fun it had been at the grocery store.
Since it was so late at night, they all called their parents to say they were sleeping over (at Tai's for the guys, Kari's for the girls), and they got together in the bedroom or on the couches and floor of the living room.
In Tai's room, Tai and Matt talked about their adventure a bit more.
"It was strange, though. Like it had been destiny bringing all of us there this morning. I feel like I was meant to meet them all."
"Well, I guess Destiny plays in grocery stores."
~ ~ ~ ~
A/N: Wow, I finished this! In two days! Anyways, I hope you all liked it. I sure liked writing it. Please, read and review? Please? Eh, I feel like Carlos now, saying 'please' so much. Uh...Carlos wants you to review. Please don't let him down or he'll whine... ^-^'