"Any sign of them, Ed?" Eddy asked.
Ed tore his attention away from steering the mechanical dragonfly around Eddy's room long enough to press his face against the nearby window and look outside. "Twelve o'clock, and all is well!" he announced. Turning to Edward, he carefully explained, "That is old-time talk for 'no-one is home'!"
"Um, th-thank you, Ed, that's certainly a relief…And in that case, I suppose I had better be going." Edward stood up and brushed a few stray fibers from his shirt. "Once again, I really can't thank the two of you enough for extricating me from that uncomfortable situation back there," he darted a glance towards Eddy, "a-and I'm sorry if I made you look bad…"
"Yeah, bye, see ya." Eddy sat on his bed, not looking up as he leaned against his headboard idly polishing his lava lamp. "It's been a blast…or whatever…"
Edward glanced at Ed, but he was absorbed in trying to make the dragonfly crash into Eddy's disco-ball. "Y-yes, well, it was nice meeting you both…" With a quiet sigh, he stepped over a pile of dirty clothes and made his way to the door. He put a hand on the door handle and paused. "But if I may ask, why didn't you tell me Plank was, in fact, a toothpick?"
Eddy made an irritated noise. "How were we supposed to know?" Still focused on his lamp, he snorted. "Jonny likes to pretend that dumb thing grows every year – before today, Plank was a stupid matchstick with the top cut off." He glanced up and snickered at Edward's bemused expression. "Kinda makes Ed look normal, don't it?"
Edward smiled hesitantly, encouraged by Eddy's own snickering. "Yes, well, that is rather, um, unique, I must admit."
"So you see it, too, eh?" Eddy nodded appreciatively. "Finally! I thought I was the only person in the whole neighborhood who realized what a nutjob that kid is!"
"Oh, don't say that, Eddy!" Ed brushed his hair out of his eyes and turned to his friend, the dragonfly momentarily forgotten. "Plank does grow! I remember when he was just a baby, he was such a cute little splinter!" He sniffled nostalgically.
"Shut up, Mop-head." He glanced at Edward, rolling his eyes in a 'see what I have to put up with?' gesture. "I'll tell ya, it's tough being the only cool kid on the block."
Edward giggled nervously at Eddy's apparent joke. "I can only imagine." He tapped his chin as a thought occurred to him. "Although, technically, we all live in a cul-de-sac, not on a…um…" Eddy pointedly focused his attention on his lava lamp once more, leaving Edward to trail off into silence. "Oh. Oh, yes, I-I was going, wasn't I?" He slid the door open. "Well, good-bye…"
The forlorn note in Edward's voice made Eddy glance back up. He frowned at Edward's retreating back, then looked over to find Ed staring at him with lower lip quivering. He chewed his own lip momentarily, then sighed. Casting a 'you owe me for this' look at Ed, he plucked the mechanical dragonfly out of the air as it passed and tried to look interested in it. "So, uh…so you made this thing yourself, eh?" He flicked at its wings, still fluttering madly in a mechanical attempt at escape. "What'd you do, get some sorta kit?"
Edward paused. "N-no, I built it from scratch, actually…" He continued to face the open door. "It's somewhat of a hobby of mine, i-inventing things…"
The dragonfly buzzed in Eddy's hands, its perfectly-formed legs scrabbling at the air. It buzzed smoothly away when Eddy released it; Eddy watched it fly with begrudging admiration. He turned to look at Edward once more, a cunning light now flickering in his eyes. "You know…" he finally said in a carefully offhand tone. "That was pretty danged funny, what happened back there at the party and all…"
Edward hung his head. "I really wish you wouldn't laugh at me."
"No, not you, I'm talkin' about Jonny – did you see the look on ol' Baldy's face when you picked your teeth with his best friend?"
Wincing at this reference to his faux pas, Edward turned back with a reproachful response at the ready, but found Eddy grinning slyly as if sharing some private joke with him. He looked at his shoes as a reluctant grin spread across his own face. "Well, I must say, he certainly was aghast." His face darkened slightly. "But I never meant for you and Ed to get kicked out on my account…"
Eddy's face reflected a flash of annoyance before he looked at the dragonfly once more. "Eh, it was a party for a toothpick, big deal." He waved his hand nonchalantly. "Me and Ed get invited to way fancier shindigs all the time!"
"We do?" Ed scratched his head. "But Eddy, I thought you said this was our one big chance to show the kids how cool we – "
Knocking Ed aside, Eddy grinned a little less suavely than before. "Uh, he means our one big chance – for today! Heh-heh, the big lug just don't know what he's talking about sometimes…heh…" As Edward's dubious look increased, Eddy sighed and threw up his hands in defeat. "All right, fine – look, we woulda got kicked out sooner or later anyway – "
"We are the life of the party and the party of the life!" Ed agreed.
"Uh, yeah, what he said – " Eddy looked back at Edward. "Anyway, at least we got a good laugh on everyone this way…" He grinned despite himself. "And did you see Mr. Smooth tripping all over his tongue tryin' to insult us?" He snickered. "Man, is Kevin a dork, or what?"
Edward's giggles died down at Eddy's last comment. "Excuse me for saying so, Eddy, but don't you think such derogatory sobriquets are rather inconsiderate? What if such notions as karmic reciprocity really were – " he swallowed and shut his mouth as he caught Eddy and Ed's expressions.
"My head is bubbling, Eddy!" Ed was holding his hands up to his ears, a pained look on his face. "He is like a talking dictionary!"
Eddy grimaced his agreement. "More like a double dictionary if you ask me!" Peering at Edward, he asked, "Do you talk like that all the time?" Edward nodded, red-faced. Eddy eyed him for a long time as he considered, then finally shrugged to himself and said, "Well, knock it off, would ya? If you're gonna hang with me and Ed, you're gonna have to learn to talk like a normal person real darned quick!"
"I'm sorry, I…" Edward began in a near-whisper before Eddy's words reached him. His eyes widened as he looked from Eddy to Ed. "Y-you mean…I can stay?"
Eddy shrugged. "Yeah, sure, for five bucks." He rolled his eyes at Edward's taken-aback expression. "That was a joke, all right?" Edward opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. "Look, whaddya want, an ingrained invitation? Do you wanna hang out with me and Ed or not?"
"Um, actually, it's engrav – " Edward paused mid-correction. "I-I mean, yes, I'd be honored if you'd let me 'hang out' with you." He smiled. "Thank you, Eddy – oh, and you too, Ed."
Ed sniffled happily. "This is just like when the Two Amazing Plumbers joined forces with Plunger-Boy in their never-ending battle against blocked pipes and unsightly ring-around-the-tub!" He grabbed Eddy's bedspread off his bed, knocking over the nightstand as he pulled it over, and blew his nose into it. "You guys made my eyes get all soggy!"
Edward and Eddy both stared wordlessly at Ed. "Uh…" Eddy turned to Edward. "Of course, as the new guy, you get to clean up after him."
Edward brightened. "Well, I hate to brag, but as a matter of fact I am somewhat of an expert in matters of domestic sanitation!"
"I think that means he likes onions, Eddy!"
"Yeah, well, the onions gotta wait – just get this junk picked up, will ya? And then – " As casually as he could, he jerked his head towards Edward's dragonfly. "Maybe you can, I dunno, make a few more of those things for us?"
"You want more dragonflies?" Edward looked hesitantly at his creation. "W-well, I'd be happy to oblige, of course, but may I ask what you want them for?"
Eddy grinned and cast a sly glance at his piggy bank. "Oh, just trust me…"
****
"Why do I get the feeling we've done this before?" A present-day Edward – or Double-D as his friends had eventually dubbed him – eyed the ranks of whirring mechanical dragonflies lined up in his father's garage.
Ed looked worried. "Do you think it is because we have been caught on the tapes of the terrible VCR Lord, and forced to replay the same day of our lives again and again and again and again, only without commercial interruptions?"
Double-D paused in the last-minute adjustments he was making to the radio controller. "Um, perhaps, Ed…" He glanced at Eddy. "Although somehow I think it more likely that I'm getting the feeling we've done this before because, oh, I don't know – because we've done this before??"
"What?" Eddy snorted. "Yeah, right, Sock-head, those bugs must be eating away at your brain!" He hopped off the tool chest he'd been sitting on and sauntered over to survey his new insect army. "I never repeat a scam, right Ed?"
"Right as reindeer, Eddy!" Ed put down the two dragonflies he was making 'fight' each other, and looked at Double-D. "Eddy says that every time we do this scam, huh Double-D?"
Eddy responded before Double-D could. "Shut up, Ed." He glared at Ed for a moment, then turned back to the rows of dragonflies with a devious snicker. "Man, these babies are gonna make us rich! A whole army of bugs I control – who knows how much the kids'll pay us to get rid of them for 'em!" He slung an arm over Double-D's shoulder, inadvertently knocking the radio-control out of his hands. "Just think of it, Double-D, how could it possibly go wrong?"
Double-D looked skywards. "Well, let's see, I suppose it could go wrong if Ed were to attempt to leap on some of our dragonflies in an ill-conceived attempt to 'ride' them, instead bringing them crashing to the ground in a flurry of snapping springs and gears, thereby exposing both their mechanical nature and our own duplicitous intentions?" He watched Eddy carefully, scanning for signs of dawning recollection. "Furthermore, said exposure could incite our would-be scam victims to seek revenge by, oh, I don't know, collecting an entire swarm of actual mosquitoes and locking us in a closet with them for so long that afterwards we end up exhausting the stocks of calamine lotion from every pharmacy within a 5-mile radius of our houses?"
"You lost me at 'well,' Sock-head," Eddy replied glibly, picking up the radio-control and fiddling with the steering knob. "Now let's get – " catching the look on Double-D's face, he stopped and crossed his arms. "Oh, come on, Double-D, just trust me for once, would ya? Look, have I ever steered you wrong?"
Double-D paused mid-nod. He glanced down over the rows of dragonflies and spotted one much older than the rest, several of its delicate metal wings and legs of a different shade than the rest of its body, as if they had been broken off and replaced before. His original dragonfly, doomed to yet another spectacular failure; doomed, for certain, but at least doomed to go down together with its fellows, no longer alone. He looked over at Ed, cheerfully sipping paint through a straw as he painted 'Eddy's Bugg B-Gon' on a large piece of cardboard; he looked at Eddy, whose impatient scowl couldn't mask the eager, mischievous glint in his eyes, and he smiled despite himself. "No, Eddy, I suppose you haven't." He took the remote from Eddy's hands and fired up his ill-fated creations. "Shall we be off, gentlemen? I'd like to get this underway before the local pharmacies close for the night…"
"Now you're talkin'!" Eddy rubbed his hands as he followed the swarm of dragonflies out of the garage. "Man, I can taste those jawbreakers already!"
"You can?" Ed looked astonished. "I did not know you were a psychic jawbreaker taster, Eddy!" He grabbed Double-D and ran after Eddy. "Hurry up, Double-D, maybe Eddy can tell us what flavor is in our future!"
As Double-D bounced along to yet another ludicrous failure, he smiled. The 'flavor' in his future might be that of calamine lotion and penniless failure, but even those flavors could be sweet in the right company.
