My inspiration for this came at 7:30 as always, in math class, and the only
thing I had to write on was a stupid puppy dog notebook that has
miraculously survived since knidergarten. Almost a decade. O.o
So, I wrote down about three pages of ideas for we cousins singing on the plane, determined to finish the chapter at home that evening.
BUT, I came up with three new story ideas, and this was abandoned. For a week, I think.
And then I reread the Conspiracy and the Return, and remembered this, and spent four hours looking for my notebook, which has gotten itself lost for the first time in almost a decade during the moment when I actually *wanted* it around.
So this, a product of my staying up until 10:00 p.m., was written from memory.
And that, folks, is the story of my life.
*
Chapter Six: Arrival
The cousins were singing.
It was an annoying process, and already everyone on the plane - from the passengers to the pilot - were ready to murder them. You see, when the cousins sang, they made it a contest to see who could be more irritating.
This particular contest had lasted three hours already. Their first plane ride had been spent in silence as the cousins plotted for their trip. Once they borded the West Virginia flight to Ireland, most unfortunately, however, they had gotten bored.
Jennie had gone through all the Veggie Tales theme melodies, commercial jingles, and Easter hymns (which really are aggravating, not sure why) that she could remember; Tessa was still working on the ninety nine verses of "beer on the wall."
She had previously worked her way through evil Disney songs (including Cruella De Vil, Ursella's "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and Scar's creepy hyena- themed revenge plot thing song that he takes up half the Lion King with).
"Ya take un daown and ya passit around," she sang in a drunken accent. "Fifty-six bottles a beer onna wall! Fifty-six bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-six bottles a BEER, ya take un daown and ye passit around, fifty-five bottles a beer onna wall! Fifty-five bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-five bottles a BEER, ya take un daown and ya passit around, fifty four bottles a beer onna wall!" ((A/N: This is to give you some idea of how annoying I really can be sometimes. . .))
Her cousin looked up as the stewardess stopped by their seats. "I'm sorry, you'll have to be quiet now - please," she said tightly, and strode on before they could answer.
Tessa looked at her fellow conspirator. "How many times has she asked us that?"
"19."
"What are we aiming for?"
"25."
"Right." She drew a breath. "Fifty-two bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-two bottles of BEER. . ."
Smirking, Jennie peered through the space between their seats to their parents, who were sitting three rows back. Leah and Kristin were glaring daggers at each other, hissing "Can't you make your daughter shut UP?"
Biting back laughs, the girl faced forward again and began singing with the other, louder than before so that Ally (who was sitting at the front of the plane and pretending she didn't know them) could hear her.
*
Up front, Alison buried her head in her arms and wondered why the HELL Lindsey hadn't presented her with a way to get out of this. . . hell!
*
Kristin could stand it no longer. Glowering at her older sister, she pushed past their assorted carry-ons and made her way towards the back of the plane.
Midway, she found what she was looking for.
"Excuse me, but would you walk up there and tell those two girls to shut up?! - I, uh, I have a feeling they would listen to you. . ." The woman smoothed down her apricot sweater, gazing pleadingly at the teenaged boy she had selected to be her message-bearer.
Bewildered, he nodded, running a hand through his curly black hair. Blue eyes met Kristin's brown ones, and she hid a grin. Tessa, at least, would definitely listen to this kid.
Returning to her seat, she waited.
Unbuckling, the attractive male made his way up the aisle until he reached the two obnoxious girls. He didn't want to talk to them; he wanted, rather, to make them stop talking.
Singing, that is.
"Both of you," he snarled, grabbing their attention immediately, "shut up. NOW."
The shorter one gulped audibly, her mouth suddenly opening and closing without producing sound. She nodded ecstatically, her blue eyes boring into his own, and then suddenly gave him a very flirtatious smile. "Hi. Sorry to have disturbed you. We. . ." she glanced at the still-warbling Jennie and changed what she was going to say. "I'LL stop bothering you now."
But the young man had retreated as soon as he saw her beam. It was rather a disconcerting experience.
Jennie was still trilling away happily, not letting her cousin's sudden meek silence disturb her.
And so continued another twenty minutes. . .
*
Butler was getting very, very, very annoyed.
He realized this could be dangerous for the average human and tried to control it, he really did. Rushes of adrenaline could allow him to easily snap somebody's neck. And he had endured three or four hours of stifling his rage.
But if those DAMNED girls did NOT shut up four rows behind his plane seat, he would easily snap someone's neck anyway.
It was indeed an odd coincidence that he should be on the same flight as the cousins. Why, you ask, was he there in the first place?
Read on, moi cliché hunters!
Artemis had pleaded with him not to go to the States. Butler remembered this with a feeling of unease. Soon after his employer had warned him of the visiting cousins, Artemis Senior had conducted an exploit with someone in West Virginia. After promising his young charge that he would be back before any girls could manage, the manservant had sped on his errand to complete the trade.
It was a simple enough bargain: old Fowl Star blueprints for a Victorian heirloom.
What bothered the man more was the teenage boy's apprehension. . .
*
(FLASHBACK)
Artemis opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He stared up at his guardian with a sinking feeling. "Couldn't Juliet go?" he managed at last.
"We would lose the elements of fear, surprise, and respect in the trade, which means it would collapse. You know that! Your father lost his own manservant in the Fowl Star crash. I can, and will, perform this task for your healing father."
"But. . . !"
The mastermind let his sentence trail away as he thought. When he had been around the cousins before, without Butler, they had almost been locked into a nonexistent world. Protection was going to be his advantage this time around. They were coming, and Butler was going?!
He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thought. He had to stop treating the cousins like accomplices. They weren't. What happened around them had involved him as a friend, not a bargain item.
~Or a lover,~ Foaly's voice breathed in his ear.
Though it was only a mental conjuration, the boy automatically flushed angrily.
"Butler," he ordered, turning away, "be back in four days. No more, or I will record it as a fluke in service."
Astounded at the warning, Butler muttered something and strode away. It was the first time his carge had threatened him.
What had these - cousins - done to him?
*
As Butler now listened to the singing behind him, he smiled grimly to himself. If the cousins were anything like these two girls, he could understand how bullying might come easily to the master's tongue.
((A/N: Naïve, rude, uncivilized Butler. *thumbs nose* Grrr!))
Attempting to ignore the pair, he buried himself in a magazine from the seat pocket in front of him.
((A/N: *thumbs nose some more* whee! Distraction, am I?))
" '. . .police are doing absolutly nothing to check who has been behind these museum robberies,'" he mumbled aloud, reading to himself. "The loss of a Russian portrait, one of the prides of the Continental Peoples History Museum, should have spurred them into action, but. . .'"
". . . ya take one daown and ya passit around, twenty nine bottles a beer onna wall!" Tessa was singing again. ((A/N: Go me!)) "Twenty-nine bottles of beer onna wall, twenty-nine bottles a BEER, ya take one daown and ya passit around. . ."
After a few more minutes of "beer on the wall" and trying to shut it out using an essay on West Virginia Law Enforcement, however, Butler. . . sort of. . . yeah.
Butlerized.
He threw down the STUPID paper and burst out of his STUPID seat to burst down the STUPID aisle and stop by these STUPID girls and yell in their INFINATELY STUPID FACES!
"SHUT. . . UP!"
And, as the great Shakespeare would put it, the rest was silence.
Jennie gurgled.
Butler roared at her, and the gurgle subsided into a whimper without sound.
If it had been a normal situation, the flight attendant would have hurried over and tried to restrain this disturbed giant. If it had been a normal situation, the cousins' parents would have screamed and leapt to their feet. If it had been a normal situation, everybody would have hollered at the lunatic running around shouting in girls' faces.
But it wasn't.
The cousins had been singing for roughly three and a half hours, and they found themselves utterly deserted.
Their parents sat back and enjoyed the spectacle.
The flight attendant heaved a sigh of relief.
The other passengers, cruel as it sounds, clapped (Tessa was horrified later to learn that the cute black-haired boy was one of them).
As of the moment, she was white as a sheet.
"If we shut up," she rasped in a voice somewhere between a squeak and a whisper, "will you not hurt us?"
Butler almost gave her a reassuring smile. Almost. He caught himself in time.
"Maybe," he rumbled.
Both girls visibly relaxed. "Whew," remarked Jennie. "You scared me. I would've sworn for a moment there, you were Butler or something. Like all grrr-y and everything. Troll dude. Yeah. . ."
Butler froze.
"Say that again," he said slowly.
Tessa dug her elbow into the other's side. "Uhm. We have this friend who is like, macho rich, and he's got a Butler. He took out a troll once, can you believe i- well you probably don't believe in trolls. But yeah. The Butler, not the friend," she added as an afterthought.
The manservant was tempted to faint. Grasping at consciousness and trying to numb his shock, he asked weakly, "Did, your friend ever. . . kidnap. . . a fairy?"
The silence before was deafening compared to the complete lack of silence that fell now over the formerly loud pair. By that time, most of the passengers had lost interest and were talking among themselves again, so they didn't notice the cousins' faces drain of all normal vibrant hues.
White.
Whiter than snow.
((A/N: Snow isn't actually all that white. . . nvm.))
Very white, anyway.
((A/N: I think I've established the fact that it's white. Moving on. . .))
Tessa managed to choke out, "B, B- Butl-ler?"
Well, the manservant thought wryly, it came as a bit of a shock to me too when I discovered YOU were the ones I had to spend a week with. . .
Suddenly, he paled too, having just realized what exactly that meant.
Leah, peering between the seats, beheld a very odd scene.
Two girls and a rather large man were staring at each other, all rather ashy and completely motionless. They swallowed, blinked, and said in unison, "I have to spend my summer with YOU?!"
Getting off on the wrong foot with Butler is not a good way to start a vacation. Especially if, having stepped all over his toes, you suddenly comprehend who the owner of such toes actually is.
This raced through Tessa's head before she unbuckled and, pushing past Butler, made her way towards the bathroom.
Jennie scrambled to follow her.
And, as fate would have it, stepped on the manservant's toes.
It really was going to be a very, very long vacation.
*
Six pages on Microsoft. FINALLY! *passes out* *mutters* stupid notebooks. . .
So, I wrote down about three pages of ideas for we cousins singing on the plane, determined to finish the chapter at home that evening.
BUT, I came up with three new story ideas, and this was abandoned. For a week, I think.
And then I reread the Conspiracy and the Return, and remembered this, and spent four hours looking for my notebook, which has gotten itself lost for the first time in almost a decade during the moment when I actually *wanted* it around.
So this, a product of my staying up until 10:00 p.m., was written from memory.
And that, folks, is the story of my life.
*
Chapter Six: Arrival
The cousins were singing.
It was an annoying process, and already everyone on the plane - from the passengers to the pilot - were ready to murder them. You see, when the cousins sang, they made it a contest to see who could be more irritating.
This particular contest had lasted three hours already. Their first plane ride had been spent in silence as the cousins plotted for their trip. Once they borded the West Virginia flight to Ireland, most unfortunately, however, they had gotten bored.
Jennie had gone through all the Veggie Tales theme melodies, commercial jingles, and Easter hymns (which really are aggravating, not sure why) that she could remember; Tessa was still working on the ninety nine verses of "beer on the wall."
She had previously worked her way through evil Disney songs (including Cruella De Vil, Ursella's "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and Scar's creepy hyena- themed revenge plot thing song that he takes up half the Lion King with).
"Ya take un daown and ya passit around," she sang in a drunken accent. "Fifty-six bottles a beer onna wall! Fifty-six bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-six bottles a BEER, ya take un daown and ye passit around, fifty-five bottles a beer onna wall! Fifty-five bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-five bottles a BEER, ya take un daown and ya passit around, fifty four bottles a beer onna wall!" ((A/N: This is to give you some idea of how annoying I really can be sometimes. . .))
Her cousin looked up as the stewardess stopped by their seats. "I'm sorry, you'll have to be quiet now - please," she said tightly, and strode on before they could answer.
Tessa looked at her fellow conspirator. "How many times has she asked us that?"
"19."
"What are we aiming for?"
"25."
"Right." She drew a breath. "Fifty-two bottles a beer onna wall, fifty-two bottles of BEER. . ."
Smirking, Jennie peered through the space between their seats to their parents, who were sitting three rows back. Leah and Kristin were glaring daggers at each other, hissing "Can't you make your daughter shut UP?"
Biting back laughs, the girl faced forward again and began singing with the other, louder than before so that Ally (who was sitting at the front of the plane and pretending she didn't know them) could hear her.
*
Up front, Alison buried her head in her arms and wondered why the HELL Lindsey hadn't presented her with a way to get out of this. . . hell!
*
Kristin could stand it no longer. Glowering at her older sister, she pushed past their assorted carry-ons and made her way towards the back of the plane.
Midway, she found what she was looking for.
"Excuse me, but would you walk up there and tell those two girls to shut up?! - I, uh, I have a feeling they would listen to you. . ." The woman smoothed down her apricot sweater, gazing pleadingly at the teenaged boy she had selected to be her message-bearer.
Bewildered, he nodded, running a hand through his curly black hair. Blue eyes met Kristin's brown ones, and she hid a grin. Tessa, at least, would definitely listen to this kid.
Returning to her seat, she waited.
Unbuckling, the attractive male made his way up the aisle until he reached the two obnoxious girls. He didn't want to talk to them; he wanted, rather, to make them stop talking.
Singing, that is.
"Both of you," he snarled, grabbing their attention immediately, "shut up. NOW."
The shorter one gulped audibly, her mouth suddenly opening and closing without producing sound. She nodded ecstatically, her blue eyes boring into his own, and then suddenly gave him a very flirtatious smile. "Hi. Sorry to have disturbed you. We. . ." she glanced at the still-warbling Jennie and changed what she was going to say. "I'LL stop bothering you now."
But the young man had retreated as soon as he saw her beam. It was rather a disconcerting experience.
Jennie was still trilling away happily, not letting her cousin's sudden meek silence disturb her.
And so continued another twenty minutes. . .
*
Butler was getting very, very, very annoyed.
He realized this could be dangerous for the average human and tried to control it, he really did. Rushes of adrenaline could allow him to easily snap somebody's neck. And he had endured three or four hours of stifling his rage.
But if those DAMNED girls did NOT shut up four rows behind his plane seat, he would easily snap someone's neck anyway.
It was indeed an odd coincidence that he should be on the same flight as the cousins. Why, you ask, was he there in the first place?
Read on, moi cliché hunters!
Artemis had pleaded with him not to go to the States. Butler remembered this with a feeling of unease. Soon after his employer had warned him of the visiting cousins, Artemis Senior had conducted an exploit with someone in West Virginia. After promising his young charge that he would be back before any girls could manage, the manservant had sped on his errand to complete the trade.
It was a simple enough bargain: old Fowl Star blueprints for a Victorian heirloom.
What bothered the man more was the teenage boy's apprehension. . .
*
(FLASHBACK)
Artemis opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He stared up at his guardian with a sinking feeling. "Couldn't Juliet go?" he managed at last.
"We would lose the elements of fear, surprise, and respect in the trade, which means it would collapse. You know that! Your father lost his own manservant in the Fowl Star crash. I can, and will, perform this task for your healing father."
"But. . . !"
The mastermind let his sentence trail away as he thought. When he had been around the cousins before, without Butler, they had almost been locked into a nonexistent world. Protection was going to be his advantage this time around. They were coming, and Butler was going?!
He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thought. He had to stop treating the cousins like accomplices. They weren't. What happened around them had involved him as a friend, not a bargain item.
~Or a lover,~ Foaly's voice breathed in his ear.
Though it was only a mental conjuration, the boy automatically flushed angrily.
"Butler," he ordered, turning away, "be back in four days. No more, or I will record it as a fluke in service."
Astounded at the warning, Butler muttered something and strode away. It was the first time his carge had threatened him.
What had these - cousins - done to him?
*
As Butler now listened to the singing behind him, he smiled grimly to himself. If the cousins were anything like these two girls, he could understand how bullying might come easily to the master's tongue.
((A/N: Naïve, rude, uncivilized Butler. *thumbs nose* Grrr!))
Attempting to ignore the pair, he buried himself in a magazine from the seat pocket in front of him.
((A/N: *thumbs nose some more* whee! Distraction, am I?))
" '. . .police are doing absolutly nothing to check who has been behind these museum robberies,'" he mumbled aloud, reading to himself. "The loss of a Russian portrait, one of the prides of the Continental Peoples History Museum, should have spurred them into action, but. . .'"
". . . ya take one daown and ya passit around, twenty nine bottles a beer onna wall!" Tessa was singing again. ((A/N: Go me!)) "Twenty-nine bottles of beer onna wall, twenty-nine bottles a BEER, ya take one daown and ya passit around. . ."
After a few more minutes of "beer on the wall" and trying to shut it out using an essay on West Virginia Law Enforcement, however, Butler. . . sort of. . . yeah.
Butlerized.
He threw down the STUPID paper and burst out of his STUPID seat to burst down the STUPID aisle and stop by these STUPID girls and yell in their INFINATELY STUPID FACES!
"SHUT. . . UP!"
And, as the great Shakespeare would put it, the rest was silence.
Jennie gurgled.
Butler roared at her, and the gurgle subsided into a whimper without sound.
If it had been a normal situation, the flight attendant would have hurried over and tried to restrain this disturbed giant. If it had been a normal situation, the cousins' parents would have screamed and leapt to their feet. If it had been a normal situation, everybody would have hollered at the lunatic running around shouting in girls' faces.
But it wasn't.
The cousins had been singing for roughly three and a half hours, and they found themselves utterly deserted.
Their parents sat back and enjoyed the spectacle.
The flight attendant heaved a sigh of relief.
The other passengers, cruel as it sounds, clapped (Tessa was horrified later to learn that the cute black-haired boy was one of them).
As of the moment, she was white as a sheet.
"If we shut up," she rasped in a voice somewhere between a squeak and a whisper, "will you not hurt us?"
Butler almost gave her a reassuring smile. Almost. He caught himself in time.
"Maybe," he rumbled.
Both girls visibly relaxed. "Whew," remarked Jennie. "You scared me. I would've sworn for a moment there, you were Butler or something. Like all grrr-y and everything. Troll dude. Yeah. . ."
Butler froze.
"Say that again," he said slowly.
Tessa dug her elbow into the other's side. "Uhm. We have this friend who is like, macho rich, and he's got a Butler. He took out a troll once, can you believe i- well you probably don't believe in trolls. But yeah. The Butler, not the friend," she added as an afterthought.
The manservant was tempted to faint. Grasping at consciousness and trying to numb his shock, he asked weakly, "Did, your friend ever. . . kidnap. . . a fairy?"
The silence before was deafening compared to the complete lack of silence that fell now over the formerly loud pair. By that time, most of the passengers had lost interest and were talking among themselves again, so they didn't notice the cousins' faces drain of all normal vibrant hues.
White.
Whiter than snow.
((A/N: Snow isn't actually all that white. . . nvm.))
Very white, anyway.
((A/N: I think I've established the fact that it's white. Moving on. . .))
Tessa managed to choke out, "B, B- Butl-ler?"
Well, the manservant thought wryly, it came as a bit of a shock to me too when I discovered YOU were the ones I had to spend a week with. . .
Suddenly, he paled too, having just realized what exactly that meant.
Leah, peering between the seats, beheld a very odd scene.
Two girls and a rather large man were staring at each other, all rather ashy and completely motionless. They swallowed, blinked, and said in unison, "I have to spend my summer with YOU?!"
Getting off on the wrong foot with Butler is not a good way to start a vacation. Especially if, having stepped all over his toes, you suddenly comprehend who the owner of such toes actually is.
This raced through Tessa's head before she unbuckled and, pushing past Butler, made her way towards the bathroom.
Jennie scrambled to follow her.
And, as fate would have it, stepped on the manservant's toes.
It really was going to be a very, very long vacation.
*
Six pages on Microsoft. FINALLY! *passes out* *mutters* stupid notebooks. . .