Chapter 3
MARCO
Cassie and I managed to slip away during lunch, and she debriefed me on the way. It tells you how weird my life has become when all I said was, "okay now what?" instead of freaking out. I mean it's not like Tobias is my best friend, but I still should have been sort of freaked out that he went from being a teenage bird-boy to a three-year-old regular boy in about a fifth of a second. We weren't even sure he's stopped deaging. For all we knew he could still be growing younger every hour or something. And that didn't creep me out. Actually, I was just creeped out that it didn't creep me out!
Still, all this debriefing didn't prepare me for what I saw when I got Ax's scoop with Cassie. Jake was leaning against a tree, looking grave and serious. Not that I blamed him. There were some seriously bad things about this situation. Rachel looked, well, as upset as Rachel can look. I didn't really blame her, either. It's bad enough to be dating out of your species, worse when it's a *way* younger man.
That was a joke, by the way.
Ax looked just plain annoyed, and the reason became quite clear almost instantly. It seemed Tobias had decided his new Andalite friend made a great jungle gym, and was currently trying to climb on his head. I couldn't help it, I laughed. I mean, wouldn't you? A three-year-old using a part deer, part human, part scorpion with stalk eyes as playground equipment just strikes me as funny, okay?
Ax shot me a look that was as venomous as I'd ever seen from him.
\\Do you wish to hold Toby, Marco?// I looked at Tobias, who was now using Ax's tail as monkey bars. Lucky for him, Rachel grabbed him before his small hands found out what the end could do.
"Nah. You look like you're handling it just fine." I smirked.
"This," Rachel muttered, grabbing the squirming thing in her arms by the back of the shirt, "is a bad situation."
"What, didn't the Yeerks build in a handy-dandy reverse switch?"
\\ If they did, this would not be a problem. // Okay, so Ax-man was so *not* in the mood for jokes.
"And the Yeerks might figure out they've been had when the Visser's real test subject shows up. They may figure out that the human was an 'Andalite' in morph."
The situation has now lost all appearance of being humorous.
"But they wouldn't know what deaging someone in morph would do," Cassie pointed out, taking Tobias from Rachel and hanging him upside down over her shoulder. This resulted in Tobias squealing with delight, and the rest of us managing to ignore it. Somehow.
"Neither do we actually," I pointed out, "does the ray de-age the morph, and leave it a morph, or reverse someone to their true form as they were as a child?"
"Obviously it turns them back to their original state." Rachel pointed out.
"No, not obviously. Tobias morphed human."
"It's his true form!"
"It's also a morph." Jake held up his hands to stop our argument before it could go any farther.
"The point is, Tobias is still three, the Yeerks will either a) decide it was an Andalite in morph or b) think we have one of their own in our keeping. Either way, they're going to be looking for Tobias. He cannot be seen."
"In the mean time, what should we do with him? We can't exactly just show up at home with a three year old, now can we? Tends to make parents suspicious." I hate stating the obvious, but in the company present that was necessary. Ax squared his shoulders.
\\ Prince Jake, I am to blame for this unfortunate incident, and would gladly take full responsibility for Tobias's care until a proper alternative can be thought of. //
"Or until Rachel's old enough to be his mommy."
"Shut up, Marco!"
"You're no more to blame for this then the rest of us, Ax," Cassie said gently, "and Tobias can't stay in the forest. It's not healthy for little boys to be here all the time, and someone would notice him."
"What if we told our parents it was a school assignment?" I suggested. "For Home Ec, or something."
"You mean Family Consumer Sciences."
"Say what?" Cassie shrugged.
"That's what they call it now."
"Ookay. Anyway, the point is if we tell them it's a school assignment, and take turns taking care of him, they shouldn't get to suspicious."
"Only one problem," Rachel pointed out viciously, "most people aren't willing to let their toddler be taken care of by a group of teenagers."
"So we say it's someone we know that our parents don't. Be creative."
"It's a temporary solution at best, but it's all we have right now," Jake sighed. "Okay. One of us will take him on alternate nights, and he'll stay here with Ax during the day. It'll only work for a little while, but maybe we'll be able to come up with a better solution in the mean time."
"That means no Xena: Warrior Princess for you, Rachel. Don't want to give the kid nightmares about babes in leather."
"Since you're so into this Marco, why don't you take him first." I turned my head and stared at Jake.
"Wait a minute, are you serious?" Jake just smirked at me, arms folded over his chest. "You are serious! Whoa, Jake buddy, I don't know the first thing about taking care of a kid! Why not have one of the girls do it first!" Rachel laughed at me.
"Oh, now that Marco's on the receiving end, the joke suddenly isn't funny?"
"It'll be good experience for you, Marco." Cassie said brightly, handing Tobias to me and pulling a piece of paper and a pen from her backpack. I held the wiggling bundle of blond hair as tightly, but as far away, as I could.
"But, but."
"Come on Marco, it can't be that hard." Jake smiled. "Toby is a good kid, aren't you, Toby?"
"Uh-huh!" Toby said, tilting his head back to look at me. "I be good!" I gave him a doubtful look.
"There." Cassie stuck a folded piece of paper in my back pocket. "That's a list of emergency phone numbers. There's the police, the fire department, a pediatrician, our houses, poison control."
"Okay, okay, Cassie, I get it. Don't go all motherly on us now. Toby and I will be just fine, won't we Toby?" Toby nodded his head; a grin on his face that I should have realized spelt trouble.
"Okay then, we'll meet back here before school tomorrow." Cassie, Rachel, and Jake all left for their separate homes, but as I started to leave, Toby whimpered. I looked at him, surprised.
"What is it?"
"Ax no come with us?" I looked over my shoulder at Ax, who had appeared not to move, or to have heard. In fact, he seemed intensely interested in a bird above his head.
"No, Toby, Ax can't come with us." His blue eyes suddenly filled with tears, and his bottom lip trembled.
"But I want my Ax." A single tear slid down his face, and even as dumb about kids as I am, I knew that was not a good sign.
"You'll get to see him tomorrow, Toby! You'll get to play with him all day tomorrow." He sniffled.
"Promise?"
"Yeah, I promise." I smiled at him in my most reassuring way, but I think it looked more like a grimace. "Now say good-bye." To my surprise Toby jumped from my arms and ran over to Ax, hugging his legs.
"Buh-bye my Ax. Don't be sad. I be back tomorrow!" Ax smiled in that way only Andalites can, and bent over to hug the toddler.
\\ Good-bye Toby. //
"Can I get an 'Aw' from the audience please?" I whispered under my breath. "Come on Toby, we've got to go!" Toby obediently ran over, and I picked him up and placed him on my shoulders. "Later Ax-man."
Normally the walk from Ax's scoop to my house isn't long or exhausting, but with a three year old riding your shoulders and asking questions every two steps, let me tell you it gets exhausting really fast. Lucky for me, when I got home, dad wasn't there. I put Tobias on the ground and made a quick sweep of the room to make sure there was nothing breakable in his reach. There wasn't.
"Welcome to hotel Marco, Toby. Lets see if we can find some cartoons for you to watch, okay? I think I still have some old episodes of Ninja Turtles around here somewhere." the kid tugged on my jean legs.
"I hungry, Marco."
"Er.okay.let's see what we've got." I led him into the kitchen, conveniently ignoring the dirty dishes in the sink. I looked in the cupboards.
"Oatmeal.grape nuts.jello.nothing there you want.oh hey, these'll work!" I pulled out a box of Hostess Ding Dongs. "Every kid loves these!" I handed him a couple, and he looked at them eagerly. I then handed him the box to hold, and that was my first big mistake of the night. After that I walked to the fridge, and found out that there was no milk, so I opened a mountain dew for him instead. For those keeping track, that was the second big mistake of the night. As I watched him guzzle the sweet caffeinated liquid I made an observation that was almost ironic. "I have the funniest feeling I shouldn't be feeding you this. I wonder why."
About a half hour later, I knew why. And I was cursing the Hostess and Pepsi companies with every curse I knew.
End A/N: Hee hee ^^! Poor Marco! Reviewers here you go:
Selene-Yugi: Glad you liked it, and sorry this took so long to get updated!
Blank 65: Wrote more, and hope you liked it just as much.
Bird1111: Would you have read it if I had?
Imagination-Power: Sure I will. Now that I've gotten this far, the rest is just fun ^^.
Shi-no-Nezumi: If you've figured out how to draw Toby, let me know. I'm still working on that.
Tomgirl27: Glad you like it! Personally, I think Toby is way cuter than Mokuba, but that's just me.
Jinako-chan: As before, you're more than welcome to put this on your site ^^, as well as any of my other stories!
Well, that's all the reviews. Gambatte Kudasai minnasan!
-IB
MARCO
Cassie and I managed to slip away during lunch, and she debriefed me on the way. It tells you how weird my life has become when all I said was, "okay now what?" instead of freaking out. I mean it's not like Tobias is my best friend, but I still should have been sort of freaked out that he went from being a teenage bird-boy to a three-year-old regular boy in about a fifth of a second. We weren't even sure he's stopped deaging. For all we knew he could still be growing younger every hour or something. And that didn't creep me out. Actually, I was just creeped out that it didn't creep me out!
Still, all this debriefing didn't prepare me for what I saw when I got Ax's scoop with Cassie. Jake was leaning against a tree, looking grave and serious. Not that I blamed him. There were some seriously bad things about this situation. Rachel looked, well, as upset as Rachel can look. I didn't really blame her, either. It's bad enough to be dating out of your species, worse when it's a *way* younger man.
That was a joke, by the way.
Ax looked just plain annoyed, and the reason became quite clear almost instantly. It seemed Tobias had decided his new Andalite friend made a great jungle gym, and was currently trying to climb on his head. I couldn't help it, I laughed. I mean, wouldn't you? A three-year-old using a part deer, part human, part scorpion with stalk eyes as playground equipment just strikes me as funny, okay?
Ax shot me a look that was as venomous as I'd ever seen from him.
\\Do you wish to hold Toby, Marco?// I looked at Tobias, who was now using Ax's tail as monkey bars. Lucky for him, Rachel grabbed him before his small hands found out what the end could do.
"Nah. You look like you're handling it just fine." I smirked.
"This," Rachel muttered, grabbing the squirming thing in her arms by the back of the shirt, "is a bad situation."
"What, didn't the Yeerks build in a handy-dandy reverse switch?"
\\ If they did, this would not be a problem. // Okay, so Ax-man was so *not* in the mood for jokes.
"And the Yeerks might figure out they've been had when the Visser's real test subject shows up. They may figure out that the human was an 'Andalite' in morph."
The situation has now lost all appearance of being humorous.
"But they wouldn't know what deaging someone in morph would do," Cassie pointed out, taking Tobias from Rachel and hanging him upside down over her shoulder. This resulted in Tobias squealing with delight, and the rest of us managing to ignore it. Somehow.
"Neither do we actually," I pointed out, "does the ray de-age the morph, and leave it a morph, or reverse someone to their true form as they were as a child?"
"Obviously it turns them back to their original state." Rachel pointed out.
"No, not obviously. Tobias morphed human."
"It's his true form!"
"It's also a morph." Jake held up his hands to stop our argument before it could go any farther.
"The point is, Tobias is still three, the Yeerks will either a) decide it was an Andalite in morph or b) think we have one of their own in our keeping. Either way, they're going to be looking for Tobias. He cannot be seen."
"In the mean time, what should we do with him? We can't exactly just show up at home with a three year old, now can we? Tends to make parents suspicious." I hate stating the obvious, but in the company present that was necessary. Ax squared his shoulders.
\\ Prince Jake, I am to blame for this unfortunate incident, and would gladly take full responsibility for Tobias's care until a proper alternative can be thought of. //
"Or until Rachel's old enough to be his mommy."
"Shut up, Marco!"
"You're no more to blame for this then the rest of us, Ax," Cassie said gently, "and Tobias can't stay in the forest. It's not healthy for little boys to be here all the time, and someone would notice him."
"What if we told our parents it was a school assignment?" I suggested. "For Home Ec, or something."
"You mean Family Consumer Sciences."
"Say what?" Cassie shrugged.
"That's what they call it now."
"Ookay. Anyway, the point is if we tell them it's a school assignment, and take turns taking care of him, they shouldn't get to suspicious."
"Only one problem," Rachel pointed out viciously, "most people aren't willing to let their toddler be taken care of by a group of teenagers."
"So we say it's someone we know that our parents don't. Be creative."
"It's a temporary solution at best, but it's all we have right now," Jake sighed. "Okay. One of us will take him on alternate nights, and he'll stay here with Ax during the day. It'll only work for a little while, but maybe we'll be able to come up with a better solution in the mean time."
"That means no Xena: Warrior Princess for you, Rachel. Don't want to give the kid nightmares about babes in leather."
"Since you're so into this Marco, why don't you take him first." I turned my head and stared at Jake.
"Wait a minute, are you serious?" Jake just smirked at me, arms folded over his chest. "You are serious! Whoa, Jake buddy, I don't know the first thing about taking care of a kid! Why not have one of the girls do it first!" Rachel laughed at me.
"Oh, now that Marco's on the receiving end, the joke suddenly isn't funny?"
"It'll be good experience for you, Marco." Cassie said brightly, handing Tobias to me and pulling a piece of paper and a pen from her backpack. I held the wiggling bundle of blond hair as tightly, but as far away, as I could.
"But, but."
"Come on Marco, it can't be that hard." Jake smiled. "Toby is a good kid, aren't you, Toby?"
"Uh-huh!" Toby said, tilting his head back to look at me. "I be good!" I gave him a doubtful look.
"There." Cassie stuck a folded piece of paper in my back pocket. "That's a list of emergency phone numbers. There's the police, the fire department, a pediatrician, our houses, poison control."
"Okay, okay, Cassie, I get it. Don't go all motherly on us now. Toby and I will be just fine, won't we Toby?" Toby nodded his head; a grin on his face that I should have realized spelt trouble.
"Okay then, we'll meet back here before school tomorrow." Cassie, Rachel, and Jake all left for their separate homes, but as I started to leave, Toby whimpered. I looked at him, surprised.
"What is it?"
"Ax no come with us?" I looked over my shoulder at Ax, who had appeared not to move, or to have heard. In fact, he seemed intensely interested in a bird above his head.
"No, Toby, Ax can't come with us." His blue eyes suddenly filled with tears, and his bottom lip trembled.
"But I want my Ax." A single tear slid down his face, and even as dumb about kids as I am, I knew that was not a good sign.
"You'll get to see him tomorrow, Toby! You'll get to play with him all day tomorrow." He sniffled.
"Promise?"
"Yeah, I promise." I smiled at him in my most reassuring way, but I think it looked more like a grimace. "Now say good-bye." To my surprise Toby jumped from my arms and ran over to Ax, hugging his legs.
"Buh-bye my Ax. Don't be sad. I be back tomorrow!" Ax smiled in that way only Andalites can, and bent over to hug the toddler.
\\ Good-bye Toby. //
"Can I get an 'Aw' from the audience please?" I whispered under my breath. "Come on Toby, we've got to go!" Toby obediently ran over, and I picked him up and placed him on my shoulders. "Later Ax-man."
Normally the walk from Ax's scoop to my house isn't long or exhausting, but with a three year old riding your shoulders and asking questions every two steps, let me tell you it gets exhausting really fast. Lucky for me, when I got home, dad wasn't there. I put Tobias on the ground and made a quick sweep of the room to make sure there was nothing breakable in his reach. There wasn't.
"Welcome to hotel Marco, Toby. Lets see if we can find some cartoons for you to watch, okay? I think I still have some old episodes of Ninja Turtles around here somewhere." the kid tugged on my jean legs.
"I hungry, Marco."
"Er.okay.let's see what we've got." I led him into the kitchen, conveniently ignoring the dirty dishes in the sink. I looked in the cupboards.
"Oatmeal.grape nuts.jello.nothing there you want.oh hey, these'll work!" I pulled out a box of Hostess Ding Dongs. "Every kid loves these!" I handed him a couple, and he looked at them eagerly. I then handed him the box to hold, and that was my first big mistake of the night. After that I walked to the fridge, and found out that there was no milk, so I opened a mountain dew for him instead. For those keeping track, that was the second big mistake of the night. As I watched him guzzle the sweet caffeinated liquid I made an observation that was almost ironic. "I have the funniest feeling I shouldn't be feeding you this. I wonder why."
About a half hour later, I knew why. And I was cursing the Hostess and Pepsi companies with every curse I knew.
End A/N: Hee hee ^^! Poor Marco! Reviewers here you go:
Selene-Yugi: Glad you liked it, and sorry this took so long to get updated!
Blank 65: Wrote more, and hope you liked it just as much.
Bird1111: Would you have read it if I had?
Imagination-Power: Sure I will. Now that I've gotten this far, the rest is just fun ^^.
Shi-no-Nezumi: If you've figured out how to draw Toby, let me know. I'm still working on that.
Tomgirl27: Glad you like it! Personally, I think Toby is way cuter than Mokuba, but that's just me.
Jinako-chan: As before, you're more than welcome to put this on your site ^^, as well as any of my other stories!
Well, that's all the reviews. Gambatte Kudasai minnasan!
-IB