Disclaimer: Don't own Gundam Wing or The Parent Trap.

~*~

The Maxwell Trap

by Dorothy Winner

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A bird chirped merrily outside Heidi's window the next morning, completely oblivious to the chaos that was about to take place inside the cabin.

Heidi opened one eye, squinting against the sun that was pouring in through the window. Her face felt strangely stiff and sticky. She gingerly touched her cheek with one hand and brought it away, staring in horror at the gooey black substance on her fingers. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She bolted upright in bed and found herself completely covered in paint. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The rest of the girls in the cabin were instantly jolted into wakefulness by Heidi's screams. Julia started to rub sleep from her eyes and smeared chocolate syrup all over her face. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Liane opened her eyes and found strange white powder on her silk pajamas. She sat up and absently scratched at an itch on her left arm. Then she scratched an itch on her right arm. Suddenly, a horrible itching sensation began spreading all over her body. She frantically started scratching everywhere on her skin, clawing at her pajamas. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Megan sat up, dripping in shaving cream. She found a mirror next to her pillow and picked it up, looking at her reflection. What made her scream was not the fact that she was covered head to toe with shaving cream, but that the top fork of her eyebrows had been shaved off. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY EYEBROWS!!! MY EYEBROWS!!!!!!!!!!" she screamed hysterically.

One of the other girls attempted to get out of bed, her feet slipping on the oil. Screaming, she slid for a few feet, tripped on the string, and painfully fell to the floor. Another girl tried to help her up, only to slip and land right on top of her. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Extremely desperate to get to the showers to wash off the itching powder, Liane started to put on her Chinese slippers and found her feet stuck in honey. Yanking them off, she lost her balance and fell right into the center of the web and got hopelessly tangled in it, trying to extricate herself and keep scratching at the same time. "Somebody help me!!!"

Julia got out of bed to try and help Liane, only to slip on a combination of vegetable oil and chocolate syrup and sliding right into Liane. Now both of them were tangled in a combination of chocolate syrup, yarn, and itching powder.

"You're supposed to be helping, not making it worse! And you're getting chocolate syrup all over me!" Liane yelled.

"Stop moving then, you're only getting us tangled in the string more!" Julia cried.

"HOW CAN I?!" Liane bellowed. "IT ITCHES!!!"

Heidi had managed to find a towel and tried to wipe the engine grease off of her face, only to smear it more. She flung the towel away from her, screaming with anger and frustration.

"That girl is without a doubt, the lowest, most horrible creature ever to walk the Earth Sphere and the colonies!"

~*~

Outside, Sydney, Alexandra, and Gabrielle were peering in through one of the windows, expressions of mischievous delight on their faces.

"This is priceless," said Sydney. "Man, I wish I had a camera. This is working out so much better than I had hoped it would."

The three girls slapped high-fives.

Just then, Mariemaia came walking up the path, clipboard in hand. "Good morning, girls!" she said cheerfully.

"Good morning, Mariemaia," the girls responded without looking up, not daring to miss seeing any of the bedlam inside the Deathscythe cabin. Then, a second later, they looked at each other, dismayed. "Mariemaia?!?!"

Mariemaia climbed up the steps to Heidi's cabin. "Deathscythe cabin… surprise inspection!" she said, reaching for the door handle.

"NO!!! Don't go in there!" Sydney cried, dashing up the stairs to her.

Mariemaia looked at Sydney. "Excuse me?"

"You—you—you can't," stuttered Sydney, "um, um, uh… that is, uh… one—one of the girls got sick last night. It's a big mess. Save yourself the trouble. It's not pretty."

Heidi managed to make her way over to the door, wondering what Sydney was up to.

Mariemaia looked concerned. "Well, if someone is ill, then I must help," she said. She started to open the door, not realizing that she was pulling on a string that was attached to the bucket directly above her. The bucket began to tilt precariously.

Sydney's eyes darted up to the bucket and back to Mariemaia. "No, really, you should let go of that door, I insist. We think she might have eaten something bad in her food last night," she babbled. "It's almost breakfast, you really should go back to check the kitchens; we really wouldn't want the entire camp to have a case of food poisoning…"

Heidi watched Sydney's eyes go up to the bucket. "Actually, we're perfectly fine in here. Unless Sydney Maxwell knows something we don't," she said, glaring at Sydney. "Please come in, Miss Mariemaia."

And with that, Mariemaia opened the door, tipping the bucket. Sydney and Heidi watched in horror as green dye splashed down on Mariemaia, completely dousing her.

Mariemaia stood frozen for several seconds, green dye dripping off the end of her nose. She then turned so she could look at both Heidi and Sydney. She had a terrible expression on her face that was reminiscent of one of the personalities of her adoptive mother.

"You two," she said in a low, angry voice. "In my office. Now."

~*~

Sydney and Heidi stood side-by-side before Mariemaia in her office. Mariemaia paced back and forth in front of them, still wiping off dye with a now-green towel.

"I have never," she said, cold and clipped, "seen such reprehensible, despicable behavior from two sisters who should be—"

"Um, we're not sisters," said Heidi.

"We're not related at all," added Sydney.

"We've never even seen each other before," emphasized Heidi.

"Really?" said Mariemaia, as she stopped pacing, raising an eyebrow. "This whole look-alike thing has been the problem, hasn't it? Well, I told you what would happen if another incident occurred between you two. Both of you shall be sent home. Immediately."

There was a long pause.

"Miss Mariemaia… may I please say something?" Sydney ventured.

"What?"

"See, nobody's at home right now… my dad's away on a Sweepers mission… he's in the depths of space right now, and I don't really know how to contact him."

"And," Heidi chimed in, "my mom's away on a Preventers mission, and everything's classified, so I don't know how to contact her either."

"You mean I'm stuck with the two of you?" Mariemaia threw her hands up in frustration. "Why me?" She resumed her pacing. "All right then, I'm just going to have to be creative…"

Sydney and Heidi did not like the way Mariemaia said the word creative…

~*~

Half an hour later, Mariemaia was leading Sydney and Heidi on a long, winding path up a tall, steep hill. Both girls were carrying their duffel bags with all their belongings, struggling to keep up with Mariemaia.

Just as they thought their legs were going to fall off, Mariemaia stopped in front of a cabin that obviously looked like it had not been used in a long time. The sign above the door read 'ISOLATION.' Mariemaia took a key out of her pocket and opened the door.

The door creaked as it opened, revealing just two beds and a table. "Welcome to your new home, girls," said Mariemaia. "We still have four weeks left at camp and you two are going to spend every single day of them together. You'll eat together, live together, and do all your activities together. The two of you will either figure out how to get along or you'll punish yourselves better than even I could." At that, Mariemaia left.

Heidi stomped inside, followed by Sydney.

"This is all your fault, you know," Heidi hissed.

"Yeah, well, if you hadn't asked her to open the door, none of this would have happened," said Sydney.

"You know what, I refuse to keep talking to a loser like you," said Heidi. She turned around and neatly began unpacking her things.

Sydney glared at her. "Well, whatever you say to me is worthless anyhow, so I don't need to talk to you either." She unzipped her duffel bag and shook its contents out onto a pile on the floor.

And at that, the two girls settled themselves in for what was going to be a long four weeks…

~*~

TBC…