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

~*~

The Maxwell Trap

by Dorothy Winner

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Heidi cringed the moment she entered the house. Numerous take-out cartons and pop cans littered the kitchen and breakfast nook, and the coffee table in front of the TV was piled with pizza boxes. There were clothes hanging over the side of the sofa and in heaps on the floor that looked like they had been worn several times without washing, and… were those hairballs?

"Dad…" Heidi said slowly, "what happened here?"

"Sorry," said Duo, nearly tripping over a pair of jeans as he began grabbing the pizza and take-out boxes. "I meant to clean up before you got here, but all these new shipments of scrap have been coming in, and I've been really busy…"

"That's okay, Dad," said Heidi, remembering how Sydney had strewn her belongings all over the cabin they had shared in a similar fashion. 'This absolutely will not do,' she thought. It couldn't hurt if she tried to make a few improvements on their dad while she was here…

Heidi started picking up clothes off the floor, wrinkling her nose. "Dad, where's the washing machine?"

"Um, it broke two weeks ago," Duo said from behind a pile of pizza boxes.

"Hasn't it been fixed?"

"Uh… as of right now, no."

"Well, can you fix it today?"

"Ehhhhh… the thing is, I don't have the instruction manual," said Duo as he started stuffing the empty pizza boxes into a garbage bag.

Heidi paused for a moment. "Wait a minute. You can fix a Gundam and you can fix every type of car out there… but you can't fix a washing machine?"

"I can so, I just need the manual," said Duo.

"Do you know where it is?"

"…No."

"Then what did you do once you ran out of clothes?"

"Wore the same thing over again."

Heidi sweatdropped. "So… where's the nearest L2 Cleaners?"

"Aw, look, let's worry about that later," said Duo, "I don't want my best girl doing laundry on her first day home. Whaddaya say we do a little father-daughter work in the garage?"

Heidi went pale. "Um, I really don't think—"

"C'mon, I guarantee you'll remember how to do everything once you're in there…"

Trapped and out of excuses, Heidi attempted to stall, hoping for a miracle. "Uh… um, I… um, that is, uh…"

At that moment, the vidphone began to beep. Heidi sighed with relief. "Whoops," said Duo, "I should probably take this call. Why don't you go on without me?"

"But—"

"I'm sure you'll be fine…"

~*~

Heidi felt anything but fine as she reluctantly headed for the garage, having no other choice. Just how exactly was she supposed to use skills that she didn't even have? Maybe she could get Howard to let her do something simple like organizing the shelves. At least she was no longer under her dad's scrutiny…

Heidi shook her head. What was wrong with her? Heidi Schbeiker was not one to walk away from a challenge. There wasn't really anything to be afraid of; a car was just another machine, after all. She had repaired computers before… surely the same principles had to be involved. She wasn't going to let one disastrous experience keep her from learning how to fix a car; she had told Sydney she wanted to, hadn't she? 'I can do this,' Heidi thought. 'Just you watch, Sydney, I'm going to win our bet…'

With her new resolve, she confidently walked into the garage. "Hi guys!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.

There was a chorus of hellos from the seven or so Sweepers working in the garage. Heidi stood there for a moment, trying to recall exactly where Sydney's work area was. 'Oh yeah, second from the right…'

Heidi walked past Jeff, who was currently smacking a computer monitor with one hand. "Stupid… useless… thing…"

Heidi turned around. "What's the problem?" she piped up.

"For some reason, the computer seems to spontaneously destruct all my account figures. Whenever I input a number, it comes up as zero. I total the column, it totals to zero. Seriously, I'm thinking about chucking this heap into the junkyard…"

"Oh, I'm sure that's not really necessary," said Heidi, the violent demise of their computer coming to mind. "Let's have a look…." She went in front of the keyboard and began to type. "Hmmm…"

Jeff watched, astonished, as window after window of account figures and program commands started popping up on the screen. "What—"

"There you go," said Heidi, pressing the enter key and returning to the home screen. "Just a little bug, really… everything should work now. Plus, I added a few new things… the computer will automatically add everything up into the total column instead of you having to do it manually like you have been. Also, it'll now calculate weekly and monthly profit averages. And I reorganized the archives by year, month, week, and date so you can go back and compare figures between any dates you want. It's a pretty good computer, actually," she said, patting the computer monitor, "you just have to know how to use it. Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any more problems, okay?"

"Um, all right," said Jeff, scratching his head in bewilderment as Heidi sauntered away. "Huh?"

"Hi Howard!" Heidi said brightly as she passed his work area. "So, what would you like me to do first today?"

"Actually, I could really use your help here," said Howard from underneath a car. "Could you hand me my ratchet wrench?"

"Sure." Heidi looked up at the large selection of wrenches that hung from the wall. She grabbed the biggest one. "Um… is it this one?"

"No, that's my crescent wrench, Syd," said Howard. "I asked for my ratchet wrench."

"Sorry, my bad," said Heidi. She looked up at the row of wrenches again and picked the one in the center. "Here you go," she said, handing the wrench to Howard.

"Nope, Syd, this is my socket wrench," said Howard, handing it back.

"Oh," said Heidi. She crossed her fingers and grabbed another one at random. She turned around and held it out to Howard, who had gotten out from under the car and was watching her with a strange expression on his face. "This one?" Heidi asked hopefully.

"No."

Heidi grabbed another. "This one?"

"No."

"This one?"

"Syd, it's the third one from the right."

"Oh… right," said Heidi, grabbing the correct wrench and handing it to Howard. "Just messing with ya, Howard," said Heidi, grinning sheepishly.

"Riiiight," said Howard, raising an eyebrow. "Well, that car over there needs an oil change. Do your stuff."

"Okay." Heidi approached said car with a little trepidation, trying her best to reacall Sydney's instructions. "Okay, we're gonna need a new oil and filter first, right?" Heidi spotted several bottles of engine oil lined up on a shelf. "Um… this one looks as good as any," she said to herself, grabbing a bottle. "Now how much did she say to use?" Heidi opened the bottle and peered inside as she walked back to the car. "Looks like there's enough… oooof!"

Heidi collided smack-dab into Howard, the bottle of engine oil flying out of her hands and dousing the front of Howard's Hawaiian shirt with its contents.

"Oh, scheiße… I mean, I'm really sorry, Howard," said Heidi, biting her lip. "Um, um… I'll just… go get you a new shirt, shall I?" she stammered, quickly walking away.

Howard watched her leave. "Something definitely strange is going on here…"

~*~

TBC…