(visualpurple - Thank you for the reviews. In the movie, Violet had someone she was interested in, but his name was Tony, not Quigley. Call it dramatic license in combining the two stories.)
Chapter 4
At 5:00AM Syndrome pounded on the door.
"Wakey-wakey children!" he called. "There's lots to do!"
"Huh? What?" groaned Dash sleepily. He hadn't had much rest that night because he had slept on the floor so that Violet and Jack-Jack could have the bed.
The door flew open and Syndrome barged in.
"Come on, there are chores to be done!" said Count Buddy. "Good sidekicks must learn to follow orders. You have to scrub the floors, chop the wood, and paint the living room."
"What about breakfast?" asked Violet.
"Oh, I made you some oatmeal," said Count Buddy. "That reminds me, you'll have to scrub the pots and clean up the kitchen, too."
The children walked down to the kitchen, which was a disaster area of dirty dishes, cobwebs, and mice. There was a pot of cold, lumpy oatmeal on the table. They began eating from the common pot since there were no clean dishes available.
Syndrome's cell phone rang as the Parrs were finishing breakfast. The children couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but they could tell that he was getting very angry.
"She WHAT?" he shouted. "You've got to keep her away from him! Can't you handle one super by yourselves? All right, I'll fly out there and deal with it."
Syndrome sighed. He told the children, "I've got to go. No man is an island. You stay here and do those chores I told you."
He walked into the next room and got something out of a box.
"A little bird will tell me if you get into mischief while I'm gone, so behave yourselves," said Count Buddy.
He opened his hand and a robotic bird which looked like a tropical parrot flew up and perched on one of the kitchen shelves. Its camera-eyes focused on the three children.
As Syndrome was heading out the door, he called back to the children, "I'm bringing a few of my troops here tonight. Have dinner ready for them by seven o'clock. Buy the food, prepare it, set the table, serve dinner, clean up afterward, and stay out of our way."
"We don't have money to buy food," Violet said.
"Glack!", Jack-Jack added, which meant the same thing.
"Oh yeah, money," said Syndrome impatiently. He reached into his wallet and got a few one-dollar bills, which he tossed on the floor. "There you go."
He stalked out, barking orders into his cell phone as he went.
The Parrs were careful in front of the parrot, aware that it might be recording everything they said and did.
"I'll work in the kitchen," said Violet. "You can work on the floors, Jack-Jack. Dash, you can work on chopping the wood out back."
"But..." Dash started to say.
"If we separate, we can get things done," said Violet.
It proved to be a good plan. The robotic bird could not watch them all at once, so it cycled between them at ten-minute intervals. When he was not being watched, Dash worked at high speed. Jack-Jack morphed into wooden form so he could scrub the floors faster and harder. Violet used force-fields to shift piles of dirty dishes and to capture and eject the mice. She also went invisible and whispered to her siblings as they worked.
"You heard what Count Buddy said this morning? Something about keeping her away from him, and handling one super," Violet whispered to Dash.
Dash nodded.
"I think that he might be talking about Mom and Dad," said Violet. "Maybe Dad's being held prisoner and Mom is trying to rescue him."
"Yeah!" said Dash quietly, as if to himself.
Violet went to talk to Jack-Jack next.
"Count Buddy may have done something to Dad and Mom. It seems really fishy that he was ready to step in and take charge of us the instant our house was burned down. We need to find out where he went today," Violet said.
"Nomanisan," said Jack-Jack.
"Yes, it was funny the way he said 'No man is an island', Violet whispered. "It means 'People need each other'. But it was a funny thing to say. Maybe it's a clue."
Just then there was a knock at the front door. Violet rushed back to put on her street clothes and answer the door. Dash and Jack-Jack also went to the door.
It was Justice Mirage. "I wanted to see how you children were settling in," she said. "Is there anything you need?"
They would have liked to tell her all about Syndrome and his abusive treatment of them, but the parrot had followed them to the door.
"Could we borrow a cookbook?" Dash said finally. "We're supposed to make dinner tonight for Count Buddy and his troops."
"Why don't you come over to my house and pick out a cookbook from my library," suggested Mirage.
The parrot followed them, but it didn't go inside the other house. It watched them from the windows.
Mirage had a huge library, with shelves and shelves of books. She pointed out the section with cookbooks. They quickly found a recipe that looked inexpensive and easy to make: puttanesca sauce.
On their way back, Dash whispered to Violet, "I found another section in the library. A whole bunch of books on Count Buddy. I grabbed one when the parrot couldn't see."
"Why don't Jack-Jack and I go shopping for the dinner ingredients while you work on painting the living room," suggested Violet.
The parrot's surveillance was stretched again. It had to fly back and forth between the two groups, which gave Dash time to read the book. (He didn't particularly like reading, but he could speed-read when he had to.)
By seven that night, the children had all the chores done and had the puttanesca sauce and pasta ready.
"Here we are!" announced Count Buddy, slamming open the front door. He was accompanied by a whole set of strange individuals, all in dark uniforms with light breastplates. One had hooks instead of hands, one was wart-faced, and another was bald with a big nose. Two were women with white-powdered faces. One was large and it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman.
Syndrome's troops shot sneering looks their way. "So, these are the brats you're gonna make your sidekicks, Boss?" said the hook-handed man. "They hardly seem worth the trouble."
"They'll turn out all right with my expert training," said Syndrome. "Now children, where's the roast beef?"
"You didn't say you wanted roast beef," said Violet. "We made puttanesca sauce..."
"I'm an important man, and I'm not to be trifled with," snarled Syndrome. "I demand you serve roast beef to myself and my guards."
"No! No! No!" Jack-Jack shouted.
With a roar, Syndrome picked up Jack-Jack and held him above his head with one hand. Jack-Jack began to cry, too surprised and frightened to morph.
"Let my little brother go, you monster," said Dash, starting to rush at Count Buddy.
But Buddy seemed to be prepared for this. He triggered his gauntlet beam again and froze Dash in his tracks, then slammed him into the wall. Then he tossed Jack-Jack toward Violet and caught both of them in another beam. Once again he used the beams to drag them up to their room and locked them in.
"You really didn't tell them you wanted roast beef, Boss?" they heard one of the guards say though the door.
"It's all part of my training," said Syndrome. "Breaking their wills."
"I almost got him," said Dash, vainly trying to keep the tears our of his voice. "In one more millisecond I would have punched him."
Violet hugged her brother to comfort him. "It's all right, Dash. He hasn't broken us yet. Did you learn anything from that book we can use against him?"
"The name of the island where he lives... Nomanisan Island," said Dash.
"So that's what he meant!" Violet said. "That's where Mom and Dad are. I just know it!"
"Yoop?" said Jack-Jack, which meant "How are we going to get there?"
Violet was silent a long time.
"I don't know," she said.
