AN: Here's chapter two (obviously). I cleaned up the typos on chapter one, as well. Typing past 1am doesn't always yield the best grammatical results. This chapter actually won't be that long, I don't think, because of what I have planned for chapter three (I'm so bad, I was scribbling ideas in my downtime at work). Thanks very very very very very much, again, to all who reviewed. I'm basically writing this for all of you at this point. So, keep it up and so will I.
Disclaimer: Don't own it; don't own it, yadda yadda yadda. And feel free to use my bad LazyTown jokes at parties and social functions. See how far you get. Just don't plagiarize me, kids. Plagiarism's as wrong as fermented shark. The kind soaked in urine for months.
Spring Cleaning: Part Two
By Chiba Apey
When Sportacus arrives back at the little yellow house, Stephanie was watching for him through the picture window. When she spotted him, she waved frantically and opened the door. "You're back!" she bounced.
Sportacus nodded uneasily. "Yes, your uncle is…too tired to walk home after helping Bessie today." He shifted uncomfortably. "So, I am going to stay here tonight and keep an eye on you."
If Stephanie had glowed any brighter at that moment, she would've blinded poor Sportacus. "You mean you're sleeping over? Tonight? That's great!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him inside. "Oh, we'll have so much fun. I can show you around and we can watch videos and tell stories and–"
"I think we'd better start with dinner," said Sportacus, extracting his hand from her surprisingly strong grip.
"Oh yeah, I could cook dinner!" said Stephanie.
"NO!" Sportacus held up his hands quickly, "No, no. I will take care of this meal. You can go…practice your dancing."
"Okay," smiling, she skipped off towards her room. Moments later, he could hear the beginning of "Energy" blaring from her boom box.
He turned into the kitchen and started looking through the fridge and the cupboards. Now, what to make?
Down, down, down under the not-so-lazy little town, Robbie Rotten was not very happy. "I am not very happy," glowered Robbie, throwing himself away from his periscope, "Sportakook and the little girl are still up there making noise." He kicked a trash bin. "What is wrong with them?"
He began to pace his lair. "I work SO hard every day to be the laziest and the rottenest villain around!" He paused and clutched his blanky from his chair. "Doesn't anyone care? Doesn't anyone see the craftsmanship that goes into quality villainy these days?" He snapped and a mirror popped out of nowhere. "After all, chicks dig a sexy bad boy." He gave his best "tall, dark, and handsome" grin.
As he was admiring himself, a particularly loud bit of music blasted at him from his periscope. He threw the mirror back up and changed gears again. "And I NEED my beauty sleep." He smoothed his hair. "Bah!" He tossed his blanky behind him and did an about-face, only to trip on the blanky. He squealed like a girl and hit the ground. Jumping up, he brushed himself off dramatically. "Ha, I meant to do that!" He tugged his vest down and went towards the back of his lair.
"If only I could think of a way to get Sportanerd and that brat to lose all that energy, I could get some shut-eye!" As he was walking, he passed his chemistry set and a nasty little thought nudged the rotten lobe in his brain. "Ah! Yes, that's it! I need sleep, so I will make them both fall asleep, too. Forever!" (insert maniacal laughter here)
When Stephanie walked into the kitchen later, she found Sportacus flipping their dinner about with two pans. "Oh, hello, Stephanie," he said as he concentrated on aiming the food at their plates. Using the pans as paddles, he served up the whole of dinner onto their two plates without ever leaving the stove. Stephanie clapped with joy and hurried to her seat.
"Gee, Sportacus, this looks great!" As he sat down across from her, she sniffed her plate a bit in curiosity. "What is it?"
"It's fish," replied Sportacus, pulling out a seat of his own, "Very healthy. And that is asparagus. It is loaded with vitamin A which is great for vision."
"Oh," blushed the smitten girl, looking him over, "I don't need help with my vision." She batted her eyelashes and he coughed nervously, immersing himself in his meal.
It was strange for Stephanie to watch the superhero eat. Even sitting down for a meal he couldn't stop fidgeting. He kept twitching this way and that, his feet constantly dancing about beneath the table. It was all she could do to keep from laughing.
When they had eaten and cleaned up, Stephanie decided to help Sportacus get rid of some of his energy. "Let's play a game, Sportacus!"
Sportacus looked at his watch. Not quite 8:08 yet. "All right, Stephanie, what shall we play?"
Stephanie pretended to consider for a minute before revealing her idea. "How about Twister? I love that game."
In the corner of Sportacus's left eye was a very visible twitch. "I don't know Stephanie, what else could we play?" He started at her hurt expression. "I mean, what are some other options. So I can choose."
Stephanie sighed and then really did take a moment to think. "Well, we could play cards or 'Caesar and Cleopatra' or 'wild animals' or build a fort…"
"We'll build a fort," interrupted Sportacus, betting on it being the safest option, "Why don't you gather some blankets and I'll grab some cushions?"
Stephanie gave him a big hug. "Okay!" Then she ran off down the hall to get some bedding. On her way down the hall she got a couple blankets from the hall closet. In her room, she grabbed the pink poufy comforter off her bed and then ran into her uncle's room to get his. She snatched a corner and yanked it after her, stopping when she heard a mysterious "plop!" Looking back, she noticed something had fallen on the floor from between her uncle's sheets.
She set down the bedding she was toting momentarily and approached the fallen object.
In the other room, Sportacus was obliviously arranging furniture and cushions so as to make a fort that they could both fit in. He heard Stephanie walk in, but had his back to her. "All right, Stephanie, I've set up the walls. Now our fort just needs a ceiling."
"Hey, Sportacus?" asked a quiet voice behind him. "What's this?" Just as he turned around to see what "this" was, she held up the object from her uncle's room. It was a black book with a long title. Midway through the title the word "sex" was emblazoned in red across it.
"WHOA! What?" Sportacus recoiled, jumping about a foot, "Where did you get that?"
"It fell out of my uncle's bed when I was getting his comforter," shrugged Stephanie. "What is it?"
"Ah, well, you see…" squeaked the above average hero, his voice breaking, "When a man and a woman – actually, when a girl gets to a certain age she – I can't really…I'm a man, I shouldn't be the one to…"
Stephanie nodded in understanding. "Oh, I see. This is one of those 'ask an older woman' things, right?" Sportacus nodded weakly. "Okay, then I'll call Bessie."
Any alarm bells that had remained inactive after the last surprise were kicked into full gear. "NO! No, you cannot call Bessie because…because she and the mayor had a long day. They are trying to get their sleep."
Stephanie had never seen Sportacus sweat so much. "So, then, you're the only other adult I know really well, Sportacus."
Sportacus looked trapped. Sure, he's known the girl for years but come ON. This was really not his department. He was a superhero not a…well, whatever. He looked into her eyes and saw perfect love and perfect trust and felt his resolve wilt. "Stephanie, you are a very mature girl. Maybe you will understand. You see, when – when two (or maybe more) people get bored with; oh I can't do this!"
He threw himself down on the couch and sobbed into his hands. "I am not cut out for this! I am only an above average hero. Why does your uncle even have a book about unusual sex?"
Stephanie ignored his tirade. She was able to read between the lines of what he was saying. "So, this means that there's more to it than just what Bessie told me a couple summers ago." She shrugged. "That makes sense." She hopped over and gave Sportacus a kiss on the head. "I'll just go put this back. You can finish setting up the fort." Then she pranced off with the book.
Sportacus stayed still for what felt like hours, but was really only a minute. Then he got up, did some one-handed push-ups to make himself calm down, and began spreading the blankets over the makeshift fort.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the chipper girl and the stressed-out hero, Robbie Rotten was busy being up to no good. Deep within his lair he was watching as the last bit of sand fell out of the chemistry set beaker and into his little pouch. "All I have to do is hit Sportagoob with this fairy dust and he'll be drifting away to dreamland." He chuckled at his own cleverness and tied up the pouch. "Now, it is," he paused and jumped/stumbled over the railing to the tubes, "Disguise Time."
He stepped up to the first disguise – a Darth Vader knock-off. "Too spacy." The next was a yellow gangster outfit. "Too Tracy". The last was Tim Curry's costume from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". "Too racy." The very last costume was a sleeping cap, a Rip Van Winkle beard, and an ankle-length striped nightshirt with a giant hourglass as a necklace and bunny slippers. "Ah, perfect." He messed with the controls on the machine and was magically dressed in the costume.
"Now, for Sportacus." He picked up his bag of dust and fiddled with the end of his beard. "Enter Sandman," he said slyly, chuckling to himself. Unfortunately, when he played with the beard like that, it tickled his nose. "Ah-CHOO!" So, he fell over from the force of the sneeze. "I need a hanky."
AN: I actually don't like asparagus. I just thought it would sound fun when Sportacus said it (AH-spar-ah-gOOs). And the book, for anyone wondering, is my roommate's favorite coffee table book "The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices." Anyone playing along last week would know one of the books in the last chapter was real, too. That one was the "Pop-up Kama Sutra". I saw it in front at a Barnes & Noble one time. The tabs were worn out. Oo