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Day Three – Monday
Lapin nodded at my as I boosted Jamie into the tree and we sneaked into my room from the second floor.
Slyly walking down the stairs, Papa caught me and called me into his office. I tried my best to play innocent, but there's only so much I can do. Once again, I found myself being yelled at. "Y' gonna stay outta trouble?" Papa asked.
"Non." I said, smirking. We both knew I'd be in trouble again. I don't think I've gone a week without being in trouble in my entire life, much less when I'm around Lapin. But, this particular day, Papa wanted to take off work and spend the day with me, leaving Lapin and Jamie together. "Dat a bad idea, Papa."
"Why?"
"'Cause if dere's a group where Remy da voice o'reason, somet'ing very wrong." Laughing with my Papa, he insisted that they'd be alright, and who was I to argue? I mean, I didn't know that they'd very nearly drive my Tante insane.
After several fairly boring guild meetings, my cell phone rang. Since I was in the car with Papa, I answered it to hear Lapin's panicked plea: "Remy, y'frere gonna kill us!" Apparently, my older brother wasn't really that happy Jamie and Lapin reversed all the locks in his house, or for the bacon grease, the car dent, the message on his lawn…but nothing at all compared to the fury for what they'd done that morning – stolen his keys, wallet, and cell, and sealed them in bags, trying the bags to the drain of his pool, which had been filled with buckets of ice and hundreds of boxes of blue jello.
Papa seemed pretty pissed off with his own phone call and turned around, taking me back toward the house. "Dat boy worse dan bot' of ya." He said. "Are all y'mutants dis bad?" I shrugged and nodded, not really wanting to explain that it wasn't actually true. When we got home, we walked in and found both boys in the kitchen, skin dyed blue, tied to chairs by Tante.
"Tante had 'nough o'dese devils!" She said, slapping Lapin hard on the back of the head.
"Owww! Ain' Lapin's fault. Dat boy put Lapin up t'it!" Lapin plead with the adults, completely and totally missing the mark as they glared at him in disbelief. I knew better, the prank had "Jamie Madrox" written all over it, but with all the stunts Lapin and I pulled in our youth, I honestly don't think they will ever believe anyone else put us up to mischief. Plus, we had a minor incident with jello when we were about Jamie's age.
Flashback
"Lapin!" I ducked easily through the branches of the swamp as we ran to the house of Belladonna, trying to find my accomplice as we had separated while running from my older brother. We promised we'd be good when his date was at the house. For the record, we never said anything about "before" and "after," those magical times during which all pranks come together. That morning, we filled the toilet of the powder room with fruit cocktail and red jello.
We finished dinner, apparently impressing Henri and Papa with our good behavior. Henri and the girl went into the living room to watch television and we didn't hear or see them for awhile. Until a scream echoed through the house as she stumbled out of the bathroom, looking ill.
I laughed at the thought as I looked at my friends. "Bonjour, Monsignors Smurf" I said, then pointed to Jamie, "and Smurfette."
Papa came in from outside and looked at Jamie. "Papa's got a switch wit' y'name on it."
Jamie indignantly looked up at him, "A switch? Is that a redneck word for some sort of weapon?" I looked down and realized that Papa was threatening a clone while the real Jamie was doing God knows what. Well, we knew a few minutes later.
Papa went to the back door and took his shoes off the put on the boots he wore in the muddy back yard. His foot slipped in and was met with a SQUISH. We all froze as Lapin and Jamie burst out laughing.
"Remy, get us out of here!" Jamie looked up at he as a I charged their ropes and grabbed Lapin, meeting the real Jamie in the front yard as something was screamed from the inside. I couldn't quite make out what it was, but it sounded a lot like someone yelling 'cottage cheese and chicken fat.'
We hid in Lapin's room for most of the day. Lapin and I went through the purses we'd stolen while Jamie commented on occasion, never looking up from Lapin's old comic books. "You guys are old. These are collectibles now." We ignored him as we opened the first purse.
"Fendi, small, belongs to a Amanda Haverty." Lapin showed me a driver's license photo of the beauty as he dumped the contents of the purse out. Some makeup, a little cash, and…panties? "I like this one. What else we got?" Lapin said, looking at me.
"Elizabeth Braddock, 17, gorgeous." I looked down at her license and then looked through the rest of her things. "What da hell?" I looked down and saw a long knife, some mace, a short chain, and a bottle of painkillers. And, of course, a tube of expensive pink lipstick. "Dis one prolly be a handful." I said as Lapin went on to the next one.
"Lorna Dane…green hair, but belle." Dumping out her purse, he realized that she too carried several weapons.
Jamie looked over at us. "First of all, this is a sick way to get dates. Second, you picked the craziest looking women, who also turned out to be dangerous." He picked up the knife. "Remy, the X-Girls don't even carry stuff like this."
Lapin looked over at him. "How'd y'know, petite?"
"Because I'm a little boy and free to go through their things as I please." Jamie smiled and went back to the comic. "Also, I can tell the difference between 'pretty and sweet' and 'probably going to kill me'."
"Oui? Maybe we see how good Jamie is, non?" Lapin and I looked at each other and then went to get ready for a night out on the town. Of course, by the time night came, Jamie was exhausted, so Lapin carried him around as he looked out at Bourbon street with wonder.
"How 'bout dat one?" I said, pointing to a woman standing on the sidewalk. Jamie said one word.
"Whore." He pointed to a shy looking girl. "Nice girls have panty lines."
"Dat one?"
"Looks mean."
"What 'bout dat femme?" I asked, pointing out the most honest looking girl out there.
"Tease."
Lapin choked while laughing, then directed Jamie's attention to another woman. "Too old." Jamie said. "You guys suck. Put me down." He grabbed us and dragged us through the crowd, stopping near two pretty girls standing and talking to each other. "Hi." He said to them. "My brothers are stupid and confused 'nice' and 'erotic' during puberty. They need to find nice, pretty girls. Wanna go out with us?" Before we could apologize, or run, the girls giggled.
"Your brother is soooo cute!" One of them said, rubbing his hair. "Of course we'll go out with you. This is my sister Angela, and I'm Cecilia." Man, was he right. The girls were smart, charming, and really very pretty. We had dinner with them and then we took them out for a walk in the park, finally walking them home. Lapin and I each kissed one of the girls on the cheek. But Jamie, that little pimp, played it innocent and kissed them both on the lips, pretending to be cute.
As the door closed, he smirked. "Remy, if you had big blue eyes like me, you'd be unstoppable." He yawned and started to lean on me.
"C'mere, y'little perve," I said as I picked him up. He was sound asleep by the time we got back to the car. When we finally got back home, Henri was sitting on the porch, which made us peel out and speed off toward Lapin's house, and were chased, right up a tree into an old tree house we'd creatively named "Fort Remy and Lapin" years before.