Chpt. 8 – The Third Cog

It took the better part of a long ten minutes before Hoodsie had managed to maneuver Carl across the room and into his bed while not waking him up in the process. Utterly exhausted by this feat, Hoodsie wearily pulled the comforter up around his friend's now sleeping form and stepped back to review his handiwork. Other than the fact that his eyes, even while shut, were puffy and swollen, and that his hair was matted pitifully onto his head, Hoodsie had to admit that he did a pretty good job. For the first time in numerous days, Carl looked as though he had found peace.

Hoodsie slipped silently out the door and shut it behind him with only the faint, "click" of the latch to bid him farewell. Planning to sneak quietly from the house so as not to cause any more chaos, Hoodsie made his way towards the stairwell. He lowered himself down the stairs one by one, being sure to skip the squeaky stair halfway down, and eventually made it to the first floor landing unnoticed, or so he thought. As Hoodsie took the first of the ten steps required to cross the living room and exit the house, he felt his namesake get yanked back, along with the rest of his body.

Spinning to face his assailant, Hoodsie came face to the read haired, freckle faced sibling of his best friend.

"Ginger, what do you think you're doing? Trying to choke me or something?"

Hoodsie's hands worked absentmindedly at loosening the collar from his shirt that had been so unceremoniously wrenched back. Before him stood Ginger, with a smug expression on her face and a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.

"I have a proposition for you." Ginger stated flatly.

Hoodsie raised an eyebrow in suspicion of what she would say next, but she neither spoke nor indicated that she planned on doing so in the near future. Eventually a rather annoyed Hoodsie spat out thickly,

"And what would that be oh great and mighty Ginger."

The sarcasm on his voice was much more than he had intended, but something in the back of his mind was very annoyed at being stopped in such a dishonoring way only to play games with the Cheshire Cat of Lucky Senior High. Ginger's face finally split into a sort of cross between a smirk and a grin before her lips parted to speak.

"I'm going to assume that you now know the full extent of everything that has occurred in the past few days beyond just what I told you in the kitchen."

Hoodsie gave a curt nod to confirm that he did, as well as assure her that he was still listening despite the look of malice he held on his features.

"Then I'm also going to assume that you are willing to help in any way to get the two of them back together as soon as possible, correct?"

Once again Hoodsie merely replied with a simple nod.

"Good…well…While you were upstairs with my brother, I received a phone call informing me that plans are already in motion for such an outcome, the thing is that we will need inside help."

The word "we" managed to stick out in Hoodsie's mind and he opened his mouth to question who else was involved when he was suddenly cut off by Ginger as she continued to speak.

"Don't bother asking any questions, the less you know at this point the better off you are likely to be in the long run. Anyway, back to the plan. In order for us to pull this off without a hitch, we will need you to assist us."

"And what kind of assistance are you insinuating exactly." A hint of skepticism was obvious in Hoodsie's voice as he questioned his elder.

"For now, Hoodsie, what you need to do is quite simple. All you need to do is act yourself."

A puzzled look crossed Hoodsie's face but he was not able to snake in a question as Ginger continued without stopping.

"By 'act yourself' I mean act as you would have before any of this had happened. I need you to be a total jerk to Blake. Treat him just as you would have before any of this had happened. Yet at the same time I need you to be sure that whatever you do does not upset Carl. Do you understand what I'm asking?"

Hoodsie's head bobbed up and down, causing him to oddly resembled one of those little figurines people put on their dash boards.

"Yah, but it seems really simple, and rather pointless. Why would that be part of a plan?"

Ginger's grin returned full force at this question.

"I told you not to ask any questions, but I guess I can answer this one. The reason we need you to act so 'simple' as you put it, is indeed relatively simple when you look at it properly. We want it to look as if nothing is going on."

With that, Ginger winked slyly at Hoodsie and bowed her head slightly as if indicating a certain amount of respect for the younger boy. For some odd reason, Hoodsie smiled at the red haired girl and returned the head bow. With that Ginger spun neatly on one heel before walking back down the hallway from which she had snuck up on Hoodsie.

Once again Hoodsie was left alone in the Foutly household. As if nothing had happened, he made his way toward the front door, hoping to finally make it to the outside world. Yet his plans would soon prove futile, as he was stopped yet again, only this time in a much kinder manner.

"Hoods…"

Lois' voice rang clearly from the kitchen where she now sat at the table that had earlier occupied both himself and Ginger. She held a large glass of what he assumed to be orange juice before her, yet it had an odd tint to it. Her voice though, sounded smooth and calm and left him with no reason to be alarmed.

"How'd everything go?"

It was obvious what she meant. She was asking how things had gone upstairs with Carl, but due to his recent, and rather confusing, run in with the eldest Foutly child, Hoodsie was still rather in a daze and all he could manage was, "Good."

"That's good, what's Carl up to now?"

Finally coming out of his stupor, Hoodsie managed to intelligibly answer this question.

"He's asleep."

"That's probably for the best. You know Hoods, he's really gonna need you now."

Lois' words hit him slightly harder than she had most likely expected them to and Hoodsie's face twisted to show the sudden though processes as he realized the truth behind them. No matter what happened, he would leave his friend alone. Not now, not ever.

"Yah, I guess your right."

Hoodsie's voice trailed off as he accepted the fact out loud before turning back around and making a long overdue exit through the front door of the Foutly household.

A/N: Sorry about how long it took me to get this back up, but a lot of things have happened lately and I just couldn't seem to make myself do anything worthwhile. I hope that you all enjoyed this segment and I also hope to have the next one up much sooner. Latta.

MK