Connie sat down when Lapis ran up to her. "Connie! I got you some fries!"

"Really?! Thanks!" Connie gasped. She took a fry and ate it. Suddenly, her mouth caught on fire! Lapis frowned. She glanced at her pocket and took a vial out. "Fire salt?...Ugh, why does Peridot have to put her magic stuff
of the kitchen counter?!"

Connie ran before Lapis could get some water to cool her down. "I'M SORRY!" Lapis yelled.

Connie ran into the bookstore and rolled on the carpet, wrinkling it and knocking some books off the shelves. She felt people staring at her. She turned to see Sadie and Lars staring at her. "Sorry guys!"

Sadie rolled her eyes, she walked up, slipped, then got back up. "Who do you think has to clean up this mess?" She turned to Lars. "Lars, clean up this mess."

"Oh no, Steven messes up the Big Dougnut, I take care of it. But if Connie messes up the bookstore, it's all you." Lars said.

"Please?" Sadie begged, batting her eyelashes. "I kinda messed up my back on that fall!"

Lars rolled his eyes and grabbed some books. "Sadie, can you smooth out the carpet?"

The teenager groaned in fake agony. "Ugh, it hurts so much!"

"Maybe… you should take the day off?" Lars whispered.

The girl snapped up like clockwork. "Okay!" She then paused. "Are you… going to be all right on your own?"

"I guess-" Lars started.

Sadie started to walk away. "You're the best, Scaredy Cat!"

Lars smiled softly and the door closed. He then realized what he had done. "Wait, I can't run this place on my own!"

"I can help!" Connie said, nearly tripping on a pile of books.

Lars put a shirt on Connie. "I hereby deputize you as Sadie-for-the-day. Now, it's time I showed you the Employee Room."

They walked to the room.

"Let me give you the tour." Lars said. He gestured to the boxes to the right. "These are the extra supplies. Mops, brooms, soap. Sometimes I sleep on the extra books when I get tired."

The girl grinned.

Lars then gestured to a tv. "On breaks, we chill out here. We can even watch TV. Sometimes, Sadie will cover for me so I can watch Kitten Court." Connie made a sealed lips motion. "Now, most important of all, this is where we store,
the other books. They're bound somewhere else" They turned to boxes of books.

"You mean you don't bind them here?" Connie asked.

"No, not since... the accident." Lars turned to a black ink splatter on a wall. Connie saw it resembled a human body…

" Now Connie, this job is a big responsibility, so you're gonna have to watch this video." Lars said, showing her a VCR tape.

"What is it?" Connie whispered.

"It's like a DVD shaped like a box, and it'll tell you everything you need to know." Lars put it in.

Connie saw Mr. Frowny was the star.

"... Mr. Frowny used to work here?"

"No, but he used to be an actor/R&B singer… it was an interesting career for him."

The video started.

"Books…" Mr. Frowny's voice sighed. "At the Bookstore...They make the world go 'round," Someone offered a younger Mr. Frowny a book and he turned with no expression. "A treat when you are down. Books…"
There was a sudden bored, "pow.."

"At the Bookstore." Then there was a, "bam…"

"Read them with coffee or tea. Bookmarks are always free.. Now if a customer chokes suddenly…" There was a, "I… don't even know how they could.."

"State law requires that you assist them. Take both hands.. Push below the diaphragm...Get them happy and breathing, as fast as you can."

"In the event of a fire, don't panic, stay calm.

There is a fire extinguisher, Against the back wall."

"... in coffee or tea. Bookmarks are always free."

Connie gave a whoop. "That was incredible! Are all video tapes that informative?"

"In my experience, yeah!" Lars smiled.

"It started out as just a summer job, but... that was two summers ago." Lars explained.

Mr. Frowny walked up. "Do you have any-"

Connie gasped, then started to sing, "Books! At the Bookstore!" Mr. Frowny didn't sing along though. "That was the pit of my career…"

"Oh… Well I can't believe you used to be a real actor/R&B singer!"

"Used to be?" Mr. Frowny sighed. "Kids these days, they don't know anything…" He left.

"Wow, I'm impressed, last time someone mentioned that song we couldn't get Mr. Frowny to go home." Lars smiled.

"To perk up, you gotta percolate, a comic book, makes the perfect day." Connie sang, giving him a book.

"Thanks." Lars chuckled. "Maybe I should phone up Sadie to tell her she can stay home, 'cause I found her replacement."

"Really?!" Connie squealed.

"Oh, no. That was a joke." Lars said.

"I know we both love Sadie…"Connie said. "But… this job is the best thing to ever happen to me and we should fire Sadie."

"We can't "fire Sadie"."

Connie frowned. "Ugh. Why not?"

Lars blushed. "Well, you know, she may do things like come in late, and leave all the really hard work for me but... Look, I like Sadie, she— she's a nice gal.. once you get to know her. There was this one time when the new "Nightmares Beyond
Dreams" movie was coming out, but Sadie was banned from the only place selling it." Lars smiled wistfully. "She wanted it SO bad. So who does he beg to stand in line for SEVEN hours? Me. I didn't think much of it, but when I got to her house
I saw she had messed up her room a little, to make me more comfortable, and she had made a big Ube cake. It's my favorite… She doesn't have a talent to bake like I do, but I liked the gesture. She called me Scaredy Cat for squealing at the jump scares,
and we spent the whole night together."

"That really is nice... must've been one great movie." Connie whispered.

Lars snapped back to reality. "Yeah, it was…"

"Maybe we could do something nice for Sadie?" Connie asked.

The two were walking to Sadie's house

with a book in Lars's hand. It was of the horror genre.

"Books, b-b-books!" Connie sang.

"I thought you wanted this to be a surprise." Lars smirked.

"What can I say? I love to sing!" They then saw the pizza delivery car. "Oh, she ordered pizza?" Connie asked.

They suddenly heard a familiar laugh and snuck to the side of the house to see Sadie jumping on a trampoline with teenagers Connie recognized as Buck Dewey, Sour Cream, and Jenny Pizza.

Sadie suddenly knocked into Buck and he caught her. "Thanks for inviting us, Sadie. This is real cool."

"Yeah." Sadie laughed. "I got the whole day off, by faking a severe back injury!"

Connie gasped. "She was faking the whole ti-!"

She heard a thud and turned to see Lars' face red with frustration and embarrassment, the book now in the mud.

"Lars! Wait!" Connie yelled. She grabbed Lars in the street before he could run away. "I-It'll be okay! We can handle the Bookstore. Who needs crummy old Sadie?

Lars made to slap Connie in his distressed state but the girl's flinch made him stop. "Connie, she's made a fool of me! Ugh, why do I trust her?! She's burned me before… Just once, I'd like to burn her back!"

Connie suddenly gasped, "I know how to burn people!" Lars looked up. "Wait right here—" Connie almost ran away but stopped and turned. "Actually, this might take a while, you better go home. See you tomorrow at work! Bring
something edible!"

Lars was in the break room watching Kitten Court when Connie burst in. "Fire salt!" She creid, showing it over her head. "It burns people!"

"Connie, you're never this mischievous… Why are you doing this?" Lars asked.

Connie bit her lip. "Y-you're one of my only friends in this town… and I help friends when they are hurting…"

Lars then shoved a doughnut on a plate to her. "Here, I got it from my other work. Are we going to prank Sadie or not?"

Connie looked down at the salt. "Er, well… I'm not quite so-"

He snatched it from her and she gasped. "Lars?!-"

"Connie, Sadie hurt me a lot, you know what kind of pepole we would be if we hurt her back?" Lars asked.

Connie shrugged sadly. "Villains?"

"Heros."

The front bell suddenly rang and they saw Sadie walk in. "Oh, my back! Lars? I finally got out of bed but I don't think I can work today, either… Lars? Don't make me walk all the way to the break room!"

Lars grunted and poured a lot of fire salt on the doughnut. Connie almost stopped him… but didn't.

"Hello? Lars? Are you okay? Oh, are you slacking off?"

Lars came out. "Sadie."

"Hi, Sadie." Connie whispered, wondering if this was the right move. She often had to think these magic things through…

"Why is Connie in a uniform?" Sadie asked.

"That doesn't matter. How is your back?"

"It still.. hurts." Sadie blushed.

"Does it?" Lars grunted.

"Yes, but I know I can count on you to help, S.C!" Sadie smiled.

"Sure. Just relax, in fact, why don't you have a donut?" Lars said, pushing the doughnut forward.

"Oh, well, thank you." Sadie said. She bit into the doughnut. "Hey, this is pretty good, is this a new flavor or something?" Suddenly, her face swelled ano she breathed a persistent stream of fire. Lars gasped in horror
and ran to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall. "Connie, help Sadie!"

Connie ran to Sadie. "Sadie, I'm going to get Lapis and she'll-" Sadie shoved her away and ran out the door.

"Sadie, come back!" Lars yelled. The sprinklers came on and he looked at Connie. "I'm so sorry, I should've listened!"

"It's fine, Lars, right now, we gotta go!"

Connie and Lars followed a path of flames. "She went this way, I'm almost certain!" Connie yelled.

".. And of the many treasures of our wonderful city, this is certainly one of the sweetest. As Mayor, I'm proud to unveil this, the largest bowl of ice cream in Beach county!" Mayor Dewey creid. The town cheered. "Yes, let's all
scream, for ice cream."

Sadie suddenly ran into it, needing to cool herself down. The ice cream melted on the people. "Yeah, it melted, Gary." The Mayor said on his phone. Gary responded. "Well, you should've said that at the meeting!"

Lars and Connie caught up to Sadie and Connie saw Lapis with her jaw dropped.

"Lapis!" Connie yelled, running to her.

"Connie, why is that human breathing fire?!" Lapis yelled, grabbing the girl into a hug.

"I tried to prank Sadie but I used too much Fire Salt!" Connie cried.

"I'm having a word with Peridot when we get home!" Lapis groaned.

Sadie overheard Connie and ripped her from Lapis. "Connie!" Lapis creid.

Connie ran from Sadie and Lapis's grew angry. "No one hurts my Connie!" She yelled, the ocean rising. Lars saw it was aimed at Sadie and yelled, "SADIE, IT WAS ME!"

Sadie dropped Connie. Lapis ran to the girl and protectively went in front of her, despite her trying to escape.

Lars sighed softly while Sadie looked confused, struggling to breathe. "After all I do for you, you LIE to me? So you can sneak off with some other guys?!"

"And another girl." Connie whispered. Lapis covered her mouth.

"That night we watched movies, I don't know what it meant to you. But ever since then, I can't get the thought out of my head that you're a good person." Lars grabbed her hand. "That night, I really thought... Scaredy Cat.
Is that just your way of saying I could've been anyone?"

"L-Lars…" Sadie choked.

Connie dodged Lapis and whispered softly to herself, "Now if a customer chokes suddenly… State law requires that you assist them. Take both hands.. Push below the diaphragm!" She ran to Sadie and performed the Heimlich maneuver.
Sadie spat out a huge piece of the doughnut and Lars put it out. "Another day saved by Connie Universe! With bonus musical styling of Mr. Frowny!" Connie turned to Sadie. "I'm sorry I got you in this problem.."

Sadie ignored her and walked to Lars.

"I'm not apologizing." Lars muttered.

"No… I want to help." Sadie whispered.

"Oh," Lars said. "well, you can. But first let's get you some water."