Chapter 6: Washing Up Before Supper

All the talk about cooking reminded Jean about the pot she'd put on the stove. She flew down and opened it up as she took a sip of what she was making.

The seven children then walked out and sniffed.

"SOUP!" They called out and rushed down. They then sat down and fought over the bread, except Kurt, who was fighting to try and get a seat.

"Uh-uh-uh." Jean said, before anyone could have a bite. "Wait a moment. Supper's not quite ready yet, so you'll have just enough time to wash."

"Wash?" Everyone asked. They'd only washed about once a week as that seemed enough.

"I knew there was a catch." Logan muttered.

"Why do we gotta wash?" Kitty asked the gang in low voices, so Jean wouldn't hear.

"We're not going anywhere." Ororo said.

"It's not New Year or Christmas." Hank agreed.

"Oh, have you washed already?" Jean asked.

"Uh… Yes." Hank said.

"Okay, when?" Jean asked with her hands on her hips.

"When?" Hank asked. "When? Um… Last week, no month, no I mean… Recently."

"Yes." They all said. "Recently."

"Oh, recently." Jean said with a coy smile. "Then let me see your hands."

They all gulped and held their hands behind their backs.

"Let me see your hands." Jean said firmly as if she was their mother.

Hank sighed and held out his fairly dirty hands.

"Why Hank." Jean said. "I'm surprised at you."

"Ah… Well…" Hank said nervously.

"Come on, let's see them." Jean said, and Kitty showed fairly dirty hands.

"Oh Kitty." Jean asked. "And you, Bobby?"

Bobby then showed his hands to be among the dirtiest ones so far.

"Tch, tch, tch." Jean said.

Before she got to her, Ororo rubbed her hands against her legs and showed them to her, sure that it would work.

"It's worse than I thought." Jean said as she looked at Ororo's extra dirty hands.

Kurt eagerly took off his gloves to show her, and they were, maybe the cleanest, but still very dirty.

Rogue then showed her hands, and for someone who spent most of their day holding a book, it was hard to believe how dirty they'd gotten.

"How shocking!" Jean exclaimed before Rogue looked down and hid her hands behind her back. "This'll never do. Now you kids go straight outside and wash, or you will not get a bite to eat."

"Let's go." Hank said dejectedly.

Everyone except Logan left, with Kurt slamming into wall because he was looking more at Jean.

"Well," Jean asked. "Aren't you going to wash?"

Logan just turned his head away. Who did she think she was, his mother? She was only a few years older than him.

"What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" Jean asked with a smile, and Logan just walked out to get away from her for a few minutes.

He then ended up slamming his face into a door.

"Oh, did you hurt yourself?" Jean asked, but Logan just kept walking until he was out of the house. "Women!" He muttered.

()()()()()

"Okay guys, courage." Hank said. "Don't be nervous."

"Are we really gonna do this?" Kitty asked.

"Well, it'll please Jean." Hank said.

"I'm sure she has our best interests at heart." Ororo said.

"Me too." Everyone else agreed.

"I'm telling you guys," Logan said. "Give that girl an inch, and she'll walk all over you."

"Ah, don't listen to that sour puss." Hank said dismissively. "Come on, guys."

"How hard should we scrub?" Bobby asked.

"Will our fingers shrink?" Rogue asked with a yawn.

"Should we get in the tub?" Kurt asked.

"Should we wash where it doesn't show?" Kitty asked.

"Now don't get excited, here we go." Hank explained.

Step up to the tub.

It's not a disgrace.

Just pull up your sleeves,

And get 'em in place.

Then scoop up the water,

And rub it on your face,

And go, blurb, blurb, blurb!

Hank went first to demonstrate, and everyone else did as he did.

Pick up the soap,

Now don't try to bluff.

Work up a lather,

And when you get enough,

Get a handful of water.

You snout and you snout,

And so, blurb, blurb, blurb.

Get doused and soused.

Rub and scrub.

Splutter and splash all over the tub.

You may be cold and wet when you're done,

But you've gotta admit, it's gonna be fun.

A fly came around Rogue and she tricked it into going onto the soap where it ended up looking like Santa clause because of the suds.

So splash with all your might.

It's not any trick.

As soon as you're through,

You'll feel mighty slick.

"You bunch of nanny goats make me sick going, blurb, blurb, blurb!" Logan stated.

They then washed up their hair after washing their hands and faces as they figured they should do it right, but they'd save a proper bath for tomorrow evening.

"Next thing you know, she'll be having us dress up in sailor outfits or pink dresses, as the case may be, and squirt us all with that perfume stuff." Logan said.

"I don't wanna wear pink." Rogue said.

"Oh don't listen to Logan." Ororo said. "He's just being a big grump."

Beast Boy then spit out all the water he'd accidentally swallowed.

"A nice group of water-lilies you guys turned out to be." Logan said with a smirk as Hank looked up. "I'd like to see anybody make me wash if I didn't wanna."

Hank then smiled mischievously as he whispered to the others. They all smiled and walked up to Logan as they whistled.

"GET HIM!" Hank shouted out, and they all held Logan up as Bobby, Ororo, Bobby and Hank held his limbs, so he couldn't get away.

"Hey let me go!" Logan called out.

"Kurt, set the soap." Hank said.

"Okay!" Kurt said as he ran off. He grabbed the soap and was about to bring it when it slipped out of his hand, and he tried to catch it before it knocked him in the head. He then tried to pounce on it, but it just slipped and went into his mouth. "Ah man!" Kurt called out. "And I didn't even say anything bad!"

He then hiccupped as several soap bubbles popped up.

Meanwhile, everyone else was giving Logan a nice hands and face washing, taking off his mask to do it.

Now scrub good and hard.

It can't be denied,

That he'll look might cool,

As soon as he's dried.

With a scrap and a howl,

And a blurb, blurb, blurb!

Logan was then let out as everyone laughed.

"He smells like a petunia." Bobby said with a laugh that was shared with everyone else.

"You sure look cute, Logan!" Ororo teased as she put his mask back on.

"Oh, you're all gonna pay for this!" Logan shouted.

"Supper!" Jean called out from the house.

"Supper!" They all called out and ran off, leaving Logan woozy by the tub.

"Eh." Logan said after a while and walked in.

()()()()()

Emma walked back to the mirror that very night as Warren gave her the box with her heart in it.

"Oh mirror, mirror, on the wall, who now is the fairest one of all?" Emma asked with a smug smile.

"Far off on the American continent, beyond the Seventh Fall, in the cottage of the young Mutants dwells Jean Grey. The fairest one of all." Mesmero said.

"Jean's dead in a forest." Emma said with a smirk. "Warren Worthington had brought me prove." Emma opened the box and showed it to the mirror. "Behold, her heart."

"Jean still lives, the fairest in the land." Mesmero insisted. "It's the heart of a pig you hold in your hands."

"The heart of a pig?!" Emma shouted as she threw the box down. "That hawk tricked me!"

Emma then walked down a secret flight of stairs to her lab as her servant from America, Donald Pierce waited.

"Whoa, who spit in your caviar?" Pierce asked.

"Shut up!" Emma said. "That sentimental fool gave me the heart of a pig instead of Jean's! Looks like if I want someone killed around here, I'll have to do it myself! I'll go to the brats' cottage in such a perfect disguise that no one will ever suspect it's me."

"How perfect?" Pierce asked.

"A potion." Emma said as she took a book labeled Disguises. "A potion to turn my beauty into a grimace. To change my queenly array into a peddler's cloak."

Emma found a perfect little recipe. It also had a 72 hour limit, which would give her time to make a perfect way to kill Jean, and she'd just turn back to her beautiful self afterwards.

"Mummy dust, to make me old." Emma said as she grabbed said dust from a drawer. "To shroud my clothes, the black of night."

Emma put in the mummy dust and added a pitch black liquid that easily became the dominant color.

"To age my voice, an old hag's cackle." Emma said as she turned on a burner underneath a phial that held a red liquid. After it had been turned on, a bit of the red liquid shot up and laughed like an old crone and entered the goblet Emma had put the potion into. This turned the potion red.

"To whiten my hair, a scream of fright!" Emma turned the knob on a faucet, and a white substance poured out as a scream echoed throughout the chamber, and the potion was now a venomous green.

"A blast of wind to fan my age!" As Emma held the goblet to the window and wind suddenly blew through it, and over the goblet. "And a thunderbolt to mix it well!"

As if on cue, a thunderbolt sounded as the potion rippled and bubbled.

"Now…" Emma said calmly. "Begin thy magic spell."

Emma then consumed the concoction and gasped. The room appeared to be spinning, she saw her hair flying around her face and glimpsed it turning white as salt.

"My hands!" Emma called out as she looked at her hands and saw them become incredibly thin and claw-like. Her clothes also turned into a black musty cloak, and her very skin turned incredibly pale.

Emma sighed, hoping for the seventy-two hours to pass quickly and heard her own sigh.

"My voice." She croaked. Her voice had become high and raspy. "My voice…"

Emma laughed. The potion had worked. She looked into a mirror and saw an old hag with bulging green eyes and a long hook nose with a large wart on it.

"Yes!" Emma called out. "A perfect disguise!"

Emma turned to Pierce who backed into a wall.

"WHOA BABY!" Pierce called out.

"And now…" Emma said as she pulled out a book on death potions. "A special sort of death for one so fair."

"AH!" She called out very soon. "A poisoned apple. Laced with the draught of the sleeping death."

"Huh?" Pierce asked.

"'One taste of the poisoned apple, and the victim's eyes will close forever in the sleeping death…'" Emma said as she looked up and smirked wickedly. The Wicked Witch of the West had nothing on her.