People Just Ain't No Good
Tootie had lost track of Deborvak throughout the day. He'd left her a couple magic books to study and report back to him. She had taken this to mean he was finally going to teach her how to channel her inheritance. Deborvak had mood swings and was very impulsive. Perhaps he'd decided now was the time to fulfill the second half of his assignment.
Cheerfully scanning the book during lunch, she ignored the commotion behind her. She read the same sentence three times before she capitulated to the cacophony and shut it. Spinning around, she clutched the book to her chest and surveyed the scene. Principal Waxelplax was ranting and raving about a cardboard heart, decorated with sparkles, pipe cleaners, those wretched candy hearts, and a gushy love letter. In front of her, completely befuddled, was Mr. Crocker.
"This is highly inappropriate!" Ms. Waxelplax said. "Twenty years ago, this might have been appreciated but now! And to so crudely describe what you'd like to do with me!"
"I didn't write it!"
"It's in your handwriting! Are you telling me someone knows you well enough to forge it?" she snapped. She flung the heart and the letter at Crocker. "I didn't even know you knew what half these things were, much less had the audacity to put them in a letter!"
"I didn't!" Crocker protested. "I was framed!"
"You're suspended!" Ms. Waxelplax snapped. "Pending a review by the board as to whether you're qualified to continue teaching."
"I didn't write it!" Crocker cried. "I swear to you, Geraldine! There's faerie dust on the heart and the letter!"
"And again with the faeries! I've had it with you, Crocker!" she snapped. "Get out, now, or you'll be fired now!"
"But-!"
"OUT!" she bellowed and Crocker, muttering darkly, vacated the cafeteria. Whispers immediately sprang up in his absence and Deborvak appeared in front of her disguised as a milk carton. His eyes twinkled and he inclined the milk lid at her.
"That went better than expected," he said.
"What did?" she said. "Don't tell me you had something to do with this."
"Ah, Tootie. Tootie. You are so young and innocent. So naive. So utterly unaware of how you can manipulate people with a few spoken words," he said and smirked. "But no, I didn't."
"Swear on it," she said.
"I swear," he said and his eyes sparkled with mirth.
"Swear on your daughter's life," she said. The smirk vanished.
"Aw, Toot, don't do that," he protested. "Oh hey, look, it's Cosmo and Wanda."
"Don't try to distract me with them," she said and blinked. Cosmo and Wanda appeared beside him and both were glaring at her godfather. Deborvak feigned ignorance and Tootie noticed he hadn't sworn on his daughter's life. She put that temporarily on the back burner.
"Can we have a word?" Wanda snapped. "In private?"
Deborvak smiled. "Of course, Wanda. I'm always up for alone time with you."
"Hey! I'll be there too!" Cosmo said.
"How could I be so inconsiderate? You can watch," Deborvak said coolly. Cosmo glared and Deborvak smirked. "We'll be right back, Toot-Toot. Try not to burn down the school without us."
They disappeared in a flash and she looked back at her book. Its appeal had faded, but she sloughed through it anyway. Timmy was with his friends and showed no dispensation to joining her. The other children who had godparents didn't make their presence known to her and she doubted they attended Dimmsdale's public schools. So far, all she knew about were Cosmo and Wanda here. Poof was with Timmy at the moment; she could see the purple wristband.
If Deborvak had really caused the scene, then he was toeing the line...
"Are you trying to get us exposed?" Wanda hissed. They appeared in Timmy's room since it was the first place Cosmo and Wanda thought for privacy. They were tense and Deborvak was unreadable, as usual. However when they advanced, he flinched and squeezed his wand. Whatever the reason, he still feared them.
"No," he said. "I'm not. There was no way we could actually get hurt in that."
"Crocker is a faerie hunter!" Wanda snapped.
"He's not a very good one," Deborvak said coolly. "Who are you to lecture me? You're on the same level as me, Wan."
"I don't want to lose Timmy!" Wanda snapped. "And I know you don't want to lose Tootie."
"Yeah," Cosmo said. "Crocker may be insane, but he's not always an idiot."
Wanda was simultaneously full of fear and irritation at this daring faerie. She didn't comprehend why he wasn't more apprehensive of being caught and losing his memories. For them, losing their godchildren by forceful removal was the worst scenario imaginable. Yet here was Deborvak, blasé about it.
"I'm well aware of Crocker's capabilities," he said. His eyes turned cold and Cosmo flinched. There was darkness surrounding him, despite the light crystal around his neck, and it put Wanda on edge.
"I'll leave Crocker alone, I promise," he said. He disappeared and Wanda sighed.
"Wanda..." Cosmo complained. "I don't trust him."
"I don't think we know him entirely," Wanda said. She scoffed and balled her fists. "Why is he still afraid of us but not of humans and getting caught?"
"Uppity lightsider," Deborvak muttered upon reappearing on Tootie's lunch table.
"What was that?" she said. "Where did you guys go?"
"Never mind that," he said and a mischievous smile lit his face. "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and will taste good with ketchup."
Vicky decided to bring Tootie with her when she babysat Timmy to torture both of them at the same time. Deborvak had vanished again in that time and then reappeared with a poker face. She tried asking him what he'd done, and he wouldn't answer. At last, he offered her a secretive smile and told her she'd find out soon enough.
Vicky set Timmy and Tootie to clean his bathroom, which hadn't been cleaned in god knew how long. On their hands and knees, they scrubbed the tiles. Ammonia pervaded the room, their nostrils, and felt like it had sunk beneath her skin. They worked in silence, though she wanted to squeal and grab him. Deborvak had told her she had to curb her reactions, or she'd scare him away.
Timmy reached around the toilet bowl and pulled out a strange object. It was shaped like a certain part of the human anatomy with straps on the ends and Timmy went bright red.
"What the heck is this doing here?" he squeaked.
He swung it back and forth and Tootie giggled insanely. She blushed too and poked the end, then fell over, unable to stop laughing. Timmy, the color of a ripe tomato, flung it into the bathtub. It didn't thunk, like they'd expected, and Tootie grabbed the toilet bowl to push herself up. Propping herself up, she stared. There was a skimpy lingerie outfit in there, consisting of pasties and a barely there thong.
Next to the strange outfit was a note and she fell over, trying to fetch it and balance herself. Snickering despite knocking into the tub's lip with her stomach, she turned the note over. Timmy, not laughing but completely scarlet, leaned over to read with Tootie. He didn't appear to know what the pasties and thong were for, luckily for him.
"For Wanda. Cheers!" There was no signature and the note was typewritten.
She had to wait for the laughing fit to cease before she could safely exit the tub. Cosmo and Wanda were gone for the moment, though Poof was asleep in the fish bowl. Her eyes flicked to the fish bowl through the open door and then at Timmy, who backed away from her.
"I didn't do it!" she said, reminding herself of Crocker from earlier.
"I don't think..." Timmy swallowed hard, scarlet. "I don't think it was you."
Pink and green faerie dust rained on the fish bowl and Timmy and Tootie turned to it. Timmy cleared his throat to speak several times and couldn't bring himself to say it. A few seconds later, it was rendered unnecessary. Wanda and Cosmo shot out of the fish tank and Cosmo couldn't stop giggling. Wanda, by contrast, looked murderous. Timmy's embarrassment faded, replaced by bewilderment. Tootie gawked at the godparents and their disparate reactions.
"We could use them, Wanda!" Cosmo said and bowled over in mid air, laughing hysterically.
"DEBORVAK!" Wanda screeched. They waited a few seconds but nothing happened.
"Call your godfather," she snarled at Tootie.
"Maybe..." Cosmo choked, gulped, and tried again. "Maybe that's not his real name."
"What do you mean?" Wanda snapped, Tootie and Timmy asked, and Cosmo swallowed again.
"Or not all of it," he said. "You know, like how saying Big Daddy doesn't bring your father here."
"You can still call him," Wanda snapped at Tootie. Her hair had turned to flames. "I know he did it. He didn't sign his work, but I know it was him."
"We should..." Cosmo swallowed and then, unable to stop it, laughed hysterically. "Thank...him..."
"Call him," Wanda said. Tootie swallowed too.
"What did Deb do?" she said. As terrifying as Wanda was at the moment, she wasn't sure she wanted to bring her godfather into it. Not to mention she had no idea what Wanda was so upset about, yet amused Cosmo.
"That's between us and him!" Wanda growled.
"Ooh, do you think he wants to join?" Cosmo said and that was the last coherent thing they heard from him for a while. Pounding his fists in mid air, Cosmo screamed in laughter and couldn't catch his breath. Shaking with mirth, he seemed utterly oblivious to his wife's fury.
"Call him," Wanda hissed.
"Deborvak?" Tootie said uncertainly. "Wanna explain what's going on?"
"You're gonna wear my name out that way," a voice echoed. Wanda snarled, blasting the room at random, and broke Timmy's TV, the windows, and collapsed the bed. Eyes appeared first, and then the rest of the body materialized out of thin air. Wanda aimed a spell in his direction and it bounced harmlessly off a shield, then funneled back into him.
"You did this!" she snapped. "I know you did."
"Did what?" he said. "I didn't do anything you can prove."
Breathing hard, she yanked him by the collar and they disappeared. Cosmo, guffawing, accompanied them. Timmy and Tootie stared at each other.
"I don't get it," Timmy said in the silence that followed.
"Wow..." Tootie said. "What the hell did Deb do?"
"Whatever it was, it got Cosmo's vote," Timmy said, shaking his head.
"You filled our room with sex toys," Wanda growled, transporting them to the castle's entertainment room. Deborvak studied her coolly and she didn't like how he could turn into a blank slate at will.
"You can't prove it, Wandita," he said.
Wanda tensed and balled her fists. "Don't call me that. Juandissimo calls me that."
"Not when I'm around, he doesn't!" Cosmo said.
"You can't prove I did anything," Deborvak said. "You may have your suspicions, but there is absolutely nothing implicating me."
"I know you did," she growled. "You know you did. You were behind this just like you were behind the scene earlier."
"You know, not sayin' I did anythin', but...I really hate bein' lectured," he said. "Especially by someone who thinks she's better than me."
Stunned for a moment, she recovered and snarled at him. "I never said I was better! I was trying to make sure you didn't ruin things for everyone!"
"Did it ever occur to you," he said calmly, "that I'm well aware of what might happen should I be foolish?" The calmness vanished and his tone changed, adding a bite. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm not a complete imbecile and would never jeopardize a child's happiness for a foolish prank? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I know what I'm doing and this didn't concern you in the first place?"
"It concerned us because there was faerie dust on the letter!" Wanda snapped.
Deborvak smiled humorlessly. "Even if I had put my picture on there, Waxelplax would never have believed him. She thinks he's a loon. It only furthered her case."
"You take a terrible risk!" Wanda said. "I don't want to lose Timmy because of you!"
"How about this, Wanda?" Deborvak snapped. "If you lose Timmy thanks to one of my pranks, I promise you can personally beat me. That's what darksiders masquerading as lightsiders do, isn't it?"
Wanda's mouth opened but no sounds came out. Cosmo floated closer to Deborvak.
"We don't do that," Cosmo said. "We just don't wanna lose Timmy."
"I understand that," Deborvak said. "An' I understand where Wanda's comin' from, but she needs to lay off, 'cuz she has nothin' to do with this an' I resent bein' told what to do by someone who doesn't know any better than I do."
"I've been godparenting for a lot longer than you have!" Wanda snapped.
"You're a pure blooded faerie," Deborvak said quietly. "Fear of human adults runs in your blood. All the things Crocker could do to you if he caught you he can't do to me. It wouldn't work."
Wanda grimaced. "I don't like what you did and I still don't think you should have done it, but...what are you talking about? Why would I ..." she paused and shuddered, the idea truly repulsive. "Why would I beat you?"
Deborvak shrugged and his eyes went cold. He held up his wand and Wanda knew without looking the bedroom was clear again, as were any other areas he might have afflicted. "Good afternoon, Cosmo, Wanda. Poof, I know you're out there too. See you later."
"That guy..." Wanda's mouth dropped open.
"Is totally awesome!" Cosmo said. "We should have him over more often."
"'You can personally beat me'..." Wanda echoed. "Wow..."
Unable to stop it, she began to shudder.
He wasn't feeling mischievous anymore. Instead, he settled outside Timmy's room and watched Timmy, Tootie, and the other faeries. He didn't understand, still. In fact, he felt doomed to never comprehend. That was all right.
Wanda had gotten the picture after he'd done his last stunt. And maybe it'd deter them from trying to be friends with him. Shuddering, he hugged himself in squirrel form. Lightsiders were always liars, anyway.