Chapter Two

"I don't care Eddy, my money's staying right where it is!" thundered Peach Creek's littlest volcano, Sarah Brewer. Furthermore than refusing to be a good sucker, Sarah turned her fearsome fists to Eddy's Polaroid Ghost Detector and reduced it to a pile of rubble within minutes. "Come on Jimmy," she smiled sweetly at her best friend, and they skipped off together.

"Damn Sarah, wish I could get one over on her for once…" Eddy grumbled.

"I got an idea," said a voice that sent shivers down his spine.

Leaning on a street sign was Marie Kanker, in all her hostile glory, black combats suggestively exposing her hips, ripped vest baring her arms and belly, and a devious smile on her face. Her sweeter, dumber sister May was standing close by.

"What do you want?" demanded Eddy.

"I got an idea," repeated Marie. "They're the ones who still don't know where babies come from, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Name your price and tell 'em you can get pictures that will explain everything."

"And I'm supposed to do this just because you say so?"

"No, but just remember; they'll be having sex ed talks at school next year, and then you'll never be able to exploit their weakness."

Despite his hatred of her, Eddy knew Marie was right. "Alright, I'll try it," he said.

As Eddy went to make his pitch to Sarah and Jimmy, May examined the Polaroid camera in the debris. "It's pretty battered but it's still better than ours," she concluded.

"Okay," said Marie, her devilish smile returning. "Meet us at our trailer tonight with the camera. Midnight okay for you?"

"Umm… yeah, I guess," answered Eddy, looking at his friends.

"We'll see you then," said Marie, who turned on her heels and left with May behind her.

Just after midnight, Eddy felt his way through the darkness towards the trailer park, Edd beside him, shaking and complaining nervously, and Ed behind, doing his best to grin through the ball gag Eddy had deemed necessary.

"Eddy, I don't think this is wise," whispered Edd with a quaver in his voice.

"Double D, as long as we're careful, nothing can go wrong. That's what you're here for," said Eddy. "Besides, did you see what Jimmy gave me? Almost two dollars, Double D, that's thirty-seven jawbreakers."

"But trusting the Kanker sisters? What if they're just trying to scam you out of the money you scammed out of Jimmy?"

"I didn't bring it with me, sockhead."

"Oh…" said Edd. "That was wise. But even still, if the Kankers are sincere, what are we doing? Pictures that will explain where babies come from; Eddy, it sounds like you just sold amateur pornography to children."

Edd could no longer finish what he was saying. Eddy stopped short next to him, and he looked down to see Marie and May Kanker, dressed in thick jackets, sleeping together under a tree, their arms around each other.

"Umm… guys?" Eddy called softly.

Edd reached down and gently shook Marie's shoulders, as Ed and Eddy watched him as though he was about to commit suicide. Marie jumped and stood up, causing May to shriek in shock.

"Whatwuzzat!?" May screamed.

"Relax May, it's just the Eds," said Marie. She yawned. "Sorry, we haven't been sleeping well lately."

"So why are we here?" demanded Eddy. "What are we doing?"

"Oh you'll see," replied Marie, that evil smile just visible as it returned to her face once again. "Follow us."

May led the way through the trees. Marie followed, and the Eds came behind as a group. They walked for just a few minutes, just over a quarter of an hour, Edd guessed, before May stopped the group. "Listen," she whispered. Straining their ears, they could hear voices from not too far away. A female voice was speaking, and then a male replied.

"A little bit further," May whispered, and crept on just a few paces. "There," she said, pointing into a nearby ditch. "Snap away."

Eddy crept forward with the camera. There was a man sitting in the ditch. He was hot, he was sweaty and he was naked, but he was also alone. Shaking, Eddy raised the camera to his face, but moved it again when he noticed something oddly familiar about the man in the ditch. The man looked round, probably looking for the woman who had been with him, and having a clear view of the man's profile, Eddy gasped.

"Sasha? Tyler?" he asked. "Is that you? Are you okay?" He looked up to the top of the ditch, and saw Eddy. "Oh god."

Eddy stood, for once speechless, for almost a whole minute. "Arnie?" he managed to choke eventually.

His brother had changed a lot in three years. He would, Eddy remembered, be just five weeks short of his nineteenth birthday by now. His hair, which had always been meticulously dyed the perfect shade of blue, had grown long and wavy, and he was thinner, but also more toned. And Eddy had never seen him naked before, let alone in the ditch behind the Park and Flush trailer park. But what seemed even stranger than this to Eddy was the expression on his brother's face; one of embarrassment and slight fear as he tried almost pathetically to hide his genitalia from Eddy's view.

"Eddy what are you doing here?" Arnie asked. His eyes fell on the Polaroid camera. "Were you taking pictures of me?"

"No- I-"

"Eddy you have to go. I'll be coming home soon but I can't come now. I'm having some special time with my new girlfriend."

"Like you don't every night," seethed Marie, stepping up beside Eddy.

"Marie, please, this is really special. It's just the two of us tonight."

Marie meant to come out with another biting attack on him, but all she could do on hearing this was choke.

"Arnie, I've found some chardonnay," sang a seductive, familiar voice like honey and gravel. Eddy snapped his head further down the ditch where, sure enough, Lee Kanker stood naked and tall, a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. She had a wide smile on her face and her bright red curls, looking dark in the dim starlight, hung down to her waist. As she saw the fearful look on Arnie's face she looked up to the top of the ditch and saw Eddy, Marie and now May, Ed and Edd looking down, all wearing expressions of shock and surprise. Lee gasped and tried to cover her breasts with her arms while still keeping hold of the wine and glasses and bend one leg over her genitalia.

No one spoke for minutes. To all of them it felt like waiting for Judgement Day. Finally, it was Eddy who broke the silence. "How… how could you? That's sick," he retched.

"You wanna know something else?" asked Marie, her face now covered in the most demonic smile Eddy had ever seen. "He's been here nearly three months."

Eddy's face corrupted in rage. "Come home now," he ordered.

"Eddy, that's not the best idea…"

"GET OUT OF THAT DITCH AND COME HOME NOW!" Eddy roared, causing everyone around him to take a step away.

Arnie took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst. "Okay," he said, sounding like a frightened mouse under his younger brother. "Let me just put some clothes on."

Eddy refused his brother any unnecessary time. Arnie was permitted only to put on his jeans, without underwear, before he climbed out of the ditch and followed his brother out of the trees, back to the cul-de-sac, and home. Ed and Edd followed nervously, and Marie and May followed behind them, even more nervously. Marie noticed that Arnie, like his brother, was unusually short without his high heels, and was probably shorter than she was.

Eddy took them all through the door to his bedroom, not bothering to find out why Marie and May had decided to come back too. "Mom! Dad!" he called.

"Eddy, what's wrong?" came Mrs Bewley's panic-stricken voice from upstairs. She burst into his room from the other door, and her mouth fell open at the sight of her shirtless and barefooted elder son, wearing nothing but a dirty pair of women's jeans. "Arnie?" she stammered.

"Hi Mom," replied Arnie, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"What- where?"

"We found him hanging out behind the trailer park," said Eddy.

"Oh?"

"Having sex with my sister," added Marie.

"Oh!" her reaction was caused partly by hearing of her son's sexual experience with one of the Kanker girls of all people, and partly because in the shock of seeing Arnie for the first time in three years, she hadn't realised the others were there.

"Oh- um- never mind- Arnie- er- would anyone like a cup of tea?" Mrs Bewley asked.

There was a chorus of "no, thank you", and one "yes!" from May, which was immediately contradicted by Marie.

"Darling! Darling!" Mrs Bewley called up the stairs. "It's Arnie! He's home!"

Her husband's massive frame came thumping down to his son's room. "My god!" he exclaimed, throwing his well-built arms around his slender son. Arnie smiled nervously.

"What's going on?" came another voice, stern and angry. Three more people had appeared in the doorway. On the left was Lee Kanker, now hastily dressed, and on the right was a young man wearing leather pants and a zipped-up jacket. Centrally was the speaker, a young woman in a loose blue dress with brown hair cut into a bob. "I've just heard that my boyfriend has been kidnapped by teenagers."

Mrs Bewley stared at the woman. "This is the Kanker girl?" she asked.

"No," said Lee. "I'm 'the Kanker girl'."

"So…" said Mrs Bewley, trying to get her head around this. "You're with both of them?" She glared at Arnie. "You're a womaniser."

Panicking, Arnie said the worst possible thing, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. "It's not like that Mom!" he insisted. "I do it with men too!"

His parents choked in shock, before his father screamed "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Arnie tried to reason with them, but ended up sprinting for his life out of the back door, his partners behind him.

"And the rest of you," seethed Mrs Bewley. "Go home before I tell your parents."

Ed and Edd ran for their lives. May inched towards the door, but Marie hung back and said a concerned "Good night, Eddy," before fleeing at a walk from his mother's piercing gaze.

"G'night," May trembled before she followed, shutting the door behind her.

"Mom, Dad, I was just trying to-"

"Go to bed, Eddy," snapped his mother, as she and his father walked from the room and left him alone in the dark.