Chapter 6

Though Alex didn't love the idea of sharing her room, she welcomed the distraction from her fight with Harper. Of course, Harper was in her room at the moment, but only to help Teddy unpack and settle in. Honestly, Alex was all for that if it meant the two became friends. That way, maybe Harper would forget her anger at neglectful Alex.

Besides, peppy and slightly goofy Teddy was better suited to be Harper's friend anyway. True, Teddy was upset at the moment because of the situation, but even then she managed an upbeat, perky attitude. From where she lied on her bed flipping through a magazine, Alex watched with a raised eyebrow as Teddy put a video camera on the nightstand that Alex had conjured up along with the twin-sized bed. "What's that for?" she asked while Teddy went to organize the clothes in her suit case. After Teddy looked up in curiosity, Alex nodded to the video camera. "Hoping to catch some vampire butt-kicking action on video? 'Cause I have to say, with Justin you'll more likely get footage of a teenage boy screaming like a little girl."

Teddy laughed. "No. I, uh, make a video diary for Charlie. That way in the future, if she needs me and I'm not around, she'll still be able to get some sisterly advice." She paused. "Not sure if I should include this little adventure, though. Grown-up Charlie might think her whole family is nuts."

"You never know. At this rate, little Charlie might grow up to become Charlie the vampire slayer," Alex said with a chuckle, then tilted her head. "Why does that sound so familiar?" She shrugged. "Eh, well."

"Anyway, I think that's really sweet. It's kind of like scrap booking with a modern twist," Harper said, interested in the concept.

Teddy considered the comparison. "I guess so. Except that scrap booking is totally…" She realized Harper hadn't been teasing just in time. "Awesome. Totally awesome."

"Really?" Harper exclaimed, her eyes lit up. "Because I have tons of scrapbooks in my room! I found this amazing fabric the other day that I'm going to use for the one I want to start next. Let me go get the one I recently made for my boyfriend's party. The actual used napkins give it a real authentic touch." Before the other two could say a word, she ran into the hallway.

With a sigh, Alex remarked, "Nice save, but I think it worked a little too well."

"I know. The curse of being a good liar," Teddy joked. Then she had to ask, "She has a boyfriend? Really?" The reference was both to Harper's hyper personality, the scrap booking…and the dress she was wearing, made entirely of recycled plastic grocery bags. When Alex nodded, she shook her head. "Huh. I guess there really is someone out there for everybody."

"I've always believed that," Alex said as she chuckled in response to Teddy's comment. Between that and the lying, maybe Teddy wasn't the goody-goody Alex had originally thought. "Wait, so, you're a good liar? Me too! Isn't it great?"

Though Teddy was a little surprised, she replied sheepishly, "Well, not all the time. But once, I spent the whole day hanging out with my mom, telling her she was cool so I could go to the midnight premiere of a movie." Teddy sighed. "Everything went according to plan…until she found out and humiliated me in public. But if I hadn't butt-dialed her, it totally would've worked."

"Spending time with a parent to get what you want…" Alex said while she thought over the new concept. "Nah, too much effort. Great that it almost worked for you though."

"Yup. Hey, do you think Harper will be back soon? I kind of want to get to bed," Teddy said as she took a pair of pajamas out of her suitcase.

Alex glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand. "But it's only 10:30. I was hoping we could, you know, hang out, talk about our boyfriends…" Teddy had gotten a call from Spencer earlier in the evening. "I wish we could call mine, but he's probably prowling around the woods, chasing after a deer by now."

Not sure she heard right, Teddy stared. "I'm sorry…what?"

"Oh, he's a werewolf, and the full moon starts tonight," Alex explained.

Teddy's jaw dropped. "Huh, and I'm annoyed when Spencer doesn't get a chance to shave in the morning." She shook her head. "But yeah, I'm tired. It's been a very long…weird, day."

"Oh, right," Alex said with a frown. She'd almost forgotten earlier, when she'd noticed how worn-out Teddy seemed. That weariness was starting to show through again. "Yeah. Guess I didn't realize how weird this must be. For you, I mean. This kind of stuff happens around here all the time."

"It's not so much that as…never mind. I think I'm just going to get changed. Where's your bathroom?" Teddy asked while she quickly headed for the door.

Alex sighed when it suddenly dawned on her why Teddy would be more troubled than anyone else. Teddy had been the one to contact the van Heusens. "It's not your fault," Alex said, which made Teddy pause. "Trust me, enough bad things have been my fault, so I would know. But this? You just wanted to get an A on your project."

Surprised, Teddy was quiet for a moment. Then she let out a long, sad sigh. "I know. But that won't make the guilt go away."

As Teddy left, Alex called after her, "Blame someone else! That always works for me!"

This stinks. Literally.

The second Gabe walked into his temporary room, he almost gagged. The smell was just so…bad, he couldn't even describe it. He and his family had driven by their town's dump a few times in the past, which had been a pretty awful smell too. But at that moment, Gabe would have rather spent the night there.

Max's room was messier than a dump, too. Sure, Gabe's room was far from spotless, and a good mess didn't usually bother him. But there was actual garbage piled high on every available surface, except for Max's bed (and even that wasn't ideal). Which meant the lower bunk supposed to be Gabe's bed was a trash heap too.

"Okay, here's a stupid question," Gabe said as he stood in the doorway, his duffel bag over his shoulder. Max was feeding a fish in a small bowl on the dresser. "Um, where am I supposed to sleep?"

Without even looking up from the fish, Max casually pointed at the lower bunk. "The bottom one. The top one's mine."

Gabe rolled his eyes. "Duh. Look, I'm no neat freak, but even I don't want to sleep on a pile of garbage."

"So sleep somewhere that's clean," Max suggested, not a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Seriously? Gabe thought. He could feel despair and frustration returning, the result of everything that happened in the past few hours, and then this. Every ounce of willpower he had went into not losing his cool. "There's garbage everywhere."

"Okay, okay," Max retorted, as if Gabe's request had been unreasonable. After he put down the container of fish food, he went over to the bed. Then, with one huge sweep of his arm across it, he dumped most of the dirty clothes and garbage on the floor. "There," he said. He grabbed a crushed soda can left on the bed. "Hey, been looking for that."

"Why?" Gabe wondered aloud.

Though the question had been mostly rhetorical, Max answered, "For my crushed soda can collection," he explained as he put the can on a shelf, next to about a dozen others.

"You collect…you know what, never mind," Gabe said. He still held his duffel bag over his shoulder, too disgusted to put it down. Even with Max's cleaning attempt, the stained and crumb-filled bed was still gross. "Wait, you're a wizard, aren't you? Isn't there some cleaning spell you could use?"

Max tilted his head. "Cleaning spell? There's a good idea. Give me a second to come up with something."

Amazed that the concept had never occurred to Max before, Gabe kept his mouth shut to let his roommate think. Especially since Gabe suspected that Max didn't do so very often. True, Gabe tried to get out of schoolwork whenever possible, but that was only due to laziness. Beating video games took a lot of brainpower.

"I got it!" Max exclaimed as he snapped his fingers. He took out his wand and pointed it at what would be Gabe's bed.

His stomach suddenly overcome with a sinking feeling, Gabe held up his hands. "Wait! Run it by me first."

"Hey, who's the wizard here? I think I know what I'm doing," Max insisted.

Gabe's stomach did another somersault. "You do, huh?"

"Yeah, this'll totally work," Max said, then aimed his wand again. "So Gabe has a place to stay, make this mess go away."

There was a blinding flash of white light, then…nothing. Actually nothing. Max's room had completely vanished, as in, the two boys were surrounded by a white background.

Gabe's eyes widened in shock. "I feel…like a cartoon."

Confused, Max just looked around. "Why does this seem so familiar?"

While Max figured out what went wrong, Gabe headed for the door, which fortunately hadn't disappeared with everything else. In that moment, he was very glad he never put his bag down on the now-vanished floor.

Tired and upset, Gabe stomped into the common area, where both sets of parents were talking in the kitchen. They all immediately quieted and looked at him with concern. "Honey, what is it? Do you and Max not get along?" Amy asked as she went over to give him a hug.

"Sort of.." Gabe replied while he tightly held on to his mother, tears threatening. "I can't sleep in there."

"Is it the smell? Because you get used to it after a few minutes," Theresa assured him.

Gabe shook his head. "No, I mean, I really can't sleep in there. Because 'there,' well…isn't."

The implication slowly dawning on him, Jerry asked, "What did Max do?"

"Well, the extra bed was really nasty, so I told him he should use a cleaning spell, and…"

"Say no more, we're on it," Jerry interrupted. Then he and worried Theresa bolted into the side hallway.

"Okay then…" Bob turned to Gabe, his brow wrinkled. "Are you all right, son?"

Close to tears, Gabe just shook his head. Even though he'd thought movie and video game vampires were cool, seeing that real one burst through the window had frightened him. He was scared, in a strange place, and had no idea what was going on. "Mom, Dad…I want to go home," he blurted, then buried his face in his mother's shoulder.

Justin usually liked waking up early. It made him feel more productive to set his alarm to seven or eight, rather than sleep through the morning like his siblings did. And he always had more energy throughout the day.

But when his alarm beeped at seven a.m. the morning after his household had more than doubled in size, Justin barely heard it through his deep sleep. "Ugh…" he moaned, hoping he was hearing his parents' alarm instead, and it would turn off within seconds.

"What psycho sets his alarm for seven a.m. …during the summer, for no reason?" PJ exclaimed, though it was muffled because he had his face in his pillow. "Turn. It. Off."

"Gladly," Justin muttered. He reached for his cell phone (wasn't that everyone's alarm clock these days?) which he'd kept under his pillow. It wasn't there. Actually, the alarm made it seem like the phone was…

Shoot. The phone must have fallen between the bed and the wall behind it when Justin moved during sleep. Since the phone was plastic, he couldn't use magic to turn it off. This meant he actually had to get up…and hope his phone was okay after the fall.

Reluctantly, Justin dragged himself down the bunk bed ladder, somehow without slipping. By the time he found the phone and turned off the stupid alarm, he was nearly, almost awake. So, as he let out a yawn, he threw on a shirt and headed for the hallway. "I'm going…" Justin trained off when he noticed PJ was snoring again. "…and you don't care. Fair enough."

Justin stumbled into the hallway and down the stairs. Chances were, no one would be awake yet, so he might as well go straight down to the lair and make some more calls. Some of the monster hunters had been in different time zones, or just not picked up when he'd tried to contact them the day before.

Therefore, he blinked in surprise when Teddy and her mother were in the kitchen, chatting over freshly brewed coffee. Startled, they glanced up as he approached. "'Morning, Justin," Teddy said. Her forced tone was upbeat, but she sounded tired, and yawned as she spoke. "What are you doing up? You looked like you were about to pass out last night."

"Phone fell…alarm on…" Justin mumbled as he went to sit on one of the kitchen stools. Walking downstairs had made him sleepy again, to the point of being unable to form coherent sentences. "Magic…plastic…bunk bed ladder…"

Amy raised an eyebrow. "I was with you until 'magic' and 'plastic.' But I do know that you look like you could use a cup of coffee."

"Thanks, Mrs. Duncan," Justin said. Of course, he'd always been a tea drinker. Actually, he couldn't even really remember ever having coffee. But given this early hour and his exhaustion, he couldn't say no to readily available caffeine. In fact, the promise of this improved his speaking ability enough to ask, "What are you two doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep. Had a lot on my mind," Teddy answered with a shrug. Amy nodded in agreement as she gave Justin a steaming mug of coffee.

When Justin took a sip, he nearly spit it out. It was strong, and he usually put a decent amount of sugar in his tea. "Sugar, please…" Justin said, trying to be polite as possible. "And lots of it."

Teddy passed him the nearby sugar canister, along with a teaspoon. "Not a big coffee drinker, huh?"

"I've always been partial to tea," Justin explained. While he added sugar to his coffee, he glanced at Teddy's face. Of course, there was definite fatigue, but Justin picked up some guilt as well. Actually, she looked like she'd spend the night emotionally torturing herself, and she might cry any second. He'd seen a similar, strained look on Juliet's face when she realized she would have to surrender to the mummy's curse. Teddy's expression wasn't as intense, but Justin still made the connection. "Hey, are you okay?"

"As okay as anyone can be in this situation, I guess," Teddy said. Then she shook her head. "What about you?"

Justin shrugged. He didn't want to worry them with the upsetting details of how he was having trouble finding back up. "I'm better, now that I've had some sleep."

There was silence as they all realized no one was going to say anything meaningful. Since Teddy was right in front of him Justin ended up staring. Naturally, he found her attractive - she looked just like the love of his life. But oddly enough, he absolutely wasn't attracted to her. She felt…more like a younger sister or cousin, someone he needed to protect. He supposed it made sense, because it would be weird if he dated his ex-girlfriend's great-granddaughter. Super weird.

The silence growing too awkward for Justin's liking, he turned to Amy. "So, where's Charlie? I'm no expert, but aren't babies usually awake early?"

"Usually. Not today, though," Amy answered. "I guess the excitement of yesterday even wore her out. She and Bob are still sleeping downstairs."

At that, he glanced out to the terrace, where Harper was passed out on a lounge chair. "Oh yeah. I wonder how Harper did - "

"Will you all please just be quiet?"

From where he'd slept on the couch, Gabe half-turned to glare at those in the kitchen. "What is it, seven a.m.? I don't even get up this early during the school year!"

Even though Amy was about to reprimand him for being so rude, Justin quickly slid off his stool. "Sorry Gabe, I'll get out of here. Need to do some research in the lair anyway." He then did a double-take towards Gabe, who had been assigned to Max's room. "Couldn't stand the smell?" he guessed sympathetically.

"Partly, but I just prefer a bed that's actually there. I'm picky that way," Gabe joked.

Justin tried to figure that one out for a good thirty seconds before he finally said, "You know what, it's really too early for me to understand anything to do with Max. But get back to me later, and I'll yell at him for it, okay?" When Gabe nodded, Justin grabbed his sugar-filled cup of coffee, then headed down to the lair to make some calls.