Chapter Three!
...yeah, it's pretty short. But don't worry - the best is yet to come.
---
Chapter Three
Abby slept on the couch in front of the Sector V treehouse's TV. She'd decided to give Heinrich a little privacy and sleep there for the night. As she snoozed peacefully, someone spoke.
"How do you know he's not gonna escape?"
Abby quickly sat up and turned in the direction of the voice. She saw Leopold leaning on the arm of the couch, near where her head had been.
"Huh?" Abby asked, groggily.
"You know," Leopold continued, "Heinrich. Just because you let him sleep in your room doesn't mean he's not gonna make a run for it."
"Numbuh Five put an alarm on the window," she explained, "It'll go off if he tries to escape that way. And Carmelite said she'd keep an eye on the door."
"Good idea. She's usually up all night in the first place."
"Why's that?"
"You'd be, too, if you ate as much sugar as she does."
"What about you? Why're you up?"
"I'm making some adjustments to the C.O.O.L.-B.U.S. It's the only thing in the hangar I know how to drive, so Numbuh Two's letting me borrow it."
"What kind of 'adjustments'?"
"I'll show you in the morning. Anyway, I guess I should let you go back to sleep. 'Night."
"'Night." Abby replied. As Leopold left the room, she laid back down, and continued sleeping.
---
Carmelite, meanwhile, was reaching underneath Abby's bed, being careful not to wake up Heinrich. In the hand that wasn't rooting underneath the bed, she held a small flashlight.
"Nothing here..." she muttered, "Does Mom even keep photos or diaries or stuff like that? Guess I gotta find out about her and Dad the old-fashioned way..."
At that moment, Carmelite thought she heard something. She flicked off her flashlight and looked up at where Heinrich was sleeping. He was tossing and turning a bit, but still asleep.
"Maybe I should get out of here before-" Carmelite began.
"Hm...Abigail?" Heinrich mumbled, waking up.
"Uh, no, but you're on the right track." Carmelite replied.
"Oh...it's you. Vhat are you doing here?"
"First off, what's with the attitude? Second, I'm just looking for something of Mom's."
"Vell, look for it later..." Heinrich said, then laid back down on the bed, his back turned to Carmelite.
"You know, just because you and Mom are in some fight over who-knows-what at this point doesn't mean you have to be a jerk to me and Leo..."
"How did you know ve vere in a fight?"
"Leo implied it..."
"Zis doesn't haff anything to do vith Guatemala." Heinrich snapped, and said nothing more.
Carmelite tiptoed out of the room, leaving Heinrich to go back to sleep. Once she left the room, she pulled a caramel out of her pocket.
"Guatemala, huh?" she thought aloud, as she unwrapped the caramel, "That little bit of info should help..." She popped the soft candy into her mouth and chewed.
"What should help?"
Carmelite glanced to her right to see Leopold approaching.
"Oh...nothing." she replied, after swallowing the caramel, "So, have you finished working on that bus thing yet?"
"No...I still can't figure out how to connect the time machine to it."
"Why are we even calling it a 'time machine'? It's too small...more like a time device, if you ask me."
"'Time machine' sounds better."
"Whatever...do you even know where we're gonna go once you hook it up?"
"We're gonna go see the last person Dad visited before disappearing."
"You mean..."
"Yep."
"All right, and what do we do after that?"
"Depends. Right now, I'm just worried if we're gonna go back to the present - or future, I guess - with Mom and Dad in the first place."
"Well, keep working, then." Carmelite told Leopold. She then sat down next to the door she had just exited from, then looked back in his direction.
"By the way, I have a question..." she began.
"What is it?" Leopold asked.
"What happened in Guatemala?"
"It's not really my place to say."
"So I gotta find out on my own?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
Leopold walked back down the hallway, leaving Carmelite alone. She sat next to the door and thought about all that had been said between her and her brother.