"So let me get this straight." Susie says, the seven of them in their positions again in front of the television, all still in their bathing suits, wrapped in their respective towels, Angelica hiding up in the spare bedroom upstairs. "Inrique isn't Enrique's twin, but instead is a cybernetic clone from an alternate dimension? I thought this was supposed to be a soap opera, not a sci-fi drama."
"No, no, no, you got it wrong." Dil explains. "You see, right now we're just watching the events of a dream Isabella is having. Inrique here goes haywire and she must kill him before he hurts those she cares for. The whole dream foreshadows the events of the finale of this season, where she'll encounter the classic scenario of choosing which one is the real Enrique and which one she'll need to kill."
"So this whole entire episode is just to give us a glimpse at what happens at the end of the season?" Chuckie asks.
"I haven't a clue." Lil shrugs. "I lost track of the plot two hours ago."
"There's a plot?" Phil boredly states.
"I think I understand it so far." Kimi says.
"What about you Tommy?" Susie directs towards Tommy, who has been staring blankly at the screen since they gathered around it. "Does any of this make any sense to you?" He just continues to stare blankly, despite the fact that it was a commercial. Lil, being the closest, waves her hand in front of him.
"Hello? Earth to Tommy. You in there?" Lil questions, lightly nudging him. Tommy blinks and shakes his head.
"Huh? What? You guys say something?" Tommy says, completely unaware of what they were talking about.
"You okay T?" Dil asks, concerned. "You haven't moved, said a word, or even blinked since we sat down." He peers into his ears. "Have mutant worms from the Earth's core bored their way into your brain?" Tommy pushes him away.
"No Dil, I'm fine. Really" Tommy lies, at least concerning the part about being fine. "I'm just... hungry is all. Yeah, that's it." Kimi was about to question his claim when her stomach growls, followed by a chorus of growls from everyone elses stomachs.
"Now that you mention it, I'm kinda hungry too." Kimi agrees. "What's for dinner?"
"Well, mom said we could have the bag of chicken nuggets in the freezer." Tommy says, grateful his friends have decided not to give him the first degree. "I think it's a bag of one hundred." Phil hops off the couch and cracks his knuckles with a grin.
"Whelp, seeing as I'm the best cook here, I'll get the food ready." Phil announces.
"So long as you remember to wash your hands before you start." Lil smirks, reminding him of the bet he'd lost earlier that day, him giving her a quick glare.
"What can you do with chicken nuggets?" Chuckie wonders. "They're precooked. You heat them up in the microwave and eat them."
"Don't stress yourself Chuckie." Phil smugly says. "You just lack the culinary prowess that I possess."
"He's right." Lil agrees. "He's a genius in the kitchen. But logic dictates he'd have to be competent in something." She adds with a laugh.
"Well you go ahead and get dinner ready Phil." Susie tells him. "I'll go see if I can't convince Angelica to join us for dinner."
"Why does she need to be convinced?" Kimi asks, remembering the reason after voicing her question. "Oh, right, her wardrobe malfunction."
"Wow was that embarrassing." Lil shakes her head.
"Tell me about it." Dil affirms. "You have any idea what it's like to see that happen to your own cousin? The awkward meter is going to be off the charts for weeks."
"I would die of embarrassment if that happened to me." Kimi says.
"Kimi, please." Chuckie shudders. "I'm mentally scarred enough as is with seeing Angelica like that. I don't need that mental image joining it."
"I'm with Chuckie." Phil agrees. "Angelica was bad enough. I don't think I'd be able to handle it if that happened to anyone else. Just thinking about it makes me queasy."
"Don't you have some chicken to cook?" Lil bites. Phil retreats into the kitchen. "And you better wash your hands first!"
"Yes mom." He dryly replies.
"Anyways I'm going to go talk to Angelica." Susie repeats, getting up. "If I can convince her to come down for dinner, nobody mention what happened at the pool."
"Trust me." Dil says. "That's the last thing I want to talk about, let alone think about. If I knew a sure fire way of how to get in contact with our alien brethren, I'd ask them to erase that memory completely from my mind, maybe even go back in time and stop it from happening."
"If you do get in contact with them, do you think they would do that for me as well?" Chuckie asks. Everyone else murmurs agreements, including Phil in the kitchen, excluding Tommy, who had tuned out their conversation and resumed his blank staring, this time directed towards the floor. Susie goes up the stairs and lightly knocks on the door to the spare bedroom.
"Angelica? How you doing?" Susie calls, trying to open the door but it was locked.
"Go away." Angelica replies, her voice crackling.
"Come on Angelica, open the door. I just want to talk." Susie requests.
"Leave me alone." She demands.
"Angelica, Tommy and Dil's parents left a set of keys to the house. If you don't open up I'm just going to get the keys and unlock the door anyways." Susie threatens. A few moments of silence later and the sound of the lock unlocking greets her. Susie enters and sees Angelica curled up on the bed, in her pajamas, arms wrapped around her legs, her eyes red and puffy, her hair a complete mess.
"Alright, you're in. What do you want?" She bitterly says. Susie sits down on the bed next to her.
"How you feeling?" Susie asks again.
"Like sunshine and daisies. Like I'm in the warm, fuzzy embrace of a Dummi Bear. Like I just won Miss Universe." She says with sarcastic cheer. "How do you think I feel?" She angrily yells. Susie lightly touches her arm, comforting her.
"Look, I know it's bad but-" Susie begins before Angelica interrupts with a dry laugh.
"Bad? Bad?" She says with dismay. "When I had the zipilation mountains on my face, that was bad." She starts, her voice slowly increasing in volume. "When me and my mom were lost at sea for several hours with a ripped sail, that was bad. When my mom gave away Cynthia, the one possession I value above anything else I have, that was bad." She gets up off the bed, facing Susie. "THIS, THIS is WAY beyond bad!" She begins pacing back and forth. "If it was just you, Kimi, and Lil, things would be okay. Hell," She grievously smiles, "even if it was just you three, Lil's disgusting twin and Kimi's loser of a brother, it'd fall under the classification of simply being bad. But both Tommy and Dil, my own two cousins, seeing me expose myself like that?" She plops face first onto the bed. "This is off the charts."
"Look at it this way, it could be worse." Susie suggests. Angelica rolls onto her back and glares at her before staring at the ceiling.
"Really, Carmichael, how could it possibly be worse?" Angelica sarcastically asks.
"It could have happened at the public pool, in front of all the popular kids from school." She tells her. Angelica takes a deep breathe before sitting up.
"I suppose you're right, like always." She sighs, visibly calmer. "Which is so annoying. But it doesn't change the fact that this is still nuclear on the scale."
"I won't pretend to even begin to know how you feel." Susie moves over, sitting next to her, wrapping an arm around her. "But I do have a pretty good idea of how I'd feel if that happened to me in front of my brothers. I'd want to crawl under a rock for a few years."
"More like a few decades at the bottom of the ocean." Angelica mumbles.
"Sure, things are going to be a bit... awkward between you and the guys for a while, more so with Dil and Tommy than Chuckie or Phil. But I can tell you that as much as you're embarrassed your top fell off, they're embarrassed that they saw that happen to a girl they've known since they were in diapers."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She frowns at Susie.
"My point is that this is an uncomfortable situation for them just as much as it is for you." Susie gives her a light squeeze. "And we'd all like nothing more than to just forget this ever happened and move on with our lives. I mean, come on." She laughs. "We've spent the last few hours watching a Spanish soap opera that only three of us can understand, two only vaguely, to put it out of our minds." Angelic is silent for a several moments, staring down at her hands in her lap.
"Why did I have to get that stupid bikini?" She moans.
"Because it was the latest piece from the LaMarr summer line and you were hoping to impress Savannah." Susie answers.
"Ever hear of a rhetorical question?" Angelica bitterly says. Susie responds with a laugh. "What about Tommy and Dil?"
"If you're worried that they're going to hold this over your head for personal gain, don't be." Susie reassures her. "In fact, I believe Dil is going to try to contact his alien friends and ask them to wipe the memory from his mind." Angelica frowns.
"If anyone else had said that I wouldn't believe it."
"So, you think you're up for joining us downstairs for dinner? We're having chicken nuggets." Susie stands, urging Angelica to join her.
"Sure." She lightly smiles. "Just give me a minute. I must look a mess." She gives a light chuckle.
"Alright, but if you're not down in five minutes, I'm sending in a search party." Susie jokes, heading out of the bedroom.
"Susie?" Angelica's voice stops her and she turns. "Thanks." Susie gives her a warm smile.
"What are friends for, right?" She goes out and heads back downstairs, where a heated debate was happening in the kitchen, Tommy and Dil being the only ones still in front of the T.V., Tommy with his vacant stare and Dil engrossed in the show.
"Why should you get sixteen nuggets while the rest of us only get twelve, Phillip?" Lil argues as Susie enters the kitchen, nine plates with said nuggets on them sitting on the kitchen table, one of which had only four.
"It was a bag of one hundred, Lillian." Phil explains. "There's eight of us. That means we each get twelve with four left over. And since I was the one who did the cooking, I get the extra."
"You can figure all that out in your head and yet you have a D in math?" Lil balks.
"C minus thank you very much." He corrects.
"I think Lil, Dil, and I should get the extras." Kimi fights. "We are the ones who won the bet earlier today after all."
"No, you guys won the bet so it's only fair Phil, Tommy, and I get the extras." Chuckie chimes in. Susie puts two fingers to her mouth and whistles loudly, stopping the arguing.
"Would you all just chill?" She orders them. She looks the plates over. Phil had set the nuggets up to form the first letter of each persons name, along with a small pool of barbeque sauce joining each letter. Susie grabs a knife and cuts the four extra nuggets in half, putting a half on each plate. "There, now everybody has the same amount." Everyone drops their arguments and takes their respective plates. "All this fuss over a few chicken nuggets." She shakes her head. She grabs the plates with nuggets forming T and D, taking them out to Tommy and Dil while everyone takes their seats.
"Thanks Susie." Dil takes his plate. She holds Tommy's plate in front of him and Tommy continues to stare blankly.
"Tommy, food's ready." Susie informs him, knocking on his head to get his attention.
"What? Oh, I-I'm not hungry." Tommy says, shaking his head, sitting up.
"T, you sure there aren't any worms in your brain? Perhaps some alien probes?" Dil asks, popping a nugget in his mouth.
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just... tired is all." He lies.
"Really?" Kimi says, not believing him for a second. "Earlier you said you were just hungry. Now suddenly you're not hungry but tired? I'm not buying it."
"What's bugging you Tommy?" Chuckie worries. Tommy stands up, taking a few steps back.
"Nothing, alright?" He defends in a slightly annoyed tone. "It's just been a long day today and I want to go to sleep." Something was definitely bugging Tommy but they all decided to drop it for now.
"Fine, but you're not going to sleep on an empty stomach." Susie tells him, holding the plate in front of him again. "Now eat." He sighs in defeat and takes the plate, sitting back down and starts slowly on his nuggets. Susie goes back into the kitchen, grabbing her plate donned with nuggets in the shape of an S and Angelica's, forming an A. She comes back out into the living room as Angelica, looking no worse for wear, comes down the stairs. "Here you are. Nuggets Casa de Chicken."
"That's Casa de Phil, thank you very much." Phil corrects her. Angelica hesitantly accepts the plate, eying the nuggets suspiciously.
"Phil did the cooking?" She incredulously asks, taking her spot on the arm chair, Susie sitting on the floor next to it, leaning against the couch. "I'm not going to bite into one and a bug comes popping out, am I?"
"No worries, I made sure he prepared them hygienically." Lil smirks, popping a nugget into her mouth.
"But that bug idea sounds pretty good. I gotta remember that one." Phil says to himself.
"If I find a bug in anything I eat, I'm immediately assuming it was your doing." Kimi promises. She bites into a nugget. "But I must say, I've never had chicken nuggets that taste so good before."
"Kimi's right." Chuckie agrees with is sister. "I didn't think there was anything you could do with frozen chicken nuggets." He tosses one in the air and tries to catch it in his mouth, hitting his glasses instead and landing back on his plate.
"Excelente mi amigo." Dil praises.
"Nice work Phil. Very delicious." Susie compliments. With the overwhelming approval of Phil's nuggets, Angelica takes a tentative bite. She's surprised at how good it tastes.
"Not bad DeVille, not bad at all." Angelica compliments. Phil grins.
"Careful there Angelica." Lil playfully warns. "If we start giving him too much praise his ego might get larger than yours."
"Like anyone could possibly have a larger ego than me. I've spent years inflating it." She jokes, laughing along with everyone else, though one voice was absent from the chorus. "So, what's going on here?" She asks, waving her half eaten nugget at the screen. "Is this some sort of space movie or something? Cause I clearly see a robot holding a ray gun."
Dil starts in, explaining what is happening and what's going to happen. They all sit there, enjoying their nuggets, watching the Spanish soap opera, the occasional question or comment being made met by an explanation from Dil. Of course Tommy was the only one not to join in with the laughter and fun everyone else was having. He slowly ate his nuggets, sneaking glances in Angelica's direction every so often, making sure nobody saw him. Despite his slow pace, he was the first to finish. He stood suddenly, interrupting whatever question Susie was asking.
"I've finished my food. I'm heading to bed." He plainly states.
"Cool. Thanks for letting us know." Phil apathetically says. Tommy takes his plate to the kitchen and heads up to his room.
"What's with him?" Angelica asks.
"Don't know." Chuckie says. "He won't talk about it."
"I think I know what's wrong." Dil states, standing up. "I'll go talk to him, see if I can't keep the grasshoppers from digging up their acorns." Before anyone had a chance to ask about his phrase, Dil heads up the stairs to Tommy's room. "Yo T, can I come in?" Dil knocks.
"Like anything I'd say would keep you from doing so." Tommy bitterly says as Dil enters, sitting on his bed in his pajamas. "If you came here to try and get me to talk, don't bother."
"That's fine." Dil shrugs. "You don't need to talk. I already know whats bugging you anyways."
"Really?" He scoffs, setting his alarm. "And what might that be? Alien mind control? A spirit is trying to possess my body? Mutant worms have bored their way into my brain?" He stands, taking an aggressive step towards Dil, who stands his ground. "Please, enlighten me."
"Under normal circumstances I'd consider all three of those options viable." Dil considers. "But none of those are the reason you're bugging so much."
"And how would you know what's got me bugging?" He incredulously asks.
"Because I'm her cousin too." He says, catching Tommy off guard. Tommy turns away. "You're bugging because you can't stop thinking about what happened, and well what we all saw." Tommy's defense falls, and he starts spilling to Dil.
"It's just that," Tommy swallows down a lump in his throat, "she's always been our mean, bossy, older cousin. That's all I've ever seen her as and that's all she's ever been. But now." He sits on his bed. "When I look at her, when I think of her, that image flashes in my mind. I'm not thinking 'there's Angelica, my cousin who yells at me and my friends.' Now, I think... I think..." He sighs, running his hand through his hair. "I don't know what I think."
"You still think that about Angelica, it's just that now you're coming to realize that she is a girl, not just our cousin." Dil leans against the wall.
"What?" Tommy asks, confused. "How does that make any sense?"
"Simple. You remember what happened between Lil and Phil after Phil saw Lil in her bra?"
"Yeah, Phil and Lil both started to majorly bug and we missed out on an awesome DeVille party at Yu-Gotta-Go World." Tommy recalls. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Well, after seeing Lil in her bra, Phil came to realize that she is a girl. And with that realization things got mondo weird between them. He was seeing Lil as his sister and as a girl." Dil explains.
"I'm still not following."
"Ok, let's try a different approach. You think that the Princess Nioko hologram is hot, right?" Dil asks.
"I don't know why I'm indulging you but yes, the Nioko hologram is hot." He dryly says.
"Now, imagine if Nioko was your cousin."
"Ew dude, gross." Tommy grimaces. "Why would you even suggest that?"
"I'm just trying to get you to understand why you're bugging so much over Angelica." He simply states. "Angelica has always been our cousin, like Lil has always been Phil's sister. But after seeing Angelica in the pool you're coming to realize that Angelica is a girl, one who could be considered to others as being hot. Do you get it now?" Tommy sits on his bed, thinking things through.
"Yeah, I think I do get it." Tommy understands. "Angelica is, as disturbing as it is for me to admit it, an attractive girl who is my cousin. And after seeing her... well after her wardrobe malfunction the two viewpoints are conflicting with one another."
"Precisely." Dil smiles, glad Tommy has figured it out. Then Tommy frowns and looks at Dil.
"But why aren't you bugging out like I am?" Tommy asks. Dil shrugs.
"Don't know. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm not as hormonal as you are." He suggests. "Or perhaps it's because I've already come to the realization that Angelica is our cousin and a girl a long time ago." Tommy lays back on his bed, sighing.
"Well great, now that I understand it it just makes the whole thing even worse." He groans.
"Don't worry Tommy, it's just going to take some time to adjust." Dil reassures him. "Things are going to be weird and awkward for a while but it'll pass." Tommy frowns at him.
"Since when did you suddenly become an expert on stuff like this?"
"It's simple psychology. I've been doing a lot of reading on that lately." Dil explains.
"And since when were you into psychology?" He raises his eyebrow with the question, sitting up.
"Hey, if I don't understand the human mind, how can you expect me to understand an alien one?" Dil laughs. Tommy cracks a smile and laughs a little.
"Figures." He slouches on the bed. "But I still can't stop thinking about it."
"Then stop trying. The more you try to not think about it the more you will."
"Alright." Tommy sighs. "I'll try. Or won't try. Or whatever."
"Sweet. Now that I've prepared your mind to fight off any future spectral attacks, grab your sleeping bag and come on down." He tells him. "It's rude if the host isn't with his guests."
"This is your house too you know." He reminds him. "Wouldn't that also make you a host?"
"I may live here, but you're the eldest, so you're the host." Dil retorts.
"Ok, you got me there." Tommy admits defeat. He goes to his closet and grabs his sleeping bag. "You better get changed into your pajamas then Dil."
"Way ahead of you." Dil's voice comes from the hall, heading towards his room. Tommy carries his bag down the stairs, stopping halfway, seeing everyone else preparing their own, getting ready for bed, all in their pajamas, though his eyes were mainly focused on Angelica.
"Don't forget Chuckie, you've got the morning shift tomorrow." Kimi reminds him with a laugh.
"I know already." Chuckie grumpily replies. "You've only reminded me twelve times already."
"And when we get home tomorrow, I expect to here the shower running with you in it Phillip." Lil grins.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get clean tomorrow." Phil grumbles.
"I still can't believe you kept such prime information from me Susie." Angelica complains.
"I'm sorry Angelica. I didn't think you'd be interested in Phil and Lil shooting jellybeans from their noses." Susie apologizes.
"I could care less about what they were doing." She dismissively waves. "I'm talking about the betting that was going on." She smirks. "I could have taken some serious advantage of that."
"Well next time Phil and Lil plan on competing in a disgustilon, you'll be the first to know." Dil assures her, walking down the steps, wearing his feetsie pajamas, making Tommy continue his way down.
"So I take it you've managed to keep the grasshoppers from getting squashed by nuts." Chuckie says.
"It's dig up their acorns, not get squashed by nuts." He corrects, tossing his bag over where Phil was laying. Tommy goes over by Chuckie, the opposite side of the room as Angelica.
"So you gonna tells us what had you being all zombified all day?" Phil asks. Tommy was about to make an excuse but Dil jumps in with one.
"It was mutant alien ghost worms trying to dig their way into his brain." He tells them. "Had to flush them out using a special concoction I keep in my room."
"Right, just like the freckles on Chuckie's back form the constellation Orion." Kimi sarcastically says.
"What? They do?" Chuckie frantically asks, sitting up, pulling up his pajama top trying to look at his back. Everyone starts laughing, even Tommy who managed to catch the joke despite his distracted mind and hidden stares at Angelica. "That's not funny."
"I think we'll have to disagree with you on that one." Lil smiles.
"So what bet did you lose Dil?" Angelica queries.
"Actually, I won my bet, with Tommy here." Dil smiles. "Since Lil won he has to do all of my chores for a month."
"There's also the one that he made, and lost, with Kimi and me." Lil gladly says.
"This ought to be good." Angelica smirks.
"Well, if Phil won, Lil and I were to be Tommy's personal servants for a month." Kimi explains.
"What do you know, Tommy does have a sinister side." Her smirk gets wider.
"But since Phil lost, he is now on call to be me and Kimi's personal fashion consultant whenever and however long we want, for a year." Lil finishes.
"Looks like you're a slave to fashion now Pickles." Angelica laughs.
"Just like all the girls at our school." Chuckie mumbles.
"What was that Finster?" Angelica narrows her eyes at him. He shrinks back a little.
"Uh, nothing." He quickly replies.
"Thought so."
"Well let's quiet down and get to sleep now." Susie yawns as she settles into her sleeping bag. "It's getting late."
"You heard your babysitter, pipe down and go to bed." Angelica orders them, settling in herself. Everyone starts settling in.
"Angelica, I'm your babysitter too." She laughs, five other soft ones joining hers. Angelica grumbles and shuts her eyes, Dil turning off the light. The room becomes quiet and they all fall fast asleep, save for Tommy, who stares up at the ceiling, casting glances towards Angelica, despite not being able to see her due to his friends in the way and the darkness of the room.
"I don't get it." He says quietly to himself. "I understand it now but it's still like this." His eyes start to feel heavy "Maybe Dil's right. It'll just take some time to get used to." He closes his eyes. As he feels himself drift off the images of Angelica diving into the pool and coming out of the water topless flash before him and he shoots his eyes open. He strains in the darkness to see the clock. "Only a few hours of sleep." He sighs. The familiar feeling of needing to use the restroom greets him. He gets out of his sleeping bag and quietly makes his way upstairs. He's almost all the way up when he notices the bathroom door is open a crack, light streaming out of it. He carefully approaches it, stopping when a voice comes floating out of it.
"Ugh, stupid thing." Angelica's voice says. The sound of the the toilet flushing followed by running water. He tiptoes to the door and peeks in, swallowing nervously. Angelica turned the sink off and proceeded to dry her hands. "How can anybody sleep with this type on?" Tommy's eyes go wide as Angelica starts to take her pajama top off, standing there in a frilly white bra. She reaches behind her back and starts unhooking her bra. "Having these hooks keep digging into your back is painful." Tommy knew he shouldn't be watching. He wanted to move, go back downstairs, go anywhere, but he couldn't move. He was glued to the spot, his eyes going wider, his mouth going agape as he saw remove her bra, her topless reflection in the mirror clearer than day. She holds the bra up and glares at it, feeling the red marks on her back.
"You and the rest of your kind are going in the trash first thing tomorrow when I get home." She threatens it. "I'm replacing you with the ones that have the hooks on the front." She then looks at her topless image in the mirror, her anger dissolving into slight depression. She places her hands on the sink and sighs. "I should have listened to Susie." She says. "Now Chuckie, Phil, Dil, and Tommy all know what I look like." She starts to put her bra back on. "If it weren't for my years of practice of acting like I don't care, things would have been even more awkward than they were down there." She finishes her bra and slides her top back on. "Susie was trying to make me feel better but she was lying." She clenches her fists, her anger returning. "They don't feel embarrassed, they're all laughing at me. They find this whole thing funny. I can tell by the way they didn't say a word to me about it. Last time I buy a bikini that's to large simply because it's fashionable."
Tommy sees her start to head for the door and he panics, rushing down the hall, into the spare bedroom. He peeks out and sees Angelica heading down the stairs. He leans against the wall and slides down, sitting on the floor, his heart pounding in his chest, breathing heavily.
"Did I... really... see that?" He asks in disbelief. He puts his hand on his chest, feeling the pounding, swallowing some air. "Why do I feel this way? What's wrong with me?" He curls up in a ball, trying to calm himself down but failing, refusing to close his eyes for fear of the image persisting. "She's my cousin. She's my... hot... cousin." His mind repeats that last phrase, and he has to force himself to omit the word 'hot'. After an hour, managing to calm slightly, he tends to his business and returns downstairs. He stops short of Angelica, watching her sleep for a few moments, the image of her flashing, the phrase repeating. He slaps himself, snapping him out of his trance and goes to his sleeping bag, laying there, sleep alluding him.