Inside

The nerve of those guys! I really thought Double D wouldn't be like that, but I guess Eddy rubbed off on him. I thought angrily. There was loud thumping going on outside and yelling next. Storming downstairs, I ate the cold pancake on the table. Vaguely seeing the boys outside the window. They were leaving the front yard, Eddy was yelling something. Double D turned his head around and looked at the house guiltily for some reason. My heart felt heavy looking at him, so I slammed my head on the table. "Ow..." Yea, not the best choice in the world.

I walked outside after loading all the dishes into the dishwasher. Jacob was at Rolf's, said something about a fire spewing tractor and playing bull fighter with Victor (the goat). There was screaming coming from one of the houses across the street. A few things broke and then something exploded. A silhouette of Eddy choking Ed was coming through the window. I ran to the front of the door, there was some sort of sign on it saying Cafe Ed. I knocked on it and Eddy opened the door, a grin plastered onto his face.

"Hello there, and welcome to Cafe E-" He looked at me and scowled. "Oh, it's you." He said disdainfully. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him blankly.

"What the hell is going on? It sounded like you were committing murder over here." I said, and tried to look over his shoulder at what happened inside. He let me inside and my jaw nearly hit the floor. My eyes wide open in shock. Double D and Ed were dressed in some frilly maid outfits that you only see in those Shojo mangas. Double D was having a hard time with walking and keeping his skirt down. Ed on the other hand didnt really care about it and sat in one of the chairs, his skirt hitched up his thigh. My face turned bright red and I turned to face Eddy.

"Are you holding a gay cafe or something? Cause that's the only thing you're going to have here, gay people." I said, trying to not laugh really hard. Eddy made an angry face at me.

"I'd like to see you have a better idea then!" He said, but I ignored him and tried to help Double D with his skirt. I bit my lip in a failed attempt not to laugh hysterically. He pulled his hat over his face, not letting me see his embarrassed expression. He had a few ribbons caught in the zipper on the back, so I had to undo it and retie the ribbons in the rightful spots. My hands grazed his bare back once or twice, his whole body stiffened a bit at the contact.

"There you go." I said. He stood and the skirt remained in place. "Hey, what exactly exploded?" I asked, seeing some ashes on the floor.

"Monobrow here tried to make the tea." Eddy said, pointing to all the burn marks on Ed's hands. I looked around the make shift restaurant a bit. Almost everything was wrong, empty vases on cardboard boxes for tables. The floor was filthy, basically, the only thing they got right were the uniforms.

"You guys need to seriously redo this whole Cafe idea, or quit." I said, picking up a empty vase. "This place really needs a girls touch..." I mumbled, but loud enough for all three Eds to hear. Eddy scoffed a bit.

"I can handle this perfectly! The cafe is fine!" I rolled my eyes at this.

"Like how you 'perfectly' handled the roller coaster?" Eddy glared at me some more, not knowing what to say to that. "Why the hell would you even put your friends in dresses? It's embarrassing to wear that crap!" Then eddy got an idea, we could all practically see the lightbulb above his head light up.

"Then why don't YOU wear it?" He said, yanking the uniform off Ed, leaving him in his underwear. I backed up a bit, trying to get away from the money grubbing Eddy. He walked towards me more until my back was against the wall. Double D was watching, still in his maids outfit. Then an idea struck me.

"Look Eddy, I'll wear the damn outfit, only, if you let me rearrange the cafe a bit and get Double D and Ed out of maid duty." I said. Eddy thought about this for a bit, still not sure. "I'll let you keep my share of the profit." I said. He agreed wholeheartedly after that.

For the next five hours, I tried to make the place as nice as possible. The vases were filled with flowers and water. Box tables were replaced with real ones found in the junkyard and chairs were placed around them. Most of the floor was sweeped and the room didn't smell as badly as before. It wasn't totally clean, but it was good. I gave Ed a whole pile of manga to read with monsters and mutants I found under mine and Jacob's beds. He wouldn't bother anyone for a while now.

Double D gave his uniform to me and I gave him a white button up shirt, tie,and black dress pants. He looked pretty handsome if I do say so myself. He seemed pretty happy with the new arrangements as well. I also brought in a CD with jazz and a radio for some calming music. Every kid in the neighborhood noticed the commotion coming from the house and there was a line just outside the front door. I straightened the apron on my new uniform and helped Double D with the tie.

"I really appreciate this Alyssa! I can finally dress in male clothing!" Double D said, I chuckled a bit at that.

"You've never dressed as a guy before?" I asked.

"Oh, I have, its just that the uniform made me feel really uncomfortable and that my underwear was peeking out." I fixed the hat on my head.

"I've never really worn this kind of thing before, skirts were never my favorite." I said, tugging on the back of the skirt. Eddy started taking people's money as they walked inside. Double d walked into the kitchen to prepare some things and I started to help people to their seats. All the boys (except Jimmy of course) were staring and drooling at me. Feeling uncomfortable, I walked over to Sarah's, Mariel's, Jimmy's table and started to take orders. Standing in front of the table, I gave my best smile and said "Welcome to Cafe Ed, may I help you?" Mariel gaped at me for a second.

"Sis! Why are you wearing that?" She asked, her face showed she was trying not to laugh. I rolled my eyes and pulled out a little notebook for their orders.

"I was forced to do this okay? So, what'll you guys have?" I asked.

An hour later

"This is all your fault! If you would have just watched your feet, everything would have been fine!" Eddy yelled at me. I was dressed back in my original clothes and I yelled back as I swept up some of the crumbs on the floor.

"Look, Kevin tripped me okay! He did it so he could look at my underwear! It's not my fault that Double D yelled at him to get out!"

"It's true Eddy, I saw it with my own eyes." Double D said. "That's not the only thing you saw..." I grumbled. His entire face turned red and turned away.

"You are both at fault then! If it weren't for you two, I would still have all that money and I-" I pulled out his jar from inside one of the cabinets, filled with quarters. "-am going to stop yelling at you now." He finished and hugged the jar tightly.

Double D gaped at the jar, then he looked at me while I finished sweeping. "How'd you get that back?" He asked. I explained that after the whole cafe thing failed, I knew the quarters were going to disappear like they do everytime I saw the show (I didn't mention the show part though), so I grabbed the jar while the whole place was arguing and people were leaving and stashed the jar in the kitchen cabinets.

"Today was... interesting." Double D said, the whole place was back to normal by now, no chairs or tables or any evidence that we held a cafe here.

"Yea, definetly. How about I come by again tommorrow and help you guys out?" I asked.

"Sure, I don't see why not." He replied. Then we both looked at Ed, still engrossed in the monsters in the manga I gave him while Eddy was counting his cash.

"Looks like they don't mind either. See you then." I said and ran outside to go fix dinner. Time passes fast when having fun. I totally forgot what it was like to have friends, but now I'm starting to remember again.