Sea of Green
by Zebeckras
Act I, part three
"There! At last it's complete!"
The vial, held aloft by a vine adorned with a single strong, dextrous leaf at its end, contained a translucent fluid with a strong green tinge to it.
Spike eyed it curiously, and Bushroot pulled it in close, peering at it intently. "It took a day and a half of straight work, but it's ready! And now I can make them all pay for treating me the way they do." He sniffed it lightly, then held it out to Spike. "Smell this, does this smell okay to you?" The flytrap sniffed it all over, and finally gave a little shrug accompanied by a "meh" noise. "Yeah, I put some lilac extract in there to try and get rid of the gillyweed smell but I'm not really sure it covers it."
Bushroot shrugged, and stuck a cork in the top of the vial. "Well, the smell doesn't matter so long as it works! And this oughta work just fine."
With a rasped half-growl, Spike reached for the vial. Bushroot, looking irritated, snatched it away. "Yes, I'm sure it's going to work! This is a carefully formulated compound here! It'll have no effect on the animals of St. Canard; the active ingredient affects the plastids in plant cells." Spike whined and cocked his head, and Bushroot nodded. "So, all you have to do is get this into the St. Canard water supply, and then we sit back and wait. Once it reaches enough of the plants of the city... the fun will really begin!"
Gosalyn's room was not exactly messy, but it wasn't what you could call clean, either. There were areas that were clearly designated as "junk spots" where Gosalyn just shoved things she wasn't using, and each corner of the room held some kind of sports equipment. Looking around, Beth wondered what would happen if she opened the closet door - would a tower of items fall out, like in a cartoon?
With a sigh, the girl threw herself down on her bed and propped herself up on her elbow. "Okay, so, I guess I need some help or something."
Beth felt entirely at ease in the realm of education, so she hoped maybe if she seemed happy about it, that would transfer to Gosalyn as well. "Um, okay, that's no problem! What area?"
"I don't know," said Gosalyn, heaving a shrug that was both melodramatic and unenthusiastic. "All of it?"
"Oh," said Beth, a little helplessly. Well, the easiest way to start this would probably be to play to her own strengths, so she said, "Any math homework, then?"
"Yeah," said Gosalyn, and she heaved herself to a sitting position, and then hopped off the bed to grab her bookbag. She had no sooner hit the floor than Beth heard an odd sound from downstairs, a sort of hollow rushing sound, and she cocked her head.
"What's that?"
Gosalyn, her eyes very wide and innocent, said "What's what?"
"That - don't you hear - um..." Beth squinted; the noise had stopped now, and she frowned slightly. "Did... did you hear a kind of whooshing sound...?"
"Nnnooooo..." Gosalyn hopped back up on her bed and slid her books out of her bag, then snapped her fingers. "Oh hey! Wait, I just remembered, I don't have homework tonight!"
Beth raised an eyebrow; although she was nervous about questioning her charge, this seemed hard to believe. "Really?" she asked dubiously. "Just a second ago..."
"Yeah, y'know, I don't know what I was thinking. Probably the shock from that kidnapping. In fact maybe I should go watch TV to help me unwind - too much stress might overload me..." She stood and headed for the door.
This was one of those situations that Beth utterly hated. It was the kind of thing that she had no idea how to handle, because it involved questioning another person and in her experience that never went over well. And she barely even knew Gosalyn, so really, she had no business accusing her of being untruthful.
And yet, Drake had explicitly said that she should make sure that Gosalyn did her homework before he had left. And if it was not done by the next morning, Beth had a feeling she would not be asked back to babysit another night. (Then again, there was always the chance that she might not be invited back under any circumstances... but she hoped that if she did a completely perfect job, it might improve her chances.)
But if she tried to get into Drake's good graces by strongarming Gosalyn into doing her homework, the girl would probably complain to her father once he got home, and again, she'd be out a babysitting job - the only job that could possibly matter.
So what would be her downfall? Unreasonableness, or passivity?
All of this debate took place in a half second within Beth's head, because Gosalyn had only just reached the door before Beth said quickly, "H-hang on!"
Gosalyn turned, fairly and cheerfully, and gave Beth an inquisitive smile.
One thing Beth would say for the girl: she was not unfriendly, even if she was determined not to do any work. Buoyed by the idea that she wasn't in for a bullying from a ten-year-old, Beth went on, "Um, Gosalyn... Your father entrusted me with your safe-keeping tonight, a-and that is not limited only to your physical safety, it includes your intellectual safe-keeping too." She winced; this sounded like she was reading it out of a textbook. "W-what I'm saying is... I know your father wants you to do your homework tonight. And... and I have a feeling that you do have some, and you're avoiding it, a-and really, that's... that's not... necessary," she finished weakly.
"Oh, boy," Gosalyn said under her breath, and she rolled her eyes. "Well, if I did have homework - and I'm not saying I do, we're talking hypothetically here, lady - if I did, just what exactly would your plan be to get me to do it?"
Although it was said without malice, Beth still recognized the challenge being thrown down in front of her. Gosalyn had seen right through her; she was plainly aware of the fact that Beth had no bargaining chip and was afraid to rock the boat too much, and she was more than prepared to use that knowledge to walk all over her babysitter.
But Beth had something to lose this time, and that knowledge spurred her into bluffing. "Well," she said carefully, "once you finish it, you can - you can do *whatever* you want for the rest of the night."
Gosalyn seemed to consider this for a split second, then said, "Y'know, I kinda was planning on doing that anyway." She seemed almost apologetic.
"But... but if you get the work done quickly, then - then your father will be happy when he gets back, and you... won't miss much on TV?" There was a pause, then Gosalyn blew out a breath that made her bangs leap upwards slightly.
Shaking her head, she said, "I can see this is going to cause you serious mental anguish if I say no."
"Um..."
"So," said Gosalyn, magnanimously, "I guess I can spare a little time. If you let me do it in front of the TV, I'll see about maybe getting it finished tonight."
This sounded suspicious to Beth. She fretted a little as Gosalyn obediently crossed back to her bed and started stacking her books into a tidy pile to take downstairs. "Well..."
"Dad said we get pizza for dinner, right? I like extra pepperoni." Gosalyn started down the stairs, and Beth followed her closely.
"Well..." Beth tried again, and this time managed to finish a sentence. "Doing your homework in front of the TV... doesn't sound like you'll actually be putting a lot of effort into it..."
Gosalyn stopped at the landing, and sighed in frustration. "Look, Beth, not to be unreasonably delinquent or anything, but what do you want?"
Inwardly Beth quailed, but she reminded herself that she had a good fifteen years over this girl, and as the adult, she should have the authority. She put all tremor out of her voice, and said, "I want you to actually look at that homework. Put effort into it, and do as well as you can. I... I want you to learn it and get good grades."
Wide-eyed and incredulous, Gosalyn said, "Wow. Someone believes in miracles."
"Okay." Beth shut her eyes and put a hand to her head, unable to believe she was about to say what was coming next. "Okay... I'll tell you what. If you agree to do this, I'll make sure that your homework is right."
"If it's right, my Dad's gonna know I didn't do it," Gosalyn said jokingly. Then she stopped. "Wait a minute. Are you actually saying that you'll-"
"No," Beth clarified instantly, "I'm not offering to do your work for you. I just... well... I'll, um, I'll... trade with you."
"Trade?" Gosalyn looked skeptical but curious.
"Like... You do the first one, and I'll... I'll do the second." She winced as soon as she'd said it. Gosalyn's mouth dropped open.
"Are you for real? I didn't think grown-ups DID that!"
"I'm not doing it for you!" Beth insisted, even though she knew that she was, even if it was only half of the problems. "I'm just - this is an incentive to get you to try your best!"
Gosalyn practically leapt onto the couch and, to Beth's surprise, switched the television off before spreading her books out on the coffee table. She pulled out a sheet of paper, scribbled her name at the top, and wrote a random math formula on the first line. Then she passed it to Beth. "Your turn!"
"No - no," Beth said, settling down next to her on the couch. "You have to try, okay? I'm not just going to do half your work for you and let you get only half of the work right. You try on the first problem, and I'll watch you, and we'll go over your answer. Then I'll do the second, and you watch me to see what I do. Then you do the third, and we'll go on that way."
"Well, that sounds good on paper," Gosalyn said, frowning slightly, "but you do realize it doesn't make a lot of sense in reality, right? I mean... if all the problems are right it's gonna look really suspicious. And if you don't give me the right answers on the ones I do I'm not gonna learn anything."
Beth smiled, and for just a moment, it looked almost sly. "I never said I was going to give you the right answers. I asked you to try your best and once you have, we won't change anything, we'll just go over what's right and what's not."
Gosalyn looked completely underwhelmed by this plan. But, after a few seconds, she sighed. "Okay. As long as this doesn't take all night."
"It won't," Beth promised, and hoped that this was true. She'd always been able to do most of her homework in about ten minutes, but she wasn't sure how long it would take her to try to teach someone at the same time.
Still looking unhappy, Gosalyn picked up her pencil and muttered, "Probably better hold off on ordering the pizza, or else it'll be cold by the time we get to eat it."
Darkwing turned away from his main computer terminal, looking dissatisfied. "Okay, so there's no record of her in the database. As if that means anything."
"I toldja," said Launchpad simply.
With a snort, Darkwing flicked the monitor off and stood up from his chair. "Yeah, yeah. Don't start rubbing it in yet, LP. I only searched for 'Elizabeth Mallard' and 'Beth Mallard', so it's possible she's using a pseudonym-"
Launchpad interrupted him, and was grinning widely and apparently trying not to laugh as he said, "Her last name's Webfoot."
"A-HA!" shouted Darkwing, and he stalked back to the computer terminal and swung himself into the seat again for another search through his database of active and inactive criminal records. Over his shoulder, he shot back at Launchpad, "And I don't see why that's funny. It's an honest mistake."
Launchpad's only reply was a muted but unmistakable snicker.
Misunderstanding the reason, Darkwing said defensively, "She's the one who introduced herself by the wrong name!"
"Ahh, yeah," said Launchpad, still chuckling slightly as he shook his head at the thought. "That's why it's funny." Beth was so unintentionally cute sometimes, it just about killed him. Who got their own name confused? That was adorable.
Of course, it looked like it was yet another strike against her where DW was concerned. Launchpad almost wished he hadn't said anything, even though it would've looked kind of weird once DW realized his mistake. Still, though - the first search had taken nearly a half an hour, and now he was starting from scratch.
He wondered just what Beth could've done to get DW all worked up like this; she was so harmless. And she hadn't even done anything noteworthy around Darkwing at all, except to bring him a piece of hardware that he'd requested. Sometimes DW got worked up about the weirdest things.
Launchpad also couldn't help wondering why, if Darkwing suspected Beth of having some kind of sinister motive, he had allowed her to stay and babysit Gosalyn that night. This was the one thing that Launchpad had had the good sense not to bring up, because he knew for certain that if he'd pointed it out, DW would've just kicked Beth out; and she'd come all that way, and really seemed like she wanted to get to babysit.
Actually, he hoped that she hadn't bitten off more than she could chew; Gos could be a handful even when she was being well-behaved. Launchpad wondered if Beth was as helpless as she seemed sometimes. Well, Gos was a good kid; it wasn't as if they were likely to come back and find Beth tied up in the middle of the living room covered with suction-cup arrows or anything.
He frowned. Well, he sure hoped not, anyway.
"Launchpad," DW called from the terminal, "do you happen to know if she spells 'Elizabeth' with a 'z', or an 's'?"
Spike slid through the shadows of back-alley streets as the sun went down, and avoided contact with meat creatures. Very few people reacted well to giant, free-roaming Venus Fly-Traps, he'd found quickly; although not many were prepared with giant hedge-trimmers the way the purple duck was, none of the reactions he'd received from anyone non-plant had ever been enjoyable.
When he reached the reservoir, he unclenched his powerful jaw and let the vial drop into his outstretched leaves. His orders were to uncork it (that had been stated and restated; very important, he remembered, to take the cork out first) and then dump it into the water supply. Two-step orders could sometimes have a twist in the middle of them, so Spike went over this a few times in his uncommonly-highly-functioning plant mind before chewing the cork out of the glass, and dropping it into the water below.
He watched for several minutes to see if there would be any big reaction.
There wasn't.
He was a little disappointed.
Then he hoped there wasn't supposed to be a big reaction, because if there was, and his master asked him about it, he was probably going to get the blame for the anticlimactic scene that had just taken place.
Although he seemed to get the blame most of the time anyway. Maybe he could just fake his way through a fancy story.
Spike headed back to the greenhouse, a little wary, and behind him the water began to shine ever-so-slightly green before the glow faded into a quiet shimmer, and disappeared.