Now that the expo had started, Lapis had time to look at all of the various things on display. She feigned interest in most of the devices, and alot of them were out of her realm of understanding. She felt like a fish out of water among all of these tech savvy humans. She was contemplating excusing herself to just go outside and gaze at the stars, but her train of thought was suddenly interrupted as she heard a fart noise from the table to her left.
"Did I just hear a fart?" Lapis asks as she walks over to the display.
"You sure did!" Says the boy standing behind the table. He looked to be about Connie's age, very pale and freckled. His brown hair messy like he never bothered to comb it this morning. "It came from my pal here!" The boy holds up his hand and a mechanical arm on the table high-fives him.
"You made a farting arm?" Lapis asks with a mixture of confusion and admiration.
"Oh, Prankstobot does more than that!" The boy says with a devilish grin. He picks up a small plastic box with from the table. "This is the Bug-Box." The boy explains. "Its more or less a one-way radio. Any sound that you program into Prankstobot will be broadcasted through the device."
"Wait... So... This arm makes that radio broadcast fart noises." Lapis matches the boy's devious grin with her own. "So, I could hide that box in somebody's clothes, or big poofy hair, and make them fart anytime I want!"
"Oh it does more than that!" The boy says as he opens a cooler next to him and takes out a pie. He presses a button on the keypad and the arm resets itself. The boy puts the pie on the palm of the machine. "Each Bug-Box also has a sophisticated GPS chip inside it that Prankstobot can locate if its within range. As demonstration, I hid one of the Bug-Boxes on one of the special guests. Now watch and be amazed!"
The boy presses another couple buttons, and the pie gets flung across the room. It lands with a splat. The crowd parts revealing an angry old man with a red turtle neck, a long brown coat, and thick glasses. He has a pie on his head. He stands there, dumbstruck, as a near identical looking old man in a black suit starts laughing at him.
"Looks like you finally got your just deserts, eh Sixer?" The one man says in between fits of laughter.
"Remember what mom used to say?..." The pied man says as he takes the pie off his head. "Save some for the rest of us!" He takes the remains of the pie and shoves it in the other man's face. The two stare angrily at each other before busting into friendly laughter.
Lapis looks on at the sight with starry-eyed wonder. Not even looking away from the scene, Lapis holds her hand out towards the robot, palm facing up. Prankstobot goes for a down-low five.
Meanwhile... Peridot is busy babysitting the twins Amanda and Alexis. The inside of the home is eerily pristine. The floors are spotless, everything is perfectly aligned, and the shelves are covered with an assortment of decedent knickknacks. In the corner is a clown statue about as tall as Peridot... Its gaze peers deep into Peridot's soul. The unnerving silence of the home is broken when one of the girls speaks.
"We are going to have so much fun." The one girl said. Peridot didn't know if this was Alexis or Amanda.
"Yes. So much fun." The other says.
"Uhm... What do you do... For fun?" Peridot asks hesitantly.
The girls look up at Peridot and smile with wide disturbing grins. Peridot immediately regretted asking that question.
"Before we begin!" Peridot hastily states, trying to prolong her existence as long as she can. "Let me... Get you some snacks! Yeah! I'll be right back!"
She runs off into the kitchen and begins rummaging through the cabinets. "Lets see... Snacks that take awhile to prepare... That aren't raw meats or havens for insects... Aha!" Peridot pulls out a bag of popcorn. "Popped earth treats!"
Peridot microwaves the bag of popcorn and fills a bowl with the hot contents. As she turns around to go back into the living room, she sees an identical clown statue standing in the corner of the kitchen. Peridot lets out a scream and tosses the popcorn into the air as she dives under the table. The bowl never hits the ground.
Alexis and Amanda crouch down and gaze at the cowering Peridot under the table. One of them, holding the bowl of popcorn and slowly eating from it, never breaking eye contact with the shivering Peridot.
"It appears this one is timid, Amanda." The girl not eating the popcorn states.
"It appears so, Alexis." Amanda pauses for a bit before speaking again. "But the popcorn is good."
Alexis reaches over and takes some popcorn from the bowl and eats it before reaching a hand out for Peridot. "It's alright." Alexis says to Peridot. "We have something we want to show you."
Peridot took Alexis's hand and slowly crawled out from under the table. The two girls led her up the staircase. Peridot wanted to scream or to run away, but for some reason she couldn't. They led her down the hallway to the room at the far end. The door opens with a slow creak and the three walk in. The door slams shut behind Peridot as she lets out an "eep" of fear. A television turns on in the darkness.
The rest of the night went smoothly for Lapis. She got to know the young boy who made Prankstobot. His name is Conner. Nice kid. Lapis visited other stands, met with other people. She answered questions for the local paper, and she posed for photos. It was the ride home that was most painful.
"Are you sure that was your first public appearance?" The superintendent said. He was laying on the impressed tone way to thick.
"Yes." Lapis said with a sigh of relief. "Its tough."
"I know what you mean." He says as he rests his right hand on Lapis's left. "Standing in front of hundreds of people. It can get nerve racking."
"Don't touch me." Lapis says sternly. The man quickly puts his right hand back on the steering wheel.
"Sorry." The superintendent says. "When I'm not at work, I'm at home with my daughters. I know its not much of an excuse... But I don't really get out much."
"That, I can relate to." Lapis says with a sigh.
"Well, that's one thing we have in common!" The superintendent says with a chuckle. Lapis ignores the comment.
The two of them spend the rest of the car ride in awkward silence. They get back to the superintendent's house, and he opens the door and turns on the living room light. Lapis jumps, startled, when she sees a clown statue standing near the couch staring right up at her, its gaze peering into her very soul.
"Wow..." Lapis says as she calms down. "I bet that thing scared Peri silly... Where is Peridot?"
Lapis looks around the ground floor. No Peridot. "Peri!" Lapis says a little louder.
Lapis walks up the staircase. She sees a light on inside the room at the end of the hallway. She creeps along the eerie hallway. Was it Lapis's imagination or were the eyes of the pictures following her? She forced those thoughts away and made it to the end of the hallway. She could hear muffled sounds followed by the giggling of the two girls. She opened the door slowly.
Lapis stood in the doorway gazing at Peridot, trying her hardest not to laugh. Peridot was sitting in a beanbag chair, her hair braided into pig tails.
"Oh! Hi Lapis!" Peridot says with a grin.
Lapis coughs trying to hide back laughter as the girls say something that Lapis doesn't catch. Peridot shoots a glare back at the girls, and they stop talking.
"So... that's a bold new look... Peri." Lapis can't hold it back anymore and erupts into laughter as Peridot realizes that her hair is still braided and quickly covers her head with a nearby sun bonnet... Lapis laughs harder.
((Well I was advised to keep these comments here but to do something beyond using parenthesis to signal the transition from story to comments. So I'm going to underline there from this point forward... Also yeah. Updates are a bit slower now than they were when I first started this. Real life and what not. Also going to still try and get some updates in in the next two weeks. May be hard considering Easter travels this upcoming weekend and then the week after that is Zenkaikon. That's gonna be fun! Need to start prepping for the Larp... AKA "Time to watch the same 3 hours of television repeatedly for hours to get ready to be in character!" That way I can dissect personality traits... Or as the Great and Lovable Peridot would say... "It's subtext."
As for this chapter. I had quite a bit of issues with it. Mostly because I had so much I felt I could do with the expo and the babysitting expedition, trying to narrow it down to one thing a piece was hard. I didn't want it to go beyond 2 parts because its not the main focus of the story... Why is it that taking out content seems to be harder than adding content? Oh well... Also, poor Peridot. Giving Lapis more ammo to tease her with.))