- Tale Number Seven: Not the Right Sort of Girl For Him -

"Well, I'm goin'," Pad announced.

Melody looked up from her book. "Going where?"

"He has a date with Amber," Fiona informed her, still focused on sewing up the tear in Eddie's jacket. "Don't you remember him telling us about it earlier?"

"I must not have been there," Melody said darkly, her eyes narrowing. "So you're going out with her again, huh?" she said to Pad, but her eyes were glaring at Fiona.

"It's only our third date," he returned, shrugging. "She asked me ta take 'er to this dance, and I figgered, why not?"

"Yeah, why not?" She was still shooting menace at Fiona with her gaze.

"Anyway, she seems really nice, so maybe if things go well tonight, I'll start seein' her regular. Just maybe, I mean. And we got the time on our hands now, don't we?"

"We sure do. I wish I had something to do with this free time."

"Aw, come on. I see ya got yer head buried in a good book there." He gave a stupid nod of his head, like he couldn't imagine reading a book if his life depended on it, but was trying to wrap his head around someone else really enjoying it.

"Yeah, I guess I'm all set." She gritted her teeth for a moment, wishing he would head out already. It was starting to feel like he was gloating.

"Oh, Pa - addddd!" a feminine voice sang into the room. To Melody's mild gratification, Pad froze into an alarmed pose at the sound. A moment later, a young woman stepped in. She wore a pleasant, attractive dress; not too conservative, but not too revealing either.

"A- Amber!" Pad stammered, stepping to block her from further advance into the room. He began furiously scratching the back of his head and looking around the room. "Um... Ah... We should -"

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" she chimed.

"Well... we're running -"

"Yes, Pad," Melody interjected, now turning fully away from her book to fix her attention on him and his girlfriend. "Why don't you introduce us?"

Pad shot her an angry glare. "Okay, fine. That's Fiona, that's Melody, and Eddie, our captain, is still on the ship. Everyone, this is Amber. Now let's get goin', huh?"

Amber shook her head. "I forgot the ribbon for my hair. You'll have to run back to my house and get it for me."

"I will?" he protested. "It's yer house! Why don't ya get it yourself if you want it that bad?"

"Don't be a lazy bones. It's bad enough you were taking so long that I had to come get you - you were supposed to pick me up, remember? And my sister's there to bring it out to you, so you shouldn't have any problem. Besides, I can get to know your friends a little better while I'm waiting."

"Yeah, okay," Pad said. By now he had gotten a hold of his mild anger and was rolling his eyes. "Look, I think we'll survive without a little extra ribbon. We're running late, and -"

"Pad!" She put her hands on her hips. "I am not going to this dance without proper adornment! Now you march over there, or the date's off!"

He glowered back at her for a moment or two, but ultimately his shoulders slumped in defeat and with a mumbled, "Yeah, yeah..." he headed off. Melody watched, and saw him turn and give a sour look at the room's occupants before closing the door.

The minute he was gone, Amber wheeled on Fiona. "So you're the one he's always talking about," she said in a harsh whisper.

Fiona looked up from her sewing and blinked at Amber. "Excuse me?"

Melody carefully tilted her ear so that she could catch what Amber was saying - though in truth, it probably wasn't necessary. Melody had very good hearing, and Amber wasn't speaking nearly as quietly as she thought she was. Some people seemed to think that so long as you spoke in the hissing tone of a whisper, no one would hear you no matter what the actual volume of your speech was.

"He won't shut up about you," Amber went on, leaning in closer. "About how smart and kindhearted you are, and how it drives him nuts when you say something completely ridiculous. He's always complaining about how picky and negative you are - on our last date, I had to listen to a whole speech."

"Um," Fiona said, squirming in her chair like she was in a Cabal interrogation room. "I think -"

"I'm not stupid," she snapped. "I can tell when another woman has her hooks in my guy. Do you hear me?"

"I... I think he was talking about Melody," Fiona offered, pointing to her.

Anticipating that Amber would turn to look at her, Melody shot her eyes back to her book so she wouldn't notice that she'd been watching them. As she began flipping through in search of a certain spell, she heard Amber give a scornful snort. "That grooming disaster in the dumpy dress?" she continued in a loud whisper, making Melody's face redden with silent fury. "You expect me to believe it's her he's going gaga for? Do I look like an idiot?"

"Sometimes beauty is in the eye of -"

"You listen to me," Amber cut her off. "I like Pad. He and I are going to be happy together. So if you don't knock off the flirting with him, I'm going to see to it that he quits your little group of adventurers. In fact, I've half a mind to do that anyway."

"Amber, you're overreacting," Fiona tried, lowering her own voice. "I'm not flirting with Pad, Melody isn't flirting with Pad, and even if we were -"

"I didn't ask for your interpretation. I repeat -"

It was Amber's turn to get interrupted, Melody decided, so she remarked in a loud voice, "Hey Amber, why are you dating that loser, anyway?"

Amber spun around. "What did you call him?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, trying to sound as genuinely apologetic as she could. "It's just that... don't you think it's a little silly for a guy his age to be keeping gross pets like that?"

Amber's face went blank, her anger dissipated. "Like... what?"

"Like that," Melody said, pointing to the ceiling.

Amber looked up.

And then screamed loud enough to hurt Melody's ears. Maybe it was just that the sight of a hairy eight-legged spider the size of a small cat was terrifying to her somehow.

Or maybe she was just shocked at having said spider drop right onto her shoulder. She sure didn't seem happy about it drooling slime all over her hair as it crawled around the back of her head.

"Get it off! Get it off!" she screeched, flailing her arms in the air, as though she wanted to tear the spider off of her but couldn't bring herself to touch it. Fiona just shrank back into her chair, staring at the spider with eyes as big as snowballs.

Melody pushed herself away from her desk, stood up, and walked over to Pad's frantic little girlfriend. "Bad Rufus! Bad!" she snapped at the spider. She extended an upturned palm to Amber's shoulder. "You come here right now, Rufus! What would Pad say if he saw you jumping on his girlfriend? Come!"

Rufus crawled onto her hand. She turned and brought him back to her desk, remarking, "You see? Rufus means well, but he can be a real pain in the butt. And I just don't see why Pad insists on keeping him around." She stuffed Rufus in a drawer, and turned around. "Where are you going?"

Of course, she was running out the door. And as perfect timing would have it, Pad was just returning with the ribbon. He brought Amber to a halt at the doorway. "Hey, what's goin' on? Yer hair's all mussed!" He snorted. "What point was there in me getting this ribbon if ya were just gonna -"

She slapped him across the face.

Pad just stared at her in silence a moment, then put a hand to his cheek. "Huh. That was surprisingly weak. I mean, it caught me off guard, but..."

"I've had it with your insensitivity, your immaturity, and your weirdo female friends!" Amber snapped. "Goodbye!"

He watched her storm off, then mutely closed the door after her. Melody allowed herself a satisfied smirk.

"Man," Pad sighed. "What was that all about? Ah well, if that's how she wants it..." He tossed the ribbon onto Melody's desk.

"Well... she'll probably be back to get that," Fiona offered hopefully.

"Nah, that ain't her ribbon. I didn't want to have to deal with that sister o' hers, so I just went and bought one from the store a coupla blocks down. 'Sides, I ain't talkin' to her if she shows up. I didn't do nothing to deserve that kinda grief." He tore off the nice shirt he'd been going to wear to the dance and threw on his jacket. "I'm goin' for a walk. Later."

Once he was gone, Fiona put aside her sewing and stood up. Melody went back to her book, but she was unsurprised to hear Fiona speaking behind her a few moments later. "You know, I have more than half a mind to tell Pad what you did."

"What are you talking about?" she said, flashing her best Bambi eyes.

"Spiders don't drool, especially not slime. Besides, I think I'd know about it if Pad had any pets."

Not having expected to fool her, Melody smiled and opened a drawer of her desk to reveal Rufus disintegrating into smoke. "The spell's called Power of Suggestion. It's pretty cool. Just a shame that you can't use it in battle. Bad guys are too involved in fighting you to pay attention to anything you say." She closed the door and shrugged. "If you really want to tell him, go ahead. I'll find another way to break them up. For good."

"Look, if you want Pad to go out with you instead of other girls -"

"I don't. I won't stop him from going out with nice girls if he wants to."

Fiona sighed. "You're not being fair to Amber. She's not usually bad-tempered like that. If you think about it, she wouldn't have picked up on the way he talks about you unless she really cared about him. And after all, can't you imagine how it makes her feel when the guy she likes can't stop talking about this other girl?"

"It doesn't matter." Melody folded her arms. "Even if she were on her best behavior all the time, she's just not the right sort of girl for Pad. She's frail, vain, and most of all, she's bossy. Pad's a free spirit; he can't have someone bossing him around all the time."

Fiona flashed one of her most infuriating smiles. "Melody, don't you think you're just a little bit bossy yourself?"

"Yes." She turned back to her book. All emotional strength had drained out of her voice. "That's one of the reasons why I'm not the right sort of girl for him, either."

"Melody..."

"Anyway!" she chirped, flipping through a few pages. "Now that that's over, maybe I can finish what I was reading."

Fiona pressed on, "I think you and Pad would be good for each other."

"Yeah, well, you're wrong. Now lemmee do my readin'."

She heard nothing from Fiona after that. A minute or so later, she glanced behind her and saw that she had returned to her sewing. Shortly after that, she heard her get up and murmur something about bringing the jacket back to Eddie.

After a few minutes to herself, Melody's glance fell upon the ribbon Pad had thrown on her desk. She paid it no heed, resuming her reading. But her glance fell on it a second time, and this time she continued to look at it thoughtfully. At last, with a shrug and the trace of a smile turning up a corner of her mouth, she picked it up and tied it around one of her many loose locks of hair.

Without bothering to check how it looked, Melody again went back to her book.