Lisa was on a mission, her bright eyes staying focused on the task ahead of her as she trudged through the snow. She was heading over to Milhouse's place and no one was going to stop her from doing so. Once again, school had been cancelled for the day; it had snowed again overnight, leaving another three inches on the ground and making the streets treacherous. But Lisa did not care, she had her sights only on one thing and that was her brother.
She had talked to her mother earlier that morning about the talk she had with Bart in the tree house. Marge had heard the last part of their conversation when Lisa yelled at Bart for calling her a whore, Marge said that Lisa handled the problem well and that she wished Bart would have listened to her. Both of them admitted that Bart needed to come home, Marge was thinking about calling the police to get him to come back, but Lisa felt that she could try again and this time she would not give up. If Bart had to be dragged home then that was what she would do, she was not going to walk away from anything this time.
She finally reached the Van Houten house and rang the doorbell waiting with anticipation for someone to answer, she wanted to get this over with and hopefully get Bart to listen. It wasn't long before she heard someone make their way to the door and a few seconds later, Mrs. Van Houten appeared. She instantly gave Lisa a smile, happy to see someone else over to be with Milhouse.
"Hello Lisa," she said warmly.
"Hello Mrs. Van Houten, is Bart here?" asked Lisa in a calm tone trying her hardest not to sound like she was on a mission.
"Oh you just missed him, he and Milhouse decided to go play somewhere else," said Mrs. Van Houten.
"Do you know where that might be?" asked Lisa.
"I'm not sure, but I heard Bart say something about Mr. Burns' hedge," said Mrs. Van Houten.
Lisa looked back at Mrs. Van Houten with a confused face, it was a strange thing for anyone to hear and after thinking about it for a moment she soon realized what Mrs. Van Houten probably meant. Bart was playing tricks on Mr. Burns again.
"I better get going," said Lisa worriedly and without saying goodbye to Mrs. Van Houten, she ran as fast as she could to find Bart. All she hoped for was that Bart was not doing anything drastic and that he would not get into any trouble.
Lisa soon reached the outside of Mr. Burns' manor; she looked on the outside for any signs of Bart or Milhouse. She didn't see them at first, until Milhouse appeared behind a shrubbery.
"Lisa?" he said nervously.
Lisa made her way over, stopping in front of Milhouse and grabbing him by the collar. "Where's Bart?" she asked angrily.
"He's in Mr. Burns' property, he told me to stay here until he was done with whatever he was doing," said Milhouse nervously. He had dealt with Lisa's wrath many times and he knew he had to be honest with her at the moment.
"Do you know why he is in there?" asked Lisa.
"Well if you see for yourself…" Milhouse pointed to a spot where he could watch without being seen.
Lisa looked through and let out a gasp of what she saw. Bart was standing in front of the mansion, rocks in his hand and he was throwing them at Mr. Burn's windows. So far she could see three of them shattered and before she could turn her head back to Milhouse, another window broke, leaving a large hole in the center.
"How do I get in?" asked Lisa as she dug around near her for an opening to the property.
"Right here," said Milhouse as he revealed a small gap between two hedges.
"Thanks," said Lisa as she gave Milhouse a pat on the shoulder.
"Be careful Lisa, I don't know where Mr. Burns is at the moment," said Milhouse nervously.
"I'll try to, whistle if you see anything suspicious," said Lisa before disappearing between the hedge and reappearing on the other side.
Lisa made her way toward Bart as quickly as she could through the snow, avoiding all the statues and a few bushes here and there. As she got closer, she could hear Bart yelling as he threw the rocks at the window and she wondered how much longer she could talk to him before Mr. Burns showed himself.
"BART!" Lisa yelled at him trying to get him to stop.
Bart turned his head toward her but he only scowled back before throwing another rock as hard as he could. The rock struck a window, this time shattering it until there was nothing but a square hole in the wall.
"It came from in here Sir," Lisa heard the familiar voice of Waylon Smithers making his way to the window.
"Bart stop!" Lisa cried knowing that he was now finally caught.
Again Bart ignored her and as soon as Smithers showed his face to the window, Bart threw a rock straight at his head, nailing the poor assistant right in the temple. Smithers let out a yelp of pain before he backed away to regain his composure and nurse his sore head. Mr. Burns stood by him wondering if his assistant was alright and making sure he was out of Bart's range.
"You think you are far enough away but I can nail you," Lisa heard Bart say as he picked up a much larger rock. Now that she was closer she could hear that his cold had not subsided and he was sounding a bit sicker.
Lisa could not take it any more and before Bart could even do a backhand, Lisa ran forward and pummeled him to the ground. Bart gasped with surprise and quickly tried to escape her grasp.
"Get your damn hands off me!" Bart cried.
"No not until you listen to me, do you know how dangerous this is?" asked Lisa knowing how Mr. Burns would most likely release the hounds at any given moment.
"It won't be if you let go of me," said Bart who tried to struggle free but quickly began to let out a heavy cough.
"Bart you are not well, you need to come home and rest, I told you last night that revenge is not the answer," Lisa said sternly while she tried to hold Bart down.
"I will when I am good and ready," said Bart who then kicked Lisa as hard as he could in the stomach. He didn't realize his own strength though as Lisa let out a cry of pain and fell backward into the snow, clutching her stomach.
"Serves you right," said Bart as he ignored her and turned to Mr. Burns' front door. He had heard the sound of the doors opening and was waiting for Mr. Burns to appear and get the surprise of his life.
A second later, the front door opened and Bart let out a laugh of happiness as a bucket he had hung just above the door tipped over and spilled all its contents right on Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns let out a yowl of anger as a whole gallon of glue mixed with honey fell on top of him.
"Smithers it's the bucket brigade, they are after me again!" Mr. Burns yelled.
It wasn't long before he tried to move forward but instead slipped on a large piece of ice in front of the stairwell caused by Bart who had sprayed the whole stairs with water from the nearby water hose. Unable to find his footing, Mr. Burns fell face forward down the stairs straight into a pile of feathers.
"Are you alright sir?" Bart could hear Smithers say as he appeared at the door with a small bag of ice on his head.
"I don't know, which way is up?" asked Mr. Burns.
Smithers gasped when he finally saw his boss lying in the snow covered in feathers, glue, and honey. He knew he had to help him and ran forward only to slip on the ice as well before crashing down the stairs and running straight into Mr. Burns.
Bart watched as Smithers tried to get up while still stuck to Mr. Burns, he was finally able to pry himself off before helping Mr. Burns up. Bart then began to laugh at their misfortune.
"What is this meaning of this you hooligan?!" Mr. Burns asked as he tried to get the feathers off his clothes.
"That's for ruining our family's lives," said Bart before turning around to find his way back out. Lisa slowly got up, even though Bart was not feeling well, he was still strong enough to bring her down.
"He didn't mean it sir, he's just not feeling well and when that happens you don't think clearly," said Lisa through gritted teeth.
Bart heard what Lisa said, and turned around giving his sister another one of his angry glares. "I am thinking clearly, that bastard deserved what I just did to him."
Lisa let out a sigh, Bart was still angry and he was still out for revenge. Lisa always knew that revenge was not the answer, especially in Buddhist tradition and she knew she had to find a way to calm Bart down from the ideas she read.
"Will it bring Dad back?" asked Lisa in a soft voice.
Bart was about to respond back before he realized what Lisa just said, he was doing it out of revenge but what good would it do when his father was no longer with them. Smithers watched as Bart stared down at the snow suddenly feeling a bit silly, while Mr. Burns gave a satisfied grin underneath all the feathers, glue and honey.
"He's just so heartless, he doesn't even care that he ruined so many people's lives," said Bart sadly.
"Is there any sense in pulling pranks on him like that then, you know he still won't care," said Lisa who then moved forward and put her hand on his shoulder as she tried to look him in the eyes.
"It makes me feel better though," Bart whimpered.
Lisa gave her brother a concerned frown before turning back to Smithers and Mr. Burns, hoping that they would somehow let Bart off easily. Smithers looked at Mr. Burns, he seemed to have the same thoughts Lisa had, he hated how Mr. Burns would show no compassion as he sent checks out to the doctors for his employees. He would only say that they were being a thorn in his side and that the mistake he made with the plant was really the employee's faults.
Smithers knew better though, he remembered when Mr. Burns had gone with the lowest mechanic to fix the problem when the generator started having complications. He did hear a complaint from one of the workers afterward; he believed it had been Carl Carlson, that the generator was still not up to code. Smithers tried to relay this to Mr. Burns but the old man only dismissed it saying that the generator did that when it was trying to rework itself again. Mr. Burns was proved wrong though a week later when it finally gave out and caused the worst disaster in the plants history.
Mr. Burns stared at the children, he didn't know who they were, the boy looked familiar but of course his memory was always shot when he was around any one, save for Smithers. He knew he paid their mother a lot of money for whatever happened to their father and he was not happy about it. Their father should have known better than to get near the generator when it was about to explode and he tried telling the courts that but of course they said it was still his fault for not bringing it up to code and that knowing the time of an explosion was not something workers knew about. What the child had just done made him even angrier, he had not been invited onto his property and the pranks he had pulled would have seriously injured him, there was no way he was going to let these children get off easily, even if the boy now knew that revenge was wrong.
"Sir?" He heard Smithers say after a very long pause.
"Release the hounds!" he said angrily.
"But Sir, they are only children," said Smithers nervously.
"Do as I say or I will release them at you!" Mr. Burns said with the iciest and most horrible stare that Smithers had ever seen.
If Smithers wasn't so devoted to Mr. Burns, he would have gladly thrown in the towel right then and there. But Smithers was too much of a coward to fight back, he only gave Lisa and Bart a look of concern, his only way of showing that he was doing his job.
"You kids better run," he said nervously as he took out a remote controlled button. It wasn't long before both Bart and Lisa heard the sounds of angry dogs making their way toward them.
Lisa let out a cry of alarm and began to run as fast as she could through the snow hoping that Bart was behind her. She was too afraid to look back, all she could hear was the sound of barking dogs getting closer while Milhouse's voice called to her as he told her to hurry.
She soon made it through the hedge, breathing heavily while Milhouse continued to watch through it as if he was waiting for Bart to make an appearance. Lisa was waiting to hear his voice but instead only heard dogs barking in the distance.
"Where is he?" Lisa asked as she gulped in more air.
"He went another way," said Milhouse with a worried voice.
"What!" Lisa cried out as she peeked through the hedges as well.
She could see a dog disappear behind a ridge near the mansion, and it made her wonder why Bart would even decide to go a different way. Was he still too angry to come home with her?
"I saw him taunting the dogs as they reached you guys, he made them go after him instead of you," said Milhouse.
Lisa stared back at Milhouse; her eyes showed fear for her only brother who was now risking his life to help his own sister from being mauled. But would Bart be fast enough to get away from the dogs in time, especially if his cold was keeping him at bay.
"Come on, we need to find out if he got away from them fast enough," said Lisa as she pried her way through the bushes again.
Lisa lead Milhouse though the property again, keeping to the side of the wall so that Mr. Burns would not see her right away. As they got closer to where they had last seen the dogs run over the ridge, they could hear them barking louder and knew that they were close.
"What if he is being mauled?" asked Milhouse shakily.
Lisa turned to Milhouse with an angry glare, she did not want to think about that, and she did not want to see that when her brother was finally in sight.
"He has to be okay, he's tougher than that, he won't let anything hurt him," said Lisa as she tried to stay optimistic while moving closer to her goal.
It wasn't long before she finally saw Bart; he was standing alone while the dogs were nearby watching him but not going anywhere nearer to him. She could see that he looked scared and she wondered why the dogs were not going any closer.
"I wonder if there is an invisible fence right there," she said to Milhouse.
"I'll check it out, it could be something else too," said Milhouse who then climbed up onto the wall to see if there was something that he and Lisa could not see from where they were.
"See anything?" Lisa asked once Milhouse was no longer having trouble keeping balance on top of the wall.
"It looks like he is on a frozen lake," said Milhouse with a sense of nervousness in his voice.
Lisa gulped worriedly, it hadn't been that cold out yet, the ice was probably very thin, one minor slipup could cause Bart to go under. Lisa wanted to run and help him off, but knew that if she even tried to show herself, the dogs would go after her, luckily she was upwind already so they dogs had not scented her.
Bart had seen Lisa and Milhouse make their way toward him, he knew that they knew he was in trouble and there was no way they could help him. Not with so many vicious dogs surrounding him. Bart had already felt the ice crack underneath him and now he was too afraid to move, he had no idea how to get off and if anyone would help him get rid of the dogs. If only the cops knew what was going on they would most likely help him.
Suddenly one of the dogs decided to be brave and moved forward, growling intensely and showing his huge canines. Bart could only stare back, fear in his eyes and wondering what was going to happen.
"Nice doggy, please don't move any closer," said Bart who now decided to take his chances and move backward. He felt the ice crack underneath him again but he knew he had to keep moving or he would be mauled.
Suddenly the dog stepped on one of the cracks that Bart had first stepped on, the ice gave way revealing what lay underneath. The dog let out a surprised yelp as its paw slipped into the icy water for just a moment. Bart quickly noticed that the dogs fearlessness turned into sudden panic as the ice began to crack around them.
"What have I done to get myself into this," Bart said to himself as he realized now that what he had been doing was foolishness.
"Milhouse what do we do?" Lisa cried, tears falling down her face.
"Do you think I could go call for help in time?" asked Milhouse.
"You can try, it's our only way for us to rescue him," said Lisa who began to rub her hands to show her nervousness.
Milhouse was about to jump over the wall and find the nearest payphone when he and Lisa heard the most horrible sound anyone would want to hear when someone was standing out on the ice. They watched as Bart tried to move out of the way as the dog that had jumped on the ice fell into the water below. Lisa could hear the dog whimper as it tried to make it back onto the ice, but its weight kept breaking it, causing a chain reaction of ice cracking around it. They watched as Bart tried to move away, but he only went a few feet before he stepped onto an unstable piece of ice and quickly disappeared into the cold, icy water below.
A/N: Now to leave you all in suspense until next week, mwhahahaha. Any way a big thank you first of all to CalculatedChaos, originally I had planned for this chapter to be more boring and to have it end in a more House-like way where Bart gets really sick and is sent to the hospital because of it. But CalculatedChaos kept saying in his reviews that he believed Bart was gonna go back and handle Mr. Burns again. And I kept thinking to myself, I wonder if I can do that. And this idea popped up so thank you very much for creating something more interesting.
Second of all thank you so much for all your support in dealing with that troll I had this past week. I really had no idea why he singled me out; I never did anything to him unless get more reviews. But what's the point of trolling like that when you just add more reviews to my story any way; it's really an odd thing to do. But what really irritated me the most was that he ruined my fun little idea in which I was going to give whoever gave me my 100th review a drawing. So now instead, because you were all so nice to me I have decided to let you all give me a suggestion for me to draw a scene from this story, it can be anything you want, just name it and I will try to do it. I probably won't get on it until the story is done so you can wait to suggest something once it's all finished, it's your choice. The drawings will be on Deviant Art, I do have one up already, it's more of a deleted scene though.
Oh and Emma P or anyone else who is wondering, I have four more chapters to go so one month more and then I will be done. It's kind of sad to think about but funny too because I put this story up on the day I went to the dentist and at the end of August I have to go in for a cleaning, so yeah I've been working on this between dental checkups. LOL.
Now that I have bored you with random information, I will let you all review while I work on my next chapter. See you soon.
