"….Pal, are you sure you can handle all of that?" the redheaded young woman couldn't help but ask as she watched the nine-year-old boy clamber out of the bus with his little arms loaded with a startling number of grocery bags.
"It's okay, I got it!" her charge piped up reassuringly. "I'm all set with….mmph, let me just…um….wait, hold on, I…I just gotta…Frankie, wait, I just…just…"
The second Mac started to stumble a little under the weight of his heavy load, Frances "Frankie" Foster couldn't help but laugh at the sight the overenthusiastically helpful little one cut. "So…you got it under control, huh? Ha! Hold on, Mac, just let me…uh…"
It didn't take her long to realize that her arms were also loaded to capacity. After thinking hard for only a moment though, she quickly realized that she wasn't as helpless as she originally thought. "Hold on just a sec!"
Moving quickly, she managed to awkwardly lean over and nab the top of one of the brown paper grocery bags with her teeth. Once she had it clasped tightly in her jaws, she jerked it out of Mac's grasp and set it safely upon the driveway, if not exactly gracefully.
"Hey!" the child yelped in protest while his face automatically reddened a little in embarrassment. "Oh c'mon, I told you I had it!"
Frankie just giggled as she gave him a playful nudge with a sneakered foot. "Right, Mac, it's totally the end of the world here. We all know I'm going to love you that much less now all because you didn't get to handle one bag of groceries too many. So…how do you feel about sleeping in the unicorn stables tonight, Mister Epic Fail?"
"Hey, I'm only trying to help." He protested her teasing as together they began making their way inside, getting yet another chuckle from his guardian.
"Really?" she laughed. "Like I didn't notice when you were fetching things for me in the supermarket. Now c'mon, it's not like another trip outside to get the last few bags isn't going to kill anybody-"
If only the "nobody can possible get harmed" rule applied to the curious spectacle they suddenly came across halfway between the front doors and the Foster's bus. Unfortunately, the moment both young woman and boy spotted the little blob of an imaginary friend sitting right there in the yard fumbling with a box of matches, it became clear that they had stumbled upon a major catastrophe just waiting to happen.
"Darn it!" Bloo cursed angrily as he managed to successfully break yet another match before lighting it. "Stupid lousy little-RATS! Jeez, what kind of rip-off is this, anyway? These things just don't wanna-oh come on! I didn't even do it very hard that time! Arrrrrgh…."
At first, all the others could do was just stare incredulously in dead silence, unable to believe their eyes.
"….Bloo?" Mac finally asked as he grimaced warily.
"Huh?" the figment turned around, looked him straight in the eye, and simply replied distractedly, "Oh, hey guys. How was-"
"Bloo…what are you doing?" Frankie groaned in exasperation, even though to be honest, she didn't exactly want to know.
Bloo just gawked at them wordlessly for a moment, glanced to his matches, back to them, then finally replied in genuine confusion, "….What is this, some type of trick question?"
"No." Mac snapped as he shook his head incredulously. "Bloo, what are you doing?"
"Seriously, what's with you two? I mean, what's it look like?" the imaginary friend interrupted testily. "See? Matches! Ant hills! I mean, this isn't rocket science, it's-"
"All right, way too much information already." Foster's resident caretaker sighed in disbelief before cutting in and demanding flatly, "Hand them over."
"What? Hey, it's not like anyone's using these anthills right now-" he immediately started raising a whiny fuss in protest.
"Nuh-uh! You're definitely going to hurt yourself if you're going to keep playing with those things. Hand them over, now." She ordered sternly yet again.
"But I-"
"Bloo…" Mac urged, desperate to keep his creation out of trouble. "Come on, just give Frankie-"
"Fine! Fine!" the visibly frustrated little figment threw up his blobby arms in resignation, followed by a sour scowl. "Whatever you say, Little Miss Fun-Kill and Fun-Kill Junior, whatever you-"
"Cut the sarcasm and give up the matches, all right." Frankie bared her teeth with an annoyed growl.
"Sheesh, just chill out a little, will ya?" Bloo grumbled. "Okay, here, take the stupid things, I didn't even want them anyway, so-"
"Look, just give them here, so…uh….gimme a second, just need to…." As she started fumbling with the several grocery bags in her grasp, it didn't take long for it to dawn upon her redhead that simply taking the box of matches was going to be a tad harder than she originally thought. However, that nasty little reality didn't alarm her half as much as the fact that none of this had escaped Bloo's notice, he slowly began to break out into an undeniably wicked grin.
"…What's wrong?" he inquired with a gleeful snicker.
"Nothing!" Frankie growled as she struggled in vain to reach out and keep from dropping half of the loaded grocery bags at the same time. "I only need to…just have to… I...I just..."
"What are you waiting for?" Bloo giggled impudently as he held up the box of matches. "Here, take them. C'mon, just take them!"
"I will!" the young woman snapped angrily. Once it unfortunately became obvious she can't handle the groceries and take the matches, she "Mac, grab the-"
"Um…Frankie?" the little boy held up his own load a little with a grunt of exertion to remind her that he was just as helpless as she was at the moment. As the redhead froze and let out a low dismayed moan, Foster's resident miscreant meanwhile nearly exploded with a burst of victorious laughter.
"Hahahaha! Looks like you're having a little bit of trouble there, huh? Heehee!" his entire little body trembled uncontrollably with mirth.
"Okay, fine, so our hands are a little full right now!" she admitted ruefully. "Look, just put the matches in one of the bags here, and-"
"Hmmm…" After staring at the matches in mock-contemplation, the blob merely smiled and replied, "No thank you!"
"Not an option!" Frankie hissed as she bent over a little. "I told you, just put them in one of the bags, and-"
"No…no I don't think I'll be doing that." Bloo chortled cheekily as the young woman promptly went scarlet in the cheeks while her frustration skyrocketed into the stratosphere.
"Bloo, c'mon!" Mac implored as he confronted his imaginary friend. "Just put down the ma-whoa!"
Before the boy could get another word out, Bloo wordlessly stuck his arms out and gave him a light shove. In a flash Mac was scrambling to both keep his balance and to still retain his anything but secure hold on the assorted groceries in his grasp, while the azure figment jigged about with merriment.
"What's the matter? C'mon, don't you want to take the matches? Haha! C'mon, it's easy! All you have to do is….oh, riiiight," he teased mercilessly, enjoying their complete inability to lay a finger on him for all that it was worth. "I forgot, you can't!"
"I'll only give you the count of three, Bloorgard!" Frankie snarled as she hastily stepped next to Mac, allowing the child to lean up and brace himself against one of her legs before he fell over in a messy heap. "And if you don't let go of those-"
"Oh, I'm soooooo scared." Bloo only continued giggling mockingly, rousing her ire to no end. "Between you two, there's not a free hand to spare! Heeheeheehee! What, are you guys gonna try and grab me with your toes? Hmm?"
"Bloo! Bloo! BLOO!" the enraged redhead began barking as soon as the door-shaped scoundrel spun around and began leisurely strolling up the front walk. "Don't you dare walk away without handing over those matches! You hear me? I promise, I'll-"
"You'll what? Not like you can do anything right now." He merely tittered cheekily.
Rather than accept defeat, the young woman nearly skewered him with a piercing glare as she hissed determinedly to herself, "Oh, really?"
"…Frankie?" Mac pried anxiously once he spotted the raging fire blazing in her emerald eyes. "What are you-"
Without any warning, suddenly she was off after her miscreant prey, who had still yet to realize that by messing with the figurative bull, one only got the horns. In less than a moment, Frankie had easily cleared the distance between them, and with a grunt, she momentarily squeezed the grocery bags tightly in her arms with all the force she could, giving her the instant she needed to bend over and make her move without letting anything tumble to the ground.
"Hey, what're-OW! OWWWW! OW! OW! Hey, what's you-AAAUUUGGGGH! " like a mother dog would grab one of her insolent pups, the young woman wordlessly nabbed the little blob by the scruff of his neck with her teeth, and actually hoisted him up off the ground, to his clear displeasure.
"AAAAAA! What are you doing? What are you doing?" Overwhelmed with fright, Bloo continued to screech at the top of his lungs in fright as he dangled in Frankie's tenacious hold. "OW! Just what the heck-OW!"
"Drop 'em!" Frankie managed to growl around a mouthful of blob. "Drop 'em!"
"AUGH! What, are you turning into a vampire or something? Let go of my-OW! OW! OW! Quit it! OW! OW!" he wailed miserably as Frankie shook him a little.
"Drop 'em! I said drop 'em!-"
"Okay, okay, okay!" Bloo frantically hurled the matched as if they were a bomb ready to go off. "See, they're gone! They're gone! Now j-just out me down! Put me down! OW! OW!"
"Oh right, like I'm just gonna leave you alone out here with those things!" Frankie again amazingly managed to utter a comprehensible sentence despite the fact that her mouth was quite full at that very moment.
"Frankie!" Mac yelped in panic as he dashed over to her side. "Frankie, what're you doing? let him go!"
"Yes! Yes! Oh, puh-LEEZE! You gotta listen to him! OW! You gotta listen to Mac! Y-you know he's smart, right? You always say so!" Bloo babbled in terror, with the words gushing form his mouth at a mile a minute. "Why don't you-OW! OW!"
"Not through with you, yet!" she just growled mercilessly through tightly clenched teeth as she began storming her way towards the house. "C'mon, Mac!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bloo screamed like a panicked prisoner being led off to the gallows. "What, are you a vampire now? A werewolf? A…c-cannibal? Why won't you let go? Why won't you let go? OW! FRANKIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"….So, what do you think of the place so far?" the gangly crimson imaginary friend warmly asked Foster's newest resident as her showed her around the house.
The other figment, a bright lime-green mouse-like little creature, glanced up at her towering tour guide, smiled meekly, then replied, "It's…it's nice, it's just…it feels like there's so many other friends living here, and…and…"
Wilt just chuckled reassuringly as together they strolled down a hallway. "Oh, it's okay! Don't worry, everyone's really nice here! Honest, you won't have a problem at all!"
"Really?" she squeaked hopefully. He flashed his trademark toothy smile.
"Oh, definitely! And if you actually have any trouble with anything, you can just talk to the caretaker, Frankie. She'll be more than happy to help you out with anything, because's she's really kind. Trust me, I should know because I'm her-"
They were suddenly interrupted by a most hideous clamor. As the mousy friend squealed in fright, Wilt jumped a little in surprise before instinctively herding her behind him. Once he felt she was out of harm's way, he snuck a glance around the next hall corner and immediately found himself staring into the foyer at a most bizarre spectacle.
"AAAAUUUUUGGGGH!" Bloo shrieked hoarsely as he dangled helplessly in the resident caretaker's hold. "Help! Help! Someone, call the police! The army! The Ghostbusters! Anybody! She's…she's eating me! She's trying to eat me! Frankie's turned into a vampire-cannibal!"
"Oh, knock it off!" Frankie just grumbled unsympathetically as she sauntered along, with Mac trotting along at her heels and imploring her frantically all the while.
"He's had enough! I really think he's had enough!" the boy yelped. "Frankie, he's probably learned his lesson!"
"I let him go, and he's gonna run right back outside and light something!" she growled. "Nuh-uh, first thing I'm gonna-"
"HELP!" Bloo wailed. "OW! Someone, help! "She's starting to chow down already! She's already starting to chow down on me! Help! Someone, please! Anybody!"
"It's your own fault! This is all your fault!" the caretaker only hissed mercilessly as together the odd little group continued towards the kitchen with the captive blob still screaming bloody murder all the while.
Once they had vanished form sight, though not at all from earshot, a very stunned Wilt dumbly glanced back to the mousy figment, who quivered a little as she tugged on his heel and squeaked, "….What was that?"
After blankly starring at her for what felt like an eternity, Wilt planted on a phony reassuring smile and promptly began leading her outside as fast as he possibly could, far away from the pandemonium. "Say, have I shown you the…um…mailbox, yet?"
The End