You knew this was going to be a good chapter after reading the title.
(::) (::) COOKIES! (only for reviewers)
Disclaimer: You know what it is.
Leo
Leo had to admit, having Piper as a friend wasn't such a bad thing. For one, she was smart and could easily be distracted into doing things, such as his homework.
Okay, before you say that Leo is a terrible person for doing this, he only did it once, and only mentions it as a joke. (And teachers always say "use your resources" and stuff. Doesn't this count as doing just that!?)
Soon the week had passed by and the weekend finally came. Of course, Piper finished all her remaining homework on Friday evening to get it out of her hair. Leo planned to do his last-minute after dinner on Sunday.
Leo had almost finished his bird. All he needed to do was wire it up with a remote and hope it would fly. He had woken up early to do just this on Saturday, so that when Piper finally walked downstairs with a major bed-head two hours later, Leo was just about ready to try it out.
"Ready?" he asked Piper. They had turned over one of the couches and were crouching behind it on their knees, as if hiding from enemy fire during a war. The electronic bird lay motionless next to them, and no one else stood in the common room. They had all stayed up late to celebrate Friday. Piper was just a morning person, and about the only morning person there who got up when she woke up.
"Are you sure about this?" asked Piper nervously, head slightly ducked.
"One hundred percent," assured Leo. He held the remote in his hand and turned on the little bird next to him. He looked up with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Ready? Set?"
"Just do it already," Piper told him with a whack on the back of the head.
"Just what I wanted to hear," said Leo, and propelled his bird up. For a second nothing happened, but then it unfurled it's wings and soared upward.
Piper covered her mouth with her hands. "OH MY FREAKING FLIPPING SLIPPING SLEEPING GOD!" she yelled through her fingers. Leo could tell that she thought it would only hover a few seconds before circuiting out. But this was Leo Valdez.
He grinned and ducked behind the sofa even further, though Piper stood up on her knees to get a better view. Leo turned his bird to the side once when it reached the end of the room and made it double back. He made it perform a few laps before he was comfortable to start tricks.
One loop-the-loop, two loop-the-loops, three, four, five… Three left sideways spins, four going right…
Piper still sat there in awe. Leo could tell she wanted to try it but was too nervous to ask for permission. So he decided to spare her the asking and handed her the remote.
"Really?" she asked. "I couldn't—"
"Take it or leave it," Leo told her. Piper grinned sheepishly and took the remote.
"Now, how does this work?" she asked. Leo pointed to the controls.
"Up, down, left, right," he instructed. "And boost." Piper flew the bird around for a little while longer before asking what the boost did.
"I was waiting for you to say that," Leo admitted. He took the remote back, and continued flying laps around the room. When the bird had gathered enough momentum, Leo pressed boost.
At first, it was amazing. Leo hadn't even expected it to work. The bird shot faster and faster, and soon it was difficult just to make sure it was directed away from the walls in time. Piper stood up, and so did Leo, ducking once or twice to avoid being decapitated.
That was when Leo had an idea. "Piper," he said. "Open the door."
Piper didn't understood what he was saying but crawled over to where the door was nonetheless. She flung it open, and Leo directed the bird in this direction.
"GOOSE!" he yelled. Piper turned to ask what the heck that meant, but her eyes grew large in alarm and she shot to the ground in a push-up position just as the mechanical bird shot right where her head had been.
"And it's out!" yelled Leo, rushing over to where Piper still lay without taking his hands off the remote and his eyes off of his amazing creation. "Geddup! It's getting away!"
Piper groggily got to her feet and followed Leo outside, deciding in her head that 'goose' was Leo's weird version of 'duck'. There, they chased the metal bird around a while until a few other kids started to wake up and go outside to where all the commotion was.
"Where'd he get it?" Leo overheard one guy ask Piper.
"He built it himself," Piper had replied proudly.
So more and more attention the trio brought—Leo, Piper and the bird. A few teachers even stopped to watch. They raced up the hill with the metal bird hot behind them. But it started to stutter and droop every once in a while, and soon Leo had to apologize to their small group of spectators that the bird had run out of batteries and that it needed to be charged. One by one, their audience began to leave. Leo and Piper sat down in the shade of their tree to watch them go.
"That was fun," said Piper.
Leo grinned.
"You should have seen what my other automatons did," he said. "I once built a badger that could actually dig up to ten feet underground, though I never actually tested it that far. What do you do in your spare time?"
"Me?" Piper seemed to consider it. "I surf," she decided.
"Really?"
"With my dad."
"That must be awesome."
"It was." Piper sighed. "Now," she continued, changing the subject. "Tell me more about this badger…"
Sorry if this was short. Most of my chapters are short. Maybe in the future they'll get longer.
...Maybe.
And go to my profile and reply to my paradox poll! If someone gets the answer right they get a cookie!
-o-O-o-
And now to reply to some reviews... (Yes, I read my reviews. I don't ask for them and then say, "Thanks for the critics I didn't read!")
Lilerds13: Thank you! My inspiration actually came from never reading Life at the Wilderness School fanfictions, so I said hey, why don't I give it a try?
renxoxox: How many more chapters... *thinks* Not including this one? I have no clue. (Actually, that's a lie. I do know. MUAHAHAHAHA!)
elliefs: I do. So now you must review..
redsneakers13: I say that in about two years from now, 1D is going to end up changing their reputations like the one Justin Bieber has now, split up, and everyone is going to forget about them except for one who somehow manages to sneak himself into every sounds-cool-the-first-time-but-then-just-grows-obn oxious song that exists at the time. Oh, and thanks!
CrazyChick: Thank you! The first time I wrote this Leo wasn't that funny, just spoke out every few chapters, but then I realized that I NEEDED MORE LEO! And seeing that my personal writing flaw is keeping everyone in character, this really means a lot, because I'm starting to overcome that flaw and am on my way to becoming the ultimate author-ruler of the world! MUAHAHAHAHA! (No, but seriously, thanks.)