"Okay," Vanellope said, cracking her knuckles. "Time to get to work on…"
She craned her neck up, looking at the foot-high stack of documents atop her desk.
"…this," she grumbled.
To reach the top of the pile, Vanellope had to stand on top of her chair on tiptoe. She blindly grabbed a handful of paper and tossed it down to her workspace.
"All right," she said as she hopped into a sitting position, shifting around to get herself comfy. She picked up the first document in front of her, a paperclipped bundle about fifteen pages thick. "I can do this."
She picked up a pen and guided the tip under each word, mouthing out the syllables. On her fifth word, she stopped.
"Hey, Sourpuss, where'dja run off to? You in here?"
Sour Bill shuffled through the open doorway, a pink feather duster in hand. "Yes, Miss President?"
She shook her head at him, grinning. "I've told you a hundred times to cut it out with formal junk," she said. "Vanellope is fine. Really."
"My apologies, Miss…Vanellope."
"Hey, I got a question for ya," she said, returning her attention to the task at hand. "What does"—she tipped her head down to the document—"R-E-Q-U-S-I-T-S—wait, hang on." She scrunched her nose. "Let me start over."
She grabbed her pen again, running the nib under each letter. "What does R-E-Q-U-I-S-I-T-I-O-N spell?"
"'Requisition,' Miss."
"What's that mean?"
Though he'd never voice it out loud, Sour Bill could tell he was going to be there awhile. He left his feather duster propped in the doorway and crossed the room to have a seat.
Vanellope's office décor was fashioned after vanilla orchids—simple, yet somehow elegant, pale-yellow blooms. It wasn't exactly candy, but then again, Vanellope never was very keen about following the norm.
Bill seated himself in a cushy yellow chair embroidered with the flower of choice. "'Requisition' is a word they use a lot in the Sugar Rush paperwork," he began to explain. "You'll see it when citizens are requesting—uh, wanting—something. About half the time, it's repairs."
Vanellope nodded as he spoke, trying her best to absorb the new information. "Requisition. They want something. Requisition. Got it."
She went back to reading, her eyes squinted in concentration. She lasted about fifteen more seconds before she had to stop again.
"Ugggh," she groaned. "Okay, Sour Bill, I got another one."
"Yes, Vanellope?"
"What does"—she spelled out the complicated word—"spell?"
Sour Bill smiled to himself. He couldn't fault her for trying. "'Dilapidated,'" he said. "It's a fancy word for 'old.'"
"Really?" Vanellope said, scoffing. "Requisition, dilapidated, why don't they just write what they're actually trying to say?"
"I don't know."
She sighed. "All right…here I go again." She resumed her reading, squinting her eyes in concentration.
Two pairs of footsteps could be heard trotting up to the open doorway. Two Oreo guards came into view.
"Miss President?" the one on the left called.
"The one and only," Vanellope replied, inwardly relieved at having a distraction from the paperwork. She lay down her pen. "C'mon in, so we don't hafta shout at each other."
The Oreo guards walked in, lowering their spear points to the floor. "Swizzle Malarkey is in the main chamber, Miss President," the left Oreo said. "He wishes to speak with you."
"What, did he crash his kart into a bajillion pieces again?" Vanellope giggled.
"Actually, yes," the right Oreo said.
Her mouth fell open. "You're kiddin me! This'll be the second time, just this week!" She pushed herself away from the desk, hopping out of her office chair. "All right, I'll go talk to him. See what he got himself into this time." With a smile and a wave she gave the guards her thanks, and with that, they departed.
She glanced at the clock. Seven-something PM. "I hope Beard Papa's not asleep already…we'll hafta fire up the Kart Bakery, I guess."
"Let me tend to it, Miss—Vanellope," Sour Bill said, sliding out of his seat, too. "At the very least, those top four documents have to be amended and either approved or denied by tomorrow morning."
"Can't you do the paperwork and me go to the kart bakery with Swizz?" she pleaded, sticking her lower lip out.
"I would if I could," Sour Bill said, "but only you can officiate those documents."
"But I can't read em without you here, I don't know half the words they say!"
This wasn't the first time a dilemma like this had happened, where Vanellope was needed in two places at once, but Sour Bill could usually take care of the other task at hand. But they'd never encountered an ordeal like this one. Bill put a hand under his chin in thought. "Well, I suppose you could go with Swizzle to the Kart Bakery now, and I could wait here for you."
"Yeah, but the last time this happened, Swizz took forever designing his kart," Vanellope said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "He kept failing the mini-games, and when he finally passed em he always found something wrong. We scrapped two karts before he was happy.
Who knows how long he'll take tonight…and then I've gotta come back and do that." She cocked her head at the tower of paperwork on top of her desk. As if anticipating an all-nighter, she yawned. "And I'm already getting kinda sleepy, too." She tried to rub the tiredness from her eyes with her fists. "Being President is a lotta hard work, huh?" she grinned at the green candy.
This seemed to illuminate something within Sour Bill's mind.
"I have a suggestion for you…but I don't think you're going to like it."
She had already started bounding for the door, but at Sour Bill's voice, she stopped midway. "Kay," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Lemme hear it."
"There is someone who knows all about this paperwork…and since you've got so much of it that has to be done by tomorrow morning, he may be persuaded to help you…"
Vanellope's normally bright eyes darkened.
"Oh, no. No way, crème brûlée." She waved her arms out in front of her, as if warding off bad spirits. "I'd never ask that guy for a favor in a million-trillion years. Like he'd do it, anyway."
She started walking for the door again. "I'll be back as soon as I can. We'll get it all done. Promise."
Sour Bill nodded, not bothering to hide the worry from his face.
{*}
A tiny hand jostled her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Miss President, but I'm going to have to wake you."
Vanellope sat up with a start, wiping a line of spit from her chin with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry," Sour Bill repeated. "I let you sleep for 20 more minutes. But you really must finish this paperwork, lest the citizens be in an uproar. We can't put it off any longer."
"Right, rightrightright," she said, sleep still coating her voice. She propped her head up in the hand not holding her pen. "Mmkay. Twizzler bridge to cross the part of the chocolate milk river that goes through…where, again?" Bleary-eyed, she looked down at the first document,
which she and Sour Bill had read less than half of. After suffering through the first page with her limited reading skills, she decided it would be better to have Sour Bill read it aloud to her. He sat on her desk, over to her left.
He scanned the document for the answer she was needing. "Um…it doesn't exactly say…maybe it's on one of the next pages. Go ahead and turn the page."
But Vanellope made no move to turn any page.
"Vanellope?"
As a response, she let out a soft snore through her nostrils.
"Poor thing," Sour Bill muttered. He tapped her on the shoulder again.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking a few times. "Ah, geez, I'm sorry, Sour Bill. I guess it's a little past my bedtime." She smacked her lips together. "Let's see, where were we? Oh, yeah. The Nerds Rope bridge."
"The Twizzler bridge," Sour Bill gently corrected.
"Same thing," she giggled. "And you said what? Turn the page, right?" Without waiting for a response, she turned the document over to the next page.
"Well, at least this page has a picture on it," Vanellope sighed, looking at the diagram for the bridge. "Okay, get to reading, Sourpuss. I promise to stay awake this time."
But it was no use. The material Sour Bill was reading was dryer than Nesquick-sand. She actually had to pinch herself to keep herself awake.
"Ow."
A few seconds later: "Ow."
And not long after that: "Ow."
Sour Bill looked up from the paper and shook his head disapprovingly at her. "Miss—Vanellope. I'm afraid at the rate we're going, you'll be in no condition to race tomorrow."
"I know," she groaned. "I'm gonna suck big-time eggs, I can already tell." She yawned. "I hope nobody in the Player's World notices the bags under my eyes."
Sour Bill took a tentative breath. "We've got a long night ahead of us. After we read over this document, we've still got to make amendments to it. You've got to really think about whether or not you want to approve it, and what you would change to make it to your liking."
"Sour Bill, I don't know any of this stuff," she said, rubbing fitfully at her eyes. "I mean, I kinda do, but not this technical junk." She rested the side of her head on the table. "Just between you and me, being President is pretty hard work."
"I know it is," Sour Bill said, truly sympathetic for the child, but his monotone voice didn't exactly convey it in the way he'd hoped it might.
"But," Sour Bill began, "since it's so late an hour…and you do have to race tomorrow morning…why don't we let…someone…help you with this? Loath though I am to admit it, he truly does know what he's doing when it comes to this."
Vanellope raised her head from the desk, scowling. "If you think I'm asking that jerkwad for help, you've—you're wrong." She was too tired to think of a fitting response. That would have to do. "I can do this. We can do this. We got this."
So they returned to their work, Vanellope paying attention well, until they were half-through with reading the document and the clock struck one AM.
"One?" Vanellope said in disbelief. "This is the latest I've ever stayed up. I'm ready for some shuteye, big time."
"Forgive me for being too forward," Sour Bill said, "but at the rate we're going, we'll never get these done in time. There's just too much of it."
"Surely the citizens will understand, won't they? We worked hard, they can wait one more day, right?"
"Well," Sour Bill said, wringing his jellybean hands together. "We've sort of…put these documents off for four weeks now."
Vanellope blanched. "Four weeks! I didn't know I'd put em off that long!" She clenched her fists together. "Okay, so they really do have to be done by tomorrow, or I'll have a riot on my hands."
"It's…it's possible, Miss. You've promised them to have them done no later than tomorrow—well, technically today."
Vanellope stared at the stack of papers in front of her. She wanted to cry. Any other girl her age facing this level of stress and responsibility would have. But she wasn't about to bawl at a time like this. She needed to get to work.
"Forgive me for what I'm about to say," Sour Bill said, "but I think we're going to need Turbo's help if we're going to get this done in seven hours."
"No!" she yelled, slapping a tiny hand on the desk. "I won't do it! I—"
Again, her line of vision trailed to the stack of papers, then over to the clock on the wall. She'd have to be a time-traveler to get this all done by herself.
"I can take them to his cell," Sour Bill offered. "He wouldn't have to come here. You wouldn't have to see him. I'll look over his work myself and make sure he does it right."
"Even if I did say yes," Vanellope said, "there's no way that—that—I can't even think of a good insult right now would do it. He'd rather be locked up in solitary than help me, I'm sure he would."
"Well, then…offer him a…small reward."
Vanellope laughed. It was one of those crazy laughs one adopts when one is extremely sleep-deprived.
"Sour Bill, you've gone off the deep end, for real this time." For the umpteenth time, she yawned. "I'd never reward him. Over my glitched body."
"It wouldn't have to be anything large," Bill said. "He's so desperate in there I'm sure he'd take anything."
Though she'd never say it out loud, Vanellope was thinking about it now. She'd sure like to go to sleep right about now…
"Wait," she said. "So if we're gonna let him do it, then why couldn't you just do it for me?" Vanellope said. "You know, me sign em after you're through. Nobody has to know that it wasn't actually me, right?"
That point had come up earlier, but he'd been able to explain it away with the simple, yet truthful, fact that he wasn't allowed to do it. Now he'd have to explain in more honest detail.
"I'm no good at this paperwork, either," he admitted. "and you'll hate me for saying this, so just get ready for it—but nobody knows Sugar Rush better than Turbo. He'll be able to read these papers and know exactly what needs to go where, who needs what, how to reference the current supply catalogue, how to balance our yearly budget, and so on. He, uh…did it for quite a long time, Miss."
Vanellope's mouth was nothing but a line scarring her small face. "And you say he won't do it without a reward, huh?"
"Don't worry," Bill said. "I've got something in mind." He told her his idea. She laughed at it, saying it would never work, but he insisted it would.
"Well, if he can really be bought that easily," Vanellope said, "why the heck not? It's late, I'm tired, and I'd much rather that dweeb put himself to good use than me tucker myself out. Promise you'll look over his work, though, okay?"
"Of course."
"And make sure he knows we're ordering him to do this, and he is totally not doing me a favor."
"Naturally."
"And also tell him I hate him."
"I can do that."
"Then I'll leave ya to it, Sourpuss," she said, rolling her chair away from the desk and sliding out of it. "I've gotta hurry up and get some shuteye."
{*}
Sour Bill didn't dare wake up Wynchel or Duncan at this late of an hour. True, they were cops, and should be expecting a few late-night calls, but that didn't mean they'd take kindly to them. Instead, Bill opted to take one of the Oreo guards from the courtyard as his escort. It was partly to ensure Turbo didn't run out of the cell door and never look back, but it was more because he wasn't tall enough to reach the hook the key to the cell was hanging on, or any of the light switches. The Oreos weren't much taller than him, but at least they had a spear they could use for an extra-long arm.
To unlock the cell door, Sour Bill had to stand on the Oreo guard's back, which was awkward for both parties, but it got the job done. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and slid a medium-sized box inside along with him.
Turbo was sleeping soundly on his side, facing the doorway. Sour Bill shuffled up to him and gave him a few hard taps on the shoulder.
"Wake up, sir—Turbo." Good thing Vanellope wasn't around to hear him say that.
"Five more minuteth, Thour Bill," he mumbled, his eyes still closed.
More harsh taps on Turbo's shoulder.
"Wake up."
Turbo rolled onto his back, shielding his eyes from the light. "I'm getting my beauty retht—not that I need it." He hoo-hooed sleepily.
Sour Bill rolled his eyes. He pinched Turbo's cheek and pulled. Hard.
Before Bill had a chance to let go of Turbo's cheek, the racer shot up into a sitting position, scowling. The green candy tumbled gracelessly into his lap.
"What'th the big deal, Thour Bill?" he growled. "I—"
Once the confusion of being ripped from sleep left him, Turbo looked around at his surroundings. He groaned.
"Y'know, for a split second, there," he said, making a conscious effort to bite back the lisp that had reared its head, "I thought I was back in my old bedroom." He sighed, and Sour Bill thought he could detect a note of sadness.
"I'm here on official business," Sour Bill explained, hopping out of Turbo's lap.
"Ah, great," Turbo grimaced. "What now?"
Sour Bill briefly explained to Turbo about Vanellope's falling behind with the paperwork, and how it'd come to the point where it could wait no longer. The more Sour Bill talked, the more smug Turbo's grin grew.
"So you need my help, huh?" he said. "That's very interesting. Too bad I've got more important things to do." He turned his back to Sour Bill, snuggling into the fetal position on his bunk. "It was nice chatting with ya. G'night."
"I thought you'd say that," Sour Bill said, "which is why I've brought a bribe."
That piqued Turbo's interest. He rolled back over and sat up. "Is that what's in that box, there?"
"Mostly. Some of it's paperwork, but the rest is…"
But Bill stopped mid-sentence. Turbo scrambled past him, undoing the box flaps with the fervor of—well, honestly, it looked like he was King Candy on his birthday. (Did King Candy and Turbo have the same birthday? Sour Bill sort of wanted to ask.)
"Hey, you brought some good junk!" he said, unable to hide his excitement. "I know it's all from the lost-and-found," he said, giving Bill a sly look, "but at this point in my life, eh-hoo, I really don't care."
He pawed eagerly through the box, slapping the stack of papers to the floor without a second glance. "Legos!—ooh, Jenga, haven't played that in a long time—Pretty Pretty Princess I could probably do without, but—hey, I remember these!" He shook the Magic 8 Ball in his hand like a madman. "Will I ever get out of this hell-hole? Will I, huh?" He turned the ball over, letting the bobber float to the top.
"Check it out, Sour Bill, it says, 'It is decidedly so.'" He grinned triumphantly.
"Wonderful," Sour Bill said.
Turbo sifted through the rest of the goodies, about half of it being board games (and a couple puzzles, Sour Bill saw).
"Hmm," Turbo said. "This is a pretty good bribe…except for one thing."
"And what is that?" Sour Bill asked carefully.
"As you know, I actually do get a visitor down here in this hole, and pretty regularly, too," the racer said. "These board games would actually come in handy. Except for one thing—my hands are always cuffed behind my back when they let him in." He raised his eyebrows at the green candy. "You followin me, kemosabe?"
"You want me to talk to Wynchel and Duncan?" Sour Bill said.
"I want you to do more than talk."
"I don't think they'll agree to do that, given your…felonious status."
"Well, then, have your"—he grimaced—"princess overrule em. Easy-peasy."
"President," Bill corrected.
"Ugh, whatever."
Sour Bill thought. He hadn't exactly mentioned that part to Vanellope, but he didn't really see any harm in it, so long as Fix-it Felix was fine being left vulnerable to Turbo's murderous hands.
"I suppose President Vanellope would agree to that," he said.
"Great! Now for this," he said, picking up the stack of papers. He riffled through them as he sat in one of the peppermint chairs he was forbidden to sit in. Sour Bill frowned at him for that, but didn't say anything. He didn't want to risk Turbo going back on his decision.
"Ah, memories," Turbo hummed. He held his palm out, eyes glued to the paper. "Pen, please."
Sour Bill dug through the box until he found one. He handed it to the other man. "Just like old times," he droned. "You ordering me around."
"Innit, though?" Turbo smiled, almost warmly.
{*}
"Twizzler bridge?" Turbo said, throwing up a hand. "Can they not just walk around? It'd take them ten whole seconds to walk around that lake." He shook his head. "Idiots. Definitely a"—he wrote two huge letters taking up the entirety of the page—"no on that one." He flipped to the back page, and signed his signature: King Candy, he wrote in loopy script, complete with a little crown for the dot of the i.
"Don't sign it, you moron!" Sour Bill said.
Turbo opened his mouth to argue, but after a half-second of thought, he shut it. "Oh, yeah." He laughed. "Whoops."
He tossed the paper to his feet. "Next!"
"More funding for the Bubblegum Bayou fire department…'kay…" Papers flipping. "It's in the budget, why not." He wrote a few notes, but this time, he didn't sign it at the end. "Next!"
"Beard Papa wants a raise." He looked at Sour Bill. "Does he deserve a raise?"
"He has been having to work harder, as of late."
"Hmm…" He flipped back to the budget report. He held his hand out. "Got a calculator?"
Luckily, Sour Bill had thought to bring one. He put it in the racer's hand. Turbo typed some numbers in, scribbled a few things on the page, typed more numbers in.
"Fifteen percent is the best we can do for this year."
"I'm sure he'll be happy with that, sir—Turbo."
Turbo smirked. He loved being called "sir," Sour Bill could tell.
"Great. Next!"
Turbo zipped through the four documents that were due to be finished within the next few hours. Sour Bill looked over his work, nodding as he did so. Though he didn't want to admit it, Turbo had done a more than exceptional job, with detailed amendment notes, counteroffers, and even a brief yet courteous rejection statement where necessary.
"I think you've earned your box of knickknacks," Sour Bill said.
"Don't forget what I said about the handcuffs, though," Turbo said, hopping off the chair to dig into his new-old goodies. "Talk to whoever you gotta talk to. Seriously. I'm gonna whip Felix's ass at Jenga."
"Fine, fine," Sour Bill said, picking up the papers. "Had I known you'd be done this quickly, I'd have brought the rest of the stack."
"There's more?" Turbo said, brow furrowing. "She's really letting her work stack up, huh?"
"She's only eight."
"Exactly," Turbo deadpanned. "Whose bright idea was it to let an eight-year-old run this place, anyway? I give it two years, tops, before Sugar Rush is overrun with anarchy. And you'll be begging me to come back and restore order." He gave Sour Bill a smug smile.
"I see prison hasn't made you any less full of yourself," Bill said, shaking his head. "Oh, and that reminds me. President Vanellope says to tell you she hates you."
Turbo smiled brightly, tilting his head. "Aww. Well, in that case, can you give her something for me?" He stuck his middle finger up on either hand.
Sour Bill shook his head, exiting the cell. He'd say that some people never change, but he could actually notice a subtle difference in Turbo. He was still arrogant, rude, childish, et cetera, but…he was holding his temper better.
Hopefully Fix-it Felix would rub off on him some more.
{*}
Felix gripped the wooden block between his thumb and forefinger. He bit his lower lip in concentration. Handyman that he was, he knew if he moved this one, it would make the whole foundation even more unstable, but—
He felt a hand tickling at his ribcage. He tried to giggle without moving any part of his body whatsoever, which is definitely easier said than done.
With his free hand, he slapped blindly at the offending figure over to his left.
"Stop, stop," he muttered, still trying his best to concentrate, but he was smiling anyway. "You're cheating."
"Am not," Turbo said, but Felix felt the hand leave his ribcage. He took this small window of opportunity to ever-so-gently slide the wooden block from the structure. It wobbled dangerously for one, two seconds, but it stood strong.
Felix smiled proudly. "There. Your turn."
"Watch how the master does it," Turbo said. He put his finger on a block at the very bottom. His hands were free of their cuffs, thankfully, but his ankles were still shackled. Felix supposed he understood that part, though.
"I wouldn't move that one," Felix warned.
"Shh, I got this."
Turbo pulled the block away from the tower, smiling victoriously. Not a half-second afterward, the tower collapsed into a clattering heap of wood.
Felix had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at Turbo's dejected expression.
"You know what that means, don't you?" Felix said, grinning.
"Don't say it." Turbo covered his helmet's ear-holes.
Felix laughed through his nostrils. "I win."
"Awright, so you're good at one game," Turbo said sourly, but he was grinning all the same. He scooped up the Jenga pieces and threw them in their tub. "Let's play somethin else. I'll even let you pick, cause I'm so nice."
Felix ran his eyes over the stack of games against the cell wall.
"Most of these are a little…after my time," he admitted. The Nicelanders had board games, their favorite being Monopoly, but they definitely didn't have any of the ones he was looking at. They were a little too fun for their tastes.
He picked a box at random, sliding it from the middle of the stack. He sat it between him and Turbo.
"Good choice, Mistah Fix-it," Turbo said, taking the lid off the Operation box. "This is Taffyta's favorite game, so I've played this a lot." He flashed the handyman a devilish grin.
Felix thought it was sweet that Turbo (well—King Candy, if you wanted to get technical about it) used to take time about to play games with the Sugar Rush kids. But he didn't dare say that out loud. He didn't figure Turbo would fancy being called "sweet."
"See, ya take these little tweezer things, and…"
Maybe Felix should let Turbo win this one.
Author's Note: Another long chapter. I for real don't think they're all gonna be this long...I'll just have to see where it goes, I guess. And there wasn't any romance in this one...? Dang. I had planned for there to be, but it felt out of place, so I erased it (of course I did, I erase everything five hundred times before I'm happy with it). Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it! I hope it wasn't too lame, haha.