JMJ

Chapter Three

Bumps and Bruises in the Night

Three long narrow beds adorned the girls' bedroom all lined up each with a little color-coded rug to the right side. From the door first was the blue one with fluffy kitty slippers kicked carelessly to one side, second was the pink one with a pair of soft plush slippers neatly in the middle of the pink rug, and third was the green one with no slippers at all but a backpack was pressed against the wall. Three long oval windows cast faint light from the streetlamp just right so that it lit up the foot of each bed in diagonal fashion with the least amount of light cast upon the blue one closest to the door. The door was still open a crack like it always had been, though no longer did the hall light remain on at night.

Bubbles had long outgrown needing a light. She had actually come to be annoyed at times by the light of the streetlamps, and she was glad to be the one most sheltered. However, at the moment she could have easily been right in the front of the windows now as she was asleep, though not quite soundly, admittedly.

She was not quite awake but she was breaking free of dreams— annoying, prickly dreams with suction hold that pulled like sinking into quicksand, but she was waking. Something was not right. She could feel it raising the hair on her head. Her teeth were clenched and her body coiled as though from a sudden chilled breeze, though none of the three windows were open.

Perhaps it was that the light should have been on to see the black mass like a huge hairy spider flashed across the floor or perhaps the door should have been shut to keep it from coming in so quickly without turning the knob, but Bubbles was already tossing and turning when the sleep was at last shattered.

Bump! Went her bed.

She let out a squeal and leapt bolt upright to lean over the side of the bed. Her long yellow hair blocked most of the view.

"What?" moaned Buttercup, who had been roused by the bump herself, but was still half in comfortable dreams as she blinked groggily across their still lying exhausted sister who suddenly threw her pillow round her ears.

"What? Are you still scared of monsters under the bed?" asked Buttercup rubbing her eye.

Bubbles threw a sham at her.

"Hey," grumbled Buttercup and threw it back.

But both girls could hear something rustling under the bed. There was only one explanation, of course, and one that did not involve spooks even if it meant spooked. Bubbles leaned over the bed again with a flashlight to make sure. Buttercup hopped out of her bed to see from the other side.

"Mph, c'mon, girls, what's going on…?" whined Blossom.

"Jojo?" asked Bubbles.

He was a small primate. He always would be. He was more like the size of a Shetland sheepdog (but with greater berth) than a full chimp one would see at the zoo. Whether something he had done as Mojo Jojo had stunted his growth or he simply was short, he was huddled under the bed now shivering strangely as though he could not get himself to be as small as he wanted to be. Only the white of his cringing teeth and the whites in his reflecting blinking eyes told he was more than a lump of a haunted ball of fuzz.

"Jojo, are you okay?"

He began to whimper.

"Who didn't put him in his bed?" asked Buttercup crossing her arms.

Although the cage was never locked or Jojo would refuse to go into it, the cage was his bed, and he rarely left that nest-cell of soft plush blankets and pillows until morning. It was put into the laundry room instead of the lab, just in case, but Jojo was, as always, a creature of pristine habit, and probably would not have done anything even in his favorite room without his breakfast eggs first.

Blossom rolled over with a moan and finally sat up. "What's wrong with him, Bubbles?"

Only slowly was Bubbles able to coax him out, but as soon as he was out on the floor he jumped right onto Bubbles' bed and threw the covers over his head upsetting the stuffed animals lined up on either side of the pillow.

"Jojo!" whined Bubbles.

It was funny to think even as it was happening that as a little girl, she would have been perfectly happy sleeping every night with Jojo, but now it felt to be an uncomfortable and unsanitary idea.

"Jojo, c'mon," Bubbles said gently. "Come out from there."

Jojo peeked at Bubbles with a quivered lip. At least he wasn't under the sheet. Gently she reached out her hand to him, but he waved her away like swatting a pesky fly. He began to make noises instead in anxiety that made no sense.

"I wish I could understand animals again," sighed Bubbles.

"Jojo," said Buttercup leaning on the bed now and stroking his head. "C'mon, boy, what's wrong?"

But before he could have given an answer even if he had been capable of speech in clear English or even Mo-linguish, all three of the girls' hair stood on end from a strange whimper down the hall. They only had one pet to excuse such a noise on and he was right beneath them.

Everyone held their breath. Even Jojo went completely still as he listened.

"Is that…?" Bubbles started.

"The Professor?" asked Blossom.

Buttercup clamped her mouth shut.

Together, quietly but stealthily, the girls slipped out of the room. Jojo crept cautiously behind with head sunk deep into his shoulder, but halfway to the Professor's room he began voicing his concern with little squeaky grunts.

"Shhhhh!" the girls all told him.

"Quiet, Jojo," whispered Buttercup.

Jojo cocked his head still looking very unhappy.

The girls heard the Professor again now, clearly whimpering. It was him, but it sounded like the whimpering of a ghost in a movie. The fact that Halloween was only days away tingled up their spines. A gust of wind picked up outside to add to the haunting, and Jojo let out the most horrendous waking-up-the graveyard shriek!

The girls yelped with that single-minded jump nearly out of their skins. Bubbles almost felt faint, but Blossom was quick to open the door, and Jojo burst in with her.

It felt like the whole house was being sucked down a black hole to Bubbles as they entered the room. The window was wide open and the wind tearing at the curtains like a raven trying to escape from being chained and could go no further than that. The Professor cried out and leapt up probably more from Jojo's screech than anything else, but though Bubbles had at first only a mind for her poor father, as her sisters ran to him she watched in disbelief Jojo leaping as fast as a guard dog to the window to bite an escaping thief.

But there was no thief. There was no one, was there?

Jojo looked nearly like he would crash rabid and foaming at the mouth right through the window and out into the night. The curtains parted as he landed bodily at the sill and in an instant began screaming insanely like the monstrous caricature of an old man shouting at a trespasser. He let out a hoot of alarm like a wolf's howl to the whole pack as he threw back his head, and then screamed some more.

A vampire? A ghost? The thoughts slithered though her mind and churned in her stomach.

"Professor! Professor! Are you okay!?" gasped Blossom and Buttercup meanwhile ignoring Jojo.

"What's happening?" the Professor shivered just like he had a fever, but Bubbles only found herself suddenly at Jojo's side looking down where he was still shrieking.

If only she could understand him!

He looked at her. He hooted long and furious. He turned sharply tugging at her for a few seconds screaming as loud as ever, but he did not take time for her long before turning again to the window as though to make sure nothing escaped. It flashed through Bubbles' mind that Jojo had done a double take before leaving the Professor earlier that evening.

His canines were showing like plunging deadly daggers, his anger was more than she had ever seen in him as a simple animal. His eyes were burning flames of hatred. He often got annoyed and even kind of funky, but he never showed this kind of wrath. Never.

For a second she was more afraid of him than what was out there, and tears pierced her eyes at the thought, recalling to mind flashes of Mojo Jojo's rage at its peak. How she had laughed at it then with her sisters. She had had more than enough power to send him flying then, and had thought nothing of his tantrums, but this… it was the first time in a very long while she thought she had ever felt so weak without her childhood powers. Was he really still Mojo Jojo, was he just a wild animal— was there a difference?

She bolted back from him.

Wait?!

A shuffling flutter of light? Just false komorebi through the backyard trees from the streetlamp?

No, she was not convinced.

Before her mind had completely reeled from her nightmarish terror at watching Jojo as if being thrust into Jumanji jungles, she had come back to the reason they were all in this room. She felt sure she had seen something out of the corner of her eye before her eyeballs had fully comprehended the scene. She blinked and stared harder as the others talked behind her until suddenly Buttercup snapped, "Jojo, shut up!"

Jojo turned. At last he was silent. Had he had a tail it would have been between his legs as he looked back, but he looked more hurt than guilty. And very, very flustered as he paced about on his knuckles and whimpered and grunted.

"Is there really something out there, Bubbles?" asked the Professor hazily.

Bubbles stood up and shook her head. "I…" her voice hollow, her spine tingling in a way she could not explain; it was almost like some nightmare from childhood had suddenly reduced her to an infant, and it was more than the thought that Jojo used to be their enemy— something more unnatural than that. "—don't know, I—"

Jojo screeched again, and Bubbles jumped. He leapt at the window and screamed incessantly into the night like someone was mocking him through the bars of a cage, and Bubbles felt her heart sink in a way she did not understand.

SLAM! Went a door downstairs.

"Can't that stupid monkey just shut up!" the voice of Brick echoed muffled.

#

"I don't know if I want to go to the Halloween party anymore," whispered Bubbles to Jojo as he gave her a normal hug goodbye for school.

She hugged him tightly. He was back to his old self from whatever demon had possessed him last night.

Jojo seemed to agree as he kissed her head and began to untidy her tidy hair.

"Oh," Bubbles laughed. "C'mon, Jojo. I don't have bugs."

"Maybe he's just apologizing for last night," said Blossom kindly.

"Maybe he just doesn't want us to go today," sighed Buttercup, giving him a hug herself.

Jojo was very pleased with the attention, but Blossom did not stop for a hug herself, as she turned instead to the Professor who was just coming out now looking very groggy.

"Are you okay, Professor?" asked Blossom giving him a big hug.

"Ooof!" he said in his surprise, but he smiled and put an arm around her even if haggardly. "Whatever bug had me, I think I'm better today."

"Well, just don't overdo it, okay?" Blossom scolded.

"Oh, I'll be fine," laughed the Professor; at least he sounded like his usual self.

Bubbles beamed. It was almost as if whatever had escaped last night had been responsible for the Professor's predicament, and now that it was gone, the Professor's illness was gone too.

"I don't care what Buttercup and Blossom say," Bubbles whispered to Jojo more quietly than before, and thankfully beneath the boys' clamor, "The things that happened that seemed magical weren't just our imaginations or misunderstanding when we were the Powerpuff Girls. The world is a mysterious place."

Jojo touched her arms affectionately and seemed to heartily agree, or at least he reveled in the extra attention, which was just fine with Bubbles. Jojo whisper-panted back.

"We're still taking the bus today, regardless," Blossom told the Professor meanwhile in her professional tone.

"You're adopting the Professor too, huh?" teased Butch.

"But what got into Jojo?" asked Boomer looking at the creature now looking as happy as a puppy the way he rolled on his back playfully for Bubbles' amusement.

He wanted Bubbles to start a game of chase.

"Aww, when I get back, okay?"

He tugged on her with a funny insistent sort of face.

"Aww, Jojo." She gave him one more hug and a kiss.

"Hmm…" mused the Professor with full seriousness, and he tapped his chin; everyone knew that squinty look in his eyes when he was thinking very deeply. "We'll have to keep an eye on him, I suppose. He was very upset last night."

"Are you sure someone outside didn't say something like 'here's the house where Mo—'" Butch started.

Brick slapped his hand over his brother's mouth as though it was an afterthought. Then he let it drop to his side again in his grumpy slouch.

"It's too early in the morning for a monkey rampage, Butch."

Boomer laughed, but he was not really amused.

That was one of the strange things about Jojo that he did get irritated when people spoke about Mojo Jojo. It was as if he understood, but what he understood always seemed random. The Professor still was trying to figure out on and off how much Jojo was his former self. Either way it was once when Butch said "Mojo Jojo," that Jojo broke the television set in a fit that made the Professor ban the speaking of "Mojo Jojo" in the house forever.

"Yeah, really," muttered Buttercup.

"Well, be good at school, alright?' said the Professor.

"We promise," said the children in unison, except it was so in unison that it was difficult to tell whether Brick had made the promise or not.

The goodbyes were not quite as rehearsed, but everyone including Brick gave some form of goodbye. Even as they were headed for the bus, Bubbles was beginning to forget what she had said to Jojo about not going to the party. Things seemed so bright and cheerful now and with the Professor on the mend already, it was more of a dream than her life as a super heroine.

#

And for the next few days things were back to normal. Blossom worked on her report. Bubbles helped Kayla prepare for the party. Buttercup went to volleyball practice, Butch to football practice, and Boomer to guitar lessons where he played "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Brick… slumped around in his angst, but on the night of the party, however he did at last show an old gleam in his eye. He was even going to the party.

"What are you going as?" teased Butch in a sort uncreative, but still legit ghoul getup.

He lifted the silently shrieking mask just to show Brick his teasing grin.

Brick sneered like a smear of greasy oil. "Can't you tell, Butch? I'm going as HIM."

The jollity of the rest of the gang ended instantly. Blossom's frown was pinched, and Buttercup raised her brow with an unimpressed pout. The rest simply blinked at him wide-eyed.

Butch snorted. Then he laughed. "Aww, man! That's great! I shoulda gone as Moj—"

Brick threw his hand over his mouth. "We're still in the house," he grumbled. "Man, what is with you and that stupid monkey?"

"I love him," laughed Butch pushing away from his leader-brother.

"But…" Boomer at last said. "You're not wearing a costume."

"HIM can shape-shift into whatever he wants, right?" mocked Brick throwing his arms over his chest smugly. "So he shape-shifted into me."

"Uh…" Boomer shrugged.

"That's not funny," said Blossom with full calm gravity.

"What? Do you think that saying his name is a jinx, or what, Blossom?" retorted Brick.

"Well, he does have you there, Blossom," admitted Buttercup.

"Well, it could be…" said Bubbles quietly and nervously in her fluffy dress; and she adjusted her kitty-ear headband a little. "I mean, since its Halloween and all…"

"Aww, he probably thinks we're boring now," said Buttercup. "Do you think a zombie fiancé's gunna come just cuz I'm dressed up as a wedding corpse. Come on."

"Oh!" exclaimed Bubbles in surprise. "I thought you were dressed up as a Goth warrior queen."

"I'm not Goth," retorted Buttercup. "Just because I like dark baggy clothes and don't dress up like an anime magical girl even when it's not Halloween—"

"Okay, okay!" said Blossom laughing and trying to get everyone back into the right spirits for a party. "But it does look more like a Viking outfit than a bride outfit, you gotta admit."

"A Viking bride," retorted Buttercup, but she grinned.

"I think it's pretty cool," remarked Boomer. "Did you make it all yourself?"

"Some of the fake leather I got from Mitch earlier in September," Buttercup shrugged. "He went as a bounty-hunter last year."

"Oh, yeah!" Boomer said. "That was pretty cool!"

"So we going or what?" demanded Butch already up the sidewalk.

Kayla's house was only a few blocks away.

Boomer rushed after him. "Hey! Wait up!"

The others hurried too to catch up, except for Blossom.

Butch looked back suspiciously, but Bubbles stopped a moment as Blossom went back inside.

"Whatchya doing, Blossom?" Bubbles asked.

"Just gunna check on the Professor once more," said Blossom.

"Aww, he's fine!" said Buttercup. "That was days ago. He and Jojo are just gunna stay home and watch Mysterious Science Theatre."

"Just a sec, you guys go up ahead," laughed Blossom.

But as she shut the door behind her inside, her laugh turned more into an affectionate smile as she looked at the Professor getting his popcorn ready on the stove.

He still wasn't perfectly up to par. That had been one mean, albeit quick, little bug he had caught a few days ago. That was why he was just relaxing this evening.

"Did you forget something?" asked the Professor.

"Yeah, just wanted to ask if you're sure you'll be okay," said Blossom.

"Oh, you worry too much, Blossom," the Professor said as he turned from the stove.

"You do everything around here, you know that don't you?" he said very kindly.

"Well, not as much as you," Blossom admitted.

"No, no, I'm fine! You go have fun at your party. You deserve it. Really. Don't even think about us, okay?"

Jojo was on his meal hammock hanging out and now leapt down to ask if Blossom was staying, after all.

"Okay," said Blossom giving Jojo a quick kiss after one for the Professor; though her fake fangs were a little in the way. "I'm going. I was just checking up."

"You do a great job taking care of everyone," the Professor assured her.

Blossom beamed, and then turned to go.

Once she was out the door the Professor winked at Jojo.

#

The island of warmth in the living room was like a bubble against the evil that seemed to lurk in that very dark night. The only time the Professor left the bubble was to go to the little trick-or-treaters with a fly mask after the movie The Fly where the front door was lit up with six jack-o-lanterns made by his children. Jojo came as himself to give out the candy, which always made the little children laugh. The Jojo and the Professor would return through the sea of blackness back to that blue haven and restart Gamera with the jokester bots.

By the time nine thirty rolled around, however, the trick-or-treaters were mostly done. Then the blackness truly set in, making the previous darkness in the house a grey gloom until now. They were a shuttle in an empty place in outer space where the haunting of universal proportions were all kept at bay.

As an animal, Jojo took no notice of the creepy ambience, even if he did notice the change in schedule and often looked after the door in case the girls came back, but they weren't due back till midnight. The Professor's note in the ambience however made him strangely more relaxed than otherwise. He stretched sleepily, he yawned, and he smiled thinking of the first Halloween he had with the girls, and the first time again he had all six children out for trick-or-treating. So fun and so perfect. He fell asleep before ten.

Jojo was almost asleep himself, though a tad fidgety. Every sound had him at least lifting a sleepy pair of eyes to see if it was the girls again, until at last he gave up, watching the screen. It was difficult as it always was to tell for certain what he perceived of it. He yawned and stretched, and looked over at the Professor almost as curled up as a comfy cat.

Then he heard a noise that was different from the others. It was a very warm Halloween night. Yesterday had been far cooler. There were plenty of animals out this night, but Jojo was curious. The Professor half woke when he saw Jojo climb off the couch to look out the window, but the Professor was too tired to look after him. He fell asleep again, the chilling feeling only adding to the nostalgia of a good old fashioned holiday.