“Cody. Cody. Cody. Cody.” Leo was trying his hardest to annoy his older brother, but Cody doggedly ignored him. Cody’s focus was on a scientific novel he was currently reading and everyone with common sense in the household knew that trying to annoy him was impossible.
Meanwhile, on the second story, Lexie’s experiments were becoming futile. She couldn’t seem to stop destroying her test tubes. Ben placed his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. “These experiments aren’t going to help you until you get some sleep,” he whispers.
“I don’t need sleep!” Lexie exclaims, making Ben wince. “Do you remember that movie, Meet the Robinsons? Those coffee patches really work!” Ben steers her out of the lab and toward her bedroom anyway. She continues arguing the whole way there, without the strength to actually go against him.
Ben got her settled on the bed and left her alone with the sun still shining and the clock reading 8:34 AM. “I don’t need sleep,” Lexie mumbles right before she drifts off.
Ben sighs, leaning against her bedroom door. “Those experiments will never happen clinically if she keeps going the way she is,” he says to the empty hallway.
Somewhere else in the giant house that the Wendchesters call home, Callie is waiting for Lyn to shut up about a book that she’s currently reading. Oh gosh, she thinks to herself. What is she saying now? Callie focuses again on what her obnoxious friend is saying.
“...so clearly Hugh Abernathy is evil!” Lyn concluded. All Callie had heard was that a detective was evil and plotting something, but she hadn’t heard what. But the confidence on Lyn’s face was unmistakable.
Callie looks quizzical as she stands up and says, “And you’re sure?”
“Absolutely!” Lyn practically yells it. This is confirmation of what Callie suspected.
“But it’s just your gut that’s given the evidence?”
Lyn’s cheeks go red and she almost whispers, “Maybe...”
Callie rolls her eyes and struts away, leaving Lyn to question herself alone in one of the many living rooms in their palace. Callie creeks down the stairs and finds Cody reading a book. She sits down next to him and snuggles close. He begins reading the story out loud for her to hear.
“What?!” Leo says quietly, knowing how scary Callie can be when he interrupts her storytime with her boyfriend. “I’m his brother, he’s supposed to pay attention to me too.” Leo makes a humph noise, then turns back to raiding the fridge.
Minutes later, the light to the kitchen flickers on and Leo freezes abruptly with a cheese stick half-way in his mouth and his arms full of random assortments he found throughout the kitchen. He turns around tentatively to see Ben standing at the bottom of the stairs, beside the kitchen island. A Poptart falls off of Leo’s mountain of foods and onto the floor. Ben’s eyes follow the rogue snack food and Leo takes this chance to escape out the garage, which is conveniently located next to the kitchen.
Once outside, he walks around the house furtively toward the front. With him, he takes a ladder. But being secretive with a ladder never ends well. he held the ladder over his head as if he was a cartoon character. The ladder was hard to balance with, so after each step, he had to try to catch his balance. Then a charcoal van rolled up the hill their house was built on.
Leo freaked and swung the ladder up over his head and behind him. Before he could realize his mistake, he had already fallen into the flower garden in front of the house. He sat up to see the van and without thinking, he created a broken bottle to slow the van down.
In the same amount of time it took the man inside the van to jump out of his van and start cursing his horrible day, Leo was up out of the flowerbed and climbing the ladder into the room that always had a window open, Lyn’s room. As soon as she had seen the van, she was out of her theory mood and was leaning out the window to help hold the ladder in place.
She helped him clamber inside and then pointed to the van. “Who is that guy?”
Leo lay on the floor of her bedroom gasping for breath. He had scurried up that ladder, not wanting the mystery man to see him. “How...should...I...know?” he said between gasps.
“He’s giving me weird vibes,” Lyn tells him, still staring at him and contemplating his every movement.
“You mean like how Hugh Abernathy is giving you weird vibes?” Leo teases, his lungs finally full of air again.
Back downstairs, Ben is still nonplussed by Leo’s epic escape. He didn’t even see where he went! Luckily, Ben snaps out of it and walks over to the living room. Just as he sits down, the doorbell rings. Cody stops reading aloud, finishing with “...the graft was useful for collecting the sap needed to produce the syrup.” Cody looks over at the door while Callie looks over at Ben with puppy dog eyes.
“What? No way!” he says, aggravated. “I just sat down.” Cody starts to get up, but Callie leans into him even more, signaling him to stay put. He looks over at Ben helplessly and mouths the words “sorry buddy.”
“And I just got to my maximum comfort. Now GET,” she orders. Immediately Ben jumps up and waddles over to the door, fearing for his life.
At the same time, Lyn is being lowered out her bedroom window, wrapped in bedsheets. She’s suspended right over van-man and has a bucket of glue she’s ready to dump on his head. She tugs on the sheets and Leo stops lowering her, tying the sheets to her bed and leaning against it to make sure it stays secure. Van-man rings the doorbell, and she realizes that time is running out. She adjusts the bucket in her hands and, just as Ben opens the door, dumps it directly on her target.
Soon after, the man is covered from head to toe in glitter that mysteriously rained down from the sky. “What the-” Ben begins right before Callie bursts out laughing.
Cody smirks knowingly at the sparkly man. Ben turns around in time to see it and then he understands it, too. He turns back toward the stranger and slams the door in his face.
Back upstairs, Lyn and Leo exchange a mission accomplished high five. They watch as the man’s buddy tried to explain to van-man why he was covered in glitter and how two kids had found out their plan to try and kidnap one of the kids living in that house.
“And that’s why there was a glob of glitter glue on the front porch?” Rei asked the kids at the dinner table.
“No fair,” mutters Lexie, who had slept through the whole thing.
“Uh-huh,” Ben says, shoving more meatloaf in his mouth.
“Guess that sounds right,” Cody replies.
“Yup,” says Callie, giggling at the memory.
“Sounds like you kids had one heck of an adventure today,” Grandma Wendy chimes in. “Maybe some fluffernutters will help you calm down?” The kids erupt into cheers.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Lyn and Leo are trying to figure out exactly why some strange men were trying to kidnap their friends. . .
Author Notes: There might be a part two, I don't know...
Recommend Reviews (2) Write a ReviewReport
United States • 16 years old