45: LEMON-LIME JEL-LO
The twins had pulled down the furniture tower with the help of everyone at Sacred Heart but left the pieces as an island of clutter at the center of the room. The beds were made up to sleep in, side by side, but the twins had resisted putting any of the other pieces into place. They wanted to plan the layout of the furniture before shifting the pieces but didn’t know what they wanted in a bedroom.
Esme’s room at the Fortress of Evil had been a lesson in what was possible in self-expression. Fake windows that looked at imaginary landscapes. A bed that raised and lowered. A secret room. Steampunk elements that looked cosmetic but hid a message sent through time.
Their room at Sacred Heart was a big classroom with hardwood floors, a wall of windows, and a chalkboard at one end. Oilcan had gathered all the furniture that they could want: beds, nightstands, desks, chairs, dressers, bookcases, tables, and even a cute love seat. Still, the pieces seemed very little when compared to the size of the room. Their entire house in Queens, New York, had been only slightly bigger.
The question was: what did they want in a bedroom? Did they try to create zones by scattering the pieces of furniture? Create a “living room” around the love seat? Do a meeting room with the table and desks? Did they want to sleep with the twin beds two feet apart like they grew up doing or pushed together to make one big bed like all the beds that they’d shared since their parents died? Or would they go halfway and have bunk beds?
“We could even put a divider in the middle,” Jillian said as they lay in the sun on the warm wooden floor. The babies were amusing themselves down the hall, watching a Chuck Norris movie. The baby dragons were off exploring. It was finally just them with no epic quest looming in front of them. It was strangely peaceful. “If we split the room in half, we both could have our own private space.”
“Maybe later,” Louise said as the idea of being that separated from her twin created pangs of anxiety. “Do you like the color? It’s cheery enough. Oilcan said we could pick a different one—all the other kids did.”
“I like the yellow,” Jillian said. “It’s a little like sunshine and lemons. We could do a green accent wall.”
Louise followed Jillian’s idea. “Because we are Lemon-Lime.”
“Yeah.” Jillian raised her hand to sketch a line across the back of the room. “The ceiling is high enough to build loft beds.”
“Like the one in Esme’s bedroom?”
“Less mobile, but yeah. It would free up space on the floor.”
“What would we need all that space for?”
Jillian snorted. “To make videos! Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo has fans to please! We’ll have to create a backlog for when we reconnect Pittsburgh back to Earth.”
“You really think we can build a gate?”
“We’re wood sprites—we can do anything. But I don’t think we’ll have to—Tinker is probably going to make one before long. She’s going to have to get enough food, toilet paper, bread, eggs and milk for the city. The stores are like a winter-long blizzard is coming. We should be ready to roll the moment Tinker gets a gate up and running. I figure we should set up a bank account here in Pittsburgh so we have somewhere to transfer in the money we stole off Ming. Also we should make a shopping list of things that we want from Earth. Cameras. Computers. Microphones. Soundboards. Barbie dolls.”
“And we have to let Aunt Kitty know we’re okay,” Louise said.
“Definitely. Oh! We could get the pets that Mom and Dad would never let us get! You know—a gerbil or a hamster or a guinea pig. Maybe something bigger. I wonder if we could get a kuesi. The tengu probably know where to find one.”
“Oh, wow! A kuesi!” Louise breathed. Considering how the tengu had fulfilled all their whims so far, they might even be able to talk them into getting a kuesi. She knew it was wrong to think that way; she struggled with temptation. “I don’t think there’s room for one here. They’re bigger than African elephants. Besides, there’s already so many pets here: the puppy, the kittens, the indi, the piglet, and the chicks.”
“Yeah, but those aren’t ours.”
The kittens didn’t seem to have a bias between them and Baby Duck but the elfhound puppy did. It would play nicely with them but was firmly bounded to the little elf female. “I think…I think I would like a toad.”
“A toad?” Jillian said with surprise.
“Or a turtle or a salamander. I think they’re really interesting and they wouldn’t eat much.” She didn’t add that they were pets she always wanted. She couldn’t understand why they weren’t allowed them until they discovered that their father was deathly afraid of snakes and such beasts.
“I don’t know about a toad, but a turtle would be cool,” Jillian said. “I still think a kuesi would be cooler.”
“Yeah,” Louise agreed quietly. She knew that their mother would be mad at them for asking for something like that, knowing that it would cause so much trouble for Oilcan. It was like when they let the python loose in their father’s office. “So, what is our next video going to be about?”
“How Prince Yardstick meets his one true love?” Jillian suggested. “We kind of missed the mark with the Valkyrie and the weird putt-putt golf course. Or we could do Tinker falling off the planet and finding Esme? I wonder what the anthropology ninjas thought of all that. Turtle Creek all blue and cold and then ‘pop’ there’s a spaceship standing there.”
“Oh, I know! ‘Invasion of the Baby Dragons’!” Louise said. “Prince Yardstick and his faithful First trying to be all serious and having a war conference while attempting to totally ignore the eleven baby dragons going, ‘Who is this? Are you mine? Ohhh, cookies!’”
“Is that where they all are?” Jillian asked.
“Oh, I don’t know! I doubt it…but they could be.” Louise still wasn’t sure what was “knowing” and just creative thinking.
“Oh! ‘Queen Soulful Ember Meets the Baby Dragons,’” Jillian said.
“Blast them all!” Jillian and Louise both said, hands over their heads, fingers wiggling.
They giggled for several minutes, imaging the reactions of the royal court—as they depicted them in their videos.
“Do you think we’ll ever meet her?” Louise said. “Queen Soulful Ember?”
“Oh God, I hope not,” Jillian said. “I don’t think I could keep a straight face.”