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               Tuck Season, Wabbit Season, Tuck Season!
                            Part 14
                              -*-
      Copyright 1999, 2011 by either Joel Lawrence or Ellen Hayes


Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.

***

     Tucker was handling Jane being her old bitch self, until the walls
turned from plaster and wood into fleshy stuff and so did the floor and
it sucked him into something that looked uncomfortably like a vagina and
even more horribly like an intestine as Jane laughed and melted into the
same-
     He went up the canopy vertical to the top rail and over and sat
there until he calmed himself down and got his breathing under control.
     As sanity expected, nothing was moving in the room.  And nothing
was making noise, either.  And there was no Jane.
     And the canopy frame was holding him.  That was good.
     And, he noticed, he had to piss.
     *Okay, so...  How do I get down?*
     Finally, when he was feeling up to it, he slid to the edge and off,
falling to the floor almost quietly.  The floor felt like wood under
carpet, which was good; if it had felt like warm flesh he'd have
screamed and levitated up the bed again and likely through the ceiling.
     His whole body shuddered at the memory.
     *Stop THINKING about it!  What time is it?*  It was 1:22 by the
clock.  *Oh, great, back to this shit again...*
     His bladder reminded him that he had an interrupt to service.

     Jane was awake, sitting in her bathroom and waiting for the cough
syrup to take effect, so she could stop concentrating on 'not coughing'
and go back to sleep.  It was sometime near one-thirty, and she'd
thought she was the only one awake in the house, but the noise of a
lower-floor toilet flushing said differently.
     *I wonder who that is... Valerie?  Oh, damn, if it is I can't see
her on the cameras anyway, because of that little scene where she ripped
hers out.*
     *Still, it's not like she'd run away again, not after all that work
yesterday.  Not so soon.*

     Since Tucker knew he wasn't going back to sleep for a long while,
he'd thought about what to do, and the obvious answer was, 'more
detailed reconnaissance downstairs', specifically in the kitchen.  Since
it was fairly obvious he'd be cooking RSN, it'd be helpful to have some
sort of inventory of supplies and tools in his head, even if it wasn't
complete or formal.
     He'd dressed mostly in the dark.  While 'appropriate feminine
attire and ladylike deportment' were important, he figured that one
nobody was up at this hour and two he was in scheduled downtime.  But,
he'd been paid, and accepted, which meant...
     Which meant that he'd grumbled and cursed under his breath as he
pulled out his Mini-Maglite and red filter, and dug around until he
found a vaguely matching bra (almost plain white) and panties (white but
unfortunately not plain), and then went into the closet and found the
bura-sera sailor blouse and skirt he'd worn the day he'd pushed Charlene
into the horseshit.
     Luckily, it had been washed; he sniffed carefully to check.
     He skipped shoes initially, because he just couldn't be ladylike
enough to give up the stealth advantage of bare feet at 2am, but then
he'd bogged on the makeup, because while makeup-at-all-times didn't fit
HIS image of womanhood, it definitely fit Jane's.  So he'd turned on a
light and blinded himself; when he could see again, he applied mascara
to his eyebrows again, to darken then to match his hair, and applied
just a touch of eyeliner.  *Good e-damned-nuff,* he thought, though he
slipped a barely-pink lip gloss into his surplus green canvas satchel.
And then went and got a suitable pair of flats out of the shoe section
of the closet and stuck them into his canvas bag.
     *This is stupid; I'm feeling guilty over not wearing more
makeup...*
     He turned out the lights and argued with himself for ten minutes
without changing anything, letting his eyes re-adapt to darkness; then
he un-wedged the door, slipping the wedge into his bag, and made his way
to the stairs...
     The stairs that were trying to kill him.
     *Oh, yeah, and the other reason I'm not wearing shoes.*
     He thought about it for a while, and then finally decided to back
down on all fours.  *Not like anyone's gonna see my underwear at this
hour...  Or laugh at me looking like a chimpanzee.  Though they've got a
point... bipedalism has its place, but sometimes you really ought to be
a quadruped for a while.*
     The stairs, possibly intimidated momentarily by his precautions,
did not try to kill him.  Tucker stood up when he reached the bottom and
made a rude sign at them.  *Hah, bitches!  Rat Boyz Rule OK!*

     Darryl had been in the habit, while living with Jane, of getting up
early to run, enjoying the feeling of freedom in the early morning, the
virtue of having exercised before anyone else, and the fact that he
didn't have to be perfectly feminine for a while.
     Of course he'd set his alarm entirely by habit, and so it dutifully
went off at five o'clock.
     "Oh, wow," he mumbled, still partially stuck in a dream in which
Valerie and a lot of other girls at a school he'd gone to long ago, had
been tormenting him about - somehow - being a boy in their spaces when
he was supposed to be a girl, and all of them knew it, and while they
weren't really UPSET at him for being a boy, they hadn't been pleasant
either...
     He carefully rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before removing his
sleeping clothes, applying a little makeup, putting his hair into a
girl's exercise-oriented ponytail, slipping into a tight exercise bra,
and then adding his 'large' breast forms.  *Thankfully, 'large' isn't
very large...*  While eye-poppingly immense breasts would have had
advantages IF Darryl had been interested in attracting male attention as
Darla, he was NOT; and Jane had never forced him towards that.  Or
towards anything larger than a not-outrageous but definitely adult-
looking B cup.
     A T-shirt, clean and girly but not something Jane would allow the
other students to wear or even see, covered the bra; and a sweatshirt
covered the T-shirt.  A pair of nylon shorts covered the gaff he had to
wear just in case, girly little white exercise socks covered his feet,
and while his trainers were pink and white, they were as good as
anything on the market.
     He checked himself over in the mirror, nodded and agreed, "Good
enough, girl," and went downstairs.

     The sound of someone coming down the stairs was nearly deafening to
Tucker, who'd been under silent running for several hours while
investigating the kitchen and pantry contents and the basement again.
     He listened closely, but since it wasn't him on the stairs, they
didn't try to kill whoever it was.  *Wonder who's up at-  Whoa, five
twenty already?*
     Whoever it was burst through the kitchen doors like a battering
ram, almost making Tucker scream; so in retaliation he barked, "Halt!"
     The person did scream a little, and Tucker thought it was probably
Darla.
     "Advance and be recognized!" also came out of Tucker's mouth, like
it was supposed to.  He pulled the Mini-Maglite out and confirmed it was
indeed Darla.  "Confirmed, Darla Thompson; you may pass."
     "What... are you doing?!" she gasped at him.  Tucker guessed she'd
managed to repress the 'the hell' part, somehow.
     "Getting an early start on the day," he said.  "What're you doing,
exercising?"
     "Yes!"  She sounded defensive about it, for some reason.
     *At least she's not entirely stupid,* he thought.  'Entirely
stupid' was women who thought they could keep their weight below normal,
down to 'attractive' levels or even less, by dieting alone.  "Okay,"
Tucker said.  "What do you want for breakfast?"
     "What?"
     "Aren't I supposed to be doing some of the cooking?"
     "Um."
     *She said 'um'?  What the hell?*  He almost looked around,
expecting Jane to come out of the refrigerator or the pantry or a
cabinet or something to punish Darla for the Unutterable Word Of Pause.
     "What do you normally eat?" Tucker prompted, after no Jane
appeared.
     "You were here for a week already, weren't you?"
     "I wasn't paying attention to the food," Tucker explained.  He
debated whether to explain about how he couldn't tell what had been
poisoned and how he didn't care to take the risk, but decided not to.
*Despite the fact that she's guilty of it, she'll be all pissy about
being caught doing it.  Maybe BECAUSE she's guilty of it...*
     "Well, just..." she started to say.  "Do you think you can actually
make an entire breakfast?"
     Tucker explained patiently, "If you tell me what to fix, and if we
have the ingredients, and if I can find recipes."

     As Darryl made sure that they had what he thought they had in the
pantry and other places, he tried to figure out why Valerie had been
doing whatever-she-had-been-doing in complete darkness.  She'd
complained when Darryl wanted to turn on a light, and then she'd pulled
sunglasses out of her purse - which, Darryl noted, she was carrying -
and was wearing them now, as they looked at the 'fruit bar'.
     "Okay, so," Valerie asked, "how many pieces do I use at breakfast?
And is there anything really popular or unpopular?  Like if Miz Thompson
doesn't like peaches or something."
     "No, it should..."  He had to think.  "I suppose I do two or three
half-apple-sized portions, per person; and I just make sure everyone
has two pieces, whatever it is.  Like two apple quarters per person,
instead of one half, if we have apples."
     "And if it was all apples, then it would be four or six quarters,
each, to make two or three half-an-apple portions?  Per person?"
     "Right."  *Not bad for no coffee.*
     "Okay, so...  So," Valerie suggested, "two grapefruits, halves to
Miz Thompson, Miz... the other lady-"
     "Miz Philips," Darryl prompted, provoking an absent nod.
     "Miz Philips," Valerie repeated, "Miss Marie, you and Charlene?
I'm not fond of grapefruit."
     "Neither am I, really," he admitted.  "Make it two."
     She agreed, "Four halves.  And then peach- two peach quarters or
equivalent per person, that's three peaches, and..."
     "About one-sixth of the cantaloupe each," Darryl suggested.  "But
cut it narrower than that, so it's a few slices each."
     "I think that's more than a quarter-apple's worth of volume,"
Valerie said as her forehead wrinkled.
     "Don't worry about it.  More fruit and vegetables is better than
less."
     "Alright," she nodded, and wrote more notes on the index cards
she'd produced from her purse using a pen she'd produced from her purse.
     "Think you've got it all?" he asked skeptically.
     She raised a finger, then looked at her index cards.  "Miz
Thompson, two eggs scrambled hard, four pieces wheat toast, two slices
bacon, one half grapefruit, one sixth of melon, one half peach- that's
about three, three-and-a-half fruits," she warned, and Darryl nodded.
"Coffee with coffee service on table, no milk or fruit juices.  Miz
Philips, two eggs..."

     Tucker turned off the lights and removed his sunglasses after Darla
finally left him alone.  "Shhhh... feel like a short-order cook," he
complained mildly to himself.
     "Though, if I'm gonna be doing this regularly, which it looks
like," he said sourly, "might as well go get the laptop and set it up
for recipes."  Luckily, they had an RJ-11 in the kitchen.  "Oh, and
transcribe notes into it," he remembered.  "And start writing up
deficiencies," because this house was, on closer inspection, a deathtrap
waiting to kill someone; he hadn't found a first aid kit OR a smoke
detector OR a fire extinguisher ANYWHERE, much less a carbon monoxide
detector around the stove or the basement furnace.

     As Darryl stretched, he was thinking about Valerie this morning.
Although he still didn't know what she was doing downstairs in the dark
as early as she had been, he had to admit that Valerie had been acting
almost exactly like a normal person this morning, with very little
'attitude'.
     And she had been wearing feminine clothing and a little makeup.
     Though that didn't explain what she was doing in the dark...
Except, he'd had to wait (and stretch) after going outside, for his eyes
to adapt to the darkness, before he could see much of anything.  *Maybe
that was it?*

     Tucker had thought about cooking the Spam - he could eat it, even
if he didn't like it much - but had decided to save it for its original
purpose of emergency or combat rations.  *Especially since there's
plenty of fresh and canned here already.*
     Enough, in fact, that he thought he could start on some slow-cooked
chicken soup for Mizzes Thompson and Marie.  Wonder of wonders, there
had been clearly-labeled chicken stock in the large freezer, plus two
entire chickens in the refrigerator, a large soup pot in one of the
cabinets, and enough fresh garlic and veggies to make it worthwhile.
*That'll do for some lunch,* he'd thought.  And there was enough cheese,
though someone would have to slice it, and enough bread to make some
really superior grilled-cheese sandwiches, which had the nice property
of scraping some of the throat goo loose on the way down.
     He celebrated his cleverness with another slice of peach.  *Those
knives are nice, if they'd just sharpen 'em.*  He'd almost mangled the
peach into pulp with the first two knives he'd tried, and finally
resorted to using the chef's knife, which was barely adequate.

     Darryl returned to the house and found a lovely full coffeepot and
Valerie hard at work in the kitchen.
     "What's in the pot?"
     "Chicken soup, or the start of chicken soup.  For lunch," she said
absently as she continued to poke at some eggs in a skillet.  "I think
we've got half an hour before everything's ready," she mentioned.

     "Oh," Darla replied as she abducted a peach slice; Tucker almost
kicked her before remembering that it wasn't 'his' kitchen, and instead
made a note to debit her one slice at the table.
     "Enough time to shower," Tucker prompted.  He could also smell her,
faintly, over the food odors, and that would only get worse.  "And if
you could come back and butter toast, about ten to seven, I can get a
shower in too."
     "Let me make up a coffee tray, to take up to Momma-Jane-  No," she
changed her mind, "Marie first, then Jane and Diana, and then I'll
shower."
     Tucker thought quickly, as he pulled his eggs off the heat and
flipped them onto his plate.  "How long's it gonna take?  I don't want
to cook their eggs and then let 'em sit for an hour."
     "Just do their eggs after they come down," Darla instructed, like
he should've known this already.
     *Sheeeeeesh...  Fuckin' nobles.*  In HIS house, if you wanted
breakfast - assuming it was offered, which it usually wasn't - you would
appear at the cook's convenience to eat it when it was ready, or you'd
get it cold.  Assuming there was any left; even after Patches had died,
there had been plenty of family to ensure there weren't leftovers.  Not
helped, of course, by Mom's opinion that any child of hers over the age
of five could (and had better) make a sandwich or have fruit or
otherwise supplement their diet; she counted on that and tended to cook
'too little' rather than 'too much'.
     Lady Darla assembled coffee and fixin's on a tray, then left the
kitchen, heading for the other set of stairs up that presumably led to
the servants' quarters.
     *Oh, well, at least Marie's getting coffee in bed,* Tucker thought
as he started prepping the bacon.

     "She's what?" Marie asked before she started coughing, and Darryl
sighed.
     When she finished, he repeated, "She was up already, when I went
out to run, and she's been cooking all this time."
     "Cooking what?"
     "Eggs and bacon for breakfast, and she started a pot of chicken
soup."  He wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, though he thought
that anyone should be able to manage bacon and eggs.  Though he was, of
course, going to check when he went back downstairs.

     Tucker had just about finished inhaling his egg-and-cheese-and-
onion scramble, and taking notes on what he'd used so far, when Darla
came back into the kitchen.  "Miss Marie will be down in about fifteen
minutes," she explained.
     Tucker looked at the clock - *At least they HAVE a clock in here,*
he admitted - and sighed.  "Bacon's gonna be colder than optimal," he
mentioned.
     "Would you speak in complete sentences please?" she ordered.
     "Wh-"  Tucker choked down his first six replies.  "If Miss Marie
waits that long, and Miz Thompson takes at least as long, then the bacon
will be colder than optimum serving when everyone gets downstairs to
eat.  Is Charlene up?"
     "She should be," Darla guessed.
     *These people are incompetent.*  He wished he could get a 1MC for
the house... though, thinking about it more, they'd use it on him more
than he used it on them.  *Still...*
     "What are you doing?" she asked, apparently spotting the laptop.

     Why on earth she'd brought her laptop into the kitchen, Darryl had
no idea, but she had it on her right side and a dirty plate on her left.
     "Taking-  I'm taking notes on everything I've used so far," she
answered.  "Can you print out text files on Miz Thompson's computer?"
     "Yes?" he admitted cautiously.
     "If you have a floppy drive, I can put the list on it, and then the
next time you go shopping you can print it and you'll have a list," she
said offhandedly as she typed something rapidly with both hands.
     "Oh."  *Sounds like she's done this before...*  Which was odd.
     "Mizzes Thompson and Philipsess coffee?" she said.
     "What?  Would you please speak in complete sentences?" Darryl
repeated.
     Valerie's glare said that she was NOT pleased.  "Would you please
fix the coffee for Miz Thompson and Miz Philips and take it up to them?
Breakfast will be late enough as it is.  Then you can shower," she
reminded him.

     Charlie was nearly awake by the time he finished doing his hair and
makeup for breakfast.  He stared at himself in the mirror, recognized
and hated everything he was wearing, and got up, footed his slippers
onto his feet, and opened his door.
     Valerie's door wasn't open yet.
     He sighed, and went over to knock on it.  "Valerie?" he called,
hoping she was awake and just running a little slow.  "Breakfast?"  He
could smell bacon, at least.
     "She's cooking," Darla said, and Charlie turned to find her in
exercise clothes - which he'd only seen her wear one time before - and
carrying a tray with coffee on it.
     Then, what Darla had said caught up to him.  "VALERIE is cooking?"
he confirmed.
     "And it looks like she sort of knows what she's doing, anyway,"
Darla admitted.  "I'm taking coffee up to Jane and Diana.  If you want
something, or your eggs different - I said two fried over easy?" she
asked, and Charlie nodded.  "Still, it would be helpful if you went down
and kept an eye on her."
     "Okay," Charlie 'agreed' to her order.  Besides, he was already
dressed, and he didn't have anything else to do.  And, the kitchen would
have coffee.

     "Are you cleaning up, or is Darla?" Tucker asked, mentally noting
that Charlene was also 'stealing' fruit.  "I'm not doing it; I cooked."
     "I guess I am," she admitted.
     "Good."  He was tired of cooking, and just tired, and getting sick
of the smells of the food, and of course he still had to cook eggs for
Misses Thompson and Philips.  *Misseses?  Misseseses?*
     "Oh."  *Speaking of sick...*  "Need-"  *Bugger.*  "_I_ need," he
restarted, "you - or Darla - to put Miz Thompson and Miss Marie at one
end of the table, and add at least one trash can, with a plastic liner,
and at least one box of Kleenex, so they can blow their nose and
things."
     Charlene sighed, but nodded and moved towards the non-food closet.
"What's in the pot?" she asked as she went past the stove.
     *I really need to get a 1MC for this place.*  He hated explaining
things more than once.

     Jane really did not feel like getting out of bed, showering,
dressing, doing her face and hair, or going downstairs, but Diana and
Darla cajoled and assisted her into doing all those things in one long
tortuous sequence.  Helped by the coffee, of course.  Not at all helped
by the fear that wouldn't go away, of what Valerie was doing to their
food in their kitchen.  "You're sure she knew what she was doing?"
     "Yes, Momma-Jane," Darla assured her, again.  "Diana can go check,
if she wants; I haven't changed or showered yet.  May I please do both?"
     "Very well," Jane allowed, reluctantly.  "Wait.  She saw you like
that?"
     "Yes, she did," Darla answered.  "But she didn't seem to think
anything about it; she certainly didn't make any nasty comments."
     *And the one thing she's best at is making nasty comments,* Jane
thought.  The thought, while strictly speaking untrue, made her feel a
little better.  "Alright, dear, go shower and change."  She sighed,
which hurt her chest.
     Darla scampered off, and Diana took her arm, and the two of them
descended to breakfast.  "I'm so glad you're here," Jane admitted
quietly to Diana.  "This would be so much harder without you."
     "Always, my love," she said, and smiled at her.
     "How can they not have a rice cooker?!" Valerie shrieked,
thankfully muted by the distance and the shut kitchen door.  "These
people are barbarians!"
     "Did I hear that right?" Diana asked, and they started moving
again.
     "Probably," Jane groaned.
     "And didn't you say-"
     "That Marie refused to get a rice cooker, because she prefers to
cook rice in a pot, yes," Jane answered, unusually pleased that Diana
had remembered that.

     Tucker pushed Charlene out of the kitchen with force of will, and
noticed that Miz Thompson and Miz Philips were coming into the dining
room.  "Miz Thompson," he checked, "two eggs scrambled hard?"
     "What?"  He waited.  "Yes please."
     "Miz Philips, two eggs sunny-side-up?"
     "Yes, thank you."
     "They'll be ready and hot as soon as I can cook them," Tucker told
them.  "Meanwhile, fruit and coffee, and the bacon and the toast, are on
the table."
     *Good enough,* he decided, and dived for the semi-safety of the
kitchen, and to cook those damned eggs.  *Jeez... and no rice cooker, no
music, no computer, no first aid kit, no smoke detector, no CO detector,
no alarms except that half-assed security thing, and I haven't seen a
wok either, knives need sharpening...  Hell, at this point I should be
glad they have a microwave, and electric lights; Jane seems like the
kind of person who'd prefer a kitchen fireplace.  Except the food just
can not be as good, thank Ghu.*  That was why people had invented
stoves.  He could cook over a fire, but not well; and the pots he'd
found weren't up to a fire either.

     "Adequate," Jane decided after having a piece of bacon.
     "Tolerable," Marie sniffed, before she grabbed a tissue and turned
away before violently sneezing.  Several times.

     *Jeez, don't fall all over yourselves with admiration,* Tucker
thought.  *Or gratitude or anything.*  He realized he was definitely
missing the bonus points when someone cooked breakfast unexpectedly at
home.  Even Susan, notoriously resistant to 'larns' and LARTs alike, had
figured out that bribing Mom and Dad with fresh breakfast was a good way
to get them to agree to something.
     "Valerie," Miz Thompson said, when it seemed that Marie was done
exploding for the moment, "why are you not eating more?"
     "I already ate, Miz Thompson," he answered.  He'd left most of his
fruit allotment and the bacon to eat at the table, though he hadn't been
sure if bacon was supposed to be eaten with the hands (the sensible
option) or a fork (which was stupid, and therefore quite likely).  But
Miz Thompson hadn't said anything yet, and in fact had eaten two pieces
with her own hands already.  He figured that if she was doing it, he
could get away with it too.
     "What did you eat?"
     "Wh-  Excuse me?"  *What the hell do you care?*
     "What did you eat?" Miz Thompson repeated.
     Tucker almost let an 'um' fall out, but caught it before he opened
his mouth.  "Two scrambled eggs, with cheese and onion, and some of the
fruit."  He thought about mentioning that he'd only taken the fruit that
hadn't cut well, but decided not to, since he wasn't sure if he was
supposed to be a servant or a noble-candidate; servants ate the castoffs
and failures and leftovers, but noble-candidates probably would be
punished for doing so.  "I'm also cooking up chicken soup for lunch, and
was planning on grilled cheese sandwiches?  They help-"  He had to
strangle another 'um' while trying to think of the right word, "scour
the throat, which'll help your breathing slightly."
     "Indeed?" Jane challenged.
     Tucker tried to think of how to throw it back in her face, but
couldn't think of anything with the right blend of formality and
politeness that was also nasty.  "Yes ma'am," he sighed.
     "What recipe are you using?" Miss Marie asked.  "For the soup."
     Tucker had to think about how to answer that, since he was only
using half a recipe; and then again, it was a family recipe he'd
downloaded and he didn't want to let them know about the database.
Finally, he decided, "I got it through the Internet," would be true
enough and conceal what he wanted to stay hidden.  The family recipe
database WAS accessible via Internet, after all; it just required about
five times more smarts than most Internet users possessed, plus a few
non-trivial passwords.
     "The Internet?" Miz Thompson repeated disbelievingly.
     "Yes ma'am.  Recipes are one of the things that first circulated
over the Internet.  The USENET Cookbook was started in the late 80s, for
instance."  She looked skeptical, so Tucker just smiled at her before
eating some of the cantaloupe on his plate.  Supposedly, Mom had been
sort of neutral-to-unhappy with computers and networking at first, and
building a recipe database had been one of the lures Dad had used to get
her hooked.  Which had semi-backfired; Mom was still married to Dad and
rarely complained about computers or networks in general, but Dad and
then various kids had had lots of work to update, maintain, and write
code for the database as Mom thought of new things to do.
     Hypertexting every damned thing had been the last major software
upgrade, so that someone could translate 'two cups' into a metric volume
or a weight of a particular substance, or get a list of possible
substitutes for 'daikon' or 'kale', or look up a long explanation of
'poaching'.  The one before that had tied the recipe database into the
inventory control system, so Mom could theoretically have planned a
week or two's worth of meals ahead of time, and prepped a shopping list
for only the things that they didn't have or would expire during that
time; but she hadn't used it much, claiming it ruined her spontaneity.
     The entire setup was for sale, of course; but Tucker didn't think
Thompson et al would be willing to buy it yet, since the list price for
the software alone was five thousand dollars.  Discounted up to 100% for
friends, but Jane Thompson et al did NOT fall into that category.

     Valerie's hair had, in a sense, been growing in Jane's mind ever
since she'd come downstairs and seen the girl again.
     "Valerie, we need to discuss your hair."
     "I'm not changing it again," she replied.  "I like it like this.
Besides, didn't you say wigs were okay last night?"
     "Did I?" Jane wondered.
     "Yes ma'am," Charlene replied, though Jane hadn't been aware she
was thinking out loud.  "You did."  She turned and asked Darla, "Do you
know where Miz Thompson keeps all the hairpieces and such?"

     *Anything is better than them arguing,* Charlie thought.  *Plus,
maybe if I do like Valerie was doing yesterday, just pushing a solution
on them instead of discussing it first, they won't argue as much about
it.  Even if I do it all girly and make it a question, instead of an
order.*  Actually, ESPECIALLY if he did it girly.
     Darla frowned, and looked at Jane.
     *Well, I THOUGHT it would work...*
     "It was in the contract that I wouldn't be subjected to involuntary
body or hair modifications," Valerie mentioned.
     "You said that last night," Charlie reminded her.  "Which is why we
agreed on wigs, remember?"  He mentally crossed his fingers as he smiled
girlishly at everyone.

     "Why do I have to change again?" Tucker complained to Darla.
     "Because, that's a very casual outfit, and you need more practice
wearing something upscale," Darla claimed.
     "I have to cook!  In about," he checked his watch, "an hour or
less, actually.  There's no point in wearing something nice if I've got
to worry about splashing it with broth or something."
     "And what are you going to do when you have to cook a dinner
party?" Darla inquired.
     "Do what?"
     "That is not a suitable reply," she informed him prissily, sounding
exactly like Jane's daughter crossed with a teacher's pet; Tucker
immediately knew that if he told her to bite herself, she'd whine, 'I'm
gonna tellllll!'  Then she would, then she'd hide behind Jane and
snigger at him.
     "Nnnnn-  If I'm cooking a dinner party, it won't be formal, or I
won't be attending," Tucker managed to get out.
     "You wouldn't attend your own formal dinner party?"
     "I wouldn't HAVE a formal dinner party!  If people want me to cook,
they can get someone else to dress up pretty!  And if they want me to
dress up in the full monkey suit female version, then I'm not cooking!"
     "Monkey suit?!"
     "The expensive dress, the hair, the makeup, the shoes, the
PANTYHOSE..." he groaned.  "Besides, if you're actually cooking, you
don't have TIME to go 'mingle' or whatever with the guests.  Unless
they're cooking too; and I guarantee you, women are not going to wear
two hundred dollar outfits when they're actually cooking.  Unless
they're utterly stupid," he added, because Darla seemed entirely likely
to wear a two hundred dollar dress to cook for an afternoon.  She HAD
dressed up for breakfast.
     "Jane expects you to change into something more elegant during the
rest of the day," Darla stated, like that would end it.
     Tucker opened his mouth to argue, then realized he wouldn't have to
pay for it - or WASN'T going to pay for it - if he ruined it by cooking.
"Fine, whatever.  Did you have something in mind?"
     She did, of course.

     After forcing Valerie to change her clothes to something suitable,
Darryl gone upstairs to one of the attics and had found two of the wig
caps that Valerie would need to wear over her own hair, and four wigs
that he thought would work out, and hauled them all downstairs; luckily,
the wigs were pinned to the styrofoam heads, which made them easier to
carry without disturbing their styling.  Not especially easy, but
easier.
     He knocked twice on Valerie's door, then opened it and came in, to
find not a Valerie in sight.
     Or in the bathroom, or in the closet either.
     He looked around again, wondering, *She was supposed to be in
here...*  "Valerie?!"
     "What?!" came from behind him and startled him badly enough that he
dropped two of the wig heads.
     "What are you doing?!" he complained as he bent down and juggled
heads until he had all four in his grasp again.  *Finally!*
     Except, when he stood up, she had vanished again.  "VALERIE!"
     "WHAT?!" she shrieked back at him, and he thought, *Closet!*
Before he could get there and look - or slam the door, trapping her, or
something, because he WANTED to do SOMETHING to her - she added, "I'm
changing shoes!  These things are too slick for cooking!"
     "They're what?"
     Her head, with its red-and-black razor cut, peeked around the
closet door.  "Slick," she said.  "They have no traction.  If I-
Falling due to loss of balance, caused by slick shoes, is extremely
hazardous in a kitchen.  Especially when not wearing proper clothing,"
she added, using a little emphasis on the last two words.
     "You'll be fine," Darryl sighed.  "Just be careful."
     She snorted and her head retracted into the closet.
     "Leave the shoes on!" Darryl ordered.

     Tucker sat in the 'hot seat' in front of the makeup mirror as Darla
arranged the fake hair on his head to her satisfaction.  She had
insisted on using the curliest wig, though it was also the shortest -
which said something, he wasn't sure what - and Tucker guessed that this
wasn't the first time it had been used, as she hadn't done much other
than make him stick a knee-high on his head, then plop the wig on and
pin it with bobby pins before giving it a light dusting of hairspray and
a little fondling.
     It was blonde, of course.  And curly.
     She'd pulled a dress out of the closet that didn't entirely suck,
though Tucker wondered if that was purely chance.  It was a light purple
floral print, which wasn't as awful on him as he'd thought (thought it
was still pretty wrong), and had short sleeves and a skirt that ended
above his knees.  The assorted underwear and/or lingerie to go with it
had been insane, of course, but he'd known it was going to be; and she
hadn't tightened the corset as much as Miss Marie did, though maybe
holding his breath and tightening his stomach muscles had helped this
time.
     An unusually wide black leather belt with gold-tone fittings
matched the leather shoes with about a 40mm heel and gold-tone fittings;
Tucker knew that matching colors of things like metals was 'important',
but he had no idea how anyone could keep track of the number of items
and sub-classifications in this closet without an external database.
Even his sister had less than half this much, and that included things
she wasn't going to wear again without major amputation, and T shirts
and jeans, which undoubtedly had been banned and exorcised from the
estate long ago.
     "Now, do you think you can do your own makeup, or would you like me
to help?" Darla asked, sounding entirely too cheerful about it.
     "I'm going to be cooking," Tucker reminded her, though it hadn't
helped before and he didn't think it was going to help now.  "In fact-"
He twisted around and looked at the bedside clock, and he only had about
ten minutes before he needed to go downstairs and play with the chicken.
Looking back at his face, he was caught again by the blonde curls, the
black eyebrows, and the pastel purple of the dress.  "Um, do-"
     "Proper ladies do not say 'um'," Darla recited.  "Proper ladies..."
     As she lectured onward, Tucker ignored her to think about what he
wanted to say so she wouldn't catch him again.  Also, if he thought
about that, he wasn't thinking about beating the crap out of her.  When
she reached a stopping point, Tucker asked, "Do I need any more makeup,
since I'm going to be cooking?"
     "Well, of course you do!" she enthused.
     *Of course I do.  Why did I even ask...*
     She continued, "If you're wearing a pretty dress like that, you
need more makeup to make your face look more colorful."
     "I think you'd better do it, or tell me what you want," Tucker
said, giving up on sanity for the moment.
     "Alright, then-  Do you have mascara in your EYEBROWS?!"
     Tucker sighed.

     "Well!" Darryl chirped when he was done making up Valerie.  He
wasn't as good as Sandy or Caro, or even Marie, but he thought he'd
gotten pretty good over the years, and Valerie looked MUCH better than
she had at breakfast.  Older, too, unfortunately, which looked a little
odd when you saw her flat chest, but that shouldn't matter today.
     For whatever reason, when she'd re-dyed her hair, she hadn't
re-dyed her eyebrows; when he'd removed the mascara she'd put on, the
dishwater blonde eyebrow hairs matched the much lighter golden blonde
wig much more naturally than Darryl had expected.
     In fact, except for the fact that she looked so much older than her
(lack of) breasts otherwise suggested, she was perfect.  Not really
beautiful, quite; her face was a little too round for the wig, for one
thing - or the wig was a little too short for her face - and she wasn't
smiling.  But unquestionably female, and more attractive than most women
Darryl saw out in the real world.  *No, showing more work and care than
most women bother with, most days.  That's it.*
     "Are you done?" she demanded.  "I need to get down there and get
the chicken off the stove."
     Darryl sighed.  "Yes, I'm d-" but Valerie bounced up and was out
the door before he could finish.
     *I hope Jane's up; she really ought to see this,* he thought as he
followed her, much slower, out the door of her bedroom and down the
hall.  *Didn't she say she didn't even see Valer-*
     "SHIT!" Valerie shrieked from ahead of him, before the house
vibrated.
     He ran as fast as he could, to find her disheveled and nearly
upside down on the stairs, with her wig about four steps further down.
     "Are y-"
     "I TOLD you these shoes were too SLICK!" she screamed and threw one
at him.  He ducked, which threw him off balance and caused him to fall,
though luckily only to the floor and not down the stairs or on top of
Valerie.  "YOU-"
     The other shoe went over Darryl's head, though he tried to duck
anyway, and apparently into Charlene, judging by the noise she made
behind Darryl.

     "She must've fallen down the stairs again," Jane guessed; the thump
sounded familiar, and the screaming was predictable.
     Diana looked startled.  "Again?"
     "Didn't I mention that?"

     "Valerie!" Charlie yelled at her, JUST managing to keep his voice
sounding feminine.  "Would you STOP?!"  He managed to stop HIMSELF,
though, because he could FEEL the urge to get into a fight bubbling up
inside him.  *She's mad because she's scared,* he identified, like Darla
had told him a few times.  *So fix the scared...*  "Here, I'll help," he
said as he moved past Darla.
     It was still a tempting idea to try and kick Valerie further down
the stairs - that shoe had HURT, and maybe even left a mark on his
clothing - but she'd find some way to pull him down too, and probably
land on him.  And, honestly, he had no idea how she'd survived falling
down the stairs as often as she had already.
     "I HURT," Valerie said as she looked up at him, and it looked like
she had tears in her eyes.
     Now he didn't want to kick her at all.  "I know," he said gently,
and extended a hand to her.  She carefully took it, though in a odd way,
wrapping her fingers and thumb around the base of his thumb, and started
pulling herself up, giving him time to shift his weight to balance her.
"I'm sorry," Charlie said as she came upright.
     She sobbed a bit, and grabbed his other hand when he offered it,
and pulled herself against Charlie's body.  "I told her, the shoes were
too slick," she mumbled, sounding like she was muffling herself.  "She
wouldn't listen.  Nobody here listens... nobody listens at ALL!"
     "I'm listening..."  He saw Darla coming down, and tried to warn her
off by shaking his head at her.  "Let's go back up, and get you some
better shoes, alright?  And your, um, your..."
     The wig looked, somehow, very sad and abandoned, sitting on the
step where it was.  Like it would start crying in a moment.
     "Your-"  He coughed a bit.  The wig was looking more ridiculous
every moment.  "Your-"

     Tucker looked around to find whatever was setting Charlene off, and
let go in case she had hysterics like Kathy did, or in case he had to
throw her over the railing.
     And, yeah, he had to admit when he saw it, the wig looked kind of
funny sitting there...  It had landed 'upright' so all you could see was
the 'hair', and to Tucker it sort of looked like Cousin It's little
sister when she wasn't allowed to play with the big kids.  "Yeah, okay,
that's kind of funny," he admitted, which apparently gave Charlene some
kind of permission to start cackling out loud.
     He sighed.  Which hurt.

     "Now they're laughing?" Diana asked, looking bemused, and Jane
could only shake her head.
     "At least," Jane mentioned, "she's stopped cursing."
     "Charlene?"
     "Valerie.  I think that's Charlene laughing...  And I doubt she'd
be doing that AT Valerie; not that long.  Valerie has already shown
she's willing to-  Oh!" she exclaimed.  "Did I tell you what happened
during her naming?"
     "No?" Diana answered.  "The way you say that sounds so ominous..."

     Tucker sighed, again, which hurt, as Charlene left Tucker's room
with some instructions and Darla re-capped him with the beige fishnet
instead of the knee-high, then started sticking bobby pins in.  "Weren't
you going to put the wig on?" he mentioned.
     "If I pin this...." she paused as she inserted another one.
     "Ow!  That hurt!"
     "Sorry," Darla responded, without feeling as far as Tucker could
tell.  Then she resumed, "If I pin THIS in, to your normal hair,
securely, then when I pin the wig-"
     "Ow!  Don't pull so hard!  That's attached!"
     "Sorry!" she huffed.

     Charlie thought he could handle a lot more than Valerie had asked
him to do, but all he had to do was remove the pot from the stove, and
remove the chickens themselves (plus the boiled-to-mush, to-be-
discarded, vegetables) and wait.
     On the other hand, staring at the pot - which had been incredibly
heavy, especially when he had to hold it away from his body because it
was nearly boiling hot - he realized that he had no idea how to remove a
boiling-hot chicken from a boiling-hot pot full of liquid.

     Yanking on the wig had proven Darla right; it didn't lift off
Tucker's head that he could tell, even when he pulled enough to hurt.
     Then Darla had complained mightily and made him sit back down so
she could 'repair' the 'damage' he'd done.
     "Look," he tried, "why does it have to be so big?  It's not fooling
anyone."
     She actually stopped and looked at him in the mirror.  "Fooling?"
     "I don't actually look any taller just because the hair is all
sprayed and fluffed and whatever."  That was his best guess for the
reason behind what she was-
     "Oh, no," she said as she shook her head, making her own hair
bounce at the ends.  Tucker had noticed that the wig hair was now
sprayed so heavily that it bounced like a car with good shocks; once
only, and not much then either.
     She continued, "It shows you've taken a lot of time with your hair,
and that you like to look really polished."
     "This doesn't look polished!" he complained.  "It looks... fluffy.
YOUR hair looks polished.  Miz Thompson's hair looked polished this
morning, with her hair back in that bun or whatever."
     "She was wearing a sheen-yon," Darla informed him.
     "Okay," Tucker admitted.  "This..."  He pointed at the mirror.
"It's too chaotic to be polished."
     "Alright, maybe that was the wrong word," Darla admitted.  "But it
does look like it took some time to arrange like that, and other women
will see it and appreciate that you took the time-"
     "No, not with what I'm doing this morning, they wouldn't."  Tucker
spoke with complete confidence; while his family was approximately zero
percent of the US population of females, ALL of them had been pretty
hard on Susan and other teen females who had been primping when there
were chores and/or cooking to do; or when they showed up with overly
elaborate clothing, hair, makeup, nails, shoes, and/or jewelry.
     "AND!  You need the practice!" Darla announced.  "In wearing hair
like this."
     "Yeah, I guess," he admitted, though he didn't want to.

     Charlie had finally found a big two-prong fork, the sort of thing
used to hold a roast in place for carving, and he'd used that to
delicately lever each chicken out of the huge soup pot into a large
casserole dish.  He'd still splashed chicken soup (or whatever it was at
the moment, in between ingredients and edible soup) on his apron, and he
could really sympathize with Valerie's complaints about too-nice
clothing getting ruined during cooking.  *And those shoes, of course...
If she'd slipped with the pot, there'd be gallons of soup everywhere,
and it was almost boiling too.*
     The problem was, Jane wanted her students to look beautiful and
elegant at ALL times; whereas Valerie seemed more intent on practical
considerations.
     *Or doing 'mischief',* he had to admit.
     Since he couldn't think of anything else to do in particular, he
was going up the stairs to ask her what to do next, when Valerie came
out of the upstairs hall.  "Oh, hey, sorry it took so long," she said,
as she went to the wall and gingerly took one careful step down at a
time, holding on to the railing with both hands.  Darla, behind her,
shook her head and looked annoyed, but didn't say anything.  "What did
you do?"
     "I pulled the pot off the stove like you said, and then I got the
chickens out-"
     "Yeah, I thought about that, and I-"
     "I used a big fork, like for carving a roast?"
     "Oh," Valerie said as she stopped.  "Good idea.  I was gonna try
something stupid with a colander or something."

     "I put the chicken stock back in the freezer," Charlene told
Tucker, as he dug through a nearly-full utensil drawer.  "It was just
sitting on the counter getting warm."
     "What?  Oh, good.  Turns out I didn't use it... if you couldn't
guess.  Oh, finally," Tucker complained, as he located a slotted spoon.
     "Oh, should I have used that?" Charlene asked.
     "Wh-  No, not for the chickens.  Hey, could you wash your hands and
start pulling the meat off the bones?  I've gotta pull out the old
vegetables and...  Do you have a compost heap here?" he asked Darla, who
had tagged along.
     "A WHAT?"
     "Compost heap, for the garden.  Guess n-  _I_ guess not," Tucker
changed.
     "What would you...  Why..."  She seemed at a loss.
     "Since you don't keep pigs," which Tucker could understand, since
they were possibly the most evil creatures on earth, "then you could
throw all the kitchen scraps in a compost heap, and then use it on the
garden."  They did have a garden, though it seemed more oriented towards
flowers and suchlike than food or seasonings.

     Darryl was a little surprised; Valerie only made occasional trips
to look up something on her laptop, while the soup was starting to smell
very good indeed.  Since she had claimed to have no experience cooking
rice in a pot - and managed to look almost Jane-like as she did - Darryl
was making three quarts of rice, while Charlene was doing a variety of
tasks for the two of them.
     *I guess I shouldn't be surprised; she did handle breakfast well
enough,* he reminded himself.  It was just hard to reconcile with the
tomboyish scruffy appearance she'd sported the day before.

     Tucker didn't know if wigs were washable, but he hoped so; he was
starting to sweat, and a lot of that was coming out of his head.  *Man,
I can't believe...  Well, it IS Jane's place, so...*
     "How much cheese do I need to slice?" Charlene asked.
     "All of it," Tucker told her.  *Didn't I tell her that already?*
     "All of it?" both Charlene and Darla questioned.
     Tucker sighed.  "They're fine reheated in the microwave, they've
got a lot of protein, they're cheap and easy, you can dunk them in the
soup...  Miz Thompson and Miss Marie could probably use more sleep, and
don't need to deal with formal mealtimes."  He almost, ALMOST asked
Darla if Jane knew how to use a microwave, but managed to stop himself.
"Come to think of it, sleep would be nice..."  He'd only been up about
ten hours at this point, but he wasn't rested up from the previous
week, and the Ignition Event had done him some harm.
     *Jeez, and I bet I rested better over the weekend than they did.*
     Which led him to think, *Hey, why not see if I can get this
declared a 'weekend', so everyone can get some rest?*
     "I think they're too greasy to microwave," Darla said.
     "Fine," Tucker sighed.  "Cut the cheese now, it'll be ready for
later.  You could even assemble the sandwiches now, and put them in
bags, so all you'd have to do later is cook them."

     Darryl argued, "But you've already set yourself behind by almost a
week!"
     Valerie snorted.  "Look, you're tired, I'm tired, Miz Thompson and
Miz Marie are physically ill, Miz Philips is taking care of Miz Thompson
I guess...  I bet," she added with too much of a smile, "that you all
didn't rest very well over the weekend.  So why not?"

     Jane considered it as Diana pushed in her seat at the head of the
table.  *Valerie does have a point... I'm not really up to much right
now, and neither is Marie.  Darla seems to be handling her well enough,
as far as that goes... and while that contract...*  She didn't want to
think about the contract; while she'd signed it, her misgivings had been
slowly multiplying every hour since then.
     *But, she IS behaving... not like I'd wish, really - her deportment
is deficient, and her manners and speech lack all semblance of grace -
but except for that outburst after she fell down the stairs,* which Jane
could understand, and could even ignore for the moment, *she's been...
not 'quiet' exactly, and I suppose not even 'biddable', but she did
cook, and without being asked to do so.  Twice.*
     And, as the results of her second stint in the kitchen were right
in front of Jane, she began to sample the luncheon.

     Tucker was busy telling his nervous system to shut the hell up,
that it didn't matter if they said anything nice about him cooking or
not, but as usual his body wasn't listening to him.  He was also hoping
that Jane was fevered enough that she would be amenable to sanity for
once, and let everyone rest today.
     *Such as it is...  Cooking isn't too restful.  But hopefully I got
enough done that I won't have to do it again tonight.  Oh, except those
stupid sandwiches...*
     Jane took a spoonful of soup, and Tucker couldn't help watching her
face.  Her eyebrows went up, and he almost screamed at her to explain
just what the hell she meant by THAT, but when she went for a second
spoonful almost immediately, he almost sighed out loud in relief.

     Art had been watching Valerie closely, and he noticed how she
relaxed when Jane seemingly approved of what Valerie had cooked.
*Seems like she cares a great deal about Jane's opinion.  At least,
Jane's opinion of her cooking.*
     "Jane," he said, "I think it would be a good idea.  Valerie has
been most diligent today," and he smiled and nodded at Valerie, "and we
are all tired from... the events of the weekend," he said carefully.
     Jane's face stiffened as she remembered what had gone on.
     "But since Valerie has come back and has agreed to behave," he
continued before she could swallow and say something, "I think we'll all
have less trouble, and be able to start tomorrow in a much more
optimistic frame of mind, for all of us."

     *Admin skill is tolerably high, maybe a twelve or higher,* Tucker
thought as he had some soup.  He was going to wait until he saw what
Jane did with her sandwiches, before he touched his.
     *Couldn't manage to weasel-word like that without some admin
experience...   And the first two hundred hours of OJT gives you a full
point in the skill,* his reference library added.
     *Just in case I get a pop quiz on GURPS rules, somewhere in here.
Thaaaanks,* he told the reference library part of his brain.

     "I suppose so," Jane finally agreed, deciding it wasn't worth the
possible argument with Diana.  "However.  Valerie, you have to go to
choir practice tomorrow, which means you must be ready, dressed
appropriately and made up, to leave at eight thirty.  You missed
Saturday, and I was forced to make excuses for your absence.  Mrs.
Bishop was quite upset that you weren't there."

     Tucker strangled himself mentally, so all of it vomited inside his
head instead of out his mouth.

     Jane smiled at the flush that appeared on Valerie's face.  "So
you'll have to make your apologies to her tomorrow."
     Valerie stared back at Jane.
     "Valerie, acknowledge what I have just said, and your compliance."
     Her jaw tensed as she continued to stare, but several seconds
later, she obviously forced out, "Yes ma'am, I'll be ready for choir at
eight thirty tomorrow morning."  She managed to do so while keeping a
civil TONE in her voice, at least, Jane noted.
     "Very well.  Then, I suppose the rest of the day should be taken as
a day of rest, as you suggested."

     *'Well, ain't that just so WHITE of you!' played in Tucker's mind
in a very sugary southern accent; but he managed not to say that either.
     *Change the subject,* Mike suggested.
     *Yeah,* Tucker agreed.  "Is anyone going to the store- the grocery
store today or tomorrow?  I have a list of things I used today in
cooking- we have NO more garlic or cheese, I used it all.  And what I'd
suggest for food for the next couple of days.  If Darla can print it out
on a printer?" Tucker asked while looking at Darla.  Predictably, she
looked at Jane.
     Tucker sighed, because he greatly missed having several thousand
dollars of computer equipment nearly at his fingertips.  *Plus, of
course, civilized people have everything networked, so anyone can use
the hardware.  Not these people, of course.*

     Since Jane hadn't mentioned it yet, and neither had Marie, Art said
into one of the silences, "Valerie, may I compliment you on your lovely
appearance today?  You look like a very attractive and well put together
young lady."
     Valerie blinked at him twice, then swallowed, and carefully said,
"Thank you, Miz Philips."  She added, "It was all Darla's ideas."
     "But you really carry it off so well," Darla said back, smiling at
Valerie.
     "Thank you Darla," Valerie said in the same nearly flat intonation
she'd used to reply to Art.
     "And thank YOU for cooking," Art threw in, feeling a little abashed
that no one - including himself - had said anything to her before now.
"It's wonderful."
     "Thank you Miz Philips," she said, more naturally than before.

     Tucker was starting to sweat, despite the compliments, or maybe
because of them; he'd forgotten what it was like to do formal dining at
Jane's table, and that every meal was a formal dining 'experience'.
*'Ordeal' is more like it...*  Which was one reason he hated formal
dining.  *Druther be cookin', really...  Plus, of course, you have lots
of stuff to throw at people in a kitchen, and people expect chefs to
have a bad temper.*
     "I was wondering," Jane mentioned, "Darla, exactly why you picked
THAT wig for her, this time."
     "Well," Darla answered, "because, with the curls it shows off her
face and looks very feminine; and it's actually relatively short, which
I thought would be a good idea since she was cooking."
     Tucker was surprised she'd put that much thought into it, and that
much sanity.
     "It does look good on you," Charlene agreed.
     "You're just saying that because it looks like kind of like yours,"
Tucker smiled at her.  Though his was a lot more puffed up, and the
curls were much tighter.
     "I think it looks better," she disagreed, smiling back at him.
     *I think I lost that,* Tucker decided.

     "Does this need to be washed?" Valerie asked, after Darryl had
taken her back to her room to pick out tomorrow's choir outfit.
     "Does what need to be washed?"
     "The wig.  I was sweating in it, or while I was wearing it, or
whatever."
     "Oh... not yet," Darryl judged.  "You can wear them several times
before they need to be washed and restyled.  And you're not up to
restyling it yet."
     "No," she agreed.

     "Ohhh," Tucker complained when he saw what Darla picked out of
'his' closet for him to wear tomorrow.  "Darla, I'm-"
     "This is perfect," she insisted.
     "I have to SING."
     Her brows went down in confusion.  "What?"
     *Idiot.*  "It's CHOIR, I'm going to be SINGING.  I need maximum
freedom here," he waved over his upper torso, "for breathing, and..."
Maybe she didn't know how the outside world worked.  "There'll be girls
there, and-"
     "And you need to be well-dressed and on your best behavior with
them," Darla warned.  "Otherwise..."
     Tucker waited for her to threaten him with what would happen if he
fucked it up, like Jane had done on Friday a few weeks ago.  But she
didn't, she just gave him a Significant Look.  "Right.  So when I show
up looking about five grades overdressed, they're gonna be weirded out
an-"
     "Grades?"
     "Yeah?"  *Okay, maybe girls don't call it that,* he realized.
*Come to think of it, what DO they call it?*  "Way overdressed for the
occasion," he tried.
     She disputed, "No you won't."
     *Nope, never been in the real world.*  "Yes, I will.  That," Tucker
pointed at the pink-and-white-floral thing she was holding the hanger
of, "is nice and all, for church or something; but it's WAY over what
the girls w- the OTHER girls will be wearing.  It's practice, not a
performance."
     Darla shook her head at him, and Tucker realized, with some
irritation, that HER hair wasn't going to bounce around on HER head
except at the ends because HER hair was nailed down (so to speak).
Whereas HIS hair, actually the wig that was currently substituting for
his hair, would've been flapping around and springing and all sorts of
irritating things.  Except it was sprayed into sticky immobility.

     Darryl sighed and sagged against the wall when he shut the door to
Valerie's room.  He didn't know what she was supposed to do next, and at
the moment he didn't care as long as it wasn't anything with him.
     "What?"
     "Hmm?"  He opened his eyes and found Charlene looking curiously at
him.  "I just spent..."  He checked his watch, "Twenty minutes arguing
with Valerie about what she was going to wear for choir tomorrow.  And
tea this afternoon.  AND supper."
     "Ohhh boy," Charlene sympathized.

     Darla, Charlie had noticed, had absorbed a little too much of
Jane's propaganda, and not enough of the real world.  While she always
looked impeccable, and well-dressed, and rich, and attractive (and
sometimes even better than attractive), he wasn't sure she had anything
casual in her wardrobe, except MAYBE exercise clothes.  And she wouldn't
wear those where anyone could see them.
     Darla sighed again before she pushed herself upright.  "At least
she finally agreed to wear it all.  FINALLY."  She shook her head.  "I
really really hope every day doesn't turn into a battle like this..."
     The door opened and Valerie popped out, still wearing the blonde
curly wig and the dress she'd had on at lunch.  "Oh hey," she said to
both of them.  "Darla, can you print this file out?  It's a chore sheet,
shows- WHICH shows," she corrected herself, "who did what and when.  To
make keeping track of the payments easier."  She handed Darla a floppy
disk.  "That should work in Excel, it's just a see'essvee file."
     "A what?" Darla asked, before Charlie had decided whether he wanted
to know or not.
     Valerie made a face and sighed, "Comma separated value; it's a
standard stupid format that any spreadsheet should be able to read and
print out.  Oh, and make sure you print the lines for the boxes when you
print the spreadsheet out."
     Darla stood there.
     "Please?" Valerie said, like she was guessing.  "Or do you want me
to go up and d-"
     "No," Darla decided.  "I'll do it, I suppose."
     "Well THANK you," Valerie said, tilting her head to one side.
     "Valerie," Charlie said before Darla could go off.  "You don't have
to be rude about it."
     "Yes I do."
     "What?!" both Charlie and Darla said at the same time.
     "Hey, someone's gotta do it, right?" Valerie replied in a Brooklyn
(he thought) accent.  "S'why the United States has Brooklyn; someone's
gotta be the asshole if you wanna get anything done."  Darla's mouth
opened and Valerie added, without accent but with a large smile, "And
I'm the asshole."
     "If you don't stop using profanity, Jane's going to wash your mouth
out with soap," Darla warned.
     "She's not big enough," Valerie stated, as if someone had tried
that on her before and she'd fought and won.  "Besides, that's cruel and
unusual punishment, and a contract violation."  She smiled again.

     Darryl had to close his eyes and block Valerie out before he could
work on restraining his temper.  He was surprised into opening them
again when Valerie said, "Would you please print about five copies out,
please?" in an utterly polite and reasonable tone.  "Before we start
forgetting who did what."
     "I cleaned up twice today," Charlene mentioned, in case someone had
forgotten.  "After meals."
     "And didn't you do last night?" Valerie asked.
     "Yes?" she replied.
     "See," Valerie said to Darryl, "we're already forgetting."
     "All RIGHT," Darryl sighed, "I'm going."
     "If you have a clipboard," Valerie called from behind him, "put 'em
on that.  Otherwise, just give it to Charlene, okay?  Oh, and there's a
copy of the grocery list on there too, you could print that out too."
     Darryl sped up so he could get away from her faster.

     "Yeah BYEEEEE," Tucker commented as Darla took herself out of
hearing range.  But quietly.  Then he sagged.  "Damnit..."
     "Are you o-  No, you're not; you look really tired," Charlene
commented.
     "I'm really tired," Tucker admitted.
     "Well, if we've got a free day," she said, looking around, "maybe
you could take a nap?"
     Tucker liked the idea, until he remembered he hadn't replaced the
door locks yet.  "Um, no.  They can just bust in any time..."  *Not to
mention secret panels and doors, extra cameras...  And the nightmares.*
"Charlene?  What were you going to do?"
     "Iiiiiii... hadn't really thought of anything," she admitted
hesitantly.  "Why?"
     "Would you like to take a nap?"
     Now she sounded suspicious.  "Why?"
     "If you could keep 'em away from me, or wake me up if they come in,
I could sleep.  I slept maybe three hours last night, again."
     "What?  Didn't you say..." she started as her face contorted.
     "That I got about twelve hours of sleep last WEEK, yeah.  And it's
starting again.  This place scares me- scares my subconscious, real bad,
and..."
     "What was the nightmare?"
     He shook his head.  "Disgusting.  You don't even want to know.  And
I don't want to think about it," he realized or remembered.

     Charlie looked around, but of course there wasn't anyone around.
*Okay, so do I do it or not?*  He WAS a little tired, and another nap
wouldn't be a bad thing-
     "Is the tiredness making your temper worse?" he realized.
     "Well, duh!"
     That settled it; Charlie didn't need for Valerie and Jane, or
Valerie and Darla, or Valerie and anyone really, to get into a screaming
fight, and she seemed irritable enough that she might start one.  He
hadn't missed how she'd been needling Darla, or how both of them had
worked to hold on to their tempers.  "Okay...  Let's do it in the
nursery, like last time..."
     "Oh, and rem-  Do you want me to remove the camera from your room
now, or later, or what?"
     "Uhhhh, now would be good," he said as he imagined just what kind
of video Jane had of him by now.  He certainly didn't want her to have
any more.  "I'll catch Darla, and get those printouts," he suggested.
     "Good thinking."

     "Fucking camera," Tucker commented when he finally had the fucking
camera loose from its cables and mounting.  Somehow, Charlene's bedroom
furniture weighed twice what his had the night before, and he was almost
sweating just from the several seconds of effort necessary to move it.
     He looked at the cable ends, debating whether or not to cut them
off, in case there was a secondary, smaller camera and/or microphone on
the end of the cable in case of exactly what he was doing now.
     *Nah,* he finally decided.  *That's even overly paranoid for ME.*
Paranoia was a useful habit to have, but only if you didn't let it run
wild and unchecked.  "Instead..."  He rooted through the drawers until
he found a hair ribbon bow thing with a clip; that held the cables
together as Tucker threw the combination over the top of Charlene's
mirror and started shoving the whole thing back against the wall.

     "Okay, I got them..." Charlie called as he went into his room, and
did not find Valerie.  "Valerie?"
     "Here," she called, sounding extremely unenthusiastic about
something.
     He put the clipboard with the chore sheet down on his makeup table
and went to go see.  "Valerie?"
     She was holding a glass of... SOMETHING, and glaring at HIM.
     "What is that?"
     "Meta fucking myoo-sil," she said.
     "What?"  *Why can't she ever answer a quest-*
     "Bulk fiber, to get my intestines moving again."
     "What?  WHY?!"
     "'Cause I get stopped up when I'm stressed, or when I'm away from a
toilet for a day or two, like over the weekend?  And I don't want to..."
She shook her head.  "Don't want to think about that either.  This's
easier."  She put the glass to her lips and drank it all in one long go.
"Oh GOD," she gasped as she pulled the glass away from her lips.  "That
is so GROSS!" she complained as she walked off.
     "Where are-"
     "You have to drink another couple glasses of water with it too,"
Valerie called over her shoulder as she went into the bathroom.
"Jesus," she added before running water noise obscured anything else she
might be saying.
     "Oh, Val?" Charlie called, careful to keep his voice 'right'.  "Can
you take that wig off before you lie down?"  He looked around, and Darla
or someone had brought three other wigs down, and left the headstand for
the one on Valerie's head too.
     Eventually Valerie called back, "Augh, jeez...  Um, no, I don't
know how she did it.  How she attached it.  And she wouldn't tell me how
many pins she put in either."
     *Why does she care how many...*  "What difference does it make how
many she used?"  *Might as well ask...*
     "'Cause," she said as she came out of the bathroom, "if she put in
eight, and you only pull out seven, then there's one still in there.
Which will then poke me in the head at some really annoying time."
     Charlie frowned.  *She... couldn't have done this before, could
she?*  That sounded like experience talking.

     Thanks to Charlene, Tucker was now back to 'his' hair, changed into
an overly-frilly-to-shut-them-up ankle-length black satin nightgown
(with matching robe thingy brought along at Charlene's insistence in
case he had to 'be public', though how wearing a see-through robe with
frills over a nightgown with frills was somehow more 'decent' than the
same nightgown by itself escaped him) and a un-sweaty bra and panties,
and vaguely feeling there was an elegant and graceful way to crawl
across a bed while dressed like he was, even as un-wide as this day bed
was.  Though he knew that taking his laptop bag and new satchel to put
on the other side of the bed was NOT helping.  But he didn't know the
elegant and/or graceful way anyway, and he wasn't going to take the time
or effort to think about it.
     As Charlene got in the bed, gracefully - and probably like he
should've done - he reminded her, "Just wake me up if any of 'em come
in, okay?"

     "Don't let 'em get me," Valerie begged Charlie.
     "I won't," he assured her, before he realized, *But there's nothing
I can really do, I mean-*
     "Just wake me up; I can deal with 'em if I have to."
     "Okay..."  He wasn't sure of that, but he wasn't sure she COULDN'T
either.  As her eyes drooped shut, he said quietly, "Just sleep, now."
     She struggled to open her eyes again, and whispered, "Don't suppose
you'd sing me a lullabye, huh?"
     Charlie was startled into a chuckle.  Before he could say anything,
though, she turned and pushed her face against his side and wrapped an
arm over his stomach.  Hesitantly, he put an arm around her shoulders,
and she wriggled even closer to him.

     "No, it was apparently Valerie's idea," Darryl answered, as all
four of them watched Valerie sleeping in the nursery's day bed, curled
up around Charlene.
     "I wonder why she didn't remove the camera from the nursery," Jane
commented, her voice not quite as rough as it had been.
     After a while, Diana replied, "Maybe she was just too tired."
     "How much did she sleep last night?"
     Darryl answered Jane, "She was up, and had been up, when I went
down to run.  I guess she went to bed about the same time Charlene did,
around..."
     "Ten," Marie supplied.
     "Children her age need at least an extra hour of sleep compared to
adults," Diana mentioned.  "Preferably two."  She then looked
ostentatiously at Jane, then Marie.  "Of course, adults who are fighting
infections ALSO need more sleep."
     "I think that's a WONderful idea," Darryl piped up, and smiled at
the nasty looks he got.
     "Besides, she's home.  We're home, everything's all right," Diana
said, and kissed Jane's hair.
     "Amen," Jane sighed.

     When his arm went numb - actually, a couple of minutes after it
went numb - Charlie finally started to pull his arm away from Valerie's
shoulder.
     She actually growled at him.
     He wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to bite him, but he said
gently, "Shhh, go back to sleep," as he slid his arm out a little
faster.
     Thankfully, she did.

     "Yeah," Mike said, looking over at his computer for no real reason,
"email came in this morning sometime.  With the right codes."  He turned
back to look at the phone, also for no real reason.
     "So what IS going on?" Dan asked.
     "Fuckifino."
     "We don't go get him?"
     "No."
     "Unless he doesn't do something for..."
     "Forty-eight hours.  He said he told them twenty-four, but, you
know..."
     "Better safe than sorry?"
     "And better dead than red," Mike agreed.
     "I thought it was the other way 'round."
     "This is MONDAY."

     Jane had finally managed to wake herself up and refresh her hair,
clothing, and makeup; Diana had apparently finished her nap and gone to
the store, or so Darla had explained before she went to set up the
afternoon's high tea.
     A quick dash (slog) to her office and a check on the video monitor
showed that Valerie was still clinging to Charlene, who was reading
quietly in the nursery's day bed.  *At least three hours,* Jane thought.
*And why do I feel so happy about it?  This is setting her back...*
     *Because,* she answered herself, *she's still here.*
     Darla had asked - begged, according to Darla - Charlene to keep
Valerie here at all costs, and to wake them all up if she showed any
sign of leaving, but, judging from appearances, Valerie had hardly even
moved.
     And Jane herself, while not feeling up to par yet - actually she
felt ghastly - was feeling at least two hundred percent better than she
had, say, early Sunday morning.

     A knock at the front door surprised the heck out of Darryl.  *Who
could that be?* he wondered, wiping his hands.
     Before he got there, the doorbell rang.  "Alright alright, I'm
coming, hold your hors-  KENNETH?!"  He flung the door open and flung
himself at the tall fellow standing on the porch.

     Kenneth staggered back but managed to catch both of them as the
auburn-haired 'girl' threw herself on him with a squealed, "What are YOU
doing here?"
     "Wishing I'd worn a catcher's mitt, for one," he said.  "Art called
me, said I could possibly be useful in finding that stu-"
     "She came back," Darla interrupted as she pulled loose.
     "You don't sound happy about that," Kenneth noticed.
     She sighed.  "I guess...  Are you here for a while?" she realized.
     Kenneth shrugged.  "I've got all summer, and I was kind of at loose
ends anyway."
     "Well, I meant in terms of days... or hours.  I'm about to fix
tea," and she smiled that lovely smile at him, "as I'm sure you know.
You deliberately arrived at teatime, didn't you?"
     "If I had," he assured her, "I'd have made sure I would've gotten
here AFTER you'd fixed everything."
     "Oh, come on, help me do it and I'll tell you what's happened,"
she beckoned towards the open door.

     "Who is that?" Art wondered as he slowly drove towards the garage
in back of the house.  "Who ha-"  *I didn't call Kenneth to tell him we
found Valerie.  Nor did I call anyone else.  Oh dear.  Oh shit oh
dear...*  He had several calls to make, very quickly.

     Kenneth wasn't used to carrying groceries into Jane's house;
usually Marie had done that.  *Or someone.  Or maybe fairies...*  Of
course, he'd had to do plenty of hauling when living with Ruth
Walenkiewicz, and then for his own use at college; it wasn't completely
foreign.
     *I wish they had some fairy help right now, though... Jane sick,
Marie sick, Sandy sick, Darla seems stressed, I barely know Art- or
Diana, whichever he is at the moment.  Apparently the older student
isn't all that competent at the role either...  Though I guess that's to
be expected if the older 'sister' isn't Darla.*  Darla, or Darryl, was a
twisted sort of genius, in his own way.
     *Well, like I said, I was sort of at loose ends anyway.*

     "Why so much honey?" Darryl asked as she pulled out the second very
large jar.
     "I don't know, I just got what was on the list," Diana demurred.
She still seemed a little flustered after her flurry of phone calls.
"Didn't you read it over?"
     Darryl sighed.  "No...  I know I should have, and I did sort of
scan it and didn't see anything really out of bounds - and the ice cream
seemed like a good idea when I thought about it - but..."  There was a
third jar.  "I'm starting to get diabetes just handling all of it."
     "Well, we did get more chicken," Diana said, as Kenneth came in
with another set of grocery bags.  "And what seemed to be to be an
unreasonable amount of garlic.  Salmon, more cheese, more bread and
pastries for the mornings, and more fruit..."
     "More everything, it looks like," Darryl said.
     "I thought it was a lot."
     "Huh," Kenneth commented.  "I did too, but thought it was for,
well, everyone...  How many people are here at the moment?"
     Darryl counted in his head.  "Seven, with you here.  Oh, seriously,
any idea how long you're staying?"
     Kenneth smiled and leaned a hip against the counter.  "As long as
you need me, I suppose.  Or want me here."
     "Want who-" Jane croaked from the doorway.  "Kenneth!"
     "Look what Diana found at the store!  On sale!" Darryl joked.  "Now
we can have a Kenneth of our own!"  He stopped when it was apparent that
neither Kenneth nor Jane were paying attention to him.

     "I can't be Kendra," Kenneth stated.  "Not any more."  Not since
he'd grown six inches in a year or two, several years ago; and he'd kept
growing since then.
     "I..."  Jane shook her head.  "Actually, I don't think it makes a
difference," she said.
     "What?!" everyone commented at once.
     Jane sighed as she placed her glass against her forehead.
"Honestly..."  She looked up.  "Due to the phones going out at a crucial
point, I couldn't call Robert and cancel his appearance for supper one
night.  So he was here, and of course completely male.  During that
meal, Valerie - while arguing with me - screamed, at the top of her
lungs, she was having her period.  And ran off to her room apparently
crying."
     Darla protested vehemently, as Kenneth tried to imagine one of
Jane's students pulling that.  *I think only Darla would've tried it...
and she wouldn't've been so crude as to mention menstruation, either.*
Into a momentary gap in the conversation, Kenneth asked, "HOW long has
she been here?"
     Jane answered, "Nine days, counting the ones," she slowed for a
moment, "during her disappearance.  Robert was here Monday, the day
after she arrived."  Jane gave a sardonic smile.  "So I don't think
having a male in residence, Kenneth, will be an adverse influence; very
little has restrained her so far."
     "She's been a lot better today, compared to what you've said,"
Darla mentioned.  "Maybe it's the contract?"
     "Contract?" Kenneth remembered.  "May I see it, please?"

     As Kenneth scanned the contract - which was making Jane more and
more irritated, every time she saw it - and Darla busied herself with
preparations, Jane said to Diana, "Well, if we're going to have tea in a
bit, could you go get Marie, and then Charlene and Valerie?  Please?"
     "Yes, dear," Diana said in a very long-suffering housewife's tone
of voice.
     "Don't take that tone of voice with me, missy," Jane said, trying
not to smile.  "You're not too big to put over my knee."
     Diana lifted her eyebrows as she replied, "Oh?  Would mademoiselle
care to test that proposition?"
     "Ahem," Darla said.  She was smiling when Jane looked over.  "Not
in front of the children."
     "Which is why we're doing it now," Diana purred, and Jane smiled
but couldn't help thinking of Valerie, curled up next to - almost on top
of - Charlene, in the nursery.

     People were making horrible noises at Tucker.  And waking him up.
He tried telling them to go to hell and shut the fuck up and leave him
the goddamned hell alone before he killed them all, but fell asleep
before he finished thinking of what to say.

     Valerie, Art decided, wasn't faking it; she was really that deeply
asleep.
     "Valerie, it's time to wake up," Charlene said again as she shook
the younger student's shoulder a bit.
     "Try kissing her," Art suggested as a joke.  "Like Sleeping
Beauty."

     Charlie did not want to do it, but Diana sounded serious...
     And he'd never kissed anyone.  Not seriously.
     *But she can't mean I'm supposed to kiss her like THAT, could she?*
     "Valerie?  PLEASE wake up," he tried one more time, and she
responded like she had the last three times; not at all.
     *I guess...*
     He remembered his mom kissing his cheek, a long time ago, to wake
him up.  *Try that instead,* he thought with relief.

     Tucker was vaguely awake at this point, but his baser cunning told
him that if he pretended he was still asleep, maybe they would go away.

     Art was startled when Charlene bent her head down towards Valerie's
face.  Then, he was horrified; but it was too late to stop her.

     The touch on his cheek woke Tucker up, definitely, and when he
figured it was a kiss, nicely; so he didn't bother opening his eyes as
he wrapped his arms around whoever it was, pulled their mouth to his,
and returned the kiss, with interest.

     Charlie froze in terror as Valerie put her arms around his neck and
held him down as she kissed him, on the MOUTH.
     And kissed him.
     And kissed him.

     *Who the hell is this?* Tucker wondered.

***


Distribution:
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Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as
the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to
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+ @>--,--'-----   Ellen Hayes   o===[--------      __      vicki .sig  +
                  -=[1990]=-                       \/      virus 12.2
+      http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes     PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +




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