The Great Cookie Caper
#13 of No Good Deed
The great cookie caper
"Your mission. Should you choose to accept it...find. Acquire, and devour the cookies. Should you be discovered, we will disavow all knowledge of you and your mission..."
"Hey! " I thought we were going with a medieval knights and princesses thing here?" Matthias adjusted an intricate gold foil and construction paper origami crown on his head. I had no idea how the thing held itself together. "If we were doing superspies i SO would have made a golden gun..."
"Like the one you made that got you sent home from school for a month?" Mathias' dad was behind him in some gray construction paper shoulder pads and a slit helm "visor" covering up most of his face.
"No way. I've gotten much better since then. I can do a magazine now.." he flexed his hands in the dark. " Or could before i got regressed. Blech. Feels like i'm trying to work with meat sausages"
"Come on..." Suzie had a cardboard princess crown and scepter."you boys are going to stand here talking till dawn" Edda nodded with her, the feathered headdress bobbing and weaving over her head.
"Ronan needs... oh we didn't bring her anything. " Chuck ermed, then took the pink blanket from my crib, folded the corner and tied some string around it "There we go, one cloak of invisibility.
"Trouble?" i asked, pointing around. It's not like the computers could not notice the six of us sneaking around. "Cloak" or no cloak. And I was already in enough trouble.
Suzie shook her head. "The computer sees you but can only report you for something serious. Like fire" she shot a glare at Chuck, who started to whistle innocently. "Or if you get hurt. Mind you, if you start to make a big enough mess, it can't report you for being there but it might call for a clean up crew to the area..." and Mathias did a surprisingly good job of joining Chucks whistle in harmony.
I weaved back and forth a bit, unsure. I wasn't supposed to hop out of the crib after all Edda solved the dilemma by squeezing the latch and lowering the bars for me. The five of them looked so expectant and excited I couldn't say no. Jumping out of the crib made my diaper slosh forward
I hopped out of the crib, blushing a bit as i felt the weight of my sodden padding sloshing down as I came to an abrupt stop. Chuck got the "cloak" around me and we all shuffled out into the hall, tiny footsteps echoing down the hall.
"This way" Matthias whispered, loudly, making a few turns down the hallway. He took us up some steps and onto a glass walkway overlooking a brook and small waterfall. Luna major was in a waning crescent but Luna minor was waxing to near full, casting the wet rocks in a lovely mosaic of shadowed black grey and silver that rippled with the current's fluctuations.
"What's he looking at?" Bob pressed his nose against the glass and squinted.
"Probably the waterfall. It was really pretty when I took the tour. You know, since I actually PLANNED on being here.. " Matthias teased
"Stupid bum ticker. Hopefully they fixed it this time and I can get past bio 80" Bob thumpthumped his chest.
"Try not jumping out of planes. You know I'm useless as a tissue dono..hey!r"
Suzie had to physically push them up the stairs to get them moving.
We came to an intersection and Chuck held his hand up. "Ronan, what do you hear?"
There were some heartbeats of course, fluttering with the fear and excitement of being caught. A little humming from some distant equipment: Dad always complained humans on this planet terrible about making sure their machines didn't register in everyone's hearing. Probably not what he meant though. There was something wheeling around the halls, with a constant swishing sound.
"Wobowt. Iwts..." i couldn't think of the word and get it out of my mouth at the same time so I rubbed my hand on the wall in a circular motion.
"Okay, that's a scrubber. Not a security drone. What do you smell? "
He probably wasn't interested in Mathias padding.
"Boyfume?" I said, and pointed left. "Twomins"
That prompted a few confused looks.
"boyfu..OH. COLOGNE!" Suzie exclaimed, putting her hands over her mouth as if she could stop the sound from echoing down the coridoor. "That boy nurse with the really big mustache has some Eau de YUCK.
I held up two fingers and twirled them twice.
Chuck nodded "Right, two minutes that way, should be safe. Let's go"
"Wait..what..how did you get anything out of that..." Bob looked confused, but Mathias took us to an indoor playground. "They leave the side door open here, but you have to run through the whole thing..
"Oh.. darn" the kids grinned, looked at each other and by some unspoken agreement took off running. I got an early lead by dashing in between everyones legs on all fours and darting through a tunnel that the humans had to crawl through. I kept up the lead through the ball pit by diving in, but got hung up on the netting. I wasn't tall enough to reach the netting above, and my feet were too small to balance on the netting below. My friends ran over me, swinging from the top and their absurdly long feet letting them balance on the ropes. Bob stopped and looked back "are you stuck ronAHHHHH!" as I ran back to the previous hazard, took a running start and just leaped across on all fours, clonking skulls with him with a dull THUD that left us both rubbing our heads. We leaned on each other a little till the wall climb, where he pushed me over the top and scrambled up like a squirrel.
"Hey slowpokes, glad you could make it" Matthias teased , and noticed us nursing our wounds. "Wait, dad. You hit heads with a kin and she's rubbing HER head... what did you ....you got it didn't you? The black box?"
Bob rubbed his foot on the ground nervously. :"This was the last Time Through i could get a parasports license so...
" Couldn't even win a race through a jungle gym. Mom is so going to kill you..." The dark skinned boy grinned, teeth lighting up the room.
"I stopped to help Ronan! And mom better not find out. Unless you want her to find out what really happened to her spruce goose...
"You wouldn't....
They both made a zipping motion with their lips, spit in their hands and shook. Edda snorted a bit while Suzie ewwwwed
Fortunately Mathias could argue and navigate at the same time, and we only got lost once through the maze of corridors. The gang rounded a corner and stopped so suddenly my snout hit Edda in her crinkly butt.
"What's wrong? "
"It's dark in there" Chuck stammered a little.
"Don't be such a gi..chicken". Mathias teased."boc boc boc..."
Edda, despite reeking of fear, proudly walked forward shoulders back and chest out.. Face first into a shelf, making a box on top tip and fall over. None of the three managed to catch it, but hitting their heads and then falling to the floor kept it's landing to a dull thud that was far less audible than calling dibs on the catch.
Footsteps and the increasing scent of boyf.. cologne heralded the nurse's approach to check the commotion. I spied a laundry cart and as it didn't smell TOO ripe started pushing chuck up and in to it
"Rona what the hell...oh! Everybody up. " The father and son started trying to clamber up each other and got nowhere. Suzie put Edda's hands together and stepped up, using the other girl like a stump. Chuck pushed the father and son into doing the same before leaping up himself, with Edda giving his rump a firm push.
The blond haired girl put one hand on the rim, tipping it slightly as she tried to pull herself up with one hand. Suzie got her using her second hand and a little push from me pulled herself over the side.
"Great, now howOH." Suzie exclaimed as she saw me leaping over the side, my jump from all fours managing to clear my front half over the side, but i was grateful the the cushion my wet padding offered as i hit the edge of the cart and fell in head over paws. Suzie started pulling at my "cloak" and draped it over us just as footsteps approached.
"Hmmm what have we here..." came a high pitched male voice. Everyone froze solid, but after a moment he grunted to lift up the box and place it back up on the shelves, footsteps heading out the door the way he came.
"Phew" I released my breath along with my bladder, ears flushing warm and my tail tucking as the padding swelled and started to droop, pulling at my tail and waist.. I let the other kids wriggle past me and climb out while standing there, frozen. The boys were out in a heartbeat, but Edda looked at my expression and giggled into her hand.I got on all fours and let her step on my back to climb out anyway, and only pushed her over the lip a LITTLE too hard then hopped after her. The sloshing padding threw me off, and it took me two attempts to get out.
Edda stuck her tongue out at me while sitting on her rump while the rest of the group fumbled around the room. Chuck reached a paw out and felt along my ears, to my wet padding and then to my tail, and ahahed! "Okay , everybody grab somebody and follow the fox..." Huh. I didn't think it was THAT dark in here. I lead them along, not sure if they were playing or not, past a spare crib and a much worse smelling laundry cart than the one we'd just climbed out of and into a pool of bright light.
"My lady's cloak of invisibility.." I glared at Bob, but he chuckled. "Hey.. it worked didn't it?" He fumbled to tie it back onto me until Edda
"Here we go. 3 7 5 0" Matthias was leaning up on tippy toes to press numbers on a pad. It beeped red at him. "What the heck, that's what it was a few days ago.
Suzie hmmed "it was 4 0 0 0 2 days ago, So day month...hit 4250" he pressed some buttons and got a red light "but of course they probably don't change it to the morning shift so...try 4125."
The former financial offer of an entire district squeed in delight as a green light and a click followed the last entry. The smell of cakes, cookies, flour, spices, wafted out of the room and we all scrambled trying to push in a door designed to swing out. Only Chuck's quick thinking in slamming his foot in the door stopped it from locking again. We climbed over each other and spread out , with Chuck hopping behind on one foot.
At the far end, through a row of shelves rested an old fashioned stone pottery cookie jar. That has us all drooling over the proffered baked heaven inside, but the six foot shelf it rested on was now was a veritable mountain to our tiny forms. Chuck had obviously thought ahead "Edda, you're the base of this plan..." he snickered at his own joke, and knelt down, patting his left hand "Edda here, chuck there. Bob climb on Edda , Suzie on Mathias. Rona , you're the top"
Bob griped "Why can't I be the base..." getting up on Edda, who barely moved despite using only one arm.
"Awww.. is dad smaller than a girl..." Matthias teased, letting out an OW as Suzie kneed him on his tailbone, and again as I wriggled my foot into him for balance. Once on top I i positions myself on all fours near the jar, started to stand up on two legs to take the jar as Matthias started to squirm
"Rona.. are you drooping or leaking?
"She's not the only one, I thought you weren't supposed to drink after seven? " Suzie icked, manuevering her foot to pat his rump.
"Guys, not noOOOOWW..." he screamed as we all fell on top of him in a pile. I managed to roll over during the fall, taking the cookie jar on my already bruised stomach and held it up triumphantly through the mass of squirming kiddults.
"Finally!" Matthias opened the jar and dugged in, stopping when his dad Thwaped him in the head. "Hey what was that for?"
"You help a la..comrade up first. " and easily lifted me up to two legs, "THEN you take the prize..." he laughed manically and took out a handful of cookies. Thinmints, some buttery cookies with a candied cherry in the middle, chocolate chip, a brownie, all nicely aged for a day in the jar to give them a cornucopia of taste and a it of softness without going stale. He pressed some into my paws and took his share of the spoils and sat on a crate.
Chuck looked around "Suzie, you want to get your share before they're all gone?"
"Oh.. i don't think that will be a problem" she held up a few cartons of milk, beading with condensation and surveyed the room full of crummy mouthed children "we'll start the bidding at 3 chocolate chips..."