A return for the lovely Lady Shelly.
Leslie scowled as she stalked into the science building-alone. She was not supposed to be alone, though. She was supposed to have company.
“Stupid boys, stupid Shelly, stupid Kim with her stupid baked goods.” Despite the harsh tones, she did not mean that last bit; Leslie was extremely fond of both Kim and said baked goods, excusing times such as now when they distracted her friends from being company. Normally, Leslie would have stayed and chatted but she was on a timed mission for custodial, assigned two rooms on the second floor to be cleaned before a hoard of prospies arrived at four.
So there she was, in the science building. Alone.
“Dammit, I hate my life.”
“I hate your life, too.”
“If I had a life, I’d hate it.”
Silence fair echoed through the empty hall and the girl stood, staring glumly at its hideously barren space. As she opened the custodial closet doors, Leslie muttered, “I can’t believe you just held that conversation with yourself.”
Then something moved.
“Hello?”
Something definitely moved again-she heard it. But where?
“Uh…ah…view halloo?” Leslie cleared her throat, awkwardly peering around the doors. She spotted a window-less door across the way that was open. It was not supposed to be open.
Instinctively, her hand went to the broom handle for self-defense, but it was too late. When Shelly, Tom and Nicole strolled in with coffee and smoothies, all Leslie could recall was purple.
“Purpble…”
“What did she say?” Nicole scratched her head with a finger.
“Did she even speak?” Tom slurped his coffee.
“She kind of gargled. Does that count?” Shelly wiggled her nose thoughtfully before offering Leslie the smoothie they had brought for her. Leslie stared into space a moment longer and then grabbed it. They sat in silence, consuming their beverages. Well…in as much silence as smoothies allow. After about ten minutes, Leslie wrangled them into helping her clean since it was almost four but it wasn’t until they had left the building when she finally told them what had happened.
“I was jumped, Nicole. By our old nemeses.”
Tom glanced back and forth between Leslie and Nicole who had now joined her friend in scowling darkly. “What? You have nemeses?”
“Yes Tom. The purple-bellies.”
“The Alliance?”
“Worse.” The little one replied, shaking her head. “Conference crew.”
“Well, oh…crap. I have to go-I’ve got to prepare for my lecture tomorrow.”
“Yeah, all your little ROTClings can’t train themselves!”
The girls waved as Tom loped into the distance, taking off momentarily on a tangent to chase a squirrel across the grass. When he lost it in a tree, he disappeared down the hill. Leslie clapped her hands together in a business like manner and turned to her girls. “Okay. Now what?”
Nicole put a hand on her hip and shifted her weight, thinking. “Well, if it is purple bellies, we really shouldn’t use Jayne.”
“What? Why not?”
“Well, aside from the fact that he would kill them all, he would probably blow up the science building as well.”
Leslie looked mildly crestfallen. “Oh. But what about-”
“Not Burt either.”
“Then how about-”
“No.”
“You don’t even know!”
“No.”
Shelly watched the entire conversation, highly amused. She grinned. “How about we all go home and sleep tonight and we will approach the issue in the morning. I have a meeting with my group at ten, so I’ll just spend the rest of the day helping.”
“But what about your Bressler paper? Isn’t it due in…like…a month?”
“I’m not worried.”
“Wait-I’m confused. You’re not worried about a Bressler paper, AKA a hell paper?”
“Nope!”
“Wow. Your meds must really help squash that little demonic chibi Bressler voice in your head.”
“Sorta.”
“…you’re already done with the paper, aren’t you?”
“…hey, looks like mom’s waiting for me. Gotta go!” Shelly dashed off with a smile on her face, pausing only to turn around and wave. “I’ll see you all tomorrow! Bring your ideas!”
The next morning Leslie and Nicole reclined lazily on the plateau, playing a game of scrabble. Leslie was winning.
“No way, I refuse to believe that is a word.”
“Zyzzyva is totally an acceptable word in Scrabble! Heck, even word accepts it.”
“You would be the one to know that.”
“Yes I would. Now, take your turn.” Just then Shelly scampered over and bounded onto the Plateau, arms wide.
“Good morning, Ladies Leslie and Nicole! How are you this bright, sunshiney day?” The scrabble players exchanged a dubious look and greeted their friend who shrugged and said, “I’m ecstatic because my group meeting was cancelled and I have someone coming who will be able to help us!”
Fishing around in the letter bag and grimacing as she pulled forth three of the letter i, Leslie offhandedly said, “Me too.”
“That’s the first I heard about it.” Nicole said, startled. “Who do you have coming?”
“Just someone. It took a bit of work to get a hold of him, but I managed it.” She checked her watch. “Should have actually been here a while ago, but he probably hit some bad weather. Who do you have coming, Shelly?”
This question was immediately answered as a tall man with striking blonde hair entered through a door and walked regally towards them. Shelly squeed as he drew nearer and stopped to cast back his grey cloak and offer a formal bow. “Lady Shelly, the Lord of Gondor passed on your request for my assistance and I came as expeditiously as could be managed. I am honoured by the faith you have placed in me.”
Containing her near-fangirlish-glee, Shelly cleared her throat and returned the bow, offering her hand for a shake. “And I am honoured by your willingness to assist us. These are the Ladies Leslie and Nicole, who will also be participating in the mission.”
“An honour, good sir.” Leslie bowed, feeling remarkably silly as someone began laughing at the scene.
“What is with this, some weird ritual? I thought you wanted my help, Leslie, not to entertain me.”
“Well, if I can manage both, where is my fault?” she straightened up and hopped off the plateau to shake the hand of the voice. She grinned as Nicole stopped talking to Shelly and Haldir for a moment to look and then did a double take. “Nicole, Shelly, and of course, Haldir, this is my friend.”
Nicole nodded, but didn’t hear the name. She didn’t need to. Before her stood, though he was taller perhaps, with shorter hair and a little bit of a goatee, Karl Scott. He was even wearing that stupid bag. She loved Karl Scott. She tried to speak but only managed to nod incoherently, staring at him.
Karl leaned over to Leslie and whispered, “Is she okay?”
“She will be.”
“Good. Now what are we here for in the first place?”
“You’re mainly here because I hadn’t heard from you in a while and I figured that Nicole would get a kick out of it. But you have your more useful moments as well.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Welcome. Now!” Leslie clapped her hands together in her irritating way of commandeering attention. “We have come together, my friends, to deal with a curious problem of purple bellies in the science building.”
“Purple Bellies-is this some sort of animal?”
“Or dinosaur?”
“No, I’m sorry, my good gentleman. The purple bellies of this particular issue are a rather unpleasant sort of human being who plagues this campus, usually during summer. Their presence here at this point both worries and concerns me. I am worried because they are out of season. I am the one to be concerned because I am of the custodial crew and know their lazy ways.”
Karl, Haldir and Shelly looked towards Nicole for translation.
“Basically conference crew is populated by worthless lazy scum that seems to go out of the way to make life difficult for custodial. They should only be around in the summer.”
“What are we to do?” Haldir asked, a skeptical brow raised toward Shelly who turned to him, grinning.
“I thought that we could use your mad tracking skills to find them and capture them. Since they’re just kids-”
“Idiots.”
“-I figured you could make it safer…”
“Indeed, I believe I could be of assistance, though some of the ways of this world confound me.”
“As they did me, but you will soon grow accustomed.” Came a voice from the right. As though practiced to be completely synced, the group turned to look. Teal’c stood in his standard green army-issued pants and black shirt, with his arms behind his back and a smile on his face. “It is good to see you once again, Nicole and Leslie. I do not believe that I know your friends.” Nicole leapt up and introduced the crew, also explaining in brief what Leslie took some time to say. Then they were on their way.
In the science building, Leslie was walking the men through the steps of what had happened the day before. They were standing in a classroom that doubled as a storage room in the summer. It was almost always locked, excusing when profs and other authorized personnel retrieved goods for experiments. The men, even Karl (who had gathered some tracking skills on Dinotopia), were discussing the amount of time it had been since the room was disturbed. The girls were bumming around in the hallway because Leslie couldn’t stand the smell of the formaldehyde.
“Seriously, gag me with a spoon, that crap is gross.”
“We get the point, Les.”
“Honestly. Besides, if you keep talking about it I’m not going to do well during my Fundies of Bio this Mayterm. Tell me more about the conference crew.”
“Well, they always have to wear their purple shirts.”
“Hence their name.”
“And they have a habit of getting in the way of and mocking custodial, the people who actually do their jobs.”
“They also have absolutely no idea how to actually clean a bathroom. Or what RB382 is.”
“Or Foamy Q&A.”
“RB382? Foamy Q&A?” Shelly was unfamiliar with the names. Nicole sauntered over to the custodial closet to retrieve the chemicals while Leslie began explaining.
“RB382 and Foamy Q&A are both highly abrasive chemicals used by custodial. You are to wear gloves at all times while they are in use and you are never, ever to mix up the spray nozzles. There is a chance that, if you do and put one of the spritzing heads instead one of the foaming head on, the chemical will atomize. If this happens you could inhale it and it would make your lungs melt. Charming, no?”
“…very. Now, can you explain why conference crew is so dangerous? I mean, I know they are annoying…”
“Oh,” Leslie replied, matter-of-factly, “They’re also ninjas.”
“What?!”
“Leslie-” from across the hall where Nicole had frozen, she nodded urgently in the direction of the stairwell. Her friends looked in time to see a flash of purple round the corner. “I think it was scooter boy.”
“Awesome. Let’s get him, Nicole. Shelly, grab the boys and tell them where we are going.”
“Where are you going?”
“That-a-way!” Taking only the time to grab a broom and bottle of abrasive chemical each, Leslie and Nicole vanished after the ‘scooter boy.’ Shelly cursorily scanned the hallway and backed into the room, promptly bumping into Haldir. They both whipped around, her losing her balance and him steadying her easily.
“What is it?”
“Leslie and Nicole just took off down the hallway after a purple-belly.”
Karl rolled his eyes. “Well that was smart.”
“What?” she sounded mildly concerned. “Haldir?”
“We estimate that there was at least five people locked in the closet.”
“And the girls don’t know that and thereby are quite possibly walking into a-”
“TRAP!”
“Of course it was a trap.”
“I knew those conference crew were tricky.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly observant.”
“…well…”
“Leslie, they locked us in our own closet.”
Moments later, a prof was preparing to exit his class to retrieve some fresh coffee when he was accidentally shoved back into his office by a young lady followed by three men, one of which was wearing an extremely strange grey outfit and a cape. He looked at the empty mug in his hand and shook his head, setting it aside and reaching for a bottle of water.
The group skidded round the corner and down the stairs. They were on the platform between first and second floor when Haldir called them to a halt. It was ungainly, but they managed to stop and throw together a quick plan.
“Every one understands? Good.” Haldir and Teal’c drew their respective weapons, a staff and a zat gun, and hung back while Karl and Shelly picked up the spray bottles that had been dropped at the bottom of the stairs by the girls and headed into the hall.
“Yeah, conference crew royally sucks. We’ll just have to go clean the bathrooms again.” Shelly stated loudly.
Karl agreed. “Yeah. They’re dumber than a herd of mindless tyrannadons at feeding time.”
“…what?”
“Trust me. The hunger drops their IQ rather acutely.”
“I’ll take your-NOW!”
As they had been speaking, both had smelled the scent of formaldehyde growing thicker in the air, judging the moment right before they would be attacked. Four purple bellies leaped out, seemingly, of nowhere. Karl and Shelly both let their abrasive chemicals fly, squirting the two in front of them soundly. Startled the now squishy conference crew looked down and saw their pretty shirts melting under the influence of the chemicals.
“NOOOO!!!”
Undaunted by their fallen comrades, the two purple-bellies pounced upon their victims. Shelly turned to deck hers, but was surprised to see him fall. He had been stunned by Haldir. Karl had knocked his aggressor off and watched with satisfaction as the purple belly was zatted and fell to the ground, groaning. Haldir and Teal’c were also kind enough to render the squishy ones unconscious as well.
“Well. We make a good team.”
“So it would seem” Teal’c stated with a half smile. “But where are the others?”
“Yeah-where are Leslie and Nicole?” Karl asked, jumping as there was a sudden scrabbling sound from behind a nearby double-door. They all stepped back as the doors burst forth and Leslie fell out onto her face. Nicole exited, somewhat more gracefully, shortly thereafter.
“Did we miss something?” was all that she asked, smiling with an air of adoration up at Teal’c and somewhat more suggestively at Karl.
The friends exited the building into the sunlight, having left their enemies hogtied in a closet for Sam, the custodial master of the science building. Leslie stretched and yawned, ignoring jabber behind her. Teal’c bid them a kindly adieu and headed back to save the world. Nicole and Karl were already making plans to play video games and have pizza that evening, with Leslie invited and Haldir and Shelly were conversing in elvish. Across the quad the battery-powered cart was buzzing away until it puttered to a halt. Fred Libick stormed out from behind the campus center, ranting and raving at the purple belly who was behind the wheel.
All seemed right in the world and Leslie smiled. It was a successful day.