HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so this is a special one-shot for mini's bday, cuz everyone knows how special that is. for now, pretend that they all go to the same college and live in the same area.
Yamini Kapoor-Mercado-Lopez woke up like any normal human being on any normal day. She turned off her alarm, brushed her teeth, showered, changed, grabbed her phone, and walked downstairs . . . where, instead of finding her fruit bowl and scrambled eggs for breakfast, she found Potatoes.
"What are you doing here—" she began to say, then took in the scene. Her house had been completely redecorated. Streamers hung from doorways and balloons bounced around, some taped to the walls. A giant pile of presents sat on the kitchen counter, and in the midst of it all was a huge banner that said HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY, YAMINI KAPOOR-MERCADO-LOPEZ! From the fancy calligraphy used, Mini guessed it was made by Hira. But what was it doing here?
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MINI!" everyone (Aru, Brynne, Hira, Aiden, and Rudy) chorused. It took a second for that to register.
"Oh," she said at first. Then an even louder "Oh." Then, in the most un-Mini-like squeal ever, she said, "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!" Her phone began vibrating, so she opened it to find a stream of never-ending wishes.
watermelanie: happy bday bbg!! 🎂 🎉 🥳 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎂🎂🎂
siva.karthik: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINI!!!
Kayla_Brent: The Stanford staff wishes you a happy 20th birthday, Yamini! 🥳
More replaced the older notifications as soon as they came in. Her hands started tingling as the vibrations turned violent, so she turned off all notifications and set the phone aside. She'll dig through everything later.
"Aren't you supposed to be packing?" Mini asked, even though she knew the answer.
"It's your birthday," Rudy said with a big grin. "And it only happens once in four years, so . . ."
Mini sighed. "Please don't tell me we're postponing the trip."
"Technically, we're not, since it was originally planned that way. We had to secretly make up for the days lost to celebration so you wouldn't yell at us," Aru informed her, hooking an arm around her shoulders and steering her towards the door. "Now, let's go!"
Mini cast a desperate glance back at Aiden and Hira. "Please don't tell me you went along with this?"
Their shrugs said No choice.
"First off, Rudy's house!" Brynne commanded, and they all marched out the door.
"Brynne, is this really a good idea?" Mini asked, stumbling around in a blind fold.
"Yep. Now just follow Aru's voice," Brynne instructed, placing a hand on Mini's shoulders and steering her in a different direction. "That was a pole, by the way."
Mini sighed, adjusting her blindfold. "How much longer?"
"Almost there!" Aru called out. Mini heard scuffling up ahead, then Aiden's voice say, "You're not even the one wearing the blindfold. Watch where you're going, dumbass!"
"I'm the dumbass who should watch where I'm going? You're the one who just stepped in a pile of dog shit," Aru shot back.
Aiden swore and hit his shoe against the pavement. "Ignore the dog shit. You should be able to see where you're going, regardless. Even Mini's doing better than you."
"Um, like I said, you literally just stepped in a pile of dog shit that was right in front of your face. And second, Mini has Brynne! And I couldn't have noticed the sudden change from road to curb, but you should at least be able to see dark brown on light gray!" Aru exclaimed.
Brynne sighed. "Change of plans: follow Hira's voice." Hira ran ahead, shouting back, "This way!"
Quite a few near misses with germs later, Mini arrived in front of a door. At least, she thought it was a door. Hira knocked on the door-not-a-door and called, "Rudy! Open the damn door!" So it was a door.
"Jeez, I'm coming," Rudy yelled from inside, followed by a crash.
"That wasn't the thing, right?" Hira asked, pounding on the door. "Rudy?"
Silence. Then he said, "Nope, not at all." His voice was much closer now.
"It was, wasn't it?"
Rudy didn't answer, instead pulling Mini closer and placing a kiss in her hair. Mini let herself be embraced for a moment before pulling away. She didn't want to contract any diseases on her birthday. "Hel-lo, birthday girl! Are you ready for your surprise?" he asked in a cheery voice.
"A surprise that you surely ruined," Brynne muttered.
Rudy hissed back, "Shut up, I didn't!"
"Mhm, sure, we'll see," she said, following them inside.
"Aru? Aiden? You coming?" Rudy called out the door once everyone else was inside.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure," Aru responded, making her way inside, then resumed her argument with Aiden, which had evolved from the color of dog shit to the reliability of Sharpies.
"So, what now?" Mini asked, leaning back against the sofa she was seated in. "Can I take my blindfold off now?"
"Wait, wait, wait, we're not ready yet," Aru called to her from somewhere far away.
Mini sighed. "More waiting it is, then."
After five minutes (though it felt more like fifty), she was allowed to open her eyes.
She stared at the giant bottle of hand sanitizer at the center of the table, then at the five people standing around it. Wait a minute . . . there's seven. She gasped.
"Nikita! Sheela!" Mini bounded out of her seat to go give them both a hug. She hadn't seen them much since college, and she was especially glad that they'd come to visit on her birthday. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be at school?"
Aru cleared her throat. "As far as the school knows, they're both sitting at home, bedridden with hives."
Mini laughed, then went around giving everyone else hugs for the awesome present they had gotten her. (Rudy insisted on a kiss, to which Mini happily agreed.) Her other giant bottle was close to finishing anyways, and this would save a trip to the store. Once she was done, she went right back to the bottle and squirted out a huge pump of sanitizer. Hopefully, this would cover the multitudes of germs she had just gained.
As she picked it up, though, she noticed a tiny slip of paper underneath. Setting down the bottle, she picked it up and read aloud the contents. "221B Baker Street." She frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Aiden smiled. "You figure it out. It's your scavenger hunt, after all."
Mini gasped in surprise. "Really?"
Hira nodded. "Yup!"
Scavenger hunts may sound kiddy, but Mini loved them. Her parents would always set one up every few months, and Mini would breeze through as fast as she could, some of which even her brother couldn't solve. Her most favorite part were the clues, since the logic puzzles reestablished brain cell connections, making it easier to remember things she couldn't allow herself forget. Imagine she forgot how to make an incision in someone's skin during an operation. God, that would be embarrassing. Mini mentally shuddered.
She scanned the note again. 221B Baker Street. She repeated it over and over in her head, hoping it would knock loose a memory. Luckily, it did. Mini remembered something from a few months ago, when Aru made them all act as characters in a Sherlock Holmes scenario. Their base was Aru's room, and . . .
Mini grabbed the bottle of sanitizer and dashed out of the door, then remembered something. "Keys!" she shouted. Thankfully, Rudy understood, and tossed her the car keys. (*cough cough* all too well??)
"Don't crash it!" Rudy called after her. She chose to ignore that. After all, how would she, Mini Kapoor-Mercado-Lopez, crash it?
She buckled her sanitizer into the passenger seat, then did the same to herself as she slotted the key into its hole. She went as fast as she could to the museum, almost ending up parking an inch into the entrance. She got back in and corrected her mistake, then dashed to the door. That was when she realized her problem.
Um, Aru? Mini asked through the mind link. I'm at the museum, but I don't have the key . . .
Aru laughed on the other end. See, I told you!
Brynne grumbled, I thought she'd remember . . .
Guys! The key! Mini reminded them.
Don't worry, I expected this. I hid a spare key behind the doorknob. There's this one part that's loose and flimsy, and if you twist it, you can pull out the key.
Mini tried Aru's instructions, and sure enough, a small part of the key peeked through. She hooked her nails through the hole and pulled up, and the key came flying out. She fumbled with it for a second, then unlocked the doors.
Making sure she closed the doors behind her, Mini bolted upstairs, immediately flinging open the door to Aru's room. She checked everywhere, looking for another clue. She found it halfway under the pencil holder. Picking it up, she read 6:00.
Six o'clock. What where they doing at six o'clock? Mini suddenly remembered something from last year, right before Aiden's birthday. The Potatoes had planned to visit the movie theater at six to watch something, but for some reason it was closed. After discussing, they agreed to go to Aru's house, where she would use the theater room. One condition: no Lord of the Rings.
An idea struck Mini, and she made her way downstairs to the theater room, looking through the box of DVDs for Lord of the Rings. She opened each case, finally finding a third note in the case labeled "The Return of the King". Except the "King" had been scribbled out, and above it was "Queen" in Rudy's familiar handwriting. Mini smiled.
This note said Steal it. It didn't take much brain power to realize this was referencing Aru's multiple schemes of trying to steal Shadowfax from Aiden— all of which had, predictably, failed. Mini crossed the street in five seconds and knocked on the front door, which opened to reveal Aiden's mom.
"Happy birthday, Mini!" Malini said, hugging her.
"Thanks, Auntie. Mind if I go upstairs to check something?" Mini asked, pulling back and gesturing to the stairs.
"Oh, no need for that," Malini assured her. "This is for the scavenger hunt, yes? Aiden gave me this right before he left, telling me you'd know what to do with it." She handed Mini a small piece of paper.
"Thanks, Auntie!" Mini said again, glancing at the words. She smiled at Malini once more and waved goodbye, then ran back to the museum.
The note said Argyria. Argyria is a rare condition that turns your skin gray from prolonged exposure to microscopic silver compounds that get absorbed into your body. Argyria also sounded a bit like Greg. Mini would know. She named the elephant, after all.
(saur, idk if i did this right . . . i don't have the books with me right now, so i don't know the exact disease mini named greg after. i just went with argyria since it turns your skin grey. if anyone knows what it was, please do tell 🥺 )
"Hey, Greg," Mini greeted the stone elephant. "Got anything for me?" Mini wasn't expecting it, so to her surprise, the mouth lowered itself and exposed the secret portal. Tucked inside was yet another note.
Mini picked it up and scanned it. Hopes & Dreams. She instantly recognized the words. When she was younger, her parents had bought her a giant bulletin board with fancy lettering at the top that spelled out Hopes & Dreams. At first, she'd filled it with pictures of the colleges she wanted to get into and the best hospitals out there, but over time she'd added pictures of her best memories of the Potatoes.
Dashing out to Rudy's car, Mini drove all the way back to her house. Entering her room, she found a small note she hadn't noticed this morning tucked behind a picture of a park with the Potatoes lounging on the grass, gazing at the stars. She picked up the note, ready for her next clue . . . but all it said was Almost there :).
What was that supposed to mean? She was now stuck at home, no clue where to go next. She couldn't exactly ask for help; this was the best birthday present yet, and she didn't want to ruin it. But this note didn't exactly give her a place to go to.
Wait . . . a place? The sheet had been tucked behind a picture of a park, which was a place. Could that be the clue? Mini decided to trust her instincts and go there, but even she was doubting her instincts when the place was empty (and she never did that).
Finally, finally, she spotted a flash of white at the base of a tree. She rushed over and picked it up, frowning when both sides were blank. But then she noticed fine print at the bottom of the note. Turn around.
Mini did so, and found the Potatoes standing there as if they always had been. She was so startled, she stumbled back a few steps, almost tripping over the tree roots. Luckily, she grabbed the tree to steady herself just in time. Then she poured out an ounce of sanitizer and rubbed her hands together thoroughly.
"So, how'd you like it?" Nikita asked.
Mini grinned. "It was amazing. How did you remember the argyria part? I thought you for sure would've forgotten it."
"Nah, that was Aiden," Aru said, nudging Aiden with her elbow. "He actually did most of the clues. Along with Hira."
"Not surprisingly," Mini agreed, which led to a burst of "Hey!"s from everyone but the two, who were laughing.
"Wait! You guys are forgetting the entire reason behind this!" Rudy exclaimed, ever so (over)dramatic. He parted the Potatoes down the middle, revealing a cake behind them. "Ta-da!" He did jazz hands around the cake, which had "Happy Birthday, Mini!" written out in purple icing over the white frosting, with lavender-colored floral designs all around it.
"And before you say something," Brynne cut in right before Mini could say something, "we reduced the sugar factor by a lot. But it's still your birthday, so you have to enjoy. It's just one day every four years. You won't die from that."
"Right, everyone, time to dig in!" Sheela announced as she cut the cake and handed it to everyone. Mini fell for it, as she hadn't had a birthday celebrated in four years. As soon as her attention was focused on slowly nibbling the cake in front of her, seven hands reached out and smeared white frosting all over her face. Mini screamed and almost fell backwards, but Rudy was there to catch her.
"Hey, by the way, did you like the DVD?" he whispered. It took Mini a second to realize he meant the "Return of the King" DVD with the clue in it.
"I loved it," she whispered back, leaning into him (and getting frosting all over him in the process).
(guys— it was white frosting. white frosting. hehehe . . .)
"I'm glad." Rudy kissed her frosting-covered cheek. "Mmm, that's good," he commented, licking his lips.
"Ew, stop!" Mini laughed, pushing him away and wiping off her face with antiseptic face wipes. "Now can we actually eat?"
"Yeah, fine. Come on, everyone! The blanket's set up," Aru said, gesturing to the ground. Everyone took a seat under the tree, the shaded area.
"Sooooo, how'd you like your journey leaping through the years?" Rudy asked, then laughed. "Get it? 'Cuz it's a leap year? And the scavenger hunt was a trip through life over the years?"
Everyone rolled their eyes. "Yes, Rudy. We get it."
Rudy pouted, so Mini assured him, "I get it, Rudy. It's really funny. And yeah, it was pretty fun leaping through the years."
Rudy's face was aglow. "Really?"
Mini's gaze travelled over the Potatoes laying sprawled out on the blanket, eating their cake (and not so sneakily helping themselves to thirds and fourths, Aru). She's known them for so long, they were practically her family at this point. She made so many memories with them, whether it be on dangerous, life-threating quests, or normal hangouts. When she was twelve, she never imagined making friends that would last a lifetime (and many more).
So she meant it when she told him, "Really."
saurrrrr, how'd you like this?? i was supposed to have it done by december, but i scrapped the entire thing and restarted it cuz it sounded like shit. but i'm pretty happy (kinda?) with how it turned out, so there's that. i could not miss publishing it today, because then it means i would've missed my chance. so i sat down and worked literally non-stop to finish this, which kinda payed off.
i said it thrice, and i'll say it again.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MINI!!! 🥳🎂🎉✨💜
– dolphin