“I seriously can’t believe this is happening.” I grumbled to myself as we walked down the stairs. Chase decided to challenge Adam to an arm wrestling competition, and I didn’t understand why.
“Chase,” Leo said. “There is no way you can beat Adam in arm wrestling. It’d be like a chicken wrestling an alligator. All we’d hear is a cock-a-doodle crunch.”
We all started laughing, except for Chase. “He’s right, bro.” Adam said. “Your spaghetti arms are no match for these meatballs.” He then started kissing his arms, causing me to shake my head. Weirdo.
“Hey, when you’re done kissing your girlfriends, let’s do this.” Chase said.
Both brothers got into positions and Bree backed up, then motioned for us to back up as well. “Better back up, guys. You’re in the splatter zone.”
“Okay, I want a clean match.” Leo said. “No whining, screaming, crying or tap outs.” He turned to Chase. “I’m looking at you, Chase.” Chase rolled his eyes. “Three, two, one! Go!”
Chase licked his hand, and Adam getting grossed out caused him to lose the match. He snatched his hand back. “Ugh! Hey!” Adam’s face cringed. “No fair! He licked his hand!” He wiped his hand on Bree’s shirt, causing her to jump away.
Chase laughed. “Ha ha! Exactly! Clever beats strong any day!”
Leo help up Chase’s arm. Too bad he grabbed the hand Chase licked. “Chase wins.” “Wait, which hand did you lick?” My boyfriend pointed to the one Leo was holding.
“That one.” Leo looked like he was about to puke as he dropped his hand. Yeah, I wasn’t even about to hold his hand until he washed it. Leo then held up the other arm. “Chase wins!”
I saw Marcus come down the stairs and I smiled at him. “Hey, guys! How’s it going?”
“Ooh, bundle up, everyone. It just got partly creepy with a hundred percent chance of annoying.” Leo somewhat insulted.
“Oh, am I gonna need an umbrella for that?” Adam asked.
“So, you guys wanna hangout at my house after school? We just got a sick new flat screen.” Marcus beamed.
“Is it as sick as you make me because that’d be pretty sick?” Leo said, causing me to hit him upside the head. That was just rude.
“We’d love to hangout today.” Chase said, smiling.
“Chase is too polite to say it, so I’ll say it for him; you’re a lunatic and we’re leaving.” Leo started pushing us towards the school doors.
Once we were outside, I turned to Leo. “Leo, you need to give it a rest. Marcus is a good guy, and you keep insulting him and making him seem like a bad guy.”
“Because he is!” He threw his hands up in the air and started walking towards the house. I rolled my eyes as we followed. Chase grabbed my hand, but I quickly took it back.
“Um, what?” He asked, confused. While Adam and Bree were laughing at my sudden action, I reached into my bag and handed him a bottle of hand sanitizer.
“Use some of that, and then I’ll hold your hand.” I told him. He rolled his eyes and squeezed some of the cool goo on his hands, rubbing it in.
“There.” He muttered, handing me back the bottle.
I smiled. “Here.” I held out my hand for him to take, which he did. I knew it was a good idea to carry hand sanitizer with me at all times.
Xxx
“Behold, the invention that will revolutionize travel!” Davenport exclaimed. “The Davenport Industries teleporter!”
“Don’t you mean the teledavenporter?” Adam retorted. We all looked at him. “Oh, come on! I wanna be clever for once.”
“Yeah, and I want a convertible made out of diamonds, but we all know that’s not gonna happen.” Bree said, scoffing.
Could Davenport just show us his new invention already? He always took his sweet time, and I wanted to start my homework.
“I can’t wait any longer. Please tell us more about your amazing invention.” Davenport said, his voice coming out high pitched. Was he trying to sound like a girl?
“Don’t mind if I do.” He said in his normal voice. “My teleporter can transport any object anywhere. It deconstructs it molecule by molecule here, and then via my network of GPS satellites, reconstructs it anywhere on the planet,” He snapped his fingers. “Instantaneously!”
“So, wait, does this mean that we can go surfing in Hawaii after school and still be home in time for dinner?” Chase asked.
“Technically yes, uh, but I haven’t tested it yet on humans yet, so there is a small chance that only your forehead and parts of your esophagus would make it back in time for dinner.” Davenport said.
“Okay, ouch.” I muttered under my breath.
“All I’m hearing is more meatloaf for daddy.” Adam said as he patted his stomach.
“That’s why I want to test it on an inanimate object first, so I’ll be right back.” Davenport said before hurrying out of the lab.
Chase started inspecting the teleporter. “Whoa! This thing could put me anywhere on earth in a nanosecond. Faster than you, Bree. Ha!” He laughed at his sister.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You’ll still be ugly when you get there.”
“Uh, super speed party of one, your table is dumb.” Adam said, then chuckled at his own joke. “Oh, come on! That was clever!” He leaned against the counter, and suddenly we all heard a sound.
Davenport’s new invention lit up. “Hey, meatballs, you just turned it on.” Bree said as she moved Adam away from the controls. “Back off so I can shut it down.”
Chase pushed Bree aside. “Step aside. I got this.”
“Uh, you got nothing. Move over.”
“I think you have to spin this thing.” Adam said, spinning the small globe that was attached to the controls. It started glowing. My eyes went wide.
The lab doors opened, and out came Tasha. She walked towards us, but stopped right in the middle of the teleporter. “Hey, guys, I’m going to the market. Anybody need anything?” Before she could even finish her sentence, a blue stream of light surrounded her and she was gone. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Nope, not dreaming.
“Ooh! Cereal!” Adam shouted, not realizing that she was gone. He turned and then noticed. “Well that was rude.”
“Y-you spun that thing so fast, Adam, that we’ve got no clue where Tasha got teleported to!” Chase exclaimed.
“She has to be in there somewhere. She couldn’t have gotten far.” Bree said.
“Guys, just calm down! There is a simple solution to this!” Adam said and we all looked at him. “Does anyone know what it is?” I rolled my eyes.
“If what I think just happened just happened, we are gonna be in so much trouble.” Bree panicked.
“Guys, I think we just vaporized Tasha.” Chase said slowly.
Eddy appeared on the screen. “But I didn’t get to say goodbye! Oh, well! Woo-hoo!” Suddenly, confetti fell from the ceiling. “Shake your booty!”
“Shut it, you digital rat!” I shouted. I was so sick of Eddy!
“Whoa, calm down, Alex.” Bree said, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I’d be a lot calmer if we didn’t just vaporize Tasha. My best friend’s mom!” I shouted, causing them all to jump back in fear. Huh, bionic teenagers scared of a normal one. That was new.
“Alright, maybe you should head on upstairs to take a nap.” Chase suggested.
I shook my head and took a deep breath. “No, I’m helping you guys get Tasha back. And sorry for yelling.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Chase said, placing a kiss on my temple.
“Alright, enough couple stuff.” Bree said. “We have work to do.”
Xxx
“This is not working.” I mumbled as I watched my boyfriend and friends argue. They were fighting over whose fault it was, and it was honestly giving me a headache.
“How could you two drool buckets have lost Tasha in the teleporter?” Bree asked.
“Us?” Chase questioned back. “You were the one who went grabby with the controls.”
“And Adam was the one who spun the globe. We have no idea where Tasha is.”
“Me?” Adam asked. “Oh, wait, yup, that was me.”
“Adam,” I sighed and smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“We need to tell Davenport.” Bree said.
Chase scoffed. “Oh, oh, and tell him what? Sorry we messed with your machine and lost your wife?”
“No,” Eddy said. Grr! “Let me tell him the good news!”
“I swear, Eddy, if you don’t shut it, I’ll implant a virus in your system.” I threatened. He disappeared and I smirked.
“You know how to implant a virus in his system?” Adam asked. I nodded.
“Leo is going to freak.” Bree said.
“Not if he doesn’t know that Tasha’s gone.” Adam said. “We’ll get Chase a wig and a skirt. This could work, people.”
Davenport came walking in, a desk chair with him. “Hey, guys!”
The three bionics jumped and I couldn’t help but chuckle. They didn’t even see Davenport walk in.
“Uh, hey, Mr. Davenport quick question: Um, you’ve tested the teleporter’s ability to return something, right?” Chase asked. I slipped my hand into his and gave it a squeeze.
The inventor laughed. “Not yet, but we’re about to!” He pressed a few buttons. “Okay, I’m gonna set the teleporter for ten feet away. Okay, get ready because this is gonna be teleport-ific!”
We all stared at him. “What? They can’t all be winners.”
“Have you ever had a winner?” Bree asked.
Davenport pressed a button and the chair that was in the center of the teleporter disappeared once the blue light surrounded it. The chair reappeared behind us.
Davenport started giggling like a school girl. What? “Wow! A scientific breakthrough! Have you ever seen anything this amazing in all your life?!”
“Neat.” “Yup.” “Hooray. Now get on with it.” They all replied.
“Now…we bring it back.” Davenport said. The chair disappeared and then reappeared, but there was only one problem. It was distorted.
“Whoopsie.” Davenport chuckled. “I guess I have a few bugs to work out on the return function. But, ya know, at least I didn’t throw a human in there. That would have been stupid!” Davenport left the lab, leaving us alone.
Chase walked closer to the mangled chair. “This is awful.”
“I know,” Adam said. “I loved that chair. I did some of my best sitting in it.”
“How are we gonna bring back Tasha safely?!” Chase panicked. Even I didn’t have a clue.
“Ooh, I have an idea.” Adam beamed.
Chase sighed. “Adam, this is a complex situation. We’ll call you when we need you to lift anything heavy.”
I nudged my boyfriend slightly in the ribs. “Not nice.” I muttered. He mumbled a quick apology.
“Even if we locate Tasha, we still need to bring her back safely without turning her into…” We all turned to the chair. “That.”
The stupid digital rat returned and I groaned. “I see no downside.”
“I’m about to implant the virus.” I muttered darkly.
Xxx
I didn’t know how long we had been down in the lab for, but it couldn’t have been that long since Davenport hadn’t returned. We were still trying to figure out how to bring back Tasha, but nothing was working.
“This is useless.” Bree groaned. “We need to tell Mr. Davenport that Tasha is gone.”
“No, I can fix this. I just uploaded a software update.” Chase said as he rolled a watermelon towards the teleporter.
Adam walked into the lab. Wait, where was he to begin with? “Hey. Nobody told me we were racing fruit. I’m getting my kiwis. Get ready boys! It’s show time!”
“Stop.” Chase deadpanned. “We’re not racing fruit. No one races fruit! We’re testing my teleporter fix, which is now good to go.”
“Well, if it’s good to go, why not test it on Tasha?” Adam asked.
“Because in the highly unlikely even that it doesn’t work, I don’t want Tasha coming back here with her head on her hip and her leg in her mouth.” Chase continued typing codes.
“Really?” The oldest bionic asked. “Not even just to see it?”
Chase ignored him and pressed the transport button. The watermelon disappeared and I mentally crossed my fingers. “And now I’ll hit ‘return to origin’.” He pressed the button and I smiled when the watermelon returned in one piece. It was normal!
“Voila.” Chase smiled.
Suddenly, the insides of the watermelon came falling down from the teleporter. “Are you kidding me?!”
“Is voila French for fail, or am I not understanding this complex situation?” Adam quipped.
Xxx
I frowned as I watched Chase freak out. No matter what he did to the teleporter, nothing worked. He was stressing himself out, and I hated it. “I can’t believe this! I thought for sure my software update would work!”
“Does that looks like it works?” Bree asked, pointing to fail number…well, I wasn’t sure what number we were at.
Davenport came back, but his face turned to shock when he saw the number of inventions that had been destroyed. He picked up handle bars and closely examined it. “I know these handle bars.” He mumbled. “Did you just try to teleport my one of a kind prototype hybrid ATV?”
“No,” Chase lied, nervousness in his voice. Davenport stared at him, his jaw clenched. “Maybe,” Davenport grunted. “I’m just gonna go back to no.”
Adam chuckled. “Wow, if he’s this mad about his A.T.V., wait till he finds out that we put Tasha through there.”
“Adam!” I yelled, eyes wide.
“You put my wife through there?!” Davenport yelled.
“Enjoy it, dude.” Adam said. “Take a day off.”
Davenport was as red as a fire truck. He was so mad.
“I’m sure she’s fine.” Bree said soothingly. “Wherever…or whatever she is.” That wasn’t going to calm him down.
“Yeah, we just have to figure out a way to get her back here without turning her into…Tasha tar-tar.” Chase said.
“Okay, okay, let’s not panic.” Davenport said on the edge of panicking. Ironic, huh? “I’m sure one of my software patches can fix this.”
“I’ve tried them all.” Chase said. “None of them worked.” He pointed to the pile of junk we destroyed. You know what, they destroyed all the stuff. I touched nothing.
Davenport shrieked. I never knew his voice could go that high.
“You know, I had a simple solution.” Adam said.
Davenport placed a hand on his shoulder. “Simple solution. Um, Adam, you remember the time when we locked the keys in the car and it took three hours to get them out?”
“Yeah,”
“You were inside the car!” He yelled. He walked towards the elevator, took a moment to scream at his destroyed A.T.V., then left.
Xxx
“How long have they been working?” I silently asked Bree as we watched Davenport and Chase fix the teleporter.
“An hour or two.” She replied, her shoulders slumped. I sighed and continued watching my boyfriend and his father work.
“Okay, this is our last possible fix.” Chase spoke up.
“If this doesn’t work,” Davenport sighed. “I don’t even want to say it.”
“Say it. Say it.” Eddy pushed, appearing on the screen.
“Okay,” He pressed a few buttons. “Fingers crossed this brings Tasha back in three, two, one…” The machine lit up, but Tasha didn’t appear. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Because I’m right here.” Said a voice. We all turned around to find Tasha.
“Ew, she’s hideously deformed!” Eddy complained. “Look away! Look away!”
“Okay!” Tasha exclaimed and turned him off. How did she do that? We all rushed over to her, Davenport the first one to hug her.
“Whoa, don’t hug her too hard. Her guts might come squishing out.” Bree said.
“What happened? Where were you?” Davenport asked his wife.
“Two hundred miles away in Fresno.” She said. “Thankfully Adam was smart enough to call my cell phone and tell me you guys accidently teleplanted me.”
“Well, technically it’s teleported…”
“Tell-e-someone who cares.” She snapped. “I’m just glad he called me before my cell phone died…since no one else thought of that.”
We all turned to Adam who had a grin on his face. “I figured if Tasha didn’t return through the teleporter, she couldn’t have ended up back here in a big steaming pile of mom. So, I called. Told her to take the bus home.”
“Which I did, and it was weird.” Tasha said. “The guy sitting next to me was wearing a tank top.”
“Why was that weird?” Davenport questioned.
“Just a tank top.”
“Oh, my god, that’s so gross.” I mumbled, shuddering.
“Told you I had a simple solution.” Adam grinned.
“Adam…we may have said some things earlier…”
“Duh. We say things every day. Could you narrow it down?” Adam asked.
Davenport shook Chase’s shoulder. “What he’s trying to say is, “we owe you an apology.””
“I’m sorry. A what?” I rolled my eyes at Adam.
“An apology.” Chase said. “So I guess I’ll start off by saying…that I am-“
“I’m back!” Leo exclaimed, running into the lab. Where was he this entire time?
“Oh, thank you!” Chase exclaimed, obviously happy that he didn’t have to apologize to Adam.
Leo held up his phone. “Right here, on my phone, I have undeniable proof that Marcus is-“ He was cut off when his phone fell out of his hands, landing right into the teleporter. It disappeared. “Where’d my phone just go?”
Davenport looked at the screen. “Honolulu.” He chuckled. “But we can bring it back…right here.” He pressed a few buttons and we watched as Leo’s phone returned. Too bad it was destroyed and covered in seaweed. My best friend started crying.
Davenport turned to Tasha. “Yeah, bus was a good call.”
Xxx
I didn’t understand why we had to come here, but Leo wanted us all to come to Marcus’ house. He wanted to prove to us that Marcus was evil. How many times did we have to tell him that he wasn’t evil? It was honestly getting annoying.
Leo opened the grill that was in the backyard, then frowned. He continued to open and close it, and I didn’t understand what he was going. “You guys don’t understand! This barbeque had a touch pad in it!”
Davenport put a hand on his shoulder. “Leo, are you sure you weren’t at the ATM outside the Chicken Shack?”
I chuckled. “Don’t you take that Leo’s got a wild imagination tone with me.” Leo snapped. “The touch pad controlled that dissolving wall.” He pointed to the wall behind us.
“Oh, right, and then little elves came out and did a moon dance around the bonfire.” Chase teased.
“I’m telling the truth!”
“I believe you, Leo.” Bree said. What? “I also believe that, we, as a family, are going to get you the help you so desperately need.”
“You guys don’t understand! Marcus and his father have a secret lair!”
“Leo, give it a rest.” I told him.
“Okay, guys, are we roasting weenies or not?” Adam asked.
“Let’s go, guys.” Chase said as he grabbed my hand and pulled me away.
Leo followed us, but he wouldn’t shut up. “Don’t leave. I’m telling the truth!”
Xxx
I was so happy when I changed into my pajamas. It had been a long day, and I honestly had a headache. That was why I took two Advil’s. I could only hope that they would work fast.
Just as I was about to crawl into bed, there was a knock at my door. I groaned and trudged my tired body towards the door. Sure, it was like, two feet away, but you didn’t understand how tired I was.
“What?” I moaned once I opened the door.
“Hi to you, too.” Chase chuckled. I rolled my eyes and pulled him in, closing the door so we could have some privacy.
“I love you, Chase, but I’m exhausted. And I know you are too. What’s up?”
He gripped my hips and pulled me closer. “Well, we had no alone time today, and even though I saw you, I missed you.”
“That was a little cheesy, don’t you think?” I asked, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m just telling the truth.”
“Whatever floats your boat, babe.” I smiled and pecked his lips, but he cupped my face and kept my lips on his. “Sneaky bastard.” I mumbled against his now smirking lips.
“You love it.” He mumbled.
“You’re lucky I do.”
I don’t know why, but I liked how I ended it. I thought it was a bit funny and cute. Vote and comment!