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Louie relaxed on the couch, watching the drama of foot rests unfold on the television before him. It was a perfect Saturday: no responsibilities, no supernatural disasters, no siblings trying to wrestle the TV remote away from him (yet, anyway; Huey’s baking show was coming on this afternoon), and as the cherry on top, Lena was staying over for the weekend, which meant that Webby wouldn’t get bored and decide to start dart-World War III to pass the time.
It was just him, the TV, a bag of sour cream and onion chips, and a smooth, fizzy can of—crap, he was out of Pep. He groaned and shook the empty can above his mouth, shaking a few drops of soda free, but not nearly enough to sate his lust for Pep.
His joints ached and popped and protested loudly as he dragged himself off of the couch and trudged towards the kitchen. He let out a spluttering breath as he opened the door, reflexively tossing the empty Pep into the trash in the corner, and then stopped dead.
Webby was sitting at the kitchen table, her cheek smushed against one hand as she traced out a circle against the table with a spoon. “Hey, Louie,” she muttered dejectedly.
“Uhhh,” Louie said. “Are you… doing okay?”
Webby looked up at him. “Am I that obvious?”
“Yes,” Louie answered, looking at the three empty cartons of vanilla ice cream on the table, and the fourth that Webby was still working through. “Nobody eats that much ice cream and is okay.”
He walked over to the fridge to grab a fresh Pep, cracking open and taking that first, delectable sip.
“Nobody who drinks that much soda is okay, either,” Webby said.
“I’m young. I’m immune,” Louie said. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but… what’s got you so down?”
Webby let out a weary sigh. “Lena and I got into a bit of a fight.”
Louie’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”
Dewey ran down the hallway, legs pumping. Louie had frantically texted their sibling group chat about some sort of emergency, and that they should ‘come to the room ASAP’ and ‘not say anything to the girls.’ He turned a corner towards the bedroom, and immediately tripped, flying forward and landing hard on his elbows.
“Guh!” he grunted, throwing an annoyed look over his shoulder. “What even was—huh?”
His frustration turned to confusion as he saw that he hadn’t tripped over some misplaced object, but rather Lena, who was laying face down on the floor.
“Oh! Um. Sorry, Lena, I didn’t, uh, see you there?” he apologized. “On the floor?”
Lena mumbled something unintelligible into the floorboards.
“Uhhhhh, love you too?” Dewey said. “Gotta go! Bye!”
Lena raised her arm up about a foot and let it flop down to the rug in something that maybe could have resembled waving goodbye, if you were feeling particularly generous. Dewey gave a wave of his own, and ran off again.
He reached their room in a couple minutes, where Huey was already waiting. “Is Louie here yet?” Dewey asked.
“No,” Huey said, rolling his eyes. “Trust Louie to be late to his own meeting.”
As if on cue, Louie walked in, sipping at a can of Pep. He closed the door behind him and gave each of his brothers a curt nod. “Gentlemen. Thank you for gathering here on such short notice.”
“Louie, what’s this about?” Huey asked. “Because, I swear, if this is another one of your we-need-to-convince-Scrooge-to-buy-more-snacks emergencies, then—”
“You give me no credit, Huey. This is actually serious!” Louie insisted. “Though, I suppose I could use some oreos in the house, now that you mention it. But that’s not the point! I ran into Webby in the kitchen, and she was in a total slump. I think she’s eating all the ice cream we have.”
“Lena was lying facedown on the floor back by the ballroom,” Dewey supplied. “She looked pretty out of it, too.”
“Webby said they’re fighting,” Louie said.
Huey gasped.
“I mean… that happens, right?” Dewey said. “We fight constantly.”
“But this is Webby and Lena,” Louie impressed. “We’ve got to make a plan.”
“I dunno, I just don’t see what the big—”
Dewey was cut off as a poorly-executed haunting piano refrain began ringing through the house.
“Oh god,” Louie said. “Here we go.”
“We need to get down there,” Huey said, getting up and running out of the room.
Louie gaped at him. “Are you insane?”
“We’ve got to do damage control!” he said. “Come on!”
With varying degrees of enthusiasm, they all hurried out of their bedroom and followed the music through the mansion, eventually finding Webby sitting at a grand piano, somberly letting her fingers dance over the notes. It was a very eloquent picture of sorrow, but she wasn’t very good at the piano, so the tone didn’t really carry past that.
Dewey was just about to ask what was wrong when the shadows on the wall above the piano rippled, and Lena stuck her head out, looking a bit annoyed. “Hey, Pink, can you keep it down?”
Webby narrowed her eyes and stopped playing. “What are you doing here, traitor?”
“I’m trying to write a call-out poem about you, but it’s hard to think of scalding rhymes when you’re busy butchering Beethoven over here.”
“I’m trying to express my feelings artistically!” Webby said. “And it’s Bach.”
“Same thing. God, I don’t know what’s worse to listen to: all this terrible Bach you’re playing, or all the pathetic talk you’re spraying.” She hummed thoughtfully. “Not bad…”
As she pulled her arms out of the shadows to jot something down in her poetry notebook, Webby stood up on the piano stool, bringing her to eye level with where Lena was poking out of the wall. “Oh yeah? Well, maybe if you would step up and stop hiding in those shadows, we could settle this for real! Or are you scared I’ll whoop your butt?!”
“You wanna see scared?” Lena said, dropping out of the wall and landing in a poised position, her magic flaring up beneath her sweater. “I’ll show you scared!”
As sounds of magical blasts and deadly martial arts began ringing out from the room, Huey, Dewey, and Louie ran into the hall, not stopping until they were safe in their room. Dewey slammed the door closed and fell back against it, panting heavily.
“Okay,” he admitted, “I see your point. So what’s the plan, Louie?”
Louie chuckled. “I’m glad you asked.”
“This is what you wanted to show me?” Lena asked, as she wrenched the final joint Webby had dislocated back into place with a grunt. She stared between the triplets and the plain wooden door with unamusement. “A frikin’ closet?”
“It’s what’s inside the closet that’s important,” Dewey said.
“What, suitcases?” Lena deadpanned.
“You’ll see,” Louie said.
“Here, wear these!” Huey said, slapping something around her wrist.
“What?” She looked down at the bracelet that was now wrapped around her wrist. “What is this?”
“A magic-suppressing artifact,” Huey said.
Lena turned on him. “WHAT?!”
“In snap bracelet form for easy application!” Dewey said.
“Now get in there, and please don’t kill us later,” Louie said, flinging open the closet door. Dewey and Huey quickly pushed her inside.
“Think about the choice you’re making right now!” Lena shouted at them as the door closed. She tried to grab it in her telekinesis, but she couldn’t summon her magic. Stupid bracelet!
“Have fun in there, you two!” Dewey called, right before the door slammed shut with a click.
Lena pounded a fist against the wood. “I’ll turn your insides into outsides if you don’t let me out right now , you little—wait.” Lena froze. You two?
“Oh, great,” she mumbled as she saw Webby, who was tied up and hanging from the ceiling. Considering that this was, in fact, a closet, that meant that they were pretty much face to face when Lena was pressed up against the door.
Webby let out a sigh. “I’m not thrilled about it either, honestly.”
“How’d they even get you?”
“They lured me in with ice cream,” she said. “I let my guard down.”
“When do you think they’ll let us out?” Lena asked.
“When you’ve made up!” Huey shouted from behind the door.
“You’re still there?!” Lena screeched, kicking the door as hard as she could. “You guys are the worst!”
“We don’t want you destroying the house! Sue us!” Louie called.
“They do have a point,” Webby muttered. “I don’t think that piano is gonna be playable ever again.”
“Ugh. This sucks.”
Webby squirmed in her ropes. “You know, if you untie me, I could probably break the door down.”
Lena narrowed her eyes. “And why would I do that? You’re the reason we’re in this mess.”
“Oh, oh—Ha!” Webby threw back her head and let out a cackle. “I’m the reason we’re in this mess?! That’s rich!”
“Don’t even start,” Lena hissed. “You’re the one making such a big deal out of this!”
“You made a big deal out of it first! All I was doing was borrowing a few chips—”
“You can’t borrow chips if you eat them!” Lena accused, pointing a finger in Webby’s face. “And don’t say a few like it wasn’t half the freaking bag!”
“See? Now who’s making a big deal about it?” Webby asked.
“Okay but I wasn’t at first! You were messing with me, and I got you back!”
“YOU ATE THE LAST GUMMY BEAR!” Webby screamed, thrashing about from where she was hanging, accidentally knocking Lena in the face. “After I asked you to save it for me! You pulled it out of the bag—you removed it from its natural habitat —and you made me watch as you bit off its head!”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t have stolen all those chips!” Lena accused.
“A couple potato chips and the last gummy bear are in NO WAY EQUIVALENT!” Webby yelled. “Apologize! I demand recompense!”
Lena scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t even try, Pink, that was at least ten chips. What’s so special about the last gummy bear anyway?”
Webby gasped. “Lena! How could you? I feel like I don’t even know you anymore!”
“Isn’t it just the same as all the others?” Lena asked. “What if I had eaten that one second to last? Would that have made a difference?”
“Of course!” Webby insisted. “It’s not about the specific bear, Lena.”
“Then what is it about?!”
“It’s the last one!”
“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, WEBBY?!”
“IT MEANS THAT I WANT TO BE THE ONE TO MAKE THEM GO EXTINCT! I WANT TO BE THE ONE TO WIPE THE GUMMY BEARS OFF THE MAP ONCE AND FOR ALL! AND I WAS ROBBED!”
At the climax of her speech, the rope tying her to the ceiling snapped from all the stress, and she let out a high-pitched yelp as she fell to the ground, landing hard on her head.
“Webby!” Lena shouted, ducking down and cradling her head. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah I’m—owww, yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said, getting up. “…Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I tried to catch you with my magic instead of my arms like an idiot,” Lena said. “Look, I’m sorry about the gummy bear. I knew it mattered to you, I was just being pissy about the chips.”
“It’s fine,” Webby said. “We can go ask Granny to buy more gummy bears tomorrow. And I’ll ask before taking your chips next time.”
“I’ll share my chips with you,” Lena said. “Even if I don’t really want to.”
“Aww, Lena!” Webby said, her eyes tearing up. “That’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”
The closet door unlocked, and it opened a bit to reveal Dewey’s concerned face. “So… are you two good now?”
“Yeah,” Lena said.
Louie’s head appeared on top of Dewey’s head. “Was this really all about a gummy bear?”
“Yeah,” Webby said.
“Can we come out now?” Lena asked.
The boys nodded, and the door opened. Lena and Webby stepped out into the hallway, dusting themselves off.
“Well,” Webby said, yanking the anti-magic bracelet off of Lena, “now that we’re not mad at each other anymore, we can focus on being mad at the boys for locking us in a closet.”
Lena smirked. “Sounds good to me.”
The triplets gulped. “C-can we get a head start?” Louie asked, his voice shaky.
Lena flared her magic up. “Three seconds.”
Beakley set down her afternoon tea with a sigh as the mansion filled with screams. “Here we go,” she muttered to herself.