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If you were to ask Lizzie if she had foresaw herself dredging through the mud in the early hours of the morning searching for worms…well, she’d believe it. Definitely wasn’t the strangest thing she’s done, especially since arriving at the Motherlobe. Compton definitely asked her to do some pretty weird stuff. Sam knocking on her door to request for worm assistance was nothing, really.
What could she say? Helping the Booles with animal stuff was kinda just becoming her thing. This definitely didn’t have to do with the fact that she liked Sam in a more-than-friends kinda way. Haha.
Since this totally wasn’t a special occasion, Lizzie just threw on whatever clothes she had lying around: a leather jacket over her night top, a pair of torn jeans, and the first pair of combat boots she saw. Comfortable, presentable, and perfect for worm hunting.
“Why’d they put the secret passageway inside of a stump?” she grumbled, carefully stepping out of it.
“To keep it a secret, duh!” Sam chimed, doing a little twirl. Her outfit was pretty much the same. Different blouse, different skirt, that’s it, really. “I honestly forget about it whenever I’m here. I always end up leaving through the old mine.”
“Well, I’ll make sure we don’t forget it.” Lizzie slammed the hatch shut, dusting her hands. “So, where to first, Oh-Great-and-Wise-Worm-Expert?” Sam kneeled, dragging her finger in the mud and licking it.
“Mm…that way.” She pointed in the direction of the bridge. “Our first suspects should be around there.”
“Alright, well, lead the way.”
It was when they had started walking that Lizzie realized something. Something important.
“So…what do we need the worms for exactly?” A sticky pat of mud squelched beneath her boots. “And why couldn’t this wait till morning?”
“Worms always have the best recipes. We gotta catch them after it rains or else the birds will steal them for their goodies.” Sam gave a wistful sigh. “I’ll never forget the loss I suffered at the hands of Rufus during the bake-off of 19-aught-7. That bastard.”
“Don’t you mean seventy-seven?”
“Does aught not mean 7? Huh.” She pushed through a bush, the branches snapping back against her elbows with a painful crack. Lizzie bit back a grunt of pain, furrowing her brow as she shoved her way through. Whatever. It was a small price to pay for some quality time with the girl she liked. “Oh. Oh! Look look!” Sam trudged on ahead, squatting down by a small patch of dirt. Lizzie caught up to her at the pace of an unenthused cat, leaning against the tree with a slightly perked interest as the Boole intently shone her light at her feet. Lizzie couldn’t help the small grimace that tugged at her features.
“Gnarly.”
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Sam reached out and grabbed a fistful of worms, all slimy and nasty and wriggling between her fingers. She was ogling at them like a kid in a candy store. “I bet these bad boys got generations of secret recipes!” She laughed in a ‘heh-heh-heh’ kinda way, stuffing them into her bag.
“So, basically you’re just going to be kidnapping these worms from their homes to bring them back for—”
“—interrogation, yes.”
“Right.” Oh, be still her beating heart.
“Hey, do you wanna see if there’s any worms by the campgrounds?”
“Eugh, pass.” Sam gave her a curious look. “If Pooter’s mom catches us, she’s gonna spray me with holy water and shout ‘Vattene, vampira! Vattene!’” Lizzie shuddered. “I’m half-expecting her to brandish a stake the next time she sees me.”
“Hm, definitely don’t want you to get staked.”
“That would be ideal.”
“Playground?”
“Yeah, sure.”
And to the playground they went. Looking for worms. Yeah, so, here’s the thing: Lizzie kinda just…stopped paying attention from this point. Not intentionally, no! Things just…became monotonous. Walk, worms, walk, worms, things that’d probably bore anyone else. It wasn’t boring to her, surprisingly. Well, no, not surprisingly. Sam could never be boring. It was Sam! Of course not. Maybe ‘stopped paying attention’ wasn’t the right phrase to use. Lizzie zoned out. Flat out, just zoned out, listening to Sam talk and talk and talk. She was pretty sure it was more worm stuff.
Lizzie hummed. This was nice. Normally she wouldn’t be so content to just follow someone around like a mindless drone but hey, it was late, it was just them. Looking for worms around the Questionable Area. A totally ideal way to spend the time at 2-something in the morning. Totally. Yeah.
God. What was wrong with her. She knew what was wrong but god what was wrong with her—
Suddenly, Sam stopped, having gone completely stiff. Then, she turned around. Slow. She didn’t even see her legs moving. Was that turning? No, that was rotating. Sam rotated around. Facing her. Uh oh. Did she miss something important?
“Hey, hey Lizzie?”
“Yeah?”
“Lemme see the underside of your shoe.” …Huh?
“Ohhh-kay??” She lifted her leg up, holding her ankle to show Sam her boot. The other girl sighed.
“Yep. As I thought. Tragedy.”
Before Lizzie could question what she meant by that, she peeled something off of her boot. More specifically, an earthworm. A partially flattened earthworm, at that. Oops.
“Shh…shh it’s okay, I’m here,” Sam cooed, holding the worm close to her ear. “Worms are really quiet, so you gotta really listen.” She stared at her pointedly. Then at the worm, then back at her.
“Uh—”
“I’m telling you to lean in closer to hear what he has to say.”
“Oh.” Processing. “Wait, but I don’t know anything about zoolepathy!”
“You deal a mortal blow to the man and won’t even listen to his final words?” Sam shook her head. “For shame, Lizzie, for shame.”
“OKAY, okay just, give me a second.” Lizzie leaned in close, tilting her ear towards the worm. As expected, she had no idea what the worm was saying. She couldn’t help but hope for it to kick the bucket soon: Sam was breathing on her ear and oh man, it was making her feel crazy.
“It’s okay, Stephen, we’re here for you. Oh, Stephen Sr. sorry.” A pause. “Mhm. I understand. Yes, we’ll make sure your family learns of your passing and—oh? A will? Yes. Okay. Hm?” Sam leaned in closer. “Uh huh? Yeah? Oh. Oh… Dammit.”
“What?”
“He died before telling me his great-great-great-great-grandma’s recipe.” Sam sighed heavily. “Who knew that the world’s best apple pie mille-feuille would become the modern day Excalibur.” She lowered her head, slowly walking towards the river. Lizzie followed (what else was she going to do?), standing at her side as she knelt down by the riverbank. “May the river take you far, Stephen Sr., so that your body may rest in the most rich plot of soil you could ever imagine.” Her hands disappeared into the water, and the worm’s body drifted down river. For a few inches, at least. The current pushed it back onto shore. “Welp.” Sam stood up, dusting off her skirt. “I’m not doing that again. Let’s go.”
“Wh—hey, aren’t you gonna tell his family?”
“I would, but I don’t know if I have it in me to console a family of grieving worms.” Lizzie thought about this.
“That’s fair.”
“Besides, I’m sure they’ll find his body in the morning. Assuming the birds don’t get to him first. Hm. Maybe I should tell them…”
“I mean, if there’s no body, that means his family will be spared from having to suffer the insane costs of paying for a mortician and hosting a funeral.”
“He did say he wanted an open-casket.”
“See? Spared.”
“Y’know, I like the way you think!”
“I have my moments.”
Just then, something splattered on her head.
Lizzie looked up.
“Hey, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I think the sky’s about to open up.”
“What makes you say that?” And then, comedic timing on cue, it started downpouring. If this were a cartoon, Lizzie was sure that she’d see a few cats and dogs falling about. Sam put her hands on her hips. “Well dang. That sucks.”
“Think we should find some place to bunker down till the rain passes? I can’t imagine this is prime worming weather.” She hummed. “There’s that spot below the Funicular. It’s got some dirt and stuff, if we’re lucky, we might find some additional worms there.” That was the piece of reasoning Sam needed, it seemed.
Even though it wasn’t a far distance, they were both sopping wet by the time they arrived. Wasn’t like they could really do anything to get dry. At least Lizzie didn’t mind; definitely wouldn’t have been the first time she’s been in this kind of situation.
The Funicular rumbled above them, shaking the ground beneath her boots. Her foot hit a stray spray can, kicking it out into the cruel and merciless rain. She wondered if there were any others…
She crouched down, shining her flashlight on the ground. The light flickered, dimming before going completely dark. She huffed, smacking her hand against it a few times. That seemed to do the trick as it flickered back into life. Hell yeah. Sure enough, there were a few other spray cans just littered on the ground. She picked one up, cold and wet and icky against her palms but she could feel that it was still good.
“You ever spraypainted before?”
“Only on cakes. Why d’ya ask?” Lizzie turned around, pointing to the can.
“Wanna add to this glorious mural?” Sam hummed, tilting her head back and forth in thought.
“I don’t see why not!”
After tossing a can her way, she got to work. There weren’t a lot of colors available, but she could work with it. It’s not like she was going to put a lot of effort into this, anyways. The cruder the better. She held her flashlight in her teeth, starting with a lot of arcing shapes before going into straight lines, creating a pair of hands clasped together. Then, she drew giant, pleading eyes, accompanied by a squiggly mouth. The only detail she added was to the hat and scarf. She put even less effort into the next drawing. Small, blocky shapes with some flowing lines was enough to get the impression of that one Aquato. Froo-Froo, or something like that. No. No she needed to remember her name. Frazie. That was it.
When Lizzie stepped back, but she couldn’t help but start snickering at it. ‘i loooooove you, frazie’ were the words painted next to the honestly quite-impressive drawing of her sister. ‘i love you soooooo much’. Surrounding her were tiny hearts. Norma would kill her for this. If she ever saw it, that is.
“Oh, that’s good.” The positive remark from Sam left her chest feeling light and airy.
“It’s my masterpiece,” she smirked, putting her hands behind her head. She then walked over to Sam, inspecting what she’s been working on. “‘Come to the Lumberstack Diner. Or else.’” There was a drawing of a big-eyed goat next to it, a flapjack hanging from its mouth.
“It’s an advertisement for when I re-open the diner. Figured I’d get an early start on marketing to drum up some business on opening day.”
“And when’s that?”
“Whenever Fur Lancelot gets his act together and stops bringing me WHOLE acorns instead of the CRUSHED ones that I ASK for.” Her eyes widened at the sudden jump in her volume. She could practically hear the aluminum crushing beneath Sam’s grip. The shorter girl then took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Sorry. Workplace stress, you know how it is.”
“I sure do.” She sure did not.
“Can I talk to you about it?”
“I’m all ears.” Sam tossed the can to the ground, huffing.
“I’m understaffed for the next couple of months because Mrs. Thatcher is on maternity leave and I don’t know what I’m gonna do about it.”
“You can’t find more staff?” She shook her head glumly.
“They’re on strike protesting for better working conditions. They say that I’m too ‘bossy’ and ‘manipulative’ and that I ‘disguise excessive nitpicking as encouragement for their wellbeing’ or something like that.”
“Aw Sam…” Unsure of what to do, Lizzie put a hand on her shoulder, “I don’t think you’re like that.” The shorter girl shrugged.
“Maybe I am. I dunno.”
“Uh…well, if you need me, I’m gonna, be over there. Chilling. Feel free to, y’know, join me or whatever. Or stand. It’s up to you.” Sam hummed in response.
Well, this certainly wasn’t what she wanted from this.
Lizzie slouched against the tattered couch. Did she cause this? This sudden mood crash? She ran her fingers through her hair. Hm. She really needed to shower more, the greasy texture felt like acid against her fingertips. Ugh. Hopefully she didn’t smell. Not that Sam would probably mind, considering, well, she’s Sam. Maybe she just needed to stop overthinking. Overthinking was such a Norma thing to do. She was the queen of self-sabotage, after all.
She could’ve groaned. Her head hurt.
Topic change. That’s what they needed.
“When do you think the rain is gonna lighten up?” Sam joined her, plopping down next to her.
“Could be days. Weeks, maybe.”
“How about a few hours?”
“Maybe.” She sniffed the air. “Probably. Yeah.”
Silence.
“Think you got enough worms?
“Dunno yet. I can’t count them yet, either. Not until I have them in a tank reinforced with psitanium. Don’t wanna risk them getting out and crawling into my brain to steal my recipes.”
“Gotta protect the goods, I get it.”
More silence.
“Did you bring provisions?”
“Uhh…I mean, there’s acorns? I think we’ll only get like, minor lead poisoning from the spray paint, so there’s that too. Why?”
“Just need to be prepared if we end up out here for days. Trying to gauge how long we have before one of us needs to sacrifice an arm.”
“Right right, yeah.”
“I think we got about…three days.” Lizzie nodded slowly. Whatever negative energy had seeped the mood earlier seemed to have dissipated now. That’s cool.
And so. Here they were.
Alone.
Making small talk. In a secluded spot.
She could feel the question wriggling in the back of her brain, desperate to crawl itself out into the open air. She bounced her leg, chewing the inside of her cheek. C’mon man, chillaxe. It’s Sam. Asking won’t affect the way she thinks about you. It’s not like you’re asking to go out with her or whatever. Just. For a confirmation. Yeah. Just a thing people ask when there’s no one else to hear. Yeah. yeah. Lizzie tilted her head up, taking a deep breath. It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s whatever. Just a silly dumb stupid dumb question. Throw it out there.
Sam’s hand touching hers stopped her heart for a second, jolting her out of her thoughts as though a pail of cold water was just thrown into her face.
“You look like you’re going to explode.” Somehow, that made the words start tumbling out.
“Do you, uh—” Lizzie cleared her throat, “women?”
“What?”
“Warbling. Like, do you, um. Birds?” Lizzie could’ve facepalmed so hard that her brain would have flown out. She could practically imagine it bouncing against the concrete and landing somewhere in the woods, never to be seen again. Smooth, Natividad, smooth.
Sam tutted her tongue, shaking her head.
“That’s how they get you, you know.”
“What?”
“Mhm. Seen it with my own eyes.” Sam didn’t elaborate on that. Nor did Lizzie want to keep this conversation going. Anything to get away from her incredible screw-up.
Instead, she just resigned herself to the comfort of her presence. At least, until Sam laid down and started using her lap as a pillow. Her heart went from resting to running a marathon in the span of five seconds. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. Coolio. Cool beans. Cool. Yeah. Cool.
“Hey, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
What are you doing.
“What got you into baking?”
“My little brother.”
“Yeah? How so?” She hummed, rhythmically tapping her fingers against her belly.
“He loves blueberry muffins, but since our parents were busy with the, y’know, whole head-exploding thing, they wouldn’t really have time to do anything like that. So I started doing that, just so he’d have something to look forward to on a bad day.” Sam laughed. “I liked making them look like squirrels.”
“That’s…really sweet.”
“Psh, it’s nothing really.”
“...How’d you find out that worms have the best recipes?”
“They’d end up in my mud pies sometimes, and man, they were harsh critics. And people say that seals are really disapproving. Hah! The saying really should be the worm of disapproval.” Lizzie didn’t have the heart to tell her that the saying was referring to a different type of seal. “My turn!”
“What?”
“For a question, dummy! You already asked two.”
“Oh.” Oh no.
“Hobbies! Do you have them?”
“Uh—” Shit. Shit. What did she do for fun? Her mind was running blank. “Nothing. No. No hobbies. I just stare at a wall in my free time. If I’m feeling extra spicy, I’ll go outside and lay in the grass, hoping that it’ll reclaim me.”
“That sounds fun! You should invite me sometime.”
“Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Tuesday?”
“It’s a date!” Date. Haha. Yeah. Hm.
“Oh. Uh. I guess, I like, do art sometimes. That’s a hobby.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Norma’s like, super into knitting. I’m like, lowkey into charcoal drawings and tattoo art.” Sam eyed her arm.
“...Lowkey?”
“Okay—not so lowkey for tattoo art.” She drummed her fingers against the arm of the couch. God did she hate talking about herself. It felt like she was back in school, having to fill out one of those dumb ~introductory papers~ at the start of the year. Sure, she never took them seriously but it’s about the brain strain. Also the fact that she was talking to the girl she liked. Not that that had an impact on her answers.
(It did.)
Lizzie cleared her throat. “I, uh, god,” she shifted, leaning against her arm, “don’t tell anyone, okay?” Sam perked up. “I gave myself my first tattoo when I was 14. My parents refused to let me get one, so I said ‘screw it!’ and decided to do it myself. I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just had some shit that I, er, borrowed, and a mirror.” She shifted, leaning against her palm. “Long story short, it was garbage and and I gave myself a skin infection. Norma caught me as I was finishing up and tattled to our parents, and yada yada I’m not gonna bore you with that stuff. The only good thing that came out of it was that they let me get a tattoo done by a professional, after realizing that I would’ve probably tried again. Which I would’ve.”
“What happened to tattoo numero uno?” Lizzie sighed. Paused. And sighed again, heavier. Then, she unzipped her jacket and slid it and her tank top strap off her shoulder. Sam squinted. “Aww, it’s a puppy!” Lizzie groaned. “Are those bat wings?” Sam gasped. “Is that the dog from that one Christmas special about the dogs who go to heaven?”
“IT’S THE JERSEY DEVIL.” She covered up the abomination immediately. “My parents immediately had it removed but it scarred, soooo…” she shrugged.
“I think it’s cute.” Oh. Well. Before she really had time to think about that, Sam reached up and poked her earring. “Boop. What about this?”
“What about it?”
“Where’d you get it?”
“I made it.” She smiled her in a way so achingly sweet that it egged her on. “Okay, okay, you caught me. I like making jewelry too. I’ve got one of those kits for making friendship bracelets tucked under my bed.”
“What made you realize you liked doing stuff with beady stuff?” Lizzie shrugged.
“I really just liked the textures. It’s nice making things to fiddle with. Plus! I could throw the beads at Norma when she’d get on my nerves. She’d tell on me but I’d never get in trouble ‘cause I’d eat the evidence.” She smiled at the memory. “It’s like, our parents would walk in and see me ever-so focused on what I’m doing, and Norma would point and point and say ‘she threw one at me, she threw one at me! It’s on my bed, see, see?’ And they wouldn’t see so they’d just assume that she was trying to get me in trouble. Dude, it’d make her so mad.” Lizzie sighed, sinking back into the couch. “It’s…I don’t know, there’s a weird feeling thinking back on it. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Mm.”
The following few minutes were quiet. Painfully quiet. Agonizingly quiet. Sure there was the rain and the Funicular but the quiet between them was almost deafening compared to that.
But then.
“What’d they taste like?”
“What, the beads?”
“Yeah.”
“Cold. Spherical.”
“Do you wanna be business partners?”
“Yeah. What?” Sam spread her arms out in a sort of celebration way with a quiet ‘yesss’.
“Think you can bring me the goods on Monday?”
“Uh—”
“Can you?”
“Well, yeah.” She rubbed her hands together.
“Combined with those recipes we’ll drag out of the worms, no other business would be able to stand up to us! We’ll rake in the dough and be able to help Katie with her flipper extension surgery!”
“Katie? Who’s Katie?”
“Oh you remember Katie! The whale who helped us with the casino mission?”
“Ohhh, yeah, yeah I remember.” She paused, squinting in thought. “Flipper extension?”
“She’s trans.”
“Really? That’s sick. Hell yeah I’d love to help raise money for a whale’s transition fund.” Sam whooped loudly, waving her arms in the air before stopping to elbow her. “Wh—”
“Celebrate with me! Woo!” Hardly able to stop the grin that was forcing its way through, Lizzie joined Sam, raising her arms in the air and whooping. It echoed back from the cement, mixing with the rumbles and the rain. Which, speaking of.
“Looks like the rain is starting to let up.”
“Booo.”
“Might be time we, y’know, head back.”
“Booooooo.”
“C’mon, you’re gonna catch a cold if we stay out any longer. Can’t intimidate worms out of recipes if you’re dripping snot.” Sam huffed.
“Okay, fine.” She paused. “Wait. How come only I’m getting sick?”
“I’m always cold because of my cryokinesis, so the weather doesn’t get me sick.” Lizzie didn’t know if that was true. She just didn’t want Sam to imagine her dripping with snot. That’d totally be uncool.
“You’re warm right now.”
“You’ve been laying on my lap for the past, like, I don’t know, 45 minutes?” She had no idea what time it was. “Of course I’m gonna feel warm. I’m also wearing a jacket, you’re not.”
“Oh yeah! Good point.” Sam sat up and, for a moment, a small one, a teeny tiny one, Lizzie wished that she didn’t say anything; her lap already felt colder without her there. “We should still watch the ground for any stragglers. If we’re not careful, we could have the worm secret service after us if someworm witnessed us.”
“Eh, I’m sure it’s fine,” Lizzie waved her off, standing up. “Besides, we’d have the Psychonauts on our side. We could always say that they’re earworms hellbent on destroying everyone’s psychospace.”
“Wouldn’t Hollis know that we’re lying?”
“I mean, we could always make them an actual threat through one of Otto’s machines.” They started back, walking along the trail. “I’m that dedicated to this.”
“Hmm…I’ll keep that in mind. Not for the evil plot thing, but for the earworm thing. If I can revamp the Lumberstack jingle, we could infect people with earworms until they buy a dozen of my flapjacks.”
“True, true. That sounds like a better idea, honestly. Gives the worms a reason to work with us instead of the birds.” Sam gasped.
“I didn’t even consider that! See! This is why we’re partners now.”
“Heh, business partners, yeah.” Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Gross. Moths were cooler. Moths fluttered in her stomach. “Oh, oh oh oh worms,” she pointed, “worms at 2 o’clock.”
“I see ‘em!” Sam kneeled down, picking up worm after worm. Lizzie knelt down to help. That’s what she was here to do, after all. “Thought you were just gonna worm away with your delicious secrets, huh? Well ya thought wrong!”
They stuffed the worms into her bag and continued on. Sam had a pep to her step, humming a ditty as she eyed the soil for any more worms. There weren’t anymore. Not that she could see, anyway. Lizzie wasn’t sure if she could consider the diner’s parking lot a welcoming site.
“Sounds like the birds are up.” Lizzie snorted. “Little do they know that they’re too late.”
“YEAH! Y’hear THAT, Rufus?” Sam paused, pointing in the general direction of the bird’s song. “I know you’re out there! Better get ready to kiss this year’s title of ‘Baker of the Year’ GOODBYE because it’s going to ME! Samantha Boole!” Sam arced her back, raising both her fists high in the air as she started to laugh. Lizzie couldn’t help but smile, awkwardly fiddling with her sleeve. A cold breeze filtered through the trees, rustling the branches. Sam didn’t seem affected, but…
“Here.”
“Hm?” Lizzie shrugged off her jacket, carefully putting it on Sam’s shoulders.
“T-To, uh, make sure you don’t get sick.” Sam looked at her for a moment before shooting her a toothy grin, sliding her arms through the sleeves.
“Aw shucks! You didn’t have to.”
“Well, I want to. I just,” she could feel her face heating up, “want. You. To, uh,” a throat clear, “just—”
“...For me to look out for myself?”
“Yeah. That.” Sam laughed, elbowing her in the stomach. “I’ll be fine, dummy. I appreciate it, though.” Lizzie sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck, praying that Sam wouldn’t notice the flush that had spread across her cheeks. “We should go.” She snickered. Never a good sign. “It looks like you’re getting sick after all.”
Fuck.
“I am NOT getting SICK.” She laughed again, reaching for her hand.
“Just teasing ya. Let’s go. For realsies.” Somehow her face was getting even hotter.
“Mhm,” was all she could utter out, letting herself be dragged towards the mine. Wow. She actually had things to look forward to. Weird. That never happened. And yet…there was something nagging at the back of her mind. Something that felt important, but maybe…not? Whatever. It was probably gonna come back to her later, probably. For now, she was just…gonna to enjoy this. Yeah.
(They forgot to use the hatch.)