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"Cricket!" Chip's eyes locked on the giggling ten year old as he burst in through the backdoor, mounds of chicken feathers still dusting his pajama clad shoulders.
"Morning Chi-" Chip didn't wait to hear Bill's greeting as he zipped around the corner to chase after the brat, flinging the broken eggs everywhere.
Cricket ducked underneath the couch and slithered to the other side, making his grand escape down the hall into the safety of his bedroom. Chip was so mad he raised a knuckled fist into the air like some neighborhood grouch chasing kids off his lawn.
"Uh?" Chip spun back around to see Bill and Tilly staring at him from the kitchen doorway. "What was that all abou-wow something smells like chicken poop." Bill said, waving a hand to bat the smell away. Chip put his hands on his hips.
"Probably because your little DEMON SPAWN," Chip turned his head in the direction of Cricket's bedroom to make sure the ten year old could hear him. "decided to move my bed to the chicken coop while I was sleeping!"
"Cause it was hilarious!" Cricket's muffled reply shot back.
"We'll see how funny it is when you're the one waking up with feathers in places there should never be feathers!" Chip's voice hoarsed out at the end and he had to cough, causing two little white feathers to flutter out.
"Yeesh," Bill winced in sympathy. "Okay, why don't you take a shower then and I'll talk to Cricket."
Chip fell into a resigned slouch. "Why? So you can let him off the hook just like you did when he put food coloring in my toothpaste?" He looked like the friggin candy man for days with those stupid rainbow teeth.
Tilly, bless her heart had to put a hand over her mouth to hold in the laughter at the reminder.
Chip rolled his eyes. "Or how about the time he taped butter to the bottom of my shoes." He was slipping and sliding all day. Probably should have noticed it a little sooner, but that was beside the point!
"Well, I guess that wasn't so nice either-"
"And you wanna know what he did just last week?!" Chip pressed on hysterically. "He switched the artificial sweetener I put in my coffee with the actual sugar. I gained half a pound Bill. A half a pound!"
Bill pulled one of his 'I don't know how to respond' faces as he put his hands up placatingly. "Ok, ok, calm down. I'll talk to Cricket right now and I promise we'll figure this out."
They did not. Figure it out.
If the mountain of salt drenching his mashed potatoes was anything to go by anyway. "Oh c'mon, that's not even original!" Chip yelled, throwing one hand to the air as he sat the now empty salt shaker back down.
Gramma sighed next to him as she began grumbling about having to refill it later.
"No see, I put my own twist on it, cause I also switched the salt and sugar." Cricket explained as he took a bite of his green beans. "Now it's double funny."
"You what-" Chip licked his finger then banged both fists against the table. "Urgh! Bill, you said he'd stop!"
The farmer sighed, turning to his son. "Boy you promised."
Cricket folded both arms behind his back. "Yeah I promised no more big pranks, you didn't say anything about little, harmless pranks like these."
"Harmless?" Chip asked with a cocked brow as his left eye twitched. "You call sabotaging my perfect health harmless?"
"Oh please if your health is perfect then I guess I'm the same age as Gloria." Gramma interrupted. Gloria accidentally spat her tea out at the mention. "Now, quit your whining and fix yourself another plate." The old woman scooped up his plate and headed to the trash can.
Weird usually she'd have made a big stink about wasting food.
"It's just a bit of good natured fun." Cricket added nonchalantly. "Lighten up a bit."
Chip rolled his eyes as he got up to get more well it's kind of hard to 'lighten up' when you're the only one constantly getting dunked on in a house full of your former enemies.
Out the corner of his eye Chip watched Bill elbow Cricket and whisper something stern.
Serves the brat right.
"Oooo lighten up a bit," Chip sarcastically mimicked as he pulled his thread through the needle. "What a little-you want to know what he pulled today?"
Gramma sighed, briefly closing her eyes as she worked on the other end of the quilt. "He told you drinking too much coffee makes all your teeth fall out."
"He told me drinking too much coffee makes all your teeth fall ou-wait how did you guess?"
"Cause you told me that fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh…" Chip frowned. "Well it was still a jerk move wasn't it!?"
Gramma shrugged. "I don't know, I thought it was pretty funny, watching you run around all panicky like."
Chip crunched in on himself angrily, causing the wooden porch chair to creak beneath him.
"Oh don't go poutin' about it. I'm just teasing." Gramma laughed. "You need to not take it so personally. It's just a joke at the end of the day and having thin skin about it ain't gonna help you none."
"Hey, I have very thick skin thank you very mu-ow!" Chip pulled his hand back to suck his thumb after pricking himself with the needle again. "And I'd like to see you 'not take it personally' when you're the only one getting joked on."
Gramma huffed with a small, almost unnoticeable smirk. "Please, Cricket pulled way worse stuff on me when everyone first moved in."
"I-Wait he did?"
"Oh yeah," Gramma nodded. "He'd put melted cheese in my slippers, draw mustaches on me while I was sleeping, one time he even poured a whole bottle of hot sauce into my lemonade. I tell you his eyes about popped out of his little skull when I kept on drinking it."
"And he's still breathing because….
Gramma shrugged. "Cause he's my grandson and I love him and…..I think in a way he was just testing me, trying to see how far he could push me before I threw him, Bill, and Tilly to the curb. I just had to show him that the worst he had to fear was having to mow the lawn with nothing ,but a pair of my toe nail clippers."
"Oh…so he stopped after that right?"
"Oh heck no, he kept pulling those pranks on me for a while. Eventually though I just stopped reacting and he stopped doing them."
"So I need to stop reacting, is what you're saying?" Chip inquired as a warm breeze ruffled the quilt.
"I ain't saying nothing." Gramma corrected. "Just that, maybe if you didn't lose your mind every prank he'd stop being so amused."
Chip hummed. 'Don't lose my mind, I can do that. Totally.'
He could not,at least not easily. It'd been over a week now and he was starting to crack, Chip swore it was like the kid was testing him or something!
"Seriously," Chip sighed defeatedly as his sandals squelched against the water. His wet hair fell flat against his forehead. "The old bucket above the doorway, you couldn't even be bothered to put any ice in it?"
"Well I did ,but it took you a lot longer to go through the door than I expected." Cricket explained from his position on the couch as Chip wrung his soaked button up out. Tilly brought over a towel out of sympathy.
Chip groaned, nodding a brief thanks as he took the towel and headed for the bathroom. He needed a shower.
"That's better." Chip sighed, tying his bathrobe on and picking up his toothbrush. The bathroom mirror was still fogged with steam as he began brushing. "You can do this Chip, just gotta out last the little…."
Chip trailed off, the bathroom mirror finally cleared up enough he could see his reflection.
He let out a horrified shriek.
"CRICKET!" Cricket winced as he turned up the volume on the T.V. Tilly looked at him questioningly.
"I'm sure it's nothing."
Tilly didn't seem to believe him, and honestly good on her, cause Chip came barreling into the living room not five seconds later. The commotion attracted Dad and Gramma to the kitchen doorway as they strained to see.
Chip's eyes weren't the wildest Cricket had ever seen them- that'd have to be the time he almost ran them through with that chopper- ,but they were pretty close to it as the former ceo marched in front of the T.V. A towel wrapped around his head and water still dripping from his chin.
"Uh oh." Pops said. "Okay before we start freaking out-"
"Oh yes because heaven forbid I freak out about this!" Chip ripped the towel off his head, at the same time Mom and Gloria had just walked through the front door.
"Thanks again for helping me get that creep out of the cafe. I swear some people just don't understand what 'This coupon's expired.' mea-...…Bahahahahahahahahaha!" Gloria about fell over laughing-causing everyone else to join in seconds later- at the bright bubblegum pink hair sitting atop Chip's head. "You-hahahaha-look like you got lost on the way to a lame rave!"
Cricket couldn't help ,but wince. Yeesh, talk about false advertising the box clearly showed more of a pastel pink.
Chip's left eye twitched as he snatched Cricket up by the front of his overalls. Uh oh, not good.
"Me and you are gonna have a little chat." Chip said quietly enough no one else could hear over the cajoles of laughter still ringing out.
Everyone was so distracted laughing their heinis off they didn't notice Chip march them both towards the bathroom, probably about to drown him.
Cricket struggled at the thought, he wasn't going down like this!
"Okay," Chip sang as he harshly kicked the bathroom door shut behind them. He plopped Cricket down on the closed toilet seat before bending down to fish a pile of towels out of the sink cabinet.
"What? Are those for smothering me to death?" Cricket accused, faking a laugh as he anxiously gripped the toilet seat.
"No." Chip shrugged. "They're for this."
Chip shoved his face into the towels and let out a muffled scream, stomping his foot against the bathroom floor for good measure.
He came up for air a few seconds later. "Okay now I'm fi-no wait there's still some left." Chip shoved his face back in for another fifty seconds before finally putting the towels down by the sink.
"Now that that's taken care, what is this about?" Chip asked, folding his arms in an attempt at sternness.
Cricket tilted his head. "What do you mean I told you-"
"That it's funny, yeah I remember. But what's this actually about because my version of humor involves not making my hair look like a strawberry ice cream cone."
"Well I mean it looked like a vanilla ice cream cone before and no one likes vanilla so in a way I think this is an improvemen-"
"Cricket."
The boy huffed, turning his head to the side and folding his arms. "I don't know what to tell you. It's just funny."
Chip groaned, throwing his hands to the air before pinching the space between his brows. "I swear you're the biggest pain I've ever met."
Cricket rolled his eyes. Of course he'd say that. "Yeah well when you get that fancy smancy company back you can seek your revenge on us again."
"I mean seriously hair dye in my sham-wait." Chip paused, raising his head from his hand. "What did you just say?"
Cricket gritted his teeth. "Nothing…"
"Cricket."
Darnit.
"Well I mean it's true ain't it?" Cricket kicked his feet back and forth against the toilet seat. "Once you get to be a ceo again you'll go back to being our enemy…either that or..you'll just cast us all aside entirely."
Chip's brows shot to the tip of his pink hairline as his brain whirled. "What are you talking about?"
Cricket sighed. "Remember when we had to go to Wholesome Foods to pick up the papaya dad needed for the harvest stew?"
"Yes? And for the last time Cricket it's pronounced paprika."
"Yeah, papyrus. Anyway, you remember when we got to the checkout?"
Chip arched his brow as he tried to think.
Check out, check out…
"Would you stop jostling the pie?" Chip scolded as they inched ahead in line, Tilly asleep on top of his shoulders. Turns out chanting "Paprika for papa" for half an hour straight, took a lot of a person.
Cricket huffed, curling his noodle arms tighter around the boxed pastry. Bill had burnt the homemade one. "Say what you want ,but I'm getting this pie home safe as a baby in a treetop."
"How is that even close to sa-nevermind." Chip sighed as he fished out the coupon. The sooner they got out of here the better. Gramma tossed her change purse onto the counter as they finally got to checkout.
Chip had to avert his gaze from the cashier out of mild embarrassment as the old woman methodically counted out the twenty-one dollars and seventy-two cents they needed to purchase everything.
But for some reason the cashier couldn't keep her eyes off him.
"Chip?"
The blonde raised a brow as he looked up slightly.
The cashier looked vaguely familiar. "Uhhhh, oh hi….Roselyn?"
The cashier's eyes flattened instantly. "It's Rose. It literally says it on my name tag."
"Oh heh, whoops." Chip laughed nervously. "How's uh, work been?"
"Great ever since Mr. Whistler rehired me and Greg back. You know after you callously fired us both for no reason."
Chip's eyes widened. Oh…right.
"Oh well uh glad it worked out for you still…"
Rose blinked humorlessly. "Yeah funny how life works."
Chip gritted his teeth with a fake smile as he hastily dug around in his pocket for the coupon. "So I got this coupon if you could just.."
When Rose refused to take it from his hand, he tried sliding it to her across the counter.
Rose took one look at it, crumpled it into her fist, and tossed it straight to the trash. "It's expired."
Chip blinked. "Uh you sure about that?"
"Yes."
"Great, now I gotta count out even more change." Gramma grumbled to herself as she dug out more coins.
Chip tried to hold in an annoyed huff as he leaned against the checkout counter. "It's just I double checked before we left so maybe you could just-"
"Oh I could do alot of things." Rose replied flatly. "But nothing that involves ever helping you out again. Sorry, betrayal stinks doesn't it?"
Chip blinked, again. He let out a surprised laugh. "Oh c'mon don't you think that's a bit of a strong word. It's not like we were actually friends or any-"
"Really because as I recall, it was me and Greg who stayed late whenever you needed help locking up, it was me and Greg who drove you to the dentist whenever you chipped your tooth, it was also us whenever you needed someone to tag along on your little revenge quests."
Chip shot Cricket a glare as the ten year old giggled at the quip.
"Well I…..I mean you know how I can be when I'm in revenge mode…I-heh-just kinda block out everything that's going on around me…I'm sure you can understand."
Rose raised a flat brow. "Dude, you drove me to the hospital when I went into labor with my first kid."
"Wait you have ki-I mean oh yeeeeeeeah that…that, was a fun time am I right? Never gonna forget that one." Chip laughed, rubbing the back of his neck as his mind scrambled to remember.
Rose narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "Name the hospital."
Chip pursed his lips as he tried to think. Yeah no, he was drawing a complete blank.
"Big…. City Hospital?
Rose's frown somehow got even tighter. "Wrong. We didn't make it to the hospital. We had to pull over and you and Greg had to deliver the baby together. When the paramedics finally arrived they had to treat the two of you for shock induced paralysis."
"Oh that roadside baby delivery." Chip comically slapped the side of his head. "Duh, heh sorry they just start to blur together over the years…"
"It was literally last year."
"Oh…"
"Just leave."
"Yeah, okay."
Chip kept his head down as Gramma finally finished counting out her change.
He only raised it again when he noticed Cricket hesitating at the automatic doors.
"You coming grasshopper?"
"...I think in a way he was just testing me…"
"You…you're testing me aren't you?" Chip finally asked, coming back to reality.
Cricket bristled.
"You think that I'll just, turn on you one day If I get pushed too far don't you?"
Cricket sunk his big teeth into his bottom lip. "Well…yeah,I mean. I know it's only a matter of time before you throw us all aside when we inevitably get in your way."
Chip didn't know why, but something inside of him, kinda hurt, at that.
He looked at his feet. "I uh,I know things haven't always been great between me and your family ,but…I'm trying..kinda….I mean I did save your life once right?"
"You also almost ended my life once."
Chip winced. Touche.
Words bubbled up in his head, but they sounded like empty promises to his own ears. He'd promised to make it right between them before and where did that get them?
He really didn't know what to say…well scratch that he knew what to say ,but….oh blort was it gonna hurt.
"Cricket I…I promise that won't happen, because.." Chip sighed. "because I'm sorry. I'm sorry not because I lost my company, my reputation, my money." Chip had to pause before he started pity crying.
"I'm sorry because I was wroooo-" Chip coughed trying to hack the word out as he banged his fist against his chest. "wrooooo-" One more cough. "Geez this hard. I was…wrong."
Cricket's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as Chip continued. "I was wrong and I missed out on making friends with a really nice family because of it. So keep on testing me if you want, cause I'm not making the same mistake twice."
Cricket blinked. "Oh…thank you Chip."
Chip had to hold back a sigh. He would have preferred a 'I forgive you and all your past transgressions' ,but hey, they'd get there…hopefully.
"You're welcome."
"Whelp now that that's taken care of-" Cricket went to hop off the toilet seat only to be grabbed by Chip again.
"Uh Chip?"
Chip smirked as he reached for the tampered shampoo bottle in his back pocket. He couldn't let the kid off that easily. "Oh sorry one last thing, I think you'd make a much better pinkette than me."
Cricket paled. "Hehehehe good one Chip. You just pull it off so much better and-really I don't have near as good a skin tone so-seriously put down the bottle Chip! Chip!"
"So when's the dye supposed to wear off?" Gloria asked across the table.
Cricket sighed, glaring at Chip through his bright pink locks. "In about three to four weeks."
"Ouch." Nancy winced sympathetically. "Sorry hun."
"And Remy's supposed to come over tomorrow."
"I guess you were right Cricket." Chip crooned pho-empathetically, folding his arms behind his head. "I do pull it off much better."
The melted cheese he found in his shoes a week later was worth it.