"Eric?" Jasper said nervously.
"Not right now, J," Eric snapped.
"Ok."
Madame Blanche was busily explaining to everyone how they should react in this scene. "This is the scene where Jesus is sad. So you be sad. Is everyone sad?"
The extras and actors chorused "yes" in depressed tones.
"Good. Ok, that's good. Now, Rock, let's hear your solo..."
"Eric?"
"Not right now, Jasper!"
"Ok. ...... Now?"
Eric rolled his eyes. "What? I am so close to punching you again."
"Lisa's being weird."
"She's a girl. Girls are weird."
"You're a boy. You're weird."
"I... Stop that."
"Sorry. But weirder than usual... She keeps... There! She did it again! Did you see that?"
"J, I go out of my way to ignore her at all times. Her, and you. Now stop—"
"She's... I think she's leering at me!"
"Oh. That. That's because she knows you're coming to dinner tonight." Eric chuckled evilly. "She's very, very excited."
"Oh noooooo," Jasper moaned.
"Heh."
Lisa turned and saw them talking over her shoulder. She batted her eyes and smiled, mouthing something. It might have been "see you later." Jasper, feeling a little panicky, was pretty sure she was saying "I just got the marriage license."
"Make her stop!!"
Eric just kept laughing. "See? Now aren't you glad you agreed to this?"
"You owe me a favor!" Jasper said accusingly. "You said so!"
Eric stopped laughing and gave Jasper a dark, dark look. "Yes. I owe you a favor. But think carefully before you try and call it in. You may find the cure is worse than the disease."
"What??"
"Um You know. Scary, vague threats."
"Oh. Right."
"Jaaaaaaasper!!!!!" Lisa hollered. Jasper rolled his eyes and wandered over to where she was sitting by the stage. "J, I am so excited!" she squeaked. "You'll be totally over at my house and you'll totally be there for supper and you can come and see my room and hang out and you'll see all my cool stuff and my shrine and my unicorn collection and—"
"Shrine?" Jasper asked.
Lisa stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. "Wait. I said that out loud?"
"What, shrine? Yeah. Shrine to who?"
"Noooo!" Lisa wailed.
"Sorry; shrine to whom?"
"No, I mean..." She looked at him wide-eyed, slightly panicky. "No shrine. There's no shrine. No shrine! Shut up about the shrine! I don't have a shrine!!" She gave Jasper a dark, menacing look. "Don't you ever, EVER mention that shrine again!"
"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Jasper said quickly. "But... Shrine to whom?"
Lisa wailed and ran to the other side of the room. Jasper shook his head, confused.
A moment later there was a shriek from Lisa. No one was particularly startled by that; Lisa shrieked with startling regularity. Jasper looked up idly.
Lisa was holding her water bottle upside down and staring at it in shock. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" she shrieked again.
"What?" Jasper asked, still sounding bored, as he walked over.
Lisa just pointed.
Where the water had spilled out of the bottle there was a smoking hole in the asphalt of the theater floor. Jasper frowned. "Is it supposed to do that?"
"No!"
"What did you put in your water?"
"Nothing!!"
"Then why did that happen?"
"Someone. Trying. Kill me!" Lisa gasped.
Jasper frowned. "But... ok, even accepting that as fact, which is kinda iffy, why would the water eat through concrete, but not, like... the water bottle? I'm confused."
"Oh, drat," Lisa said crossly, "stop pointing out plot problems! You make the scenes end!"
*
Jasper rang the bell. Then he grabbed Felix's arm before Felix could turn and bolt.
"We promised," Jasper said.
"You promised. I'm just here to suffer," Felix shot back.
Jasper looked at the giant oak door in front of him. It was dark and tall and scary. It had a giant knocker shaped like a face, and the metal handle actually banged between the face's eyes. Which was creepy because it looked like an old, bald carving of Eric.
Which was why Jasper was ringing the bell instead of using the knocker. Cal had gone earlier. Jasper rang the bell again.
"I don't wanna do this," Felix said for the hundredth time.
"Stop whining!" Jasper said. "This'll be fun!"
"You know, I've been meaning to ask you this for a while, and I think now is the right time," Felix said. "What exactly is wrong with you?"
Jasper stuck his tongue out at Felix. "You can bite—"
The door swung open slowly, with a low squeak and the kind of gravitas only a really heavy, scary door can manage. Jasper said "eep!" and fell silent. Felix just sighed and made a pathetic face.
The butler looked like he was dead. He was standing and everything, but his skin was incredibly pale, and his eyes were unfocused. And he wasn't moving. Not even to breathe. He was just... standing there. Holding the door.
"I'll get a stick," Jasper whispered. "You poke him."
"You poke him!" Felix protested. "I don't want to poke him!"
Jasper bit his lip. "Um... well, he opened the door. So he must be alive, right?"
"If he asks me to do the time warp, I am so out of here," Felix muttered.
"Hello?" Jasper said tentatively. "Hello? Like... umm... creepy butler man? Hello?"
The butler's eyes moved very slowly to Jasper. He blinked, once. His face didn't move at all. Jasper said "eep!" again and shifted so he was standing partially behind Felix.
"Ok, well, I'm just gonna stand here, because if we go in there suddenly there'll be a swimming pool and we'll be eating Meat Loaf, so I don't really want to go in."
"I like meatloaf!" Jasper perked.
"No. Not meatloaf. Meat Loaf. No one likes Meat Loaf."
"He was good in Fight Club!"
"Dude, I have trouble believing he gets real jobs. What do they say on set, like "excuse me, Mr. Loaf, it's your scene"? No. That was a fluke."
"Fight Club was not a fluke, it was a brilliant representation of the way middle class white men feel disenfranchised, and Edward Norton was brilliant in it!" Jasper argued.
"Gentlemen." The butler had an old creaky voice. Jasper 'eeped' again and moved further behind Felix.
"Uh..." Felix began uncertainly.
"They're here!!!" Lisa shrieked from somewhere in the house. "Let them in, Fugglesworth, let them in!" Lisa appeared behind the butler, smiling and waving like crazy. She looked all right, Jasper was willing to concede, wearing some kind of dress with drapey fabric. Her hair was done up nicely, too. He was suddenly very glad he was wearing a clean sweater.
"Hey, I have never been so happy to see you, Lisa," Felix said gratefully, edging past the butler to get in. Jasper clung to Felix, and let himself be dragged in, too.
"Dinner is almost served," the butler said in his rusty voice.
Lisa grabbed Jasper's arm and dragged him away from Felix. "You have to come see our house!" she said happily.
Jasper looked around. It was huge and fancy and rich looking, filled with iron candlesticks and fire places and sweeping stair cases and paintings of dead people who looked vaguely like Eric and Lisa.
"Um. Or not. We should... Um... go to dinner."
"You don't want to see my unicorn collection?" Lisa pouted.
"I want to see your shrine," Jasper admitted.
Lisa went pale. "Dinner you say? Good point. Let's go get dinner." She grabbed Felix with her other arm and dragged them both down the hall way to the dining room.
The dining room was surprisingly normal. Electrical light, not torch light, wall paper, not oak panels, Eric in a t-shirt and jeans, not a suit. Cal was sitting next to him, talking about something in a low voice.
At the end of the table were Eric's parents. Jasper had seen Eric's mom, the school counselor around, but he'd never really met her. She was...
She was wearing a slightly out of date mom-style outfit. She had short dark hair and glasses, and she looked like a grown up, calm version of Lisa. Beside her was the man Jasper assumed was Eric's dad. He was wearing a sweater and jeans, and he had dark hair and glasses too.
"You must be Jasper!" Eric's mother beamed. "It's so nice of you to join us."
"Um. Thanks." Jasper smiled awkwardly.
There was a long pause.
"Felix?" Jasper whispered.
"What?" Felix whispered back.
"That's Eric's mom, right?"
"Yeah."
"So... Shouldn't dinner be blowing up or something?"
Felix shook his head humorlessly. "I told you. They're creepy."
"Hey!" Cal waved to Felix and Jasper. "Come on down and have a seat. Dinner won't be ready for another couple of minutes."
"Cool," Felix said. He and Jasper went to sit down. Lisa physically hauled Jasper away from sitting between Cal and Felix. Felix sat next to Cal, a bemused smile on his face, then Jasper, then Lisa. Still clinging to his arm. Across from them, Eric's parents smiled absently.
"So, Jasper, you just transferred in to DSA?" Eric's father asked pleasantly.
"Uh, yeah. It's great. I really like it."
"That's great."
Mr. Donelly smiled.
Jasper smiled back.
Mr. Donelly nodded pleasantly.
Jasper fought the urge to run screaming from the room.
"So, what's for dinner?" Felix asked.
"Hamburgers, hot dogs, potato chips, corn on the cob," Mrs. Donelly said. "Sound good to you boys?" "Sounds great," Jasper said hesitantly. "You guys... you don't eat fancy food?"
"Isn't Fancy Food something you feed cats?" Eric asked suspiciously. "Are you insulting my house, Jasper? Are you calling us cat people?"
"How is that even an insult, seriously?" Jasper demanded. "I just figured... You know, you live in a mansion, you have lots of rich stuff—"
"Rich stuff?" Cal repeated derisively. "What on earth is rich stuff?"
"You know!" Jasper protested. "Like... Like in The Goonies!"
He was met by blank stares all around, which made him roll his eyes and sigh expressively. "Well fine. If I'm the only one with any cultural knowledge..."
"Umm... Goonies is not cultural knowledge." Cal sighed. "Gone With the Wind is cultural knowledge. The West Wing is cultural knowledge. Survivor is—"
"Dude," Jasper cut him off. "You weren't about to make a Survivor joke. That's so played out!"
"Played.... Out...?" Felix echoed. "Um... you don't say played out. In fact, no one says played out."
"Well, I do now," Jasper said, folding his arms and pouting. "Because it's my time. It's my time in here. Out there it was their time, but it's my time in here!"
"How long has he been riffing off goonies?" Cal demanded.
"Long enough, Cal. Long enough," Felix said, in a long-suffering voice.
Mrs. Donnely served dinner on normal plates, with normal silverware and
normal glasses. Jasper kept jumping slightly every time she handed him something, because he sort of expected the table to explode at any moment — a side effect of spending lunch periods with Eric.
Mrs. Donnely frowned slightly. "Jasper, sweetie, are you ok? You seem... you seem a little edgy."
"Oh, no, I'm fine, Mrs. Donnely, really," Jasper lied, smiling. He shot a quick glance at Eric. Eric was ignoring him studiously and staring at his plate.
"Well, that's good then, hon," Mrs. Donnely said, and handed him the ketchup. Jasper flinched slightly. Under the table, Lisa kicked him in the shin. He shot her a nasty glare, and she batted her eyes at him.
"So I hear you boys have a band, eh?" Mr. Donnely said pleasantly.
"Uh... yeah," Jasper said, when no one else volunteered to answer.
"Well, that's nice. Do you have a name for your band?"
"Moopy-"
"No, Jasper," Felix interrupted.
"But-"
"No, Jasper."
Jasper lapsed in to slight sulkiness. Under the table, Lisa kicked him again.
"We haven't really come up with a band name, yet, no, sir," Felix said.
Mr. Donnely frowned. "Well, shouldn't you have one before the contest tomorrow night? I mean, wouldn't that be logical?"
"Logic doesn't enter in to it," Cal said immediately. They all turned and looked at him. He blushed slightly. "Sorry, Monty Python moment."
"No it wasn't!" Eric shot back.
"Yes it was!"
"No it wasn't!"
"Look, I don't want to have an argument about this!"
"This isn't an argument."
"Yes it is."
"No it isn't."
Under the table, Lisa kicked Jasper.
"Hey!" Jasper protested. "I didn't even do anything that time!"
Lisa giggled. "You're cute when you're mad."
"You're a menace," Jasper grumbled.
Mrs. Donnely did a very good job of ignoring the proceedings. "Now boys," she said, "what would you all like to drink?"
"Water," Cal said.
"Coke?" Felix asked.
"Coke's fine," Eric agreed.
"Coffee!!" Jasper perked.
Mrs. Donnely frowned slightly. "Um... Jasper... Aren't you a little... young to have coffee with dinner?"
Jasper stared at her.
"Caffeine stunts your growth, you know."
Eric giggled and turned it in to a cough. Jasper just stared, confused, at Mrs. Donnely.
"Wouldn't you rather have juice, dear?"
Jasper frowned. "Juice?" he echoed. "Like... Not coffee?"
"Like juice. Or water."
"So, not coffee then?"
"That's right. Not coffee."
There was a pause.
"I don't understand," Jasper said. "Not coffee?"
"Not coffee," Mrs. Donnely repeated.
There was another pause. Jasper shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea what you mean, I'm really sorry."
"Mom," Lisa sighed "just give Jasper some coffee. Otherwise you'll just confuse him."
Mrs. Donnely looked vaguely concerned. "But a growing boy like him—"
"Moooommm," Lisa whined.
Mrs. Donnely sighed. "All right, dear." She turned and went back to the kitchen.
"You boys need anything else?" Mr. Donnely asked, standing. "Me, I want a pickle."
"A pickle would be great," Felix agreed. Mr. Donnely went to get pickles.
"So, anyone think of a good band name yet?" Felix asked.
There was a slight pause.
"How about 'Cal and his band'?" Cal suggested.
"How about 'Eric and his band'?" Eric snapped back.
"How about 'Moopy Fruitloops?" Jasper asked.
"No!" Cal, Eric and Felix snapped in unison. Jasper sulked. Lisa tried to kick him under the table but he moved his leg too quickly and then stuck his tongue out at her.
"I was going to suggest, actually," Jasper said, giving up on sulking because he'd triumphed over Lisa (however temporarily) "that we maybe think about rehearsing a cover tomorrow. Wouldn't it be fun to play a cover?"
"We could cover the Grateful Dead!" Cal said.
"Nuh uh. We can cover the Beatles," Felix said.
"We could do an old jazz standard," Eric said.
Jasper rolled his eyes. "I was thinking we could do something kind of punk. Not punk music--" he amended hastily when he got three disbelieving looks, "but something kind of... neo post hip ironic punk, you know?"
There was more silence.
"How about the Talking Head's Burning Down the House?" he said finally, sighing. "Everyone likes the Talking Heads."
"Ooooh, that'd be great," Lisa enthused. "You'd be..." She looked a little astonished. "I think you guys would actually be kind of... cool."
Mrs. and Mr. Donnely came back in before Eric could leap across the table and strangle her. Mr. Donnely handed out pickles and Mrs. Donnely handed out drinks. She handed out the food.
"Damn damn damn," Eric muttered under his breath.
"What?" Cal demanded. "You trying to ruin our G rating again?"
"So. Gone." Jasper sighed.
"Dinner..." Eric pointed. The hamburgers were a little odd looking. Overcooked. Messy. Covered in ketchup. "It looks like something from a Cronenberg flick."
"Who?" Jasper asked.
"Dave 'Deprave' Cronenberg. Canadian director. Called the Baron of Blood and the King of Venereal Horror," Cal explained.
"So you visited the imdb, then," Jasper said, rolling his eyes.
"Hee! Jasper got a punch line!" Lisa giggled.
"It's so nice to see you boys here," Mrs. Donnely said, smiling. "I worry that Eric doesn't have enough friends. That he doesn't get out enough. He's really a very nice boy."
"I am not a nice boy!!"
"Yes. You are."
"No I'm not!!"
"See, this is just the expression of your low self esteem."
Eric gritted his teeth. "Mom, so help me—"
"Eric," Mr. Donnely interrupted, "You know better than to threaten to blow your mother up at the dinner table. That kind of talk is for the family room. After dinner."
Eric sighed and slumped in his chair.
Jasper's shoulders were shaking, because he was trying not to burst out laughing. The consequences of that would probably be dire. Eric already looked like he wanted to kill someone.
"So how was your day today, Lisa?" Mrs. Donnely asked pleasantly.
"I hate you!" Lisa yelled. "You're always so mean!!" And burst in to tears.
The lads sat at the table, slightly shell shocked, except for Eric, who just rolled his eyes.
"Jeez, dramatic much, Lisa?" Cal sighed. "She just asked how your day was."
"But she meant 'why are you such a screw up!" Lisa protested, still semi-hysterical.
"No she didn't!" Cal argued.
"Oh, yes, I did, actually. There's subtext," Mrs. Donnely said calmly. "I'm a therapist, so I know these things."
"Then... why do you say them?" Cal asked hesitantly.
"Well, I'm also quite passive-aggressive."
"Oh." There was a long, awkward silence. Felix elbowed Jasper in the side in a "see??!! I told you!!" kind of way.
"So, Jasper, how's school for you?" Mr. Donnely asked, totally oblivious to the tension at the table.
"Umm... ok, I guess," he said, unsure if he should point out that he'd been asked almost exactly the same question earlier.
"Didn't you get detention this week?" Eric snarked, folding his arms.
"Uh..." Jasper hesitated.
"Yeah! Scenes and scenes ago!" Cal agreed. "I had totally forgotten about that!"
"Darn it! So had I. Now I'm going to have to go." Jasper sank in to a pout.
Lisa nodded sympathetically. "That's the problem with writing these stories so slowly. The author forgets the plot points and the readers have time to find all the logical flaws."
Everyone turned to stare at her. Cal looked particularly annoyed. Jasper looked jealous.
"Oh, drat," Lisa said cutely. "I made the scene end, didn't I?"
*
"And I never even got to see her shrine," Jasper was complaining.
"Will you shut up so we can start rehearsing? I don't want to do this song at your temp," Eric complained. "I think it should go faster."
"Slower," Cal said.
"I want the verse, and it should go faster," Eric repeated.
"Slower. And you don't get the verse."
"Well I want the verse!"
"Why can't we compromise," Felix suggested reasonably. "We could split the verses and the choruses. There are enough lines for everyone. Cal can start off and Jasper and Eric can take the chorus and I'll take the next verse, and—"
"No!" Eric and Cal shouted.
Jasper looked vaguely frightened. "What's up with you guys? Why can't we all just get along?"
"I'm the hippie, and if I don't want to be reasonable and peaceful, I don't have to!" Cal yelled. "It's my song, and I don't feel like compromising, and it's frankly pissing me off."
There was silence. No one had ever head Cal yell before. After a minute Jasper ventured "um... Maybe this is all nerves because the show is tonight, k? So... why don't we play something we didn't write. Maybe that'd help?"
"Like what?" Cal demanded crossly.
"Like we talked about last night. Like... Like the talking heads."
Felix, clearly still trying to get everyone to work together, nodded. "Ok. But we don't know anything by the Talking Heads."
"Everyone knows the Talking Heads," Jasper protested.
"Well but no one can understand what David Byrne is saying."
"I can!" Jasper perked.
Eric rolled his eyes. "Fine. Fine."
"I just..." Jasper went on, relatively oblivious to the death ray glares that were shooting around the room "I just think that we should play something, and then we'd be more in practice for tonight, than if we play nothing. Ok, that sounded crazy. Let me rephrase. We'll be like... We'll be like puppies... Or, not... No. Just... like I said before."
"And crazy can't-finish-a-sentence-Jasper returns," Cal muttered under his breath.
"What is up with you?" Felix demanded.
Cal gave him a quick glare. "Nothing. I just"
"What?" Jasper demanded happily.
Cal sighed enormously. "Ok. We haven't really practiced much. And I'm sure LolRock has. And we're going to suck tonight, guys, and then..."
"Greta will mock you?" Jasper guessed quietly.
"Shut up," Cal said.
"Consider yourself lucky," Eric said. "Jolene will probably try to kill me. She's done it before."
"That was only in your head, Eric," Jasper pointed out.
"It was real!!"
"Uh huh."
"She did!!!"
"Riiiight."
Eric glared at Jasper. "And soon I'm going to have to kill you."
Jasper "eeped" slightly and moved so he was standing more behind Felix. "Look, Cal, it'll be ok, ok?" Jasper said. "Greta... She's kind of... Umm... mean? Don't kill me, but I think maybe... If you worry less about Greta you might be... happier?"
Cal considered this for a moment. "But we dated," he said.
"A long time ago."
"And she's pretty."
"But does she have inner pretty?" Jasper asked.
"That depends on what in heck 'inner pretty' is," Felix said.
"He should have said beautiful so I could say 'inner beauty,'" Jasper said crossly. "Anyway."
"But she's...sigh... she's Greta," Cal said.
Jasper rolled his eyes. "Yeah. She is. But you'll feel better about tonight if you try not to think of her as ...sigh... Greta. Just as Greta." "Maybe even as evil Greta," Eric offered helpfully. "Think of her as your enemy!"
There was a pause. Cal looked thoughtful. "Greta... the enemy?" "Yeah!"
Jasper shot a worried look at Felix, who shrugged. Because things couldn't be worse than Cal yelling at people for no reason.
Cal nodded. "Ok. We'll try think of Greta... Sigh... as the enemy."
"No, you can't sigh if she's the enemy!" Eric protested.
"Oh. Ok. Greta..." Cal swallowed hard. "Just Greta... is the enemy."
Jasper looked around. "Ok. For Burning Down the House someone needs to play a synthesizer. We need... we need ooogie music to start it."
"I can play that," Cal said miserably.
"You can?"
"I can play anything," Cal sighed. He wandered to the back of the room, found the synthesizer and began playing high pitched, eerie notes.
Jasper played a drum beat, and then another. He turned to make sure Felix was ready with the bass and Eric was ready on guitar, and he counted in with a quick snare riff and then yelled "Watch out."
"You might get what you're after," Felix chorused back. Heavy, pounding drum and bass beat, with Eric and Cal filling in the tune, and the song was on. Jasper smiled to himself, bouncing to the beat. He hadn't bothered to sit at the drum set. He'd modified it so he could drum standing up, and it was easier to keep the beat like that anyway.
"Cool babies," Jasper sang.
"Strange but not a stranger."
"I'm an... ordinary guy. Burning down the house!"
Cal grinned and started soloing on the synth. Felix was getting funky on the bass. Jasper just kept the beat steady, not bothering to try and pitch his voice like David Byrne's, more yelling enthusiastically than singing. Because sometimes the Talking Heads should rock, he decided.
"Hold tight!"
"Wait till the party's over," Cal and Felix chorused back.
"Hold tight!"
"We're in for nasty weather," Eric joined Cal and Felix.
"There has... got to be a way! Burning down the house!" Jasper grinned. He got the drum beat a little funkier. "Here's your ticket, pack your bags; time for jumpin' overboard. The transportation is here... Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are, fightin' fire with fire!" More funky drumming and the synth.
"All wet," Jasper, Felix, Cal and Eric chorused together.
"Hey you might need a raincoat."
"Shakedown."
"Dreams walking in broad daylight... three hun-dred six-ty five de-grees"
"Burning down the house!" everyone yelled. Cal was smiling.
"It was once upon a place sometimes I listen to myself, gonna come in first place," Jasper sang. Eric and Felix cheered. "People on their way to work say baby what did you expect? Gonna burst into flame..."
Cal got funky on the synthesizer for a couple of bars, and Jasper drummed them back in to the chorus "Burning down the house!" They were all yelling and grinning now, Jasper bouncing to the beat, Cal deeply zoned in to his synthesizer, Felix getting funky on the bass and Eric hopping up and down. "My house!"
"S'out of the ordinary."
"That's right."
"Don't want to hurt nobody. Some things... sure can... sweep me off my feet."
"Burning down the house!!" Crazy drumming for a beat, and then Jasper began yelling the last verse, his voice manically parodying David Byrnes'.
"No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing yet. Everything's stuck together. I don't know what you expect, staring in to the tv set... fighting fire with fire..."
And the song went quiet for a second, as Cal went back in to his eerie waaaa sounds on the synthesizer. And then the drums came crashing back in and Felix and Eric got funky again, and Cal was going crazy on the synth.
"Burning down the house!!"
There was a long, silent moment. Then Japser began bouncing up and down crazily. "Did you hear us? We rock! We're awesome! We're really really good! Yay!"
Cal smiled and nodded. "yeah."
"Yeah," Eric said. Felix nodded.
"I'm sorry I threw a fit before."
"That's ok," Eric said quickly. "I think. I can't believe I'm going to say this I think J was right. We're better playing anything together than arguing over who does what on our own song." "You know what this is like?" Jasper bounced. "This is like when Toby on the West Wing doesn't want to admit that Sam is right about something, even though Sam is totally right, because Toby hates it when Sam is right, except I'm totally right here, and you just want to pretend to be mean and gruff but you're not, you're nice! Ha!"
"I really, really thought you had stopped with the incoherent babbling sentences," Eric groaned.
"Nope!" Jasper said cheerily.
"Aaaarghh."
"Hey, you don't live with him," Felix sighed.
Jasper looked suddenly heartbroken. "You... you don't wanna live with me?" he sniffed, tearing up.
"Nono, it's fun, really!" Felix said hastily. "We'll go home, listen to Revolver, hang out; it'll be great! Promise!" "Really?" Jasper sniffled.
"Promise!" Felix repeated. "Honest."
"You're not just... You're not just playing reindeer games, are you?" Jasper demanded.
"Aaaauuuuugh! I! Don't! Play! Reindeer games!" Felix hollered.
Cal, Eric and Jasper cracked up.
"What?" Felix demanded darkly.
"You sounded like Charlie Brown," Jasper giggled. "Seriously. Like I took your football and threw it in a tree."
It took Felix a second to decipher that. "No, Jasper; either like you pulled the football away from me, or you threw my kite in a tree."
"Oh. Or like I made you right a book report on Peter Rabbit?"
"No."
"A book report on Peter Raaaaaabiiiiiit," Jasper began singing.
"We don't need a drummer, right?" Felix asked Eric and Cal.
"Relax, guys," Cal said with a smile. "Let's not worry about killing Jasper right now. He's not the enemy. Greta is the enemy."
"Right!" Jasper perked. "Wait... right now?"
Note: check out the IMBD. ... Actually, read the rest of this, then look at the IMDB.