Stone Cold Revenge, Hugs.And.Kisses [bill gates books recommendations TXT] 📗

be?" Gisele asked.

"Hey! This is-"

"A classic yeah, yeah but come on. It's bound to run into problems eventually. Right?" Gisele cut in.

"Right…"

"Right! So instead of standing around yelling at people you should get someone to look into this before you get yourself in an accident." Gisele encouraged.

The Mayor straightened himself, lost in thought. He slowly turned and walked away.

A collective, "Wow," came from the quartet.

"In all my years of schmoozing and conning I have never gotten The Mayor to do that," Shock said, "How'd you do it?"

The new arrivals shared a look at each other, "T.V."

After a moments pause, the whole of the group burst into laughter. They spent the whole day in town square sharing tales of mischief, adventure, and even the trio's banishment. Before they knew it, was time to go home. Violet chose a small room close to Shock's and almost designed the same, the "prototype" as Lock called it. Geisel had chosen what had once been a plain room but which mysteriously had been decorated with lots of draping lengths of fabric, it was later discovered that the extra bed sheets had gone missing. Jester decided he didn't want a bed in his room and mad himself a nice hammock to sleep in. Marco decided on a room that started on the second floor and went to the third, it had lots of exposed beams that were good for climbing. Shock went around to each room and checked on them before she went to sleep. She had saved Marco for last.

Marco was up on one of the high rafters looking out a window when she reached him, "How are you holding up?"

He smiled back, "It's better here than I thought. I talked to more than three people today, figured out that rat stew really tastes good, and for the first time in a long time I didn't have to cook my own dinner."

"Didn't anyone take care of you at all?" Shock said with concern.

"There was my neighbor, Ms. Jacobson, she was really nice but she was really old and it felt like I was taking care of her most of the time until she…" Marco trailed off.

"…she what?"

"She… died. About a year ago, she went to the store and had a heart attack. No one even came to see me, not even Charlie knew. I found out then that I could take care of myself, that I was already doing it for a while. So for a long while, I did. When I came home from school one day and found out that dad was coming home for a day I faked her voice and made an excuse why she wasn't there. My dad didn't even care."

Shock knew that Marco was done talking, for now, "Don't worry Marco, you'll find that people around here care. Even the Mayor has something like caring in him; I just haven't found it yet."

Marco gave a small laugh before climbing down from the beam and into bed, he yawned, "Goodnight."

But before Shock left the room she herd him quietly say, "You know, I thought I'd never get to have one."

"A what?" Shock asked.

"A family."

Belinda surveyed the damage done to the lab. Their potion was gone and their scientist was turned to stone. All that time wasted, for nothing. The only thing that gave her satisfaction was that the idiot Vincent didn't spill that they where behind it. Her partner didn't seem so upset. He was busy slinking around the broken bottles and searching higher shelves for something.

"What are you doing Oogie?" Belinda snapped angrily at him, "Forget it! We lost!"

"You don't get it do you? We never loose," Oogie said, "So what if they win a few rounds? The game isn't over until one side gives up. Aha!"

Oogie crawled from a higher shelf, holding something that looked like two test tubes and a gray rock. When he was down Belinda took the items from him. One test tube was filled with red goo, Shock's blood. The other was empty but for a few drops of a shimmering blue liquid, the stone potion antidote. With a closer look at it, the gray rock was really a stone bug. What was she supposed to do with all this?

Oogie chuckled at the look on her face, "Don't be fooled, these are the very ingredients needed to… attain a new scientist. He won't be as brilliant as Vincent, but he will have a certain edge that will prove most useful to us. Now I believe there is still some stone potion in that bug sprayer."

Belinda walked over and picked up the abandoned bug sprayer, she felt some of the potion swish around inside. Maybe enough for one dose. She packed the items in a tattered backpack as Oogie motioned her out the door.

"Where are we headed?" she asked him.

Oogie chuckled again, "Remember that sickly-sweet little town we visited last year?"

"Yeah, but how does that help us? You said it would take a long time for it to be ready."

"It won't be. But remember the green house where we left it? Well, that happened to belong to our unsuspecting scientist's sister. His twin sister, his only family, someone he could never ever live without."

"I get it. Off to Nod's Limbs." Belinda smiled.

"Hold on," Oogie interrupted his partner, "Remember that they are the ones taking care of the plant. We'll have to wait until it's finished."

"What! That could take months! What are we going to do? Sit around and talk for almost a year?"

"That doesn't sound too bad. I like it when we talk," Oogie thought, and then quickly brushed the idea away.

No, there wasn't room for those kinds of thoughts. Belinda was ruthless and merciless, something that he admired in her. If she started thinking he was useless she might desert him and his plan will fail. He needed to think of something for her to do. Oogie recalled a phase two of the master plan; maybe it would be enough for Belinda to use that one first.

"Ok, ok, since you're so impatient we can start phase two of the plan early. So long as you swear that if it works, and you have your revenge, you still stay with me to carry out the rest of the plan. Deal?"

"You and your deals," Belinda mumbled, "Fine. I swear to carry out the first plan with you. Now where do we find this 'golem maker' you talked about?"

"Oh, in a wonderfully miserable and gray town called Clamburg. There we find an evilly charming little girl named Vendetta. She's the one we need."

"We're getting help from a little girl?" Belinda asked.

"Maybe you need a little history lesson. Shock joined me at the age of seven, by the time she was nine she had successfully broken into more than ten different homes, stolen more candy than you can imagine, learned to make and wield weapons, been arrested and escaped twice, and even kidnapped a certain notable figure. Never underestimate what little girls can do."

"Whatever," Belinda grumbled, she didn't admit it, but that was kind of impressive.

She offered her hand and Oogie climbed on. No matter whom they need help from, no matter how many people she needed to hurt. Shock was going to suffer for what she did to her. Belinda would have her revenge.


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Publication Date: 01-16-2012

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