Chapter 34: ~Chapter 11~ Part 3

"I love it!" I exclaimed with a grin that threatened to split my face.

"It's not funny," my assistant smoldered at my side in return, pointedly avoiding the piece of polaroid wonder in my hand.

"No, of course, it's not. I never said that."

"Then why do you sound so happy about it?" she continued to fume with a pout thoroughly ruined by the piece of cotton candy stuck to her face.

"Because it's amazing! Look," I showed her the picture, and she was just a split-second too slow to look away. She twitched and quickly turned her back to me, though I was sure I saw some blood rush to her cheeks.

"I told you I don't want to look at it," she stated coldly, another expression ruined by the mountain of sweets she was burying her face into.

"But you look really good on it! I didn't even think you could make that kind of face."

Instead of an answer, my assistant lightly kicked my shin and pointedly turned away from me. It didn't really hurt, but I let out an obligatory ‘ouch' anyways before I returned to gazing at the picture in question.

Speaking of which, the previous conversation requires some context, doesn't it? At this moment the two of us were sitting on a bench near the huge central fountain of the amusement park; its finely choreographed jets of water behind us were vigorously sparkling in the midday sunlight.

Since we arrived at this fine establishment, we've been on a non-stop campaign to conquer all the rides in the park before closing time. The picture in my hand was a trophy of one such conquest, belonging to the world's sixth tallest rollercoaster, which sounds less impressive than the actual ride was, but that's beside the point.

It was everything one could have expected from a coaster, and one thing I didn't: as it turned out there were cameras set up around the track that, upon reaching the hairiest turns and dips, engraved the image of every customer's expressions into the annals of history, or at the very least onto photographs of various framing-compliant sizes, only for the low-low price of five Jens, tax included. Normally I wouldn't have been interested in souvenirs like that, but when the clerk presented us with this particular picture, I knew I had to get multiple copies of it.

The scene itself was pretty much what one would've expected. It was of the front car of the coaster as it was in the process of plummeting down the rails of the world's sixth tallest... whatever they call those peaks. They must have a name for that too, like ‘reverse sidewinder Immelmann butterfly inversion' or something. Either way, the point is that there were two people in the focus of the picture; one ruggedly handsome, intelligent, charming, and criminally humble young man and a girl whose pretty face was in the process of displaying a terrified grimace so profound that cartoon characters would stand in line to get performance advice on replicating it.

I must have spent more time admiring my assistant's photographic likeness than strictly necessary, as she found it appropriate to remind me of her presence by delivering another feeble kick at my shin. Needless to say, this one was more like a small tap than an actual kick as well, which momentarily made me wonder about the various other peculiar ways she employed in the not-so-distant past to get my attention at times like this. I didn't have much time to ponder though, as she demonstrated yet another of them on me in the form of poking my cheek with the end of her empty cotton candy cane. It wasn't particularly sticky, so I presumed she used the clean end. She was thoughtful like that.

Anyways, I turned to the still quietly fuming girl at my side with an awkward smile. "Please stop that. It hurts." Of course it didn't actually hurt, but it was only appropriate to display the proper reaction in situations like this.

My assistant puffed her cheeks imperceptibly, which still had that piece of cotton candy on them, by the way, and stared daggers at me for a good five seconds. Though, on second thought, she might've been just squinting against the sun. What can I say; my ‘Judy facial expression translation suite' still had some bugs in need of hammering out, but it was still under development, so it was only to be expected.

"I will stop when you stop looking at that picture," she stated dryly, and she was true to her words, as she kept relentlessly poking my face even as she spoke.

"Oh, fine," I sighed in defeat and pocketed my treasure of the day. "I am totally going to frame it and hang it in my living room though."

"If you do that I will start hating you."

"Ouch, the lady is driving a harsh bargain," I grinned as I pinched the end of her stick in between my index and forefingers and yanked it out of her hands with an effortless motion. Before she could say a word I used the still sticky end to skillfully pick off the loose piece of cotton candy still sitting contently on her cheek and presented it to her with an apologetic smile. "Would you take this as a gesture of peace?"

She glanced down at the piece of sweet fluff offered to her and then, without any warning, she leaned forward and snapped her jaws around the end of the stick so hard I thought she would bite the entire thing off. Thankfully she just scooped off the actually digestible part at the end and then proceeded to also lick the fingers she used to hold said stick, kind of like a well-fed cat.

"That offer was suggestive in nature and could have been easily misunderstood as intentional innuendo for fellatio," she told me in the same tone one would report on the weather. Now that she mentioned it, she kind of had a point.

"Why did you take it then?"

She gave me one of those looks that people reserve for really oblivious questions.

"You never turn down food for silly reasons like that. Also, I was reasonably certain it wasn't intentional."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I chuckled and pointed at a nearby kiosk. "Wanna grab one of those chocolate-covered banana treats? With extra cream?" She didn't even bother to answer, instead she kicked me again. I didn't even mind. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I had to do it." She still seemed peevish, so I decided to change tactics. "By the way, did I mention I had other pictures too?"

"I'm really going to start hating you. Just you watch."

"No-no. Not pictures of your reactions, that one I have is enough." Since I subscribed to the 'one picture > thousand words' school of thought, I reached into my breast pocket and presented her with a set of pictures I also pilfered from the booth after our ride, though getting these required a bit more convincing, as they didn't actually depict us.

"They followed us onto the ride?" I couldn't tell if she was impressed or annoyed, so I decided it must have been both. Or as I like to call it, improyed.

...

Wow, after this I'm totally going to get arrested by the grammar police for word abuse. Anyways, I waved the pictures like a fan and answered with a pleased grin.

"Yup. We have dedicated stalkers."

The first picture naturally depicted the first half of our less-than-sneaky shadows in the form of Josh and Angie huddled together in the small cart about halfway down the train. My dear friend was in the process of clutching the safety belts with a white face while his childhood friend was having the time of her life at his side, her smile so wide it threatened to slip off her face.

The second picture, on the other hand, was of the princess and the class rep in the car behind them, and it was arguably the more interesting of the two. On the left, the class rep had the excited, if slightly guarded expression I expected, while the blonde girl on her side... Actually, her expression was almost a mirror image of Judy's at the same time.

I was about to voice my observation to the girl in question, but she beat me to the punch by pointing at the picture and stating; "That is hilarious. I love it."

For a moment or five, I could only blink at her suspiciously, unsure whether her comment was genuine or another of her sudden sarcastic outbursts, but she seemed too preoccupied with gazing that the picture to care.

"Let me guess; you want to frame it and put it on the living room wall too, right?"

"If you let me," she answered without missing a beat.

"... You are aware that she makes the exact same face as you did, right?"

She glanced up with another of those 'I have no idea what the hell you are talking about' looks she was so good at dispensing and shook her head.

"Now you did it. Now I hate you."

"Really?"

"... A little."

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I shrugged my shoulder.

"Well, I suppose that decided who would not get this month's 'Employee of the Month' bonus."

Judy paused before answering.

"And if I didn't hate you I would get it?"

"Probably. I have no other employees to give it to."

"I see." Judy nodded sagely before pointing at me. "You are trying to make me like you by threatening to withdraw benefits. That is psychological abuse, Chief. We have an abusive relationship."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh, the horror."

"Oh, the humanity?"

"That too."

Done with our customary bouncing of the random-ball between the two of us, we both leaned back on the bench and basked in the sun for a good five minutes. I was just about to get up and try to move on to the next ride when I found my assistant still looking at the picture in her hand, which, I just realized, she snatched away from me during our highly abusive argument.

"If you really want to put it on your wall, you can keep it. I have backups," I teased her, but she shook her head in response.

"No, I was just wondering what they are doing right now."

"Right now?" I asked suggestively, but she raised a hand to stop me.

"Wait a moment." I did so, during which she pocketed the picture (which didn't make me confident of her denial about framing and hanging it later) and retrieved her phone from its customary nest in her breast pocket. She turned on the machine and gave me the go. When I didn't start right away she flashed the screen towards me and told me, "I'm documenting what you say so I can cross-reference it with the others later."

"Diligent as always," I commented with a smile, which she actually returned, much to my shock and surprise. Loud surprise. "Whoa! Did you just smile?!"

Her lips straightened in an instant and she consequently gave me a look so flat you could build an airport on it.

"I am not even allowed to smile now. Truly, our abusive relationship has reached a new low, Chief."

"No-no-no! You can smile all you want! In fact, you should smile more."

"Then you should praise me more often."

I hid my smirk behind a polite nod and gave her a composed, "Duly noted," before I returned to the task of locating our beloved stalkers, our main source of amusement throughout the day. It didn't take long. Not that it ever did; these guys were so bad at shadowing us I sometimes thought they might've been acting clumsy on purpose. Anyways, I found them idling near a food kiosk selling an assortment of traditional amusement-park sweets and other related calorie bombs.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and extended my senses towards them. It was the best way to explain the experience, as it definitely wasn't just listening very hard. Repeated attempts and experimentation had proven that I could do it anywhere, be it in a quiet museum, on a crowded train, or in the noisy amusement park. I still called it 'listening in' though, mostly so that I didn't have to try and explain it to Judy again. Either way, I did so for a few seconds and then turned to my expectant assistant.

"Right now they are talking about the roller-coaster. The princess and Angie are arguing because she said it was boring."

"Which one?" Judy interrupted.

"The princess. According to her, it was, I quote: 'just not fast enough'."

"She is full of it."

"The proper term is ‘boasting to save face'. As for the others, Josh is eating an ear of corn. The class rep... she1s buying something from the kiosk. A hot dog, I think? It's shaped weird."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing in particular. let me try for a little longer." I did so, and after a few short minutes a smile crept onto my face against my will. "Now the princess and Angie made up over their hopes that we wouldn't want to head for the haunted house next."

By the time I opened my eyes Judy already put her phone away and was ready to move. I followed suit. Neither of us had to say anything at all.

The aforementioned haunted house was tucked away in one of the quieter corners of the park. It was easy to locate, as from the outside it looked like a giant warehouse made of uniformly painted grey shipping containers. The actual haunted house was inside said building, and after a surprisingly short waiting in line, we entered with our stalkers following close behind us. Apparently, they thought that we wouldn't recognize them if they put on huge, reflective mirrored sunglasses. If anything, they just looked like four inept undercover cops from a cheesy eighties TV show, and about as conspicuous.

The most amusing thing was, however, that despite all their efforts they still couldn't follow us directly. As it turned out, unbeknownst to us, the attraction was holding a special event. Normally, people would go through the house, which actually looked like a dilapidated family home from the outside, though it was hard to make out the fine details due to the mood-lighting, in groups of five to ten. However, when we got to the front of the line, the young female clerk looked at us, flashed a snow-white smile, and simply asked, "Couple's promotion?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I glanced at Judy. She only shrugged her shoulders, or at least that's what I thought at the time, though in retrospect it's possible she was just tense. Anyways, I took that as her silent agreement and nodded to the attendant. She smiled again, displaying more teeth than I thought a human mouth could even possess (which incidentally made me question whether she was already part of the attraction as some sort of humanoid teeth monster) and pressed a button on her panel. Following that, the turning bars in front of us unlocked with a loud clang.

"Please follow the green line and have fun," she told us with robotic enthusiasm.

"Thanks, I think..."

We stepped through and, to my momentary surprise, the bars locked back down behind us, meaning it was only the two of us. Judy stayed unusually close to me, so I smiled at her reassuringly.

"Come on, let's get going. They cannot let in the next group until we are at the first checkpoint."

My assistant nodded, and we walked up to the creaky door of the home inside the pitch-black warehouse with only a fluorescent green line of the floor telling us which way to go. I was surprised by the lack of tour guides, but I supposed they were keeping an eye on us with IR cameras or something. We entered the house, passed by the first few, admittedly cheesy-looking jump-scares, and I was just about to turn to my assistant and grumble about the lack of creativity when I was interrupted by an ear-piercing shriek coming from behind us.

For a moment I was almost impressed, as this one really did startle me, but at the same time I also found it strangely familiar. I glanced at Judy, and her expression told me she had the same idea. We stepped back to see what was going on and carefully glanced around a corner covered in what I really hoped was artificial slime, and we found the princess standing over the decapitated body of a decidedly cheap-looking vampire-animatronic right by the entrance.

Upon noticing our gazes she let out another yelp, this time one of her overly-cutesy noises instead of a shriek, and dashed out of the haunted house with the rest of the mirror-glasses brigade in tow, pushing people aside and jumping over the bars like wanted fugitives. A moment later the lights came back on, momentarily blinding me as the hidden lamps flared to life, and from some unseen loudspeaker a pleasant female voice announced, "We are experiencing some technical difficulties. Please stay where you are until an employee would come and get you. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience."

I looked at Judy, then at the decapitated vampire robot, and all I could do was laugh and laugh.

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