by Melody & John
Part I: Things That Go Bump In the Night
Chibi Quatre ran into the house and frantically looked for Melody. He found her in the living room.
"Melody! There's PEOPLE movin' into the YELLOW HOUSE!" he panicked as he leapt into her lap.
"What's the matter, Quatre? I think it's nice that we're getting new neighbors. Maybe they will stay here awhile. And maybe they have some children you can play with."
"But they CAN'T move into the YELLOW HOUSE!" Quatre's cheeks were flushed and his eyes wide with terror. "Why can't they move into the white one 'cross the street 'stead?"
"I guess they liked the yellow one better."
"But there's GHOST-TEZ livin' there!" Quatre bounced up and down animatedly. "An' ZOMBIES! An' Heero says they even gots BATS in the attic! They must not a knowed that it's a HAUNTED HOUSE. Somebody's gotta tell 'em 'fore they gets moved in! Then maybe they'll move into the white house 'stead. They'd like that one better 'cause it's not HAUNTED!" Quatre declared, nodding emphatically.
"Quatre, there are no such things as ghosts and zombies. And I really doubt that there are bats in the attic. Who told you that the yellow house is haunted?"
"Duo said so, an' he says HE OUGHTA KNOW. He says the green house is probly haunted TOO," Quatre replied seriously. "He readed a 'nuther book 'bout stuff like that just last week."
"I've told Duo not to read those books. Did he get it from the library?"
Quatre nodded. "He's been readin' it under the covers at night with Heero's flashlight."
"No wonder he's been having bad dreams," Melody said, shaking her head in dismay. "Well, it serves him right for reading scary books. Come on, Quatre; let's go meet our new neighbors."
Quatre grabbed Melody around the neck and clung to her as tightly as he could. "No! No! Don't make me go to the HAUNTED HOUSE! I don't LIKE ghost-ez an' zombies! They might GET ME an' take me to the World of the Dead an' make ME be a zombie too!" Poor Quatre was shaking like a leaf. "An' I don't WANNA be a zombie!" he wailed pitifully.
Melody pried his little arms away from her neck so she could breathe. She stood up and carried Quatre toward the front door.
"Quatre, I promise nothing will 'get' you," she tried to reassure him. "There are no such things as ghosts and zombies. Why don't you believe me?"
"'Cause Duo says I can't go to that house or they'll get me FOR SURE! You PROMISE you won't let 'em get me?"
"I promise," Melody said as she carried him down the front steps. "You are very safe with me. Okay?"
Quatre ducked his head and rested it on her shoulder. "Okay. But I'll tell ya REAL QUICK if I see any of 'em."
Melody hugged him tightly. "You do that, Quatre. You just let me know."
Quatre popped back up so he could see her face. "Then you gotta run REAL FAST so's we can pertect each other, 'kay?" Quatre looked so serious that if he wasn't so scared Melody would have laughed, but she managed not to. She hugged him instead, indulging in just a LITTLE smile. He took that to be a 'yes' and it made him feel a teeny bit braver.
"Wait a minute!" Quatre exclaimed.
Melody stood still.
"Maybe we could bring Heero's beam saber to pertect us," Quatre suggested. "That'd be a GOOD IDEA!" He scrambled down. "I know where ya hided it, so I'll go get it, 'kay?" Quatre ran back to the house as fast as his little legs could go, leaving Melody to wonder about how he found out where she'd been hiding the beam saber. Even HEERO hadn't found it this time!
Heero, Duo and Wufei were in the unfinished tower on the side of the yellow house. The neighbors who had been building it had left the neighborhood suddenly one night; no one knew why. It made a perfect place to work on their project--not so far away that they couldn't hear Melody calling for them, and the best thing about it was that Relena had no idea where they were. They'd had to tell Quatre and Trowa that the house was haunted so that they would stay away and not tell Melody about it because that would spoil the project they were working on.
Wufei was studying a drawing that was tacked to the wall. Duo was busily hammering out some dents on a piece of metal. Heero was sitting on a wooden crate, intently reading his book.
"It says here that we need servo motors for the knees," Heero said loudly, pointing to the relevant part of the page in his library book, "Mobile Suit Building Made Easy." "Wonder where we can get some a those?"
"I still think we should start with the feet. That would be the most logicalist thing to do," Wufei replied, with equal volume. "Then at least the legs would have somethin' to stand on."
Duo was hammering enthusiastically; the noise reverberated in the tower and he liked the sound. Suddenly he stopped hammering and said to Heero, "Did you know that a duck's quack don't make a echo?"
Heero gave him a steely glare. Duo looked sheepish and resumed his task.
Wufei shouted in Heero's ear, "I SAID, WE GOTTA HIDE THAT TRIVIA BOOK OF HIS OR HE'LL DRIVE US NUTS!"
Heero nodded.
"I can't get this dent pounded out the way I want it," Duo complained, wiping the sweat from under his bangs. "This sure is hard work!"
"Just keep pounding,"
"Ya know, little dude, if ya put a sandbag behind the panel it'll pound out faster," said a raspy voice that came from the darkened doorway.
Heero and Wufei froze. Duo cried, "There really ARE ghosts in this place!"
"Whatsa matter, kiddies, did I scare ya?" spoke the over-the-hill hippie as he stepped closer so they could see him. "My name's Howard. I'm yer new neighbor. I just bought this house and we're movin' in today. I bought it sight unseen, so I am sure this house is FULL of surprises," Howard smiled, but his bushy moustache covered most of it up. "Sooo, what'cha makin', a Leo or a Taurus?"
The three chibis stared at the man in the doorway. They couldn't help but notice his bald spot and his loud Hawaiian shirt. And they wondered why he was wearing sunglasses in the house.
For the first time in his little life, Duo was dumbfounded. He and Wufei looked at each other, but no sound came out when they opened their mouths. Heero was the first one to find his voice.
"We're not makin' any perticular kind a Mobile Suit. We're just collectin' stuff an' we're gonna put it all together an' see what we get."
"Please don't tell the police we been trespassin',"
"Don't worry, little dudes. I won't tell on ya," Howard reassured them. "But it looks like ya could use some help with that."
"Really? You'll HELP us?" Wufei asked incredulously.
"Sure will. Sounds like a fun project."
Duo suddenly looked distressed. "Ya won't tell Melody on us, will ya?"
"Of course not," Howard answered. "Who's Melody?"
"She's our webmommie. We live 'cross the street in that big white house with the porch swing," Heero said, providing the necessary information.
"We want this mobile suit t' be a surprise," Wufei explained.
"I don't think she needs t' know what we're building. We'll tell her that you are workin' with me in my workshop," Howard said, with a wink. "That way it won't spoil your surprise. But we'll have t' tell her if one a ya gets hurt."
"Great!" Duo exclaimed.
"Hilde will help us, of course. She's always been a good helper for me."
"Who's Hilde?" Duo asked suspiciously.
"She's my niece. She's just about yer age, too. She's gonna live here with me," Howard said.
The chibis looked disappointed.
"Does she HAFTA help?" Wufei asked, saying what was on all of the chibis' minds. "She's only a GIRL. She could play with Relena to keep her from buggin' us. That'd be her helpin'."
"Hilde's not just any girl," Howard informed them. "She's very mechanically inclined. Why just last week, she helped me put a turbo charger on my Harley."
"Aw, anybody can do THAT," Wufei said.
"My trivia book says 'Harley' is a great movie 'bout a GIANT 'MAGINARY RABBIT," Duo said dramatically, eager to display his new-found knowledge. "Jimmy Stewart's in it. I like him. He was in "It's Been a Wonderful Life", too."
"That's 'Harvey', dunderhead. A Harley's a motorcycle," Heero corrected Duo.
"Well, it still sounds like it'd be a great movie," Duo pouted.
"Why don't ya come with me so ya can meet Hilde," Howard suggested. "I'm sure you'll like her. She's a really nice girl."
The three boys looked dubiously at him.
"Well, I guess it can't hurt just t' meet her," Wufei conceded. "But that don't mean we hafta LIKE her."
The boys followed Howard through the house and out the back door.
Relena had seen the new neighbor girl talking with Melody in the front yard of the yellow house so she ran to meet her. The boys followed Howard around from the back of the house so it wouldn't look like they'd been inside of it.
"...an' we can play Barbies an' have tea with my roses tea set. Do you got a tea set too?" Relena chattered away happily, not waiting for answers. "An' we can play jump rope an' jacks an' bake cupcakes an' cookies with my Easy Bakin' Oven!" Relena bounced on her toes from the excitement of actually having another GIRL to play with.
"Hi. I'm Melody, and this is Relena," Melody said pleasantly, addressing Howard. "Welcome to the neighborhood. We live across the street. We've just been getting acquainted with your daughter. And I see that you have already met Heero, Duo and Wufei."
"The name's Howard. It's a pleasure t' meet ya," Howard said, shaking Melody's hand. "But Hilde's not my daughter. She's my niece."
There was a thud, thud, thudding sound so everyone turned to see what was making the noise. They saw Quatre dragging Heero's beam saber down the front steps. He dragged it through the grass and picked it up to carry it across the street.
"Hey, how come you're lettin' Quatre play with it?" Heero asked Melody, obviously cross.
"I brung it to pertect us with," Quatre explained, slightly out of breath from his effort. "Melody said I could." He looked suspiciously all around just to make SURE there were no ghosts and zombies about.
Hilde was finally able to get a word in during the pause.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, addressing Quatre. "You've got a TC7 battery-operated beam saber with a tooled leather handle! I've always wanted one of those."
"It's not Quatre's, it's MINE," Heero grumbled. "An' he's NOT s'posed to have it."
Introductions were made all around. When Duo was identified by name, Hilde got a "What a CUTE BOY!" smile on her face. Duo noticed it, and he was less than thrilled. "Alls I need is my very own version of Relena hangin' round my neck," he thought. Heero noticed her expression; he'd seen Relena look at him that way so many times that he couldn't have mistaken it for anything else. A grim look of satisfaction settled on Heero's face. Duo turned toward Heero and was very annoyed by his smug look. Duo's eyes narrowed and he glowered at Hilde, doing his best imitation of Heero's smoldering glare, but he just couldn't do it quite as well as Heero could. For Duo, it was dislike at first sight.
~Standard disclaimer~ The author does not claim ownership of Gundam Wing nor any of its characters, including the adorable chibis. >_< Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Sotsu Agency and TV Asahi.
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR! webmommie@gmail.com
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