O is for Oops

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank became utterly enthralled with the rat and his motions for several long moments, almost forgetting that Becky happened to be there. Except that one of Frank's powers seemed to be the ability to notice multiple things happening at the same time, which included people. The fact that Becky talked probably helped too.

The redhead smiled, if shyly, which had Frank grinning even wider. "It's always cool to have something from home and all. I was in the whole English school for aaaaages, but my butler wrote like, every day and stuff," Frank nodded, then squeed appropriately as Becky pointed out that Applesauce had moved on to gnawing at the toy, working it.

"He totes does! Go Applesauce!" cried Frank, throwing her hands up in the air and adding a whoop of excitement. "Oh, oh, oh," she waved her arms excitedly. "Should we, like, coat it with gummy frogs or something? Maybe we should, like, encourage, well, I guess he's kinda nibbling it or something," Frank tilted her head, staring at the rat some more. She ate several more frogs without breaking contact, which meant that several more frogs fell to the ground. "You sure he doesn't do any tricks or anything? I mean, besides being adorable and ratlike. He doesn't, say, turn into the guy who secretly killed your parents years ago and has been hiding out in the hopes of getting to just the right place at the right time through some super convenient plot thing that totally means your brothers were, like, thinking you slept with this old dude for years or something?"

[Steinbeck Dunn]

Becky had never known someone to get this excited about Applesauce. Normally people just either saw him as a sort of cute and quirky pet or an abomination that should be poisoned and thrown in the trash. Obviously, Becky preferred the former to the latter. But Frank seemed absolutely enthralled with everything about Applesauce. It was pretty flattering. Becky felt like a proud mom, even though she knew that was kind of ridiculous. Frank was just a really enthusiastic person. She probably would have the same amount of enthusiasm for a pet rock. Which was a pretty admirable quality.

She thought about asking Frank why exactly she had a butler writing her, but then she was sort of distracted by the ear-splitting squeeing about Applesauce's interest in her handiwork. "Go nuts," Becky said with a shrug of the shoulders and a small nervous smile. Frank just seemed so excited about it and she was sure that Applesauce would very much enjoy some candy. He basically ate anything.

And then Frank made a Harry Potter joke and Becky felt back in the loop again. Because who didn't love Harry Potter? She laughed and gave Frank a more genuine smile. "No, he didn't. But that would be pretty cool," she said, grabbing a gummy frog and putting it near Applesauce. He immediately left his toy so that he could chew on the gummy. "I guess this is sort of like Hogwarts. Although I'm glad there aren't any death eaters. Um. Yeah. I'm kind of a Harry Potter nerd."

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

Frank started to lace the toy with the various gummy frogs, since, well, she took "go nuts" as "you have my permission" and probably a little more than that. Though Frank was soon laughing, which was just what she did whenever someone around her was laughing (which meant that yeah, she ended up laughing a lot around people; she certainly didn't see this as a bad thing).

"I dunno if having a murderous rat dude sleeping with you would be that cool," said Frank, she tilted her head, obviously rolling the thought around with it. The rat had attacked the gummy his mother had laid out, which made Frank somewhat disappointed (since he hadn't gone for hers), but she supposed it just made sense, what with Becky being his mom and all.

"There's probly Death Eaters somewhere. I mean, they were all supposed to be defeated and junk in the movies when Harry had been all a kid and stuff. Maybe we're just in those really weird eleven years where people were all like, not afraid of guys without noses who didn't hiss and junk," Frank shrugged. "oh, and if you think this is like Hogwarts, you should totes check out the British school. I swear, it's like the author lady had visited the campus and was all 'this should totes be a book,'" Frank giggled again, leaning back. "Though we did have that bit where we had the whole evil government agency thing totally going after us. They kidnapped me and some other really cool people. It sucked," Frank crinkled her nose, though she sounded more like she'd had a bad holiday then been kidnapped by, well, an evil government agency.

[Steinbeck Dunn]

Becky laughed and decided that, yeah, 'cool' probably hadn't been the best adjective to use in that situation. If it actually happened to her, she would probably be really freaked out and scared to ever sleep again around any animal at all. She thought that it worked that way with a lot of stories. When you read them, you thought how amazing it would be to be the protagonist or one of their friends, out there battling it out and ultimately deciding if good will win over evil. But if it actually happened, she'd probably be too terrified to do anything at all.

"I've never been to the British school," Becky admitted, thinking about what that would be like. That was one thing that she could take from books without risk, at least. Settings. Books created beautiful landscapes that she'd love to see in real life. Especially fantastical structures like Hogwarts. "But I'd love to check it out sometime."

Becky's eyes widened when Frank started explaining about the government agency and her kidnapping. "Oh my gosh," she said, obviously horrified. "Did everyone get out okay? That's horrible." She bit her lip, wondering what else she could possibly say. She was worried about saying the wrong thing and upsetting her. "I guess adventures in story books are good to read about, but not so fun to actually go through."

[Frank "Sunny" Laffont]

"It's kinda neat," replied Frank in reference to the British school, adding a little nonchalant shrug. "I like it here better, but it was actually here that the whole kidnapping thing happened. That was just a few months ago," Frank made it sound like it had been relatively mundane, which made more sense as she continued:

"It was mostly boring for me. Like, they locked us all in this room and stuff and we couldn't leave which was just super boring. They did kinda end up starving me a bit, which wasn't totally their fault. Oh, and I had to talk to this really scary black guy who was all intimidating and junk," Frank nodded several times. "But that stuff probably doesn't happen that often. It probably goes in phases, you know? Like, it's all calm and stuff now, and probably will be till at least school starts up."

Frank spread her arms wide, grinning almost as wide. "So we're totally safe till then! Isn't that awesome?"