It was an unbearably humid midsummer afternoon, one of those days when you sweat even if you're not doing anything, your clothes stick to your body, and you sometimes wonder whether you're actually sucking any air into your lungs as you breathe.
While most of the townfolk had opted to shut themselves in and seek comfort from air conditioning, Charlene was the oddball that would rather sit out on the porch, reading and drinking lemonade. So there she was, bare feet on the rail and e-reader in her lap, square glasses screening her focused scowl. The boys in her class thought she looked okay, her high cheekbones and long-lashed eyes, moss green with streaks of amber, more or less made up for her large front teeth and her masculine underbite. Because of her Mediterranean ancestry Charlene tanned easily, so despite her preference for bookstores over playgrounds her skin would always take on this ashy brown tone come summer. The girl was no swimmer, in fact she could barely stay afloat, yet her shoulders were so broad that she had to wear clothes that were too big for her, such as the one she had on at the moment, a grey melange t-shirt with a block of pink writing that read "I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong." It draped over her lithe frame until way past her hips, covering her red shorts almost entirely. It was easy to get the impression that she was wearing no bottoms at all.
Charlene looked up, took a sip from her tumbler cup - the ice had almost completely melted - and swirled the drink in her mouth, taking in all the sleepiness of the sun-soaked block. Everything was as still and quiet as in a painting. An oil painting, not a watercolor. The yards were a rich green, the shadows pitch black, the sky an almost oversaturated blue. Bella, their Labrador retriever, was napping inside her dog house over in the backyard. From time to time the girl would perceive sounds - kids shouting, a motorbike rumbling - but they all seemed to come from another, far-off world.
"Leenie!"
Except this one. This sound - Tom, uncle Jim's youngest son, calling her from inside the house - had been close, loud, and more intrusive than a gunshot in a lullaby.
"Hey, Leenie!"
The little brat sounded excited about something, as was often the case.
Charlene sighed, saying nothing in reply. She didn't want to join her scamp of a cousin in his profanation of silence. Nor did she feel like getting up, either. Tom would find her sooner than later anyway. And indeed the door promptly swung open and there he was, a bony kid in an Avengers top and floral swim trunks, dark blond hair clipped short in a buzz.
"I've been calling you, why you didn't answer?"
"What do you want?"
"Do we have plastic wrap?"
"Plastic wrap?" Charlene raised one brow. "You mean like for preserving food?"
"Uh-huh."
"What for?"
"A trick."
Sure. A trick. That was all Tom could think about, ever since he received that damn book as a parting gift from his parents. He was holding it in his hand that very moment, one finger marking a location.
"Second cupboard from the window, third drawer down."
"And a handsaw."
"Excuse me?"
Charlene wished, not for the first time, uncle Jim and aunt Bonnie weren't world-class magicians. Or that they wouldn't drop their kid at her place every time they had to go on tour. Or that they had opted for another, safer kind of present for him. Like a rattlesnake, for example, or a semi-automatic pistol.
"A handsaw."
"What kind of trick would that be?"
"I'm going to saw you in half. Look."
Tom opened the book and held it before his cousin's eyes. Doing nothing to hide her reluctance, Charlene put her cup and e-reader away on the round patio table, and leaned forward to study the instructions. Her oversized collar allowed for a good view of her chest, which was covered in a pink training bra. Not that Tom cared anyways - or so he told himself.
"Umm... How about no."
"Come on, Leenie. Don't be a chicken."
"I'm not being a chicken."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
Tom started to make clucking noises, with his hands tucked under his armpits. But Charlene was way too mature to take the bait, so she just stared at him unperturbed till he tired out.
"Thomas, you're not supposed to play with sharp objects."
The little boy pouted. "Now you're sounding like Auntie."
"Plus, we don't have a handsaw."
"It doesn't have to be one. We can use a, uhm..." Tom quickly consulted his book, reading aloud. "Any similar cutting imp... im-pale-ment."
"Implement. And I said no."
"Pleeease?"
"The matter is closed, Thomas."
"I'll do the chores for one week."
Hmm. Now, that sounded interesting.
"Seriously? You're trying to bribe me with a week's worth of chores?"
"Two weeks, maybe?"
"Did you say one month?"
"One month! No way. It's, like, the whole vacation time."
"Well then, too bad. Now if you don't mind, I was reading."
Tom frowned as his cousin leaned back, crossed her legs, and actually resumed her reading, not even sparing him a second glance.
"Three weeks, take it or leave it."
"I'll leave it."
"Aw, come on. It's *three* weeks!"
Charlene said nothing to that. She took a sip of lemonade and kept reading.
"All right, fine!" her cousin gave up at last. "One month."
The girl smirked victoriously at him. They exchanged a spit shake, and walked back into the house.
"You really don't have a saw?" asked Tom as they crossed the doorway. It wasn't any cooler than outside, in there - just darker.
"I'm not one to lie. But I think we've got something even better."
"Alright. What is it?"
"I'll show you." Charlene led her cousin into the kitchen, then suddenly spun around, her index finger stiffly pointing up, her face dead serious. "On one condition: you don't tell anyone I let you do this. Not a single word, about this whole thing. Not with your parents, not with mine..."
"Of course."
"... and not with Steve or his big brother. Especially not with them. Listen up, Thomas: you spill the beans, we're done. I will never do anything for you again. Got it?"
Tom made the gesture of zipping up his lips. Charlene sighed. It wasn't the most reassuring of responses, but she would have had to be content with it.
The girl walked up to the second cupboard from the window, opened the third drawer down, took out a long and thin cardboard box and handed it over to Tom. "Here's your plastic wrap," she announced. "And here..." she moved to the stove area and opened the doors of a cabinet above the countertop, rising on tiptoe to reach for the highest tier. "... is your cutting implement."
The little boy's face lit up when he saw the tool in Charlene's hand. It was an electric knife. She was holding it up next to her smirking face, a hand on her hip, like a femme fatale out of a spy-movie poster.
"Woah! Hey, I know what's that," Tom squealed. "Auntie used it to slice turkey on Thanksgiving."
"Uh-huh." Charlene hit the switch. Nothing happened. She did it again, and another couple of times, always getting nothing but sad little clicks. "Seems like there's no power in it, though."
"Damn it."
"No cussing, Tommy. It works with standard batteries... let's go find some."
It wasn't easy, but after some scrupulous search they managed to put together enough batteries to power up the knife. It turned out to be louder than both of them remembered, and quite intimidating. Charlene, who had been in charge of it all along, switched it off and respectfully placed it down on the kitchen table, next to the cling wrap box.
"Anyways," she said, exhaling. "I guess I'd better do something about my shirt, before we get started." The girl put a knot in her shirt so as to expose her belly, which was flat and smooth and still basically untouched by life. "Here. Hold this."
Tom realized he had spaced out by looking at his cousin's figure. Charlene was offering him the cutter box, which she had opened. She had pulled out a length of cling wrap and was pressing it against her hip with her other hand. "Let's wrap me up."
Tom stood holding the box in his hands as Charlene slowly revolved on herself again and again, like a music box ballerina, making for her waist to be covered in an increasingly thick layer of the translucent film. The boy recalled seeing something similar at the airport, when he was little more than a toddler, only it had been a suitcase, not a person.
Soon enough, the roll was depleted. Charlene looked down at herself, and pinched that peculiar new girdle of hers, which was maybe an inch thick. It stood up pretty tight.
"Well?" she asked. "What do you think? Am I good to go?"
"Huh? Right, uhm... Yes, I... I guess so..."
Tom consulted his magic book, which somehow was in his hand again - had it been there all the time? He couldn't really tell - and nodded.
"You look pretty," he cleared his throat, "pretty much like it."
"Tommy."
"Yes?"
Charlene wasn't looking his way. She was staring at the table, at the electric knife on it, and she had that serious look on her face again.
"You absolutely sure you wanna go through with this?"
The little boy didn't seem to find the question strange or unexpected. He readily shrugged his shoulders.
"Why not? You're going under that knife, not me."
"But you're gonna have to handle it, Tommy. All by yourself. Do you even know how to do that?"
"Come on. How hard can it be?"
"You sure? Can I trust you not to mess it up? Can I trust you not to cut your fingers off or anything?"
"I'll be super careful, Leenie. Don't you worry about that."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Under Charlene's unconvinced eye, Tom walked to the table and picked up the knife, weighing it in his hand. He gave it a quick go, slicing through the air, then put it back to sleep.
"So, uhm... shouldn't you lie down somewhere? What about the sofa?"
"Uh-uh." The girl shook her head. "Better not. You'd definitely make a mess. I have another idea."
"Alright then. Enlighten me."
At Charlene's direction, the two kids took out three identical stools and lined them up in the middle of the living room, taking care to leave one or two inches of space between one another. The girl then lay face up on them, her head resting on the first and her bum on the last, so that one of the gaps was directly under her waistline. Her legs were left to support themselves, feet planted on the floor.
"Put these away for me, will you?" she said, taking off her glasses and folding them up. "Thanks."
"Sure thing. Why don't you give me you slippers, too, while you're at it."
"Huh? My slippers?" A little reluctantly, Charlene shook off her flip-flops. "Why?"
"'Cause you're the assistant, Leenie. The assistant is always barefoot. Didn't you know? It's, like, a staple of magic."
"Oh... a staple, you say?" She chuckled, seemingly amused by Tom's vocabulary. "Well, can't argue with that."
And then, all of a sudden, there was nothing left to do but get on with the magic itself.
Tom, having donned his imaginary hat and cape, stood knife in hand by Charlene's side, looking down at her shrink-wrapped midriff.
"So! Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen!" he boomed out to the imaginary crowd. "I am the Great Tomaso, and this here is my lovely assistant..." He paused, perhaps waiting for a clue, which didn't come. "... Leena! Let's hear it for our brave Leena."
He clapped his hands and cheered. Charlene rolled her eyes.
"Tonight, we will begin by sawing my beautiful assistant in half."
"Tonight? It's not even five, you knucklehead."
The Great Tomaso flinched, then resumed his speech as if he hadn't heard that. "This is gonna be like nothing you've ever seen, ladies and gentlemen. Prepare to be amazed!"
He brought down the blade to the far end of Charlene's waist, touching it to the film loop.
"You ready?"
Charlene looked tense. "I'm trusting you, Tommy. Don't make me regret it."
"No worries. Just scream if it hurts, okay?"
She gulped. "Count on it."
The moment Tom switched the electric knife on, a flurry of minuscule flakes erupted from the cling wrap. It spread all over the room, on the furniture, on the floor, reaching into all the hidden spots like only dust and dirt can. But Tom didn't care, and Charlene didn't notice.
It was working.
The blade was positively biting into the girl's body. Kind of slowly, maybe, but it had fully entered her side and was, before Tom's enraptured eyes, cutting its way along her waistline.
The little boy turned to look at his cousin's face, and found her shut-eyed and purse-lipped, grasping a stool's leg in each hand as if she feared she might fly off like a balloon anytime. "Are you alright?" he asked, then immediately repeated his question louder, practically yelling, so as to overcome the buzzing noise. Tiny shreds of film kept flying all around like fake snow.
Charlene opened her eyes and looked up at him. She gave the thumbs up, then mouthed an authoritative "Focus."
Tom refocused on what he was doing. His knife was almost midway through. The cling film on either side of its trail was torn and crumpled, but, much to the boy's relief, there was no blood seeping out. His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to risk a quick squat, to see how things looked on the underside. What he saw was both unsurprising and amazing: there it was, the rest of the toothed blade, undeniably sticking out of Charlene's back and ever sawing through it, vibrating with power. Tom didn't want to switch it off, not even for a second, for a strange fear that this might somehow hurt his cousin. He could see her legs, or at least her calves and heels, beyond the stool to his left. They were moving. Not frantically, as one might have expected, but rather slowly, lazily. They pressed into each other and rubbed each other, pivoting on their toes.
Tom stood back up. He barely had the time to consider that he hadn't noticed any change in hardness while cutting through Charlene's spine, and then the knife was through. Watching it come out was even more impressive than watching it go in. It Made it look like Charlene was made of butter, or play-doh or something like that. It really felt like being in one of Dad's grand shows - only this time, Tom got to play the major role.
When the knife ceased its buzzing, the silence seemed unreal.
"Voila!" said the Great Tomaso.
Charlene's chest was rising and falling hard, and at a rather fast pace. She let go of the stool's legs and ran her palms on her tummy, feeling the cut in the plastic wrap and, presumably, her own body.
"Woah. You did it, Tommy," she said, addressing her little cousin though her eyes were still fixed to the ceiling. A tentative smile creased her lips. "You really did saw me in half."
"Amazing, right?" Tom put the knife away on the closest empty surface he could find, which turned out to be the coffee table. "So, how do you feel? You're not hurt, are you?"
"Hmm." Charlene thought the question through. "Well, I... I feel a little bit weird. Like, something isn't quite like it should be. It's hard to describe. But it doesn't hurt, no."
"Mom says it actually feels pretty good to be cut in half and such."
The girl blushed a little. "Well, I wouldn't be so sure. It's not... not too bad, alright. But it's no bubble bath with candles either."
"What do you mean, not too bad?"
Charlene sucked some air through her teeth. "I don't know, think like... having an itch scratched, only hard. Real hard. So it's good on one hand, bad on the other." Finally, she turned her head towards him. "I'm not sure I'd want more."
"Interesting," said Tom, nodding like he was mentally taking note. "Now, on a completely separate note, could you please lift up your feet?"
"Hm?" Charlene felt like she would never be able to keep up with her cousin's topic shifts. "Uh... sure."
"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said Tom in his Great Tomaso voice, "to remove all doubt..."
He grabbed the stool supporting Charlene's legs and pulled it away - legs and all - from the rest.
"Ta-da!"
The girl rose on her elbows, and yelped at the sight of the good three or four feet of thin air that now separated her from her own legs. She was looking at a part of her anatomy that shouldn't have existed, a flat stretch of skin that covered her cross section, keeping her insides from spilling out and the trick from looking too gruesome.
"Oh my God."
Charlene figured that she had grown some new skin under her stomach as well, so she felt herself around there, and found it. The skin was smooth, tight, and very sensitive. Almost ticklish, like the soles of her feet.
"Oh my God," she mumbled again, and looked on, gaping, as Tom made a U-turn with the stool, scraping loudly on the hardwood floor. He parked her legs right next to her torso, feet pointing the same direction as her head. Charlene could have easily reached out and brushed her knee in a way she'd never had before, but she wasn't particularly keen on the idea.
"Oh dear, look at that," she said. "Those are my legs! They really are! How amazing is that? Jesus, Tom, look: they move!"
"I know, right?"
"Tommy, seriously, this beats anything I've ever seen by a mile and some. Look! No box, no cover, no nothing... it's- it's crazy!"
"You haven't seen Mom and Dad's latest show."
"They do this?"
"They do better."
Charlene snorted. "Like what?"
"You'll see." Tom smirked knowingly. "You'll see in good time."
"What do you mean?"
Tom crouched by her legs, oblivious to her question, and ran a finger up her shin. "Say, shall we do something to prove that these are, indeed, your legs?"
Charlene blinked - repeatedly. "What did I just tell you? These are my legs!"
"How about a tickle? That's another staple of magic, you know."
"Are you even listening?"
"Ladies and gentlemen," the Great Tomaso grinned, "it's tickle time!"
"Thomas, don't you dare- EEEK!"
Charlene's scream broke into uncontrolled laughter: Tom, also laughing but more in the manner of a mad scientist, had snatched her ankle and was tickling her sole. He had forgot to consider, though, that his victim's legs weren't constrained as severely as in the classic sawing-a-woman-in-half number. In fact, they weren't constrained at all. With cries of "no" and "stop" punctuating her laughter Charlene writhed and kicked, and in no time her legs fell off the stool.
The struggle became a ground fight. Tom tried to perform a knee bar on his opponent, stoically withstanding several blows to his chest, arms and shoulders. At last the girl's legs ceased all movement, and Tom maneuvered to lock them under his weigh. Howling in triumph, he resumed his furious tickling. Soon enough, though, he slowed down and eventually stopped, confused.
The struggle became a ground fight. Tom tried to perform a knee bar on his opponent, stoically withstanding several blows to his chest, arms and shoulders. At last the girl's legs ceased all movement, and Tom maneuvered to lock them under his weigh. Howling in triumph, he resumed his furious tickling. Soon enough, though, he slowed down and eventually stopped, confused.
Nothing was happening. Charlene wasn't laughing no more.
"Hey," said the girl, a worried note in her voice. "What's going on? I can't feel a thing."
"What?"
"Tom, something's wrong. I can't feel anything in my legs anymore." She was about to start panicking, if not already. "What did you do?"
"Me? What did I do, I didn't do anything!"
The legs came back to life as suddenly as they'd gone out. Taking Tom by surprise, they slipped out of his grip and scuttled away from under him.
"What the heck?" exclaimed the two kids in unison.
Devoid of all his fighting spirit, Tom just watched as his cousin's legs stood up and planted a feet on either side of him, bright red shorts towering above his head. The plastic wrap was gone, lost during the fight, so now there was nothing left to cover the portion of belly that protruded from those shorts.
"You tricked me, you big liar!" they boy accused.
"N-no," Charlene was staring in horror at her lower half, "I'm not lying, I swear. Something's wrong, Tommy."
The legs leaned forward, until the strings of their shorts were less than an inch away from Tom's eyes. The boy scrambled backwards on all fours, cheeks on fire.
"What..."
In an impressive display of flexibility and sense of balance, Charlene's bottom half hooked one leg around Tom's neck and hoisted itself up. It then pressed its crotch against the boy's lips, as if to kiss him.
"Oh God," said Charlene.
"W-what the..." Tom was experiencing the craziest mix of feelings in his life. Some were familiar, but others were entirely unknown. "What the hell are you doing, Leenie?"
"Oh my God." His cousin sounded desperate, and her cheeks weren't any less fiery than his, as she helplessly watched one of her legs rub itself up and down the boy's pelvic area. "Tom, listen, I'm... I'm not doing anything at all. They're moving on their own."
"What?"
"I'm not in control, Tom, I've lost control on my legs!"
"What!? No way!"
Tom's each and every sense was overwhelmed by the close contact that was being forced on him. He felt the strength of Charlene's tight muscles, the warmth of her smooth skin, and he could even smell its faint odor... not exactly a perfume in the usual sense of the word, but pleasant all the same. He also felt kind of funny in his own crotch.
"Stop! Make them stop!" Charlene's upper half was definitely not in tune with her lower. Tears were forming in her eyes. "Please, make them stop. I don't like this. I really don't like this!"
"How!?"
"What do I know! You're the magician, aren't you? You did this to me, you fix it! I just want my legs back - now!"
"Alright, alright, calm down! Calm down, okay? Give me a second."
Seeing as all his four limbs were still free to move, Tom didn't have much trouble standing up. Getting the human octopus off himself was another story, and something he wasn't even entirely sure he wanted to do, but in the end he came out on top. Charlene's legs flailed in the air as he eased them down. The moment their feet touched the ground, the legs immediately threw themselves back at him and side-hugged him - that is to say, they gripped around his hip.
Tom mustered all his self-control and looked at Charlene's upper half, which had never moved from the pair of stools it rested on. She was glaring at him.
"Listen," said the boy, gulping down a bucket of saliva. "I was thinking, maybe... maybe this is actually normal. Who knows? I mean, maybe it was supposed to happen."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Come on, it's a new trick, okay? You can never be sure what to expect from a new trick. Now, where's my book?"
"Tom."
"Have you seen my book?"
"Tom!"
"What?"
"Get your hands off my bottom, will you?"
Tom looked down. He had been patting and stroking his cousin's legs on their top - which just happened to be her butt - as you would a dog on its head. And indeed, had they had a tail, it would have been wagging.
"B-but it... it likes that. I think."
Looks can't kill. That's why Tom didn't drop dead that very instant. "Are you joking right now?"
The boy yanked his hand away. "S-sorry."
"You'd better not fool with those legs, Thomas. You realize, of course, that whatever they might do isn't what I want them to do?"
"Yes, I... I understand."
As he was looking away to avoid his cousin's killer glare, Tom noticed something peeking out from under the sofa, and had an epiphany. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "I think I know what happened."
Charlene raised her brows. "You do?"
Tom disengaged and walked to the sofa, bending over to pick up something that had half-slipped under it.
"This," he said, holding it up for Charlene to see. It was the deformed loop of plastic wrap that had come off her legs. "This was supposed to stay on all the time, I guess. It's the only thing that happened different from the book. Maybe it's kinda like a muzzle or..."
Whack!
A powerful kick tore the film off his hands and sent it flying out of his reach. Before Tom could do anything, his cousin's legs sprang up high - higher than his head - and smacked the plastic wrap away with a flying roundhouse kick, the like of which he'd only ever seen in movies and video games. The legs then hit the ground and dashed off to the stairs, while Tom, frozen, just watched them scuttle away.
"Catch them!" yelled Charlene. "You're right, Tommy, they hate that thing... Come on, hurry! What are you waiting for?"
"Wow." Tom turned towards her, transfixed. "Where did you learn that?"
"For God's sake, Tom, go!"
The boy snapped out of it. He bolted after the legs, came back to pick up the plastic wrap, and bolted off again.
Well, there weren't a lot of places to search, really. Tom spotted Bottom Leenie, as he'd come to think of it (her?) even before he climbed the last few steps. She had stopped right before the bathroom's door at the end of the hallway, with her back to him. The door was shut, as were all others.
Bottom Leenie turned around. Had she possibly heard him coming? Maybe she could feel the vibrations of his footsteps. Sure thing she couldn't possibly see or hear him... or could she?
Tom approached her carefully. When she was almost within his reach, Bottom Leenie whipped one leg his way, then bent into a guard stance.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
"Leenie?" he called. "It's me, Tom."
The half-girl bobbed her hips menacingly, as menacing as such a move could be.
"Hello?" called the other half from downstairs. "You see them? Are they there?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"By the bathroom."
"Good! They're trapped."
"I know."
"Be careful, okay? They come your way, don't let them get past you."
Tom wished she'd just shut up. He went this close to voice that thought.
"I got this, Leenie. But you really need to be quiet. I think... I think they can hear you."
"No way! How so?"
"They just can."
"Shoot."
Tom considered surprise-lunging for Bottom Leenie, but that flying roundhouse kick had made him wary. Therefore he opted for an entirely different strategy.
"Listen," he said, "I know why you're acting like that. You don't like this thing. Right?" Fully convinced now that she could somehow hear and see just fine, he held up the plastic wrap. "You're a free soul. You don't like wearing muzzles. I totally get that. I mean, who does, right? But the thing is... well, I'm afraid you can't be like that. You just can't. I mean, look at yourself: how do you think you could get by? I mean, how could you... eat, or... uhm, communicate... or even just open a simple door? You'd be better off in one piece. Am I right?"
For someone who had no face, or head, or hands, the half-girl sure was expressive. She relaxed her stance a little bit, and seemed willing to listen.
"Besides," Tom continued his tirade, "how do you think they will react, the folks out there? You wanna be a freak? A monster? Sure you don't want that. And even if you don't go outside at all, have you thought about Uncle and Auntie? I mean, your parents? Won't they freak out when they find you like that?"
"Tom," Top Leenie called out to him.
"Yeah?"
"Are you..." she paused. "Are you trying to... talk sense into my legs?"
Tom nodded. "Yes ma'am. Looks like it's working, too."
"Good heavens," said the girl. "Is there no limit to this craziness?"
"Weird, isn't it? And you're supposed to be the sensible one."
"This is just..." She groaned. "Listen up, Thomas: I don't really care how you do it, I just want my legs back and I want them right now!"
Tom looked Bottom Leenie right in her shorts' strings - for lack of eyes - and nodded. "You heard yourself?"
The legs hesitated for a while, shuffling one foot from side to side in a pensive manner. Finally, they took a few, grudging steps towards the little boy and went down on their knees, sitting back on their heels. They couldn't literally have struck a more submissive pose.
"Good girl."
Tom approached them, careful not to make any abrupt move, and proceed to slide the film loop back on their waist. He almost felt like he was taming a runaway horse.
"Hey! I'm feeling something," exclaimed Charlene. "Yes! I can feel... I can feel my legs again!"
"I made it."
The girl gave an exultant laugh. "Finally! Oh God, thank you, thank you so much! You're my freaking hero!"
Her legs bolted up, startling Tom. The next moment they toppled, and fell hard on their butt.
"Ouch!" Charlene cried.
She struggled to get back on her feet, but all she managed to do was squirm about on the ground in an uncoordinated manner.
"Holy... it's a lot harder than I thought," she said.
"Why don't I carry you?" offered Tom, who was starting to worry that the magical plastic seal might have come loose again.
Charlene spread her legs wide, planted her feet on the floor and tried one last time to stand up, failing epically.
"Alright, you carry them," she agreed in frustration. "But you'd better watch your hands. Got it?"
"Yeah. Got it."
Tom squatted by his cousin's legs, studying the best way to make a grab of them while avoiding the off-limits area. Holding them by the feet was out of the question, the shrink wrap would have surely slipped off. Eventually he laid them out straight, face (knees?) up, and using his arms like a forklift he picked them up and carried them downstairs, where their rightful owner was almost jumping out of her skin in anticipation.
Restoring Charlene was smooth sailing. By the book, Tom just brought her two halves together and slid the palm of his hand along the cut line, which disappeared under his touch. He then used the powered-off knife to cut the film off Charlene's waist.
The girl's relief for being back in one piece was so overwhelming that she seemed to forget to be mad at Tom for all the trouble she'd been through. She jumped up and twirled and danced about, laughing, and ran her hands up and down her belly, enjoying its regained integrity.
"What a ride, huh?" commented Tom after some time, just to test the water.
Charlene snorted. "Yeah. You know, I should totally smack you with your own, stupid book, but... now that it's over, it was kind of fun. Not that I'd do it again or anything."
"Why not? You'd be an awesome assistant, Leenie." The little boy felt suddenly bold. "Actually... let's be a couple, you and I! What do you think?"
"You mean a duo."
"Yup. That."
Charlene leaned towards him with a big smile and put her mouth to his ear. "In your dreams," she whispered.
Leaving her cousin to feel as if he'd just been slapped in the face, the girl made a show of looking around the living room. "Geez, what a mess!" she said. "There's like a billion pieces of film in here. Look! It's everywhere."
Tom sighed. "Y-yeah... We'd better clean up before Uncle and Auntie come back. I wouldn't know what to tell them."
Charlene cocked her head, her hands on her hips. "Excuse me? There is no we anymore," she said. "You do the cleaning. Or, have you already forgot your end of the deal?"
"What! You're kidding, right?"
"I'm serious."
"You can't do this to me!"
"I can, and I will. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a classic of French literature waiting for me."
With that, the girl simply turned around and headed for the entrance door, leaving behind a much disheartened Tom. When she wasn't but a black silhouette on a white background, Charlene half-turned to him.
"There are some clean mops in the laundry room, under the sink. You'd better hurry, I don't know how much longer it will be before they get back."
The little boy stood scowling at her, watching her go back to the patio table and resume her reading. He didn't say anything. He just wished she could have been a little bit more like her own legs.