Heh, I will get this done properly when I have the time, I promise!
"Oh, lookit! That has to be Myotismon's lair - I mean, look at all those bats coming out of it!" "Er - Tai? Sorry to disappoint you, but that's the subway." "No! Can't you see? That ain't no subway. I'm telling you -" Matt sighed. "Yeah, sure, of course it isn't a subway. I mean, it says SUBWAY in gleaming neon letters 17 feet tall right in front of your eyes. Sure, it can't possibly be a subway." TK pulled anxiously at his big brother's glove. "But Matt, that means it is a subway." Matt threw up his hands in exasperation. "Oh, never mind. Just because none of you understand sarcasm..." TK began to wonder whether his brother was still in command of his sanity. Meanwhile, Tai was wondering where his next meal was coming from. "I wonder if Gennai knows about the third prophecy?" asked Izzy. " 'One will go insane, one brainless and two gay; two will cross-dress, one will become a sex-crazed maniac, and one will die by one of her own hand.' Hmm, will this all come true? I hope it does. It would be very satisfying to see sunflowers nodding their cheerful heads to the golden orb of daytime -" "Let's all say aah. Aah," Matt said scornfully. "Aah," echoed Tai, dutifully. "Let's all say cliché. Cliché." "Clich - hey!" "Doesn't look like the light's turned on upstairs yet. Poor kid forgot to pay the electricity bill again." "Huh?" "Forget it." "Matt?" TK asked innocently. "I've run out of condoms." Matt whirled angrily on TK. "Thought I told you never to mention that in public!" he hissed. "Huh?" queried the uncomprehending face of Tai, thrust curiously under Matt's nose. "Nothing. TK wanted to know how much the electricity bill cost." Tai's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "But I never had a -" Matt smirked. "I said it cost you what was left of your meagre supply of brain cells." Tai looked thoughtful. "Cognitive facilities," supplied Izzy, helpfully. "Grey matter," added Sora. "CRUD THAT HELPS YOU THINK!" yelled Matt. "- or in your case, crud that flew out of the window ages ago." At last Tai brightened, understanding. "That's an insult." Realising that this was not a good thing, he scowled. It looked like he was trying to squint at a sign with writing too small for him to read. "That means fisticuffs. I -" He got no further, as Sora pulled him around to face her. "I can think of a better outlet for your anger," she drawled provocatively. "Anger?" muttered Matt. "Stupidity, more like..." Sora shot him with a glance, which was painful, that said I-know-what-you-mean-but-let's-just-be-friends-OK and smiled sweetly back at Tai. Tai plainly didn't get it. "Outlet?" "Yeah. And I can think of something else that'll need an outlet if you don't suppress thinking about me." Matt scowled derisively. "Tai couldn't have an orgasm if you gave him boiled egg and buttered soldiers like mommy makes." Tai brightened visibly. "Buttered egg and soldiers? Yummy, my fave." Sora gave up. * * * * * * Joe pulled on the red dress that had once been Mimi's and adjusted the cowboy hat. "Fetching, huh, Mimi?" The girl turned towards him. "Sorry to disappoint you, Joe, but there's one big problem - you've got specs." Joe sighed with gusto. The gusto blew away quietly. "Uh-huh. Problem, that." "Tai won't understand. That'll be funny." Mimi pulled the starched white shirt that was Joe's trademark over her head. "Eee- yoo, Joe, since when did you use that awful spray from Chanel?" "Chanel? I was told it was Calvin Klein!" Mimi slapped a hand to her forehead. "But Calvin Klein doesn't smell anything like - oh, never mind. What does matter is that I need ultra-study perfume to smell like you feel." She shrugged under the shirt that was a size and a half too big. "And it's just a bit of fun - it's not like any of them will fall for it anyway. But I think I will enjoy this." "Yeah. Wait until you see the look of Tai's face. I betcha I know what he'll say." "Or what he won't say." Laughing, they linked arms and sauntered back to where the rest were chilling out - literally, in the refrigerator cabinet. "Er, Mimi?" "Uh-huh?" "I have no -er - you know, girly things." "Ditto. Never mind, just go with the flow, Joe." "Doh. I'd always wanted to use those blow up things..." * * * * * * Somewhere not far away in a McDonalds, the Digidurbrains' Digimon ate their way through six Happy Meals and one Australian Combo and wondered why the guy on the advert had funny teeth. "Maybe he walked into a wall," theorised Agumon. "Nah, he just lost a fight with Herculesmon," said Tentomon, thinking rather fondly of his Mega alter ego. "Or maybe he sucked his thumb too much when he was little." "Maybe you're all right," interjected Gabumon, ever the mediator, unlike his human partner. "Maybe he walked into a wall, got hit by Herculesmon and sucked his thumb because he was hurt." "Er - Gabumon?" asked Patamon. "Yeah?" "Can we talk alone?" "Sure." "Where're you guys going?" asked Gomamon. "Patamon wants to talk to me about something in private," replied Gabumon. "Why?" queried Biyomon, who wanted to know what was going on. "I don't know," replied the wolf Digimon. "I'll find out." They left the others to salvage what they could from the remains of the Happy Meals and to worry about Tentomon, who was trying to work out how the wind-up Barbie cars worked. * * * * * * "Hey, Joe! You got contacts! - and Mimi, what's with the specs? Didja go to the optha - opta - eye person again?" Mimi exchanged glances with Joe and tried not to laugh. In as boyish a voice as she could, she said, "Oh yeah, I overcame my fear of eyes, I guess." Matt groaned at Tai's stupidity. "Er - Tai? That's Joe with the specs." But Joe doesn't wear a dress," said Tai condescendingly, as if explaining to a young child how to add two and two and having the same effect as trying to convince them that it equalled five. He giggled, so certain that he was right for once. "He he. Mimi, why'd you need glasses?" Matt smirked. "You're asking Joe that. Why?" Tai frowned, buried deep in his self-confidence and still believing with remarkable tenacity that he'd got it right and the others were mistaken. "But Joe is - But Joe's over there." Matt then completely threw Tai by explaining simply, "They cross-dressed." Mimi pouted. "How'd you tell?" Matt glanced pointedly at her chest, covered in white shirt. "I don't need to explain that. This fanfic'd have an X rating, otherwise." [Ed's Note: And who's to say it hasn't?] Mimi scowled. "OK then." Tai looked at Joe (dressed as Mimi). "Hey, Mimi! Want a date? I just luurve that perfume -" Sora got to him before Matt's sarcasm could. She slapped him hard in the face. "My perfume's better. And besides, my skirt is shorter. And I would never cross-dress." Izzy groaned. "I'd like to reintroduce the much-maligned and untouched subject of the third prophecy here?" Matt looked at him and scornfully noted, "Er, Izzy? Your computer just downloaded a bug." "No, that's just Tentomon." As Izzy nonetheless preoccupied himself with the screen, he didn't notice Matt kicking it slightly. A box came up on the screen saying, 'This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Close or details?" Izzy moaned, and Matt thankfully left him to sorting out his beloved laptop out. "Frozen, has it?" "Oh dear, dear... Yes, positive. I think so." "Shame." Izzy shot Matt a disgruntled look, guessing from the sarcastic tone that Matt had something to do with it, but the other didn't notice. He was looking at TK fondly. Mmm, Izzy thought. Must store that away for later. They're gay. This is all third prophecy stuff... I could use it for blackmail... Meanwhile, Tai had listened to the conversation and now looked as blank as ever. "Your point is...?" he asked, confused. Sora butted in. "...in your pants." "Didn't know he had one," muttered Matt, before receiving a kick from Sora's spiked boot. "I thought men's brains were wired to their privates. That's what you girls always say. I figured if he has no brain it short-circuited the wires and blew all his -" Sora shot him such a scathing glance that Matt quit the sarcasm. Tai had completely lost the plot by now but then what was new? "Hey Matt!" TK cried brightly. "You've got a nice -" Matt shushed his little brother, but couldn't stop him. "You know what, guys? Matt is pretty well-adorned himself. In fact, I -" The only reason he shut up was because Matt's hand was clamped over his mouth. "Shut it, or you'll wish you'd never been born with boys' bits," his big brother hissed in his ear. It was Sora's turn to smile mockingly. "So Matt, what's with the gay relationship?" "There's no such thing! He just sees me undress for bed sometimes. It's his problem, not mine." "Funny he takes so much interest..." Tai looked from Matt to Sora, having ceased to understand a word when Matt had first opened his mouth. "Yeah, and it's funny how Tai never gets your sexual innuendo, either," grinned Matt. throwing Sora onto a different tack and making her forget what TK said. "Hey, Tai," she said angrily, determined to prove Matt wrong but knowing she was fighting a losing battle. "Get me some condoms for tonight, will you?" "Condoms...?" "Yeah, the things we use every night. You know." She dangled one in front of his face. Tai brightened. "Oh yeah, those." Then he frowned. "I need money." "I have some," Sora grinned. "Yeah, but Mom says I shouldn't borrow money..." Sora lost all semblance of patience. She rugby-tackled Tai to the floor, rolled him over onto his back and began to whip his pants off. Taking advantage of the respite as the pavement began to vibrate rapidly, Matt took TK to the McDonalds wherein sat their Digimon, if only to get away from the madness now raging on the street. Mimi and Joe burst out laughing as soon as they were gone. * * * * * * "Hey, Matt! Look! Patamon's giving Gabumon a piggy back!" Matt smirked. "No, TK, that's called 'doggy style'. I haven't taught you that yet." TK looked more excited than when he had got a train set for a Christmas present. "Wow. Looks cool. Can't wait to try it!" "Gabumon?" "Yes, Matt?" "You can stop humping Patamon now. He looks bloody tired - you're not the lightest Digimon on the circuit, you know." "Sorry Matt." "Say that to Patamon. He looks a bit flat. He needs your apology more than I do, Gabumon." Tai walked in at that point, and Matt was relieved that he hadn't caught Gabumon and Patamon doing what he and TK did every night. Mind you, he probably wouldn't have picked it up anyway. "What's going on, Matt?" Tai asked, looking flustered and dishevelled. Sora's probably drained him dry, thought Matt, dry of both energy and - "Now I know why you have a dinosaur Digimon, Tai," Matt scowled. "You're way back on the evolution line, mate. I think even the primordial soup had more brains than you do." Tai pouted, guessing that what Matt had said was an insult. He'd learned, remarkably quickly for him, that Matt never said anything nice to him, so he tried to hit Matt. Unfortunately the other boy had ducked just as he'd finished speaking, mistiming Tai's late response, so it looked as if Tai had had a delayed reaction and his fist hit thin air. It took him the time it took Matt and TK to escape the McDonalds and make for their flat to work out why he'd missed. * * * * * * The flat window opened onto an evening which didn't care what would happen within this night. The curtains were drawn, no light shone within, yet noises came from that window which would shape futures. And Izzy was determined to find out what. He climbed the drainpipe, paused to scratch his rear, lost his grip, and plummeted 50 feet to land on top of Kabuterimon. The bug grunted. "Hey, that hurt. I know I'm here as a safety net, but that wasn't funny." "So why don't you fly me up?" An embarrassed silence followed. "Er - never thought of that." Izzy slapped a hand to his forehead. "Duh. We're turning into Tai." Once Kabuterimon was level with the window, Izzy opened it, planted a small microphone under the curtain and the flying insect took them both away. "He he, now we'll find out the truth about Matt and TK," laughed Izzy evilly. "He he." Kabuterimon would have laughed back, but he would have woken half the city, and that wouldn't have been popular with the locals. * * * * * * Matt rang Tai's doorbell later in the morning while the rest waited for them downstairs. Kori opened the door in her Winnie the Pooh dressing gown and invited him in. He smirked when he saw Tai with a huge boiled egg twice his size and a plateful of buttered soldiers, enthusiastically standing on several chairs and scraping out the inside of the egg with a garden spade. Matt cleared his throat, and Tai looked up. A happy, vacant smile lit his face. "Hey, Matt! Check out the size of this egg!" Matt hated to disappoint him, but his sarcasm carried on regardless. "Tai, I don't want to burst your bubble, but - er - how'd you ever manage to boil Digitamamon?" Tai frowned. "I used a bigger saucepan. Duh." Matt put his head in his hands in despair. "But you'd need - oh, never mind. What I meant was, how come you never realised that it is Digitamamon you're eating?" Tai looked a bit guilty at the giant boiled egg. "He was in my bedroom this morning. I thought it was a normal egg..." "But what was he doing in your bedroom?" "I laid him," Tai replied proudly. Matt looked incredulous. "But one of that size could never be normal - oh, never mind. Fact is, you've just single-handedly managed to kill an evil Digimon that it took four of us a whole episode to get rid of before." Tai frowned again. His crest of Eyebrows-Lowered-Dramatically-Over-Nose began to glow, if only because his eyebrows had - well, lowered dramatically over his nose twice in as many minutes. The sleeping Agumon promptly digivolved into Greymon and then Metalgreymon, but there was nothing for him to beat up, so he gave up and de-digivolved into Koromon. "Congratulations," Matt continued. "You've just eaten Digitamamon." Tai brightened. "What'd I win?" Matt groaned, but turned it into a scowl because the sarcasm didn't want to let this drop. "A car." "Oooh! Wait until I tell my mom." He disappeared into his bedroom, returned with his goggles draped over his eyes and promptly walked into a wall. Turning around so he thought that he faced Matt but was in fact smiling at the wall across from the other boy, he grinned inanely. "Hey Matt, how much are driving lessons?" Matt would have left him to his sad little dreams, but his pissed off side took over and he dragged the still-blind Tai downstairs, making sure that the younger boy hit as many painful objects as possible on the way down. * * * * * * "So Etemon, how's it going?" TK grinned cheerfully as the Digidurbrains entered the gaily-painted caravan which resembled a hippy's tent at Glastonbury, only twice as gaudy. "Have you finished yet?" A wizened old monkey, dressed in a flowery shawl and dress home-knitted, looked up from a shadowy corner and pulled down the sunglasses resting on its nose. "Yes, dearies, almost all done." He lifted up a huge, intricate piece of knitting which looked like Michaelangelo had been let loose in a room full of painting equipment (the artist equivalent of a bull in a china shop) and transferred his masterpiece to wool. "Wow," Matt said sarcastic as ever. "The Last Supper." Tai panicked and raced for the larder. "No, Tai -" Sora began. Matt interrupted. "Let him think it will be his last supper. Then we won't have to worry about him any more and we can go back to having a sensible leader who's brains haven't taken wing and flown into the sun like that Greek guy with the wax. Speaking of wax, there's probably not a lot of point warning him because it's not just his brain that's impaired -" "- or non-existent -" butted in Mimi, still dressed as Joe and still confusing Tai no end. Matt continued as if she hadn't. "- it's his ears. Most of the time what you say gets stuck in the wax anyhow." Etemon watched curiously as Tai raided the larder, dropping eggs and spilling milk in a frantic attempt to make his last meal as nice as possible. "Oh well. At least I have something now to spend my pension on. Is he just thick," he hissed in a stage whisper, "or has one of you little pranksters connected him to a brain-eating machine?" "We have reason to believe that he was sensible once," Matt snickered. "After all, he joined us lot. Can't get more sensible than that." "Problem is," Joe continued from where Matt left off, "when he lost his brain he stayed with us. That's proof he's lost it. We don't want him anymore, but he's like a brainless leech." "Joe?" "Yeah?" Matt smirked. "The perfume doesn't work. It's girls' perfume." "That's the whole point, Matt." "I know. But if you're a boy pretending to be a girl, girly perfume from Chanel really doesn't work, especially if everyone knows you're cross-dressing. You could attract entirely the wrong kind of person -" "Love the perfume, Mimi," gasped Tai to Joe, running past with a huge plate of rice and mushrooms. Matt sighed. "See what I mean? I suppose it works for those who are stupid enough not to realise what cross-dressing is." Fortunately for Matt's sanity, although Tai heard him, he assumed that Matt meant what he thought he meant: that Mimi and Joe were covered in little crosses. He tutted patronisingly within earshot to let Matt know his disapproval, thinking to himself as he did so just how brain-dead Matt had become, when he suddenly walked into the door that Matt conveniently opened in front of him. "Oops," said Matt in mock horror. "I really didn't mean to do that." Everyone looked at him disbelievingly. Matt threw up his hands in exasperation. "OK, OK. I was being sarcastic. Of course I did it on purpose. Why shouldn't I?" Mimi giggled, and Tai looked at her as if she was mad. "Joe, you've evolved a real weird laugh," he frowned. "Anyone'd think you were turning into a girl." The irony escaped no one. They all laughed this time. "That's the closest to the truth this guy has ever come," grinned Matt, still laughing. "I can't believe it." "Who'd have thought it?" giggled TK. "Who said primordial soup has no brains?" chortled Sora, rolling over the floor with tears streaming down her cheeks. Matt stopped laughing and looked at her strangely. "Hang on. Primordial soup doesn't have a brain. That's why Tai belongs to its evolutionary tree." Sora was about to retort, but Izzy came running into the caravan and Tai's last supper was forgotten, despite the contented munching sounds coming from the background. Of course by now he had forgotten himself why he'd got all the food out, so he just assumed that Etemon had been kind enough to lay out a spread. "Hey!" cried Izzy. "I have here damning evidence!" "Damning evidence?" asked Mimi beneath the starched shirt. "Evidence for what?" Everyone looked at Izzy expectantly, interested for the first time. "Something to do with the third prophecy," Izzy said dramatically, and instantly wished he hadn't. Everyone groaned as one and went back to laughing at Tai. "JUST LISTEN, OK?" he yelled, and it was so out of place that he got their attention where he wanted it. "That's better. Last night I taped what went on in Matt and TK's bedroom." He paused for dramatic emphasis, but missed Matt's knowing smirk. "I have proof of their gay incest." Izzy expected everyone to be shocked, but they only raised eyebrows disbelievingly. "Really?" asked Sora, sarcastically, borrowing Matt's tone for once. "You can't be gay with a sibling. That's just plain ick." Mimi was frank as usual. Matt tried not to look embarrassed, and he was so good at concealing what he really felt that it looked to the others as if he curled his lip in disdain. TK almost blew their cover, though. He cried naively, "But it's true, I tell you, we're having -" "- absolutely no doubts that there's nothing going on between me and Matt," finished Matt in TK's voice, managing to look so scornful that everyone believed him. "But I have it all on tape," said Izzy, "listen." He pressed play on his mini tape recorder. From it came sounds of a man and a woman gasping. Izzy went white. "Mimi and Matt! That's disgusting!" cried Joe. This threw Tai, who was sure that Joe was Joe and Mimi was Mimi - or is that the other way round? We don't really care, to be honest. Mimi opened her mouth. "Uh? You really think I'd go to bed with him?" She paused. "Er - well, maybe I would. You're pretty good-looking." Matt grinned. "If I'm not good-looking, Tai has brains." "But that wasn't me or Matt," continued Mimi. "I was with Joe last night, not Matt." Izzy went from white to red. "I - er - must have - er - got the - er - wrong flat," he stammered. Then it was Sora's turn to colour. "Er - actually, I think it was my flat you got. Mine is just under Matt's. And my relationship with Tai at 2am is no secret." "Huh?" asked Tai, having heard his name. "I was telling them what we got up to last night, darling." Sora was blatantly provocative. Tai missed the point completely, which was predictable. "You mean play Monopoly?" Sora slapped a hand to her forehead as everyone laughed, but Matt beat her tongue to it. "No wonder you got all that groaning on the tape, Izzy. Sora must have found it pretty frustrating trying to teach Tai about money and hotels and the concepts of buy and sell." Tai turned to Matt, understanding dawning in his face. "I know about buy and sell!" Matt looked with feigned shock at Tai's contented and happy face. "Oh, leader-boy knows what buy and sell are. I'm so sorry, I must have underestimated the number of cells we have up here." He knocked a fist against Tai's head and was rewarded with a hollow sound. "Can we count as high as that, though? One, two? Or is that too difficult for the two cells that are left? 'Course it is - one knows what buy is and the other knows what sell is. What an accomplishment!" Tai grinned inanely. "What'd I win?" Matt gave him a penny. "That." Tai's eyes widened to such an extent that if he'd opened them any wider, his eyeballs would have popped out. "Wow. I never ever won money before in my life ever. Thanks, Matt!" He turned happily and skipped off into the sunset. "Let's all say aah. Aah. Let's all say cliché. Cliché," remarked Matt, sarcastically as usual and glaring at the author as he did so as if daring her to make such a kitschy comment about the sunset ever again. "Yeah," agreed Mimi, "sunset is sooooo a cliché." "You sounded like that girl off the Fresh Prince, Mimi," said Joe. Mimi grinned. "Uh-huh. She's, like, so my role model!" * * * * * * Later that day, sitting in a railway carriage with the rest of the Digidurbrains, Matt was thinking. He was determined to prove Izzy wrong about him and TK, but he'd done it once and he wondered if he needed to do it again. He'd won the first point, but after Izzy had tried to expose them, he wanted revenge. It was Tai and Sora who gave him the idea. "My head hurts," complained Tai. "Your head hurts?" cried Sora. "That's not what I'd expect to be hurting." "But I haven't whacked myself against anything," complained Tai - getting the wrong end of the stick. Sora just groaned. "Do you know what I am trying to tell you? I didn't think so." Tai just looked innocently back at her. Soft porn, thought Matt, and then the idea pounced on him. * * * * * * After getting off the train, to get home they had to cross a cowfield. This would not have presented any problem whatsoever if Tai had not had the idea that a cowpat would make a wonderful fashion accessory. "Hey, guys," he called back to the others, who were trying very hard not to step in a stray pat and soil their shoes (especially Mimi). They stopped on what they hoped were clean patches of grass to look at him. "Nice hat, huh?" He picked up a cowpat and dropped it on his head with a tasteless squelch. "Nice cheap scout beret, Tai. Since when'd you join the guide association?" smirked Matt. Tai compromised. "Cool fashion accessory, though." Matt sneered. "The hat, or the flies?" Tai looked cross-eyed at the fly that had just landed on his nose. He watched it for a moment and then, satisfied that it wasn't going anywhere fast, tried to swat it. The fly obviously had more intelligence than he had, however, as it flew away at the last moment. Tai ended up smacking his nose. "Ooowwwww!" Matt smirked evilly as Tai's nose glowed red. "Hey, Rudolph, it's not Christmas yet. Get back to Lapland before I give you a kick up the -" "Matt?" said Sora sweetly. "Uh-huh?" asked Matt, falling for it, turning to face her and receiving a slap in the face. "Don't diss my boyf!" cried Sora, despite knowing that Tai wouldn't have understood a word. She was wrong. But not for a bad reason. "Rudolph?" said Tai cheerfully. "Is it Christmas?" Matt sighed. "Can you see snow, Tai? Do brains grow on trees? Then Tai had a idea. He picked up another cowpat, hefted it in his hand, and threw it at Matt. Wiping icky, smelly, disgusting, fly-encrusted dung off his face and scowling so darkly that if looks could kill Tai would be six feet under, Matt forced himself to remain calm. He picked up a cowpat himself, aimed at Tai's grinning, oblivious, cheerful face and consoled himself by thinking how that grinning, oblivious, cheerful face would soon be splattered with cowpat. "Now Tai, you had won a car. But we don't wanna give you that," he grinned nastily. "Did I win something else? asked Tai, happy as ever. "Yes," smiled Matt sarcastically. "We don't wanna give you a nice, big, shiny, spanking new car. Instead we're gonna give you something a thousand times better - A COWPAT IN THE FACE!!!" Tai staggered backwards as the pat hit him in the face with all the force of Matt's anger behind it. He tottered on one ankle unsteadily, then fell back into a ripe pile of cowpats just waiting to be fallen into. "Hey!" cried Sora. "That's my boyf you've made stink! I've gotta put up with that tonight!" And she threw a cowpat at Matt. But Matt was quicker this time and ducked. The flying pat hit Mimi, still dressed as Joe, instead. "Oh!" she cried in distress. "That wasn't fair. You know I only put foundation on this morning. You've ruined my make up and broken my nails..." Sora never knew what hit her. One moment Mimi was standing there complaining, the next her face was twisted in fury and Sora had a cowpat in her face. The girls shrieked and clawed at each other and started up a fight in the cowpats that was like a catfight, only ten times more vicious. It was at least one hundred times more violent than World War One. "Er - Mimi?" Joe ventured tentatively. "They're my clothes you're - er - soiling..." Tai threw a cowpat at him in the middle of wrestling with Matt in a sea of pats, if only because he thought it'd be fun. Matt promptly rugby-tackled him from behind and he splashed back down again. Joe lost all sense of personal cleanliness and sanity and joined in the Matt and Tai mini-war, so only Izzy and TK were left. It didn't take long for Izzy to get involved. A cowpat deliberately thrown by Matt while Tai attacked Joe and left him alone for a while landed on his laptop and completely crashed it, destroying all the work he had done so conscientiously on it. A message came up, saying: 'This program has performed an illegal cowpat. Close, or fight?' Screaming a war cry so primitively chilling everyone looked at him shocked, he threw himself bodily into the fray. TK was just telling himself that he should get involved so he could protect his brother (who was holding his own against Tai and Izzy with Joe's help) but someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around into the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever fallen into. "Hey TK," said Kori, "where's my brother?" "Does it matter when we can be together?" said TK romantically. Kori looked at him looking dreamily at her and tangible red hearts began to pop at high speed out of their heads. They turned from the fight and skipped off into the sunset. "Let's all say aah. Aah. Let's all say cliché. Clich - " said Matt, before it was his turn to be rugby-tackled, this time by Izzy. As he fought back, Matt realised that it was his little brother he was talking about - and he'd run off with, of all things, a girl. Unheard of! TK was his bed partner... ...wasn't he? * * * * * * TK didn't appear when the gang converged on a scared ice-cream seller the next morning, and everyone noticed that Matt seemed unusually pre-occupied. The ice-cream seller was plainly not used to gangs of youths converging on his van, neither was he used to being snapped at by boys in green sleeveless tops and turn-up jeans. He was shaking and white and hiding behind the counter by the time they left. Feeling malicious, Matt accidentally on purpose shoved his elbow into Mimi's 99 cone, splattering the ice-cream all over her face. "Oh!" cried Mimi. "Hey, don't take it so hard," sneered Matt. "At least you won't have to use foundation now." At the sound of their voices Tai turned around, saw Mimi with ice-cream all over her face and promptly pointed cheerfully. "It's Fridgimon!" "Yeah," Matt curled his lip. "I mean, who else could it be? It's so round and pudgy - no, I don't think it could possibly not be Fridgimon." His sarcasm was wasted on Tai. "No Matt," he said patronisingly. "It's Fridgimon." Matt, feeling the last vestiges of his patience fall away, picked a flower from a passing window box and shoved it under Tai's nose. "Mm! What a lovely -" A bee stung him on the nose. "Owww!" "Is that just a really ripe plum or are you growing tomato plants in your nostrils again?" asked Matt, trying not to laugh. Sora produced a needlework pin. "This should do it." The horrified expression on Tai's face just then made everyone laugh but Matt, who snickered. "Don'tgetthepinanywherenearmypoorswollennosepleasepleasepleaseSoradon'tgetthatRUDDYGREATPINANYWHERENEARM YNOSE..." It was too late. His nose exploded. It showered everyone with skin, blood and snot. "Lovely," remarked Matt. "Warning: Tai can seriously damage your health. And his own, but we don't care about that." Slowly and depressingly, it began to rain. "Not what I'd call optimum weather for ice-cream," muttered Joe. "Why'd we get them in the first place?" asked Sora. "The author wanted to get Mimi covered in it," muttered Matt. "What?" "Nothing." "So why, then?" "Why what?" "Why'd we get the ice-cream, you dolt!" "Because," Matt sneered, "Tai was threatening to drive us all crazy by screaming 'I WANNA ICE-CREAM' 24-7 if we didn't." For once he wasn't sarcastic, just factual. Concerned that he wasn't being sarcastic, Mimi asked, "TK on the brain?" Matt wasn't listening. "Mmm?" "TK on the pull?" teased Mimi. Matt heard that one and scowled at her. But he didn't hit her, so Mimi knew she had hit a weak spot. "TK pull?" asked Tai. "I didn't think he was strong enough to lug things around." Sora sighed. "Never mind." "We mean, pull other people," explained Joe. "Huh? Has he been to a weight-training gym or something?" cried Tai, disbelievingly. "Doh!" "Where's Izzy?" asked Sora suddenly. "Who cares?" muttered Matt. Then he twitched. Something was moving up his leg... "You OK, Matt?" asked Mimi. "Or is this just another sympathy search?" Matt didn't answer. He simply twitched. Then something sharp and incredibly painful sank its teeth into the one part of him that he didn't want this kind of thing to happen to, ever. His scream broke all the windows in a nearby block of flats. "Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" It would have lasted for longer, only the author couldn't be bothered to type more A's and H's. "Lazy sod," muttered Izzy, creeping off and laughing evilly to himself. "I'd have liked to hear him in agony for longer." Matt doubled over in pain. "What the hell are you yelling about? I don't see TK snogging anyone," said Sora. "Shut up!" hissed Matt through gritted teeth. "I've been - uh - bitten by - uh - a fucking ferret!" "A ferret? Where?" asked Tai, looking under dustbins and in nearby plant boxes. Despite the pain, Matt managed to remain sarcastic. "You have absolutely sod all up there," he tapped his head, "not a sausage." Tai got the wrong end of the stick and opened his pants. "Nope, it's still there." As soon as he'd looked down his pants though, Matt had reached down, pulled the ferret off the sore part, and threw it with an accuracy born of anger down Tai's pants. Tai felt what Matt had felt just a moment ago. "Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" he yelled, hopping around, trying to dislodge the ferret. "I know something else that's long and lives up your trousers other than a ferret," said Sora, sexually. "What's the big deal about my leg?" replied Tai, missing the innuendo. Sora banged her head against a wall. * * * * * * Matt knew just who was responsible for the ferret down his trousers, and he plotted his revenge immediately. Fortunately, his desire for revenge had made him completely forget about TK, so he came out of his moping state. Matt was hatching a plot. Tai was hatching an egg. But that's another story... The Digidurbrains were looking for the lair of the Dark Masters once more, and they had been informed by the garden gnome crossed with Robin Cook guy and Mr Aitken lookalike, Gennai, that the subway was in fact where they laired. Fortunately for Matt's sanity, no one remembered the farce of the subway joke earlier. They descended into darkness in silence. Joe led and the others followed, and they'd gone only a few steps into the blackness when the batteries in Sora's torch exploded. "No problem," said Joe cheerfully, "I've got some matches." He struck one. "No Tai!" cried Mimi suddenly as a horrific though occurred to her in the meagre light as the boy began to strain audibly. "Whatever you do don't..." *PARP* "...fart." The match exploded as the hallway filled with poisonous gases. As the resulting fireball died away, they were left in darkness once more. "Hey, let's just use Tai for a torch, it'd save us the bother. And I don't think we need to kill the Dark Masters anymore, being as Tai was nice enough to gas them," Matt's voice was laced with the usual sarcasm. Suddenly another, mechanical, voice rang out, seemingly coming from inside Matt's head. "This brain will self-destruct in five seconds due to a sarcasm overload. You now have four seconds to renew your life insurance... three seconds to say goodbye to all loved ones..." "What?!" cried Mimi. "...two seconds to make sure you have clean clothes for the afterlife... one second to use this brain for the last time for any complicated mathematical equations, screaming children's homework etc. ...This brain will now self-destruct. Thank you for being so kind as to use it. Have a nice day. Any complaints about this service can be addressed to God, email god@born-to- bitch-about-life-although-the-trees-are-very-nice-and-i-do-like-ice-creams.com." In the dark quiet, there was the sound of an explosion and then silence. "Matt?" asked Joe. Silence. "Are you OK?" "Uh-huh," said Matt. "What the hell was that?" "Dunno. Tai's brain trying to work, not quite making it and frying itself to a crisp?" "So... your brain didn't explode due to a sarcasm overload?" "Nah, that was just me being sarcastic," replied Matt, sarcastically. "So it did explode?" "Yeah, but unlike Tai there's enough left for me to be the same as I ever was." "So you didn't lose anything?" "Nope." "OK then." Matt took a banana from his pocket and peeled it. "Hey, can't Agumon light our way?" asked Tai. "Er duh, Agumon's not here," said Mimi. "Oh yeah." Matt tossed the banana skin over his shoulder. "There's a torch on the wall. I saw it when my brain exploded. Light it with a match, Joe. And Tai?" "Uh-huh?" "If you fart I will personally impale you on the spike I also saw sticking out of the wall further down the passage." "OK." Joe struck the match. *PARP* The resulting explosion rocked the tunnel and made the spike collapse. "Well." Matt was frank. "There goes that idea. Pity. I was looking forward to all that blood spurting out of Tai." "At least the fireball hit the torch," grinned Joe cheerfully. "Don't be too optimistic. Now we have a terrible need for some very long-lasting and acid-resistant gas masks," sneered Matt. "Let's go." Joe started off down the corridor. The rest wandered aimlessly after him - all but Tai, that is, who stood for ages looking down at the forlorn-looking banana skin Matt had dropped moments before. After a long time, he shrugged, put one foot forward, stepped on the banana skin, and slid screaming at high speed after the others. * * * * * * "Hey Tai?" asked Matt, later that evening while the gang were still lost down the subway and camped in a dead end. "Uh-huh?" "You know you 'played' Monopoly with Sora -" Tai interrupted. "I play with the dog," he stated proudly. Matt rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. Do you play with the iron as well? You could scar yourself for life and stop Sora ever having kids by you, you know." Tai only frowned. "But what I wanted to know is, how the hell'd you manage to play Monopoly in pitch blackness? You didn't use one of Tai's bright idea lightbulbs, that's for sure." "We didn't," replied Sora. "We were doing other things more suited to night-time activity. Tai got the wrong end of the stick, I guess." "As usual," muttered Matt. "The day he gets your sexual innuendo'll be the day I split from TK." Suddenly realising what he had said, he clapped his hand over his mouth. "What?" asked Joe, Mimi, Sora and Tai, who genuinely hadn't heard. "Er-" Matt stammered. "I said that - er - The day he gets Sora's innuendo'll be the day I - er - spit on a DJ." "Matt's lost it..." murmured Mimi. "AT LEAST MY CAT'S NOT STUCK UP A TREE!" cried Matt. "Er Matt?" asked Tai. "Uh-huh?" "That was Nearly Home Free." "Oh. Sorry." "Matt! You said sorry!" "Did I? Sorry." "You said it again!" "Shut up! At least I have a brain." He looked pointedly at Tai. Tai looked naively and innocently back. "Tai?" asked Matt, suddenly and curiously. "Why the hell do you wear that black wristband?" Tai looked at it and didn't answer. Matt moved over to Tai and removed the wristband, half expecting there to be a horrific scar. Tai's hand fell off. "Eerrgh!" yelled Matt, jumping backwards and hitting the wall, which while previously had been a dead end, was now obviously a secret door through which Matt had so conveniently fallen through. "Hey Matt!" cried Joe. "You found a secret door!" "Yeah, sure I did. Why not use me to detect fatal traps as well?" muttered Matt sarcastically from the floor in the new corridor. "What can you see?" "Er - the ceiling?" "Don't be sarcastic." "I'm not!" "Get up then. Now what can you see?" "Black stuff." Matt shrugged. "There's also something coming towards me at a very high speed -" There was a whooshing noise, then a thud. Then silence. "Matt?" ventured Mimi, a few seconds later. No answer. "Is he still there?" asked Joe. A groaning sound came from the other corridor. Joe brought the torchlight over to Matt. He was lying on the floor, a bright red line down his back that looked like blood. "What happened to you?" Sora shrieked. "Is that blood?" asked Tai. Matt got to his feet unsteadily. "No, I just got attacked by a rabid painter." "I don't see any painter," said Tai. "Well, he moved fast enough." Matt was predictably sarcastic. "What was it, then?" asked Mimi, spotting the sarcasm a mile off. "I don't know," admitted Matt. "But if it left some red trail down my back -" "- which clashes with your jeans -" "- shut up - then it must be something which drips blood or paint or whatever it is." Tai poked a finger into the red stuff on Matt's back and licked it off. "Eurgh!" yelled Mimi. "Liquorice lace," reported Tai, and ate it all off of Matt's back. "Liquorice lace? I was attacked by a sweet shop? Why don't you open one while you are about it?" sneered Matt. "Schweeeeeeeet," murmured Tai, doing a Homer Simpson, just without the brain cell. "Anyway, we may as well follow the new passage," said Joe. "Let's go, guys." They trooped off down the new corridor. * * * * * * Matt had gone less than five yards after the others before he heard the small scuffle behind him. His brain didn't take long to realise who it was following them. And he remembered the ferret situation and grinned mockingly. He pulled a firecracker from his jeans pocket and lit it with a match, timed it roughly and left it on the floor before skipping teasingly after the others, whistling cheerfully as he went. Izzy came into view behind him as Matt knew he would, pausing just over the firecracker to see what it was that Matt had left, but the torchlight wasn't bright enough... The firecracker went off, zooming up the leg of his shorts and into the part of him which he really didn't want this sort of thing to happen to. "AAAAAHHHHH!" "Izzy?" asked Joe, running back to find him. "Why're you following us?" asked Mimi. Sharing a glare (Izzy's) and a smug look (Matt's) with Matt, Izzy replied with venom, "I was trying to catch up with you. But someone," he glared pointedly at Matt, "put a firecracker up my pants." "What?" asked Tai. "Never mind." Rubbing the sore part, Izzy followed the others down the passage and tried to think of a good revenge to play on Matt. * * * * * * The corridor went on seemingly endlessly, deep into the bowels of the earth. "You'd think we'd have run over a subway or a signpost by now," muttered Sora. "Or some Dark Masters," shuddered Joe. "I told you it was only a subway," complained Izzy. "Logic tells me that there's not a lot else it could be." "And logic tells me that the laptop you're carrying is going to suffer a fatal accident unless you shut up," Matt muttered, and he was fortunate that Izzy didn't hear him. There was a fluttering of wings, and then Demidevimon stood in front of them. "Ha ha! Foolish Digidestined." "Digidurbrains," Matt corrected automatically, sitting down with popcorn and getting ready to enjoy the show before he realised that their Digimon had buggered off ages ago. "Whatever. Anyhow, I'm here to make sure that you never reach the Dark Masters. I -" "Let's play footie!" cried Tai excitedly, suddenly noticing Demidevimon and apparently mistaking him for a football. He kicked the bat Digimon into the air enthusiastically and yelled "Goal!" Demidevimon would have agreed with him, but then he collided with the ceiling with all the force of Tai's foot, with much the same effect and sound as a fly hitting a windscreen and scattering its many legs over the glass. Tai stood there, looking disappointed at the ceiling for a long time. "My football isn't coming down," he pouted. "Congratulations, Tai," Matt sneered. "You've just single-handedly gotten rid of the little git called Demidevimon." "You mean it wasn't a football?" Matt laughed. "Well, I think we deserve a reward, don't you?" he added patronisingly. Tai brightened. "What'd I win this time? A new skateboard?" Matt was having fun. "Well, seeing as you have won just about everything but the kitchen sink -" A kitchen sink hit him in the face, and he fell backwards as it smacked into his nose and he lay unconscious on the floor. "He he," said Izzy, his revenge complete once more. Tai stared at Matt. "Is that what I won?" "Yes," said Matt, getting up unsteadily for the second time in ten minutes and busily trying to think of a way to get his own back on Izzy. "You won this." And he threw the kitchen sink at Tai. A kitchen sink fight ensued. "Ha ha ha. Foolish Digidestined," an evil voice rang out. "Digidurbrains," Matt corrected automatically, busy thumping Tai repeatedly over the head with the kitchen sink. "How the hell'd you manage to kill Demidevimon?" the voice asked incredulously. "Tai somehow managed to mistake him for a football and he is currently doing a fly-on-a-windscreen impression ten metres further back down the passage," sneered Matt. They had the distinct impression that the voice curled its lip. "I'm not really very sure how he managed to do it," Matt continued. "But his brain is scrambled. Sorry, correction: he hasn't got one. You get the idea?" "Mmm," the voice was displeased. "Where is this Tai?" "Here I am, anybody want me?" Tai asked, gullibly. A hand appeared from nowhere and a lightening bolt shot from it, frying Tai with the efficiency of bacon in a pan and with much the same effect as leaving that bacon for too long over a withering heat. Tai went black and crumbly and did a remarkably good impression of a pile of ashes. "Thanks," grinned Matt. "We needed that." "Ohmigod. He's not being sarcastic," Mimi whispered to Joe. "Maybe the loss of TK changed him," hissed Joe. "I heard that," said Matt, and threw the kitchen sink at them. The Dark Master came forward. "I am Myotismon. I will fight you now." Mimi looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "You look more like a fairy than a vampire. The tutu doesn't go, by the way. And those ballet shoes really clash with the black cloak. Pink and black really don't go." "But I like pink..." Matt curled his lip. "We can't fight you because our Digimon are on strike. They prefer McDonalds and learning about the sordid pleasures of human life -" he glared pointedly at Tai and Sora, who looked innocently back - "than fighting." "Chess, then?" "OK." Joe blanched. "I don't play chess." "I do. Not very well, but I do," Matt said. "Leave it to me. I mean, he can't be that good." One lost game against Myotismon's helper Chocomon later, Matt suggested, "Best of three?" * * * * * * They finally beat Chocomon after taunting him. He started it. So Matt got a tongue exercise session. "No one had beaten me and nobody ever will!" "You run that fast?" Chocomon fumed. "I got this scar during a mighty struggle!" "I hope you've learned to stop picking your nose." "I've seen apes more polite than you!" "Glad to see you attended your family reunion." Before Chocomon could reply with another insult, Tai seemed to notice Chocomon for the first time (as ever). "Ooh! I looooove Dairy Milk!" He walked up to Chocomon, picked him up, and ate him whole. Sora had to get out her handkerchief and wipe the chocolate from his mouth. "Dirty boy," she admonished. "Wow. Somehow Tai has managed to single-handedly defeat and kill three evil Digimon," Matt sneered. "Without a brain, either." "Some feat," admitted Joe. "Oh come on, he's dangerous," Matt cried. "Get real with Tai. Otherwise he'll just kill the lot of us -" Tai interrupted him. "Burp. Oh look, there's a huge bear trap just down th -" *SNAP* Blood splattered the Digidurbrains. Then silence. "Er - can somebody get me out of this huge bear trap?" Tai asked lamely, from somewhere out of the circle of torchlight. Sora sighed and moved in the direction of his voice to let him out. * * * * * * It was evening when they eventually emerged from the subway, tired and on edge - especially Matt, who had been reminded that TK was off with Kori when he saw them snogging and doing other things too unsavoury to mention here on a park bench. He had been further annoyed by Izzy. Thinking that there was nothing like a good, long, sad song to cheer him up, he'd reached into his pocket and was blowing into thin air before he realised that his harmonica was missing. "IZZY!" he'd yelled, and evil, maniacal laughter had come from a nearby dustbin. "Har, har, har." "What's with the 'har har har'?" muttered Matt disgruntledly. So Matt left him a surprise in his flat. He left a live frog under Izzy's bedclothes and filled his spare pair of gloves with washing- up liquid. Then he got the biggest six-bore shotgun he could find and dressed in pitch-black Ninja-like clothing to blend in with the night. Just as he left the flat he heard Izzy scream - doubtlessly he had discovered the acid in the washing-up liquid and the fact that the frog was poisonous. Matt crept silently through the park, aiming for Tai's flat, where he knew that Kori would be trying to entice TK into bed - - his TK! - He almost came out with a self-deprecating sarcastic remark, but that part of his brain had gone on vacation for the night as it thought or assumed that he would be asleep, and even a highly sarcastic person such as Matt wasn't sarcastic in his sleep. Well, not all the time, but most of it. He still suffered from being sleep-sarcastic, according to TK. TK... Stifling a scowl, he aimed the six-bore through the window and... * * * * * * Tai was tidying his bedroom and had just drowned under a sea of crud, half of which he'd never seen before in his life (things like bits of unused brain, IQ tester books, long-dead spiders and even longer-dead craneflies, and a dead cat - "So that's where Miko went!") when he heard the shot. "It's the funfair!" he cried happily, thinking that it was the annual carnival in which he enjoyed shooting the little plastic ducks on conveyor belts and winning a tin whistle. - oh, the joys of a tin whistle! - Throwing his head out of the window, he had to retrieve it from the bushes and fix it back on his neck before he could realise what was happening. No funfair - "doh." Just Matt, rolling all over the floor, laughing his head off as if he'd gone insane. And who's to say he hadn't? "Er - Matt?" He laughed harder. "Matt, why are you dressed all in black?" "I'm pretending to be Myotismon. Duh." Matt's sarcasm woke up. "Why did I hear a shot?" "The funfair's come to town?" "Duh? It's not here, Matt." Tai was condescending, as if Matt had really gone insane. "I was being sarcastic." "So why was there a shot?" "Some guy out shooting birds?" "Oh. OK then." Matt made as if to go. "Hey Matt?" "Uh-huh?" "Why is Kori laying face-down in the living room in a rapidly growing pool of strawberry jam? And why are you carrying a six- bore on your shoulder? What's the meaning of the blonde hair I found on the drainpipe? And why are there Matt-sized footprints in the lawn?" Despite all these suspicious-sounding questions, Tai didn't have the faintest clue as to what Matt was doing there. He assumed he was out fishing or something. Matt shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe TK got tired of her." "OK." Matt left. Tai stuck his head in the living room. It took him ages to pull it off again - that superglue was bloody strong. It never occurred to him that his sister might be dead, let alone that Matt had been the perpetrator. He thought Kori had been at the strawberry jam again. She loved that stuff. * * * * * * It escaped no one the next morning that Matt was unusually happy and that TK was unusually depressed. "Personality swap?" suggested Joe. Matt hit him. "OK. No change there," muttered Mimi. "Time you dusted your smile off and give it an airing, Izzy. Just because you lost your hands in some freak chainsaw massacre and you can't use your laptop without pain any more -" Matt began. "- or just because I lost my hands to acid in washing-up liquid poured into my beloved rubber gloves -" growled Izzy by way of interruption. "Oh come on," Sora scowled. "Who'd be nasty enough to do a farfetched thing like that?" "It was Ma -" "- yeah, it was ma sporran. I'm learning Scottish. Ain't it schweet? I can spell bagpipes." Matt interrupted Izzy in a Scottish accent. Joe shrugged. "Righty-ho then." "Stop being Jim Carrey!" Matt complained. "Sorry." "Just because you love him in secret, Matt," Izzy drawled. "Uh? You think I'm gay?" "No. Just incestuous." Mimi butted in. "What a load of crud..." "What-ever," Sora dismissed him. "That's MY line! Gimme!" Matt cried as if in pain that his line was being used by someone who wasn't him. "Here you go then." "Thanks. What-ever." Tai butted in. "What're we doing?" "Not a lot. Standing here debating the usefulness of what-ever," Matt sneered at him. "Oh." "Hey Tai?" queried Matt with genuine curiosity. "Yeah?" "Why do you wear goggles over your head and yet never actually use them?" Tai shrugged. Matt removed the goggles and Tai's head fell off. "Ah. Now I know." "Aren't you going to replace his head, Matt?" "Nah, he's less dangerous this way." "But with no brain he won't be anyway. It doesn't make any difference. I suppose he can't see where he's going -" "All the more reason to leave it off. It'd be well funny." "Matt, put it back or I won't have se -" "OK TK, I'll put it back," Matt said hurredly, and replaced it. "Hello," said Tai. "Hello," said Matt. "Shut up and let's get on with it!" yelled Sora. "It's my birthday!" cried TK, suddenly cheering up. Everyone looked happy. Now they had something to do. "We can give you your presents at home," Matt said, "as long as you promise not to drown under all the mess in there. And I'll give you my prez tonight," he whispered. TK's eyes brightened. "I can't wait!" * * * * * * The Digidurbrains sat on the living room floor in Matt's flat, blowing up balloons with balloon pumps. Matt had got out the vacuum cleaner and just swung it around the room a few times so that all the mess on the floor simply zoomed up the vacuum tube, including the armchairs. He was lucky not to have the vacuum eat the Christmas tree. TK's birthday was just before the festive season. "I totally forgot we even possessed that carpet," Matt muttered in surprise. ""I wonder how long those coffee stains have been there? Wow, there's that book I lost ages ago." "Is that why it's a baby book, Matt?" "What-ever." TK was enjoying himself hugely, playing with the train set Matt had given him (before tonight) and wearing the new hat that Tai and Sora had got him (green, label, same as before just newer). Izzy was nowhere to be seen and Joe and Mimi had got him a mini-harmonica so he could copy Matt. "Good luck," Matt muttered. "As if he'll ever be as good as me." It was after TK had played Beethoven's 5th Symphony accurately on his first try that Matt suspected his little brother had been 'borrowing' his own harmonica when Matt wasn't looking. He fumed a bit and smoke poured from his ears at an alarming rate. He got his own back on Tai. The rest of the Digidurbrains were blowing up the balloons using the balloon pumps. Tai was only half-working being as he and Sora were having a nice snog together. Matt decided to have a bit of fun and show Tai what for. He grabbed the end of a pump, shoved it where the sun don't shine, and gave the pump to TK who set about the task with gusto. "Er- Tai?" asked Mimi. Tai didn't reply, being as he was in the middle of a snog. He began to visibly expand. By the time he was filled just about to capacity, he noticed what was going on. He tried to pull away from Sora, but she didn't notice and pulled him closer in the snog. Tai continued to expand, and his eyes popped out alarmingly. Finally he managed to pull away from Sora. The moment he did, he did a remarkably accurate impression of a balloon which has been blown up completely and then let go. He also made much the same sound. "Pfzzzzzzzzzz!" He flew around the room like a balloon. "He he," giggled Matt. Then he pulled on his gloves. "Bzzzz!" "OWWWW!" "What's wrong, Matt?" asked Joe. "THERE'S A HIVE OF FUCKING BEES IN MY FUCKING GLOVES!!!" Joe thought he heard someone laugh evilly from behind the Christmas tree, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he had imagined it - No, he hadn't. The voice laughed so much - as Matt leapt around the room in pain, trying to dislodge the bees and looking as if he had been covered in itching powder which, of course, Izzy had also put in his gloves - that the tree fell over, completely squashing Sora, Mimi and Joe and revealing Izzy, laughing his head off. The scene was momentarily broken by Tai zooming across the room, still losing air at a dramatic rate and yet not finished yet. "IZZY!" yelled Matt, and threw some bees at him. There was immediate chaos as the bees attacked Izzy and also Joe, Mimi and Sora, who were still trying to get out from under the tree. TK sighed and tried to clean up after them. * * * * * * It was raining and snowing the next morning when the Digidurbrains stepped out onto the street, having their annual Christmas Eve Let's-Go-Anywhere-And-Just-Chill-Out ponder around. "What's with the trainspotter's anorak, Joe?" asked Matt, sarcastically. Joe stammered. "I - I - er, well, I guess I - I'm not really comfortable with what I - I'm becoming." He unzipped the anorak. "Wow Joe," Matt sneered. "Wearing Mimi's clothes really got to you, huh." "Me too," Mimi admitted. "I'm turning into Joe!" Matt looked and cacked evilly. It was true. "But you are Joe -" Tai began. Matt, Sora, Mimi, TK and Joe whacked their heads against the wall. "Never mind," Matt sneered. "Still not managed to pay the old electricity bill, I see." They trooped on, not really knowing where the hell they were going because the author didn't know either. Tai, Izzy and TK lagged behind, walking slower than the rest who were lucky enough to have longer legs and therefore longer strides. Matt stepped through a puddle, followed by Mimi, Joe and Sora. Tai, who followed Sora, stepped in it too. Unlike the others, he fell... down. "Blub - I'm drowning! - blub -" "I think Tai's the only person in the known world for whom it is possible to drown in a puddle," grinned Matt. Izzy and TK carefully stepped around it. To save TK any further trouble Matt gave him a piggy back. Then Izzy threw a snowball at Matt's head. "Hey! Right. You've asked for it big time!" Matt threw one right back. Izzy ducked, and it hit Mimi. "At least snow isn't as disgusting as cowpats," Mimi compromised, and threw herself bodily into the fray. Sora and Tai joined in when Joe threw a very hard snowball at Tai's boy bits. TK helped Matt by whacking snow piles over their opponents' heads. Matt put stones in them so it hurt more. They found it hilarious when they did it to Tai and he didn't respond for a long minute, then said "Bye bye," and dropped flat onto the ground. Unfortunately, the sun quickly melted the snow. "Doh," complained Tai, who was soaking wet. "We should go home and dry off," Sora suggested. The only problem with what seemed like a good idea - to sit in front of the fire and dry off in the warm was that there was a power cut. The cut fried the wires in the boiler which heated the water and Matt decided to try plumbing and fix it. After ages of fruitlessly trying to fit wires together and cutting others and getting fried himself on several occasions, he understandably began to see this job as a threat to his carefully sculpted hair. In a panic born of desperation (everyone was starting gradually to freeze solid), he grabbed the nearest thing to hand to join the last two wires together. Unfortunately for Izzy, the nearest thing to Matt at the time was him. Everything exploded in a scintillating display of multi-coloured lights. But the boiler was fixed. Everyone thawed out dramatically as the boiler overheated. Izzy staggered about after that with charred and blackened skin, fried hair and singed eyebrows. But he conducted electricity now and his laptop fell in love with him. You could see the little red tangible hearts popping out of the disc drive. In fact, thanks to Matt, Izzy was closer to his laptop than ever. The two feuding boys made up and stopped putting live ferrets down each other's trousers. * * * * * * The weather was really being a pain. Yesterday it'd snowed, and today it was stormy. "More like bloody England," Matt remarked acidly. "Great way to go on vacation. Just invite the weather and presto! instant holiday." "Matt?" "Yes, TK?" "Your fly is undone." Fortunately for Matt's sanity, his brother's voice was drowned out by the wind and the rain and nobody heard it, including Matt. TK didn't mind a bit. He didn't exactly want his brother to rectify the situation... "Prodigious," said Izzy. "It appears to be a crude oil-powered automobile possessing a brace of dual levels and encompassing a slightly comfortable seating area, to utilise which one is forced to exchange small, circular metal substitutes for money for a single, minute sheet of manufactured wood-pulp with phrases and numerical symbols typed upon it by using electricity-powered mini-typewriters which produce electronically calculated data." "Hey!" cried Sora. "It's our bus." "Phew," Joe muttered. "I was just coming out in a rash." "Don't tell me you're allergic to rain," Mimi groaned. "Or are you just allergic to Izzy's essays on buses? Oh - this storm is not helping my hair one bit!" There was no one else on the bus, so they went upstairs and threw a little party (no one knows why. It's the incongruity of it that's funny. Well, it's supposed to be funny. Doesn't mean to say it is). "Room for one more?" asked Tai, at the back. "No. Go away," Matt replied. "OK then." Tai climbed out of the window and sat on top of the bus in the wind and the rain and the storm. "Hey, thought," Matt said. "Neat lightning cond -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- uctor." "At least we'll know when -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- the storm's getting closer." "Hey, this way the lightning'll -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- never hit the bus and fry us all to a -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- crisp." "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "That lightning is bloody frequent. I wonder if -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- Tai is OK?" "Well, judging by the -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "-, no." "Riiiiight then." There was a pause. "Hey, for a while he hasn't -" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "- actually, take that last bit back." * * * * * * The Digidestined - "Digidurbrains." Sorry, the Digidurbrains. Anyway, they got off at the bus at the train station. They didn't know where they were going because the author didn't either, but then no one cared. "Where'd Tai go?" asked Sora. "See that small pile of ash on top of the bus?" Matt sneered. "That's the one, there. I suppose we should rename him." "No, that's just Pokemon," replied Joe. "You can't really breach copyright like that." "Who cares?" Matt curled his lip. "It's not like they're any different. Both lack brains, act rashly, dive in at the deep end and hit their heads on the bottom of the pool because they didn't notice that the 'deep end' was in fact the shallow end, that kind of thing. Get real here. Copyright? They're copies of each other, not copyright." "Look," Mimi fumed. "If you lot don't stop arguing we'll miss the train and all this rain's dripping down my neck and it isn't fair because my hat is soaking wet and my feet hurt and have any of you guys seen my glove?" "I know, it's predictable, wear more comfortable shoes, and no," said Izzy. "You should know better. You have the crest of Awful-Pink-Fashion-Sense after all." Mimi hit him. "Just because you are jealous. You want my crest instead of the Crest of Sitting-At-The-Computer-All-Day-And- Not-Doing-A-Lot-Else." "Anything's better than the Crest of Allergies," said Joe. "Gomamon can't stop digivolving into Zudomon, for crying out loud. I'm allergic to everything." Mimi and Izzy groaned. "It's not like we don't know that," Izzy muttered. "What about the Crest of -" "Shut up, TK!" "Why, do they know already? I don't think I've told you guys what crest I have. And -" "- I'm sure they don't want to know," Matt interjected in a hurry. The Crest of Incest-With-Your-Little-Brother-Every-Bloody- Night wasn't really something you went and told the world. "What is Sora's?" "Mine? Mine is the Crest of Under-The-Bedclothes-At-2am-With-Tai," Sora replied. "He he," Matt giggled. "Wonder how many times that one glows?" he added, sarcastically. Sora hit him where the sun don't shine. Finally the train pulled up, and the Digidurbrains got on it. "Hey wow! A carriage all to ourselves!" TK piped up. "Matt, does that mean we can -" "Yes TK, but only if we get another carriage," Matt muttered. Then he turned to the others. "Hey you guys, me and TK are going to the toilet, OK?" "Sure," Sora replied, completely missing the very unsubtle hint as Matt knew she would. Mimi, Izzy and Joe missed it too, as did Tai - well, he'd not only missed the point but the train. "Speaking of Tai..." Sora began, as the train pulled out of the station. She looked back out of the window at the platform to see if she could spot him. Tai was running madly for the end of the train, but he was absolutely nowhere near it. When he got to the end of the platform, he launched himself off at the last carriage, but it was obvious that he was gonna miss completely. He dropped off the end, landed with a smack face down on the tracks, and with a loud BZZZZZZZZ electrocuted himself. "Ah well. No nookie tonight, then," Sora sighed, disappointed. Meanwhile, Matt and TK were doing exactly that in the next carriage when Matt happened to glance up at the window. There, plastered all over the glass, and sticking to it as best he could, was Tai. Matt leapt up, pulled his trousers back up and decided that it'd be best to rejoin the others now anyway. As Matt watched, Tai managed to crawl up to the open window and poked his head through it. "Any room for one more?" he asked, disregarding or not noticing (or simply being too brainless to figure out) that the carriage was empty apart from Matt and TK. "No. Go away." "OK then." He got out of the window and re-plastered himself to the glass. "No problem." "Is it still stormy out there Matt?" "AAAAAAAARRGH!" "Hmm. Guess so." Matt and TK then left the carriage to rejoin the others, leaving Tai to "AAAAAAAARRGH!" himself to death on the window as he attracted lightning like a magnet. Izzy was quite happily playing on his laptop. No one knew what he was doing so no one really cared. Then Tai came in, feeling curious, and reached over the seat and was about to touch the delete key (which, incidentally, would have wiped off everything that Izzy had done on it so far) when he was stopped by the other's voice. "Don't even think about it, Tai. You'll probably break it and cause it to have a fatal error." Then he thought of something. "Even better, it'll cause your brain to have a fatal error." "We live in hope," muttered Matt. "Matt, can I ask you something?" Matt looked at Izzy suspiciously. "Only out of earshot of the others," he replied. "OK then." Izzy pulled Matt over to the other end of the carriage, followed by a more-than-was-safely-curious Tai. "Curiosity killed the primordial soup, Tai. Go away," Matt muttered. "OK then." He pondered off. "Matt, I'm going to be frank -" "I'll be Tom!" Tai cried enthusiastically, having heard what Izzy had said. "I'll be - Hey, hang on a sec. Why'd Tai say - Oh, I get it. Shut up and go away, Tai. Or are you so very eager to be punched through the window?" "OK then." "Anyway Matt, I want to ask you about TK." Matt did a double-take. "How'd you know about me and TK?" "My laptop has ears!" "Oh yeah, and Tai has a brain." The sarcasm virtually dripped off the sentence and congealed on the floor. "Did someone say my name?" "No Tai. I thought I told you to go away?" "Well Matt, technically you did say his name." "Stop picking holes!" "What-ever." "Grr... My line! Gerroff!" "Hey!" Tai butted in, having spotted something green on a nearby seat that moved. "What's that? Can I have one?" "Tai?" Matt curled his lip. "It's an organic sock." "But it's moving!" "It's one of your socks. No wonder it's moving." Suddenly Matt felt something crawl up his leg. "Tai?" "Uh-huh?" "Get off my leg." "But I'm not Tai, Matt!" Matt did another double-take. "Oh! TK! Get off my leg! Izzy's watching..." "What's going on over here then?" "Mimi! What're you doing over here?" asked Izzy, enjoying the spectacle immensely. "TK?" asked Mimi. "What're you doing to Matt's leg?" "TK! Get down from there! You know you suffer from vertigo!" Matt yelled. "TK, what are you doing in Matt's trouser leg?" "Mimi, you really don't want to know what TK is doing wherever he is." "TK, what are you doing in Matt's..." "AAAAAAAAARRGH!" "Good grief Matt! You don't have to yell or anything," Sora tutted from back down the carriage. "Can I join in?" "No, Tai. Go away," said Matt, finally extracting TK from his trouser leg. "Stop persecuting Tai!" Sora yelled at him. "Why? It's not like it's a crime or illegal or anything to persecute primordial soup. Or have you passed a law I don't know about?" Matt turned back to Izzy. "Now, where'd Tai get to?" "Here Matt." *SQUELCH* Grinning nastily, Matt looked down at Tai who was seeing stars and laying on the floor where he'd fallen after he'd been hit and smirked. "Always wondered what I was going to do with that decomposing fish." "Where'd you get a decomposing fish from?" asked Izzy, who wanted to document it on his laptop. "Who knows? The author wanted to do something nasty to Tai maybe?" "Interesting hypothesis Matt. I wonder if I can discover whether your claim of there being an outside force controlling our every action is actually verifiably tr -" *SQUELCH* "That got rid of that," said Matt, dropping the fish and wiping his hands. "Oh, Matt?" "Yes, Tai?" *SQUELCH* "Sorry Sora," Matt said from the floor. "I'm sure Tai didn't mean for me to duck just then." "I'll get you for this Matt. You did that on purpose so you can persecute Tai," Sora growled. "There's a lesson here folks. Never persecute Sor -" *SQUELCH* "... like I said, never get whacked in the face by a decomposing fish either, especially if it is wielded by an angry Sora." "Matt?" asked Sora. "Uh-huh?" Matt was still trying to recover from the decomposing fish in the face. "You are really lame." "Not as lame as Tai's -" "I thought I had warned you never to mention Tai's shortcomings in the sex department in front of the others?" "But Sora, I meant his brain - or at least lack of one..." *SQUELCH* "God, I felt the impact of that. Glad I ducked," Matt muttered. "Oh, Tai! I didn't mean to. It was that nasty Matt who ducked," compromised Sora, having meant to hit Matt with the decomposing fish and accidentally hit Tai instead when Matt had ducked, seeing it coming. "Huh?" As usual Tai had missed the point, but heard his name. "Typical. If he had a brain cell it'd be out looking for a mate," Matt remarked sarcastically. "Isn't everyone forgetting me?" "Everyone forgets you, Joe, because you're boring," Mimi butted in. "Hey Mimi," said Matt, by way of welcome. "Hi Matt," she replied. "Hi Tai." Matt frowned. "Er - Don't wanna split hairs or anything, but why'd Tai say hi to himself?" Tai looked blankly back at him for a long time, then smiled and said condescendingly "Yes, Matt." "Then again we may never know," Matt sighed. "Sorry." Izzy looked up from his laptop. "Who said sorry and why, or is that a silly question?" "I did a silent killer," Tai stated proudly. "Silly question," muttered Matt. Then suddenly a computerised voice echoed around the carriage. "This fart has farted an illegal fart. Close, or fart?" "AAAAAAAAAARRGH!" Izzy yelled, throwing his laptop (and Tai) against the window. "Let me guess." Matt pretended to be thick. "Hmmm, I wonder if Tai's fart may just possibly have caused Izzy's laptop to crash? I couldn't be sure, there's not exactly a lot of proof." "Huh?" asked Tai, having missed the point, the train, and just about everything else. "Can we all please look for Tai's brain?" asked Sora. "Why?" asked Matt. "We don't really wanna make him any more dangerous than he already is, thank you very much." "Enough of the sarcasm Matt, he needs urgent help!" "I know he needs urgent medical help." "Oh! I give up. You win," Sora groaned. "Goody. What'd I win?" asked Tai. "A holiday trip. Over you go," said Matt, tripping him up. "That was fun. Can I do it again?" asked Tai. "Sure. Gives me pleasure any day. Could you do me a favour, though? Make your nose bleed next time." "OK." "Oh, this is fun." * * * * * * Watching Tai tripping over perpetually on the floor, everyone gathered round and laughed at his incongruous happiness (and his nose bleed). Then Mimi, Izzy and Joe turned to Sora and good naturedly teased her about her boyf, forgetting about Tai, who abruptly disappeared - TK, who hadn't been seen for a while anyway - and Matt, who had suddenly started to twitch again. "I feel sooooooooo sorry for you, Sora," Joe muttered. "Yeah, me too," Mimi agreed. "Hey, I can back you up on that one," Izzy nodded. "I second that," Joe repeated. "What about you, Matt?" asked Mimi. Matt twitched uncomfortably. "Huh? Oh, sorry." "It's not like you to miss the point. What have you been doing, Matt?" asked Izzy, in mock concern. "Me? Oh, nothing, nothing." Then Mimi noticed something. "Matt, where'd TK go?" Matt struggled in vain to keep his composure. "TK? Whatever are you talking about?" "Matt..." He started to sweat. "Mm-hmm?" A little moaning noise escaped him. "I - I haven't s - seen TK anywhere." He began to look very uncomfortable. "Is there anything wrong Matt? You look awfully ill," said Mimi, enjoying every moment of his discomfort. "Yeah Matt, you look as if you're going to explode," Joe grinned. "Am I missing something?" "Tai, shut up." Matt squirmed. "Last time I saw TK, he was with Matt," Izzy said, conspiratorially. "Oh yeah! Sora cried. "I remember. He was doing something to Matt's trouser leg." Matt lost it. "G - get h - him outta h - here!" "What? Sorry, didn't hear you," Izzy grinned, enjoying it all immensely. "GET HIM OUTTA HERE!" "Who?" asked Joe, knowing what the answer'd be. "And outta where?" asked Mimi, who knew jolly well who and outta where. "IT'S TAI!!! HE'S UP MY TROUSER LEG!!!" Sora, Mimi, Izzy and Joe all did double takes. "Tai?" They'd plainly all thought it was TK. "How'd Tai get up there?" asked Sora. "And if Tai's the one up your leg..." Izzy thought out loud, "... then where's TK?" "HE'S UP THE OTHER ONE!!!" Matt yelled. "That figures," Izzy muttered, sharing knowing glances with Sora, Mimi and Joe. "Come on you guys! We've gotta help him!" Sora cried. "Yeah!" Izzy agreed, images of one final revenge on Matt springing to mind. "Joe, grab his legs. Mimi, grab his arms," Sora ordered. "Izzy, you analyse the situation." "Hmm. If my calculations are correct we can get them out without causing Matt too much pain," Izzy mused. "Great!" "But we don't wanna give him that!" "Izzy! No!" "We wanna give him... A FERRET UP THE PANTS!!!" *CHOMP* "AAAAAAAARRGH!!!" * * * * * * Eventually a group of tired but happy Digidurbrains made their way back to Matt's flat. That is, six of them were tired and happy. Matt was tired and hurt. He wondered whether he would ever be able to use it again. Tai was in his own sad little dreamworld as usual, so no one noticed him much. In Matt's flat, the gang lounged out in front of the TV for a few hours, watching Mimi's obligatory fashion program, Matt's documentary about Bon Jovi, Sora's episode of Friends, Joe's BBC Homework Help session (they taped that while watching something else because it was so boring for everyone except Joe), Izzy's program about the origin of the word 'kilobyte' and the invention of the laptop, TK's kiddie television and Tai's daily helping of Mopatop's Shop [very very sad kiddie's program - Ed]. Because it was Christmas Eve they all argued about present arrangements for the next day and only agreed on anything because Matt threatened to get the vacuum out if they didn't. He did it anyway to get his own back on Izzy, and he was sore for the rest of the evening. In the morning, TK was the first up at 3am, jumping up and down on Matt's bed and yelling "It's Christmas, it's Christmas, it's Christmas" loudly enough to wake the whole neighbourhood (which of course he did). Matt turned over, looked at the clock, threw it at TK and went back to sleep. Everyone was rudely awoken again at about 5am when there was a commotion in the living room. Excited that Santa Claus had finally arrived ("Exactly 839.384438747408408340 seconds late after last year," Izzy said), TK had leapt up from the floor where the alarm clock had knocked him out and ran into the lounge, joined by the rest. What greeted them was in fact Santa Claus - or at least Tai dressed as him, hanging upside down with his foot in a rope noose hanging from the top of the Christmas tree and going "Ow, bugger me, that hurt!" as he whacked systematically against the sharp needles on the tree. TK looked up at Matt. "Matt, do you like my Santa Claus trap?" "Sure TK. Anything to persecute Tai. You're learning remarkably fast." "Yeah, learning by example, not naming any names," Sora growled, looking pointedly at Matt. "Well, isn't it my job to teach him crud like that?" Matt grinned. "Hey! I know," he said, and went over and untangled Tai from the rope and the tree. "Wow, thanks Matt," said Tai. "That's the first nice thing you've ever done to -" He didn't finish, as Matt suddenly attacked his hair with a chainsaw. "AAAAARRGH!" Tai yelled. After the chainsaw came sounds of wood being cut to size, then being woven into nice strips, then being attached to Tai's hair. Then Matt pinched some flowers from a nearby vase and stuffed them randomly in the hanging basket that was now Tai's hair. "Nice," Sora approved. "I like it. So you do have a sense of the romantic, Matt." "Yes," Izzy agreed. "In fact I never really thought it was possible for Matt to do anything like that." And with that he went back to his laptop. Matt looked at Tai. "There's something missing," he muttered. Then it hit him. "Oh yes," he grinned, and got a match. Tai, who was still in the Santa Claus outfit, watched Matt with interest. Light your farts competition, maybe? Ooh, I love light your farts competitions, he thought. Matt lit the match and held it to Tai's beard. "AAAAAAARRGH!!" Tai yelled, for the second time in as many minutes, and ran around waving his arms in the air to try and put it out. Of course, as anyone who has ever been on fire will know, this only served to worsen his situation and the fire spread to the fluffy bits on his clothes. "Heh heh," Matt giggled, contentedly. "That was nasty," Mimi agreed. "Bloody funny, though." "Matt?" "Yes, TK?" "Can we open our presents now?" "What-ever," Matt drawled. Izzy had been nasty this year. Matt unwrapped a ferret lead, and Mimi got the Pink album. "Just because I like the colour doesn't mean to say I like the singer!" she complained. "I'll have it," Matt compromised. "I like her music." "But I don't want a ferret lead!" "Oh yes you do. Well, which would you rather have? You could use the ferret lead for so many things." "Like...?" Matt thought industriously. "Er - well, you could use it to - er - take your fish for walkies," he said, desperately. Mimi was duped. "Wow! OK then. We'll swap." "What-ever." Matt got Tai some flowers for his hanging basket being as all his old ones had been eaten by the fire which had so unfortunately started up, "probably from him leaning too far over the oven." "Matt, you're not fooling anyone." "Fine! Don't believe me then." TK was given several train sets, but he didn't mind, because he now had one big enough to tie Tai to. "That's right," Matt encouraged him. "You can borrow Izzy's wires." "No you can't!" Izzy complained, but it was unfortunate that just at that moment his brain decided to announce its retirement. "This brain will have to explode due to an information overload. Sorry and all that. Hope you enjoyed using it. Have a nice day." "Why do all these message-readers have to be so damned happy about such things?" Izzy moaned, before his brain exploded. "Er - because it isn't their brain that's exploding?" Matt theorised. Izzy would have glared at him but his brain didn't exist any more to be able to tell his eyes to glare, which didn't help. Matt adjourned into the kitchen to check out the chicken, and found Tai, who was about to open the oven and do what Matt had come in to do. "No Tai! DON'T YOU DARE FART IN THE OVEN -" *PARP* The resulting fireball incinerated the chicken, the potatoes, the cabbage, Matt's eyebrows, and Tai. "Look on the bright side," Matt muttered. "No one likes cabbage anyway. Oh well, back to the drawing board." Later in the day, while Matt was poking the second chicken when it was half-done, Tai came in again. "If you fart this time I will personally dismantle your hanging basket," said Matt. Because Tai had become rather attached to his hanging basket, he refrained from letting one off. But he came over to look at the chicken anyway. "Don't get too close," Matt growled. Tai didn't listen. He peered closely at it. The chicken plainly didn't approve, because at that moment a large glob of piping hot grease attacked him. "AAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!" Tai yelled, leaping backwards and falling over TK who had come in to watch Matt. From there he fell through the living room door and into the fire, which Sora had turned on because it was cold. "Shame," Matt muttered sarcastically. TK laughed with him. "You're as evil as Matt, TK," said Joe. "I wonder where he gets it from?" he added, looking accusingly and pointedly at Matt. "I didn't do a thing!" Matt giggled. "I swear! He only copies me." "And whose fault is that?" Sora muttered from the kitchen door. "Look, I didn't choose to have a baby brother, OK?" "But Matt, I thought you liked the nights we spend doing -" "I do, but I'm just trying to think of an excuse to get out of being fried by Sora and Joe," Matt explained. Sora returned to the living room, where she admired her present from Tai, a new brassiere. "Oooh, it's lovely and flowery," she said. "Tai, I loooooove you lots." "Huh?" said the little pile of ash in the fire. "Tai dear, can you take my old bra off please so I can try the new one on? Oh, and lock the door." "Huh?" "Never mind, I'll lock the door." Tai came over and started to wrestle with the catch on her bra. "Oof. Ow! Hey! Gimme a left hook, willya? Right! Let's see how you'll take a fist in the jaw! Take that, you piece of mincemeat! Ooh! Slap me, now? Come on, I betcha a coward really." The bra wrapped around his face and started to suffocate him on the floor. "Ow! Try to strangle me, willya? You need to learn some manners! Ulp..." Sora reached down and pulled the bra off of Tai. "Stop fighting with Tai," she berated it. "You're a right little bully." The bra looked apologetic. "Too late for sorry now. You're going in the very bottom of my linen drawer," she told it by way of punishment. "Aww," complained the bra. Meanwhile, Matt served up dinner: chicken, potatoes and not a lot else. "The first chicken exploded when Tai farted, the cabbage is ashes and if you find my eyebrows I'd be very grateful," Matt had explained. They tucked in, and if anyone found Matt's eyebrows they were very quiet about it, although at one point Tai clutched his throat and started to choke, so Matt gave up all hope of ever getting them back. "Drat," he swore. "I was just getting attached to those eyebrows." And they all had a minute's silence for Matt's dead eyebrows. It was a few minutes later when Tai found himself alone in the kitchen with the Christmas pudding mixture, waiting to be put into the tin for cooking. Thinking that it might make him more intelligent if he fed himself a book, he decided to put a book in and see what happened. So he dropped the smallest one he could find into the mixture and folded it in carefully, crossing his fingers and hoping he would get the slice with the book in. Fat chance. When Matt served up the pudding later, he had not noticed that there was a book in the mixture. When Tai got his slice, he peered closely at it to see if he had the book, but the paperback was so small he couldn't tell. Half-way through his slice, Matt felt something lumpy slice down his throat. "Hey!" he choked a bit. "There's something lumpy in the pudding!" "There wasn't anything in our slices," Sora, Mimi and Joe checked. "Must've been the sixpence." "You don't swallow the sixpence. And it wasn't that shape," said Matt. Then he shouted "Hey! This bloody hurts! This thing is doing something really painful to my -" Suddenly, he shut up. Everyone watched him with a frown on their faces. "Can I confess something?" Tai asked. "Shut up!" Mimi told him. "This is interesting." Matt was looking at everyone with a serene smile on his face. "I am calm," he recited. "The way to being calm is through the path of enlightenment." "Er -" Tai explained. "I put the Little Book of Calm in the Christmas pudding mixture." Matt began to give off a soft white light. "To stay calm breathe in and out and think of the sea," he murmured. "Wow. I think he assimilated the Little Book of Calm into his system," Izzy theorised, having recovered from his brain exploding earlier. "Ask him if he loves TK!" Mimi whispered excitedly. "Do you love TK?" asked Joe. Matt looked serenely down at him. "No. The way to being calm is to believe that you are the sea. Think of the waves." "But just because he has swallowed the Little Book of Calm doesn't mean to say he can't lie," Izzy said. "And now he can't get angry if we press him too much. All he'll say is no. We'll run out of patience before he does - if he does." "Damn!" everyone swore. "The way to true peace of mind is through the Little Book of -" "SHUT UP MATT!!!" "You must remain calm because lack of calm is conductive to heart attacks." They all left him in the kitchen, quoting from the Little Book of Calm. Tai was in the living room when they returned from tying Matt to the vacuum cleaner in the hope that the book would eventually be leeched out of his system. He had a small moustache on and was looking strangely intelligent. In a heavy German accent he began to speak. "Zis is clearly obvious zat Matt und TK sind gay partners. I have zeen many thingz. Zey have had it off in front of me - me, Hitler - zinking zat I vas simple Tai. But I am alive! Ha ha ha! And I am going to keel you all, starting wiz Matt und TK because I hate ze gays. I don't really like des Jews or gypsies eezer. But I am Hitler and I am ze dictator of ze whole world!" Sora, Mimi, Joe, Izzy and TK stared at him. Then Tai put his arm down, removed the moustache and sat down and stared at them. "Er - Hitler?" Silence. "Tai?" "Uh-huh?" "Where'd Hitler go?" "What?" "Weren't you possessed by Hitler?" "No." "What was all that crap about Matt and TK then?" "Huh?" "He doesn't remember," Izzy theorised. I believe that Hitler has vacated the body and gone to look for a better one. He didn't find enough brains in Tai's mortal shell." "Oh," said Sora, Mimi and Joe, as if they'd known that all along. And Tai sat there and stared at them and wondered what the hell they were going on about. In the kitchen the Little Book of Calm finally got out of Matt's system, obviously not liking what it found there as it was totally anti-sarcasm and basically there was far too much of it in Matt for the book to fight, so it gave up and went looking for someone else to inhabit. It found Hitler's spirit. "AAAAAAAAARRGH" Hitler yelled. "What was that?" Matt asked, coming into the living room. "Dunno," Sora replied. "Sounded familiar," Joe muttered. Matt looked out of the window. "Nothing there." Meanwhile, Hitler had become calm. "Ze path to ultimate calm is zrough ze oesophagus and into ze stomach. Ze Leetle Book of Calm is ze ruler of ze world." "Hear something, Izzy?" "Nope." Matt frowned. "I swear I heard the Little Book of Calm..." Everyone attacked him, having heard just about enough of that bloody book. That night, Joe went to bed with Mimi, Izzy went to bed with his laptop, Matt went to bed with TK, TK went to bed with Matt, Tai went to the fridge for a midnight snack (at 3am, so he was a little bit late) and Sora pulled him back up to bed. And of course, the ferret went to bed with Matt. *CHOMP* "AAAAAARRGH!" The End