A spectre is haunting Possible Manor -- the spectre of DNAmy. Even Helen, who normally haunted the place, felt the tension, which seemed limited to the adults -- the twins seemed happier than usual. She found the girls putting a pillow and an old blanket into a box by the bunkbed. She cocked her head slightly and raised an eyebrow.
“We're going to get a pet!” Kasy told her.
Helen had liked her dog. She held out her hands, fairly close together, and slowly moved them apart.
Sheki looked at Kasy, who shook her head. “We don't know how big,” Sheki told the white lady. “Why aren't you talking?”
“Because almost no one can hear me. Many people can't even see me.”
“What did she say?” Kasy demanded.
“You're very special,” Helen told her, stretching out her hand to Sheki's head. The little girl was never certain if she really felt the white lady's touch or only imagined Helen patting her hair.
Shego worked hard on their anniversary to keep Kim's mind off the party. After dinner and dancing they came home to find Tim asleep on the couch, television still on. Shego turned off the set while Kim put a blanket over her brother, “Let him sleep here,” she whispered to her partner before they headed upstairs.
Bonnie's door was open as they went by and Kim couldn't resist peeking in. “She's not there. Are they still out or should we check Ron's room?”
Shego shook her head in disgust, “You aren't supposed to be thinking of anyone but me.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She moved in and kissed Kim deeply, her fingers finding the zipper on the little black dress with a skill born of practice and unzipping it while her lips and tongue kept the redhead distracted. She moved her body slightly away from Kim's and the dress fell to the floor. “If you don't want the girls to catch us making out in the hall you'll come to the bedroom now.”
Shego proved amazingly effective in helping Kim forget about DNAmy. Indeed, by the time the redhead fell asleep in her lover's arms an hour later she not only would not have remembered DNAmy's name but she would not have remembered the month, what state she lived in, or even her own name. Kim was purring in her sleep as Shego pulled a blanket over them and adjusted her body temperature to keep them both warm. “Happy anniversary, Princess,” she murmured before she too drifted off.
It was impossible to sleep late on the day that four-year olds were having a birthday party. The twins were in bouncing on their bed at 6:30. “Go away,” Kim ordered and pulled a pillow over her head.
The order didn't faze them. “Time to get up Eemah!” Kasy urged.
“Five bucks to each of you if you let me have another half hour of sleep.”
“Uncle Ron is making breakfast!” Sheki told her.
“Ron was up this early?”
“We woke him up first--”
“No, second, uncle Tim was first.”
Shego groaned, “Okay girls, we're moving.” She nudged Kim, “Time to get up.”
“Five more minutes, please.”
“No.”
“You're mean.”
Shego addressed the girls, “You'd better leave. I think mommy forget to get into her pajamas when she went to bed last night. And I'm going to pull the blanket off her in thirty seconds.
Kim grabbed the blanket and held on tight, “You wouldn't,” knowing full well that Shego would.
“Nineteen… Eighteen… Seventeen…” The twins ran from the room, clattering down the stairs towards the kitchen.
“Good, they're gone. Give me fifteen more minutes to sleep.”
“Three… Two… One…”
Everyone in the kitchen heard Kim's shriek. Jim might have heard it out in the garage.
Kim stumbled into the kitchen behind Shego, and went straight for her drug of choice. After pouring herself a cup she put in a packet of Splenda and took a hit. While they waited for the coffee to bring Kim back to life Ron, Bonnie, and Shego laid out the schedule for party preparations.
“Are you and Jim coming up to help?” Shego asked.
“No way, we'll be at the U or out at Lipsky and Load.”
“Remember, your folks will be here. They may check out your apartment. Better throw out the pizza boxes and hide any porn.”
“Do they still print porn? I think that's why they invented the internet.”
Part way down her second cup of coffee Kim became fully functional and joined in getting the house ready. Kim's parents were over early to help, and Tara also arrived early with Jessica and Jason. By the time the blonde arrived the house was ready and the twins took her two children off to see the pet bed.
Tara took a thick envelope out of her purse, “I had prints made for you of some of the Halloween pictures.”
“Show them to Bonnie, she hasn't seen them.”
Bonnie gave an appropriate squeal, “They are so cute!”
“I know; my Jessica is the perfect Bubbles. And Kasy was wonderful as Blossom, and Sheki as Buttercup.”
“Is that Jason?”
“Yes, Ron made the Mojo Jojo mask.”
Bonnie smiled, “He's got many talents,” then noticed Kim in the background on one of the pictures. “And what were you dressed as?” she asked the redhead.
“I was dressed like a mother going around with her daughters. Shego gets the job next year.”
“Switching off every year until they're old enough to go by themselves?”
“No, Shego can't be trusted. She got into costume to give out candy here. Nearly caused a riot. Didn't I tell you?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“You'd have remembered. Shego dressed up as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark--”
“Isn't she the one with the really low-cut--”
“Oh yeah, that's her. We ran out of candy big time. When I got home there must have been two hundred guys in the yard. The police finally had to shoo the crowd away.”
“And I caught a chest cold,” Shego added.
“No sympathy. You brought the cold front on yourself.”
The party began with lunch and Kim's dad was put in charge of grilling burgers and hot dogs as the children started to arrive.
The planned games after lunch worked well, with the twins proving amazingly adept at a game where every player had a balloon tied to one leg while trying to break other players' balloons. All the adults were tired of blowing up balloons by the time they exhausted the supply of balloons after three rounds.
Some of the activities were less structured. While few kids had seen a real banister before they instinctively knew what to do with the grand staircase whenever an adult wasn't looking. Justine caught Jason with three other boys opening and closing the basement door, hoping it would open someplace interesting. She stopped them before they could go down into what looked like the Serengeti. She closed the door quickly when she heard what might have been a lion's roar in the distance and stationed a puzzled Methodist mom in the kitchen who wondered why she was to keep kids away from the basement door. Shego confiscated a roll of Mentos and wondered how to take strawberry soda stains off the ceiling. And Kim contained the fire damage to the living room couch. She hoped the device had accidentally fallen from Tim's pocket, because if he left there on purpose…
Ron got into costume to provide entertainment before cake and ice cream. “Knock-em dead,” Bonnie said, giving him a kiss for encouragement. “I've always thought your humor was perfect for four year olds.”
“You're just jealous that I'm the entertainment and you're not.”
“No, I'm just happy you're wearing suspenders so your pants can't fall down,” she said, pulling a suspender and letting it snap back on him.
“I'll take them off after the party, if you want.”
Then cake, ice cream, and a fight over which twin got to sit by Jason. “I told you he's trouble,” Kim hissed at Shego.
“They're too young to be fighting over a boy,” Shego whispered back.
By 3:45 the house was cleared of children, except the twins and Tara's pair as she offered to help with cleanup. They left a half hour later, Jason complaining he wanted to see the new pet.
“I'm getting too old for this,” James Possible complained as he swept up wrapping paper.
“At least it's not at our place,” his wife reminded him.
At 4:27 the doorbell rang. “I'll get it,” Shego offered.
A minute later she led in the stout geneticist, who was carrying two boxes, while the twins jumped around her like excited puppies.
“Not so loud,” 'Holly' warned them, “he's probably asleep.”
Kim felt some relief that the box with air holes was fairly small. Everyone gathered around the kitchen table as the geneticist carefully sat down her burden. Kim's parents stood to the side, not sure how to react to the woman who had helped make them grandparents. There was a collective gasp as Amy unfolded the towel from a small, curled up form.
“It's beautiful, look at the colors.”
“It can't be real.”
“Is he real?” Kasy demanded.
“Yes, dear,” 'Holly' assured her.
To underline the point two black eyes opened, a tiny mouth yawned, and someone stretched out to his entire glorious eleven inches, half of which was tail.
“Can I hold him?” Sheki whispered.
Shego wasn't sure it was a good idea, but Amy handed the creature over. “Be careful, he's just a baby.”
“Can we show him our room?”
“Go ahead,” Amy said cheerfully. The worried grandparents left with the twins.
“You told me once that your portmanteau creatures didn't live very long,” Kim reminded Amy.
“That's when I combine adults. This was embryology and gene splicing. I don't know how long it might live.”
Shego interrupted. “What does it eat?”
“You had some good luck there, it should eat about anything: insects, mice, fruit and vegetables. There is no ruminant in him, though. He won't eat grass.”
“Can it fly?” Ron wanted to know.
“I doubt it, I just thought the bat wings would look nice. It's hard to say though. He is just a baby. The skeletal system appears light, however, so he might learn.”
Shego came back with another practical question, “How big will he get?” In his present size a large terrarium sounded ideal.
“Well, I really can't tell about that either. Most of the parts are from creatures that stay small.”
“Most?” Kim echoed
“Yes, but who knows what will dominate. There's never been anything like him.”
“Except in nightmares,” Kim thought. “Anything else?”
Amy hesitated, and handed over the second box. Shego opened the top, exposing dozens of vials with green, yellow, and red stoppers.
“What is it?” Shego asked.
“Antidote.”
“Antidote?”
“The beaded lizards that gave some of the coloring were poisonous--”
“The twins--”
“Are perfectly safe. I took DNA samples when I was here. He won't want to bite them, and the poison wouldn't affect them. For anyone else… Let him get to know you. You can take the dose in a green vial orally for up to six hours after a bite -- or as long as you can swallow. The yellow vial requires an injection if the person can't swallow any more. If the pupils are no longer dilating inject the red, call the hospital and hope for the best.”
Amy's news was still sinking in when James Possible called from the top of the stairs, “Kimmie-cub? Where are the bandaids?”
“Why dad?”
“I tickled the little fellow and he nipped me.”
---The End---