The Daughters of the Mayze

Cupcakes and Conundrums

Echo stood in line with her friends at the FUNSTA cupcake booth that had been set up at school. She wasn't planning on accepting any, she much preferred chocolate or berry flavours over the excessively sweet taste that sugar substitutes gave desserts and told her friends as much. Mr Flatley, of course acted like the slightly more intelligent, less restrained version of Roly that he was and grabbed about ten cupcakes before running off. Preston came running up,

"Don't touch the cupcakes if you value your health! They're loaded with cupodium! Say no to artificial ingredients!"

Tom smiled like he thought Preston was being cute in a toddler-like way, "Chill, Preston! Cupodium's much healthier than sugar."

Echo and Keri looked downwards and while Echo restrained herself to dramatically retching, Keri's inner fashion demon was unleashed at the sight of the worst fashion faux pas they had seen in a while,

"I'll sign if you promise to change those shoes." she drew attention to the horrors Preston had voluntarily put on his feet. He was wearing grey socks with a pair of brown, leather fisherman's sandals. Tom laughed as the protest happy boy looked up indignantly,

"No way! Serious people only."

"Shame my name isn't Sirius then," Echo drawled, "Wait, no it isn't, because even if I could bring myself to care enough to join one of your campaigns, you were rude to Keri last week and I'm feeling pettier than usual." Keri refrained from spitefully grabbing the clipboard as Aniesha showed them all their glowing pencils. They ran off, leaving Preston shouting something he clearly thought was witty after them.

Echo extended the crutch to gain some momentum as she ran and was the first to the key pad. She activated it and stuck her tongue out playfully at her friends. They had turned this into a game of sorts recently, the first one to the keypad got the first treat that the others came across, that meant it was usually biscuits as they were alays in the base for Tom. She was abusing having the crutch because it actually helped her speed up recently and was rather disappointed that she was giving it back today. They walked into the elevator and she returned the piece of metal to pocket size and, once all of them were squeezed in, pulled the mop/lever. Down they went, donning their spy gear as they went. As they stepped out, Frank jumped straight into the mission briefing,

"This is President Carlotta of Cartania." Echo handed the small crutch to Frank and as they looked through the shots they had of Carlotta, Keri made a typical comment about her fashion sence and Echo got fed up of it,

"Keri, Let me make you a deal. If you can refrain from distracting yourself or commenting on fashion whilst you're stood up and working just for today, then I will buy you a 30 pound gift card by next week. Deal?" The other redhead in the room nodded, "Great, now mind on the mission." they turned back to Frank and Echo caught sight of Dan's relieved expression; it seemed as though he also was tired of Keri's fashionable exploits.

"She's sneaked into the UK undercover. We've never seen a head of state do that before." Frank said,

Aniesha spoke up next, What's she up to?"

"Holding secret discussions with this man."

"George Monblot," Tom supplied, "He advises the government on healthy eating."

"Not anymore," Frank contradicted him, "He lost his job last week for taking a stand against cupodium. He's threatened revenge."

"See, I don't get it. Cupodium's safe. It's a great substitute for sugar." Tom said, getting annoyed at people seemingly ignoring sound science.

"But it's made in a lab. Monoblot and Carlotta are opposed to all chemically engineered ingredients," Frank pointed out, "The first cupodium based cupcakes are in the shops today. It's too much of a coincidence that these two are meeting up. We need to know what they're discussing."