Meap Me in St. Louis

Chapter 7: Plans Interrupted

BRIELLE

So, get a kick of this: Avalon gave Dr. Doofenshmirtz permission to use our bathroom for drafting up his blueprints. Within thirty minutes, he says he's finished. Whatever cartoon world these guys are from must not abide by the same rules of physics as us. Or logic.

Of course, Avalon's too cynical to just accept his work as done like that, so she requests (more like demands) to look at the blueprints herself, while Doofenshmirtz and I wait silently in the living room. For the past hour, I've been torn between whether or not to text Avery about what's going on, just so she's aware. She and the gang have their Homecoming dance tomorrow, so I wouldn't want them to stress out or even cancel their plans, but at the same time I think I'd feel much safer with them around. Perry and Peter back up Dr. Doofenshmirtz's story, but again, we don't know what kind of standards their universe follows. Maybe this whole thing is just a ploy for Dr. Doofenshmirtz to concoct mayhem. All I can hope for is that his machine does whatever it needs to do to send them back and get them out of our hair.

Avalon returns a few minutes later, with Perry and Peter at her sides. "Alright, I've just finished going over the blueprints with Perry and Peter, and I have a few suggestions for improvements," she says.

"Oh, goody! Whatcha got?" Dr. Doofenshmirtz grins, kicking back on my bed. I'd rather he not use our beds (hell, we don't know if they have any diseases or any other contamination), but for now I should just leave it.

"Well, first and foremost, and I don't even know why I have to ask this... why does this thing need a self-destruct button?" Avalon points to a button on the blueprint sheet labelled as such, sighing in frustration. Perry frowns at Dr. Doofenshmirtz, glaring at him like he's completely lost his mind. Which I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he has.

Doofenshmirtz shrugs. "It's my thing. I always like to include one."

"Well, we're definitely NOT including that," Avalon mutters, scratching that part of the schematics off with a marker. "Besides that, I've marked a few areas where you could optimize energy usage, and other than that it all looks good."

"Great!" Dr. Doofenshmirtz exclaims, looking so anxious to get started. "I'll get right to it."

"While you do that, I'm gonna go chill in the hotel lobby," Avalon says, grabbing her phone and heading towards the door. "I need some quiet, alone time so I can contemplate everything that's happened in the past two hours. Text me when you decide to pack up for the night."

"Whatever you say, senorita."

Avalon opens her mouth to retort back, shuts it, and just groans to herself before exiting.

AVALON

Everyone's had those moments where you just need to remove yourself from the situation. Where shit's gotten so off the rails that you need time to sit back and process it all so you can make sense of it. Or when you're already so tired and have used so much brainpower that continuing to stick around might just drive you insane.

I have those moments more often than most.

The lobby is mostly emptied when I enter. The TV is on to some news station that I don't care for, and no one's at the front desk to engage with me. I lay down on one of the spare couches, jam my AirPods into my ears, and get some lo-fi music going on my phone. I'm not one of those people who often uses music as an escape from reality, but it does occasionally help take my mind off of anything that's causing stress, and I sure as hell could use that at the moment.

Cartoon characters in the real world. The multiverse. Anthropomorphic animals that work as secret agents. A quote-en-quote "evil" scientist. Technology capable of sending people to other universes. All of it sounds so outlandish, like something you'd read in a fictional story, yet it's all real, and I'm experiencing it firsthand. Just when I thought I'd seen all this world has to offer, another world decides to collide with ours to offer something more.