The True Story of Emily Lockwood / g. karim

𝟝. 𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕣

A/n: Happy saturday, everyone! I'm on a weeklong break from school, so expect more updates! Going to start the show's plot in the next chapter - so stay tuned! Also, thank you for all the love! Not even a week ago I published this, and we're almost at 1k reads! Absolutely insane. Anyways, onto this segment of the summer months, here at Lockwood and Co! Welcome home. 

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--Spring came and went much too quickly, in a dizzying rush of baking cakes, working on jobs, gardening - vegetables really were more delicious when you've grown them - and setting up Lockwood and Co. to invite another agent into their midst. 

"We need another member," Anthony said one morning at breakfast, then promptly attacked his boiled egg with a little too much force. Emily froze, a piece of toast in hand. George peered up from the morning paper, dark eyebrows raised above the rim of his glasses. 

"Who did you have in mind?" The boy asked, grabbing his teacup as if it were a lifeline. 

Which, it sometimes was. 

"Even out the playing field," Anthony waved his hand dismissively. He then leaned his elbows on the thinking cloth, now littered with small doodles. Profession and, well, otherwise. Currently, Emily's saucer was covering a rather crude drawing - a gift from Ant to George a few weeks ago. "I say, we get another girl." 

Emily arched an eyebrow "Don't talk as if we're something to hoard away, Anthony," she tsked, pointing at him with her toast threateningly. "you're in the wrong century." 

"Oh, you're so scary," he plucked her toast from her hand and munched on it. 

"Why a girl?" George asked innocently. 

"Well, our darling Emily here might implode if she's to be alone with us two chaps, with no girlfriends." Emily's lip turned up in disgust. 

"I don't need girlfriends," she exaggerated the last word "I need sane human beings to be around." Lockwood pretended to be shot. 

"Are you saying we're not sane, then?" His tone was challenging

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Isn't it odd how perception works," George asked them, eyes drifting away in his normal fashion, whenever he had a good idea. "that to Emmy, we might be insane, but to us, we are perfectly normal?"

"No, we're not," Anthony sighed dramatically. "we're exquisite. Better than normal, I'd say," 

"Mmm," Emily took a long drag from her tea - which was sweetened to the point of borderline disgust. "yes, you're both lovely. How do you propose we do this, brother?" 

Anthony smirked. "Glad you asked." 

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--"An add in the paper?" Emily asked incredulously when Lockwood showed her what had cost them more pounds than Emily had ever spent in one place. 

He threw it down with a flourish onto George's lap, who'd been listening to Emily hum little tunes to the plants. She hated the way he looked at her sometimes, it made her want to scream and cry and kiss the stupid look off his face - not that she would ever do any of those. 

"Yes! An add in the paper! They'll be flocking here within a day, I tell you." Emily set down her watering can, and George sunk back into the armchair further, as if trying to fuse with the fibres. 

"You do realize," she began, picking up the paper and examining it "that you've given our address to every single person who reads the post today? Ant, you know there's people who want to see us, well, dead."