Exciti

Chapter 27 (Liam)

The day after Halloween, Liam stood in front of the club door, hesitating with his hand on the knob. He knew Adam and Lucy would be waiting for him inside so they can go have lunch together in Mercury, as they did every day for the last couple of weeks, but he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to them at the moment.

He sighed and ruffled his fuzzy hair. He always dreamt about his mother after a stressful day, and the nightmares tended to throw him off for a few days afterward. The dreams were even worse than Friday dinners with his grandparents, where her memories served as a centerpiece.

He was still trying to compose himself when a hand touched his shoulder, startling him.

Lucy stood behind him. "Aren't you going in?" she signed

"You almost gave me a heart attack," he mouthed with his hand on his chest.

"I had to do something. You were looking pretty suspicious standing there," she said, remorseless.

He shook his head at her, then turned and pushed the door open.

The door swung for a few inches before a force inside the room slammed it shut in Liam's face. He exchanged a frown with Lucy then pushed the door again. This time the door flew open, and Adam grabbed them both then dragged them into the room, shutting the door behind them.

"What is...?" Liam started to sign. Then he saw what was behind Adam and mouthed, "Oh no!"

Blue lines of light, like the ones that made the Tail eagle from yesterday, glowed in the middle of the club room. Only this time, it was in the shape of a woman in a toga with a laurel wreath over her head.

Liam's head whipped in Adam's direction, "You got another coin?"

Adam scratched his head. "No, I was trying to get the eagle out of the barber coin again. But she came out instead."

Lucy looked scandalized. "You were trying to get the eagle out in the middle of the school!?"

Adam shrugged, "I can't exactly do that at home."

Lucy raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, it was here or the boys' room!" he objected.

"The men's toilets?!" exclaimed the woman, "How humiliating! I will have you know that I represent the goddess of Liberty!"

Adam stepped toward her and put his hands on his hips, as if her mere presence offended him, "Where is Barb?"

She sighed, her lines moving like a three-dimensional sketch, "I am Barb, well, the other side of Barb. You know how every coin has two sides? Well, I'm what you get on the heads side, and the eagle is the one you get on the tails side, hence the name Tail."

Adam paled, "So, if I had pulled heads yesterday..."

The woman smiled as if enjoying his terrifying mental image, "You would have had a very pleasant screaming buddy all the way to the Waters Below."

Adam looked mildly nauseous. "How nice of you!"

The woman laughed, morphed into an eagle, then morphed right back, "Relax. I told you, we are two sides to the same coin."

Lucy looked at her wristwatch, as if she conjured women out of coins every other weekend. "We better go soon. I would hate for anyone to walk in on us and see her. It would be too much paperwork."

When they opened the door to Mercury, Lago was already by the couch. He was beaming and holding a tray laden with their favorite carbs: root beer, quesadillas, and brownies. The four of them climbed through and closed the doors after them.

Liam couldn't help but smile as he plucked a plate off the tray. He had grown fond of Lago over the last couple of weeks. It couldn't be helped, the Excitus did make the best quesadillas in the world! Not to mention his awesome stories, once Liam learned to understand his Elizabethan English.

Lago was over three hundred years old and had traveled the world for a hundred and fifty of them. Liam loved to listen to him, especially when he told them about the trouble and misadventures he kept getting himself into. They were hilarious!

He bit into the gooey, warm goodness of a quesadilla and renewed his oath to never eat the cafeteria's tasteless lunch ever again. In fact, he was so deep in his cheesy heaven that it took him several seconds to notice that Lago had stopped beaming. He was staring, slack-jawed, at Barb.

Lago finally blinked and bent to whisper to Adam, "Wilt thee introduce me to the lady?"

Adam managed around a mouthful of brownies, "Barb, Lago. Lago, Barb."

The root beers swayed as Lago plunked the tray on the coffee table. Lucy leaped forward and rescued the glasses then stared with raised eyebrows at Lago, who wiped his hands on his frilly apron before he took Barb's hand, bowed and kissed it. "Charmed I'm sure."

Adam wrinkled his nose, and Liam stifled a snicker. Lago was in worse trouble than the time when he tried to establish a friendship with a tigress in the forests of Asia decades ago.

Barb finally managed to extract her hand from Lago's, "Well, now that we are done with introductions. I shall retire to my coin." Her lines then unfurled and traveled into Adam's pocket.

Lago looked like he wanted to dive into Adam's pocket, too.

Lucy cleared her throat, "Um, Lago?"

"Hmm?" He sighed, distracted.

"Something is burning in the kitchen!"

Lago gave her a blank stare and then gasped, "The brownies!" before he ran to the kitchen.

Lucy grinned after him until Adam asked her, "How bad was it?"

"How bad was what?"

"Your punishment for yesterday."

"Oh," she waved a dismissive hand, "Nothing too bad, only a few weeks of work in the undesirable duties department."

Liam stopped chewing. "Sounds like the department that handles Exciti toilets."

She laughed, "Nah, just a ton of reports and paperwork, and the occasional boring messy request."

"Like what?"

She shrugged, "Like vague reports of haunted objects. Most of the time they are just newborn Exciti."

Liam grinned, "So you guys are like the Ghostbusters?"

Lucy looked confused, "The what?"

Adam laughed and chanted, "Who you gonna call?"

Lucy frowned, "Call for what?"

The boys looked at her in disbelief. Liam signed, "For real!?"

Adam shook his head, "Do you ever watch movies?"

"Who has that kind of time? Speaking of time, the Barb thing distracted me, I was supposed to tell you something. Dr. Little came back from the sensorial department right as I was going to school. Apparently, the preparations were intense and continued until dawn. They still have a few things to sort out, but a date is now set for your evaluation," her eyes became sympathetic, "It is this Saturday."

Liam felt the quesadillas settle like an uncomfortable lump in his stomach as he signed, "Isn't that tomorrow?"