Bundle of Bodes

Chapter 6

Tyler walked upstairs. He saw Kinsey standing in the hallway. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Very," Kinsey replied.

Tyler heard raucous shouting coming from Bode's room. "Who's that? Does Bode have friends over?"

"Not exactly."

Tyler opened Bode's door. There were six Bodes in the room—one jumping on the bed, one crying in the corner, one ripping out pages from books, one eating pages out from books, and one keeping away a toy robot from another one.

"What. The. Hell?" Tyler said.

"These are Bode's feelings," Kinsey explained. "That's Glee, that's Sadness, that's Anger, Gluttony, Rudeness, and Curiosity. They escaped from Bode's head."

"Hi, Tyler!" Glee said.

"What's Tyler doing here?" Curiosity asked.

"Oh, no, now he's going to be angry at us," Sadness cried.

"I hate you, Tyler! You always ruin everything!" Anger shouted.

"How did they escape?" Tyler asked Kinsey. "Was he using the Head Key?"

"Yes. We were both using it. Then Mom came in and wanted to show us something in the kitchen. Bode must've forgotten to take out the Head Key from his original body, so that's how they got out."

"Okay, so let's just put all his feelings back and close his head. Where's his head toybox?"

"Well... that's the other thing. The Head Key's not in him anymore. But his body is still acting like it is. He's unresponsive. And I don't know where his body duplicate went."

"How do you not know where he went?!"

"Yeah, how do you not know where he went, idiot?" Rudeness said.

"Shut up, Rudeness," Kinsey said. She turned back to Tyler. "I was in the basement with Mom, then when I came back, he was just gone."

"Well, if the Head Key's not in him, that would explain why his body duplicate is gone, too. But that doesn't explain why his consciousness hasn't returned."

"Ooh, the suspense is terrible!" Curiosity said. "I can't wait to find out the answer!"

"So, what do we do?" Tyler asked.

"First we gotta find Mischief. He's the one who was responsible for all this, so he's most likely the one with the Head Key. He couldn't have gone too far."

"Sounds good. We'll split up; you search the upstairs of the house, I'll search downstairs."

Tyler went downstairs and checked the drawing room, the winter study, the kitchen, and the great room. Then he went down into the basement.

"Oh, hey, Tyler. How are you, sweetie?" Nina said.

"Uh, fine, Mom. Did you see Bode around here? Or, at least, something that looks like Bode?"

"Well, Bode is supposed to be polishing dishes with Kinsey up in the kitchen. Is he not there?"

"It's... hard to explain. Thanks for letting me know, though." Tyler went back up the stairs.

"How is it hard to explain? It's a yes or no question," Nina said, mostly to herself.

Tyler walked back into the kitchen, where he saw Gluttony gorging himself on leftover lasagna. He wasn't even using a fork; he was shoveling it into his mouth with his hands.

"Hey!" Tyler shouted. "What are you doing? That's our food."

"What?" Gluttony said with sauce dribbling down from his mouth. "I'm a part of the family, too; I'm still technically a part of Bode."