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Patton’s Log – 8/23/2010 – The News

This morning at breakfast, the mail was delivered as per usual. Mother received a strange missive from a company known as Mystic Mixers. From the letter, we surmised she had been selected by yet another strange agency to care for a child of some sort. We’re not entirely sure but the family has decided it cannot be the same ones from which we got Julie – that pair was much less formal and wanted mother to come to a strange set of caves, rather than say, a laboratory. I’d quite like to go see the lab, but Julie was much more insistent on getting to tag along, so she got to go. It’s too bad – maybe I shall get another chance in future.

Mother returned in mid-afternoon with some very interesting news. Apparently, though we really can’t afford or fit another sibling into the house (though given our mother, I’m sure we’d manage somehow anyway. She’s crafty like that) we were to be jointly caring for a set of twins with another family. Thankfully, that family was Imani and Chase’s family – I miss them a little. They were nice. Julie’s really excited about this because she’s going to get to live with Imani – what on Gaia does that mean?

Addition later: Apparently I misunderstood my mother. We are to be jointly caring for the twins with the other family AND living with said family in a new home. Neither of our families could hold or afford more children, but they needed to be cared for by them, supposedly, so we’re being paid for it and given a new home. Strange, really, but mother says it’ll work out. The children are supposedly a bit strange themselves – Julie told me so anyway – but so long as they keep out of my workshop, I do not object. We’ll be keeping the old house, Mother says, since that’s where her shop is, but our old rooms will be remaining as art studios or something. I get to keep my workshop at least – that’s good. Even if I’ll have to travel to work there – that is quite disappointing. Maybe I can convince her to let me keep this one as storage and turn the basement of the new house into a proper workshop.

Pogo’s Diary!

Dear Diary,
Mommy got a special letter today! It wanted her to go to a special lab place to get more kids! Julie went with her and went to find out what was going on. I wonder what the lab is like – maybe it’s like Patton’s workshop? She says she’s going to see about putting a line on the floor for me to stand behind so I can come downstairs and watch her work without getting in the way. Pat says I get under her feet A LOT. But I don’t mean to – I just like to see what she’s doing, it’s always so neat! I get to help sometimes but usually I just have to sit on the steps and watch.

So Mommy and Julie are back. They had really big news! The people at the lab place said we’re going to take care of two babies with another family! Isn’t that neat? Wait, you can’t answer me (or Pat says you can’t anyway) so why am I asking you? What’s even cooler, is we get to go live in a new house with them and it’s Miss RJ and Imani and Chase! I liked them, Imani was fun to play teaparty and dressup with! We’ll get to have a nice big room – I wonder if Julie, Imani and I will share one or if we’re getting our own rooms. I wouldn’t mind sharing again. I like sharing with them a lot, they’re super fun! Patton wants to find out about getting a new lab in the basement – I don’t think she likes thinking about having to travel to do her work. The boys don’t mind though so maybe they’ll get her old lab (she took it over on them) and she’ll get a bigger workshop at the new place!

Julie and I are going to go with Mommy to see about the new place. We want to pick out rooms and stuff. I hope she’ll let us paint it again – it’s Mommy so she should, but Miss RJ might not like it. I hope she does, painting’s fun!

I’ll write more when I know more,
Pogo

It was early morning in the new Mizerlou household and already the light whirring of a few of Patton's machines could be heard. The girl was up and working on a few extra projects, having pulled an all nighter to calculate a few equations for her project, and was now putting it into effect. Several machines were whirring and running as she rushed between them, trying not to let any run over their time.

Nearby, Pogo sat on a chair, nodding off a bit as she held Patton's notebooks for the other girl. It was her job to read off the calculations Patton had made when her sister asked for them. Pogo had agreed to stick it out for the long haul and do as she was told when she'd asked to work with Patton, and that's what she had to do. Even if the child would much rather be up in her warm snuggly bed, rather than watching the whirring and tumbling machines doing heaven knows what.

It was a good thing Pogo was downstairs and alert, however, because she was able to help when the accident occurred. Patton had been quickly turning to look at a beaker that was overboiling and her long hair had flown out and gotten caught in a machine, yanking the girl back as the stuff tried to slowly rip out her hair it seemed. The girl flailed and tried to not knock everything off the counter as she was dragged back, but it was no use.

Pogo let out a yelp of surprise, barely audible over Patton's shriek of pain. Immediately, the rainbow girl tossed everything in her hands aside and rushed across the room to pound the emergency shutoff switch. Suddenly, all of Patton's machines skidded to a halt, including the one eating her hair. Sure, the girl couldn't sit back up, and the overflow on the beaker was still dripping, but now it wasn't overflowing more and ripping Patton's hair out.

The latter sighed, looking partly over at her sister through her goggles as Pogo stood there, not sure what to do. “Well, go get the scissors then.” she mumbled, looking tired and not ready to deal with this. Of all the times for things to go wrong. And from the corner of her eye, she could see the mess her papers and calculations were in.

Pogo blinked and nodded, “Oh, right, scissors!” she said, rushing around for a few moments before stopping and staring. “Where are they?”

“In the desk drawer, Pogo.” this was just not going to be Patton's day.

Soon enough, with half of her hair lobbed off, the child was free. Her sister was not a neat cutter at all and her hair hadn't exactly been evenly in the machine anyway. With a sigh, looking around at the mess of her workshop, Patton shook her head, putting up a hand as Pogo made to say she'd help clean up. “Don't worry about it. I'm going to get something to eat and go to bed. We can clean it up later.” she said, throwing her goggles on the desk and heading upstairs. Pogo blinked sadly and headed after her, stopping to at least pile the papers back up after her sister left.

Upstairs, Ixxie had absolutely nothing to say on the manner, but as she walked by the table while they ate, she dropped the address and some money for a local salon at the mall for Patton to fix her hair. At least she was somewhat subtle about it.

“I told you, it goes over THERE!” Pogo said in exasperation to her sister. Patton looked about ready to strangle her for it. “No it does NOT, Pogo. For the LAST TIME, the directions said it was supposed to go HERE!” the other twin snarled.

“What's going on down there?” came Julie's curious voice from the stairs. Both faces snapped away form the mannequin they were attempting to pin pieces on and glared up at the doorway before shouting “NOTHING!” in unison. Pogo turned back to her sister to glare again, “See? You're attracting attention.” she hissed, looking furious.

“Me? You're the one shouting over stuff you don't understand.” Patton growled, though in more of a whisper. “I've put enough things together to know where things go according to the pattern, thank you very much.”

“You've put together machines, it's not the same.” Pogo snapped back, “I was actually a mannequin! I should know how clothes go on them.”

“Should but don't.” the brunette grumbled, rolling her eyes and making a face as she tried to go back to pinning the pieces together.

Pogo quietly fumed at Patton's back till she thought of a good enough retort. “If I'd have known you were going to be such a jerk I wouldn't have agreed to work with you on this!” she shouted, not thinking of keeping her voice down.

“The feeling's mutual, bratface.” Patton shot back, just as annoyed.

They'd been like this since returning from their shopping trip. It'd been long and exhausting, with the girls hitting up the hardware store, the fabric store, the wig shop, and a few other places along the way in an attempt to get all the stuff for their new looks together. They had forgone getting a book on HOW to sew, instead choosing to just try to learn from the patterns since one of them had been a mannequin and the other had experience putting stuff together. Now they were in a mess of awkwardly cut fabric, messy patterns, and exasperation.

“Well now, what's all this?” Ixxie's calm voice came, not from the top of the stairs where everyone else had been shouting from, but right behind the girls. “Looks like a trainwreck. Patton, isn't your workshop usually a bit more pristine than this?” the woman asked, though she already knew the answer to that and rather what they were up to.

The pair sighed and looked at their mother. “Yes, it is.” Patton said through pursed lips and tried to not make eye contact with her parental unit.

“Uh-huh. And Pogo, would that be your swatch-board with magazine clips on it?” Once again rhetorical, as Ixxie carefully stepped over the mess to go look at it and see what designs they were going for.

“Yes Mommy.”

The woman smiled, “So this is what you two are going for?” pointing at the two pieces. They were a bit elaborate, but rather nice really.

The pair slowly looked at each other before nodding and facing their mother. All at once, the two exploded into explanations – the idea, what they were doing, what went wrong, why they were trying to do it alone. It all went on till Ixxie held up a hand for silence.

“Girls, it's FINE. From the looks of it, you two just bit off a bit more than you can chew and need to backtrack is all.” she stated calmly before pointing to the floor and the mannequin they'd made up. “Get that all cleaned up and put down and get your shoes on. We're going out.”

Immediately, they were a flurry of activity and soon enough the pair were in the car with Ixxie, heading out to who knew where. “Where are we going?” Pogo asked once they had driven away from their home.

The pink haired woman smiled, “Well, first I was thinking we would go to pick up some books on sewing different materials and how to use patterns for you two, and then we need to swing by my shop for a special errand.”

It was a while later when the pair followed Ixxie into her darkened shop, closed up for the evening. Still, she turned on a few extra lights and got a few tools out, as if she were getting ready to do some work. “Girls, why don't you put your books down on the counter and then come have a seat over here.”

Patton raised a brow, “Why?”

“Because, if your designs are right, both of your designs require pierced ears. And as your mother happens to own a tattoo and piercing shop, I figured that'd be the best place to get it done, hm?” she grinned, gesturing to the seats once more.

Her daughters were stunned, needless to say, but slowly did as they were told and headed over to get their ears pierced. Pogo went first, as she couldn't really feel pain over most her body and that would serve less to freak out Patton. The other girl had to be held down a bit to keep from twitching as the gun pierced each of her ears, but afterwards, they both were smiling just a teeny bit as they looked in the mirror, books in hands. It'd take a bit of practice and a few days of reading and cooperating, but they'd be learning to sew their outfits before long. Ixxie knew it.