(2) OF ADVENTURES THE! (COMPLETED)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CECELIA

Cecelia often wished that she was able to consume food. As she watched everyone else in the room who was human devour the delicious-looking breakfast Charlie and Cassandra made, she could have sworn she felt her nonexistent stomach growl.

"You okay, Cecelia?" Angelo looked up at her. "You've been kind of silent."

Everyone simultaneously turned to stare at her.

"I'm fine," Cecelia wheezed. But she knew she wasn't, not really. Now that the red button had been pushed—her last resort—she felt empty and useless. And in just a few minutes, they would all be ready to go and would ask for her help. The worst part? She was actually aching. Deep inside her, something must have gone wrong besides her ability to teleport. It unnerved her.

After breakfast, the past thirty minutes had been spent by everyone meticulously tidying up the house, gathering all the dangerous supplies the Cortezes never knew they owned, transforming into two mirrors and looking at oneself in the reflection of the other self (muttering, "HOW?"), and standing around, pretending to help out, but really flirting and watching TV commercials. Take a guess at who did what. Cecelia awkwardly rolled around, following Maria, Charlie and Alfonzo and throwing out suggestions, like, "Mop up this orange juice mess here," and "Don't sass at me, mister! You need to go fluff yourself out—there's lint everywhere," and "Of course you look beautiful today!"

Cassandra, Cecelia passed a few times. She was carrying weapons she had acquired from some exclusive hole in the fabric of the universe which the Cortezes had never noticed until now, back and forth, stockpiling them in Julio's confused arms. Some of the weapons weren't even proper modern weapons. Cecelia was pretty sure she spotted a bludgeon in there, along with a Nerf gun and an electric flyswatter. What?

"Um," said Julio, trembling a little under the weight. "Why do we need all this?"

"Who knows what'll happen?" Cassandra strapped a gas mask to her face. "We're storming the Nursing Home and Kevin's guarding it. He likes a variety of warfare tactics."

"Are you my mummy?" Angelo mumbled.

"What?" said Cecelia.

"Nothing." He smiled and looked away. "So, Julio, about that—um, thing you mentioned..." He leaned against the wall.
Cecelia would have rolled her eyes. She saw through all of that dumb flirtatious stuff down to the way Angelo self-consciously messed with his hair and constantly readjusted the hoodie around his waist—the boy was really a complete noob. She was 99.99% sure he had never even kissed someone for all of his failed affairs.

It was actually kind of sad.

"Mom?" Cecelia turned around. At least she was still able to swivel on her wheels. Her other son Charlie stood there, holding a rag and a bucket of water. His eyes were huge and his hair was messy-cute. The red maple leaf on his sweater stood out proudly on his chest, tainted only with a speck of cheese-infused ham leftover from the Great Breakfast Cookoff.
"Yes, hon?"

He cleared his throat, nervously glancing her up and down. "I—I think you've got a leak."

"What?" Cecelia was baffled. Surely she didn't have a leak; she would have felt it. But then again, she hadn't been feeling much lately. Especially after last night.

"That can't be true!" However, when she rolled backwards, a giant wet puddle appeared beneath her.

Maria gasped. "What—Cecelia, are you feeling okay?"

No. Not at all. "I feel fine... Um, does anyone have any idea of what it could be?"

$inamin, who had transformed back into her usual self, except with heels a little higher than a meter, scoffed. "Doesn't know the first thing about her own fluids. I happen to have a PhD in common appliance machinery, however. Let me check you out."

"A PhD in—no, that is so not a thing." Angelo muttered.

Cecelia was reluctant to let $inamin check her out, but everyone had started to crowd around, and she hated being the exact center of attention, wanting it to be over as soon as possible. "Fine."

$inamin extracted a pair of spectacles from out of her pants. Her pants did not have pockets but she somehow kept everything in those non-existent pockets.  She lowered herself down until she was eye-level with the underside of Cecelia's doors, reached under her, grabbed a tube, viciously yanked it out, breaking it and spilling even more liquid everywhere. Electric sparks flickered weakly. "I think this is what seems to be the problem," she deadpanned.

"$INAMIN!" shouted Maria, dragging the girl away from her wife. "What have you done?!"

"$inamin has really messed up now..." Alfonzo fluttered.

Charlie stepped back to avoid the growing puddle of fluid. Cecelia started to feel woozy. "Cecelia," he said. "What's happening?"

"I dun--I dunn--I dun't kno--knooowwwww--Gah." Something deep inside Cecelia flicked off, and then she wasn't able to move.

"Probably none other than Kevin's doing..." Cassandra murmured, watching it all with a frustrated expression.

"Mom!" Angelo grabbed her right door handle. "Stay with us!"

"Gunnnnnnhhhhhhgggg..."

Charlie pressed his hands against her side. She was able to look into his eyes, tinged with red. He had probably been crying late into the night again, something all the Cortezes were familiar with but too wary to point out. Oh, Cecelia wished she could hug him, hold him, kiss him, but her consciousness was slipping away...

"What's happening?!" Maria shouted, her voice pained and hysteric. "Cecelia! Cecelia, say someth--"

"Hhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn..."

Maria began to cry, probably thinking that Cecelia was dying. Cecelia sure felt like it.
Maria's voice lowered to a whisper. "We haven't even had our honeymoon yet!"
Cecelia's last thought was a mental smack in the face. Of course. They still needed to honeymoon.

Then her entire system shut all the way down.