KLEPTOMANIA KILLS
"Liz, she's never going to buy it. Not in a million years will my mother believe me when I tell her that we're going camping this weekend!" Maria said as she and Liz navigated through the halls of West Roswell High. They stopped at Alex's locker to wait for him between periods. As Liz leaned against his locker, she turned to Maria, "But this time we really ARE going camping," she said. "Liz, babe, going camping to my mother has become the Scully fine." "Could you translate that from DeLuca to English for me, I left my decoder ring at home," Liz said while craning her neck over the throngs of students, looking for Alex. "OK, whenever Scully says that she's fine in The X-Files, it's a total lie. It means that she's really about the have a nervous breakdown. So, when I say to my mom, 'Mom, I'm going camping this weekend' what she hears is, 'Mom, I'm going away this weekend, across state lines to fornicate.' And, really Liz, can you blame her?" Instead of seeing Alex, Liz catches sight of Tess. And she's wearing the earrings that Liz has been looking for for days. Next to her, Maria exclaims, "Hey! Tess is wearing my jacket!" Alex, having snuck up behind them adds in, "Well, at least she's not wearing Kyle's pants." "OK, mental image, retinas now scarred for life," Maria says as she drags Liz and Alex off to their next class. "Really, though, that girl has a problem. Not only are we going to have words later, but one day, she's going to "borrow" the wrong thing, and it's going to get her into trouble." "Nice earrings, Tess," Isabel commented as she slid into the seat behind her. "They look like a pair that Max gave to Liz." "Uh yeah,", Tess said, lying badly, "I found them at the mall." "Sure. Fine. Whatever," Isabel responded, "You may want to take them off before he sees, he may not buy the ever believable, 'I got it at the mall' excuse. Oh, and I would take off that jacket, too, before Maria does her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon impression on you." Tess quickly takes off the stolen items just in time to see Max, Michael and Kyle come into class. "So," Kyle says to Michael, "I'll bring the marshmallows and you're bringing the chocolate, right?" "You two want to be alone tonight," Max asks Michael. "Shut up, we're just cheap. Making everybody bring one things makes more sense than sticking someone with buying everything, unless you want to volunteer," Michael says, looking hopefully at Max. "No, for once you're right," Max says. "Funny," Michael mutters while taking out a comic book. "I don't see while you're all going camping," Tess whines as the rest of the crew enters the classroom. "I mean, sleeping on the dirt, peeing in the woods, and DON'T even get me started on the bird thing." "Bird thing?" Alex asks warily. "Birds are just rats with wings. They are dirty, disease infested animals," Tess says,"I don't even understand WHY they exist." "What about Doves? Doves are pretty. I fully intend to have Doves released at my wedding," Isabel says while hunting in her bag for a writing utensil. "White rats with wings. I mean, can anyone tell me why birds exist?" "Well, they do eat a great percentage of the world's bugs, they're very good for the ecosystem," Michael says, barely looking up from his comic book. Seven pairs of eyes quickly turn towards Michael. "What? Like science girl and geek boy over there, "Michaels says while gesturing to Liz and Max, "are the only people who know anything? I choose not to learn, that's all." Kyle shakes his head, "Ok, so we'll meet at my house so my Dad can see our camping gear and make sure we don't have any plane tickets on us and then we're off the Frazier Woods. Then, as soon as we leave, he can call your mom so they can have some 'quality time' together." "Well," Tess says, "you'll have to go without me." There is silence for a second. "Ok, but we'll miss your sparkling conversation," Maria says in her sweetest voice, then turns around as the bell signaling the class begins. "We'll call you when we get back tomorrow," Isabel says, trying to smooth over the situation. Maria's house is dark. It is well past midnight. Suddenly at the mouth of her street, two cars appear, driving erratically. They pull into Maria's driveway. "Isabel, you're sure that you're ok?" Liz asks as the group, sans Kyle, looking sweaty and disheveled walks into Maria's house. "I told you my mom wouldn't be home," Maria says as she begins to turn on a few lights. "That means that we're going to have to show Valenti what we found in the morning. I hope that Kyle has a safe place for it." "Maria," Max asks, "what are we going to tell you're mom when she gets home in the morning?" "The truth. We got freaked out in the woods and came here to sleep," she answers. "Yeah, we'll just leave out the whole, Isabel found some alien device out in the woods that apparently turns hybrids to stone," Alex says quickly, talking faster and faster, "And that if Michael and Max hadn't been there to help to turn her molecules back, she would have died. It might be best to keep that part to ourselves. And that we have no idea, where it came from, from what alien race, if it affects humans..." He would have gone on forever, except Maria walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. "I was scared, too," she says while smiling at him. He nods. Isabel opens her mouth to speak, but they hear another car, going way too fast, pulling into Maria's driveway. Kyle bursts into the house. "It's safe," he says before they can begin questioning him. "Someone would really have to look hard to find it." "What, did you put it in your underwear drawer?" Michael questions jokingly. At the look on Kyle's face, Michael says, "You've got to be kidding me! Valenti, that's the first place someone would look. We have to go back and hide it somewhere else." "Michael", Max says, putting his hand on Michaels arm, "calm down. It's in the house with the Sheriff, and it will only be there for a few hours, I suggest we get some sleep." Tess left the house shortly after Amy arrived. She did NOT want to be in the house for the next few hours. She wandered around Roswell until the town closed down. Then, she went out into the desert. She figured she would just spend the night in the pod chamber. However, when she got there, she found that she could not open it. She screamed, she threatened, but still the door would not open. By the time she had accepted the fact that she could not get in it, dawn was approaching. She decided to go back home. She opened the door to her house and went into her room, what used to be Kyle's old room. She tried to go to sleep, but she couldn't. She then decided to snoop around Kyle new "room". His room was really no more than a bed and a few pieces of furniture put into the Valenti's storage room. It did have a fine view, through their sliding glass door, of the garden that the Sheriff was so proud of. Tess hated it, he constantly put bird feed out there, and the vile creatures loved the garden. She lay down on Kyle's bed and look around the room. She then began looking through the books and magazines he had. She quickly tired of this. She slid open his dresser drawers quietly. "Jackpot," she muttered to herself as she found something in his underwear drawer. She looked at it. It appeared to be a crystal. Obviously, it was for her, she picked it up. An hour later, Kyle and Maria entered the Valenti house. "You go make some noise in the kitchen to wake them up, and I'll go and get the crystal," Maria ordered as she made her way to the back of the house. Kyle went into the kitchen and started rattling around pots and pans, he stopped momentarily when he thought he heard Maria laughing, but it thought it had to be his imagination. He then heard a noise that he KNEW was the sliding glass door. As he continued to make noise, Jim wandered into the kitchen. "Kyle, what are you doing home so early?" The father asked his son as he nervously looked towards his bedroom. "Well, I don't think I'll be able to explain it to you without a little visual aide I have, so just wait here." Kyle walked to his bedroom and found Maria staring out the window at the garden. She had the crystal in her hand and was smiling softly. Kyle was about to ask her what she was so happy about when he noticed a statue in the garden COVERED with birds. They seemed to be really excited over having something new to perch on. He looked at Maria, looked at the statue and said, "Serves her right for snooping." "Damn straight," Maria said, then pulled Kyle out of the room. The End