Wesley looked around himself in horror, and nearly gasped at the sight that met his eyes. There was mess everywhere. How could 5 small children cause so much havoc?
Giles had been taken down with a bad case of the flu. At the moment he was bed bound, which understandably made it rather difficult to look after his 4 wards. So the task had fallen to Wesley.
Where had the mess before him come from? Well Wes had to accept responsibility for that. He had racked his brains for a 'safe' activity, and finally come up with one that he thought even the young Potentials couldn't get into trouble with. Baking.
In hindsight he should have known better. Those children could turn anything into mischief. But he had had visions in his head of baking cookies, the children giggling happily with flour all over their little hands. That was how it always was on TV.
All had been going well. The children had been having fun, looking like they had in his imagination. It had been almost peaceful, well compared to normal. The potentials, witch and werewolf were having fun in the kitchen, like any normal 5- year olds.
He should have realised it couldn't last without him present. He had had to rush off to the monthly Watchers meeting, which he had only remembered about at the last minute. There was no way he could take the children with him, but no one else to supervise. It was either leave them or disturb Giles' rest, which could prolong his sickness. Wes sure didn't want that, he could only stand the kids for so long.
So he had decided to take the risk, and leave the children there alone. After all, they had finished with knives and such, and they weren't stupid enough to stick their hands in the oven or anything. Besides, if anything happened while he was gone Giles was only a few rooms away. They would be fine. What could go wrong in an hour or so?
Something. That was for sure. He had arrived back a short while ago to find the kitchen in this mess, and no children in sight.
He sighed. Well there was no way he was cleaning it up. The messy little things could clean up after themselves. Although that meant he had to find them. And doing so quickly wouldn't be a bad idea. Who knew what else they had been up to without any supervision.
Where was a likely place? Where would he have gone as a small child? Well probably the library. But he somehow doubted that the ones he was looking for were there. Apart from Willow, they weren't all that fond of books, even though they did know how to read them.
The park? He didn't think so, but at least it was a start. You never know, they might have been in a mood for playing. He headed off for the nearby park. As he had suspected there was no sign of the 5. But he had a sneaking suspicion that they may have been there in the not too distant past.
There was a young boy, one of the magick students in the village if he wasn't mistaken, sitting on a nearby bench in obvious pain. He was clutching his nose, which looked as if it had recently met with someone's fist, causing it to bleed profusely.
This looked rather like Faith's handiwork. She tended to be unhappy with anyone who dared pick on her, and this particular boy was a known bully around the town.
A quick questioning of the boy confirmed his suspicion. Yes, he had been teasing a little girl, yes he had been punched in the face by a crazy dark haired little girl. And yes, there had been two other girls and a little boy with her.
Wesley advised the boy to go to the infirmary, to have his nose checked out. Faith's last victim had needed stitches. The child ran off and Wesley looked after him with a sigh.
Faith relied way too much on violence, in his opinion. She was going to kill someone someday if she didn't learn when and when not to attack.
Well at least he was on the right track to finding the children. He had to grin wryly. Follow the trail of injuries and destruction. That sounded about right, especially if Faith, or one of the other Potentials were in a bad mood.
Wes wandered around Traverston for nearly an hour. But to no avail. Where were those children? Well, he couldn't be bothered looking any more. They would have to come back to the house sooner or later. And then they were going to clean up that mess.
He headed home, still checking, just in case he happened to run into the bunch of them. But he didn't. He shook his head at the thought of where they must be. He had looked everywhere.
When he got back to the house he almost fainted in shock. The kitchen was clean again. Probably even cleaner than it had been before the baking session had started.
He walked through to the living room and was greeted with the sight of the children he had been running all around town looking for sitting there, eating what was obviously the cookies they had made.
"Hi Wesley" Oz said, "You wanna cookie?" Wes smiled down at the child. He really could be quite sweet when he was in the mood. A thought hit him. And he didn't like what it meant.
The children had been responsible for a change, and had obviously just gone off for a while, probably meaning to play and then clean up.
He realised he should probably widen his opinion of the kids before he decided their characters. Obviously, just because he thought that the children could never behave themselves fully for a whole day didn't mean they couldn't.
He accepted the cookie and joined the children on the floor. Maybe Giles being sick wasn't such a bad thing. He really should get to know the children better, since he lived in the same house as them, and no doubt would for quite a time.