Dysfunctional Equanimity

"Joey, mind removing your elbow from my ear?"

Joey Malfoy shifted uncomfortably in the backseat of the Flying Midget. "I would, Linda, if Bobby would kindly stop the damn car so I could peel my ass off the window. Every time I try to move, I get this weird feeling that I’m about to get sucked out and become one with the Titanic."

Linda Potter scowled. "That’s because your belt loop is caught in the window-Garfield suction cup, dumbass."

In the front seat, Bobby Weasley gritted his teeth and counted to ten for the seventeenth time in two hours. "For Chrissake, would the two of you stop bitching back there? I’m trying to drive, which is not an easy task for one whose experience with Driver’s Ed doesn’t go too far beyond the application stage. In case you haven’t noticed, doing so with you two acting like little old ladies in the backseat is not fun."

To the innocent, unenlightened observer, the scene that was playing out in front of their eyes would be deemed ridiculous: three teenagers, three traveling trunks, and a huge sound system crammed into a tiny red Midget car emblazoned with the appellation "Bitchin’ Midget" on both doors. The fact that the aforementioned car was airborne over the Atlantic Ocean would have added to the incredibility of the situation.

After the decision had been made to send the three teenagers across the pond to attend the prestigious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the question of transportation remained. None of the three (Joey in particular, who seemed to have two leaden feet and no hand-eye coordination whatsoever) were steady enough on broomsticks to attempt the transatlantic journey. The same went for Apparition; the sight of the disembodied feet of Linda floating in midair had probably scared the natives of Inuit Alaska out of their igloos. Bobby was allergic to Floo Powder, as the boils and tentacles that had sprouted from his face after a quick trip to Salem State College’s Sorcery Division had proven, and the two boys flat-out refused to open the can of worms that was Linda’s aversion to airline restrooms. Thus, after much begging, cajoling, and advanced whining, the consensus had been reached: the Flying Midget would bring the three to Hogwarts.

Bobby had always held a special appreciation for objects with wheels; when he was three years old, he had pried the middle pair of wheels off of one of his trucks and affixed them to his teddy bear’s posterior with the help of Elmer’s Glue-All. In fact, this pry-and-apply process was an often-repeated ritual of his childhood, until he made the mistake of attaching a set of dumper wheels to the blades of a nine-year-old Linda’s ice skates. The resulting blood and cursing on the part of both parties involved in this altercation had been more than enough to keep Bobby’s fascination with wheels to a bare minimum. However, he was not to be totally discouraged, and when he spotted a small red car in decent condition with a "For Sale" sign in the windshield on Parker Avenue, he fell in love with it instantly. It was enough to keep him working unthinkable hours in the employ of the well-paying but nose-destroying Sweeney’s Fish Shop on Washington Boulevard. For two summers, he endured the abhorrent smell, tedious gutting, and nondescript uniform of fishboy, visions of the Midget dancing in his head. With every across-the-street taunt from Ingalls’s Ice Treats employees Linda and Joey, his resolve grew, until he had finally saved up enough to buy his first set of wheels. The fact that he was fifteen and still had a year under Massachusetts law until he could even drive his own car did nothing to dissolve his enthusiasm. Of course, once an object was magically enhanced, its owner and the object itself were absolved of all responsibility under Muggle government (which led to some rather lewd jokes from Joey, aimed at Linda, about certain anatomical enchantments), and this was specifically why fifteen-year-old Bobby was piloting a flying car that could reach the speed of the Concorde.

Grunting could be heard from the backseat as Joey tried to extricate his pants from Garfield without impaling Linda’s eardrums on his elbow. "Couldn’t have gotten a smaller car, Bobby?" he asked sarcastically.

"Actually, he couldn’t. This is the smallest passenger car ever to be manufactured," replied Linda. "It can’t possibly be any worse."

"How encouraging," Joey said in irritation. "A little help here, Lin?"

Bobby snickered as Linda rolled her eyes and set to work on freeing Joey. "Man, we all know very well that you’re willing to do just about anything to get her into your pants, but really! Did you have to bring poor Garfield into it? I Super-Glued him to my window for a reason, you know."

"Well excuse me, Mr. I-Need-to-Turn-the-Shower-Knob-to-Cold-Every-Time-I-Think-of-the-Twins," retorted Joey, reddening.

"Correction. This week, he’s on Kaites. Ever since he got that rejection letter from Perri..." Linda sighed. "Nice boxers, Joey. Down arrows labeled ‘pull’-- that’s class, right there."

"Be glad I’m not wearing the ones that say ‘handle with care’," said Joey. "Or the ones with ‘KISS’ on the seat--"

"Save this for future reference, Linda," interrupted Bobby.

"Bobby, dearest," said Linda sweetly, "you’re reminding me of a household appliance."

Bobby’s eyes flicked upwards to the rearview mirror; Linda was in deep concentration, attempting to free Joey from the suction cup. She apparently hadn’t noticed that Joey was staring down at her, face red as a Coke can and eyes wide as Willard Scott’s pants. For such intelligent people, they’re idiots, he thought. "And what’s that, Lin?"

"You’re like a toilet," she replied, not taking her eyes off the task at hand. "Full of shit. Dammit, Joey, this is not working."

"What do you mean, ‘this is not working?’ What is so damn hard about it?" complained Joey.

Bobby had to exercise an enormous amount of self-control to not say the rather vulgar phrase that popped into his mind at Joey’s choice of words.

"I don’t know, maybe that your pants have somehow decided that they’d like to mate with a suction cup and refuse to come undone," replied Linda hotly. "It’s impossible for me to get these out from this position!"

"Neither can I!" cried Joey. "What do you expect me to do, take my pants off?"

He could have sworn that he’d seen a car-gnome reach over and switch a 60-watt bulb on over Linda’s head. "Actually, Joey, that’s not such a bad idea..."

"Nuh-uh. It’s not happening," stammered Joey. "I was just kidding--"

Linda shook her head. "I don’t care. We’ve tried everything, and there’s absolutely no way that either of us can get to that while you’re stuck in that position. Come on, off with ‘em."

Bobby laughed at the horror-stricken look on Joey’s face as he checked the rearview mirror once more. "Joey, there is a girl. In the backseat of a car with you. Asking you to take your pants off. If you say no, I swear I’m going to have to report you to the International Coalition of Hormonal Teenage Boys for dumbass behavior in the first degree."

Linda glared at him. "You’re the ass who glued the stupid thing to the window in the first place!"

Bobby shrugged. "Well, whatever you’re doing, do it quick. We’re coming over land."

Linda turned to Joey. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Joey groaned. "I cannot believe I’m doing this," he muttered, unzipping his fly, shimmying out of his baggy khakis and shifting over in the seat. "And I thought being caught reading Peyton Place was pretty embarrassing."

"Oh, please. There’s always worse things," said Bobby. "You could have run out of underwear this morning and had to have worn those things with the Power Rangers on them that I got you last year as a joke."

Joey looked darkly at his cousin’s reflection in the mirror. "Easy for you to say. You’ve still got your pants on."

*

Ring, ring.

"AIIIE!"

The shriek that Hermione Potter let out upon hearing the phone ring was probably heard by the Alaskan Inuits whose paranoia had been greatly heightened since sighting Linda’s disembodied feet floating in midair, four thousand miles away. She leapt up from her desk chair and practically dove for the phone on the bedside table.

Four feet away, Harry Potter put his hands over his ears, effectively dropping the plate of lemon meringue pie and glass of milk he had been carrying. "Shit," he muttered, "windgardium leviosa." The glass and plate hovered in midair, the festive dollop of lemon pudding hanging dangerously close to the edge of the plate. "For the love of all that’s sacred, Hermione, what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?"

"Hello? Hello?" Hermione was saying. "Yes? Yes, this is she... no, I would not like a year’s subscription to Princess House Glassware! The last time I bought one of your blasted decorative whatchamacallits, I wound up spending three times as much to fix my dishwasher! Stop calling!" She slammed the phone dejectedly, checking the clock: 9:30 P.M.

Harry reached down and scooped up his snack. "Okay, dear, I know you hate telemarketers, but were you honestly that enthusiastic about turning one down that you had to pull a Wonder Woman and attack the poor phone like a big hunk of chocolate?"

Hermione sighed, flopping backwards on the bed. "I don’t know, I thought it was Linda..."

"The last time I checked, they didn’t have handy red courtesy phones hanging in space at convenient locations above the Atlantic," replied Harry, sitting down next to her. "Have some pie."

"I can’t eat. I’m too worried," said Hermione. "Until I get that first owl from them saying they’re okay, I can’t touch as much as a crumb."

Harry shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said, digging into the pie, "but I’m certain that they’re fine. There’s not much trouble they could get into--"

"--and how would you know?"

"Hermione, there isn’t much chance of them getting robbed or mugged or forced to buy prissy glassware at thirty thousand feet," responded Harry. "And that car is fine. Ron and Draco and I checked it out, it’s in perfect flying condition--"

"--but do they know how to drive it?" Hermione interrupted.

He shrugged again. "I suppose we’ll find out sooner or later. Really, what’s the worst that could happen? They get lost?"

Hermione managed a weak chuckle. "I suppose you’re right. Now, about that pie..."

*

Meanwhile, Linda had moved to Joey’s spot by the window. "Bobby, Lesson Number One: Super Glue is not your best friend, unless you have some weird sex fetish we don’t know about yet. And don’t want to know about, I might add."

"Nope," said Bobby, shaking his head. "Unless you want to count this recurring fantasy I have that involves Kaites and Persephone and a few packages of Play-Doh--"

Linda put her hands over her ears. "La la la, I can’t hear you, hold me closer, Tony Danza, count the headlights on the highway--"

Joey pulled her hands away from her ears and placed them back on the window. "First, it’s hold me closer, tiny dancer. Second, you need to free mes pantalons before I have to pull out my wand and send you to the zoo with Radial."

"Ooh, Captain Pantsless is talking awfully tough," retorted Linda. "I think I’ve got it!" She triumphantly held the pants in one hand and Garfield in the other.

"Yes, you do," said Joey grumpily. "Now give me my pants."

"But you look so cute without them," replied Linda devilishly.

"Lin, just give me the fuc--" Joey stopped in mid-sentence. "Wait, did you just say that I look cute without pants?"

Linda grinned innocently. "Yeah, Joey," she purred, shifting herself practically into his lap, "there’s absolutely nothing like a hunk of burning love like you to make a girl like me reconsider her ‘No Sex With Boys Who Believe Cheesy Lines’ rule--"

She broke off as Joey started in on the noogie of a lifetime.

Bobby glanced into the backseat once more. "What a scene this is: Still Life With Pale Pantsless Boy and Girl in Absurd Shoes. The Discovery Channel could make a mint off you two."

Linda scowled, launching herself into the front passenger seat in order to better knuckle Bobby on the head. "Say something like that one more time, Weasley, and I guarantee that I will cut off your balls and use them in a croquet match. Got it?"

"Ow, ow, ow, OW! Yes, Linda, yo comprende!" Bobby hunched over the steering wheel. "Would you stop hitting me? I’m trying to stay on course here."

Joey finally succeeded in pulling his pants back on. "Course, shmorse, dumbass!" he yelled, leaning forward and giving Bobby much the same noogie he’d given Linda a few moments earlier.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Bobby was ducking, and the steering wheel was swerving. "Joey, come on! Stop it! I can’t drive like this!"

Joey pulled back. "All right, all right," he muttered, giving Bobby’s seat a good, swift kick.

"Joey, no!" Linda yelled, but the force had been enough to wrench control of the car from Bobby.

Several things happened at once: Bobby lost control of the steering wheel, Linda screamed, Joey started the time-honored tradition of leaning to one side and praying that the car would follow, Linda screamed again, and Bobby’s foot smashed down on the gas pedal, sending the little red car into a careening downward spiral that would have done Nine Inch Nails proud.

"Dammit, Joey!" hollered Bobby, hopelessly trying to regain control over the car. "I was kidding!" He pulled hard to the right, succeeding in steadying the vehicle a bit.

"You should never kid around with a guy who isn’t wearing his pants!" yelled Joey, frantically waving his wand around without result.

"Oh, for God’s sake!" screeched Linda, pulling out her own wand. "Balancum!"

Surprisingly, the car stopped its shaking and teetering, and resumed travel in one direction.

Straight down.

*

Hee hee, cliffie. ^_^