"We could play charades," Priscilla said quietly.
"That`s no good," Jackie rejected it. "I can't act to save my life, and I don't really want to either." She smiled at them. I enjoy being myself far too much to waste my time pretending to be anyone else, even for the sake of fun." Jackie walked over to the storage wall and hit the top left corner. Three different cabinets popped open, overflowing with games and activities to choose from. "We don't need to resort to that anyways; there's plenty of this stuff here," she said.
Alyss gaped at the assortment. "This is what he stocks his prisons with? That seems so wasteful." Jackie assured her that she really was in a guest room and not a prison cell, though she struggled to convince the girl of that; and really it was hard to blame her for resenting being trapped here.
The rest of the group tried to decide on a game. Alyss went to the food cupboard Veronica had shown her on her so-called tour and passed mugs of hot chocolate to her visitors while they talked it over. Checkers. Chess. Cards. Even pass the balloon and hide and seek were rejected.
"I'm just so bored," Alyss pouted. "Can we please just decide on something and do it? It was bad being alone for so long but having nothing to do was still obnoxious. Isn't there anything fun to do around here?"
The other two glanced at each other, then looked at her. Their faces were completely blank. "I know," Priscilla called out, "we can start a puzzle!" Priscilla giggled.
Alyss grimaced. "I know I just complained about this and shouldn't be causing a fuss, but I'm really not into puzzles. There's always at least one piece missing, especially in a used puzzle like these probably are. It drives me nuts never actually being able to finish them," Alyss groaned.
Priscilla puffed her cheeks out. "Hmm. Well, it is an inevitable fact of life that every puzzle you ever play will have one piece missing." Sighing dramatically, she added, "And then you will spend days knowing that you can never finish your task."
Jackie just laughed. "Isn't that backwards? You'll spend days knowing that you stuck with it long enough to see the picture. You learn more by paying attention to the overall puzzle instead of focusing on each little piece."
"I never thought of that, but she's right," Priscilla mourned, shoulders trembling. "It will never be the same without the last piece. Think of how lonely the other pieces will be with their leader missing!" She scrubbed her eyes with both fists, bawling obnoxiously loud. Somehow, though, the supposed tears were completely invisible.
"It's just puzzle pieces, why on earth are you being so theatrical?" Alyss growled, her role as an elegant lady temporarily forgotten. The girl continued to whimper.
She looked over to the two sisters. Jackie was holding her sister in a tight side hug, stroking her hair and speaking in the quiet voice one associates with babies or puppies. "Shh, we`ll get the puzzle piece`s family back. Don't cry, `kay?" Priscilla continued to whimper.
All of a sudden, Pris straightened, and Jackie heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, was I gone?" Pris asked. "He never really asks to switch," she mused nonchalantly. "He just takes over, and then afterward everyone around me will be all upset because he said or did something ridiculous. How was it this time?"
Her sister shook her head. "I can't really tell when it's you or him," Jackie said. "You always seem the same to me no matter who is in the driver's seat, and it's only after he does something absolutely rude I realize it wasn't you."
"How could you not tell?" Alyss muttered. "That was incredibly annoying, and normally she's not," Alyss added.
Priscilla smiled at her. "It's nice to know someone can tell the difference between the both of us. I'm quite fond of him, but he's such a troublemaker and I'm just clearly not," she said.
"I think you are wrong about the puzzle pieces, though," she said, staring intently into her teacup. "It's not a matter of focusing on a missing piece, or on the rest of the puzzle without the piece. What's important are the lines that run through the whole puzzle, letting us know they are all the same type of thing."
"What? Way too insightful for dumb puzzle pieces," Jackie laughed. "Besides, weren't we talking about this to have a little bit of fun in our spare time?" They huddled together, giggling.
Priscilla grinned at the both of them. "Well, I do have something cool to show you all though. Maybe that will deal with your boredom problem." She pulled her golden contraption out of her pocket, and it opened itself up to reveal the figurines smiling and dancing for her. They turned to see Alyss sitting there and frowned at her, then they scurried back into their places and closed the machine shut as their audience looked on.
Pris frowned at it. "That's very odd. I wouldn't have expected it to do that."
A sharp knock at the door interrupted their merriment. The girls looked at each other in surprise, then Alyss got up to open the door. There stood Aeron, standing with his legs hip-width apart and his hands clasped in front of him.
The two sisters looked at each other, then stood in unison. Alyss tried to hold onto their hands, keep them around as shields for the certain confrontation, but both were clearly determined to avoid such a strained conversation. Jackie glanced at Aeron's tapping foot and rushed through her goodbyes to her friend before she left. Pris looked at her, and then waved to show she was going to stay for a little bit. She placed
