Hello freaks. I'm really sorry for leaving it so long! Chapter 7 is here, and with Esmé, Carmelita, and pizza!

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The Troupe babysit Carmelita

Not for the first time, the troupe were lounging about in the living room. They were in that phase of consciousness where they were not awake, but not asleep, and were just collapsed in their favourite arm chairs, not doing much. Fernald gave a loud snore, confirming that one of them had passed the barrier and was now sound asleep.

It was at that moment that there was a knock on the door.

Knock knock

None of the Troupe could be bothered to actually stand up and get the door, so they just sat there.

Knock knock

"WILL SOMEBODY GET THAT?" Yelled Olaf from upstairs.

Flo sighed and stood up. She dragged herself to the door and opened it.

If Flo was not awake before, she certainly was now, partly at seeing exactly who was at the door, and partly because she was nearly blinded by this person's bizarre outfit.

Esmé Squalor was dressed, once again, in a ridiculous costume. It could be described as nothing else except four giant disco balls.

There was one very large one around her torso and legs, one pretty big one on her head, acting as a hat, and two on her feet, acting as shoes, it was, all in all, not the safest of costumes. Just to top it off she had two small disco ball earrings.

Flo could do nothing but stare for a few minutes, being partly blinded at the light reflected off Esmé's costume.

"What?" Snapped Esmé rudely, giving Flo a dark glare.

"Nothing," Flo said quickly. "Erm, nice outfit."

Esmé gave a small sniff, and looked at Flo with a patronising smile, showing all of her perfectly straight, white teeth.

"Maybe some day you'll be as popular and well dressed as me," she said, glancing Flo's shabby clothes up and down. "Or maybe not..."

She walked in with as much dignity and aloofness as was manageable in those shoes, revealing a smaller figure behind her, dressed in an identical costume.

"You'll look after Carmelita whilst we're out, won't you?" Esmé asked Flo.

Flo warily looked at Carmelita, who was fixing her with a glare exactly the same as Esmé's. However she highly doubted that Esmé would accept anything less than a nod in answer to her rather rhetorical question. So nod she did.

"Out?" Flo asked. "We?"

"Oh, didn't he tell you?" Esmé asked. "Olaf and I are going out tonight."

"No," Flo said, trying to look indifferent to this news. "No, he didn't."

"Darling! There you are!" Esmé cried, as Olaf appeared in the hall.

"I do apologise for not getting the door myself," Olaf said. "I hope you were let in all right."

"Oh yes," Esmé replied. "She let me in."

Flo winced at Esmé's tone, she was speaking as though Flo wasn't there.

"Darling, I do wish your friends would try to be a little more stylish," Esmé said, glancing down her nose at Flo. "I have to say this one looks terribly ugly in such shabby clothes."

Flo was shocked, she was just about to open her mouth to retort, when Olaf spoke.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, turning his gaze to Flo. "She looks rather pretty to me."

Flo's cheeks turned pink. Esmé gave her a scowl.

"Don't you like my outfit, Darling?" She asked. "Of course, it's the most fashionable thing to wear at the moment. Everyone's wearing it. Well, everyone who can afford to anyway," she gave Flo a disdainful look.

"We'd better be off," Olaf said.

"We must!" Esmé agreed. "Carmelita, be a good girl, won't you?"

Carmelita beamed at her.

"I'm always a good girl!" She replied.

"Oh, aren't you just, darling!" Esmé cooed.

As Flo closed the door behind them, Carmelita turned to Flo.

"I don't like your clothes," she said promptly.

Flo blinked, slightly taken aback.

Carmelita grinned, and skipped into the living room, singing merrily.

-

"What's taking her so long to answer the door?" Flo's sister asked. "She was supposed to get the pizza out of the oven too. That'll be burnt by now."

The bald man with the long nose sighed and settled back on the sofa to go to sleep.

He was just closing his eyes, when there came a high pitched squeal of delight, and his eyes snapped open, revealing what at first glance looked like a small glittering snowman bouncing towards him.

"Baldy!" Carmelita squealed in delight, and the bald man with the long nose gave an inward groan of despair as she proceeded to bounce on the sofa relentlessly.

"What is she doing here?" Flo's sister asked.

"Olaf and Esmé have gone out," Flo replied. "So they asked us to look after Carmelita. Isn't that… nice?"

The bald man with the long nose gave her a withering look as he was pelted with cushions by the young girl.

"I'll go and get that pizza, shall I?" Flo asked, ducking a flying cushion and hurrying out of the room.

-

When she returned with the slightly burnt but otherwise unharmed pizza, Carmelita had succeeded in upturning a few chairs, and breaking most of the cushions, incidentally spreading feathers all over the living room.

Flo stared in horror at the scene.

"Pizza!" Carmelita cried in delight, and dashed over to grab three large pieces. "Just in time, too!" She said. "I'd run out of ammo!"

"No!" Flo cried, but she was too late. Carmelita had already thrown it at the bald man with the long nose. He ducked, and it hit Fernald right in the face, in a mess of cheese and pepperoni.

Fernald woke up with a start.

"What's going on!?" He asked in bewilderment, grabbing the sleeve of the bald man to wipe the cheese off his face.

"Get off!" The bald man protested, snatching it away.

"Hooky!" Carmelita cried in delight.

Fernald stared in horror, and pointed at Carmelita with a trembling hook.

"What's s-she doing h-here?" he asked.

"We're babysitting," Flo replied flatly.

Fernald looked as though he was about to cry.

"How about," Flo's sister said, inspiration suddenly hitting her. "A nice little game of sardines."

"Sardines?" Carmelita asked, sounding interested.

"Yes," Flo's sister continued. "One person goes and hides, and then the rest of us has to find them. When someone finds them, they hide with them, and so on, until there is only one finder left."

"Sounds fun!" Carmelita said eagerly. "Who's going to hide first?"

"I will," Fernald volunteered.

"Right," Flo's sister said. "The rest of us count to one hundred."

Fernald dashed off to find a hiding place.

Where could he hide that was big enough to hold at least five people?

He thought, and then had an idea. The Tower!

He knew full well that nobody was allowed up there, and if Olaf caught him then he would be in big trouble, but Olaf wasn't there, and he was in desperate need of a hiding place, as he could already hear the others reaching 'fifty two'.

So he hurried up the stairs to the Tower, and found a rather suitable cupboard in which to hide himself in, behind a large array of moth eating and moulding acting costumes. He huddled at the back, and waited.

-

The bald man with the long nose stood hesitantly at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Tower. He was pretty sure Fernald had hidden up there; he had searched the whole house over several times and not found him.

But if Olaf caught him in his 'strictly out of bounds' Tower room, then goodness knows what would happen.

Still, Olaf wasn't here, and so the bald man decided to be brave, and began to climb the stairs.

-

"Move over will you?" Hissed the bald man as he squeezed into Fernald's hiding place.

"Well stop digging your shoe into my arm then!" Fernald spat back.

The two of them sat in furious silence.

It was not long until someone else found their hiding place. Flo's sister.

"Are you nuts?" She asked Fernald as she squeezed into the cupboard. "What if the Boss finds us up here?"

"Well he won't!" Fernald replied, dignity wounded. "He's not here, remember."

"Someone else is coming," the bald man said, and true enough, the cupboard door opened and Flo scrambled in.

"Oh, great hiding place," she said to Fernald sarcastically as she squeezed into the corner next to him.

"Will everyone stop going on about the hiding place!" Fernald cried.

Soon enough, the door opened again, and the person of intermediate gender squeezed in and closed the door with a click.

There was silence.

"Did you just close the door?" Flo asked slowly.

The person of intermediate gender nodded.

There was a chorus of angry protest.

"We won't be able to get out now!" Flo's sister cried.

"We'll run out of air!" The bald man with the long nose added.

"And food!" Fernald piped up.

"What if the Boss finds us?" Flo asked in horror, and, right on cue, they heard the front door open from downstairs.

They fell silent and listened, hearts racing.

"Blasted restraining order," they heard Olaf grumble. "Sorry about that, Esmé."

"It's perfectly all right, darling," Esmé replied. "I can have them shut down so fast they won't know what hit them."

"I'll be back in a moment," they heard Olaf say. "I'll just go and get some wine from the Tower and I'll be right back."

The Troupe shook with fear as they heard their Boss climb the stairs to their hiding place.

Olaf opened the door, stepped inside, and began to search the room for a wine bottle that hadn't been drained already.

Shivering with fear is an unfortunate habit that some people have, as it can disadvantage them terribly in circumstances where they really don't want or need to be disadvantaged in.

Hiding is one of them, especially hiding in a dusty costume cupboard, with a bald man with a long nose, who has a dust allergy.

Fernald shivered, the large and hideous moleskin coat beside him shaking as he did so, spraying dust everywhere.

The bald man with the long nose had alarm bells ringing in his head as he felt the dust fall around him. He felt his nose itch, and his eyes begin to water.

No! He couldn't! He had to restrain it! He had to stop himself!

But as Fernald shivered more, and as the moleskin jacket sent more and more particles of unmerciful dust flying around the poorly ventilated cupboard, he couldn't fight it any more.

"ACHOOO!"

The other Troupe members jumped and stared at him in horror.

"Sorry!" He whispered.

However there was no point in whispering now, as they heard footsteps approaching their hiding place, and someone took hold of the door handles, and flung the cupboard doors open.

"Err… hi Boss," the bald man said.

Olaf looked furious.

"WHAT do you think you're doing in my Tower!?" He shouted.

"Hiding?" Fernald tried quietly.

The others gave him the blackest of looks.

"Where's Carmelita?" Olaf asked. "Shouldn't you be looking after her?"

"She's probably in the living room," Fernald said. "Making more mess."

He received more dark looks.

Olaf stared at him, before dashing back down the stairs, his associates following meekly in tow.

"Olaf, darling, what's going on?" Esmé asked, taking off her disco ball hat and following after them.

Olaf stopped in the doorway to the living room, and the others peered around him.

Carmelita was sitting in a fort made of upturned chairs and sofas, surrounded by the white feathery remains of Olaf's best cushions, munching merrily on the rest of the pizza.

Esmé gave a small scream of horror, before dashing over to Carmelita.

"Pizza stains all down your new, in outfit!" She cried. "Oh, I'm not blaming you, precious. It's those imbeciles who should have been looking after you who're to blame!" She shot the Troupe a nasty look.

"You!" She snapped at Flo. "I don't care how pretty Olaf thinks you are! Clean this up now!"

Flo meekly hurried over to clean up the mess. She picked up the half eaten pieces of pizza and put them haphazardly on the tray.

"Come here, darling," Esmé cooed to Carmelita. "That pizza will be doing nothing at all for your figure."

Carmelita obligingly hurried towards Esmé, barging rudely past Flo as she did so. Big mistake.

The pizza, as I have already mentioned, was stacked rather precariously on the tray that Flo was carrying, and having a small girl barge past did nothing to help it become more stable.

In fact, Flo lost all grip of it, and the pizza rose into the air slightly, before falling, and landing with beautiful accuracy, right onto the now hatless head of Esmé.

Esmé screamed.

Olaf smirked.

"You… IDIOT!" She yelled at Flo. "Brand new, this outfit was! And the most in thing around! But of course you wouldn't appreciate that with your tatty, unfashionable clothes! What have you got to say for yourself!?"

Flo looked at Esmé for a moment, and bent down to pick up a slightly hairy slice of pizza that had typically decided to land face down on the carpet.

"Pizza?" She offered.

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Again, sorry for taking so long to update!

Next chapter coming soon, sooner, I promise!

Reddy