He reached under the leg of the couch a little farther to retrieve the other shoe and slid it onto to his foot. He had spent a little less than an hour cleaning up his house, which was all the time he needed. Now, he was heading out to town, to buy more suitable food for himself and his, ahem . . . guests.

“Can’t let her think I don’t take care of myself.” He thought. It was a bizarre thing to say, but he didn’t want Kimberly or Jason, for that matter, to think he was lazy. He wanted to look his best when he finally saw Kimberly again, and if that meant pretending he always kept a fully stocked fridge full of wholesome food, then that was what he was going to do.

After he finished lacing up his boots, Tommy sprinted back upstairs to his bedroom, to grab an over shirt. Just as he completed buttoning the last button, the phone rang. He walked into his study to answer it.The ingredients wore measured and then poured into the mixing pot. Finster stirred and stirred; a sleeping potion had to be well mixed to be effective. Colored smoke poured from the bowl, the signal that the potion was complete. Finster poured the yellowish mixture into three different jars and sealed them tightly with a cork. He didn’t trust anyone else and was afraid one of the other minions would end up breaking one of the bottles. Finster had had too many potions and monster molds broken over the past few years to take any chances. He placed two of the bottles on the back of the top shelf and slipped the third in his pouch to take to Rita.

Kimberly wiped the sweat from her face with a towel. Practice that day so far had been brutal. Kimberly sat on the bench and slipped on a pair of jogging pants. As she did so, she watched the other girls practice. She was waiting for Lacie and Sarah to finish so that they could all grab some lunch on their break. Sarah was working on her floor routine while Lacie was working on the uneven bars. Kimberly had spent the entire morning on beam, trying to make sure her backflips were executed perfectly and that she could follow them directly with a few dance moves. She was glad that the noon hour had finally come. A break was in order. Kimberly looked up as Sarah ran over to her.Jareth was very glad he was wearing a helmet, or he'd have gotten a faceful of sand. Actually, if he hadn't been morphed, he'd have probably broken every bone in his body, given the velocity with which he hit the ground. Fortunately, morphed bodies didn't exactly have bones... or, for that matter, anything else remotely resembling an organ.

Disentanging himself from his coat and shaking the sand out of his mane, he looked over for the other two Rangers. Deacon lay some distance behind him, lying facefirst in the sand. Jareth strode over and pulled him to his feet.

"Oomph," Deacon said crankily, though he hadn't felt any actual pain. "When will that Microsoft reject learn how to land an interplanetary teleport?"

"Can YOU land an interplanetary teleport?"