Julian & The Cuckoos: Poolside

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After an afternoon dip in the pool, Julian has a conversation with everyone's favorite scary, little blond girls.

It was oddly quiet afternoon outside, with the only sounds by the pool being the lapping of the water against its edges and the birds on their nearby pearches. Spring was beautiful here on the East Coast and Julian was loving every moment of it. The long winter was finally starting to fall away and while it may not have been entirely warm enough for a swim, he didn't care. The weight room was starting to get boring and it was one of the things Keller missed most about Califorina, so what was supposed to have been a quick dip had rapidly extended into an hour long endurance challenge. A smile crossed his lips as he now floated in the deep end, looking up at the blue of the sky, thankful that he hadn't lost his skill in the months that he'd been banned from the locker rooms at school and then sent here to an iced tundra.

"Are you trying to freeze?" asked a sweet voice innocently. "It looks like-"

"-it's awfully cold. It could snow again, you know. There was snow-"

"-last April. We wouldn't want you to catch-"

"-cold."

Without having to look, Julian knew the sweet voices and broken speech pattern of the Cuckoos anywhere. With a sigh he flipped himself over in the frigid water, smiling at them by the side pool. "It's not that bad, you should join me." In truth it was fairly cold, particularly whenever his body drifted below the layer of water the sun had warmed when it was directly overhead.

The smiling in unison, as always, was fairly creepy. "No," said the one on the end, "we're good-"

"-right here, thank you." Here being the end of the pool, where they were all seated in the same cross-legged position. "The view is-"

"-not entirely displeasing." The third blonde looked at the sister to her left, who hadn't spoken. The fourth blonde blushed.

Julian chuckled and took in a breath, quickly slipping below the surface of the water and heading toward the side where the girls were seated. Given the short length of the swim, he wasn't even taxed when he breached the water next to the wall and shook off his hair. Even the stone felt warmer than the water as he settled against it, his feet firmly planted on the bottom. "So, what brings the sisters out today? Just here to take in the scenery?" he winked at the one who was blushing.

"Maybe we were looking for something interesting," Celeste said with a toss of her head. "It's been terribly boring around here. Nothing's blown up-"

"-for ages," Sophie complained. "And everyone's getting along far too well. Do you think the old bald man has been slipping something-"

"-in the water?" Phoebe pondered. "We don't all drink his tea. But we've always thought this place-"

"-is sort of scary and cult-ish at times," Esme said with a shrug. After a moment of thought Julian nodded, "Yeah, I guess you could call it that." The mansion was very heavily guarded and it was unlikely that anyone coming here for trouble would actually stand a chance against the faculty. At the same time, Keller was here by choice and certainly didn't remember any sort of brainwashing. "I don't know," he paused, "anyway, how are the four of you going to stir things up?" his smile turned into a smirk, knowing that the four of them were probably up to some sort of mischief.

"Maybe we could tell you a story. It's a very interesting-"

"-story. About a mild-mannered teacher who went home-"

"-and got himself into a very nasty situation."

With a skeptical tilt of his head, Julian made eye contact with each of the girls before nodding slightly- "Go on."

"Weeeeeeell, we're almost certain-"

"-that the bad man must have been very bad. After all, Mr. Beaubier isn't-"

"-in jail for killing him, and while we're sure sometimes the authorities-"

"-sweep these things under the rug, the bad man must have deserved to be-"

"-decapitated." Sophie's voice was full of relish. "Can you imagine? Decapitating someone-"

"-with your bare hands. It's like something out of a-"

"-zombie movie, like the one we let the little kids-"

"-watch, when Mr. Summers got so annoyed at us."

With their story bouncing between them it took Julian a moment to piece it together. "Wait-wait-wait, wait...you're telling me that Mister Beaubier killed someone?" He thought of all their previous interactions, "That seem's unlikely."

The Cuckoos snorted, in unison. "Oh, silly boy," Sophie said in apparent annoyance. "We don't need-"

"-to lie. But, we forgive you. You're just a-"

"-heavy-lifter. Sort of the poor dumb cousin of the psionic family."

Esme actually shot her sisters an indignant look. "Be nice!" she snapped. They gazed back at her innocently. She made a face and looked at Julian. "We're really not lying. He talked to Mr. Summers about it. Apparently he's-"

"-quite upset. But then, wouldn't you be?"

For a brief second the memory of injuring Officer Roberts surfaced in his mind, but he pushed it back down as best he could- not wanting to give the Cuckoos any ammunition. As for their little jab at him, Julian did his best to ignore it and thought the one girl's- he thought it could be Sophie, but they all looked alike and it was frankly very difficult to tell them apart- was a bit more than interesting, given that they were supposedly one giant brain. "Yeah, I guess I would be," a pause, "You don't think he did it on purpose though, do you?"

The girls shared a ripple of laughter. "I don't know, but don't you think-"

"-that it might be a little difficult, that is to say, impossible-"

"-to decapitate someone by accident?"

Pushing off the wall, Julian propelled himself to one of the ladders and pulled himself out of the water. The air had grown colder while he was swimming and a ripple of goosebumps appeared on his mostly exposed flesh. He approached the girls with a smile, "Yes, I suppose it would be- though not impossible." An idea popped into his head, "Could you hand me my towel?" he asked the one who was still blushing slightly and doing her best to avoid eye contact.

Esme did so, with a little shrug and more eye-contact avoidance. "Accidents happen," she said. "But this sounds like it was something-"

"-else, which makes it interesting. It's been so long since-"

"-we picked up on any really good gossip. This is almost as good as-"

"-who's doing what in bed with whom."

Julian scoffed as he toweled the chlorinated water off his body, "Voyeurs." Once dry he created a bubble of tee-kay energy at the far end of the pool, slowly submerging it as he wrapped the towel around himself. "So, you want me to believe that our teacher murdered someone?" Instead of concentrating on the bubble, which was slowly making its way to where they were sitting, Keller focused his mind on imagining Jean-Paul ripping a villain's head off with his bear hands.

Celeste shrugged extravagantly. "We're not telling you what to believe. That would be-"

"-unethical. But it really makes you wonder, doesn't it? What kind of people are teaching us? Maybe all those fussing parents-"

"-have it right and there's something very wrong about the way the old bald man does things. But really, we're-"

"-perfectly fine with letting you draw your own conclusions," Esme muttered. "It's nice to know you're not planting thoughts in my head," he smiled, positioning the bubble of trapped air directly under where they were perched. Julian gave them the classic Keller smile and created a shield above himself and the one girl who had handed him his towel. "I'll have to think about it before I draw any conclusions." He nodded and turned to walk away before pausing and turning back theatrically, "Oh, there is one other thing, girls. There is an advantage to being a big, dumb heavy-lifter."

The shriek came in unison as well, as three of the Stepfords were splashed by the water. Esme, realizing that she was perfectly dry, shot Julian a brief look of gratitude, at which point Phoebe pushed her in the pool.

Julian crossed his arms and looked sternly at Phoebe, "Was that really necessary?" He took off his towel and handed it to Esme as she exited the pool.

Sophie shot him what could only be described as a smouldering look. "If she wants to make it unnecessary, then she needs to share."

He'd seen that look a number of times before from the Queen Bee's back in Beverly Hills- that meant trouble, "Oh come on...um, Sophie?" It was a complete guess, "You can't blame me for that one, I'm just the poor dumb cousin, right?"

"We can blame you-"

"-for anything we like. We're told-"

"-it's one of the benefits of being female."

Not able to contain his chuckle, on that point, Julian nodded, "Okay, true enough- but you did have it coming." He offered the one wrapped in his towel a sympathetic smile, then turned back toward the group, "We should hang out more, then you can get me back."