Peanut Butter Banana Sandwiches

Stephanie turned around at the shocked yelp from Sportacus. The three of them had been having dinner, this time at Robbie’s house, Stephanie helping cook the healthier parts of it since Robbie refused to. He had spent most of the time sitting in his recliner and sulking about being kicked out of his own kitchen. But after that, dinner was served. It was pretty simple, being that she was by no means a cook, but she cooked spaghetti and heated up some tomato sauce and biscuits. She had been pretty proud of herself, and practically glowed when Sportacus ruffled her pink hair and said she did an excellent job and he was sure it was delicious. Robbie even ate some (though he mostly just picked at it and made faces). So, all in all, she thought it had gone well.
That was, until Robbie’s cake making machine sparked dangerously (Robbie had been trying to get it to make more than one flavor, for variety, prior to dinner) and suddenly shot out about five gigantic slices of frosting-coated cake. Sportacus had, of course, jumped up at the first spark.
And that was when Stephanie turned around, hands over her head, and a cake smacked into her back rather harmlessly. She heard the yelp and risked turning around to see what was wrong.
Due to rather unfortunate timing, Sportacus had caught cake full in the face. Which, by itself, was not a huge deal, as it had happened before to no huge consequence. Unfortunately, he also happened to have his mouth open. Which was something more of a problem.
Stephanie yelled and moved to grab his arm as he abruptly went slack and started crashing to the floor. Robbie beat her to it however, and caught Sportacus’ unconscious form and dragged it over to the recliner. He glanced at the cake machine (which was still shooting out cake and fizzing with electricity by now) and then over at Stephanie.
“Pinky!” he yelled over the clanging hissing machine. “Clean the elf up while I fix this!” and he stalked off to the workbench, grabbing various objects. Stephanie nodded and raced off to the bathroom, grabbing a towel and running half of it under the water before rushing back out to Sportacus. She started wiping the frosting off of his face, and especially from around his mouth. She bit her lip and tried to not worry, but she didn’t know how much sugar he had actually gotten in his mouth before snapping it closed at the last moment. She just cleaned the last of it off and was drying his face when she herd the banging from over by the culprit machine. She glanced over.
Apparently, Robbie Rotten’s tool of choice was a rather large hammer. Parts flew everywhere until eventually the machine stopped working and gave a last sputter and died. Robbie let the hammer drop from his hands, panting and hunched over. He looked up from the remains of his machine over to Stephanie and Sportacus, and straightened up, walking over.
“He owes me a Cake-o-matic5000 now,” he grumbled. Stephanie raised an eyebrow at this, an unconscious imitation of the same look she had seen on his face multiple times, and wondered to herself how in the world that made any logical sense.
Robbie looked at the unconscious Sportacus for a moment before abruptly snatching his hat and goggles off. They were splattered with frosting.
“I’m going to go wash this,” he said, starting to walk towards another room. He stopped when he felt a tug on the back of his vest, and he glanced back at Stephanie’s pouting face.
“What am I supposed to do? It’s boring down here Robbie,” she complained. He sighed and tossed her the goggles.
“You can help clean these then.”

“You know,” Stephanie said, rubbing the lens of the goggles with a cloth. “I still think it’s really cool Sportacus is actually an elf. I’ve never known anybody who was an elf before! I wonder if he has any magic powers?”
Robbie rolled his eyes and snorted, moving to sit on top of the washing machine that was spinning the hat around.
“He’s the weirdest elf I’ve ever heard of,” Robbie added. “He only eats plants, for one. And he doesn’t even dress like an elf.”
Stephanie nodded in agreement. “That’s why it’s so surprising. I thought elves had little bells on their shoes and stuff! Or at least on their hat… though, I guess granting wishes is a power, right? When he lost his crystal he said he’d grant a wish to whoever found it.”
Robbie nodded absently, pulling the hat from the washing machine and tossing it into the dryer. Stephanie eyed the process in what he thought was an odd way, and after he set the dryer to the right temperature and started it, he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against it, giving her a look.
“Alright Pinky,” he said. “What are you up to?” She looked away and wiggled her fingers in a less than honest gesture.
“Nothing,” she said, and grinned a little, glancing back at Robbie.
“Whatever it is,” he interrupted. “I want in on it.” She kicked her feet happily and grinned.

Sportacus groaned and sat up slowly, blinking away grogginess. Stupid sugar… He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Robbie and Stephanie were at a cleared-off workbench, and Robbie was showing her how to put together a simple machine. She looked a little bored with it, but she feigned interest for Robbie’s sake, as he was getting rather enthusiastic about it. He shook his head, but froze when he heard something. Robbie looked up from what he was doing.
“Finally awake? Took you long enough,” he commented dryly. Stephanie bounced over to him and hugged him, helping him get out of the orange chair. His muscles were sore from staying still for too long, and he stretched them out once he was on his feet. He did a little cartwheel.
He stopped moving. There was that sound again… it sounded like it was right near his head… He whipped his head around, trying to find it. The jingling taunted him further. He looked incredulously at Robbie, who had started laughing but then was trying very hard to suppress it, and then at Stephanie, who was grinning up at him, but with a look in her eyes that he was sure she only got when giving Robbie disguised sports candy.
“What… what did you guys do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Robbie said defensively, but he still looked far too amused for it to have any truth behind it. He looked back down at Stephanie, but every time he moved, that jingling sound went off by his ear. It was driving him crazy. He looked down, then twitched at the resulting sound. He put his hand to the side of his face, and Stephanie bolted, running for the pipe that led outside and giggling madly the entire time. He watched her go, mouth open wide. Why was she… His hand encountered a small metal object, and he pulled on it, taking off his hat with it.
At that moment, Robbie made a run for it too, and followed Stephanie out, giggling in much more manly sense (he liked to think so anyway). Sportacus watched him escape, gaping openly. What was going on? He looked down at his hat and examined it. Was that…?
“GUYS!” he yelled, and jumped after them, determined to catch one of the two would-be tricksters.
“Wait just a second! Who put the bell on my hat?!”