Jack answering the door: Vladdy! I'm so glad you're here. Everyone has been waiting for you, I'm happy you found time to visit.
Vlad peering past Jack into the living room: ...
Maddie standing still with a lampshade covering her head.
Jazz hiding behind the couch with plant leaves taped to her headband.
Danny halfway up the god damn chimney spewing ash into the living room, coughing and wheezing.
Vlad: ... I feel so welcome here.
Jack: Good because you are.
Both pause as they hear a muffled "NOT" from the chimney.
Jack: You guys didn't tell me we're playing hide and seek!
Vlad: Why do I keep coming back here.
A muffled voice from the chimney chimes in again, this time further up "I don't know, you should stop." Followed by a pause and a unnerved, "There's a possum up here." ... "It's not dead."
Maddie takes the lampshade off and peers up the chimney: Honey why don't you just come back down.
Danny, showering soot down that makes Maddie recoil: No, I prefer the company of this possibly rabid possum gnawing on my arm. I've named her Bethany.
2 hours and one rescue team later Danny is sitting on the plastic covered couch, blackened all over by soot and petting a possum that has since pack bonded with him and hisses at anyone who tries to get rid of it. Maddie and Jack are out getting dinner (the oven is contaminated with ectoplasm again) and Jazz has escaped to a 'tutoring job' she only seems to have when she doesn't want to be at home).
Bethany: Hssssssssjajdkfhakakskdkf!!!
Danny: Bethany doesn't like you.
Danny: I don't like you either.
Vlad: ... ... I know. But could you maybe wash the soot off? For your mother's furniture, if anything.
Danny: No, I like the soot. It keeps fruit loops away.
Vlad: I promise you Daniel, it is less the soot and more the vicious possum you've somehow trained in less than two hours to hate every fibre of my existence.
Danny: She's stubborn, it usually takes 30 minutes.
Vlad: How many animals have you trained to hate me?
Danny: Animals? 1. Bethany.
Vlad: I don't like the implications of that statement.
Danny: Well. I don't like you.
Vlad: We've established that.
Bethany: -the hissing rage of 1000 wasps in a jar being shaken up-
Vlad: Bethany doesn't like me either. I. Know.
