“Where do they go when they leave?” Steven asked, looking up at Spinel sitting in front of him, helping him build a block tower.
“You mean Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet?” Spinel replied because who else could he possibly be referring to.
“Yes.” Steven nodded. “Dad goes to work at the carwash but where do they go when they go away?” He made a gesture back towards the warp pad, even turning his head to look at it before looking back at Spinel. “Do they have jobs too?”
“Hmmm… yes.” What they did was kinda like a job, wasn’t it? Somebody had to do it and it had to be them because they were the ones who brought all the gem stuff here. What should she say about what they did and where they went though? The four of them and Greg hadn’t discussed how much Steven should know about all that while he was still too young to participate – he had Rose’s gem and thus it was almost a given that he’d participate someday… if he wanted to of course. “They go to different places and do important gem stuff that needs to be done.” There, that was a truthful answer that was also pretty safe, right?
“What does that mean? And can I go with them next time they go out? I’ll be good and stay out of the way, I promise.” His face was lit up with hope as he looked pleadingly up at her. If he’d been asking for anything else it would’ve impossible for Spinel to say ‘no’ to him but she had no choice in this matter.
“You don’t want to go with them,” she said with a dismissive hand gesture. “It’s not very fun, trust me.”
“That’s what Dad said about the carwash but then he took me and it was fun. You know, you were there.” That had been a couple days ago so maybe she should’ve expected this to come up eventually.
“Well this is different. It’s super not fun. It’s the most unfun thing in the whole universe.” To emphasis her point – which was basically a lie, it could be fun and exciting sometimes but almost always dangerous and therefore not something Steven needed to be involved in right now – Spinel lifted her arms and stretched them out in a wide gesture. “But you know what is fun?” She snapped her arms back in as she jumped up to her feet with a wide smile. “Games! What game do you want to play?”
“Uh…”
“We could play tag or hide and seek or…”
“Hide and seek,” Steven interrupted as he stood too. “Let’s play hide and seek.”
“Okay!” Good, Spinel had successfully distracted him. She’d bring this conversation up with the others when they got home to discuss how they should address this problem in future and possibly at what point he would be allowed to accompany them. But for now she had a game to play. “Who hides first?”
“Uh…” Steven looked up, lifting a finger to his chin in thought. “Me,” he said, pointing to himself.
-
After the third round when Spinel found him hidden upstairs under his bed Steven said, “This time can you count to a thousand? And then we’ll switch, you hide and I find you.” He smiled up at her eagerly.
“Okay!” A thousand was more than normal, though he occasionally demanded five hundred in hopes of using the extra time to hide himself in a cupboard behind things so it wasn’t too far out of the ordinary. So Spinel didn’t mind and it would prolong the game, always a good thing.
So she stretched a leg over to the corner of the room to take one big step into it, facing it. She then covered her eyes with her hands and started counting. “One… two… three…”
Behind her, the soft creak of the stairs announced that Steven was headed down them as fast as his little legs could go. There was no reason to be in such a rush, he had plenty of time, but that didn’t seem to matter to him.
-
“… nine-hundred-ninety-eight… nine-hundred-ninety-nine… and one thousand.” Spinel snapped around. “Ready or not, here I come!” she called out loud enough that no matter where Steven was in the house, he should’ve heard her.
She skipped down the stairs and gave the living room a quick look over. There weren’t many good hiding spots here so she quickly moved onto the kitchen. She checked every cupboard he could reach. There was no sign on him so she moved onto the bathroom. He wasn’t there either. She went back to the living room to give it a more thorough look but… he wasn’t there either.
Odd, there weren’t any other places he could hide, could he? Maybe he’d snuck back upstairs. A quick check revealed that that didn’t seem to be the case either. So… where was he hiding? Had he found a new really good hiding spot somehow? One she didn’t know about? It was possible.
Back to the kitchen she went to check every possible place he could fit in, even places that should be too high for him to reach without a chair – all of which were placed neatly in their places. After coming up with nothing there she went to the next room to do the same. She wasn’t going to be bested, she was good at this game.
-
“Steven!” She called after her third thorough search had again yielded nothing again. She was starting to get worried but it was probably nothing, just her being a ‘worrywart’ as Greg would put it. “I give up, you win.”
Silence.
“Where are you hiding? It’s a really good spot wherever it is.”
More silence as she flopped down onto the couch with a sigh.
He wouldn’t ignore her, would he? He’d won, she’d admitted defeat, it was time for him to come out now … Maybe he’d gone outside to hide and that’s why she couldn’t find him and why he wasn’t coming out, he couldn’t hear her. It was certainly something he was smart enough to do.
She jumped back up to her feet. Before she could turn towards the front door though, her eyes caught the warp pad off to the side. Surely, he wouldn’t have… No, no way, of course not, he was a good kid, he did as he was told and he’d been told to stay away from it so he did. But he had mentioned wanting to go with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl so… maybe he had.
“No, of course not. He’s just hiding outside, that’s all,” she said. Verbalizing it wouldn’t make it true if it wasn’t but it did make it feel more true. And it probably was true so…
She turned her back on the warp pad and headed for the front door, stretching out an arm to open it before she got there. “Steven!” she called out as she poked her head out. “You out here?”
Other than the crash of the waves on the beach and distant call of seagulls there was no answer. Well they were playing hide and seek so he was hiding and she had to find him. He wouldn’t have gone far; he was still too young to leave the house without supervision, he knew that. She’d find him in no time and all would be well.
-
Except she didn’t find him and all was not well. She twisted her hand into a megaphone horn. “Steven!” she called into. “You win, come out now please!”
Her amplified voice disturbed the seagulls but nothing else.
She’d lost him! He’d taken the warp or maybe he had gone outside and had fallen in the ocean and drowned or was grabbed by someone evil or something else terrible had happened to him. And it was her fault because she’d been watching him and didn’t keep a good enough eye on him and now he could be dying or dead and she had no way of knowing or saving him from danger.
She pressed her hands to the sides of her head, squeezing. Now wasn’t the time to panic. She had to tell the others and they’d help her find him.
She dashed back to the house. As soon as she was through the door the warp pad lit up and made its familiar warping sound. “Steven?” Maybe he’d found his way back through the warp pad safe and sound.
Except it wasn’t Steven. It was Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet returning from their mission. They were safe and unharmed so that was good at least.
“What’s wrong?” Pearl asked, a worried look clouding her face as the three of them stepped off the warp pad. Apparently, she needed nothing more than a glance to pick up on Spinel’s distress.
“I lost Steven!”
“You lost Steven?!” Amethyst said, also visibly concerned. “How’d you lose him?”
Spinel took a deep breath to steady herself before explaining, going through the events as fast as she could without going so fast that she couldn’t be understood. “And that was more than an hour ago,” she said once she’d finished. “And he’s still missing.”
“With how many places the warp pad can connect to he could be almost anywhere,” Pearl said, now very concerned. “We have to find him before something bad happens.”
“He’ll be fine,” Garnet said before anyone had much time to consider what those bad things might be. As usual, she was the only one of them still calm. “We’ll find him.”
“How do you know?” Amethyst said before pausing. “Wait uh… yeah, I guess you would know, huh? Where is he?”
“I can’t know for sure but there are a number of places he could be. We’ll split up and find him or perhaps he’ll find his own way back.”
***
No doubt about, Spinel had long since finished counting to a thousand by now. She’d probably figured out he was no longer in the house anymore too. How was she going to react to that? Was she going to be mad? Steven had never seen her mad before and he very much didn’t want to.
It had been such a good idea; use the warp pad to see what the other gems were up to and then warp back and hide. No one was even supposed to know he’d used the warp pad. But instead he was lost in a forest he’d never seen before. He could still hear the ocean off in the distance somewhere though he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from as it seemed to be from all around. Maybe he was on an island?
He glanced around, biting his bottom lip. He’d been sitting here for a while and still no one had come. How far away from the warp pad was he? He’d tried to go back to it after giving up on finding the gems. But even though he’d thought he’d gone in a straight line he apparently hadn’t as he hadn’t been able to find it again.
What if he’d somehow managed to get so far away from it that he would never be found? Was that even possible with how long he’d been walking? He had no way to know.
Maybe it was time to stand up and try to find it again. Maybe that wouldn’t be smart though, maybe he had a better chance of getting found and not getting more lost if he stayed put and waited for them to find him. No one had ever told him what to do if he got lost, perhaps assuming he never would be. Well now they all knew better. Hopefully he’d get a chance to apologize to all of them for this.
He sat there for another five minutes or so, listening to the sound of forest life around him. If he stayed out here for too long night would come. He did not want to be out here alone in the dark. He’d never been afraid of the dark but he’d never been alone in it while also being in an unfamiliar space before either.
So, too antsy to hold still any longer he stood up and continued in the direction he’d been going in before sitting down to rest and think. How far had he gone from the warp pad before deciding to give up and return to it? A while, right? Maybe he just hadn’t gone back far enough despite feeling like he had and it was just a short distance away. Wouldn’t that be funny?
Except that didn’t seem to be the case at all. It had to be nearby though. He’d just passed it by on accident and needed to turn back and find it. Easier said than done but he wasn’t a baby anymore, he could do it.
-
He was beginning to doubt that and think it probably would’ve been better if he’d stayed still and waited for one of the gems to come find him when he pushed past a branch and stepped into a clearing. The clearing that the warp pad was in! Chipped and partially sunken into the forest floor it was in much worse repair than the one back home. But despite that it was still one of the most beautiful things he could see right now.
He ran to it, barely managing to stop himself from tripping in his haste to reach it. “Home, home, take me home please,” he mumbled as he stepped onto it.
He thought about home and only home, praying that’s how it worked, as the pad activated. Despite his exhaustion – it was way past the time he normally took a nap – and fear the feeling of floating in the stream of light was still amazing. He couldn’t think of anything more fun.
Alas, it was over all too soon as gravity claimed him and his feet were on the ground once more. But… he was home! He was back in the warp pad room in the beach side house, facing the living room.
“Spinel,” he called as he ran out to the middle of the living room. “I’m back!”
No answer. The house seemed empty. Dad would be coming back from work soon but surely Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst should be back by now, right? They weren’t normally gone that long. And Spinel should be home for sure. So where were they? …
They’d gone out to search for him. Hopefully they weren’t too worried about him and would return soon to see he’d found his own way safely back home. All he could do now was wait for their return and hope they weren’t too upset with him for this.
-
“Steven.”
Steven jolted awake to see Garnet looking down at him. “Garnet?” he said as he sleepily sat up. Why had he been sleeping on the couch?
“I thought you might be here.” She sat next to him. “I’m glad to see you safe.”
… Right, he’d gone on an adventure and everyone had left to go look for him. “Uh…” Steven rubbed the back of his head as he looked sheepishly up at Garnet. “Is Spinel mad at me for tricking her?” She had a right to be, right?
“No.” Garnet hadn’t even needed to think about it. “It takes a lot to get her mad. I don’t think she’s even capable of being mad at you. She was very worried though.”
“Yeah… sorry.” Did he need to explain himself? He probably should, right? “I meant to come back right away but uh… I got lost and couldn’t find the warp pad. Then I had to rest because I was tired and uh… then I finally found it a little after that.”
Garnet’s reply was a wordless hum of acknowledgement, seemingly no judgement though.
“Are you mad?” If anyone was going to be mad at him about this it’d be her or Pearl. Her because she was almost always so serious and Pearl because she was the most anxious about his safety.
“Nope.” A short pause. “The others should be back soon.”
True to her prediction it was only a few seconds before the warp pad lit up again. It was Spinel. “Garnet, I got your…” she began before cutting off as he eyes locked onto Steven. “Steven!” Her arms stretched out and wrapped around him several times, pining his arms to his chest. “You’re back!” She snapped her arms back to her body to hold him to her chest, squeezing him just tight enough to be uncomfortable. “You’re okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Uh… no, I’m okay.” Steven squirmed, kicking his feet and wishing they were at least still on the ground; he didn’t like being held anymore even if he was still small enough for it. But given the circumstances he couldn’t rightly complain. “Sorry I tricked you. I just wanted to see what the others were doing.”
“I forgive you but don’t ever do that again.” Spinel stepped off the pad and entered the living room, still holding Steven wrapped up in her noodlelike arms. “I was very worried. You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“I know. I won’t do it again.” He still badly wanted to know where Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl went and why and what exactly they did there. But… he apparently wasn’t going to find out this way. Hopefully he would allowed to know that stuff soon though.
The warp pad made its sound again, repeated a half second later. Spinel turned to look, allowing Steven to twist his head around and see that Pearl and Amethyst were here now too. “Steven!” they said together, a half beat off of being unison.
Spinel released her hold on him to put him in Pearl’s arms instead. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anyway?” She held him at arm’s length to thoroughly examine him. “Where have you been? Why did you…”
“Calm down P,” Amethyst interrupted. “He’s safe now so no need to continue to be so worked up. You’re only going to upset him if you get all up in his face about it. Put him down and let him relax.”
“I’m not ‘all up in his face about it’, I’m just worried that Steven might be…”
“I’m sorry,” Steven interrupted. “I’m okay though. I’m not hurt, I promise. I just got a bit lost and couldn’t find the warp pad for a while. I didn’t mean to make you guys worry. I know I shouldn’t’ve even gone but… I just wanted to know where you guys go all the time. But uh… could you please put me down now?”
Pearl sighed before finally putting him back on the floor. “We’ll talk about that when you’re older. For now, you’re forbidden from being anyway near the warp pad unsupervised, it’s very dangerous. You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”
It hadn’t seemed that dangerous but he wasn’t going to disobey especially since his feet were finally back on the ground. So instead he nodded. “All right, I won’t go near it anymore.” Until he was older anyway. When he was older, he should be allowed to explore all that stuff as much as he wanted… hopefully anyway.
“Good.” Amethyst clapped her hands together. “I’m glad your safe buddy.” She patted him on the head. “But now that that’s settled let’s eat some junk food, watch TV, and pretend this whole thing never happened.”
“And then we can play a board game,” Spinel added with a little clap and a bounce.
Pearl looked like she had something more she wanted to say but she sighed and went back to the living room with them while Amethyst split off to raid the kitchen. On the couch where Garnet still sat, her and Spinel sat a bit closer to Steven than they normally did but otherwise he thankfully seemed forgiven. He’d probably have to put up with being hovered around more than usual for a while. Which would be annoying but he could live with it and probably deserved nothing less.
