Chapter Twenty-Two - Three Jobs
Trinity had three important jobs to do, which was great, because that was her favourite number.
Her first job was that she had to watch out for bad guys and trouble-makers. That was good and easy. The place where they were doing the charity thing was a blocked-off road between a tiny park and a play area with a huge sandpit.
Trinity wanted to climb to the tippy-top of the jungle gym and use that as a lookout, but that would have been too obvious. Besides, Emily asked her not to be 'too silly' and the jungle gym, with its cartoon drawings and fun pee smell, was definitely a bit silly.
So almost as soon as they arrived, she gave herself a boost up the side of a tree so that she could grab some of the lower branches, then the her that was up there climbed higher and moved some branches aside so that she could see the whole area around her while she wrapped herself up in her poncho.
If anyone looked up, the most they'd be able to see was her face, and only if the angle was just right. Meanwhile, she had two of her eyes way up high, where she could see everyone.
Her second job was to 'be cute.'
Trinity found this one hard, and she suspected that her sisters found it hard too. Sam and the other minions had built a big pavilion thing on one end of the street with the barricades behind it. It wasn't quite a stage, but it sorta looked like one, and it was decorated with cardboard cutouts of animals just like them, and of the Boss looking cool.
There were some little spinning light things, and a table covered in baked stuff that people could buy.
And, of course, there was a huge bin in the middle of the area. It was made of clear plastic, they were supposed to encourage people to put their money in there by being cute and signing stuff--as long as that stuff wasn't paperwork.
At first, the people who were around were mostly just their minions, but it didn't take long before there were a lot more people, and soon people started forming long, long lines.
Trinity blinked at the first person--an old lady, about the same age as big sister Emily or best minion Sam--who asked her to sign a postcard like the ones one of the other minions was selling. The lady had the postcard in one hand, and a plastic cup of something blue in the other. It smelled sweet.
Trinity remembered her instructions to be cute, so she smiled to the lady and pulled out her stamp. "You want me to sign the thing?" Trinity asked.
The lady nodded and smiled right back. "That would be very nice."
"I'll do it for that," Trinity said, pointing to the cup. There was only a bit left at the bottom.
"You... want the rest of my slushie?" she asked. "To drink it?"
"Nuh-uh, I just want the cup."
The lady seemed a bit confused by this. "It's just trash."
"Yeah, but it's your trash, and you're not me, and people say that another person's trash is your treasure, so if that's your trash, then it could be my treasure, so I want it."
The lady smiled, then gave Trinity the cup. She didn't even finish the rest of the slushie first! Trinity bounced on a spot a little, her tail doing its own little happy dance, then she stuffed the cup partway into her pocket and then out of her pocket with her other body, who was behind the stage-thing and next to the big garbage back there.
That her got to rip the top off the slushie cup and down the rest, and it was very nice. "Thank you!" Trinity said. "I can stamp your thing now."
The lady nodded and let Trinity put her stamp on her postcard, then she leaned forwards a little. "Can I pat your head?" she asked.
Trinity shrugged. "Okay. But don't pull my ears."
The lady pat-patted Trinity on the head, giggled, then left with her card, but not before telling Trinity that she was very cute.
Success! Trinity still wasn't sure what she'd done, but she'd been cute.
Was taking people's stuff cute?
Well, that worked well with her third job, in any case. That job was to pickpocket as many people as possible.
That wasn't hard at all. So many people were standing in line, not paying attention to what was in or not in their pockets, and with so many of them packed in close to each other, they were constantly bumping into their neighbours and blocking each other's line of sight.
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At first Trinity thought that she'd need to be all sneaky and invisible for this part, but it turned out to be so much easier to just walk up to small groups of people, smile, and be cute with the stuff in their pockets.
She kept rotating around, the her up in the tree looking for groups of people to steal from while at least one of her kept moving to just behind the stage where she could stuff people's things in a big, specially-marked trash bag.
A few of the people she was cute with eventually discovered that they didn't have their wallets in their pockets any more and started asking around for help. So Trinity decided to pretend to be a big dumb hero and helped them, holding their hands as she led them around and asked complete strangers if they'd seen this random person's wallet.
Usually people seemed to feel really uncomfortable about it, which just made it even easier to take their stuff.
The event was a lot of fun, even if it was also a lot of work. Trinity was happy that so much was going on all at once, because sometimes things were boring.
It took her a long time to understand that even people like best big sister Emily didn't get how things worked for Trinity.
It wasn't just that Trinity had three bodies. Which she did. But Trinity also had three times more attention to give to stuff than anyone else.
Trinity could rub her head and tummy in six different directions all at once. She'd tried it, even! She had heaps and heaps of things she could do all at the same time, so when she got bored, she got three times as bored as anyone else.
That was a lot of boredom to handle all at once.
But today wasn't boring at all! Trinity kept an eye on all the people, and another eye on her sisters to make sure they were okay.
Athena was basking in the attention, looking extra smug as she talked to some adults and they kept telling her how smart and mature she was, while Teddy had found a group of younger men and was grunting and trying very hard to make her bicep muscles look big.
Maple was hiding behind Big Sister Emily, only occasionally coming out to sign something before ducking away to hide again. The people who did get to interact with her seemed to really like making squealing noises.
As for big sister Emily, she looked a lot more frazzled than usual. She was barely paying any one thing attention as she tried to look at everything all at once.
Things were going pretty well, which was why she wasn't surprised when things changed all of a sudden, and the quality of the murmurs and whispers in the crowd went from normal discussions to a more exciting pitch.
Trinity squinted from her vantage point up in the tree and quietly wished that she'd brought something to chop off some of the branches blocking her line of sight.
Eventually though, the person causing all the stir showed up, and Trinity found herself rolling all six of her eyes for effect.
Glamazon, in a brand new all-blue outfit that was all skintight and shiny. Exactly the kind of costume that Big Sister Emily insisted was the worst and that she'd never be caught dead in.
The heroine smiled and waved, then paused to sign a few knick-knacks and things, but mostly she pressed onwards, skirting along the edge of the crowd until she reached the Boss. The Trinity nearest the boss waited for the person she was signing stuff for at that moment to finish patting her head (there had been a lot of that for some reason. Was being pat on the head also cute?) and then dipped over to the Boss' side.
Glamazon was a bonafide, real-deal hero. Which meant that she was a problem. Fortunately, Trinity gave herself good odds of being able to take her in a fight. Heroes were always worried about stuff like nearby civilians, and doing too much damage, and they never seemed to remember that they could just bite people, which was very silly.
She'd have to remind the woman if the opportunity came up.
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