Short synopsis: An adventure in the life of Sandi (and her mysterious step-cousin) - more exciting than you think. Based on an Iron Chef challenge.

Sandi and related characters belong to MTV and Noggin. No copyright infringement is intended. Please send your comments to Bacner (olgak531@rogers.com).

"...Ugh!" Sandi Griffin said with a groan, as she stretched-out on a cot. "You can't believe what has happened today!"

"And long time no see you too, Sandi," the owner of the cot - in fact, the entire cheap-rent apartment - said with a slight frown. "What has happened now?"

"Now what makes you say that... kinswoman?" Sandi muttered with an acidic tone worthy of Daria in a bad argument with Helen.

"You just said it yourself."

"Oh yeah. Oh sorry. Look, I just want to crash and to cool-off a bit, that is all."

"Aha. Sure. Tell me another one."

"No, seriously. I couldn't stand the company of my friends any time soon, you know?"

"Oh, really?"

"No, seriously. Stacy and Quinn would just suck-up - badly, in Quinn's case, and Tiffany... if I hear one more "Am I too fat?" any time soon, I just might blow my casket."

"So I'm taking the Fashion Club has run out of steam?"

Sandi shook her head. "That's not the point. The point is - can I crash on your cot for a while?"

"What-ever. Just - are you sure that you don't want any help?"

Silence. Brief silence, as the prone Sandi ponders her step-cousin's words. "Run by me again, what help have you given me so far?" she finally says.

"Me?"

"Well, you and the Prince of Darkness, fine. Run be me that list all the same."

"Well, fine. There was Ruttheimer the 3^rd-"

"Oh, yes. The... subjugation spell, right?"

"Yes. The one that you tried to do once you found my stuff on your own, and messed-it-up completely."

"Hey!"

"Then there was this racket-thingy that you did with some of the current football players and cheerleaders-"

"We did, step-cousin, we did. Or have you forgotten?"

"How can I forget? The last thing we need was more Ruttheimer act-alikes running around Lawndale."

"Anything else that we did?"

"Other than decrease the general intelligence of Lawndale's youths by about 35% - that's it."

"Exactly. And neither spell has worked so well. Maybe we're just not doing it right."

"Excuse me? We're not doing it right? I did just fine, until you decided to let yourself in."

Sandi rolled her eyes. "You did just fine as a young offender, you mean. I give you that, when it comes to self-improvement in pursuit of illegal gains, you rock, cuz; when it comes to more complex spells - your luck is just marginally better than mine."

The other girl's eyes narrowed, making her look about as warm and friendly as an adder. "All right, Sandi. What do you want me to do?"

"Well," Sandi smirked, "it went like this. This little brat, Tad Gupty, has called me old! Imagine that! Old!"

"Ouch!" the other girl involuntarily winced. "So what do you want me to do? Call a father of all the thunderstorms onto his head?"

"No- Wait. You can do that?"

"It's something that I just itched to try - maybe on Halloween or something."

"Yeah, let's try it on Halloween or something," Sandi agreed with a shudder. "I, on the other hand, had something much sneakier in mind."

"Oh really? What?"

"A blessing," Sandi said with a shark-like smile. "Upon his parents."

"Hmm?"

"Oh, you know a fertility blessing. A baby train?"

"The baby train? Might be worth a shot," the other girl said and went to the large metal chest in the corner of her room. She returned shortly afterwards with several accessories and gizmos usually associated with the craft of witchery and similar magics. "All right," she said, flipping through a book. "Let's see what we need... a foghorn or a bullhorn, for a start."

"Right," Sandi said, snapping to attention, through a mischievous look still lurked in her eyes. "What next?"

"Some herbs, an air freshener..."

"Check-off the latter one," Sandi said, producing a can of air freshener.

The other girl looked at it. "I don't want to know," she finally said. "But I got the herbs all right - just enough to try it out once. So all we now lack is a foghorn or a bullhorn."

"A whistle wouldn't work?"

"Mmm... no. But I'm all for experimenting."

"In your words... "Mmm... no." Experiment on your own time - we've got a bigger fish to fry - the Gupty family!"

"Explain to me, why are we B&E'ing the school?" Sandi complained.

"Because I know that Ms. Li has a bullhorn we need - several of them, in fact."

"Yes. And she also has guard dogs, bullet-proof windows, security guards and alarms to the wazoo, reinforced locks..." Sandi's voice trailed off. "And I'm guessing you were itching to go for it for some time, yes?"

The other girl's smile was truly terrible to look-at - so happy and joyful it was. "Oh yes, dearie, oh yes. This is going to show me, have I got the right stuff to rob a bank or not, for if I pull of this caper, no measly bank security is going to stop us!"

Sandi let the dubious "us" comment slide; rather she turned to more practical problems. "Step-cousin," she said firmly to the other girl. "If you don't pull-off this caper, I'll end up in juvy or worse, while you'll be locked-up in Area 51 or some similar place, and be never seen again! The latter's not my problem, but experiencing this over a bullhorn is-"

"Shush!" the other girl said, as she pulled-off most of her clothing except for her pants. "The transformation has begun!"

And Sandi felt silent. She saw as wings burst out of her step-cousin's shoulder-blades, her facial features shifted into a hideous grin, and how her feet slowly morphed into bird-like toes, armed with sharp talons, and claws burst out of her fingertips. Before Sandi's very eyes, her cousin had become what she long ago claimed to be - a harpy. "Does it hurt?" she finally said.

"Like Hell," her cousin smiled, her new dagger-sharp fangs glinting in the moonlight. "Now show me where I should break in."

The location of Ms. Li's window wasn't a piece of cake exactly, but Sandi later decided that she overestimated the depths of their predicament by several times. However, it's hard not to do so, when your step-cousin, of whose magic prowess you've made fun several times, has actually turned into a vaguely bird-like thing, and is walking next to you like some reject from the "Hercules" series. "I've got one question - how did you do it?" she muttered. "I mean, I've seen you do magic, remember?"

"Well, you know what they say - fools rush in where angels fear to tread," the Harpy shrugged. "Now come on - I know that you don't exactly care, but I do have a date with Trent later this night."

"Does he know-?"

"No, and I want it to stay that way. Got it?"

Sandi took-in the Harpy's claws, talons, fangs, and muscular physique and nodded. "All right, that's the storage window. I stand guard outside. If there's something inside, you're on your own."

"You're too kind, step-cousin," the Harpy chucked and flew upward with a single jump upwards.

Sandi traced her ascent with a gaze. "Now why doesn't it bother me as much as it should've?' she muttered. "I must've hanged-around Tiffany for too long."

From above, there came a tinkle of the glass. "Definitely too much Tiffany," Sandi muttered. "Definitely."

Once inside, the Harpy's air of confidence that she had radiated while around her step-cousin, toned-down considerably. "All right Li, too bad that it's not proper pay-back time yet," the Harpy muttered. "Now, let's see where your alarms are, and are my spells and potions any good." She produced a spray can, and began to freely spray the principal's office with a ruby-coloured mist. For several minutes the office smell of some perfume, and then it cleared, showing sudden changes in the office, including several transparent patches, behind with some machinery - like recording machines, hidden cameras and microphones - worked merrily...

...It also showed a nice pattern of laser beams crisscrossing the floor.

The Harpy nodded in realization and pulled-out a new device - something resembling a mini-portable metal finder. "Bullhorn," she whispered in a throaty voice.

There was a whirl and a click, and a bright beam burst out of the device into a wooden door across the room.

"Figures," the Harpy muttered crossly and lunged. She didn't measure her lunge exactly, and so she did manage to knock the door down, but she also did manage to prevent it from crashing onto the floor.

The Harpy leaned the wooden door off to one side and looked down. The stairway's dark maw beckoned. She groaned and looked back at the device. No luck. Down the stairs she must go. Or fly. Or scale the walls. Whatever.

Groaning, the Harpy began to descent.

Outside, Sandi Griffin was growing steadily miserable. "Where is she?" she muttered crossly. "Martin, cousin, come on - don't get caught - don't let me get caught..."

Suddenly, from behind her came a growl. "Oh no. A dog," Sandi muttered, only partially afraid. Admittedly, after her step-cousin's makeover, a dog wasn't that much scary, but on the other hand...

...the dogs of Ms. Li were really big and mean - German Shepherds as big as timber wolves, Doberman Pinschers that could easily carry a small child on their backs, Rottweilers that were as big as ponies - and so on. Compared to some of them, even her cousin - step-cousin - wasn't so much scary.

Slowly, Sandi turned around. A Rottweiler grinned back at her - well, in the sense that its' muzzle was open and the fangs were showing, and they were practically as big as the Harpy's, and looked sharp enough to slice a rhino's hide to ribbons.

Sandi Griffin did what she thought she should do - she froze and began to imitate a mail box to the best of her ability.

The Rottweiler growled and didn't buy it.

"Holy shit honey!" the Harpy exclaimed, as soon as she had caught her breath. "Our Lawndale High has got one expansive basement!"

And it was true, as rows and rows of stacks of stacked boxes stared back at her, and the bright beam from her device pointed straight to one of them. "Yes," she quietly whispered. "Yes."

Suddenly, she heard - or merely thought that she heard - something resembling footsteps. Without a further ado she was off like an arrow in the air, going for the promised box and safety in the upper reaches of the basement.

And she was right too, for a few moments later, there were footsteps, and two guards appeared, caring flashlights. They stopped, looked around... and began to smoke.

The Harpy's heart skipped a beat, as she realized that a potentially problematic situation was probably starting to live-up to its' potential. However, this didn't mean that she had to huddle in idleness on the box. Quietly, she began to rip it open.

Josh Harris and Noel Beeman were two of the more slacker guards of Lawndale High's rather considerable security force; in fact, their immediate superior often went to a lot of trouble to keep them out of the judging eye of Ms. Li, who could be more judgemental than the Furies and Nemesis combined. That consequently meant that they often ended up in more boring jobs like this - guarding the basement-slash-warehouse of Lawndale High. And that consequently meant that they were as often as not goofing off, smoking and drinking - like now. And honestly - they were doing this only to break-up the monotony of their vigil.

Sadly, this monotony was about to be broken, as some sort of a scuffing noise was heard in the warehouse's silent atmosphere. "Halt! Who goes there!" yelled Noel as he pulled out a flashlight. Unfortunately, it seems to be broken, as the light it managed to produce was shaky and thin, serving rather to compliment the darkness rather than to disperse it. However, it did manage to illuminate two glowing green eyes - two glowing green mean-looking eyes, to be more exact. "Hah, must be a cat," Noel said the first thing that came into his head. "Here kitty, kitty, kitty..."

"Hiss!"

...Neither man would further relate what happened afterwards - nothing more sensible that the statement that the supposed cat seemed suddenly spawn wings and considerable muscle mass and barrel them to the floor while escaping - and stealing a bullhorn from Lawndale High. But soon afterwards there were more pressing matters for Ms. Li to attend too... more pressing matters.

"Hey, Sandi, where are you?" the Harpy whispered as it flew out of the broken window and looked down at the school's grounds. "Where are you?"

"Up here."

The Harpy shifted her head abruptly and saw her more-prissy-than-thou step-cousin high up in a tree. "What are you doing up there?" she asked incredulously.

"Waiting for you to pick me up," Sandi said with sarcasm worthy of Daria Morgendorffer. "One of Ms Li's pet doggies tried to fetch me - and would still try, if I but got down again. Come on, let's get it over with."

"Hah?"

"What part of "get-it-over-with" did you not understand?"

"Well, what do you know!" the Harpy almost smiled. "I guess you do act fast in a crisis."

What Sandi did next surprised both her and her step-cousin, as she growled.

The rest of the operation passed relatively easy. The Harpy picked-off her step-cousin off the tree and carried her - together with the bullhorn - back to her vehicle. There, she changed back into a human under her cousin's calculating eyes. Truthfully, it made her a bit uncomfortable.

"What?" she finally said.

"Nothing!" Sandi finally exclaimed. "It's just that if I could shape-shift, I wouldn't have run that cross-country sprint to the nearest tree!.. Can you teach me how to do that?"

"Gee, I didn't know that you were so mercantile," the other girl muttered.

"Martin, come on!"

"Sandi, let's bless the Gupty family instead."

"Fine," Sandi said, but with such petulance, that it was clear, that she wasn't going to forget it anytime soon.

Finding the Gupty household was easy enough. Sandi had babysitted the "Gupty brats" several times already, so finding it was easy. Then Sandi took-up the loaded and modified bullhorn, aimed it... and noticed that her step-cousin had plugged her ears.

"What are you doing?" she immediately demanded, as she unplugged one of her step-cousin's ears.

"Precautions," the older girl said. "Just in case there's a back-slash or something."

Sandi carefully looked at the loaded bullhorn, then at the other girl. "Precaution me too, Martin," she finally said. "Just in case."

"Aye-aye, cuz."

Once all precautions were in place, Sandi once again raised the bullhorn... and now she squeezed the "trigger". The result was shocking, to say the least. Several trains running at full speed past Lawndale (if Lawndale would ever have a railroad) would've never achieved the full richness and volume of the sound that the step-cousins' bewitching gizmo had produced. It could only be compared with a hurricane, or a tidal wave - of sound.

Needless to say, it had probably - most probably - had affected not only the Gupty sound, but several other houses in the neighbourhood as well; needless to say, the two cousins didn't stick around but drove-off as fast as they could.

It was several weeks later when Sandi once again knocked on her step-cousin's door. "What?" the other girl snarled.

"It worked," Sandi said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Tad and Trish well get a younger sibling now, yes."

"Then why's the long face?"

Wordlessly, Sandi produced the newspaper. It said "Baby Boom in Lawndale".