Weasel. Weasel. Weasel.

The one word drifted through her head as she watched him. He tiptoed around the town square, not aware that she was watching him. Like a spy, she crouched in the bushes, her big almond eyes peering through the branches, watching his lithe figure creeping about, obviously looking for something. Up to no good, as usual, she thought, shaking her head. She watched as he inspected the ground, shrewdly looking around for something… what it was, she didn't know.

What she did know was that his almost graceful prowl was about to be broken by the presence of a banana peel, right in his path. She wanted to cry out to him, tell him to watch out, but held her tongue, not knowing what he would do if he found her here, watching him. She held in a laugh as she watched the once stealthy beanpole of a man tumble head over heels, landing with a smack on his back. She observed as he waited a beat before jumping almost acrobatically to his feet. He dusted off his legs, and looked around embarrassed, loudly saying, "I meant to do that!" She allowed herself a slight snort at this comment.

He swiveled around on the ball of his foot to face the culprit. He lifted the banana peel disgustedly off the ground, making a retching sound. "Oh, yucky! Figures that my downfall is due to some healthy and useless snack jacket!" He tossed the banana peel over his shoulder carelessly, even though she noted that it landed comically in a nearby trashcan.

He continued his perusal of the area, until it appeared that he'd finally found what he'd been looking for. He disappeared behind the town podium, and emerged holding a red envelope. "It's no good to just leave trash such as this around where just anyone can pick it up! This belongs in a forest or a field, where no one will pick it up!"

Just then, she felt the pollen tickling her nose, and couldn't even stop herself before letting out a giant "CHOO!"

Robbie Rotten looked up from his discovered trash, a horrified look on his face as he observed the pink little girl tumble out of the bushes. "PINKY?"

"Actually, it's Stephanie," she remarked, untangling a twig from her hair.

"What were you doing in the bushes?" he demanded nervously as he helped the little pixie to her feet.

"I was getting my basketball," she lied. "From those bushes. Right there."

"But there are no kids around anywhere, for a pleasant change. You're lying, aren't you!"

Stephanie looked at Robbie, whose dark eyebrows were raised with the anticipation of her answer.

She looked defiantly into his eyes. "No, I lost the ball yesterday. I just didn't want to look for it until just now. What's that?" she asked, pointing to the red envelope.

"Don't change the subject!" he said, stuffing the envelope into his vest pocket. He looked around quickly before leaning toward her more, lowering his voice. "For your information, it's just a letter. I know, little cheerleader, it must surprise you that someone would be sending horrible Robbie Rotten a letter. But I'll let you know now. If it weren't for that Sportafreak, all the kids in town, you included, would LIKE me! And if it weren't for him, I wouldn't go around being so mean all the time!" He shouted his last words at her, making her jump.

"FINE, then, MISTER Rotten, I'll leave you and your letter alone. But I highly doubt that I'd like you ANYtime, even if Sportacus were never around! For your information, Sportacus has tried to be nice to you. But all you ever do is try to get rid of him, which isn't very fair. In fact, we kids are more hard on you than he is!"

Robbie opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a large red ball sailing through the air and hitting his head with a loud conk. He swore loudly as Trixie and Pixel came running over. "Hey, Stephanie! Come and play with- Huh? Robbie Rotten?"

Robbie, still holding his pounding head, glared. "Don't worry, children, I was just listening to Step-on-me tell me off for wanting some peace and quiet sometimes. Not to mention that I would love to go just one day without any child-inflicted injuries!" He turned to stomp off.

"Robbie! Wait!" called Stephanie, a twinge of concern in her voice. And what else did he detect? Was that guilt?

He turned to face her. "Well?"

"Robbie, I'm sure… I'm sure that Pixel and Trixie are sorry for what they did," she began, elbowing Trixie in the ribcage. Trixie opened her mouth to retort, but Stephanie gave her the look, which meant she had no way out of it.

"S-sorry, Robbie," Trixie mumbled.

"Yeah, we're sorry, Robbie," followed Pixel, sounding more sincere than Trixie.

Robbie looked at them for a moment before opening his mouth. "Well if that's all, I'm just going to go eat some cake, then." He turned back around and started walking toward the billboard on the edge of town.

Once he was out of earshot, Trixie gave Stephanie a little shove. "Why on earth did you want me to apologize to him of all people?"

"Because, Trixie, you have to admit… we can be kind of careless sometimes. We make a lot of noise… I think that if we're a little nicer to Robbie, he'll be a lot nicer to us. He just needs to know that if he really is lonely, which I think he is, he'll always have the option making friends here."

Pixel and Trixie looked at their friend as if she'd gone mental. Trixie picked the ball off the ground and began to walk toward the field. "Whatever you say, Stephanie. We're just going to keep on doing what it is we're doing. Besides, isn't it you who made Lazytown loud in the first place?"

"Well yeah, but-"

"Then don't complain!" said Pixel, surprising Stephanie. She'd at least hoped he would be on her side, as he normally was.

"Well… okay, you guys. Do what you want to do, but from now on I'm going to be nicer to Robbie, I think."

"Heh, whatever, Pinky. If you wanna play some ball, you know where to find us."

Pixel and Trixie walked out to the field, not even saying goodbye. She let out an aggressive hmph, and set out for home.

Pinky… he called me that, she thought, bristling at the nickname Trixie'd given her seven years ago, her first summer in Lazytown. Now she was fifteen, and had learned the ways of the Lazytown kids… Trixie, who had become cattier with age, always looking to pick an argument with Stephanie, the only other girl in their group of friends. Pixel was becoming more and more passive, allowing Trixie to make all the decisions. Ziggy had become a little wiser to the toothbrush and the treadmill, following a strict regimen that he had planned out with Sportacus. It seemed a little extreme to Stephanie, but whatever made Ziggy happy was best, she supposed. Stingy… well, Stingy had already made his first quarter million by the age of thirteen, which disturbed Stephanie greatly. Surely not even her uncle made that much in a year. In a small town like Lazytown, there wasn't exactly much to do with a quarter of a million dollars. She did have a fun time envisioning Stingy sitting atop of all his money, counting it over and over again obsessively.

Then there was Sportacus. It seemed that he got stronger and more agile every day, even though he claimed that age was finally catching up with him. Taking the advice of Stephanie, he'd shaved off his mustache, which relieved several of the town's parents, who'd hoped their children would never get an eye poked out from the sheer sharpness of Sportacus' mustache. Stephanie had to hand it to Sportacus; he was definitely taking care of himself these days.

In general, it was an unwritten fact that she was Sportacus' favorite of all the kids. He listened to her the most, and had been asking her advice more and more as she grew older. Lately though, she'd been getting funny feelings in her stomach whenever she heard Sportacus preaching the active lifestyle to the other kids. Who is he to tell them how to live their lives, she thought. She'd almost said something about it at one point, but had held her tongue. After all, she remembered, he was a good role model, and he was the nicest to Robbie.

But something still made her a little worried every time one of the kids would gush about Sportacus like they used to when they were kids. The gospel of Sportacus, the unwritten Bible of Sportacus. In her opinion it was a little silly.

She had, after all, grown into a wonderful and independent young girl. Her pink dress had become an average outfit including a pair of jeans and a colored top, and her high-tops had evolved into a pink pair of Converse basketball shoes. She'd stopped growing vertically, but was filling into her clothes very nicely. Lucky to be healthy, she thought. Her hair had grown into a darker magenta in the last seven years, mostly from going to school in her hometown and learning that there was more to life than eating right and getting exercise and being a good friend. Even at sixteen, she knew that it was nice to be loved, and a little bit of cake (even a lot of it) didn't really do any damage in the end. She felt good about where she was, and damned if she let anyone else try to live her life for her.

"I'm home, Uncle!" she shouted as she closed the front door.

"Oh, Stephanie, good to see you, dear! Before you do anything else, I'll tell you now that Aunt Bessie and I are stepping out for the evening, so don't expect us home until nine. Leave us a note if you go anywhere, please."

"Okay, I will Uncle Milford!"

When she was twelve, her Uncle Milford, the mayor of Lazytown, had proposed to his secretary, Ms. Bessie Busybody. All anyone could say was that it was about time… her uncle had been in love with Bessie for ages. They had a winter wedding, so Stephanie was able to take the train back to town for the winter holidays to see her Uncle marry Bessie.

Stephanie went into her room and lay down on her bed. She could hear the noise of her friends outside. Over time, their games had gone from friendly to aggressive, all due to the encouragement of Sportacus to "try harder". This perhaps bothered Stephanie the most; even though Sportacus had good intentions, he didn't know what he was doing to her friends.

Speak of the devil, she thought, as she heard Sportacus' voice join the loud yells outside. She heard the front door close as her Uncle and Bessie went out for the evening, and enjoyed the feeling of being all alone. She resented that the quiet was punctuated by the sound of Trixie cursing loudly on the field, which annoyed Stephanie so much that she shut the window and walked out of her room.

She walked around the house for a bit, until she came to Bessie's office with the big town telephone. Stephanie sat down at the clean desk, careful not to disrupt a neat stack of papers sitting next to the phone. She looked at the phone, which had an old-fashioned circular dial. She flipped aimlessly through Bessie's town rollodeck, a collection of everyone in Lazytown's number, until her flipping landed her right on Robbie Rotten.

Maybe I should call him to apologize, Stephanie thought. He'd probably be really mad that I'd call him… probably interrupting his nap or something…

Her mind strayed away from the idea of calling him, but somehow she couldn't stop her fingers from dialing up the numbers. Her heart beating for no reason, she held the phone up to her ear as she wondered what exactly it was she was going to say to Robbie. She had no real reason to call him, after all… no apology was in order… Maybe he won't answer, she thought, half-relieved at the thought.

But as luck would have it…

"Hello?"