feel*like*so

peppergate is officially over! and it turns out that pepper wasn’t really mad at us at all! it’s really pretty confusing, but let’s see if i get this right. i know pep reads the blog, so she can tell me if i make any mistakes!

poppet and pepper met for lunch at the foul, unnameable tearoom yesterday, and when pepper realized the purpose of lunch, she told poppet that she’s been doing undercover work! and apparently, she sent us a secret message to meet with her so we’d know what she was up to, but nina and i just missed it. don’t tell nigel! he’ll be disappointed in our lack of detective skills. on the other hand, since he’s started snorting owl pellets, he may not even notice.

but it totally worked out, because pepper’s been doing undercover work specifically on persephone! how random is that?

so right around the time that nina was brutally attacked by assailants unknown, persephone approached pepper with some ill-disguised questions about p, sol, nigel, nina, me, and anenome! she wanted to know if pepper had heard anything about us starting a “club,” or “society” of some sort. pepper thought that was very weird (since she didn’t even know persephone), but played her cards close to her chest and asked sol and p what they thought. they didn’t tell her a lot, OF COURSE, but did ask pepper to go undercover for a little while.

as we now know, that “little while” ended up lasting for months! pepper took that time to curry persephone’s favor, though she doesn’t know if it really worked. persephone is very suspicious, and also weirdly jealous where nigel is concerned. pepper didn’t see any evidence that persephone had close friends, so she may have scored some accidental points. and even though pepper knew nina was in the hospital, and it was totally hard for her to keep away, p and sol strongly recommended that pepper not visit. they didn’t say why, but pepper wonders if persephone herself was the reason for nina’s coma!

persephone, for her part, is clearly too stupid to understand how normal human friendships work, because she never seemed to think it strange that pepper just stopped hanging out with us overnight, and didn’t seem to care that a friend was hurt. persephone didn’t talk about me or nina much at all, except to call us “nigel’s new little friends,” with a sickening simper and a calculating look at pepper to see how she took it. pepper usually just made a noncommital grunt and continued to write her restaurant reviews. and this is how genius pepper is! she actually wrote real reviews and took notes at the same time! no one would have ever been able to guess! pepper modestly says this is a technique she developed in high school to screw around while pretending to take notes.

so here’s what pepper discovered over the last few months:

persephone used to hang out with p and nigel and various other people many years ago.

she says she’s been engaged to nigel for several years, but they are star-crossed lovers and have been unable to legalize their love.

she is obsessed with the idea that p, sol, and etc. might be starting up a secret group, and has asked pepper to try to get invited to join it. she told her to pretend to be friends with nina and me again to get an invitation. again, with a calculating look. i don’t know that persephone totally buys pepper not liking us anymore.

she has been developing what she calls a “delivery method” that she says will be most helpful to the “secret group” and that pepper should try to work that into conversation at home with her brother.

she also has told pepper all about the medusa amulet, but interestingly enough, has left out a great deal of information that is true according to nigel, and has substituted a lot of stuff that seems to be made up.

she has an entire closet full of her revolting “gothic lolita little bo peep” dresses. pepper says she gets them custom made. persephone has approached poppet for these custom services, and also hit on poppet pretty vigorously at the same time. poppet reports she had to run to the bathroom to rinse gag juice out of her throat.

pepper, doing her journalist thing, has also discovered that persephone has a secret benefactor who contributed all the start-up costs for the tearoom. and who might that benefactor be? none other than the disgusting whalebone! oh ho! what’s all this, then? (i’m pretending to be nigel when he’s drunk. which seems to be ALL THE TIME these days.)

okay, that’s all we could get, because pepper is STILL working undercover. sol seems to think there’s more information that pep could get us, though p seems to be getting concerned and wants pepper to call it quits. seems weird that p is more worried than pepper’s own brother, eh?

did i miss anything? let me know!

xoxoxoxox, kiki!!!!!