EPISODE THREE: THE X-MATTRESS

(TABITHA is standing by the phone, waving EMMA over.)

TABITHA: C'mere, c'mere. You gotta hear this.

(EMMA, with an impatient sigh, saunters over and watches as TABITHA pushes the button.)

EMMA: Learned to use the phone, have we? What do you want, a treat?

TABITHA: Bite me. Listen.

AUTOMATED VOICE: Hello. You have...two...messages.

EMMA: At least with plurals it can handle grammar.

-beep-
VOICE: LOGAN, this is Kiara. I'm so glad I met you last night and AAAAAAAAAA---(screams and gurgles)

TABITHA: No, not that one. The next one.

EMMA: I keep waiting for the answering machine to belch or something when that happens.

-beep-
VOICE: ALEX, this is Lorna. What the HELL do you mean was I there night before last?! I was NOT, but I WILL be. And it WON'T be PLEASANT!

EMMA: Now this couldn't have anything to do with that little shapeshifting tart, could it?

TABITHA: Who are YOU calling a tart?

Caption: EMMA
Everyone was in a tizzy about RAVEN'S escapades. After all the stories were checked out, and significant others' whereabouts confirmed at specific times, we discovered that she had impersonated the boyfriends, girlfriends and lovers of nearly every person in the house. Or tried (smiles).

TABITHA: It was RAVEN!!!?? The whole time?

PETE: The whole bloody time, it was the little hairy bitch. McCoy's out in the back yard, runnin' ev'ry blood test 'e can dream up.

TABITHA: I saw the six empty cans of Lysol in the trash....

PETE: I'm glad all I've 'ad f'r company 'as been me scotch.

TABITHA: Hey, Pete....we didn't wanta tell ya, but that night with the bathtub an' all...

PETE: No.

TABITHA: Yes.

PETE: HAAAAAAANK! Didja save a can o' that rot f'r me....?!

Caption: TABITHA and SAM, TABITHA'S BOYFRIEND
TABITHA: I can't believe all this happened. Everyone's been scared celibate.

SAM: (blushes furiously--ears are bright red)

TABITHA: I am SO glad Sam and I don't have sex.

SAM: (beet red to the roots of his hair) Ah hope my momma ain't watchin' this show...

(Offscreen: LOGAN'S voice: Hey, that reminds me. Big hairy arm reaches into the frame, hands TABITHA her panties.)

TABITHA: Well, it's about TIME! Eeeeew! Couldn't you wash out the Brylcreem first?!

SAM: (head in hands--even blond hair is slightly red)

(Cut to cabin meeting: only HANK, EMMA, PETE, TABITHA, ALEX and LOGAN are present. They are all sitting around the living room. EMMA is "posing" on the bearskin rug in a white merrywidow.)

HANK: (blushing so hard his fur is purple. He is also periodically applying a cold compress to his forehead. His eyes are almost swollen shut and a large white bandage is over his nose.) Some'ping jus HAS do be done aboud RABEN.

ALEX: (to PETE) What did he say?

TABITHA: Let's vote her out of the house!

EMMA: Oh, come on...how many of us could have been victims of her duplicity? How many of us had....(smiling sweetly)...visitations...from someone we didn't expect? We all already know about Hank, and Pete, and Alex.

ALEX: Huh?

TABITHA: Oh, yeah. You had a message from Lorna. I erased it by accident. She was pretty mad.

ALEX: WHAT?!

EMMA: Now back to the topic....Anyone else? LOGAN, did you have any visitors?

TABITHA: There was that one in the backyard with the throwing star in her forehead! GROSS! I mean, do you have to bring them HOME?! You know what a mess it makes!

EMMA: (glares briefly at TABITHA and turns back to LOGAN) Any that SURVIVED?

LOGAN: Can't see's it's any o' yer business, Em.

PETE: 'Twouldn't make any differ'nce if she did, Frost. LOGAN'S got that high-powered sens'ry business....

HANK: Dass cowwec...LOGAN shoulb be able do dell de diffwence.

ALEX: What did he say?

EMMA: Well? LOGAN?

Caption: LOGAN
(Smoking cigar. Four second silence. Grins.)

EMMA: That answers that question. TABITHA?

TABITHA: Sam and I don't have sex.

PETE: Well thank you, TAB. I think that was more n' we needed to know.

EMMA: We're all so very enlightened.

HANK: (confused) Dass not what he sez on poker night....

TABITHA: WHAT?!

EMMA: HANK is correct then....

TABITHA: WHAT??!

EMMA: (placatingly) In that something has to be done.

ALEX: Oh, THAT'S what he said.

EMMA: We need to intervene on her behalf...

TABITHA: An intervention! An intervention! I want to do an INTERVENTION!

ALEX: But you said you and Sam don't--

EVERYONE: SHUT UP, ALEX!

ALEX: I'm sorry. My fault.

TABITHA: I want to do an intervention! It's my turn! I want to--

LOGAN: We get the picture, TAB. Settle down.

EMMA: Yes, I suppose an intervention is the solution.

PETE: And a bloody restraining collar. P'rhaps a leash....

ALEX: Didn't you guys do that the other night?

EVERYONE: SHUT UP, ALEX!

ALEX: I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

Caption: PETE
So we decided to do an intervention, whatever the -bleep- that is. What it amounted to was ganging up on the little morphing -bleeeep- and screaming our -bleeep- lungs out at 'er an' beating 'er about the head with a sharp stick . Least that's what it should 'ave been....

Caption: TABITHA
(in sing-song voice) I get to do an intervention....! I get to tell somebody else how to live their life.... I get to be on THIS side.....

(The door opens and RAVEN comes in out of the snow, brushing it out of her red hair. Everyone is standing silently in the living room with their arms crossed.)

RAVEN: Well, isn't this a pretty party.... Is everybody going to gang up on the big bad RAVEN and give her a SPANKING?! Golly, I hope so....

EMMA: You'd enjoy it too much.

RAVEN: And you'd know, wouldn't you, Emmy? (Morphs into Magneto, complete with flowing cape) Bad Erik! Oh, I've been a BIG bad megalomaniac... Spank me, Emma...

TABITHA: (wide eyes, mouth a round "O") Ooooooohhhh.....

LOGAN: Now y'd think, wouldn'tcha, that a TELEPATH would know the diff'rence....

EMMA: (expression does not change, except for the dangerous glint in her eyes) The least you could do is not bring it up in public.....but that's too good for you, isn't it RAVEN...?

TABITHA: (wide eyes, mouth a round "O") Ooooooohhhh.....

HANK: Enuf is enuf, RABEN. You habe to behabe yourselb or you habe to leabe....

ALEX: What--

LOGAN: (extrudes claws on one hand under ALEX'S nose)

ALEX: (shuts up)

EMMA: HANK is correct. You have to cease and desist, and remain in your true form at all times, or you will leave the cabin.

PETE: We should just toss 'er out right now. No one's ever going to be able to know--except EMMA and LOGAN, and they don't seem to bloody CARE--when she's morphing or not. We should just take off 'er bloody head and bury it in the back garden.

RAVEN: You're just saying that because I'm blue!

EVERYONE: Huh?

RAVEN: You heard me! All you pretty mutants are just saying that because I don't look like you! Because I'm blue!

ALEX: Oh, come on, RAVEN, this is not a blue-white thing.

RAVEN: Yes it is! You're all....raci....er....prejudiced! You pretty mutants are all prejudiced against the rest of us.

EMMA: Rubbish! We let PETE in, didn't we?

RAVEN: Aren't they, HANK?! They're prejudiced against us, because we're not pretty like them!

HANK: (silent. Blinking. Then) I'm not pretty?

EMMA: RAVEN, you are blowing this all out of proportion, as usual.

HANK: I fink my fur is vewy attwacdibe...Ginny sez I habe lobely eyes...

ALEX: Are you sure that was Ginny?

EVERYONE: SHUT UP, ALEX!

RAVEN: It's true, you're all prejudiced against me. You can't possibly see my point of view. You couldn't begin to know what it's like to live in this world and be BLUE because you're all favored and pretty and....

TABITHA: (Can't take it anymore, has to say it) I just brought him bowls of milk, but SHE HAD HIS BABY!!!!!

(Dead silence. Everyone looks blankly at each other. LOGAN coughs, splutters and begiins laughing. He falls down on the floor, holding his stomach.)

PETE: What the -bleep- is she talking about?

(LOGAN is on the floor, holding his sides, shaking with silent, uncontrollable laughter.)

Caption: EMMA
And on that happy note, we adjourned.

END

PETE: Read what? Out LOUD?! I am NOT a bloody breakfast television presenter! Say it YOURSELF!

TABITHA: So, like, we're going to a big reunion party for ALEX'S family, which is like, half the population of earth.

PETE: The whole bloody planet's going to fall on its side tomorrow when they all arrive.

(Man walks up to LOGAN.)
MAN: So who are you related to?

LOGAN: Nobody. I ain't no Summers.

MAN: Of course you are. You just don't know it yet....