Just in time

"Alright guys, I come bearing waffles and good news" said Annie as she happily walked into the library with a tray of waffles in her hands.

"Yayyyy waffles, where are my cinnamon ones?" asked Maddie excitedly as she threw away the book she was reading and it landed gracefully in one of the shelves.

"Here you go my lovely Maddie" said Annie as she handed Maddie her plate of waffles.

"Thank you my lovely Annie" said Maddie as she smiled and instantly ate one.

"Mhmm, they taste so good" said Maddie as she groaned and Annie chuckled.

"You and food Maddie, seriously" said Annie as she laughed and Maddie shook her head.

"You should be happy that I love eating your food" said Maddie as Annie laughed and Matt shook his head.

"What's the good news you were talking about Annie?" asked Matt as Annie looked at him.

"Oh yeah right" said Annie as she smiled and handed him a plate of waffles.

"I made yours banana waffles" said Annie happily.

"Thanks Annie" said Matt as he smiled and Annie smiled at him before sitting down and the tray took itself to the table.

"Oh and yes, the good news, we have somewhere to go today" said Annie as she smiled.

"Where?" asked Maddie as she frowned.

"Well my dad told me that Uncle Capi needs his help with something at his house, and my dad can't make it since he has a meeting with the new principal of Sunset Village High" said Annie.

"He's going to Sunset Village?" asked Maddie as Annie nodded.

"Mhmm, he has a meeting with the new principal, anyway, my dad doesn't want to cancel with uncle Capi, but he has to go to the meeting, so I offered that we can go help Uncle Capi instead while my dad goes to his meeting, how does that sound?" asked Annie.

"Do you guys want to come along? I mean it could be fun, we haven't been out of the Palace in a long while, and we also have never been to Uncle Capi's house, so I am thrilled to go, what about you?" asked Annie.

"I agree, we haven't gone out in a while, and we haven't seen Uncle Capi's house either, so why not?" asked Maddie as she agreed casually while eating her waffles.

"Yayyy, and what about you Matt?" asked Annie as she looked at Matt.

"I mean, sure I would love to go, I'm just curious as to what he needs help with" said Matt.

"Me too, but we'll find out soon, we are going to his house in a bit, my dad went to tell him" said Annie as she smiled.

"Alright then, but for now, I am going to enjoy these waffles" said Maddie happily as Annie smiled, she loved it when her friend was happy.

"I think we can call agree that the way into Maddie's heart is through her stomach" said Matt as he laughed.

"As it should be for everyone, and by the way I don't just eat food from anyone, I only eat from select few members that are trusted" said Maddie as Annie and Matt laughed.

"Right..." they both said in a chorus as they laughed.

...

"Oh hey, Uncle Capi said that we should meet him to his office and then we can go to his house together" said Annie as she smiled.

"Oh alright then, that was quick" said Maddie as she and Matt got up and they left the library to go to Captious's office.

"Sure was, I'm so excited to have a change of scenery for once" said Annie as she smiled and led the way.

"True, true" said Maddie as they passed by a few doors, until they stopped in a different hall and in that same moment Captious happened to be coming out of his office.

"Ahh just in time" said Captious as he smiled and he turned to look at them.

"Hi Uncle Capi" said all of them as they smiled.

"Hello you three, it's so nice of you all to offer to help me" said Captious as he smiled.

"It's a pleasure Uncle Capi, it's the least we can do, we are family after all" said Annie as she smiled and Captious smiled at her.

"Speaking of which, what do you need help with?" asked Matt as he smiled.

"Ahh you will find out soon, very, very soon" said Captious as he smiled.

"But for now, we should get going" said Captious as he turned around and started walking as they all followed after him until they walked outside where a carriage was waiting for them.

"We are going by carriage?" asked Maddie as she looked at Captious.

"Yes we are Maddie dear" replied Captious as he smiled.

"But can't you convey with me or what?" asked Maddie as she frowned and Captious chuckled.

"Ahh no, no, not with the three of us, and also not at my age, conveying sucks the life out of me" said Captious as he chuckled and he opened the door to the carriage as he helped Annie and Maddie in and Matt entered as he also entered and closed the door.

"Awww, curse that blondie, he says he will teach us how to convey, but does he? No!" said Maddie as she scoffed and Captious chuckled.

"I'm sorry Maddie, I know you dislike carriages, but we will be at my house soon" said Captious as he smiled.

"Your house is nearby?" asked Annie.

"Oh very much so, it's just a few miles from the Palace" said Captious.

"That's so cool, I've never been to your house before Uncle" said Annie as she smiled.

"I also noticed that, and I am more than happy to have you visit me for the first time" said Captious as he smiled and the carriage was moving.

"We should be there in a few minutes" said Captious as he smiled and Maddie was still busy cursing Ollie in her mind.

...

A few minutes later.

The carriage came to a stop as it halted in front of a beautifully quaint manor that was surrounded my luscious green trees and grass.

Captious helped Annie and Maddie down from the carriage as Annie looked at the Manor in nothing but awe.

"Wow... uncle Capi... is this your house?" asked Annie in surprise as she didn't expect something this big and beautiful to be his house.

"Why yes it is my lovely niece" said Captious as he smiled.

"It's beautiful..." said Annie.

"Why thank you, I am glad you think so, come on, let's go inside" said Captious as he smiled and ushered them into his house as the door opened on it's own and he clapped his hand to switch on the lights.

Annie was simply in awe, the inside was just appealing as the outside, the decor was casual and comfortable, it had a sense of pleasantness and quietness, and it was exactly just like Captious in a way.

"Gosh Uncle Capi, I don't mean to offend you, but I never expected that your house would be so... nice..." said Maddie as if she was being sincere, it was almost as nice as Stella's house, which by the way was two times bigger than his manor.

"No offence taken Maddie, in fact I am pleased that you are all surprised, it is only natural, this is the first time you have seen my humble abode" said Captious as he smiled and Maddie laughed, if this was humble, then she was the most humble girl in the world.

"So what can I offer you to drink? Tea? coffee, juice?" asked Captious happily.

"Nothing uncle Capi, we didn't come here to visit you, we came here to help you out" said Annie as she smiled, they had to focus on the reason why they came here in the first place, they could relax later.

"Right, right, eager to help I see" said Captious as Annie smiled.

"Well then, please follow me" said Captious as he walked forward and up the stairs as Maddie, Annie and Matt followed after him as he turned right and walked down a hall and opened the door to the last room on the right.

"And here we are" said Captious as he entered into a large empty room as Maddie, Annie and Matt looked around.

"This is what I need help with" said Captious as Annie looked at him in confusion.

"What?" asked Annie.

"Well I realized that this room has been like this for a such a long time, and I would like to repaint it and use it as a spare office" said Captious as he explained.

"So you want us to help you paint it?" asked Maddie as Captious nodded.

"Precisely" said Captious as he nodded.

"But can't you just use magic to paint? It would definitely be easier and way quicker" said Matt.

"That may be true, but painting with magic lacks accuracy, and there are some certain colours that I want to mix that magic won't be able to do" said Captious as he explained.

"So you want us to paint manually?" asked Annie as she was starting to see why he had wanted her father's help.

"Yes my dear, I could use a hand, or two, or three" said Captious as he smiled and Annie laughed.

"And we are more than happy to help, so where do we begin?" asked Annie as she smiled happily.

"Wonderful, wonderful, thank you all" said Captious as he smiled sincerely, he could see that they all genuinely wanted to be here and help him, it warmed his heart.

"You don't need to thank us Uncle Capi, we haven't even started yet" said Maddie as she chuckled and Captious chuckled as well.

"That is true, but just thank you for offering to help me, without even knowing what I needed help with" said Captious as he smiled.

"It's our pleasure" said Matt as he smiled.

"Well now then, we should begin so you can get back to the Palace before dinner time" said Captious as he smiled and he clapped his hands, causing buckets of paints and paint rollers and paint brushes to hop by themselves into the room as Annie looked at them and laughed.

"That has got to be the cutest thing I've seen all day" said Annie as she laughed and Maddie and Matt agreed with her.

"Ahh yes, there is just something about inanimate objects moving that is funny" said Captious as he laughed.

Matt walked to the paint buckets as he could count at 10 full buckets of paint with the colour of their lids showing the colour of paint that was in the bucket. There was green, red, orange, yellow, pink, purple, blue, black, grey, brown and white.

"These are a lot of paints" said Matt.

"Oh yes they are" replied Captious as he smiled.

"So Uncle Capi, do you have what you want us to paint in mind?" asked Annie as she looked at Captious and smiled.

"Ahh well yes, before you three offered to help me, I had an idea of how I wanted this room to look like" said Captious.

"But since the three of you are here, I have changed my mind" said Captious as he smiled.

"How so?" asked Maddie.

"Well I'm not really fond of ordering people around, I would rather they find our what they want to do on their own" said Captious.

"And I have to admit that I feel like my decor and colours are a bit bland and I want this office to be special" said Captious.

"This place is really big, so how about the three of you decide on what you want to do with it" said Captious as he smiled.

"Are you sure Uncle Capi?" asked Matt in uncertainty, this was his spare office, he didn't really think that trusting them to do anything and everything they wanted would be advisable.

"Oh I am very sure Matt, the three of you decide on what you want to do with this empty space" said Captious.

"Then in that case, let me be completely honest, I already know what I would paint this if it was mine, but I am very sure that Annie and Matt won't agree with me" said Maddie as she sounded very sure of that.

"You sound way too sure of that" said Annie.

"That's because I am, you would want to go a happy bright, go lucky colour, Matt's going to agree with you or whatever, and I want to do something vintage and serious, so we totally won't agree" said Maddie.

"The fact you already thought about all of that though..." said Matt as he shook his head and Captious laughed, he just loved hearing their conversations, they were at the start of their lives, they totally did not think on things that people his age thought of.

"Alright, alright, no need to fight, Maddie is right, you all have different opinions, so in that case, I have come up with a solution" said Captious happily.

"I will divide the room into four parts, Maddie takes one, Annie takes another one, and Matt takes one, in your corner you can decide to do anything you want, use any colour, paint it anyway, it's your choice, and the middle well will be left for me to decide what to do with it" said Captious as he smiled.

"Awesome!" said Maddie happily as she was already thinking of her colour pallete.

"Wait Uncle Capi, won't that make your office look a bit... wacky... I mean we might mess it up" said Annie as she was horrified, the three of them doing whatever they wanted in a corner was a disaster of ideas and themes waiting to happen.

"Oh I am very sure of it Annie, you are more than welcome to mess it up, seeing the same thing over and over again is a bit too bland, so do what you want" said Captious as he smiled and waved his hand as white lines began to divide the room into four parts.

The corners were divided into three equal parts and a reasonable part was left as a square in the corner.

"So choose your corner and you can start painting" said Captious as Maddie rushed to choose the right corner that was close to the window, she wanted a window to be part of her design.

"Dibs on this one... and oh on the green, brown and grey paints as well" said Maddie as she quickly made her claim and that caused Captious to laugh as Annie and Matt shook their heads.

"There is no need to claim paints Maddie, there is more than enough paint to go around" said Captious as he smiled and Maddie smiled at him, but you see, this had already become a competition for her, her corner would obviously be the best.

"She's just petty like that" said Matt as Maddie stuck out her tongue at him, so what if she was? She would definitely win regardless.

"And it's not a competition Maddie" added Annie.

"Right... keep on telling yourself that" said Maddie as Annie shook her head and chose her corner.

"Alright, I can see that you are all eager to begin, but first you don't want to get paint all over you, that's is no ordinary paint, it's magic paint, designed to last long and remain vibrant looking for ages" said Captious as grey overalls appeared in his hands as he handed it to them one by one.

"One splash of that paint on your skin, and I assure you that it's almost impossible to get off" said Captious as at the mention of that Maddie grimaced.

"Oh heck no, why make it so strong like that?" asked Maddie as she quickly put on her overalls and a pair of rubber gloves that were in one of it's pockets.

"Well let's just say we witchfolk are not really fond of repainting, in fact most of the buildings in the markets, and the Castle itself has had that same coat of paint for the past 100 years" said Captious as Annie and Matt put on their own overalls.

"That just sounds like pure laziness to me" said Maddie.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but we do like our colours to remain bright and vibrant for years to come" said Captious as he smiled.

"With that it's clear that the company that makes these paints doesn't make much profit now do they?" asked Matt as he looked at the label on the paints, it had the name Fuco Pingere on it.

"Quite the contrary Matt, they do make a lot of profit, I can tell you that personally, this special brand of long lasting paint is made by one sole family, and I can tell you that these paints are not cheap at all, the sales they make from our realm alone cannot compare to the sales they make from other realms that buy the product as well" said Captious as he smiled, he was very proud that a purely witch product was doing so well outside the realm.

"Well that's a surprise" said Annie as she put on the gloves.

"Yes that it is, well now you can start painting, I will be back to check on you in a bit, I need to make some calls" said Captious as he smiled before stepping out.

"This room is huge" said Maddie as she walked to open the bucket of paint as she poured it into a smaller container.

"Be careful with that stuff Maddie, you heard Uncle Capi, if you get it on you, it's won't be coming off easily, wear a mask or something" said Annie in worry.

"Gosh, relax Annie, I am wearing one" said Maddie as she looked at Annie.

"No you aren't" said Annie as she frowned and Maddie knocked on her head but a little green barrier appeared that stopped her hand from going any further.

"Barrier spell, so my vision isn't blurry in stupid glasses" said Maddie.

"Oh..." said Annie in realization.

"Yes, gosh, you really think I don't care about my face dearly" said Maddie as Annie laughed.

"Right, I should have known better" said Annie as she laughed and Maddie laughed.

"Yes now, onto painting!!!" said Maddie excitedly.

"I'm going to win!" she said.

"It's not even a competition Maddie" said Matt as he shook his head and Maddie shook her head.

"Oh it is Matt, just know that, know that" said Maddie as she smiled at him and he scoffed, she really loved to look for trouble.