(Subplot) April's Favourite Show

"I'm back Lily! The shop got pretty busy this afternoon. How was your day, my precious little froggy?"

Even if Lexie had been able to answer April's question she would have had very little to say. The eight hours or so her housemate spent at work were pure tedium for the stone frog, who could do nothing but sit and wait for her to return. Thankfully, whenever she came back things quickly got more interesting. Not only was April surprisingly chatty with Lexie, but she had become completely hooked to Naked Mansion and switched her TV onto it practically the moment she came home, after greeting her favourite frog, of course. Weirdly, she didn't seem to get remotely aroused by it but instead treated it like an engrossing real life and real time soap.

Once she had logged in, April quickly selected the feed from the room Tania, Barbie and Maggie were currently occupying. Lexie had figured out that the frog everyone thought was her was actually Maggie. It was too smart and domesticated to have come from the garden, and it didn't make sense for it to be Sophie, the only other missing glitch. First of all, the timing didn't line up with her disappearance and, more tellingly, a froggified Sophie would have surely hopped her way into Abi's cleavage at the first opportunity. The frog also had a weird but undeniable Maggie vibe to it - quiet, understated but purposeful. Right now she was sitting in her usual resting spot on the ceramic lily pad from April's shop listening to the human's conversation and chiming in with the occasional ribbit.

April turned the sound up so she could hear better. Lexie was a little surprised she wasn't checking up on Chelsea like she had done most of yesterday when the dim-witted shop assistant had first arrived, since she knew her so well. But it turned out Chelsea wasn't the only person on the show April knew in real life.

"I'm really surprised at Tan-Tan, Lily" she spoke as if she somehow knew Lexie could both hear and understand her "I've known her since she was a little girl. Such a serious one, so driven and ambitious and academically minded. I can't believe she is taking her clothes off for a reality TV show. It doesn't make any sense. Her family must be mortified!"

That made Lexie wonder even more just what it was that was motivating Tania to go to such great lengths to do whatever it was she was doing in the mansion. Just how much was she being paid that she was willing to pass herself off as essentially a soft porn star? Or was she being offered something more than just money?

"Do you know she is the only glitch who never writes back to me? I used to babysit for her back in the day and she was such a lovely and well mannered child. I don't take it personally though. I expect she is probably embarrassed to hear from someone she knows, what with her being in the buff all the time. Maybe she thinks she will be judged for it too by the people in town. Well I won't judge her for that, but I do think she has been acting strangely in there. Not herself at all.."

Lexie was all ears now. She could only hope April would continue with this train of thought.

"There is probably a good reason for it, I suppose. People aren't themselves on TV are they? I mean, Chelsea is more or less the same, though she is so ditzy she has probably forgotten the cameras are even there. But that is not the Tan-Tan I know at all. There was something else odd too. I was watching on my phone during a quiet period in the shop earlier today - I must make sure none of the customers ever catch me watching that show - and anyway, they cut the feed to her room for ten minutes or so. They said it was so she could take an urgent phone call from her father. But he was literally stood in the street opposite my shop window at the time, chatting away happily to one of his mates. I wonder what that was? Maybe she just needed a break from the cameras, it must be stressful being naked on TV non stop"

Lexie was panicking now. If Tania had made up a story to cut the feed while she was alone in her room that wasn't good. It meant that she was planning to strike again. And how the fuck was Lexie supposed to stop her?