Across the parking lot and back towards the forest that I had pranced through earlier I charged onward in an all-out sprint. I probably didn’t look like anything more than a bluish gray blur. Mr. Smith was chasing me and calling out to me. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying but I also didn’t want to.

I slipped on some of the needly leaves from a tree and went tumbling head over heels for some unknown length of time. Felt like an eternity. When I had finally stopped my helpless roll I caught sight of Mr. Smith—upside down. Or well, I was actually upside down, but whatever.

He had stopped at the edge of the Earthian parking lot. I guess Earthian Instructors couldn’t travel on the dirt like I could. Lucky break.

I didn’t want to take any chances of him following after me though so I broke out into a full on sprint clear back to Cedric’s yard. Everything on my journey back flew by in one giant smear. If I ran past other Earthians I didn’t recall it at all. All l knew was my legs had never burned so bad before. My chest…it…well it…it felt like it might explode at any—whew you know that was really a long run, perhaps I should’ve paced myself a tad more.

I grabbed at the fencing of Cedric’s yard to hold myself up. Just a moment. That was all I needed to catch my breath. Yeah, that, that was all.

“There you are!”

I jumped with a sudden burst of energy and fluffed up. In one smooth turn I had flipped direction entirely and now stood poised to confront my attacker—eyes aglow and sharp teeth bared. Command Center was ready to unleash everything they had on the enemy.

Only thing wrong with the whole deal was that it turned out to be Cedric. He wasn’t exactly a threat; was kind of thankful to see him after all of this actually.

I barely had time to look at him before he wrapped something around my neck and snapped it closed. I tried looking down at it, but couldn’t quite make out what it was.

“It’s a collar.” Cedric stated.

I cast him a glance. Whatever was around my neck made a slight jingle.

“It says you’re a legal pet basically.”

“They let you have aliens as pets?” I asked once I had calmed down some.

Was still in the works of getting my fur flattened down but that’s just a consequence you have to deal with when you activate an expensive piece of war equipment like myself.

That aside I didn’t care how legal I was now. I had more important things to worry about. Things like Mr. Smith suddenly appearing at the gate and wanting to take me away to the labs or the government or the president of the world.

“Erm, well not exactly.” Cedric clarified. “You’re listed as a Russian Blue.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a cat breed here. You kind of look like one with all the dense, blue-gray fur…” He must have detected I wasn’t buying it because then he added, “A mutated one.”

“Really?”

“Well…”

“I don’t think so.” I tugged at the collar some, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Nooo, don’t do that!” Cedric pushed my paw away. “If you get lost it has my address—so you can get back.”

“Hmm…” This was worth considering. “I suppose that makes sense.”

Cedric stepped back and seemed to admire his choice. I tried looking down at it as well but—no big surprise here—still couldn’t see it.

“So uh, does…does it look good?”

Funny how the entire topic of Mr. Smith had momentarily left my mind like that—almost like I forgotten or something. Which of course I hadn’t. I was just humoring Cedric so he didn’t feel so bad about his life; that was all.

“Oh yes.” Cedric said in the way he does whenever making a technical analysis he knows the proper answer to. “It complements the gray-blue fur.”

“Considering this is coming from the guy who wears casual socks with his dress shoes I’m not sure how to take that fashion compliment.”

He chuckled and grinned.

“It’s pink with black paw prints and trim.”

“Hmm, not a bad choice.” I agreed.

“So where were you?”

“Oh, yeah about that.” I finally let my ears perk back up. “I went exploring today and a monster found me! It was big and ugly and had like…razor teeth and eight eyes—like a spider! Its name was Mr. Smith and it wants to eat me.”

“Wait…what?”

“The monster.”

“Mr. Smith?”

“Yeah!”

“Wants to eat you…”

I nodded. Seemed my Earthian friend was finally catching on.

“And where…where exactly did you meet this Mr. Smith?” Cedric asked.

Before I could answer, he had oddly enough tucked a finger under my new collar and tugged me along. Not really wanting to choke I followed as he led me back inside and over to the sofa. He flopped down there with a sigh and rubbed his forehead. Cedric always seemed exhausted and tired.

“You need lemonade.”

He opened one eye, barely visible from between his fingers to look at me. “What?”

“Lemonaaaaade.” I replied, moving myself closer to Cedric. My ears stayed perked up as I gave him a light smile. “It has mystic healing powers. I saw it on TV.”

“Smiiiiileeeeey.”

“That’s me!” I purred and curled the tip of my tail.

“So where did you meet this Mr. Smith guy?”

Back to that topic it seemed. I went ahead and gave him the story clear from the beginning when I had left the house and breached the Earthian defenses, eventually reaching the school on a ‘tour’ of local plant life. Had to change the story a tad so he didn’t get suspicious of me.

Afterwards he rubbed his forehead, gave a subtle sigh and stood up.

“He was probably just wondering what the kids were so excited about. It probably isn’t anything.” He looked back at me and prodded my muzzle with one finger accusingly. “But you need to stay inside little kitty.”

For each syllable he poked my poor muzzle which I didn’t think was necessary.

“Fine, fine. I will. There wasn’t anything worthwhile out there anyway.”

Cedric was in good spirits up until he ventured into the kitchen where I had uh not exactly been the neatest Qwuedeviv on the face of the planet. Dishes had a tendency to become broken whenever I decided to wash them.

“Smiiiiley.” He grumbled and bent down to pick up broken shards of glass. “I swear sometimes you’re like taking care of an infant.”

“An experience I assure you you have not experienced.” I replied.

That got me a glare—a glare of his eyes that is, not the usual glare of his glasses that he had. He muttered something under his breath as he went to obtain the dustpan and began hastily—and not very efficiently, sweeping the glass shards up.

“You missed some.”

Another glare, he certainly was moody today.

“Then why don’t you come over here and clean up?”

“Negative on that, Private. Lieutenants are above such things.”

“What..?”

Oops. Simple slip of the tongue. It could’ve happened to anyone. Of course it didn’t choose to happen to anyone though. It chose to happen to me. Which was unacceptable, but no one listened to me about that.

“TV.” I fumbled as I took a few steps back. “I learned it on some show—anyway, I uh, need to go do important things.”

“Important things? Really? Smiley you don’t have any—”

“I’ll catch up with you later. Good talk.” With that I slipped away, ignoring Cedric’s attempts of calling me back.

I found my cardboard box and flopped down in it. Today had been a stressful day, first town, then Mr. Smith and now Cedric was probably suspicious too. I burrowed my fuzzy gray face down against the pillow in my box. I hoped Mr. Smith really wasn’t anything to worry about like Cedric had said. I had hoped for a lot of things in my short, distinguished life that hadn’t happened though. When I was a kitten for example, I hoped to become a spaceslug and eat all my friends. It didn’t happen. I was pretty disappointed.