"Hey Georgie, there's someone who wants to see you. I bet you can't guess who it is."
"Doiya, I guess I can't Benny."
Instead of giving him a bunch of clues he'd never get, I unlocked and opened the door of an average-ish sort of apartment that's a million times better than my old place. "You can come out!"
Hammerhead peaked his head out of a door and came into the living room.
"Boss!" Georgie ran to him, and luckily I reacted fast enough to get out of his way. All the bazillion pounds of elephant would've squashed me flat. I was already a pancake yesterday, and that's enough for a while.
Georgie picked Hammerhead up and gave him a hug that would have snapped me in two easy. Tears literally sprayed out of his eyes. "Boss, I missed you so much! I looked for you everywhere, even that milk carton place in case you were still there after they took your picture!"
Anyone who never met Georgie before would conclude he is an idiot of epic proportions, and they would be absolutely correct. But I was actually impressed that Georgie actually thought of anything, even something that stupid. It must have taken him hours to even come up with even that.
"You're crushing me," Hammerhead somehow managed to squeak out.
Georgie immediately set him down. "I'm sorry Boss." He sniffled a bit.
"So what've you been up to, Georgie?" As soon as I said that, I quickly put my hands over my mouth.
"Well the night after you disappeared, Boss, I woke up at 7:34 AM and ..."
"Maybe you can tell us later." Hammerhead nonchalantly readjusted his clothes. "Right now we have more important things to do."
Georgie would have told us everything in perfect detail what he did that whole day. In fact, if we'd give him enough time, he'd tell us everything he did the last few years, even continuing with "And Doiya, Benny let me into this apartment, where I went in and told you guys 'Well the night after you after you disappeared ...'" He'd then loop around until the end of time if he could. You see, Georgie has a photographic memory, but the problem is, he's like an art gallery that can only display the pictures, and that's about all he can do. I'm sure in Georgie's head, there's hundreds of pictures of bread, peanut butter, and knives. But unless he sees someone taking out two slices of bread, opening the peanut butter jar, dipping the knife into the jar, and spreading the peanut butter on the bread, he would starve. And every time his favorite brand of pb gets a new label, I have to show him all over again. But at least the big lug is thankful and will usually me a kiss with his trunk.
"Well, since the gang's all here, I'll put our pizzas in the oven. Pepperoni and sausage for you, Pineapple and peanut for you, and shrimp and sardines for me." Hammerhead headed into the kitchen. He made all the pizzas from scratch himself, 'cuz he does the cooking. Once in a while he'll take the day off, and then I usually order out or go out or something because I won't cook unless I'm absolutely starving. I do the cleaning and general maintenance and other miscellaneous things. Hammerhead also does all the planning and the high end stuff that's way too complicated for me. But I think Georgie has the worst job of all, though. Since he has photographic memory, Hammerhead has him read lots of things we might have use of in the future, and I don't think curling up to things like phone books is my idea of a good read.
"Georgie, next time save the water works for your grandmama's funeral, it makes weird salt deposits on the carpet. Good thing I didn't do any vacuuming yet. It's best to wait until after Georgie's moved in.
"Sorry Benny."
I unpacked some random boxes, and a few minutes later, Hammerhead came back out. He looked right at Georgie. "Benny already agreed to rejoin, and I was wondering if you would too."
"Of course boss!"
"The Hammerhead Gang is back together!" I announced a little too loudly. Okay, we don't have the most original gang name in the universe, and for some reason, Hammerhead wasn't ever really thrilled about it being called that, but we couldn't think of anything better.
Hammerhead put his finger over his lips. I'm surprised I didn't get a punishment. "And Georgie, you are not to tell anyone anything about me."
"Okay boss."
"Anyways, for the time being, you two will share a bedroom. My sincerest apologies for us only having mattresses on the floor." Hammerhead headed to our bedroom and opened the door. But there are plenty of sheets, blankets, and pillows. If you want, You can sleep here tonight, and Benny can help you get your things tomorrow."
"Okay boss." Georgie looked in.
I squeezed past Hammerhead and Georgie. "My bed's over there, and yours is over there."
Sme years back, on the night we moved to a new place, Georgie plopped right on me when I was sleeping in my bed, so I spent the night as a flat piece of weasel bologna in that elephant and mattress sandwich. Of course it was just about the hottest night of the year and Benny was out like a light and didn't hear my muffled pleas for help. When he awoke the next morning and found me quite stuck on his body like I was flypaper made with elephant sweat, he ran around the room in circles screaming his head off because he's too stupid to figure out to peel me off. So Boss came running in, thinking we were being attacked. After he calmed Georgie down, he picked at my edges to get a good handhold. He then counted to three out loud, then quickly ripped me off. It was like when you rip a bandage off, except I was the bandage and Georgie and I both yowed in pain. Hammerhead then held me like someone would hold a month old unwashed sock that wasn't yours.
"Could you put me in the tub, please? For a really long time."
"Can I go to the bathroom first?" asked Georgie. "And I'm sorry."
"Okay."
After Georgie did his business, Hammerhead put me in the tub. I bet I looked like one of those slip guard things. He turned the water on, and and after a few adjustments, it was streaming on me nice and warm. It was so relaxing I fell asleep, and I woke up hours later. At least the water was shut off so I wouldn't drown or anything, and I was mostly reformed to my old shape.