Sorry for lack of formatting, I'd try the PDF File or check it out on one of the other sites I post on. Its a pain to reformat on every site.



Chapter Eight: Spork Makes Life Bad

I woke up to the sound of a rather loud TV. Lots of explosion and shooty noises. I covered my head with a pillow where I had flopped down the night before. Still could hear them loud and clear. With ruffled fur I pulled my head back out from under the pillow to figure out what this noise was all about. Cedric rarely turned the TV on and when he did it was always for the boring channels.
What I saw was not at all pleasing. Spork. Spork was sitting on the sofa watching something.
I crawled from my warm little bed to try and get a better idea of it. It appeared to be some sort of war movie…the sun wasn’t even out yet.
I let my tired glare rest upon Spork.
“Spork it’s like four in the morning. What’re you doing?”
“Zero-Four hundred.” Spork corrected, “I’m watching pitiful Human wars.” It shoved its paw into a bag of popcorn.
Popcorn…at four in the morning.
“It’s loud,” I muttered and rubbed my eyes and face, “can you turn it down?”
“Shut up and go sleep or something.” It replied and shoved my face back with a paw.
I lost my footing and flopped onto the floor. With a huff and second glare I returned to my bed and pulled the pillow over my head again. All the sounds of the war were still loud as ever, ringing in my ears while I tried oh so hard to sleep. Cedric could probably hear it up in his room too; he probably just didn’t want to confront Spork.
I sincerely hoped that every day wasn’t going to be like this. Hearts was sleeping through all of it—sprawled out on the floor where it had flopped down the night before. I hoped that didn’t mean it was used to this sort of morning wake up.
Tentacles had disappeared, not that this was much of a surprise. Qahrburboxis seemed to have mystical power to vanish without a trace when they were not needed. Yet they were right under your muzzle and paws at the slightest indication you wanted to buy something.
About a half hour or so later, Spork was done watching war movies and had moved on to morning exercises. This was mostly fine because overall it was still quieter, up until it stepped on my tail anyway.
I shrieked and flew from my comfy bed. It sort of looked at me and shrugged.
“Come on, Smiley. You should get into a proper routine too.”
I scrambled to get back to my bed and blanket but Spork redirected me by the scruff of my neck over beside itself. My tail flopped to the floor and ears drooped to either side as I watched Spork, highly unenthused about all this.
Spork wanted me to join in. I wanted no such thing. Regardless to my wants and lack thereof, Spork included me in on this atrocious morning exercise.
Are exercises what you want to do first thing waking up in the morning? ‘Cause they didn’t sound too fantastic to me. I would prefer a nice warm blanket on the sofa or maybe a quiet, mindless program on TV or something along those lines. But no, Spork wanted to do push-ups and sit-ups and other such things that required aerobic activity.
That aside, I was no good at push-ups. There was a lot of pushing but very little upping. That is to say I got very few results with my attempts at doing them. Spork on the other paw made them look easy. By the time we were done I was panting and desperately wishing I had chosen somewhere further away to sleep.
After we were done, Spork’s interest shifted to other things that, fortunately, excluded me. I was thrilled to see Spork wandering off. It meant I might be able to catch up on some of that sleep I had missed out on. In the short time Spork had been here it had already disrupted a good portion of my routine and I hadn’t even heard all the complaints Cedric had about it yet. I think his plan was to wait until Spork had ventured off to school for the day to come out.
This would work great on days when school was in session but weekends and breaks? Cedric was gonna have a hard time with those. I was pretty sure.
Spork was not gone nearly as long as I had hoped it would be. It had left for probably a max of fifteen minutes and now it was back, looking totally ready for the day. Not in its going to school to be a teacher type attire, but its actual work-work attire. A black tank top, black pants with a few straps around a leg, its gloves with the rectangle openings on the backs and the spork that dangled from a chain around its neck.
Whatever it had in mind, I wanted no part of and so I covered my head again and whined. Spork refused to leave me alone though. In fact, it yanked me out by my tail. I fluffed up with a rweowr and cast it a hateful glare.
It was giving me a half hearted glare in return…which melted my bravery of challenging it. My ears folded down against my head and I cleared my throat briefly whilst trying to make the fur on my tail lie flat.
“What are you doing?” I asked instead.
“Starting our recon search. Come on.” It yanked my tail a couple more times.
I didn’t appreciate it and flicked the tip, trying my best to keep from growling.
“You should know the city by now, where have you looked?”
“I found you. Isn’t that good enough?” I crawled from my bed and whimpered.
“No. Are you gonna wear that..?”
I glanced at my fish pajamas briefly and ruffled up fur. I didn’t exactly look ready for the day and rightfully so, it was super early.
“YES.” I crossed my arms.
Spork shrugged. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Well we were about to go until Hearts appeared in front of us. Seriously, it had been asleep only moments ago. How it had gotten up so fast I hadn’t a clue. But it was standing there, big green eyes staring up at us with a cute little smile on its face.
“You’re awake?”
“I’m rrready to go!” It tried to salute, but the long sleeve of its jacket smacked it in its head. It giggled and stuck its tongue out.
Spork made a face about this. One ear went up, the other down. I got the feeling Hearts confused it sometimes.
“No. You stay here.”
“What..?” Hearts’ ears flopped down and its eyes got even bigger…and shinier. “But…but I’ve been practicing. I can help punch people’s faces.”
Both of Spork’s ears perked up. It crossed its arms briefly, glanced at me, focused on Hearts then sighed. It kneeled down somewhat in front of Hearts as its ears went down again. If I had been Hearts, I probably would’ve run. I don’t like Spork near my face.
“No. You have to stay here.”
Hearts frowned as it glanced to the side, tears suddenly forming in its eyes. Talk about a wide range of emotions. That little cat could bounce off the emotions scale entirely. I don’t think an emotions scale actually exists, but if we had one, well my point still stands.
I rolled my eyes. Could’ve had at least two more minutes of sleep while they were sorting all this out. Spork stood up, tail swishing back and forth.
“You’re a scout unit now. Scouts don’t cry.” It looked lazily in my general direction. “Unless your name is Smiley.”
“Hey!” I fluffed my fur up. Such a rude remark.
“Anyway. I need you to stay here. If you see Smiley’s Human, punch him in the face.”
Hearts thought about that for a moment then nodded enthusiastically and once again attempted to salute with similar results as before.
The morning was remarkably cold. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but did regardless. I shivered and wished I had brought warmer clothes along. At this early hour, everything was relatively quiet and unoccupied. The Humans were sparse as were their cars and everything else. It must’ve rained in the night too, because the air was damp and chilled, the ground likewise wet.
The conditions were not at all ideal or favorable. In fact I wished to return home. I was willing to assume the others hadn’t made it.
We walked and walked; down alleyways, along empty streets. The air was misty, visible in the glow of the streetlights and stop lights—I had learned a lot of Earth terms in my visit.
Spork didn’t seem to mind it, but then again; one it was Spork and two it was an aquatic Qwuedeviv. They tended to like water. I kept close to Spork, seemed like it should have blocked some of the coldness out. My limbs were so stiff with cold that I could barely keep them all moving at the right pace and my fur felt thick and damp regardless to how much I shook it. I hoped we would give this up soon.
“Spork, what good is this doing?”
“We have to try.”
“Can’t we try on a sunnier, warmer day?”
“No. If our crew is looking for us, they would search likewise at the most opportune time. Unless Licorice is totally useless.”
Licorice Gumdrop was my strategist; a tactical advisor by official classification. Spork didn’t like it very much. I didn’t either.
“I think Licorice is useless.” I offered diplomatically.
“Well that makes two of us, but we’re still searching.”
“Krillfish.”
We didn’t say much more about it as we searched. I can report confidently that we did not see any signs of our crew. We saw a few Humans, but, nothing particularly worth noting, aside from perhaps one and that was simply for the sake of amusement.
A Human had given chase to a bus. This was not the most regular occurrence from what I had seen, but along he ran, waving his arms with briefcase and making a whole lot of noise. He shouted things like stop, wait etc. I had watched with mild curiosity and amusement. That was until I realized I was falling behind quite a bit. Spork isn’t very good about waiting for people.
I had to sprint to catch up with it again. I may not have wanted to go on this little adventure, but I actually wanted even less to get separated. Main reason being, if we did run into trouble, Spork could probably handle it. Me on the other paw, I was better suited to commanding than defending. Let’s just say that.
Spork stopped abruptly. Actually, it had not only stopped, it had knelt down so I ended up running into the back of it and flipped over the top of its head, landing on the damp ground in front. Ew. Wet clothes. With a quiet, sad mew I got back up and shook myself. Sadly the thin, wet clothes still clung to my back.
Spork was grumbling to itself. It didn’t have any good reason to. It hadn’t ended up on its back in the water like I had. In fact the whole thing had been its fault so I wasn’t sure what grounds it had to complain.
I was about to ask it, but just as I had opened my mouth to, I heard a quiet meow. Quite certain I hadn’t been the one to make such a sound, I tilted my head to the side and noticed a short little creature. It was fluffy, had four legs, a fluffy tail, pointy little ears…actually it looked a lot like us, just on four legs and with the addition of whiskers and a nose. It was a whole lot shorter though.
“What is that?” I asked as I took cover behind Spork.
Spork shook its head and stretched one paw out. The furry creature rubbed its head against Spork’s paw and meowed again.
“I’ve seen them around.” It muttered. “Primitive relative. Seems unable to properly communicate with us.”
“Hm?”
“They’ve got no range. They seem to meow at the same tone. Very confusing.” Spork stood up and shook its head.
I watched the creature then nodded. Yes. Very confusing indeed. Our language was largely based in the ability to express oneself through a wide range of tones. The words themselves weren’t nearly as important as the tones you used and body language. This little furry creature seemed to be lacking a lot of this though.

It meowed again, looked up at us, then walked away with a flick of its tail. We exchanged a glance and then carried on. By then it was beginning to get light so we made our final loop back in the direction of home.