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Chapter Twelve: Spork is a Salamander

Cedric did not respond. I huffed and continued my prance into the kitchen. No Cedric. Huh. I pranced into the living room. No Cedric there either. What was there however was Hearts. The little furball was curled up on the sofa in a brown blanket. I could see the black tip of its tail hanging out from one end and the pink top of its head at the other. It was purring lightly and seemed to be asleep.
Sleeping on the job. Tsk tsk. It was time I taught it a few crew rules. Naturally I wished it didn’t have to be done. I mean, I was a nice cat, even to dumb rookie kittens that deserved ill treatment. No, this was a life lesson that would benefit it for years to come—and also remind it to think twice before stealing my sofa, seniority and all.
I grinned as I reached for the spray bottle Cedric had left out. Did I just say grinned? I meant uh, solemned. I retrieved the item in a solemn, serious state. A grin would indicate I thought this was funny you see. Which, in fact, it was not. I felt bad I had to do this you may recall. I just felt so bad that, kekeke, ahem, that I could hardly, kekeke, follow, keke, through with it.
I eyed up the unsuspecting pink kitten’s head and let my finger tighten on the trigger. Right about the same time something struck me from behind and made me squeak. I fluffed up, after becoming airborne briefly—it startled me, what did you expect—and landed facing the opposite direction.
“Don’t you dare.” Spork commanded.
That explained the sudden feeling I had had, it had been courtesy of Spork’s tail giving a warning slap. Spork does that—warning slaps with its tail. I guess if I had a tail as long and flat as it did I would probably use it for such purposes too. Still, that was something fish and tailed amphibian things did. Not cats. Spork the salamander, kehkeh. Anyway, back on topic.
“AH. Spork. Right. I uh. I wasn’t daring at all.” I strategically moved the spray bottle behind my back so that it wasn’t uh, the focus shall we say.
“I’m sure.” It grumbled.
While I was looking at it, Spork used its tail to confiscate the bottle from me. I didn’t notice until it was too late. So I did the only thing I could do, I grinned, gave a nervous laugh and let my ears droop slightly.
Kerfuffle had finally joined us. Its wide eyed gaze swept the room nervously as it bunched all of its limbs as close to its torso as it could while still retaining mobility. The ‘deviv was acting like a spooked kitten back straight from the medic’s office; probably my medic’s office. That would have been a legitimate reason though.
“Does a Human still live here?” It asked with an anxious visual sweep of the area.
Seemingly on cue Cedric appeared from well, I’m not sure where exactly. I had been preoccupied. The important thing was he had appeared. Kerfuffle did not handle it well. In fact you could almost say it had a poor reaction.
It fluffed up and tore across the room—where there was no door by the way—it slammed into a wall instead.
“What’s that?” Cedric asked.
“That’s Kerfuffle! Hey Kerfuffle, it’s okay! This is Cedric, he’s my pet Human.”
Kerfuffle was mumbling a bit incoherently still. The collision with the wall might have rattled its head a bit.
“Your pet Human?” Cedric challenged, “Now just hold on a—”
“Oh. Hello there Human.” Kerfuffle stood up once more and shook its head, a lone feather fluttered down. “What about the weather lately, yeah?”
“That isn’t how people talk!” Spork snarled.
Cedric retreated some. Can’t say I blamed him with Spork being there.
About that time Hearts started waking up too. It sat up on the sofa and gave a long yawn as its tail swept back and forth lazily. It gazed at me, Cedric, Spork, and Kerfuffle, looked briefly confused then tiredly asked. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Rookie, while you were napping the day away, us Qwuedeviv invaders have been out scouting the lands, rescuing and reassembling our fellow crew!”
Hearts’ eyes lit up—figuratively, not literally. Literally would be kind of weird when an eye disguise wasn’t present.
“Woooow. You’re so cool. You must be the bravest Qwuedeviv in all the land.”
“Correct.” I nodded.
Spork sighed and stepped between us. “Kit, don’t encourage it.”
Hearts’ big green eyes didn’t show any indication that it understood what Spork was accusing me of.
“Okay, Mr. Spork!” It declared cheerfully.
It had sort of gotten the whole Mr. Smith cover name mixed in there.
Kerfuffle had, in the meantime, become brave enough to join us. I guess it had figured out that Cedric was not scary, threatening or anything remotely in that range of these things. In fact it seemed curious. It was reaching out towards Cedric with one paw.
Cedric was, however, backing up. He was out of the room entirely and only stopped when his back hit the wall. If he had possessed the power to go through walls I’m pretty sure he would have right then, he didn’t seem too happy.
Kerfuffle stretched its paw out to touch Cedric’s face. I had been curious to how it felt as well, but hadn’t touched it because, well, I was too short.
“Huh…it’s so…squishy.”
“Yours probably is too.” Cedric said in the whiny voice he tends to get when scared.
“Hmm.” Kerfuffle debated and then used its other paw to feel its own face. “Yeah. Guess it is. But your’s is bald, yeah?”
Cedric pushed Kerfuffle’s paw away after a moment.
“Do you mind?”
Kerfuffle glanced around. “Mind what exactly?”
“The paw smushing my face. Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?”
“No.” Its ears perked up.
Cedric stared at it quietly for a few moments then inched along the hall wall to walk around it. Predictably, Kerfuffle followed.
“How do you stay balanced without a tail?” It hurried its pace to get a better look. “Why does fur only grow on your head?”
“I—wha—what?” Cedric seemed lost.
I guess he didn’t much like being the studied alien himself. Good. Maybe he’d think about that next time he welcomed a new alien for the first time.
“Kerfuffle!” Spork called. “Stop stressing the Human.”
“Oh, sure, sorry, I just—”
“Now, Kerfuffle. Besides, without our medic we have no idea what sicknesses we could catch from being near it or touching it.”
Kerfuffle looked utterly repulsed by the concept. It wiped its paw on its uniform and retreated back into the room with us.
“So, Fluffle, I don’t suppose you have the equipment with you to contact HQ do you?”
“What? Oh. No, no, no I don’t have anything. No computer, no nothing. It’s been very boring.”
“How do you not have any of those things?”
“No one told me we were deploying. I was pretty surprised too you know.” It leaned against the side of the sofa. “When the 10 second warning buzzers went off, I tried to grab all my gear, but I ended up with someone’s lunchbox instead.”
“A lunchbox, really?”
“Yes, Sir. A genuine lunchbox complete with lunch.”
A moment of silence, and then, “You’re useless.”
“Well jellysquid, Spork, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would.” Its attention drifted to me. “Smiley! Stop harassing that kitten!”
“I wasn’t!” I snapped back. “And don’t worry Kerfuffle—I can get you a computer.”
With that, leaving my crew no doubt in awe, I bounded out to once again save the day.
Unlike the rest of my crew I had been around Cedric’s house long enough to pick up on a few key details. I not only knew the best places to take a nap, but I also knew the best places to steal Cedric’s tech. He had long given up the whole “please don’t use my laptop” deal and I had pretty much claimed the laptop when he was gone.
I had even changed the desktop’s wallpaper to kitty paw prints. It was much cuter than Cedric’s weird family. Anyway, I knew where it was at and had full intentions of retrieving it for Kerfuffle. They would be amazed and praise me, wishing I would disclose how I had learned all these amazing things. I would shrug and reply, “Natural talent.”
“Smiley? Do you have it yet?” Spork’s voice snapped me out of the daydream as I resumed my search.
“In a moment!” I shouted back.
It was usually in Cedric’s room which is where I had crept in to. His unmade bed was in a chaotic mess with blankets tossed about all over. To one corner some stray paperwork fluttered about and there was a dusty collection of computer parts. Stuff he said he would get around to fixing up and replacing one of these days.
One of these days had yet to happen while I had been there and I highly doubted it would be in the near future for that matter. Never the less that was not my concern for the moment. My concern was the laptop for Kerfuffle. I found it where it often was—beside his bed.
I confiscated the laptop then and sneaked back out of the room. All the sneaking business wasn’t entirely necessary because Cedric wasn’t paying attention. In fact I was almost sure he was avoiding us after Kerfuffle had made him uncomfortable. It never hurt to practice one’s skills though.
Once in the clear, I hurried down the stairs where I had left Kerfuffle and Spork.
They were still there waiting, discussing mundane details that probably weren’t all that beneficial to anyone.
“Look what I found guys!” I declared, tail curled proudly behind myself. I pranced the remainder of the way before handing the laptop off to Kerfuffle.
“What is this thing?”
“It’s a laptop.” I mewed. “I took it from Cedric.”
“It looks ancient.”
“Humans like ancient looking tech stuff. They call it cutting edge.”
“Hm.”
“Yeah.”
Kerfuffle opened the laptop and observed its interface briefly. After a few moments it got busy typing away and pressing all sorts of things. Kerfuffle was something of a natural when it came to tech stuff. It was what it had trained in its whole life after all.
“Anything?”
“I just got the thing.” Kerfuffle noted and resumed tinkering with the outdated computer. “Besides with Earthian technology being so ancient there’s no way it can be compatible with our stuff.”
“Of course.” Spork growled.
“But that doesn’t mean it can’t be of any use. I just have to see what it’s capable of.”
“Well, get to work then.” Spork’s ears twitched. “And no messing around either.” I noticed it looked at me primarily when it said that.