The WORST Wednesday in My Life

     ~*~*~

     It was Wednesday morning. Since it was Thanksgiving the next day, Zye, Taen and I didn't have any Neoschool for the rest of the week. So we decided to sleep around the house for a while and then maybe do some reading. Tooty, who never went to school anyway, was out at an all-night party with some friends of his, so there were no 'responsible adults' around the house. (Well, I guess you could count Taen because she's seventeen, but I highly doubt she'd qualify as 'responsible'.)

     "Ha! Tooty's gone!" shouted Taenrax, pulling on her slippers and grabbing some Neocola from the cabinet. She settled herself on a ratty old couch and reclined. "We can finally have some fun, 'ay?"

     "Yeah!" replied Zyedria, the youngest, ignoring the Blue Eyrie's strange pirate speech patterns. "But not too much fun. Someone might get hurt. Remember last time? Mom said NO swordfighting, and what do you do? I swear, we need a firm parental hand around here. Mom just isn't enough. She tells us she'll punish us, but what of it? All talk, I tell ya! I want her to love us a little less and give us some TOUGH LOVE..."

     While Zye went off on another one of her 'tough love' lectures, the doorbell rang. I sprang up from my seat and answered it. Strange, I thought, there's no one there. But then I looked down. Sprawled at my feet was a little basket, filled to the brim with leaves, with a single yellow lemon inside. I love citrus fruits, and I can't say no to a freebie, so I hurriedly picked up the basket and ran it inside.

     "Hey guys! Look what was at our doorstep!" My sisters raced into the kitchen to see what the trouble was. They stared at the lone lemon lying in the little light-lime leaves, (betcha can't say that five times fast!), with twisted expressions, a little like a mix of indignation, rage, and indigestion. "Lemon, eh?"

     "What, can you tell me, was a LEMON doing at our doorstep?" Zyedria finally asked. "I mean, really. Why would someone leave a perfectly good lemon to us?"

     "Maybe they knew about Princy's strange citrus fruit addiction." Taenrax said, brushing her wings up against me. "Eh, Princy? Eh?"

     "It's NOT an addiction, Taenrax. Now would you please just--"

     "Hi, I'm Bob!"

     "ACK!!"

     The lemon had just popped out of the leaf-filled basket, sprouted legs, arms, eyes and a mouth, and said 'Hi, I'm Bob'. At first I thought I was seeing things, but after several *painful* pinches from Taenrax, we knew it wasn't a dream. There really was a deranged limb-sprouting talking lemon standing on our kitchen counter!

     I thought I was going to faint.

     ~*~*~

     "Wh-what are you?" Taenrax asked, sticking an unsure finger out to touch the thing. It jumped; she screamed. "Where did you come from!?"

     "Hi I'm Bob I'm a CHIA LEMON or is that lemon Chia anyway my previous owner said that I talked too much and that there were creative differences between us or something like that so anyway she put me in a little basket in front of your house cause she thought I'd like it here and said for me to be a good boy so anyhow she walked away and then I started crying because I missed her but that made lemonade and I drank that and I had to go to the bathroom but there wasn't one so I held it until a nice guy came over and let me use his but then I wouldn't leave because I thought that you guys wouldn't like me but he got so annoyed he threw me out the window and some of my juices squeezed out and that hurt but I climbed back into the basket but it was uncomfortable so I took some really comfy leaves and stuck them inside and then I was sleeping and then you came and got me and I pretended that I was a lemon not a fake one but a real one so that you might eat me but you didn't so I showed you that I wasn't a lemon so you wouldn't just put me in the refrigerator--how do you spell that--maybe it's R-E-F-R-I-G or is there a D in there oh well anyway..."

     "How can he talk such a long time without breathing?" hissed Zyedria. I shrugged, and put an arm around her. She looked like she was going to faint, too.

     "...so that's were you guys come in!"

     "That's...a VERY nice story..." lied Taenrax. "Now why don't you just GO? Bye-bye, we won't miss ya, here's your hat, what's yer hurry? Skedaddle now, SHOO."

     "Oh but I caaaaaaan't go!" protested Bob, now climbing into the sink. The lemon Chia poured some orange-smelling hand soap into his mouth and started hiccupping bubbles. (Why he did this I don't know.) "I-HIC-can't go because my prev-HIC-ious owner said tha-HIC-t I talked too HIC much and that HIC there HIC were creat-HIC-ive differenc-HIC-es between us or some-HIC-thing like that so HIC any-HIC-way she put m-HIC-e in a HIC little bas-HIC-ket in fro-HIC-..."

     "WE ALREADY KNOW THAT!" screeched Zyedria, unlike her normally calm self. "Now give us a minute to, uh, discuss the matter privately."

     "O-HIC-kay."

     The little Blue Zafara pulled Taenrax and me down below the counter, where the lemon couldn't see us.

     "That little thing is a nuisance!" cried Taenrax. "We have to get rid of it!"

     "Unfortunately, I'm on Taen's side." Zyedria nodded her head solemnly.

     "Okay, but we can't just toss him out. Let's just let him stay a little bit until we can get him to the pound."

     The two female pets looked at each other and nodded. "Okay."

     ~*~*~

     What a mistake that had been.

     "Ooooh you're a fuzzy Starry Lupe so fuzzy and starry and Lupey is that even a word I don't know because I don't like English very much I rather like Spanish: uno dos tres quatro cinco..." I tried to escape the little monster's grasp, but he lunged from the dining room table and caught me by the tail. I tried bucking him off, but he held fast like rubber cement. All I could do was sit on him. Which I did.

     "Where's the lemon-guy?" Zyedria asked, a butterfly net in her paw. "I'm gonna lock him up in a little cage..."

     "He's right--" I got up, only to find that there was nothing attached to my tail, to my legs, or even smushed between the cushions! "--here?"

     "Where is he? I want to--GOOD FYORA! DUCK!!" We both hit the floor just in time not to be hit by a flying yellow streak, and I'll give you two guesses as to who it was. The little Chia was hanging on Mom's *priceless* heirloom chandelier, passed down in the Puffin family for generations. Little lemon boy wasn't about to break it!

     "You...get...DOWN...from...there...NOW!" I scolded, in between ducks. "I'm...warning...YOU!"

     "You can't catch me!" Bob flew off the chandelier, letting it fall to the floor and, thank Fyora, into my outstretched arms. "Can't catch me; I'm the Little Lemon Man!" I groaned, and Taenrax flew in from the kitchen with an armful of cleaning products and utensils. While 'Little Lemon Man' broke things in the great room, the Blue Eyrie explained.

     "We have to bring Bob down, no matter how valuable he is!" Taenrax growled, glancing at me. I blushed angrily. "Anyway, here are our weapons. We have to drive him out of the house, by means of attack!"

     "Isn't there a better way to do this?" Zyedria asked.

     "Zyedria, do ye know how many expensive vases and lamps he's shattered?"

     "Yeah, but--"

     "Do ye know how many un-repairable appliances he's busted?"

     "I know, but--"

     "Do ye know how many 'o yer Usukis he's beheaded?"

     "The little man is going down."

     "Good. Now, take a weapon. I'll be takin' some forks an' spoons to throw at 'im. Zye, ye can take this cleaning fluid--not to be ingested--to spray at him, an' Princy can take th' lemonade."

     "Why lemonade?"

     "Think about it."

     "Oh, right."

     "Come on, team! Let's shove off!"

     ~*~*~

     Bob stumbled around the kitchen, talking to himself.

     "Hmm it's quiet in here I wonder why it's so quiet there's no one in here other than me of course I wonde--"

     "ATTACK!!" Taenrax barked orders at her siblings as she and Zyedria tossed forks and sprayed cleaning fluid at Bob. He flinched, was nearly stabbed by a fork, and accidentally ingested some cleaning fluids, but he wasn't done for yet!

     "Ah what a fun game let me try!" The lemon Chia picked up some of the forks around him and threw them back. That time, he slashed Taenrax's wing, pinned the purple fluff on Zyedria's tail to the ground, and pinned me to the wall. All four limbs. "Oooh I'm good, aren't I?"

     "Aak! I can't...move..." Zyedria struggled to un-stick her tail from the ground, but the fork had gone through the floor and into the dirt. Taenrax looked at her bleeding wing and snarled, only to be met with the blunt end of a rolling pin, and that knocked her out cold.

     "I guess it's up to me!" I said, reaching for the can of lemonade attached to my side with rope. (Taenrax said it was a 'holster'.) I could barely reach it, but just as Bob was winding up, ready to throw a butcher knife at me, I grabbed the lemonade and sprayed it at him.

     "AAAAHHH! MY MOTHER!!" the lemon Chia cried, getting splashed with the yellow stuff, and ran out the door blubbering. Zyedria yanked her tail free and got me out, and we helped Taenrax to her bed. Just then, the door rang.

     "Hello?" It was Tooty_pois, arms folded, foot tapping. "Oh, hey, Tooty. How was the party?"

     "Fine, fine." The Blue Bori pushed his way past me and into the house. "I really think that you--WHAT IN THE NAME OF ASPARAGUS HAPPENED IN HERE!?" The poor guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack! Inside the house, it really did look like a tornado had hit. There were books all over the floor, everything was broken, or mostly everything, lemonade and eggs were splattered against the walls, the sofa was ripped in two, the chandelier was on the ground, forks spoons, and a butcher knife were scattered around, and headless Usuki dolls were strewn around the great room.

     "Um...it was the lemon's fault?"

The End