Chatterbox

     Sweet covered his ears with his paws. "Okay, okay, do we really have to know all of that?" He glared at the faerie Acara who was yakking her mouth off with endless tales of style and who-knew-what. At the same time, she was also boring her three siblings to death as they spent an idle morning in the living room.

     "You know, Glitter, Mr. Embers' tie was actually quite…uh…interesting," said Fluffy. The white Aisha nodded, and buried her nose back in the book she was reading.

     "But I like little pink Meepits chewing on chocolate chip cookies," piped up Angel the pink Jetsam.

     "Only because YOU'RE pink, thanks to the lab ray," said Glitter proudly. "I think pink goes great with yellow. See, I always look cool because I have yellow fur and pink wings. But blue with…"

     Suddenly the striped Kacheek snapped his fingers, as if he had discovered something. "Hey Angel," he whispered, jabbing his younger brother sharply. "Don't you have to get something from upstairs…like your favorite Anubis plushie? We could play with it right now instead of listening to the noise that is our sister."

     The Jetsam grinned at his eldest sibling, baring his sharp teeth. "Ooh, good idea!" He got off the sofa and bounded towards his bedroom on the second floor. As soon as he was out of sight, Sweet's expression became a serious, no-nonsense stare. He glanced at his sisters.

     "Listen up, you two. Today is the day we celebrate Angel becoming part of our family. Kat's out right now, buying a cake and other things. Our job now is to make sure he's out of sight while we set stuff up here. However, there's still a problem."

     "How to hold our littlest brother off long enough," said the white Aisha. "You know how curious Angel can get. So we need someone to watch him upstairs. I can't do it, because I'm reading up on great parties in history and how they became successful, fun, and free of bad punch. And Sweet's in charge of the overall layout. It's up to you then, Glitter."

     Fluffy's younger sister smiled. "Hey, that's one thing I can do! I can tell him about the faculty lounge fiasco! See, May told me that April told her that June told her that Miss Ford's personal messenger heard of this-"

     "Okay, okay, okay," muttered Sweet, wincing. "Save your tall tales for later! Now get up there and make sure he doesn't make a peep. We've got stuff to do and a big gathering-thingy to set up!" He stretched out his striped paws and pushed her off.

     Shrugging, Glitter spread her wings and zoomed up the stairs. The faerie Acara alighted onto the wooden floor and faced her sibling's room. All of a sudden, it flung open and revealed a particularly perky pink Jetsam was clutching a plushie in the form of a popular desert petpet. "Hi, Glitter!" he proclaimed, patting the plush toy on its head. "I thought you were downstairs with Sweet and Fluffy."

     "Uh…yeah," she said. "Listen, did I ever tell you about what Sweet mutters in his sleep?"

     "Huh?"

     "Yeah. He's speaking to some imaginary friend of his and asking for cheesy fries. And then he screams and says something about a bug crawling up his leg. Isn't that funny? Plus, Fluffy loves cheese fries so much that one time-"

     "Let's talk about that later. I mean, how do you know that our big brother talks while he's in bed? Do you like, have spies everywhere?"

     Glitter snickered. "Actually, I knocked and went inside the room to ask for something, and realized that he was asleep. So I heard all that stuff. Remember when I was like, walking around and you thought I was sleepwalking so you asked me over breakfast and I told you that I only wanted to borrow his spare pencil."

     Angel nodded. "Oh yeah! Well, what are we waiting for? We're wasting valuable time for playing! I mean, it's not like our older siblings are hiding things from us, right?"

     The faerie Acara thought for a moment. "Actually, they are." She paused dramatically, watching her brother's eyes grow wide with anticipation. "See, they sent me up here to keep you busy - "

     "Busy?"

     "They're doing something. I don't know, something like a party? You know - " Suddenly Glitter's paws flew to her mouth, and she gasped. "Uh-oh…"

     But it was too late. The Jetsam jumped for joy and quickly tore down the stairs before his sister could follow. "Angel, WAIT!" She added under her breath, "Fluffy and Sweet are SO going to bean me when he finds out…" Nevertheless, the Acara chased him, unfortunate that her sibling had gotten a head start and was now headed for the dining room.

     She waved her arms about. "No, don't go in there!" Unfortunately, either he was too excited to listen, or was pretending to not listen, so he fled into the kitchen and walked in on a striped Kacheek and a white Aisha bent over a banner that had "WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, ANGEL" which was obviously nearly done.

     And the pink Jetsam saw it. "Is that for me?" he asked with a grin. "That's so cool!"

     "You're not supposed to be down here," said Sweet firmly. "GLITTER! What's he doing here? This was a SURPRISE!"

     "You ruined the surprise," muttered Fluffy with a sigh. "There goes a whole morning of preparation."

     The faerie Acara put her paws on her hips. "At least he doesn't know that the party is to celebrate the day we adopted him from the - oops."

     "Thanks a lot," snarled her older brother sarcastically. "And so, a nice spiffy plan put to an end by the ever-chatter-full Glitter." The white Aisha shook her head disapprovingly, making their younger sister look and feel even guiltier. However, Angel glanced at the three of them, before he let loose with a strange string of words.

     "All this," he whispered softly, "was for me? You were planning a party just for me?"

     Sweet sat on a nearby chair. "Yes, we were. Too bad the secret got out. It could have been a great surprise."

     "But it WAS a surprise," said the Jetsam. "I didn't know that even though you don't know my birthday, you'd still throw me some huge celebration. As in, I'd be the center of attention. That was a surprise, when I came down here and saw you preparing. It was the thought that counted, Sweet." His face changed into an expression of pure, sincere happiness.

     "Really?" The striped Kacheek scratched his arm briefly. "But I'm sorry that we weren't able to finish the whole thing. You came downstairs and Fluffy and I got into a panic storm."

     "It was MY fault," Glitter stressed. "If I had only kept my big mouth shut…"

     Angel shook his head, patting the faerie Acara on the back. "Come on, don't say that," he said. "It was nobody's fault. You just made a little mistake, that's it."

     Glitter looked up. "So you…forgive me?"

     "Every one of us," said the Aisha, punching Sweet in the shoulder. "Right, Sweet?"

     He tapped his foot for a moment, pretending to think. "I guess so," their big brother said, a big smile on his face. "At least we've got the food, the drinks…even though we hadn't exactly done everything, we have the celebrant!" Sweet winked at Angel, who was reaching for a bowl of cookies.

     * * *

     "Wow, this is the best day of my life," said the Jetsam, popping another piece of chocolate into his mouth. "At least, my life here with you guys."

     "No sweat," said the striped Kacheek, juggling a few cookies. "Hold on…I think we forgot something."

     Fluffy gasped. "We've already eaten just about everything, played a few games, but we didn't do them with Kat! Aw, we were too excited to wait for her." The white Aisha threw up her paws in frustration. "NOW what do we do?"

     Glitter brushed some crumbs off her tummy before tapping her sister's shoulder. "Hey, isn't Kat's birthday like, a few weeks or so from now?"

     "Oh, yeah!" Sweet jumped up. "I guess we can involve her in some serious partying!"

     "Partying? My friend once threw a party while staying at the Neolodge, and the staff went crazy just to hold them all down and make sure they didn't cause a riot inside! I mean, wasn't that really cool? Next time our owner gives us a vacation, we could top the party record in there and boogie - "

     "GLITTER!" cried her three siblings. "Come on, let's get to work!"

     The white Aisha grabbed an empty bowl. "Perhaps there WILL be a real surprise party after all."

     "Just not for me, 'cause mine's already finished," said Angel, patting Glitter on the shoulder.

The End