January

[Fragment. Also, I don't know anyone who speaks German or Polish, so if anyone who reads this know someone who speaks any of those two languages, has an email, and won't mind me bothering them about it, that'd be really good.]

“I miss Fluffy,” said Mike thoughtfully.

“I find it hard to believe that you never thought to check if ‘Fluffy’ is a girl or a boy,” yawned Zach. Idly he flipped a few pages to see how much he still needed to read--the amount proved too much for him. Zach let his head drop atop of the book with a groan as Nick gave him a consoling pat on the head.

“I found Fluffy on a rainy day by the freeway,” Mike stated with great dignity. “Our companionship has ascended above things like…gender.”

“That sounds wrong,” commented Gary, and quailed when Mike gave him a dark look. Neither had quite forgotten the fact that Mike had started this acquaintance wanting to punch Gary’s face in yet.

“How nice,” said Nick, curious. “Did you seriously find her-him-," he managed to hit the right word on the third try. "-It by the highway?”

“No Nick,” Mike replied sarcastically. “I’m making it all up.”

“Just asking,” Nick grumbled.

“Right,” he tapped a pencil against his hand. “It was when I moved in Minnesota and we just got all the furniture in the new house and I thought I’d, you know, get to know the neighbourhood…”

“In the rain?”

“Yeah well…” Mike hunched a shoulder. “Anyway. The house was pretty close to the freeway—” Someone made a disbelieving noise. Mike ignored it. “And there was this box, half-closed, sort of, and I wanted to see what was in it. So I opened the box and there was this puppy…”

“Aww,” said Gary and Nick, at the same time.

Mike threw down his pencil, crossed his arms, and scowled. “That’s it. I’m not telling the story anymore.”

“That’s so cute!” Gary grinned at Nick, who grinned back. “Puppy love. Literally. Aww.”

Mike made a snarly noise deep in his throat and looked about him for something he could safely throw. His friends realized that scaled on experience, Mike was at the level where he was capable of inflicting bodily injuries.

“Right, Um,” Nick stepped into the fray, eager to divert the tension. “That was a nice story, Mike. What?”

Mike stopped glaring and sighed, appealing to who he hoped to be, if not the person of sanity, then at least the person of reliable reasonableness. “Zach?”

“Mmph?”

“Did you ever have a pet?”

“I had—” Zach stopped, removed his face from the book, and tried again. “I had a fish. What?”

“Nothing. I thought…you’d be more of a cat person. Seriously, fish?”

“His name’s Carl,” Zach said fondly, lost in reminiscence. “He ate the other fishes.”

“Um. That’s…nice,” hedged Gary.

Nick and Mike exchanged an I-don’t-understand-him look.

“I had a fish too,” volunteered Nick. “But I didn’t name it.”

“Did it eat other fishes too?” Zach inquired with some interest.

“No, it’s just a…a normal poisson rouge.”

“Goldfisch,” said Gary sagely, nodding.

“Bor-ring,” Mike made a derisive noise. “Was that German?” He asked Gary, who grinned.

“Aber, ja,” said Gary. “Ja także mówią niektóre Język polski. And language tutors are evil.”

Nick looked impressed, Mike annoyed. Gary, after realizing that an annoyed Mike was one that he should pay careful attention to, flailed about wildly for a change in conversation.

“It all sounds like gibberish to me,” Zach said bracingly. “Do you have any pets, Gary?”

“They’re more of family pets than mine,” admits Gary, “but, let’s see…” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “There’s Larry, he’s the closest thing to my own pet I guess—he’s a nine-month old lizard—actually a Water Dragon. Then there’s Daisy—oh Larry’s green—yeah, and Muffy, Oliver, and Snowbell, those are the family cats. We also have two dogs, Buddy and Sparky; Buddy’s the older one—he’s almost four, I think.”

Silence greeted his words, Gary fidgeted, suddenly realizing that listing all the pets was not a good idea. He should’ve stuck simply to Larry instead—he actually took care of him, occasionally.

“Wow,” said Zach, searching for something mild to say. “That’s…quite a family.”

[I don't know if it'll be longer or this's it. We'll see.]