AAOOOSC!: Gulls' Adventures!

The next morning, the sun is shining vibrantly over the Monarossabergie House. In the kitchen, Brandon Montour is washing dishes after having breakfast with his roommates, Joseph Cramarossa and Nick Ritchie. Yet now he is left to do the dishes, all alone in the kitchen.

The doorbell rings: Ding, dong!

Brandon halts rubbing a soaked sponge against a plate’s surface in the middle of the bubbly suds. He peers down at his hands, immediately spotting that it’d take a while for him to get to the door due to all the bubbles covering them.

So he proceeds to let someone else take on the task.

“Jo-eeey!!!” Brandon shouts over his shoulder. “Can you get the door?!”

“No!” Joseph’s voice is heard replying flatly.

“Why?! My hands are occupied!!!”

“So are mine!” he barks. “You want clay all over the knob?!”

Brandon faces the sink with a huff.

“I’ll get it…,” Nick is heard saying from the left side of Brandon.

Brandon turns to Nick’s direction, spotting him sitting up gradually the sofa.

“Thank you for taking a break from your pre-breakfast nap to answer the door,” he tells him gratefully.

Nick sighs as he rises to his feet. “It’s ‘post-breakfast nap.’”

“Yeah, that.” He then turns back to the dishes.

Nick lumbers into the foyer and opens the front door. On the other side are Matt and Ryan.

“Hi guys,” he greets sleepily.

“We need to talk,” Ryan tells him sternly. He then strides inside with Matt following him.

The two goalies enter the living room, catching Brandon’s attention with their footsteps.

Brandon turns from his dish washing to the two. “What’s up?” he asks with a nod.

From the dining room, Ryan throws his hands into the air. “Our pets!”

Behind them in the living room, Nick lies back down on the sofa and resumes his post-breakfast nap.

Brandon gives them an inquired expression. “What about them?” He rinses his soapy hands through the running water then turns the faucet off.

“They talk!” Matt exclaims with wonder.

“Which is the thing right next to wacky!” Ryan shouts at him incredulously.

“What the—?” Brandon picks up the dish towel and dries his hands with it. “Talking pets? How?”

Matt nods to him. “By the cereal you gave to us.”

Brandon’s eyes drift away with realization. “Ohhhh…” His hands slow down to now holding the towel. “Well, we’ll take it back.” He reverts his gaze back at them. “We don’t have any pets here.”

“That’s not the problem--” Ryan starts off gravely. “--HOW do we get our pets to STOP TALKING?! My cat has a major attitude problem and it’s driving me up the walls!!!”

Brandon balls up the towel with rising anxiety at the fuming goalie. “Oh okay… Yikes. Um…” His eyebrows knit with pursed lips as he rattles his mind for a reply. “This is Icemare’s doing, that’s for sure.”

“Everything leads back to Icemare,” Matt points out.

“That’s because Icemare made all these things wacky.” Ryan groans.

“But if this is Icemare’s doing, then that means there HAS to be a cure!” Brandon exclaims, placing the towel on the edge of the sink. “And the cure must be something animal-orientated.”

“Our pets are as animal-orientated as you can get,” Ryan points out flatly.

Matt eyes him. “Not when they’re able to talk.”

Brandon shrugs and squeezes out tentatively, “At least we know that the cure is here…?”

Ryan tilts his head from side to side. “That is true.”

“Oh!” Brandon throws his index finger in the air. “And we have time to look for it because we don’t have practice today!”

“AHHHHH!!!” Joseph’s yells echo from the other side of the house. “OFF THE TABLE!!! OF THE TABLE!!!”

“But we’re wondering what you’re making!” Mr. Ernie is heard asking from the same direction.

“What is this supposed to be,” Zeppelin is heard asking with a disgusted tone: “a deranged squirrel?”

Brandon, Matt, and Ryan immediately exchange looks.

They then rush down the dining room and living room, make the bend around the foyer and shoot up the hallway to where Joseph’s room is located toward the back. They skid into the room to catch the sight of the commotion.

In the back corner of Joseph’s room, Joseph is wearing a smock, sitting behind a desk that is covered with newspaper, sprinkled with dry and wet clay bits and chunks.

In one of his clay-covered hands is a piece of clay that cannot be distinguished as to what it is supposed to be. In his other hand is a carving knife lined with wet clay.

On the table is a clay-spotted board that is in front of him, a square of fresh clay, more various types of carving knives, a jar containing slip, a bowl of water with a sponge, and two particular animals: Mr. Ernie and Zeppelin.

Joseph is staring at them with disgust. “Since when did the rat spoke?” he grumbles.

“Please, do call me a hamster,” Mr. Ernie tells him formally. “It’s the correct title for me.”

Joseph throws the knife down against the table and pulls the slip jar under his hand. He then begins crumbling his work in his anger-fueled hands, creating more slip with the pieces plunking into the grayed water.

“It’s one of Icemare’s curses,” Brandon tells him calmly.

“Oh yeah, you keep talking about this ‘Icemare,’” Zeppelin points out. “He sounds like a superhero—”

“He’s a supervillain—” Ryan corrects her.

“Who keeps wrecking our lives one curse at a time!!!” Joseph roars, slamming his free fist against table.

Zeppelin eyes him. “Well, uh, isn’t that what curses are supposed to do?”

Joseph growls at her with bared teeth as he proceeds to crush the rest of his piece into the slip jar.

Brandon slightly gapes at what his roommate is mindlessly doing. “You were just cleaning that piece up—”

“I don’t care,” he snaps, not tearing his eyes off from the cat.

Ryan looms over the two animals that are on the table with crossed arms. “Zeppelin, Mr. Ernie, come with us: we’re gonna try to fix you guys.”

“No!” Zeppelin hops away from him. “It’s way better this way: you guys actually understand us!”

“But we can’t have you talking. People’ll get skeptical.”

“So I’ll shut my mouth.” She lowers herself onto her hind legs with good posture.

Ryan scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “Ha ha, like as if that’s gonna happen by the way you’ve been acting lately.”

“I’ve been behaving exceptionally well!” Mr. Ernie pipes in, raising a paw in the air. “Can I keep my communication skills?”

Matt frowns at him. “Your owner would not be too pleased.”

Zeppelin’s eyes then light up as an idea crosses her mind. “Wait!” she shouts, catching the attention of the four hockey players. “What if instead of making you guys not understand us, we can make ALL the animals be understood by humans!”

Joseph slams his hands against the table’s surface. “NO.”

Zeppelin turns to him. “But why?”

“That’s creepy. Like arguing with a cat.” He pauses. “Like what I’m doing right now.”

“Anyway, that’d take a lot of work to do that to every single animal in the world,” Brandon tells her with the most reasonable explanation to deny her idea.

Ryan turns to her. “Point proven?”

“I’m still not giving up my communication skills.” Zeppelin tosses her head back with pride.

Mr. Ernie’s eyes light up. “Ooo, I’m actually really hungry…” He sticks his paws into his mouth and begins searching his cheek pouches for food. “Foh foh!” He removes his hands from his mouth. “My food stock’s empty!”

“Don’t worry, there’s some pellets in the kitchen,” Matt tells him, nodding his head toward the kitchen.

“Ooo, goodie!” The hamster claps his paws. “Those are tasty!”

“Come!” Matt cups his hands in front of Mr. Ernie; Mr. Ernie jumps into them. “Let’s eat!” He then walks off with his hands in the air.

“Wheeeeee, I’m in my mini spaceship…!” Mr. Ernie shouts as he exits the room with his temporal owner.

Zeppelin eyes the doorway where the hamster exited through. “That is so stupid.”

Ryan peers down from her. “I think you’re hungry too.”

The cat turns to her owner. “No, I’ll tell you when I am.”

“Off,” Joseph commands her harshly. She turns to him with a flat expression. Joseph points to the ground. “Get off.”

Zeppelin silently leaps off the table, then begins trotting toward the door.

Ryan follows his cat with his eyes. “How did you even get in here?”

“Easy, we followed you guys.” She then rounds the doorway, disappearing from view.

Ryan walks right behind her, exiting the room as well.

With a sigh, Brandon turns to Joseph. “At least we don’t have any pets.”

“Hm.” Joseph picks up his carving knife and peers at his other hand, which is suppose to be holding his clay piece. Yet his hand is in an empty fist slathered with clay. “Dang it,” he mutters.

“Told you…!” Brandon sing-songs as he leaves the room.

Notes

E.8 "They Speak!"
Part 3/5
Episode 8/20