Basket of Cupcakes

It was a cool crisp morning. The sunrise was the perfect yellow and the sky promised a zero per cent chance of rain. Kiki was up bright and early, Yori was not. Kiki rushed around her room, following the loud sound of snoring until she found Yori asleep in the laundry basket. The daylight seemed to turn his fine fur a luminescent blue. Kiki spent a few minutes staring at Yori and how absolutely adorable he looked. Just then he awoke poking her in the eye for staring at him while he was asleep.

“Oi hooman! Staring at people as they sleep is in the ‘how to be creepy 101’ manual in my world.” Kiki remembered that he also had the personality of a pirate to go with his adorable looks. “Good morning to you too!” Exclaimed Kiki in annoyance while rubbing her eye.

“What’s so good about this morning Hooman?” Asked Yori, hopping out of the laundry basket to stretch himself in the hope of waking up.

He smacked his tummy and scratched his bottom with no care in the world, grossing Kiki out.

“What type of nibbles can I find in this dump hooman? I’m hungry, do your guests get breakfast or not?”

“Firstly, my name is Kiki so please start calling me by my name. Secondly, it is rude to call a person’s home a dump and thirdly, yes, there is breakfast.

I can get you pancakes and syrup.”

Kiki has had just about enough of Yori’s rude behaviour and they hadn’t even made it to breakfast yet.

“Yes well, Ki it is. No need to get defensive. Pancakes you say? Sure, let’s see what that tastes like.”

“You’ve never eaten pancakes? Unbelievable!”

“Have you ever eaten jumping jelly wumps?” Yori asked but answered as soon as he saw Kiki’s confused face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Kiki walked out of the room to save herself any more unnecessary conversation with Yori. Her dad was busying himself making pancakes for Kiki in the kitchen.

“Good Morning Chicken! I’m making your favourite.”

Kiki knew that her dad would be making pancakes. It’s what he did when he felt bad.

Victoria was still fast asleep on the counter. Kiki almost forgot about her. It was all so confusing. Ben looked over at Victoria snoring away on the kitchen counter with her cell still held to her ear.

“Seems Victoria is still napping then.

I tried waking her last night, she mumbled some gibberish and was back to snoring. Not even water could wake her!”

That explained the wet hair.

Kiki was sure Yori said the spell would wear off.

Her dad thought it was the sleeping pills she so often spoke about but was a bit annoyed that she would take then while babysitting Kiki.

Just then Victoria awoke in a shock.

The left side of her face and hair messed like a clown from a horror movie, she tried to wipe the drool off her face and fell with a loud thump on the floor.

Kiki tried so hard to suppress her urge to giggle out loud. Ben caught her face and gave her the “don’t you dare” look.

“Good Morning Victoria, would you like some coffee?” Ben asked bending over her holding a cup of coffee in his hand and offering his free hand for her to grab.

“Ben?” Victoria had asked in a confused manner? “What time is it? You’re back so soon?”

“It’s eight forty in the morning and we’re having breakfast, would you like some pancakes?” Ben asked in the nicest way he could. It was obvious he didn’t like confrontation much and was trying to get rid of the tension in the kitchen.

“What?” Victoria screamed and jumped up. She was definitely awake now.

“Impossible! I barely sat down and called Jen and … well, now I’m here?

What happened?”

“Well, that’s what I was going to ask you? Are you taking those sleeping pills again Vic? It doesn’t seem to be good for you, and you cannot be taking them while babysitting? You know that Vic. Do you need to see someone? A therapist?

Do you need to talk? Is there something troubling you?” And at Ben’s concerned tone, Victoria melted into a pile of tears.

Kiki rolled her eyes knowing full well there is nothing wrong with Victoria the nauseating, and she obviously was going to enjoy getting her dad’s sympathy. Kiki made a gagging sound, grabbed the bottle of syrup and the entire plate of pancakes and stormed out.

Yori was floating in the air sitting in a meditation position reading the book they had found, flipping the book pages they had found with his mind. He would stare at the page, look at it thoughtfully and make a sound as if he were trying to understand what he was seeing every now and then. She knew Yori could fly, she had no idea he could levitate. It was so cool, but Kiki knew better than to stroke Yori’s ego.

“Your pancakes are here, what did you find?” Kiki asked laying the plate down.

“Absolutely nothing,” Yori said with a smile, slamming the book shut and letting it fall onto the carpet while he flew up to the plate of pancakes to inspect his breakfast.

“Nothing?” Kiki asked a bit annoyed.

“But you were busy floating up there reading it, I’m sure you would have read something?”

“Nope. These are yummy! Yori is experiencing much tummy joy!”

Kiki huffed and grabbed the book.

Might as well figure this out myself, she thought, but when she opened the book, all that was there were blank pages.

“See. Absolutely nothing.” Yori said with a mouth full of pancake.

“Why does this not bother you? How am I going to save my mother now?” She slammed the book shut and threw it on the floor.

“Oh, there goes the hooman again.”

Yori said to himself but loud enough for Kiki to hear. He rolled his eyes and flew over to her with the syrup bottle held tightly between both paws.

“Look, it’s a magic book, so it makes sense that it would be magic pages too. You hooman’s are not a very brainy bunch, are you? Anyway, we can only read this when the clock strikes the hour of two. Because it is at that time that wayward spirits are asleep from their midday run at tomfoolery.” Yori squeezed some syrup in his mouth and continued.

“So you can stop sulking and find me more pancakes.”

It was then that Kiki realized that the entire plate of pancakes was eaten along with the entire bottle of syrup.

“Why do you call human’s hooman’s?

You seem to speak pretty well otherwise?”

“Is that not the word? I’ve heard many pets in the neighbourhood talk about their ‘hooman’. Is that not what you are?”

“It’s human, not hooman. It’s Kiki, not KI. I was not sulking, I was angry and I find you a rude rat rather than a magical creature!”

Kiki grabbed the plate and bottle and stormed out of the room slamming the door behind her. She was really starting to loathe another second in the company of that belligerent creature.

Yori stared at the door flabbergasted. “Well, I never. These HE-YOU-MAN’S are a mighty touchy bunch. Oh well, time for another nap after those pancakes.” He shrugged at the door and made his way to the laundry basket.

When Kiki got to the kitchen, Victoria was thankfully packing up to leave.

“Great news Poppet, we will be having that barbeque today. See you at lunchtime Vic? Kiki, I’ve also invited your buddies, Geordie and Ada as well as Hopper and your school buddies, their dad was driving by and stopped to say hi. Thought you’d like to spend some time with them. Have some fun in the sun.”

Ben had this dorky smile on his face as though he had done something amazing, But for Kiki, this day could not get any worse.