1. The New Family Member

"Hello, Mundi!"

"Hello!" a happily squeaking sound replied from the blue and yellow feathered parrot.

A relaxed smile spread across the face of Mundi's owner. She slowly lifted her hand to stroke his feathers. He delightfully bent his head down and enjoyed the soft feeling in his neck.

"Did you have fun home while we were shopping at the mall today?" she asked him.

"Fun, fun!" Mundi repeated happily and flapped his wings.

Actually Mundi the Macaw a.k.a. Agent M had been at the O.W.C.A training center during the whole day, and was pretty exhausted, but he didn't wanted to show it to his owners. He didn't want them to worry about him, oh, right, and it might blow his cover as well.

"Roxy, can you give us a hand out here?" a voice shouted from the hallway.

"Coming!" Roxy, Mundi's owner, shouted back. She turned back to Mundi and stuck out her forearm at him so he could climb up. They headed out to the hallway there Roxy's parent and little sister already were busy with unpacking the newly bought stuff from the rustling pouches.

"We've got a little surprise for you." Roxy said to Mundi.

Her father chuckled at her.

"You treat that bird as if he could understand every word you say."

What none of the family members know is that Mundi do understand every word they say. Human language (mostly English) is one of the most important basic lessons at the agency. Mundi was in top of that class, also being the only agent at his division able to talk. (That is, if you don't count two former agents that were employed at the agency during a short time, one of them being a robot and the other one being a human.)

Mundi glanced curiously at the pouches on the floor, trying not to look too exited over whatever his owners had in surprise for him. He sure hoped it was millets, he loves millets.

An audibly movement from a little brown box, that had been hiding behind the now unpacked and imploded pouches, attracted his attention. Roxy's little sister Becky lifted up the box and held it in front of him.

"Look what I've got" she said excited. She seemed to have a hard time resisting the desire to jump for joy since if she'd do that she'd probably shake the box to much.

She put her hand on the top of the box with the fingers over the edge to opened it. Two shiny black eyes attached to a little round gray furry body with two big upright ears on each side of its head looked up from the box.

'That is not millets', Mundi thought a bit disappointed, then he tried to figure out what kind of animal it was. A rabbit? No, it's ears doesn't really look like they do on rabbits. A guinea pig? No, they don't have that big ears. Maybe some kind of a giant mouse? No, wait, he suddenly noticed that its tail was bristly. Is it a squirrel? He didn't remember squirrels having that small tails.

"This is Chilli, she is a chinchilla," Becky said happily, "isn't she cute?"

'A chinchilla?' Mundi had never heard of that before, 'It sure exists a lot of weird animals in this world'.

He came to think of Agent P, who looked like he was some kind of crossbreed between a duck and a beaver.

Chilli leaned over the edge to curiously sniff at Mundi. Mundi recoiled as Chilli's whiskers tickled him.

"You two are going to be best friends", Becky said in a happily childish tone.

'I wouldn't be so sure about that, Becky', Mundi thought, not taking the eyes off the little rodent as it could make a sudden unexpected move. He wasn't very thrilled by now having to share his attention with someone else. At least it seemed like Becky was going to be the one taking care of the … the …, what was it called again? Chihuahua? No, that's a breed of a dog agent at Admiral Acronym's division. Anyway, at least he would still have Roxy.

"Becky, can you please bring the chinchilla's stuffs up to Mundi's room?" Roxy's and Becky's mum said.

'Chinchilla, that's right, that's what it was called... Wait, what did she meant by...?', Mundi suddenly felt how a stormy cloud of anxiety started to take form above him.

"You guys are going to be roommates" Becky said.

'Roommates?!' Mundi could feel how the cloud unleashed it's wet substance over him.

"This is great, I finally get to have my own pet", Becky said, still in her happy exited mood. Then she rushed up the stairs to the second floor, still caring the box with the little hairball that soon was going to infiltrate the peaceful little oasis that once was Mundi's room.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. You'll get used to it, and if you don't I'm sure we can find another solution", Roxy said, trying to cheer up Mundi.

'Am I being that obvious?' Mundi thought, mad because he hadn't been able to hide his own emotions. He was supposed to pretend to just be a mindless pet, acting like he had no clue of what was going on. If his owners knew about his secret identity he would be send away, never to see them again.

He cared about the Oswalds very much, especially Roxy. She was mainly the one taking care of him. He loved the way she smiles every time she greets him, and how she always laugh whenever he says some kind of stupid word, like 'cookie' or something. He also loves the other members of the family as well, even Becky, though she could get a little annoying sometimes. He would be devastated if anything happened to anyone of them.

He looked up at Roxy's comfortable face, trying to look as happy and clueless as possible.

"Cookie!" he chattered.

Roxy smiled and let out a little giggle. For himself, he thought that no one, no one is ever going to take away that smile from him, not even that little chinchilla.