Wow, I am sorry, guys, I did not check the doc before I posted it and the format was all weird. Hopefully it is fixed now.

I spelled some words incorrectly to show how Smallstar pronounces them, hopefully you can still follow the story. And hopefully you laugh!

Smallstar Seaworthy woke up to the sound of Allstar running around his room and throwing things in his suitcase. Sometimes he'd take pauses to arrange the items he was tossing in, but mostly he just tossed. She watched him curiously from the doorway. Usually only her dad packed like that, when a family trip was coming up. But nobody had told her about a trip, and Allstar wasn't Dad.

"Allstar, what are you doing?" She asked.

"Packing," he said, yanking socks from under his bed and throwing them in. She watched, fascinated. She'd thought she was the only one who hid laundry under the bed to avoid putting it away. Apparently not. Where was he going with hidden socks, anyway?

"What are you packing for?" She swam shakily into his room and onto his bed, still getting used to using her snork to get around, instead of crawling like some dumb baby.

"Field trip." He said, as if it explained everything. "Smallstar, why don't you go help Dad in the kitchen?" He smiled encouragingly.

She sighed and looked at the messy floor. "He shooed me gone. I wanted to help on the stove, but he sayed I was too little."

"Oh." He looked respectfully upset, not like Mom, who'd laughed at her. Being too little was not a laughing matter.

"What about Occy?" He paused to fold a pair of pants, even though he hadn't folded any other clothes.

"Occy?" She stuck her tongue out. "He no good. Only barks and chases his tenuhcles."

"Tenuhcles?"

"Yeah. Those things that he use to move."

"Oh. Tentacles."

"That's what I sayed!"

He sighed and shook his head in a long-suffering way. "He'll play with you if you throw something for him."

She hmphed and rolled her eyes. "What would I throw at him?"

"For him."

"Fooooor him?"

He shrugged and said "Try this," tossing what looked like an ancient sock in his little sister's direction. She held it out and wrinkled her snork in disgust.

"It smell like feet."

"He likes that."

"He a weeeiiiirrd octopoopy!"

"Puppy."

Not quite defeated, but not quite not, she swam away, muttering that "poopy" would make a lot more sense, because that's all Occy ever did. Besides bark and chase his tentacles.

"OCCY!" she yelled, causing Mrs. Seaworthy looked up from the phone. "Please don't yell, Smallstar," she admonished quietly. "I'm trying to hear."

"Hear what?" Smallstar asked immediately, hoping for a distraction. Her mother just made shushing noses. Smallstar tried again, more quietly. "Hear what?" Mrs. Seaworthy held up her finger, signalling her daughter to wait a minute. Smallstar decided it wasn't worth it, and went outside. There she saw Occy, napping under a clump of seaweed.

"There you are. Why aren't you inside?" She asked. He blinked a few times, examined her, and turned around to keep napping. Irritated, she hmphed again and tossed the sock. Stupid dog.

His tentacles twitched when the sock hit the ground, and he swiveled his head around to see what had been thrown. Upon spotting it, he leaped up and gave chase, scooping the dirty relic up into his mouth and then running towards the toddler.

And then passed her. He kept going into the house. "OOOCCYYY!" She grumbled. "I'M OVER HERE! HERE!" He didn't turn around."Oooh, stupid octopoopy!" She fumed and followed him inside to retrieve the sock.

Her mom was still on the phone, so she tiptoed past into the hall, where Occy had ran over Allstar and dropped the wet sock on his face. "Agh!" Allstar yelped. "Gerroff me, Occy!" This annoyed Smallstar, because he'd just been scolding her for mispronouncing words, and here he was not saying "get off" correctly. He peeled the sock off his cheek and threw it in the laundry basket. Occy went to chase it again, but Allstar stopped him. "Not now, boy. You can play at the park." He proceeded to pick up his suitcase and backpack, but Occy grabbed his shirt and held him back. "Occy!" Allstar sighed. "Don't worry, I'll be back in a week!" He shoved Occy off of him and headed out.

Smallstar stared at the recently closed door and groaned. "A week?!" She repeated, as Occy fainted at the idea. "How long is a week?"