Tales of the Tea Shop
Azula takes on the Holiday Spirit
Part I
Azula had no real moral objection to stealing the neighbor's newspaper. She did have a healthy dislike of crossbows and when the next door neighbor took pot shots at her with a large cross bow she hopped over the fence faster than even she thought possible given the time of the morning.
A crossbow bolt struck the newspaper as Azula reached the front door.
She dropped the paper in front of Karo who looked a the cross bow bolt with some interest.
"Do I need to know?" Karo peered over his glass and examined the newspaper and the bolt.
"I stole the neighbor's paper, " Azula sat on the red couch next to Karo. "He saw it fit to shoot at me."
"On one side we have an old couple with a poodle monkey – you could steal from them," Karo said softly, "but you choose to steal the paper from the other neighbor – the ex Terra Troop marine and cop."
"We didn't get our paper today because the city has dug a huge hole and have blocked the front door of our house." Azula opened the red curtains and pointed at a crew of half a dozen men staring into a hole.
"This belongs to you." Karo handed Azula the steel bolt that had cleanly penetrated the newspaper and looked out the window at the dreary sight of late fall in Ba Sing Se and the even more dreary sight of unionized workers pondering their holes. "I wonder what business the city has digging a hole in our front yard?"
"They have discovered a new moon around the planet Uranus," Azula put her feet on the coffee table and began reading the article to Karo. "I don't think they consulted a marketing agent when they named that planet."
"Hold that thought...or rather don't." Karo rushed out the door and Mitsumi climbed on his shoulder to greet the mailman. He returned a few moments later with a fist full of fliers and a letter addressed to Azula.
Azula broke the red wax seal and opened the official looking letter. Several cards fluttered onto the coffee table. "Fire Lord Zuko has sent his regards and wishes us a festive and merry Yule. He heads a major industrial nation and he sends me a Merry – whatever it is agnostics celebrate – card. I had hoped for cash and a major chunk of expensive real estate."
"Festivus – the Festival for the Rest of Us." Karo flipped through the fliers hoping to find coupons. "I wanted to place an aluminum pole in front of the house one year but my mom complained it would attract undue attention."
"Dear Karo and Azula, Best Wishes for the Holiday Season – Lady Mai and Anya." Azula read dryly. "She sent us a coupon for a dinner at the International House of Noodles."
"When cheap simply won't do." Karo tossed a badly typeset estate agent pamphlet on the table.
"Oh crap," Azula sat up and handed the letter to Karo. "Raise the alert level and man the parapets! My mother and my brother plan to spend the holidays in Ba Sing Se."
"Where did Uncle Iroh find a three foot tall plaster replica of a pine tree?" Karo sat at the Pai Sho table and admired the décor. The tea shop smelled of baking and made for a pleasant retreat from the cold and snow that blanketed the city.
"The life sized plaster reindeer with the red nose really creeps me out." Azula shuffled a deck of tarot cards. "He has put a good deal of effort into the kitsch – a kind of talent I suppose."
"We have our aluminum pole. Did I tell you about my aluminum pole?" Karo spun a silver piece on edge. "My Festivus pole?"
"Festivus? The holiday you adopted to get out of shopping?" Azula let out a scornful laugh and began a game of solitaire with the colorful Tarot cards.
"My mom hassled me to get rid of it but, I kept it all these many years." Karo complained bitterly. "So what happens? The city dug a big hole and put their own aluminum pole with a No Parking sign. Festivus should be the festival for the rest of us but the city has taken over"
"Your mom will be cheesed and will blame you for the pole because you're the usual suspect." Azula warned Karo. "She had spent the last week cleaning the house and trying to suck anyone in reach into making the house fit for a Fire Lord. Why do you think I have spent my days hiding in this place?"
Katara walked gracefully into the tea shop. She knew she would find Azula and Karo hiding in its warm insides in order to escape the frantic house keeping of Lady Zhao but Katara had come to fetch them so they could beat some rugs. She stood over Karo and cleared her throat.
"In the Water Tribe, we have a tradition of getting together for a village feast." Katara began quietly, "evidently you or Karo have a tradition of putting a metal pole in your front yard."
"We use an Aluminum – er – Aluminium pole – element 13 on the periodic table; between magnesium and silicon. Caligula the High Lord of Festivus makes it quite clear the pole must consist of alloyed aluminum for its lightweight durability." Karo lectured.
"Your mom had me apply some water bending to yank it out of the ground," Katara spoke with some irritation in her voice, "but someone set it in concrete."
"I didn't do anything!" Karo looked at Azula hoping for some kind of corraboation but she didn't say a thing. "I didn't put the Festivus pole up yet; it goes up on the evening of Festivus because we want to sleep in the next day. The city put that pole there."
"Uh okay? I managed to get the pole and the concrete lump out of the ground, so, now we have a six foot aluminum pole attached to a lump of concrete – your mom was less than impressed." Katara stood with her hands on her hips. "Your mom sent me here to fetch you two so she would have help cleaning the house."
Lady Zhao met Karo and Azula at the front door and pointed at the aluminum pole laying on the ground. "Each year you try to display that stupid metal pole in the front yard for Festivus and each year I tell you how much I hate it. This year you put the pole up and set it in concrete! Did you or Azula dream up that little touch?"
"We didn't set it in concrete!" Karo pleaded.
Azula examined the pole and then spoke up, "I think you removed the wrong pole. This pole looks like it belongs to the city."
"How do you know this?" Lady Zhao asked seriously. She was not the type who wished to waste a good rant.
"Dufus Karo's pole is aluminum," Azula explained, "but this pole is steel, and to cap it off this pole has a 'No Carriage Parking from Dawn to Dusk' sign on it."
"You and Karo have the task of beating the rugs." Lady Zhao changed the topic as she held out two brooms and pointed to a stack of red rugs in the front entrance.
Karo and Azula began the cold task of beating the rugs against the porch rail. Lady Zhao should have known better than to have Karo and Azula handle her collection of Fire Nation rugs. Karo nearly brained Azula with a broom and she retaliated by beating him about the head with a rug.
"Quit acting like idiots!" Lady Zhao scolded her son and Azula so they would focus on their task.
The next day, Lady Zhao puttered in her kitchen making delicate preparations for her royal guests. The weather made it difficult to predict travel schedules and no one could make more than an educated guess when Fire Lord Zuko and Lady Ursa would arrive. The snow fell heavily and Azula had decide to stay out of the way and hide in Karo's room. She sat at his desk and tried to make Mitsumi eat pieces of red paper she had torn into strips in order to see if the little lemur's stupidity did, in fact, have limits.
Karo read the newspaper Sunday Magazine while Azula kept looking out the window and fiddling with Karo's collection of desk toys.
Azula pulled on the brass chain on Karo's green and brass banker's lamp and said wistfully, "maybe we will get lucky and I won't have to deal with family on the holidays."
"I came up here to hide from my mother, not your family, "Karo said as he lay back on his bed and looked over the magazine. "I would tread carefully around her since she is at her wits end and will probably wind up her day by yelling at both of us."
Azula swiveled on the chair and sat back in delicate repose and sighed hopefully, "the weather might keep them out of Ba Sing Se."
"I know what will happen, you know what will happen," Karo spoke with all seriousness, "you will ignore everyone's feelings and do something socially awkward."
"What are you trying to say?" Azula spoke sharply.
"You have unresolved issues when it comes to your family and raccoons." Karo explained, "I can't explain why you and raccoons can't reach a detente but you had a miserable childhood and many terrible things happened. You hate your brother and can't quite figure out if your mom accepts and loves you and you find it difficult. You get nervous and the hurt little girl comes to the surface and acts out – then I wind up in the emergency ward with a concussion."
"And when can I book my next appointment with you?" Azula raised her eyebrow. "You should try your luck at psychiatry."
"Let's just say that I will make sure I have my medical insurance card on me at all times." Karo said indignantly. "Four more concussions and I will have as much damage as a chronic alcoholic or hockey player."
"Good to know you have a goal." Azula stood up and moved to the window and then exclaimed enigmatically, "Oh look! Cows!"
Lady Zhao didn't know where the cows had come from, who owned them or that the slaughterhouse would pay for any damage done. She had a dozen brown, doe eyes cows in her front yard and had noticed more coming down the street and she didn't want a dozen cows in her front yard or more in the street and told the police her exact feelings. The police officer and his companions told her the cows had come from a shipment from somewhere in the Earth Kingdom where they had cattle but had busted loose from a stockyard in the city while being unloaded. Lady Zhao told the police officer to move the cows because she had important guests and the cows would ruin the front lawn by urinating on it – which they did. She didn't ask for and had no need for steaming urine or cow dung on her lawn and she made this clear. The police officer told her, with calm candor, he had never dealt with cows in their uncooked state. He had the unenviable task of standing in a snowstorm and keeping the cows from wandering loose in the city until some cowboys arrived.
"Karo!" Lady Zhao yelled upstairs, "can you see the cows?"
"I don't like where this might be going!" Karo shouted through the door.
"I need, you, Katara and Azula to help the police get these cows rounded up," Lady Zhao said in a manner that told him he did not like where the conversation was going.
Azula said nothing but tried to escape out the window until she noticed that the front yard had filled up with cows and the storm window had been firmly fastened in place with bolts driven into the frame.
"Giddy up!" Karo said with a hint of dread.
"What makes your mother think I have the qualifications needed to herd cows?" Azula said crossly and begrudgingly followed Karo.
"Mom!" Karo protested, "I can't herd cows! What in my entire life has prepared me for ruminant control? I am pleased to eat beef but I have no idea how it works! I don't want to know either."
"Katara has gone out to help!" Lady Zhao had a wooden spoon in her hands, a determined look in her eyes and a stern tone in her voice; all of which told Karo he had to help herd cattle.
"Come on!" Azula grabbed Karo's arm' "yippee kai yeah!"
Azula shoved Karo out the door into the brown eyed face of a cow.
"You can't be serious!" Karo heard a loud crackle which meant some cow had received a schooling in the cold hard power of Katara of the Water Tribe. Karo couldn't see much given that he couldn't see past the cow staring at him.
"We don't do," Azula explained as she shoved Karo past the cow, "Katara does and we sneak off and grab a tea at the tea shop. In a few hours all these ladies will have found their way back to the slaughterhouse and well – either my brother and mom will have arrived and your mother will be too busy to yell at us or..."
"What?" Karo's feet slipped on the urine soaked sidewalk.
"She kills both of us."
"Your mom just walked in the door," Azula told Karo, "and we have only been here an hour."
"Does she look pissed?" Karo had his back to the front door and didn't dare turn his head from the Pai Sho board.
"Yep!" Azula watched as she approached and told Karo the very bad news, "she could simply have cramps; well...I doubt it - hide!"
"Where?" Karo whispered, "Duck under the table? Since she can see under the table that – oww! Why do all the women in my life grab me by the back of my collar when I screw up."
"I still have a cow in the front yard!" Lady Zhao growled at her son.
"We can keep it can't we? Free meat and all?" Karo squealed.
"Azula!" Lady Zhao showed not the least bit of fear of the Fire Nation Princess and had her by the collar but Azula did not give into whining. "Katara saw you two sneaking off to the tea shop when I asked you to help with the cows! Can you tell me what I did to deserve such disrespect?"
"Karo hates cows and well on a snowy day when we needed a warm cup of tea..." Azula said with a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "Did I say? Happy Holidays and I hope you enjoy the free side of beef?"
"I wanted to impress the Fire Lord and now we look like a bunch of country hicks with a cow in our front yard and a yard full of dung – explain how I will impress the Fire Lord if my house looks like the stoop of a barn!" Lady Zhao asked emphatically and in spite of the dignified Fire Nation robes she wore and her gentle face, she did have a great deal of regal bearing combined with determined strength and making her angry paid no dividends.
"I guess we have some shoveling to do?" Karo knew this routine and knew they would end up shoveling ugly, brown frozen cow patties.
"You have that straight!" Lady Zhao lifted both Karo and Azula over her shoulder as Iroh waved and smiled politely at them.
"You are an idiot!" Azula whispered crossly as she glared at Karo from her position with her head dangling over Azula's shoulder.
"Me?" Karo said questioningly, "perhaps, but how does that help us in this instance?.
"I find this humiliating," Azula felt the cold as Lady Zhao carried them out of the tea shop, "maybe she will tire of carrying us."
"Don't count on it." Karo knew his mother could and would carry both of them for the five minute walk to the Zhao household and then more painful scolding and disgusting dung shoveling would ensue.
"Both of you," Lady Zhao said with an unwelcome strictness in her voice, "shut up or I will fill your life with much pain and sorrow! I have had some time to learn from Azula so don't push your luck."
"Azula already fills my life with suffering and I can't see what you have to add," Karo said as he bounced on his mother's strong shoulders.
"I will make sure I spread it out evenly and quite thickly upon both of you," Lady Zhaosaid without any sign of exhaustion in her voice. "You will long for death but not find it."
Karo and Azula said nothing more.
"We have a guest cow," Azula said as she eyed the cow standing under the chestnut tree. Azula chipped at the front steps with her shovel and marveled at how quickly the snow and dung had turned to something unspeakable in so short a time.
"Throw a tarp over it or mom will yell at us some more," Karo said indignantly. "I didn't expect this crap to freeze this hard. I thought glaciers took thousands of years to form."
"They do," Lady Mai stood over young Karo and sounded pleased with what she saw. "My my...the young Karo Zhao and the Princess of the Fire Nation digging up animal crap. Do you know Azula once made me and Ty Lee pick up bear poop?"
The cow caught fire.
Azula stood in a very delicate fire bending pose.
"Either God has appeared to us in a burning cow or I don't really want to contemplate..." Karo said in shock and spoke haltingly. The cow let out a loud and completely pitiful sound as it ran off down the street in terror. The smell of singed hair filled Karo with a feeling of vague nausea.
"Come on!" Azula screamed, "we settle this now!"
"Not today." Lady Mai said calmly as she straightened out her orange and gold robes.
"Grrr." Azula felt Karo's hand on her shoulder holding her back. "I have a good life now but I would do something unspeakable if I knew I could rid myself of the evidence."
Lady Mai bowed as she greeted Lady Zhao at the door.
"I see you have paid us a visit." Lady Zhao said respectfully, "I am very happy to see you Lady Mai. We had some cows loose and Karo and Azula were just making sure the place was back in order. They left one cow – did they come and get it?"
Azula waited for Lady Mai to call her out on being a vile cow killer or Lady Zhao to notice the smell of hamburgers and hair in the air. She didn't.
"It ran away," Azula offered.
"As long as its gone." Lady Zhao said with some relief.
"What is it with you and most mammals?" Karo said after the front door closed.
"How did I go from feared and respected military commander to a joke - from princess to parody?" Azula heated her shovel with some clever fire bending and pushed off a load of smelly sludge into the juniper bushes.
"We screwed up – it happens." Karo repeated Azula's fire bending move and his shovel turned a dim red as the flame from his hand heated the metal blade.
"I didn't know Lady Mai would show up." Azula continued clearing the path and with fire bending had made some decent progress cleaning up the mess. She watched sadly as the four traditional Fire Nation soldiers with the traditional armor walked up to the house followed by the Royal carriage. The deep red stained wood looked sapped of color in the dim light of a Ba Sing Se winder day.
Karo looked at Azula, "I know nothing."
A driver walked around the front of the carriage, around the four ostrich horses and opened the wide front door to the carriage and lowered the steps. Lady Ursa and her servant stepped onto the sidewalk; the servant carried a red box about the size of a cake box. Zuko followed behind and his servant struggled with a large red trunk almost to big for him to hold. The driver and Zuko helped the hapless servant carry the heavy trunk.
"You could think about forgiving your brother and Lady Mai," Karo suggested, "you know – forgive and forget?" Karo leaned against the old chestnut tree and shivered. Azula had insisted on waiting outside until she was ready but that was thirty bone chilling minutes ago and both of them remained leaning against the tree with their shovels beside them.
"People who say forgive and forget have it backwards," Azula explained sadly, "because we all die it is really forget and forgive since the dead can't remember anything and old age dulls our senses. People never realize that. The very same people say let the past go and they don't realize a difficult life is like a prison cell where the past is the bars – you can let go of the bars but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem – you can't escape the cell. People say such things when they are too lazy to give real advice; too stupid to realize a true oxymoron and completely disinterested in your life on any account."
"Sorry," Karo sighed, "I'm getting cold."
"The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist sees the glass as half empty and the realist wants to find out who drank half of his pint of beer," Azula patted Karo's shoulder.
"And idealists?" Karo shifted from foot to foot to fend off the cold.
"Are drunk."
"Hello daughter," Lady Ursa said quietly and kindly, "you look so unhappy and Karo looks cold."
"I didn't hear you leave the house," Azula put her hand to her chest, "you employing stealth technology now?"
"Good grief!" Karo exclaimed.
"Sweet Karo!" Lady Ursa hugged Karo until he gasped. "Are you keeping my daughter out of trouble?"
"Well," Karo shifted uneasily as if he had to testify before a stern judge, "I can only do so much."
Azula glared at him.
"Come inside," Lady Ursa said invitingly, "we came to visit you."
"What about Lady Mai?" Azula heaved the shovel over her shoulder.
"She came to rest and leave the duties of being a mother to our beloved wet nurse." Lady Ursa said. "She has proven invaluable for her political insight but that makes sense since her father had a keen sense for negotiations and diplomacy but the burden of being a mother and the Fire Lady has taken its toll."
"Lets go inside, "Karo insisted as his voice shivered, "I will utterly lose any idea of what my manhood feels like if we stay out here."
"Has your manhood recovered?" Lady Mai stood at the door as Karo fixed up his hair and primped a new Fire Nation uniform. Mitsumi slept on Karo's bed and for good measure belched.
"You heard that?" Karo blushed, "I – uh – am fine. Thank you."
"Lady Ursa finds you quite amusing." Mai said in her dry way, "I had hoped to have a civil conversation with your lover."
"Ha!" A brittle voice shouted from the upstairs washroom.
Mai walked to the bathroom door. "We used to be friends and we fought side by side."
"If Karo put you up to this," Azula said through the door, "I will deal with him most harshly!"
"We need to talk," Mai fidgeted outside of the door, "we used to talk, I miss those old days."
Azula opened the door and emerged neatly dressed, "you complained about most things as I recall."
"I love your brother," Mai confessed, "but he wishes to have the family together and so he came to persuade you to return home. He wishes to have his family reunited."
"Come to the Fire Nation where I will hang around the palace like some ghost of my former self?" Azula raised her eyebrow, "and what about my friend Karo? Oh sure, he's a queer little guy but I like having him around because he keeps me centered. What about Lady Zhao? I have adopted her as my second mom and she yells at me like I am her very own daughter."
"You could make new lives for yourselves in the Fire Nation." Mai offered and shifted uneasily when she realized Karo was listening to her words. "Your mom misses you terribly, your brother admits that he treated you badly and I admit could have done more to mend our friendship. Ty Lee sends her apologies and well wishes."
"I hate Ba Sing Se because the winters are bitterly cold," Azula pined, "the air stinks and the city has a snow removal budget that exceeds what the Fire Nation spent on their entire navy but somehow the snow still piles up. We have smells science can't identify and murder is just something you see on the street. The air causes mutations in the rats and most raccoons carry rabies. Arsenic gives our food extra punch and god knows the sewers are more hostile to life than the atmosphere of the planet Venus, but no I won't leave."
"I had to ask." Mai looked at her fingers.
"Aren't you two finished cleaning yourselves up?" Lady Zhao shouted from the bottom of the stairs, "I sent Mai to hurry you along! You two get down here and greet our guests!"
"Have you decided to move back to the Fire Nation?" Azula asked Lady Zhao as she played a game of tug and shove with Karo – she tugged at his collar as he walked in front of her while Mai shook her head.
"I have thought of it, "Lady Zhao said, "but given that Ember Island blew up and scattered one part of the family estate to the four corners of Creation and the family homestead on Henwa Island has forty thousand acres of mold infested bananas and an abandoned prisoner of war camp. I have my doubts."
Lady Zhao had donned her finest brick red and gold Fire Nation robes for the evening and Karo felt like he had not put in enough effort.
"Hello," Azula said coldly, "I see you look well brother."
Karo had the kind of feeling the overhead projector operator in the church service has when he discovers he had shoved the lyrics under the overhead and put them upside down. He desperately wanted to be somewhere else in the Universe but someone had decided on his location in the Universe. He hoped the feeling of abject humiliating discomfort would abate – but it didn't.
"Greetings my Fire Lord!" Karo pretended to fake Fire Nation zeal and bowed to Zuko, "I see you have come to spend the holidays with our scar – er uh – family."
Lady Zhao looked like she wanted to whack her son in the head with a spoon, Lady Ursa found him funny, Zuko had no idea what to think, Katara hung her head in shame while Azula savored the awkwardness. Karo wanted to badly to open a wormhole and dive in.
Mitsumi lacked color vision and to him, red and green amounted to different shades of brown which worked for him. He had eaten a mildly poisonous bug earlier that day and it gave him a mild stomach upset. Without color vision, he had no idea that the non toxic varieties of that class of bugs had red stripes while the mildly toxic ones had yellow.
He belched and decided to find his human.
Lemur hearing was quite acute. Mitsumi could hear well into the range that bats used for echolocation. He knew the Zhao house had a large number of bats in the attic but he had no way to tell anyone about them. He had heard the odd dead person but the humans seemed oblivious to the presence of the undead. Tonight he could hear humans having no fun at all and so he decided to spice up their lives. Mitsumi jumped off the bed and headed for the sound of human voices on his hunt for his human.
Mitsumi could smell very well. Karo smelled like lilacs and Azula had a smell like vanilla while Lady Zhao smelled like roses. He could smell the faint aroma of Katara who smelled like freshly baked bread. Mitsumi had come to recognize his little family by their gamut of smells.
He climbed on Karo's should when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Mitsumi had great fondness for the gentle Karo and noted with some alarm that he had the odor of desperate humiliation as the usual smell of lilacs and a blood clotting disorder Karo had.
Mitsumi began to hiccup and belch.
"What has gotten into that demented flying monkey now?" Azula held a glass of a sweet red punch in one hand and handed Karo another cup. Mitsumi belched louder as his stomach made progress on usurping the poisonous bug. With a final spasm, the offending bug flew across the living room and landed in the lap of Fire Lord Zuko. As a tribute to survival, the inch long yellow striped beetle shook itself dry and proceeded to walked across the crotch of Fire Lord Zuko.
"Dead bug comes to life on our holiday social event screw up list?" Azula asked but had no need for an answer for she knew that the social event screw up list had infinite length. "Nice one Mitsumi!"
Zuko brushed the bug off his leg and it wandered under the couch and beyond the reach of the large primate that had attempted to digest it.
"Can you please put the lemur in your room and close the door." Lady Zhao kindly suggested.
"Sure," Karo said quietly. Karo knew Mitsumi could open doors in the house and had the necessary dexterity to escape his room. Azula had a more escape proof room since the door knob screws had long fallen off and vanished in the depths of Azula's heap of junk. Lady Zhao had told Azula to clean it up on many occasions and Azula tried her best but the mess never went away. Karo tossed Mitsumi into Azula's room and took the doorknob back downstairs with him and handed it back to Azula.
Within a minute of returning back to the living room and after he had struck up a casual conversation with Lady Ursa, a loud crash shook the house followed by a series of smaller clangs.
"What the..." Lady Zhao exclaimed.
"Mitsumi knocking crap off my desk." Azula said scornfully as she walked to the stairs with the doorknob in her hand. "You had to put that evolutionary dead end of a soon to be doorstop in my room."
"Do you need some help?" Lady Ursa asked and followed Azula up the stairs.
Karo forgot that the hatch to the attic crawl space lay inside Azula's closet but Mitsumi had not forgotten. Mitsumi did not grasp the fact the only way out of the attic space was that hatch and he had not set the hatch to the side of the hole or let it fall to the floor so when he crawled into the attic; the piece of painted wood fell neatly back into its hole. He found himself in a dark, very cold space with a large number of rabid bats, a few long dead mice, a dead rat that had begun go funky and two unwelcoming raccoons.
Mitsumi decided to panic and Azula found him standing on a piece of drywall the size of a basketball with yellow fuzz surrounding him. He had fallen through and had no idea how he had achieved this.
"Karo!" Azula yelled, "Karo? Get up here!"
"How?" Karo found himself unable to say anything else as he stood at the top of the stairs and looked at Mitsumi sitting contentedly like a clay Buddha on the red carpet with bits of roof surrounding him.
"You can know the position or momentum of a lemur but not both? All the subatomic particles in his body jumped three meters to the left or the planet shifted three meters east. I don't know but with him there are so many ways to lose." Azula stood next to her mother and scratched her head. "You have heard of that famous cat?"
"Huh?" Lady Ursa and Karo spoke in unison.
"A famous story in quantum mechanics and it begins with a cat." Azula let her enthusiasm for physics carry her along, "you begin with a living cat and you put it in a box rigged in such a way...mom has a blank look."
"I have a blank look," Karo said as he looked into the black depths of the new hole in the ceiling.
"Can you fix that?" Lady Ursa asked with some concern as she noticed the coldness coming into the house and the noise of creatures in the attic.
"Quantum mechanics is what it is." Karo shook his head. "No one understands it except those people who see God inhabiting trees but given the fact it seems to make good predictions...and I am not remotely qualified."
"I meant fix the hole," Ursa said with almost saintlike patience.
"Oh, you mean I should patch the hole. Can I have that big piece of yellow cardboard on your desk."
"My thinking paper! No! I need that to figure stuff out like the wave function of a lemur." Azula said indignantly but went into her room to fetch.
"Oh sweet Roku's..." Karo jumped into Lady Ursa's arms while Mitsumi ran off downstairs to hide under the kitchen sink. "Sweet Roku's ghost! I saw a raccoon!"
"Whoa! Mom! Karo!" Azula came out of her room and looked oddly at Karo. "You saw a raccoon. The way you yelled I thought the Four Cows of the Apocalypse had turned up in the front yard."
"We have – jumping juniper bushes in July!" Lady Zhao had come up to see what had happened to Karo, Azula and Lady Ursa. "How did we get a hole in the ceiling and does it have anything to do with your pet lemur? I swear that stupid mammal breaks the scale for sheer stupidity!"
"We have struck a committee to fix the hole but," Azula paused for effect, "we have a raccoon or two and they have issues with us."
"First cows and then your lemur barfing bugs and now a hole in the ceiling with raccoons." Lady Zhao had a tone of utter exasperation in her voice. "I'll send up Katara – I can trust her not to do something rash or stupid. I love my son and your daughter's sarcastic and acerbic with has grown on me but insurance won't cover me if they set my house on fire."
Lady Zhao stomped back downstairs. Katara stomped up a moment later with an oil lantern.
"I like you young Karo but can I put you down?" Lady Ursa set Karo on his feet.
"Raccoons?" Katara asked, "What did you have in mind Azula? You trying to staple them to death?"
"We wanted to patch the hole with cardboard." Azula showed the yellow cardboard which had a diagram of one of her inventions.
Katara could read the words frequency modulation in Azula's wobbling handwriting but had no idea what meaning the exotic symbols had. Azula had begun to take an avid interest in making wireless a useful mass communications medium and had decided with the help of Dr. Song of Ba Sing Se University that she could solve the problems that made it expensive and useless as a medium of mass communication. Others had failed but Azula had much of her old arrogance still lurking in dark corners of her character.
Katara rolled out Karo's office chair and balanced on the red seat and slowly raised the light.
"Oh freaking hell!" Katara fell off the chair and it went spinning off into a wall. She gripped her braided hair and her blue eyes revealed fear as she gasped out her explanation. "I saw two raccoons – and – and a whole bunch of bats!"
Lady Mai came up the stairs in her calm manner with a cricket bat.
"Your mom wants you to figure out some solution to the raccoons using this." Mai held out the cricket bat.
"I don't think I will like this plan," Karo backed up and grimaced. "Please tell me that my mother has embarked on a mission to bring cricket to the animals that don't have it."
"Please stand aside." Mai said and pushed past Azula.
Mai climbed in the hole – widening it somewhat. A series of fleshy thumps came from the attic and Mai jumped down from the attic with a blood stained cricket bat.
"I killed both raccoons." Mai handed the bat to Karo who had a look of utter revulsion on his startled face. "You can clean them out of your attic after they stop twitching."
"I wonder," Azula put her arm around Karo and spoke mischievously, "Karo only has one testicle, most guys have two, I wonder if Mai has three?"
"Should we handle dead raccoons without gloves?" Azula had the cricket bat and tried to figure out the body English she needed to keep her balance, hold the ladder and knock the dead raccoon through the hole.
"Just punt it!" Karo said. "Katara has my metal trash can and will catch it."
"It twitched!"
"You have the cricket bat!"
Azula punted the dead raccoon which now had the consistency of a plastic bag with goo in it; Mai had gone to great lengths to break every bone in the raccoon and it showed. Azula for all her faults had almost perfect co-ordination and she punted the raccoon through the hole. It made a squishy metallic thud when it landed in the garbage pail Katara held up. Lady Ursa and Katara looked away and grimaced when they heard the displeasing sound.
"Is that it?" Karo asked.
Creak, creak.
"I thought we had two!"
"I know Karo - you one balled assassin of joy!"
A few more creaks and Azula spoke up, "we found the second one."
"Dead?"
"I would think so," Azula said, "since his brain plopped out of his skull. Unless the biologists have lied all this time, the brain and the nasty bits of this animal that should be inside have fallen out. Can one of you send up a mop?"
"Eww!" Lady Ursa decided to head downstairs and bond with her daughter later.
"Fore!" Azula shouted and her voice was followed by the sound of a bat hitting a body turned to mush. The poor dead raccoon couldn't keep it all together and flew into the house in two pieces – one landed in the bucket and the second landed on the floor. Karo had the misfortune of having entrails land on him.
"If I take my glasses off does this look any more pleasant?" Karo fought back his gag reflex.
Katara held Karo steady as he had turned a certain shade of pale green. She made a few motions to move the wet soggy entrails into the bucket. Karo held his eyes closed as he felt bits of the raccoon fall away from him.
"Ding dong, Merrily along, the raccoons guts were spewing!" Karo sang as he followed Katara with the bucket of raccoon bits. "The cricket bat was swinging and the raccoons' brains were bleeding! La la lalala!"
"I will dump this over your head," Katara warned in a low angry voice and Karo knew Katara meant exactly that and stifled back the second line of the song.
"What will you do with Rocky and Rocky II?" Azula asked tentatively.
"What would you do?" Katara hit the bottom of the stairs and the bucket sloshed.
"It doesn't involve eating it," Azula walked behind Karo and tapped his pointed red Fire Nation hair decoration, "I thought we could leave it outside and let it freeze, then take it on a ride on the trains of Ba Sing Se. Do you remember last year when the dead old lady rode around the city for days? I figure the raccoons would either be discovered and removed or vanish into the alternate transit universe where all the umbrellas and glasses go."
Lady Zhao stood next to Azula and kept her voice even but managed to convey her irritation as she spoke. "Will you take that awful mess outside," she commanded, "take it and put it on the back porch – or the neighbors will see it. "They think we're a little off anyway."
"Shouldn't we say a prayer?" Azula could not pass up the opportunity to fit in a little sarcasm.
"Take that outside young lady!" Lady Zhao pointed in the general direction of the back porch.
Katara and Azula dropped the bucket of raccoon on the porch and soon it began to freeze in the bucket. Karo decided to take a break from the general mayhem and decided to mourn the loss of his cricket bat. The cricket bat held out the promise of becoming valued sports memorabilia as it had come from the city cricket team – the Ba Sing Se Battlers. The Ba Sing Se Battlers had a league record that ranked beyond bad to really awful. Karo believed the cricket bat would become valued sports memorabilia in the unlikely event the Battlers quit sucking.
"I didn't get anyone here a Yule time gift," Azula entered the living room with a cookie and glass of punch in her hands. "I still think the raccoons can be salvaged with the help of a qualified taxidermist."
"Did you do something to patch that hole in the ceiling?" Lady Zhao got straight to the point and made certain with her sharp tone, she had the undivided attention of both Karo and Azula. "I don't want anything still living in the attic coming into the house before we can have the hole repaired."
"I would talk to you." Fire Lord Zuko said in a kind voice to the young Karo as Karo knelt under the dining room table trying to coax Mitsumi out from hiding.
Karo stood at attention and bowed. "What can I do for you my Fire Lord?"
"You can quit calling me Fire Lord, "Zuko smiled, "and you can tell me what you wish done with the title of Duke of Henwa?"
"I have not heard that title for many years," Karo grew suddenly serious. "A serious title like that implies this is a serious conversation."
"You have a right to claim your place as head of a great family." Zuko found Karo very odd; a man of impeccable moral character and great intelligence – a good person – but meek to a fault.
"A right but not a duty." Karo said tiredly.
"True," Zuko sat down to face off with Karo, "but you have a chance to help shape the Fire Nation's future through the influence of your family and Azula might like having two royal titles. She could call herself the Duchess of Henwa."
"Have you talked to my mother?" Karo shuffled nervously in his seat.
"She says its is your first decision and she will have to decide whether she wishes to join you." Zuko answered softly. He liked Karo and saw in him a good, moral person and the Fire Nation needed men like him. "She has had a long exile, and she had never hoped to return to the Fire Nation because she didn't think it possible."
"Why me?" Karo felt Azula pull on his hair decoration. "You could name some loyal friend or ally to the post." Karo snapped his fingers, "I mean Hakoda of the Water Tribe could become the new Duke and use the palace as a summer home for Katara. He is dating your mom after all."
"What!" Karo turned around out of surprise tinged with irritation to find Azula standing behind him.
"Tell Zuko you have dangerous democratic tendencies and will found your own republic if he has you take the title of Duke of Henwa." Azula said calmly, "and...that wasn't me – Mitsumi crawled on your back."
"Er...sorry. Can you tactfully ask my mother if she wants to move back to the Fire Nation?" Karo said apologetically and patted Mitsumi in spite of his desire to choke him.
Azula placed her hands on Karo's shoulder in a comforting manner and shouted, "Lady Zhao! Want to move back to the family estate with Karo and me!"
"I can't tell you how glad to say goodbye to my brother and Lady Mai." Azula sat at Karo's desk chair and yawned for it had been a long and strange day. Mitsumi lay beside Karo and clucked and squealed.
"Did you cover the hole in the ceiling?" Karo placed his glasses on his night stand and then rubbed his eyes as he savored his headache. He picked up a warm folded towel and placed it on his forehead.
"We have a yellow piece of cardboard stapled over the hole." Azula said reassuringly, "and now we have a defense against all creatures of the night as long as they don't weigh anything or walk on it or breath heavily – even urine might..."
"I get the picture." Karo waved his hand in order to signal a stop to Azula's rant.
"Do you know what my family owns on Henwa Island?" Karo lay back on the bed and waited for the warm cloth on his head to loosen his headache. "I can see myself going to the market in the city and singing – Come Mr Tallyman, tally me bananas. I hate bananas and their ilk. We have a defunct prisoner of war camp – perhaps we could open up one of those educational summer camps for kids. We could name it Stalag 14?"
"Your mom promised to think about the idea."
"I have no idea what a duke does," Karo protested.
"I can teach you all that royal court stuff and whipping peasants is easy enough." Azula snickered, "I had the best education in the Fire Nation and so you can always ask me if the issue of court etiquette comes to the fore."
"Princess I can belch out the Fire Nation anthem Azula?"
"I won that bet and Mai had to pay me a gold piece." Azula stood up from the chair, "it has been a long day Duke Karo Zhao. I need my beauty rest because my mom will be over at noon to take me out for lunch. Do you want to join us?"
"Better and better," Karo lay back and sighed in frustration, "this will be the usual lunch? The 'When will you two settle down, get married, oppress a few peasants and have kids to make me a grandmother?' lecture that makes me feel embarrassed and speechless."
"At least she didn't get drunk," Azula said as she stood a the foot of Karo's bed and stretched. "You have emerged this evening without a concussion. I will see you tomorrow and we will go have lunch with my mom at Uncle Iroh's tea shop."
"You know what I find most ironic?" Karo spoke as Azula turned in the doorway, "when we got the letter from Zuko, you told me you wanted a whopping bunch of cash and real estate. If I take the title of Duke of Henwa, you may get that!"