Yard Work
By KZerina
I thought of this on a day while I was raking leaves and so forth, and I was in a mood that I needed something to keep me working. This is a totally humorous fic with a lot of one-liners. Li and Meilin are living in Japan. I don't know what age they all are because that doesn't really matter in this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Card Captors/Card Captor Sakura. I use names from CC and plots and info and things like that from CCS
spoilers.
******
Sakura was walking along a sidewalk lined with high fences, huge sporadic gates, and enormous houses which could bee seen through the gates after looking over large expansive yards. Kero poked his head out of Sakura's backpack and began asking her questions.
"Why don't you live in a big house like those?"
"My dad's a teacher, Kero."
"Yeah, they never did make much money," Kero commented. "I mean, where would the Syaorans' bank be without a teacher to teach them how to do math? Ya gotta thank the little people." Sakura smiled at her guardian's comment. "And what was with up that lady sittin' next to us on the bus? Was she eating beans or somethin'? Or garlic and onions? I think she had garlic and onions on her breath and the beans—"
"KERO!"
"Garlic? Onions? And beans?" someone asked from behind them. Kero screamed and bolted into the backpack where he should have been in the first place.
"Hi, Madison!"
Kero poked his head out and glared at Madison. "Don't scare people like that!"
"What do you mean, Kero? She didn't scare me, and she wouldn't have scared you if you had been in the backpack where you should have been anyway. Now get back in there before someone who doesn't know you does come up, and you aren't ready. They'll begin to wonder about you." Kero pondered Sakura's statement for a moment and bolted back into the backpack.
"What was he talking about with beans and garlic and onions?"
"You don't want to know," Sakura told Madison. "Trust me."
Sakura and Madison turned to go up the Syaorans' driveway through the gate left open for them, because they were expected. As they began to near the house, someone yelled from above them.
"Look out!"
"Huh? Woah!" Sakura jumped out of the way of a large tree branch just in time. She looked up into the tree and saw three of Li's sisters, Fuutie, Shiefa, and Fanren (I'm not totally sure this is correct. Or if their personalities are right either.) sitting in it.
"Don't you have people to do that for you?" Madison asked.
"Under normal circumstances, we would, but none of them are here. Mom's making us do this, and she won't even tell us why," Shiefa of them replied.
"Yeah, and I've broken all but three of my nails," Fuutie complained.
"If you're looking for Li, he's across the yard by the gardeners' shed," Fanren said, being as helpful as she could.
"Thanks," Sakura said as she waved up at the three sisters and turned to find Li.
As they neared the gardeners' shed, Sakura and Madison heard loud screaming, yelling, and screeching. "AH! Watch it! You almost cut my fingers off!"
"Well, I'm doing this because you almost cut my hand off!"
Li went to cut another branch when the giant clippers left his hands. "Give me those before you cut Meilin's arm off at the elbow!"
"Let's see you do better," Li challenged, thinking it was his remaining sister.
"Fine. I will," Sakura replied. Li made a face that told everyone he knew he just made a mistake, two actually. One was thinking Sakura was his sister, and the other was challenging Sakura to do something. "Meilin, put one hand here and the other over here." After Meilin had her hands placed in the proper spots, Sakura cut the branch in one swift movement.
Meilin held the two pieces up next to each other. "I think she cut it exactly in half."
"Who's pathetic now, Li?" Sakura said leaning on the handles of the overgrown clippers with a smug look on her face.
"I should have known that was going to come back and bite me one of these days," he replied shaking his head at himself, remembering what he had said when Sakura captured the Thunder Card.
"How'd you do that, Sakura?" Meilin asked in astonishment.
"Practice," was Sakura's one word reply.
"Here are some more branches. Why do you practice doing this?" Feimai, Li's fourth sister, asked.
"I don't get the practice this because I want to; I get it because I have to do this to my yard several times every year. I did this last Sunday. Our trees were climbing in open windows and attacking people on the sidewalk and shedding all over the place. Not to mention our bushes were becoming a little shaggy."
"Don't you have people to do that for you?" Feimei inquired of her younger brother's friend.
"Yeah, Dad, Tori, and me. My dad's an archaeology professor. We don't get the same kind of money you guys do. Now, Meilin, Madison, why don't you two rake the leaves and take them to the fire barrel."
"What's a fire barrel?"
"That thing over there," Sakura pointed past the shed.
"What thing?"
"The obviously charred black barrel! Geez! Do I have show you how to do everything?" Sakura walked over to the shed and grabbed two rakes. She shoved one into Madison's arms and showed them what to do with the other, "You rake the leaves into a pile." She shoved the rake she had at Meilin when she no longer needed it for demonstration. "You put the leaves in a bucket and take them to the fire barrel. Once the fire barrel is full you call Kero and have him torch them. Now let's see how you do." She observed how they worked with the rakes. "No, Meilin! The other way. No not with the handle! Like Madison is doing! That's right. Ugh!"
Sakura turned and walked back by Li. "Now you're going to hold the branches, and I'm going to cut them. Kero, you pick up the little branches that fall on the ground unless Meilin and Madison need you to torch the leaves. And watch out I'm flinging my backpack."
Sakura slung the backpack across the ground and Kero howled in pain as he was squished beneath the backpack's weight. He crawled out and caught his breath before going to work on his given job.
Li held out the first branch. Sakura went to cut it, but then she had to pull back and show Li that he had to place his hands on the ends of the branch. She cut the branch and moved on to the next part. "No, Li. You have to put your hands on the ends. I know I'm fond of you having your hands, and I'm pretty sure you are, too. Now, put your hands here and here and I won't cut them off."
Sakura snipped off another piece. "OW! What'd you hit me for?" Kero exclaimed.
"You have to watch out for falling objects when you have that job, Kero," Sakura replied calmly.
"How do you know that?"
"When I was less than half as tall as Dad and Tori, I had the same job you got. And if I didn't watch out, I got hit in the head with falling twigs," Sakura explained to her small golden guardian.
"Oh, okay then."
******
As time passed and Li, Meilin, and Madison all got better at their allotted jobs, they all decided that they would take a break.
"Maybe the job would go faster if we had some music or something," Sakura suggested. Everyone agreed and Li ran inside and grabbed his portable stereo and a bunch of CDs. Meilin ran inside and got lemonade and cookies and brought them outside.
"We don't want to listen to Li's CDs," Fuutie griped as she and the other sisters dashed inside to grab their CDs.
Li looked over his shoulder at the door that his sisters had so hurriedly dashed through and said quietly, "I figured they'd say something like that, so I grabbed theirs, too. But why would they stick around long enough to listen to their little brother?"
Sakura giggled and shuffled through the stack of CDs. She held one up. "Why don't we put this one in?"
"My sisters aren't going to like it."
"So? You obviously like it, or you wouldn't have it. And I like it."
"You do?"
"Yeah, I think Madison does, too."
"Okay," Li said as he placed the CD into the player. "I didn't think girls liked this group. My sisters are always complaining about it."
"I think it's a musical generation thing, because Tori doesn't like them either," Sakura commented.
"Yeah! This is fun!" Kero said as he bobbed and danced to the music as it filled the air around them.
"Here! I brought lemonade and cookies!" Meilin shouted so she could be heard over the music as she walked towards them with a tray full of stuff.
"COOKIES!!!!!!" Kero exclaimed charging towards Meilin. "OW! Sakura! Why are you holding my tail?" he asked as he hung by his tail, which was pinched between Sakura's fingers.
"Because you can wait a few seconds to get a cookie. You don't have to attack Meilin and make her spill everything."
"Thanks, Sakura. Hey this is a good song!"
"LI! WHERE ARE OUR CDS?!?!?" Shiefa yelled over the din.
"Well if you would have stuck around long enough, I would have told you that I brought them out with mine," Li replied calmly, "but you were too busy complaining about my music to even bother listening to me long enough for me to tell you."
"Why are we listening to this horrid music?" Feimei complained as she clicked it off.
Kero zipped into the girl's face and began to yell. "Why did you turn that off? I WAS LISTENING TO IT!!!!" The girl drew her head back so Kero wouldn't hit her in the nose with his tiny flying paw.
"Oh, Kero," Sakura said in a cajoling tone. "There is one cookie left. It's yours if you…" Kero charged past Sakura's face, grabbing the cookie on the way by. "…want it. He doesn't even let me finish my sentence before he grabs it anymore."
After Kero had snatched the last cookie, Meilin stomped over to Li's sisters and began giving them a little talking to (emphasis on little). "We were all listening to that. Why did you turn it off?" She glared one sister in the eyes and then poked the play button on the stereo and started the music again.
"You know, why don't you get your own stereo and CDs and take it by your trees. They'll be far enough away from each other that they won't cause any major clashes," Sakura offered, diplomatically.
The sisters nodded and Fanren went to get her portable stereo and Shiefa pulled out the CDs from the stack. The Fuutie and Feimei just stood there and waited for their sisters to return.
Suddenly, Li snapped to attention. Sakura, Meilin, and Madison looked at him strangely. When they heard footsteps behind them, they turned around and saw Li's mom walking up behind them. They nodded and went back to drinking their lemonade.
"Girls, stop bickering with your brother and get back to work," Mrs. Syaoran said when she came outside to retrieve the try on which the lemonade had come. "They're going to get back to work soon so don't use that as an excuse."
"She knows us too well…," one sister grumbled as she returned to the trees. The other followed and they began to saw on the branches.
******
After much time passe everyone was starting to get into their music and having fun with the yard work.. The time went by quickly and the beat made work go faster. In a couple of hours the whole yard was finished.
"Yeah!" Meilin shouted. "We're finished!"
"This is great!" Madison agreed.
"Man! Why did we have to finish!" Li complained. "I was just starting to have fun with it!"
Meilin looked at Li, confused. "You want more to do? How could you possibly want more to do?" Li just glared at her, and Meilin shrugged it off.
Li's sisters ran into the house to retrieve their mother. She came outside and inspected the work that had been done to her yard.
Again Li snapped to attention as his mom stepped outside to assess the work on the yard. "The yard was raked up nicely, and the leaves are gone. Good for you for being safe and burning them away from the house and shed," Mrs. Syaoran evaluated. "The branches were cut up very nicely. Thank you for helping, Sakura." Sakura smiled and nodded. "But there were too many branches taken off of these beautiful trees and bushes."
"Well, can't we put some of them back on?" Fuutie asked.
"NO!" Li replied. "We cut them all up already!"
Sakura arched her eyebrows and shifted her gaze back and forth between Li and his sisters. Then she buried her face in her hands and shook her head. "You guys are pathetic…."
******
I hope you liked this flat humor fic. Please review and tell me what you think!
Thanks,
KZerina