Cutter was standing in a fluorescent hell, staring at a never-ending wall of Tampons. They had acquired a capital somewhere between Leetah waking him up twenty minutes before with an urgent request, and him driving out to Walmart and finding himself in this horrible place. The thought that kept running through his head was Why are there so many? In Cutter's mind, this particle shelf should hold exactly one box. Just one cardboard box that said Tampons on it in big letters and nothing else.

He frowned at all the boxes. Was this variety necessary? Helpless to choose, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped through his contacts. He scrolled from the bottom up and picked the first married man.

It rang, and then someone picked up.

"Hey! Strongbow! What's up, big guy?"

There was heavy breathing on the other end.

"Uh…listen, I'm at Walmart, and it's two am, and…uh…"

More heavy breathing.

"Uh…never mind. You just go back to sleep."

He hung up. After pacing up and down the aisle a few times he slunk around until he located a tired-looking employee. Female. No good. He slunk back to the aisle. Finally, in desperation, he pulled out his cell phone again and dialed.

Skywise answered in a grumpy voice.

"Nnngh?"

"Hey, Skywise, it's me. I'm at Walmart—"

"Get the blue and purple box."

"Okay. Uh…size…?"

"Get the multipack."

"Oh. Uh…thanks."

"Nnn."

Skywise hung up (or dropped the phone, as it sounded like) and Cutter grabbed his box with triumph.

-…-

When he woke up the next morning, Leetah had already left for work and dropped the kids off at school.

When the tribe made the decision to move to the Phoenix valley in Arizona, they had all had to get jobs. Leetah was comfortably employed as a doctor, Pike had his dream job as a short-order cook, Treestump was happily working in construction, and Skywise worked part-time at a game store, spent his paycheck, and mooched off his girlfriends and/or the tribe. Cutter, unable to find a job, spent his days stalking small animals in the backyard and getting offended at Keebler commercials.

Leetah had left a note on the counter.

Cutter

Do the dishes. Not with the

Dishwasher. You're still

Not allowed near it. Also, clean up

That bird the cat decapitated.

Love, Leetah

Cutter crossed out his name and wrote in Suntop and Ember's and then decided to play Let's Stalk the Kitty. Kitty didn't like this game as much as Cutter did, but Let's Surprise the Wolves hadn't turned to be as fun as Cutter had thought it would be.

After getting scratched on the nose Cutter decided that that game wasn't any fun either. He watched a special on T.V. about overweight people and that made him sort of hungry in a guilty way so he ate the salad Leetah was saving in the fridge and spent several minutes wondering if she'd miss it, then got distracted by something shiny and had to investigate.

It turned out to be the foil over a plate of cookies. Cutter ate the cookies in triumph and decided to wash them down with a large container of buttermilk he found in the fridge.

Buttermilk didn't taste as good as he thought it sounded it would. After putting it down for the cat (and wondering if Leetah had been planning to use it for anything, too late) he decided that the cat needed a bath.

Several minutes later the cat disabused him of this notion and he was applying bandaids when Treestump called and invited him to a neighborhood barbeque two streets over, on Treestump's street, on Saturday. Cutter asked to bring his neighbors. Treestump agreed (the more the merrier) and then they said their goodbyes and hung up.

It was now eleven o' clock in the morning and Cutter had already done everything he could think of to do, so he spent the rest of the day playing catch by himself, which meant he threw the ball across the room and then sprinted over to try and catch it. The wolves wanted to play too, so Cutter figured he could blame all the broken things on them.

Suntop and Ember came home complaining about their chores (Cutter's chores.) Cutter promised to teach them to play catch after they finished them, though in retrospect he maybe should have done that outside.

Leetah came home and yelled at him, and then refused to talk to him over the rest of the evening. (She missed the salad.)

Cutter fell asleep on the couch watching reruns of Spongebob with a twin in each arm.

A fairly typical day.