The Others: Mad Secrets Chapter 1
"This isn't happening! This can't be happening!" shouted a frantic one-eyed alien from the kitchen, who seemed to be stumbling over his loosely fitted apron.
Almost instantly, another alien of a much more massive stature clothed in a tropical tourists outfit marched out of his room to investigate the commotion.
"What is it? What is being so important that you have to be interrupting my delicate research?" he questioned sternly.
"Oh Jumba, it's just a disaster!" The noodle shaped alien exclaimed as he dramatically pretended to faint into the arms of his companion.
"Look!" He continued, pointing towards the kitchen table. "What am I going to do about this?"
"Ah... Pleakley," started Jumba in a confused manner, "I don't see problem."
"Well," said Pleakely, "I had been working on tonight's dinner for hours. I went through two entire packages of bacon, scrambled all of the eggs, and even managed to make a huge stack of pancakes! I was just about done squeezing some oranges when the telephone rang. I left the room, answered it, and there was a strange man that wanted to talk to me about my vacation plans. Well, we somehow drifted into the subject of designer wigs when I realized I still needed to finish making the orange juice, so I said farewell to the strange man, after complimenting his wonderful taste of course, and came back into the kitchen. But, when I did, I noticed that everything was gone! You were in your room the entire time, and everyone else has been out at the beach. There is some sort of rat... some sort of giant rat hiding in our kitchen that ate all of our fantastic dinner! Everyone is expecting something to eat when they get back! What am I going to do!?"
Jumba pondered as he stared intently at the now exasperated Pleakley.
"Hmm... are you sure that you did not misplace this dinner of which you speak?" he asked.
"What? NO! It was all right here on the table!" retorted Pleakley.
"Well, I am thinking that it has to be more complicated than just a rat. If you had really cooked as much food in such large quantities of which you are speaking, then this was the work of something much bigger!"
"Bigger....," Pleakley started, cocking his head to the side, "Or perhaps just one of your evil abominations running around, sneaking into others houses and EATING THEIR DINNER!"
"What, what!? Nooooo. All of Jumba's experiments, are turn-ed to GOOD now. Remember?" Jumba protested.
"Well that certainly doesn't stop little monsters with the likes of STITCH from suppressing their appetites!" Pleakley shouted, pushing his finger towards Jumba's face.
Jumba grabbed Pleakley's finger and gave him an agitated stare.
"I am thinking one eyed noodle is over reacting again, no?" Jumba said.
"OVER REACTING?! Well I-"
Suddenly, there was a rumbling in the corner of the kitchen. A few pots fell from their holding places on the wall and made several loud clangs as they each fell to the floor in an unorthodox manner. Pleakley jumped into Jumba's arms, giving the appearance of Jumba holding him bridal style.
"WHAT WAS THAT!?" screamed Pleakley frantically, "It's a rat! a RAT! I told you there was a rat in here! Where is it!?"
Before Jumba could make some sort of response, Stitch burst through the door from the living room, shouting something in his alien language with Lilo following close behind.
"We're home!" said Lilo, who grabbed onto stitch as they reached the kitchen entrance.
Lilo was dressed in a simple red and yellow striped full body bathing suit and her raven black hair was visibly retaining some water that was dripping a bit at the ends. Stitch, also donned some swimwear. He had on a pair of bright red swimming trunks, though there were no traces of water on his fur.
"Ah, little girl. Is nice to see your warm smile this evening. Where is older girl?" asked Jumba politely.
"Oh, Nani is still outside saying good-bye to David," said Lilo, "what's wrong with Pleakley?"
Pleakley was shaking and looking around the room in a very paranoid manner while still being tightly latched onto Jumba.
"THERE IS A GIANT RABID RAT HIDING IN OUR KITCHEN! AND HE ATE ALL OF OUR FOOD!" screamed Pleakley, still shaking.
"A rat? I don't see any rat..." said Lilo.
Stitch pulled back his ears and sniffed the air. He then got on all fours and started sniffing about the area. He climbed all over the counters and opened all the cabinet doors, lifted the fridge, and searched through the drawers. He grabbed one of the pots that was lying awkwardly on the ground and sniffed inside and around it. He then set it back down.
"No rat," he said.
"Then what ate all of our dinner!?" asked Pleakley, a bit calmer now.
"WHAT!?" came a voice just outside the kitchen. Everyone turned their heads towards the direction of the noise.
It was Nani.
"I gave you the ENTIRE day to make ONE little meal for us on my day off, and now you're telling me there is NOTHING to EAT!?" she roared as she marched up close to Pleakley.
"Nani! Let me explain!" shrieked Pleakley, "I-I I made- dinner. But something... something ate it. I don't know what it was, but it came in and ate everything, and we don't know where it is. I cooked dinner! Honest! It's just not here."
"Oh really? That's the best excuse you could come up with? You made an entire family dinner and something just happened to come in and eat it all right before we get home and you just HAPPEN to not know what this thing that ate our food is, or WHERE it is for that matter? Really I wouldn't have thought you were the type to be so lazy. I've cooked dinner every day now for the past 3 weeks, give me a break!" Nani ranted in frustration.
"Nani!" Lilo shouted.
"Not now Lilo!" said Nani angrily.
"But Nani there's-!"
"I said NOT NOW Lilo!" she repeated, returning her angry gaze towards Pleakley, who was shaking once again.
"Eh-eh- COUSIN!" Shouted Stitch, who had jumped onto Nani's head and turned it in the direction of the dinner table.
Everyone stared.
There it was, gnawing on the edge of the table, this small brown creature with green eyes and a body whose proportions were similar to the experiment Melty. It had no antenna, but short ears formed like Stitch's. It was was on all fours, and had something on its back that looked like it could be wings, but had the appearance of individual flower petals. Whatever they were, they most certainly were too small to be suitable for any sort of flight. Its lizard like tail had a colorless ball at the tip, and it had a forked tongue. It seemed to be oblivious to Lilo and the others around it, or perhaps it just didn't care.
Lilo walked up to the creature on the table and examined it.
"Hmmm, you don't look very familiar. I don't think I remember you at all. Are you the one that ate all of Pleakley's dinner?"
The creature ignored Lilo, and continued gnawing on the table.
"Not very responsive are you," commented Lilo, as she turned to Jumba.
"Hey Jumba - what experiment is- uh.... Jumba?"
Lilo looked into Jumba's eyes, and instantly she was entranced by his peculiar expression. His pupils seemed to reflect the culmination of several contrasting emotions at once, and yet, he seemed to be in a fixated state of perturbation. Time seemed to stand still as the room fell completely silent. Everyone had moved their eyes towards Jumba as Lilo had done initially. There was a strange, disturbing sensation that shifted between them as they remained transfixed on his gaze.
Stitch was the first to break the silence. He looked over at his unspecified cousin, then back at Jumba, then back at the experiment, then back at Jumba again.
"What - is - going - on?" asked Stitch. There was a hint of desperation in his tone.
Jumba seemed to be gradually recovering from his stupefied condition. He opened his mouth as if he wished to speak, but only managed to blow air instead of words. When he was finally able to find his voice, it sounded very weak compared to the normal confident tone he usually held.
"E-experiment ... experiment....," Jumba stuttered, "Experiment zero...zero...zero. But... how? How did you get to this planet? Why are you not with... where is... does this mean that she's...?"
Jumba began to lose his balance, stumbling almost as much as he stuttered. No one in the room could comprehend what he was trying to say. It definitely appeared that he was losing consciousness.
"Jackie......" he muttered. Jumba's eyes fell shut and his body softly but quickly flopped onto the kitchen floor. The once unaware experiment that had been biting at the kitchen table stood straight with it's ears perking up at the mention of the name Jumba had previously uttered.
"Are you Jackie, 000?" Lilo asked.
The creature shook its head from side to side, indicating a negative. Everyone looked at Jumba who had just fainted, with questions in their eyes.
"Then...... who?"
-END OF CHAPTER 1-
