Welcome to Chapter 4! Thank you for staying with me this far. Alright, well let's get on with it. Iggy, you're up!

Iggy's POV

Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. How cliché. You see it on TV all the time. Kid gets sick; parent gives them Campbell's Chicken Noodle. Kid wants a fun meal? Give them Campbell's Tomato. Didn't parents ever make their kids food anymore, or do they really just microwave everything now? I bet most of them don't even know how to cook anymore.

Yeah, so I have some kind of on-going battle with Campbell's soup. Well, not just Campbell's. Don't like Progresso either. Are there any other brands? If there are, I hate them, too. I'm more of a 'go get the ingredients and do it yourself' kinda guy. Plus, have you ever really heard the sound most of these canned foods make when they come out? That 'sploosh' sound? Uck.

But I ignored the inferiority of Campbell's finest and microwaved it up for Prince Fnick. While I waited for it to heat up, I got curious and decided to check just what was in Campbell's Chicken Noodle that had made it so famous. I called for Gazzy.

"Hey, Gaz!"

"What?" He said, coming into the kitchen.

"Read me the ingredients on the can for me, will ya?"

"Ok."

After having to sound out some words to figure them out and just guess at others, the ingredients read as follows:

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken stock, enriched egg noodles (wheat flour, egg solids, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), cooked chicken meat, water, contains less than 2 of the following ingredients: salt, chicken fat, cooked mechanically separated chicken, monosodium glutamate, cornstarch, onion powder, modified food starch, yeast extract, spice extract, soy protein isolate, sodium phosphates, beta carotene for color, chicken flavor (contains chicken stock, chicken powder, chicken fat), flavoring, dehydrated garlic.

Mix 1 can soup + 1 can water. Heat, stir, and serve.

"Thanks Gaz."

"You're weird sometimes, Ig." He left.

Well, I'd already screwed up the directions. Who follows those, anyway? Ok, question. What the heck is ferrous sulfate? Or mononitrate? What about monosodium glutamate? And how do they exactly 'mechanically separate' the chicken? See, make your own food at home people. At least you know what's in it.

The microwave beeped so I opened the microwave and went to grab the soup. After burning my hand on the bowl, I gave it 5 minutes to cool and tried again. I put the bowl on a tray and brought it down the hall to Fang's room.

"Room service!" I called, and opened the door.

"Your bowl of ferrous sulfate, mononitrate, monosodium glutamate, and mechanically separated chicken, Your Majesty!" I placed the tray in front of him and bowed.

"Been having Gazzy read you the ingredients labels again?" Fang asked. "Thanks for the soup, Ig." He added. "I'm sure it was just torture for you to make."

"Of course! I had to listen to the 'sploosh' sound!" I laughed. "That stuff really is disgusting, though. I don't even know what half the ingredients are."

"Well, I think I'll take my chances." Said Fang. "People have been eating it for years, and no one's died yet."

"Yet." I answered. "Besides, people could've died and they're just covering it up. Maybe one of those ingredients is another name for arsenic."

Silence for a second, then, "I'm rolling my eyes, Ig." Sometimes it's annoying waiting for people to remember you're blind and tell you what's going on.

"Seriously, Iggy, and people say I'm paranoid." He gave a hoarse-sounding laugh.

"It's a good thing Max and Dr. Martinez went to get you some meds." I said. "Your voice sounds pretty bad."

"Good thing I don't use it much, then." Fang answered.

"At least your mood has improved. Does that mean I can stop calling you 'Your Majesty'?"

Another hoarse laugh. "No but I'll promote you to Knight of the Kitchen Table."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, goody! Just what I always wanted. A royal title from Prince Fnick himself." I was suddenly whacked in the head with a large pillow.

"Officer down!" I cried, pretending to fall to the floor. We were both laughing by now. I got up.

"So, feeling better yet, Fnick?" I smiled. "I know you must still be sick. You're actually laughing."

"Yeah, blame it on the fever." Fang said.

I laughed. Then, I had a thought.

"Hey, Fang?"

"Yeah, Ig?"

"Since you're a human-avian hybrid, does that mean you have the avian bird flu?"

He laughed a bit. "Yeah, I guess. Hey, maybe I can featured on 'Good Morning America' or something."

I smiled, rolling my eyes. "Always on a quest for fame, huh? Hey, just remember your 'People Magazine' experience."

"Right." Said Fang.

Just then, there was yelling from down the hall.

"Hey, Ig! We need some help with the blender thingy!" That's when I heard the sound of the blender starting up, followed by the screams of 4 kids and Total, plus Akila's barking.

Oh crap.

"Good luck, Ig!" Fang called as I raced out of the room. I just gave him a thumb's up.

It's a good thing I'm blind, 'cause I didn't even want to see that mess.

A couple notes:

1. We're gonna pretend Jeb's on some official business, which is why he's absent from the story.

2. I know the Martinez's have a dog, but I couldn't remember her name nor could I look it up at the time. We'll pretend she was outside during this whole blender business and add her in later.

3. In case you got the feeling, no, this is NOT Figgy. They're just good friends or brothers or whatever. If it was Figgy, I would have said at the start. I don't think anyone will get that feeling, but you never know.

4. Does anybody seriously know what some of those things from the ingredients of Campbell's Soup are? I'm going organic after this.

R&R? Please? Por Favor? (Yes, I do Spanish now, too!)