Alrighty, here's episode four. Episode five will be out in two weeks, hope you enjoy this one while you're waiting!
Episode: Address the Hippo in the Room
"This test is going to kill me." Silas and Cricket walked out of their class together in Biochemistry. He was fretting about a test he had in History of World Regions later that week.
"Sorry. If I knew anything about World Regions I'd be more than happy to help you." Cricket rubbed the back of her head. They were headed to the parking lot.
"Yeah I know. Thanks anyway." He gave her a warm smile and she melted.
They rounded a corner. Neither of them spoke for a while, so Cricket's gaze drifted around the courtyard. Several students walked around, some going to the music auditorium instruments in hand, and some were scribbling on paper while speed- walking. Procrastinators, evidently. In one corner, a kid who looked like he should be in middle school sat on a bench and was making a call. His face was an impatient glare. He looks like a grumpy Chihuahua.
One kid almost bumped into Cricket, he was shaking vigorously. In his right hand was an open cup of coffee and in the other was a can of what was called "Beast". It was a neon green and black can of some mega sugary drink. He promptly poured all of the sizzling- possibly radioactive liquid into the coffee cup and took a long swig. "I'm going to die." He murmured.
"I'm gonna be that guy tomorrow, studying for this test will take all night." Silas sighed.
"Good luck." Cricket offered some moral support.
"Thank you. My ride's here, I'd better go. See you later." Silas waved goodbye and walked off. Cricket looked on for a moment and then headed for the bus stop that would take her home.
…
The lobby was a mess. Bea's fingers were covered in pieces of tape and bits of paper. With her last free finger, she inelegantly attached another flap of paper to a paper airplane. The airplane was a hodgepodge of wings and weights such as staples and even rocks. She looked it over and nodded. Then bent the nose of the plane to the right, and folded the wings to a certain degree. Obviously she'd been at this for a while.
Bea stepped back until she was at the far corner of the lobby. She climbed onto the one seater couch she'd dragged from the lounge. The couch was facing the wall, and Bea had one foot on the cushion and the other on the back rest. She brought the paper plane up to eye height, aimed, and fired it. The couch fell over backwards from Bea's very sudden weight on the back rest, but the plane sailed across the room! It flew over the couches riddled with loose staples, tape, and various colors of construction paper bits. It flew over the coffee table where three pairs of scissors lay strewn around next to a cup of orange soda, half empty. The plane made a very sudden U- turn when the nose moved and caught another air current. It took a dive into the orange soda.
"No!" Bea struck her hand on the ground. She had fallen with the couch and hadn't bothered to get back up. But now she dashed to the airplane and carefully lifted it from the soda. It was now orange and dripping.
She set up a fan on a nearby counter and placed the soaking plane in the path of the drying machine. She turned it on and watched the plane begin its drying process. Bea planned to stay until she could once again fly her contraption.
…
In the lobby, Uncle Cisco walked in with a new magazine his eyes were glued to, and he did not notice the mess. It was only when he went to organize his pamphlets did he see the chaos. Overturned couch, loose paper, tape stuck to every surface, two pairs of ruined scissors, small rocks on the floor, and a trail of sticky orange liquid leading from a cup to the spare room next to the lounge.
…
Cricket's head rested on her hand, which was propped on the bus's window. She was alone in her seat and her feet and legs were bunch up next to her, and the book bag was in the nest created by her legs. She'd pulled the black jacket around her as the bus's air cooling system was right over her seat.
Sleepy from the class's long hours, her eyes butterflied open and closed. In the sky were clouds, one shaped like a turtle. Another shaped like a smiley face. But Cricket's jaw dropped as a dark form broke through the clouds. It had a wingspan of at least twenty feet! It dive bombed and nearly crashed into the roof of an auto repair shop. But regaining its altitude, it took off once again. It flew steadily north for a few seconds, when a small object sailed in its trajectory. It had come from the ground, and it hit the flying animal in the shoulder. It faltered, and teetered from side to side. The sun's powerful glare blocked any discernable features on the creature, but Cricket knew it had just been hurt.
She hailed for the bus to stop and ran out. The creature took off due east.
Cricket had a very hard time keeping up with it. Because while she was busy dodging around streets and buildings, the winged beast's path was unobscured.
"Fly slower!" She uselessly cried at it. Now that the sun wasn't in her eyes, she could fully take in the sight of the enormous creature. Its wings were golden, as well as its chest. Its head was that of an eagle, and its front legs were razor sharp claws. A streak of blood ran down its forelimb and dripped onto the ground far below. Whatever the injury, it's seriously messing with this thing's flight, Cricket thought. Its two back legs, however, were a different story. Instead of a matching set of claws in the back, lion paws kicked at the air. Its tail waved in the sharp breeze, neither a lion's nor eagle's but instead resembling the shape of an arrowhead at the end of a deadly spear. It flew low enough that anyone should be able to see it, but those who walked the streets barely bothered to look up. "This town is absolutely crazy!" Cricket cried again.
All of her breath was soon gone and she had to stop. She leaned against the wall of a store. "Curse you, stamina." She huffed. But off in the distance, the creature had landed on a roof. Squinting and using her hand to block any sunlight, she spotted it… on the roof of her uncle's apartment complex. "Are you serious?! I could've just ridden there." Cricket shook her head, took a deep breath, and headed for home.
Jogging into the apartments' courtyard, she confirmed that the beast was still on its roof. "Someone's hunting it and wants to hurt it. I have to get it to safety somehow." Cricket ran through the lobby and thought for a bit. I need to lure it somewhere safe. "I don't know where I can put it, but I have the perfect lure." She dashed into the lounge where she knew Joel kept raw meat in the fridge.
…
While Crick had run straight through the lobby and the lounge, then up the staircase, another conflict was brewing…
"Bea what is all this?! My lobby is trashed!" Uncle Cisco fumed.
"The way I see it, a lot of hard work was put into a pretty sweet outcome! Just wait until my paper airplane dries out, and I'll show you." Bea was confronted by her uncle in the spare room while she waited for her masterpiece to dry. They were now bickering at the doorway.
"I don't want you to show me! I want you to take some responsibility for once." Her uncle crossed his arms.
"I take loads of responsibility." She raised her hands above her head to try to emphasize her stance. "And I can show you."
"Really?" Cisco did not believe her for a second. "How?"
"Uhh… ummm…" Bea hadn't thought of what to say.
"Here, I have a job for you." Cisco reached behind him and took out a note pad and a pencil and dropped them on Bea's hands. "Every month I do an inspection of my buildings. I check every hallway, every apartment, every crawl space, and make sure it's up to code. This, is now your job. You do this and do it correctly, you've proven me wrong. Deal?"
"Well, I mean- I-"
"Unless you can admit you have no sense of responsibility."
"Heck no!" Bea straightened up. "… Fine then. Deal."
"Great-" Cisco pushed some checklists into her arms, a calculator, a few more pens, and then quickly fitted her with a red hat with the apartments' logo on it that was a few sizes too big. "Then you'll need all of this, and these, and uhh… Good luck." He rarely smiled, but a happy grin shown on his face. He strode off to his desk. But half way there, he turned back around. "One more thing, kid, inspecting every part of this complex might take you a few days."
"What?" Bea almost dropped one of the pens, but her reflexes were faster and she caught it midair. "Uncle C-"
"Do you know what responsible people do? Responsible people see things through no matter how big the job."
"Grr, fine! I do a better job than you've ever done, and a faster one too!"
"Raising the stakes are we? Coolio, my record sheet is posted on the refrigerator in the lounge, go nuts. You're a responsible kid? Beat the record and show me."
Bea set off to work, struggling to keep all of the contents in her arms as she went to find a place to get started. Cisco laughed. "I just got out of three days, twelve hours, and forty six minutes of work."
…
Raw meat, Cricket decided right then, was disgusting. She had to roll up both of the sleeves of her black jacket to keep the oozing liquid of both the melting ice and… whatever juices festered within the two hunks of meat from staining them. She entered her apartment backwards, using her back to open the door. Then she took five paper towels from their small kitchen (which was in dire need of a cleanup) and used them to turn the handle and open the door to the balcony. A soft growl from the roof made Cricket's heart skip a beat. She set one of the slabs of mystery meat on the railing and let the powerful smell waft up to the roof.
Then she had to make a decision. "Where am I going to put the thing? It'll destroy our house." She was having second thoughts about luring the creature into her apartment now. But a set of lightning fast bullets whizzed through the air somewhere outside. The thing screeched, and Cricket groaned and made a quick decision to keep it in her room for the time being. She ran inside her very tidy room (It was tidy for the first time in weeks), groaned again, and placed the second slab of meat on her desk next to her lamp. For her possessions' sake, she cleared her desk entirely, emptying the top into one of the desk's drawers. Cricket immediately went into the bathroom to scrub the nasty fluids off of her hands. Something about food substances that weren't supposed to mix with water mixed with water gave her the urge to vomit.
"Ew, ew, ew, ew, gross, gross-" She repeated over and over again. She didn't know why she had this phobia, but her impulsive need to get completely rid of the disgusting fluids kept her from noticing the behemoth that padded through her apartment in search of the other source of food. But the stench of meat dripping from its hooked beak reached Cricket's senses and she turned around in time to see the arrowhead tail sneak past on its way to her room. She stayed still and listened for it.
Soon the sound of chomping could be heard, and Cricket let out a sigh of relief. She creeped out of the bathroom and stood at the doorway to her room. It was beautiful. Powerful muscles rippled under sleek gleaming fur. Elegant wings folded in, feathers every shade of dazzling bronze able to be perceived through the human eye. One wing drooped a bit, and red stained some of the feathers near the connection from the wings to the shoulder blades. Cricket felt a pang of sadness and hurt. What a gorgeous animal.
"Oh, right!" Cricket had almost forgotten. She rummaged around in her book bag she'd dropped on her way through the kitchen and brought out the Journal. She sat down at the doorway and flipped through it. "Nothing." She flipped through it again. This creature wasn't listed or even mentioned anywhere in the pages.
"It's probably a griffin… a hippogriff? Which is which again?" Cricket took a peek at the creature, who had its beak stuck under her bed sheets. "I should call Silas! He seems to know a lot about this kind of thing- oh wait. He's studying. Griffin… Hippogriff… I'll call it a hippogriffin for now." Cricket jotted it down in a free space at the top of a page concerning another flying supernatural being. "Hipp…. Pogr….iff….fin. There we go-"
The beast's beak prodded her chest hard, and she yelped and fell backwards. She pressed the open Journal to her chest and looked away from the pointed beak. It let out a warm puff of air in her face. Cricket trembled. It could finish her with a single slash of its claws. But instead it stayed there for a long while, staring her down. As if deciding what to do.
With a final snort, it padded back into Cricket's room. She sat up, clutching the book to her pounding heart and taking rapid shallow breaths. Peeking inside the room, she saw the hippogriffin picking at its wound. It let out a soft yet distressed whine of pain when its beak pecked a tender spot.
"Better take a look at that, before it gets infected." Cricket decided and went off into the kitchen cabinet with the first aid kit inside.
She creeped through her room to the hippogriffin. It had nested on her bed, tail wrapped protectively around its hind legs. It growled a deep lion's growl at her presence, so she halted a few feet from it and held out her hand to show she wasn't going to hurt it. A drop of sweat ran down her brow. She inched closer. It growled again. She tried reaching out to it. It probably wouldn't understand her, but she needed a reason to communicate her thoughts out loud. Then maybe this situation wouldn't seem so nuts.
"I want to help you." She tried. Cricket didn't know much in the way of comforting non- humans as she was an expert at instead trapping and dissecting them (mostly bugs), but she did her best at a soothing tone. Maybe it would calm the beast down. It cocked its head at her. "Help?" She pointed tentatively at its wound and stared it straight in the eye, willing it to understand her. Seeing it up close, the injury was clean through its muscle. No bones had been nicked, thank god. Just a flesh wound. But still, it was gut- wrenching to witness. "There's no reason to be scared." Cricket was now only inches from the massive hippogriffin. It had not growled again. That was a start. Their eyes were locked, and for a short time, they seemed to connect. Cricket was breathing through her mouth, jaw wide open, gawking at its magnificence.
…
Bea fixed the authoritative red hat on her head, squishing down her usually bright and wavy pixie cut into submission. She furrowed her brow, clicked a pen in and out and in and out as she paced through one of the massive halls. There were supposed to be four tables, two on either side of the hall and facing each other on opposite walls, with a flower pot, a picture, and a mirror on it. Bea had a checklist with boxes up and down with little images of each object and on the top left to right were the names of the respective halls. She went from table to table checking each of the items off of the list.
Bea had almost never taken anything more seriously than this in her entire life. Expression stone cold, steps even and sure.
Soon her checklist was full of checkmarks and everything seemed to be in its place. "Okay, that's all done." She murmured, looking at the paper and heading back to her table in the lounge with all of the rest of the papers. "That was easy. Huh. Uncle C was wrong, this'll only be a few more hours max." She rounded the corner back to the lounge and groaned. There was still an entire table full of unorganized papers. "Aww, what?" Looking back at the checklist she'd just finished with, she was disheartened to see that the top read "Easiest Part of Inspection Procedures You Idiot. By Far."
"Oh no. What the heck did I get myself into?" She sat herself down at the table and eight papers fell to the ground.
…
Cricket was standing on her knees at the foot of her bed and bandaging the hippogriffin's shoulder with caution. Any wrong move and she would get devoured in a single bite. There was no 'how to treat a hippogriffin's flesh wound' on the internet, but she did her best not to cause any further pain to it.
The beast had allowed her to spread disinfectant cream on its injury and had not protested when she wrapped it in white gauze.
When Cricket was done she stepped back to admire her work, first aid kit in hand. "You're sure to heal way sooner than had we just let it sit. How do you feel… uhh… huh. You need a name." Cricket put her hands on her hips. The hippogriffin cooed at this. "It has to be inconspicuous, something that doesn't draw any attention to you. Something like Josh, or Debby. Or Jay… oh, I'll think of one later." She brushed it off. "For now stay here, okay?"
The hippogriffin peered outside Cricket's window and shrunk away from it. Fear flashed in its eyes, and Cricket's heart lurched. Anything able to make a monster of its size cower had to be bad. "You're worried about that hunter, aren't you?" Cricket drew the curtains over the window. "Whoever it is they won't find you here, promise. Just lay low until you're better, then you can take off wherever you want to go." She still wasn't good at comforting, but felt that her solution was doing some good. "Here, I have an idea." Cricket sat on the bed and the hippogriffin looked her in the eye. "Something that always calmed me down when I was stressed is hot cocoa. You ever heard of that?" The beast cooed. She didn't have any other alternatives, so she went with what she had, voice teetering on the edge of uncalm. "I don't speak mythical being, but I'll go get us some, wait here." She clapped her hands together and closed the front door behind her with caution to not cause the beast any more stress. Once outside, she anxiously rubbed her forehead. "I am so in over my head."
…
Bea had taken some time to organize the forms and checklists into piles:
Things that I need Yoogle to explain to me
Things I want to make into origami
Things that involve talking to people J
Things that make my heart sad when I look at them L
She beamed at how organized she could really be. She drummed her fingernails on the clipboard she was using.
Cricket's boots clacked on the cold lounge tiles as she walked in and headed for the refrigerator. But finding her sister, she remembered that she still had someone else to share everything with.
"Oh my gosh, Bea you'll never guess what happened today-"
"Are these too subdivided?" Bea interrupted.
"Subdivided?"
"Yeah, or are there not enough? Because I was going to add another subdivision called Things that embody the 'graph with the blue line progressively going down' emoji, but I thought that might be overkill. Plus every paper I tried filing there also made my heart sad when I looked at it."
"You lost me Bea." Cricket shook her head and grabbed a few instant cocoa packets from a box on top of the fridge.
"Oh duh, yeah; context. I took a job inspecting the apartments for Cisco because he doesn't think I exactly 'radiate' responsibility. But this isn't like any other job I've had before-"
"You've never had a job before." Cricket got a word in.
"-, this is serious. I will destroy that man's record-" Bea slammed her fist down on Things that make my heart sad when I look at themL to punctuate the word 'destroy', "and prove him wrong. I can be responsible. That's why I can't make any mistakes, everything must be noted, any odd smell, every loud noise, everything."
"That is serious."
Bea suddenly shifted the conversation over to Cricket's earlier statement. "So what did you want to say?"
"Me?" Cricket's mind scrambled. Any infraction of their apartment would go straight into her report! She now had zero interest in sharing her news of their new roommate. Bea was, in a sense, in cahoots with their uncle, who would most certainly freak out and get rid of the hippogriffin. "Uh, well nothing- it wasn't anything, I just, uh… Silas! He has this killer test in one of his classes, and he's got to study all night for it." The next sentence was hurried and monotone. "That's it that was the big news."
"Wow. I'm personally terrified of college, only a year away. All my best wishes to him though." Bea fell for her elaborate ruse.
"Okay, yes. Anyways, I've gotta go back upstairs for unspecific reasons, bye." Cricket gave a small wave goodbye and went as fast as she could back upstairs without arousing any more suspicion. She was such a terrible liar, but was thankful that Bea was as gullible and easily distracted as she was.
…
At the door to their apartment once more, Cricket went to open the door… but was surprised to see it cracked open. Fully expecting it to be Cisco who discovered the hippogriffin she burst through the door with a half rehearsed explanation ready.
"Uncle Cisco I can explain everything so this morning-" She faltered and trailed off. Her uncle wasn't anywhere in sight. But something else wasn't either.
"Andrew? You still in here?" Cricket checked her bedroom. No Terry.
"Tammy?" Quieter she worried, "If that thing can camouflage, I'm screwed."
She uselessly picked up a cup in the kitchen to look under it. "Sandy- oh none of these work, I'm so bad at names. And bouncing them off out loud isn't any better than doing it in my head, I just sound like an idiot." She dropped the cup in the sink and went in search of-
Alex? She pondered the name. "Alex doesn't work either."
…
Cricket spent ten minutes brushing through five hallways working her way downstairs. Through a gap between two hallways she spotted the same golden- bronze tail waving up and down as it slipped through the door to the men's bathroom. The door closed with a loud bump, a big contrast to the otherwise silent building. A little ways away, Cisco was making his way to the same bathroom.
Cricket gasped and ran to stop him. She reached him just in time to slap his hand away from the doorknob and block the entrance. He jumped, startled.
"Cricket, what are you doing? I need to use that." He started for the doorknob, so Cricket side stepped and covered the doorknob completely.
"No you don't! No you don't, because…" She was so notoriously bad at lying back home. Her eyes darted back and forth from Cisco and a nice looking flower pot somewhere behind him. And she tensed one side of her mouth to keep from twitching. Find a reason darn it!
"… What do you think I am? Some nerd who does things because she has reasons?" That was all she could think of. She'd heard her sister use the phrase more often than not.
Cisco narrowed his eyes at her. "… Can't argue with that lack of logic." He went away. And every step he took, Cricket relaxed more and more. As soon as he was out of view, she threw open the bathroom door expecting to see her hippogriffin lapping at the toilet water or playing with the automatic paper towel dispenser. But the bathroom was empty.
"Oh, how nice. And who do you belong to?" An old lady in the lobby chortled. Cricket followed the noise and found the hippogriffin being pet by the oldest woman she'd ever seen. The bandages on its wing were blotted with red spots, with one big one in the middle where the punctured flesh was. And what was worse, Joel was sweeping the floor on the other side of the room. But he was focused on his task for the time being.
Cricket was ready to explain everything to her, but found that that was not necessary soon enough.
"What a beautiful cat. Is she yours?" Asked the lady when she saw Crick creeping up so as to not startle the beast.
"Cat? Yeah she-she's mine." Cricket nodded vigorously.
"I used to have a cat. Her name was Esmerelda and she was the most beautiful Siamese you have ever laid eyes on." The lady mused on and on about her cat that had a pink collar with a little bell on it, and Cricket was trying to figure out how a woman as tiny and frail as she was could just keep going and going like that. When she found a good place to breathe, Cricket stopped her and went to collect her 'cat'. It wasn't by the lady's side anymore. She was petting air. She chuckled when she saw that the 'cat' was gone. "Oh, and there she goes again. Slippery ones, cats."
"Ha ha, they sure are, I'll go find her." Cricket said with all of the courtesy she could muster, and continued her desperate search.
The lady shook her head and said to herself, "Yes, yes." She still petted thin air with a shaky liver- spotted hand.
Cricket stopped short in front of the lounge door. She skidded to a halt, black jacket flapping in the air behind her. Inside, Bea was filling out a form, and right behind her was a massive beast of a hippogriffin. It was watching Bea's pencil fill in check marks. It opened its beak and delicately pinched a tendril of Bea's hair. Cricket would have felt fear this time, if her patience for the thing hadn't disappeared. She marched right up to the thing's face and pulled its beak away from her sister. She pulled it close.
"Listen to me right now. I've been all around this stupid building looking for you. If anyone else sees you, you're gone in no time. You wanna fend for yourself out there with a ruthless maniac- hunter and no flight? Do you?!" She whisper- yelled at it. It shook its head. "Then you're going to scoot your butt back up those stairs and sit it down on my bed this instant." It nodded and Cricket let go of its beak, still fuming.
Cricket took a step out of the room, but something crunched under her feet.
Bea's head whipped around. "Huh?" All she saw was the gross egg- colored refrigerator and the door to the lobby. She resumed her paperwork.
Cricket was plastered to the floor as flat as she could make herself, the hippogriffin having matched her moves. She plucked the crunchy thing from her foot. It was a candy wrapper of some old brand of candy. She threw it to the side and put her index finger to her lips. She carefully rose to her feet and scooted the glasses closer to her face. Cricket made it through the lobby to the stairs. The hippogriffin followed suit. She patted its lion back, urging it up the steps. A noise shattered her commanding and confident streak. She slipped on the next step and fell to her knees. The hippogriffin yelped and tripped too. Cricket got to her feet using the hand rail for support. Joel was behind her, face stern.
Cricket didn't know what to say. His eyes flashed from her to the beast, then to her again. "Joel, it was hurt-" Her head reeled. "It needed my help- I- I can have it out in a few days, I can promise you that. But please don't say anything to Cisco. Or my sister."
Joel closed his eyes and his chest expanded. Then his shoulders dropped. His face read, 'fine'.
"Thanks Joel. A few days, promise." Cricket nodded at him and pushed the hippogriffin up the remaining stairs.
…
The next few days were some of the busiest for Bea. Her mind was set on beating that record and demonstrating how focused and responsible she could be. She read one of the forms as she threw some sandals on and walked to the back of the complex where some exposed pipes had been built. She read that if there was a leak, the instructions were to "add duct tape". She spun the roll of tape around her finger and inspected the pipes. They seemed fine. She poked at one and the tape ripped. Water spurted out, drenching Bea's entire upper half. She side stepped and unrolled a good three feet of duct tape, then wrapped it around the exposed pipe. The water roared inside of it, but stayed contained in the pipe. Bea wiped her face with her arm and headed back inside, drawing a check in the box.
The space between the walls was cramped and the amount of mold was astounding. Bea's elbows almost touched as she took the ruler and measured the mold from the wall to the end of the caked on pile. One full inch. She clamped her nostrils closed with a clothes pin and brought out five wash cloths and a bottle of mold- killing spray.
The cool September breeze swept through the grass. Bea was sat criss cross near the back of the complex with a bat on her knee. She signed forms while the bat read them. In the end the bat nodded, and so did the thousand or so other bats whose heads poked out from a wide and jagged crevice under a large chunk of the apartments. The various forms had the bats listed as formal residents.
She power- walked through the lobby, another form and pen in hand. She went to check that the TV was still functional and slowed down her steps. But just as quickly as she slowed down, she sped up, because the TV was not there. It was still plugged in in her apartment. She hastily check marked each box listed for the TV.
Bea handed in the next stack of papers to her uncle while he had still been going over her last stack. Everything was flawless. And not only that, but she was beating him in record time. He knew because he checked his watch, astonished.
…
Cricket watched as her sister was splayed on the couch in the lounge, surrounded by empty Beast energy drinks and papers, and lightly snoring. It was late at night, and for the third night in a row she had not come anywhere near their apartment.
…
Something else that Cricket noticed is that every time she rebandaged her beast's injury, the red marks that blotted through were less and less. The wound was closing and healing very well.
There were parts of the Journal, certain pages that could hold more information, where Cricket jotted down notes about her hippogriffin. It ate strictly meat, so it was a carnivore. It stayed on her bed when it wasn't stretching out or playing with a makeshift cat toy Cricket had made. This one was Silas's idea.
She called him around midday the next day and he suggested to keep it moving around so it wouldn't be stiff when it flew again. His voice was groggy and quiet from his full night of cramming. Cricket had borrowed an old toy from the old lady who lived on the first floor, although it was not exactly a fitting toy for massive claws. Within minutes it was in shreds, part of the mouse on one side of their living room, and another on the balcony. So she decided a few trips were in order.
The first was to a pet store where she bought the largest of the stuffed animals, one roughly the length of her torso, of a mongoose. Next she visited a bait and tackle shop where she bought a powerful fishing rod.
The hippogriffin watched intently as Cricket pieced together a new toy. She threaded the line through the mongoose's abdomen and wrapped it around its stomach multiple times before tying it in the tightest knot she could make. She lifted the heavy toy and the beast pounced on it. But Cricket was faster, and laughed as she pulled the mongoose from under its claws. Since it was cramped in a small apartment she needed a way to tire it out, so this is how they spent much of their time. But she made sure the play wasn't strenuous enough to reopen its injury.
In fact, the creature appeared to have accelerated healing qualities. All of this she noted in whatever space she could find in the Journal. She was learning so much about it. She'd grown attached to it, and the time came when her friend would have to rejoin the wild.
Still there was another problem. How could she know where the hunter was in all of this? They saw the beast on Cricket's roof. They knew it was still there. But when she'd left on many occasions to get more food or supplies or attend classes, she hadn't seen them at all. Crick had gotten back in contact with Silas, who was bone tired from spending his nights studying. They texted back and forth, and she sent him pictures of the hippogriffin. He gave her some practical pointers on how to keep it healthy while it was healing and what to feed it.
"Whatever mystery meat that guy had, your animal took to it real fast. Probably the smell. The best meat to feed an eagle slash lion slash no- one- knows- what is turkey." They often talked on the phone late at night. One time he sent her a picture of him at his desk trying out the Beast energy drink in coffee that the jittery kid on campus was trying out. She gave him an "lol be careful" in return.
And all of the effort was for naught in the end if the hunter got to it anyway. Something had to be done about them so the hippogriffin had a real chance to get away.
…
On the third day, when her beast was just about ready to fly again, she poured over the Journal for anything on "hunters". One page described an encounter with one. The illustration was that of a hooded figure wielding a long serrated knife, and the layout was not a regular one. The bottom paragraph read:
I would have to agree that there are some supernatural creatures that are undoubtedly dangerous, however the blatant ruthlessness of this man is inexcusable. His weapon of choice is a rifle of all weapons, and he has no trouble interfering with my studies. And from my unfortunate encounter with him today, he apparently has no regard for life of any kind. Something will have to be done about him immediately.
A squawk from her room made her turn her head. The hippogriffin flapped its wings up and down. It was ready to go. But it couldn't, not with the probability that whoever was hunting it was still close by. She had to do something.
There was a strong breeze on that particular day. And though it was helpful for what she had planned to do, it also made the climb to the roof that much more dangerous. But, if she was going to find out if the hunter was still there, this is what she had to do.
At the top of her roof, at the highest point of the building, she unwrapped a large golden towel. She bent down to gain momentum, and then threw the towel up as hard as she could. It caught the air current. There was no time to do a single thing else because two bullets whizzed past and tore two holes in the sheet.
"Woah!" Cricket jumped back and fell. But she twisted herself around onto her stomach. "Gotta think fast!" She followed the trajectory of the bullets and traced them to an alley on the other side of the plaza. Something caught the sun rays and glinted through the shadows. It was a shiny object located where someone's pocket would usually be. The silhouette of someone moved around! The hunter! "Gotcha!"
Cricket sprinted down the fire escape, skipping three steps at a time. The shadow of a person hadn't seen her yet. Whoever they were, they didn't want to be seen by anyone either.
"You!" She yelled at them when she was a third of the way across the courtyard. And they bolted in the other direction. Cricket ran after them.
…
The brunette was not a good runner. But she'd run more in the past three weeks than she'd ever run before. Away from the ghost, away from the Werevamps, and now after a deadly hunter. Her life was turned upside down! This time, however, it was she who was the danger, the thing someone else wanted to get away from. It was nice for that to be the case for a change.
The hunter spilled trashcans in their wake through the alley. Cricket avoided them all. Finally in the light of day she would be able to take a good look at them. All that she could discern was the reflective object in their pocket. She side stepped an incoming trashcan, bashing her body against the brick wall next to her. They ran out onto the street. Finally!
But they were swallowed by the bustling crowds of the city milling around. "Dang it!" She cursed, and sped up to try and not lose them, but it was hopeless. She made it past the first few crowds, excusing and pardoning her way through. No hunter in sight. Or rather, no one she saw was anyone she could say was them. She didn't even know what they looked like. A traffic light blocked her path, a four way intersection. Cars sped past, a blur in her eyes. But a shadow creeping past a concrete laundromat wall caught her attention. The same glittery object reflected the sun's rays. It disappeared down another street, and the chase was once again on.
Rounding corner after corner, Cricket was always a step too short. The only thing she could see to tell her where to go was their shadow. Left, right, right, left, right, left, left, left, right… they inevitably reached the end of town. Cricket didn't feel tired though, she was too focused on driving them away from her home and her winged friend.
A twenty foot drop into a ravine in the woods caught them both by surprise. Only, Cricket's mind worked a split second faster and she caught herself before she took the plunge down the ravine, feet braking and arm lashing out and finding a vine to hold on to. The hunter was not so lucky. They tumbled down the cliff. Cricket held on to the vine with both hands now, only centimeters away from a nasty fall.
At long last she had her chance to find out who it was. But she also had a better chance of getting home way before they did and set the hippogriffin free into the wild. Every second counted now. So instead of waiting around, Cricket caught the fastest bus ride home.
…
Every second also counted for Bea, who was only a mere hour away from beating her uncle's record. She deposited the second to last stack of paperwork on his desk. He was two stacks behind. He wiped his brow, checking his watch again. His eyes darted from his record paper he had on the edge of his desk, back to his watch.
In Bea's base of operations, aka the lounge, only one more stack remained. The last third of leases. She saved the third floor for last. There was a loud set of footsteps running through the lobby. The same familiar clack of boots. Bea wanted to share her triumph with her sister.
"Hey Crick!" Bea greeted her wild- eyed sister.
…
Jeez, Bea came out of nowhere! I have to shake her. "Oh hey." She tried sounding nonchalant. Up the staircase, through the hall in total silence they went. Crick stared straight out the whole time and clenched her hands into fists. Bea scrunched up her nose. A powerful smell made her eyes water.
"Should I have started with the third floor? This place reeks!" She clamped her nose closed, searching for the source of the odor.
Cricket didn't smell anything. "I must be desensitized to the smell by now." Bea was a few doors from their apartment. "Don't go in there Bea!" Too late. She was in the messy kitchen by the time Crick got to the door.
"What is all this? Why is it so dirty?" She ran her finger on a wall and wiped off sludge with it. "This is in clear violation of our policy, this is going down in my notes-"
"No, please don't!" Cricket closed the cracked open door to her room.
"Crick, it's kinda nice to know that you'd fall apart without me, but this is inexcusable! If I don't report this, I get labeled irresponsible." Bea scribbled notes on her paper. "Cisco is going to see about this."
"He can't know!" Cricket grabbed hold of Bea's clipboard.
"He can't know what? That you're messy? It's not that big of a deal, we'll just clean the mess up later but this has to go on the report and he has to take a look around to make sure there's no-" Bea flipped through the forms. "Dead bodies or, and I quote, "Haggis in the premises". Not sure what that is, but it's simple protocol."
Cricket sighed. "He can't be in here. I'm going to show you something, okay? Don't freak out. And DON'T rat me out." She turned the doorknob to her room and opened the door. The hippogriffin had her bed overturned and was sniffing at some samples she had had hidden underneath.
Bea dropped her clipboard. An idiot grin took over her face. "Oh my gosh! Crick! What is… how did you… where did you… oh my gosh!"
"And you can't tell Uncle Cisco about it." Cricket pressed.
"What even is it?!"
"I call it a hippogriffin."
"Oh I love it!"
"Bea, no one can know. I'm sneaking it out today, and I need you to be with me on this."
"Of course! But-" Bea checked her watch. "But, the record. If I help you there'll be no way I can beat his record… I need to think." Bea's brain was going into overload and she walked out into the hallway muttering indecision, arms crossed. Cricket followed her out.
Bea paced back and forth. "Crick… I haven't lost a bet in my life."
"You're so willing to do anything-"
"Yeah I know."
"She's beating me at my own game!" A voice came from the vent at Bea's feet. She and her sister dropped down to listen in on the conversation. It was their uncle. The vent connected to the lounge.
"I worked long and hard to get that personal record, and now a kid is going to ruin it. Joel, I don't have a lot of things to be proud of anymore. She's doing a bang up job, what can I say? When she sets her mind to something, boy does she put in the effort. Those three days, twelve hours, and forty six minutes are almost the only thing I have to look forward to every month. It's my motivation to do things right."
"Wow. That's a plot- advancing vent if I've ever seen one." Bea mused. She got back up. "If the record means so much… I won't take it away from him. Goodbye record."
Cricket smiled excitedly. Her hippogriffin was gonna fly for sure now.
…
The sisters walked on either side of the beast, guiding it towards the stairwell.
"Ooh! I have the answer to your name conundrum." Bea had thought up an inconspicuous name for the Hippogriffin. "Call it… This."
"Call it what?"
"No don't call it 'What', call it 'This'. Its name is 'This'. That way if someone asks about it you can hold up any object and say 'I'm taking This outside'. 'I'm getting something for This'. Technically you're not lying, but they won't know the difference."
The perfect name. "Bea… you're a genius."
"I do have a good idea every once in a while. You should listen to me more often."
Cricket snorted and they both erupted in laughter. Bea said in between cackles, "You really shouldn't though, most of my ideas are terrible."
…
So close. They were so close. Having passed Joel already and him having given them a disapproving stare, all they had to do was get it past Cisco. He was reviewing Bea's second to last stack of paperwork. And the girls and This were at the bottom of the stairwell.
"Don't worry about him," Bea said mischievously. From behind her she took out the paper airplane she'd accidentally soaked in orange soda three days earlier. It was stained orange. She leapt out into his line of sight, launched the airplane, and leapt back before he saw her. The airplane flew perfectly through the air and landed on the break room's table.
"What the…" While Cisco went into the break room, Cricket pushed This past the double doors.
Bea was the last one out. Now nothing stood between This and freedom. This unfurled its wings, and the bandage fell off. "Go on. No one's gonna chase you this time." Cricket reassured it.
"This time?" Bea asked.
"I have a lot to tell you."
This took a running start, the flapped its wings and took off. It let out a powerful screech that became a roar. Bea checked her watch. "I officially lost. That's that."
They only got past the double doors before Cisco confronted Bea.
"Do you know what time it is?" He could not hide his satisfaction.
"It's-"
"It's 'I-won-o'clock!"
"Yup. You won." Bea was totally calm. She rubbed her tired eyes and headed back into the lounge where her last stack of papers was.
"Wait, where are you goin'?" Asked Cisco.
"I'm going to finish the job. Maybe I didn't win, but that doesn't mean I'm abandoning my assignment."
…
Cricket was almost done cleaning the apartment. It was very late. There was a knock at the door. Crick put the broom down and opened it. Her uncle was carrying Bea, who was snoring, in his arms. Her hat fell off of her head, and her hair puffed out to its natural size. "She fell asleep at her station, and well… where's her room?" She led him to Bea's room.
"Did she get it all done?" Cricket wanted to know.
"No, but it's fine, I'll do it." He awkwardly bent down and dropped his niece on her bed. Her bedroom was dark and the soft glow of moonlight lit a line tracing his silhouette.
"Did you really mean it? When you said you didn't have a lot to be proud of anymore?" Cricket wanted to get something out of him. His face was hard to see in the dark.
"I did before." He looked at Bea. "But she is one hard- working twerp."
"She grows on ya after a while, take it from me." Cricket rested her hands on her hips.
Cisco stifled a snort. "Maybe. See ya tomorrow." He saw himself out, leaving Cricket alone with her thoughts once more. She set the broom down in the now spotless kitchen. What a peaceful night.
…
Cold hands gripped a machete. It didn't matter that the nights were colder, they would hunt that beast down. They came upon a hill. Obvious animal prints tracked the ground. The beast had rested here for a short while. They bent down and ran their icy fingers along the palm of the print. They had a long journey ahead of them. As they trekked on, something in their pocket caught the moon beams and glinted silver in the light.
Hey guys! Sorry chapter 5 is taking so long, I ggot sooo busy these last few weeks with teaching a mini band camp to starting a new job, and now I'll be away all week at a family reunion. Chapter five will be out as soon as I can write, I have not lost interest in writing it, I promise!
Also 5 is a plot related episode, dun run DUNNN. SSo it takes a bit of time to write it all, it'll be a bit longer than a regular episode