Chapter 6: Holy Sh!t, You Can Talk!

(A/N): Okay, people! Chapter six is here. I figured since I put this under both the adventure and humor, that I might as well put some humor in when I can. Don't worry; this isn't filler, there's plenty of plot to go around. R&R please, and as always, enjoy!

Those two-and-a-half hours of sleep didn't do too much. I guess my mind was at ease; because I didn't dream. It was rather strange, and I was only groggier after the nap. It was my mom's shrill soprano voice that woke me from my slumber. "Stephen! Get down here, now!"

"And so it begins," I mumbled preparing myself for a good lecture from my parents.

With her hands on her hips again, and my Dad with his arms crossed my mom began her rant "You are one lucky man you know that! You're lucky that we didn't check our answering machine yesterday. We just got the message that your vice principal sent us about you fighting in school, then ditching; what were you thinking! Listen honey, we know you don't like it here, but this our home now so you better get used to it. Now explain yourself."

I sighed, I hated lying to my parents, but what was I supposed to do; tell them what really happened? "I'm still trying to get the feel of my new school; it's so different from California. Some kid has been bullying me for the past week I didn't know what else to know do. The VP started taking his side when he started sucking-up to her. I left because I didn't feel like anyone was interested in what I was trying to justify. You guys are the ones that are always telling me that 'actions speak louder than words,' so I thought that the only appropriate thing to do."

My Dad with his arms still crossed spoke "Well, despite your attempts on justifying your situation, I'm afraid we will still have to punish you." He continued, "Your Mom and I were going to let you sleep in today, but because you haven't spent any time with your family for the past week we made a decision to make you come on a little adventure with us and your sister."

I was used to my parents' weird sense of punishment so I just kind of shrugged it off with a "frustrated" sigh, "Where are we going?"

At this point my little six-year-old sister came bounding down the stairs, still in her pajamas screaming "THE ZOO!"

"Jean, use your inside voice, please," my Mom scolded.

My young sister looked at her feet, "Sorry Mommy." Her head suddenly shot up and her eyes widened "Oh, no I forgot to bring Spotty down for breakfast!" She then proceeded to run up the stairs to her room.

I rolled my eyes and facepalmed. Spotty was Jean's little stuffed animal, who just happened to be a cheetah; her favorite animal. This whole "cheetah" thing first sparked about a year-and-a-half ago. She was bored so she turned on the T.V. to find something to watch. She inevitably found the Wild Kingdom special on cheetahs. She's obsessed over them ever since. I was always indifferent towards animals. I acknowledged their existence, and that was about it. Just recently my mind on the subject was changed, and rightfully so. I just wasn't all in-your-face about it, like my sister. She was extremely excited about going to the zoo, as most kids are. She was even more so when she asked:

"Daddy, are there cheetahs at this zoo?"

My Dad scratched at his chin, thinking. "You know, I think they do, three in fact. One older male and two younger ones: a male and a female. Who will probably end up being mates.

She practically started doing back flips. I don't think I ever saw anyone so energetic, so excited about anything else. I too was excited about the zoo. This would give me the perfect chance to talk to some of the animals there to see what zoo life was actually like, but the best part of this gift was that I would be able to actually talk to Kovu; to get his story. Then, maybe then we could figure out a way to get him free, and back to where he belonged.

My Dad tapped me on the shoulder "Stephen, enough daydreaming, we all had breakfast, and before we leave for the zoo at 10:30 you need to get some chores done. After all what is a punishment without a little labor?" he chuckled, my Dad had a very cruel sense of humor to him it seemed.

I did my morning chores: dishes, laundry, sweeping, and dusting. With only thirty minutes left to get ready I hopped into the shower, and dressed for the day. I figured I'd wear the Nebraska Cornhuskers shirt that my Mom got me a few days ago. Maybe if I showed her that I somewhat actually liked this state she would lessen my punishment, and let me wander a bit when we got to the zoo.

The ride on the way was mundane to say the least. It was basically the same for every "family event" we did together. My parents listened to their oldies station, while I listened to my iPod, and my sister slept to quote-unquote preserve her energy for the adventure ahead. We got to the zoo as soon as it had opened at 11. I prayed and prayed that Missy wouldn't be working. Thankfully she wasn't. I didn't need her to see me with my boring parents and overly-energetic sister. We all got our tickets, stepped through the turnstiles, and started on our journey.

As I recalled from the day before the first thing we came upon was several statues depicting a pride of rather fierce looking lions. My sister let out a small, scared whine, and grabbed onto my Dad's hand. My Dad looked down at her and said in a quiet voice "They're just statures, Jean, they won't hurt you."

"I know," came her reply "but why do they have to look so scary; they're nothing like cheetahs," she said while she tightened her grip on Spotty's cotton-fiber waist.

I couldn't help but interject, "Actually, lions are in the same family as cheetahs; they are both African big cats, and nothing more than close cousins." I smiled at her and she gave a shy smile back. I hope she didn't act this way at the Cat Complex.

My Mom with her eccentric personality said "Well as Julie Andrew said or rather sang 'let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.'" She added without singing," The Desert Dome looks fun, and it is an almost perfect replica of several different deserts spanning from America to Asia…" She said more, but I tuned her out. I was worried more about what I would hear once we got inside. I hoped it wasn't anything bad, and because my luck was the way it was of course it was going to be.

Going through the first couple rooms was okay. There was nothing too annoying; well, except for the camera-happy birds. The persistent squawking of "photo," really got on my nerves. The rest of my family, not being able to understand the birds, gladly took pictures; while I tried my damndest to snake my way through the path without causing too many problems. I was relieved when we finally got out of that Hell. My relief was short lived; however.

The next room led to the enclosures of many assorted desert mammals. What I heard far out-weighed the heart-break of what I saw. The first animal we came upon was an American cougar. It was pacing, at an unnatural speed. Stopping only every once in awhile to groom itself repeatedly in the same spot. While this sign of on-coming insanity was devastating to look at. What it said made it worse. "Find a way out," was repeated again, and again. I finally tapped my mom on the shoulder to get her out of her camera-happy attitude, and back into reality.

Once I got her attention I pointed up towards the cougar and said, "Mom, look at that cougar, pacing back-and-forth like that, it can't be natural." My mom sighed.

"I know, honey, it is pretty sad isn't it, too bad we can't help it any;" her mood took a sudden upward change, like she couldn't be seen pitying a zoo animal," well, let's move along; shall we?" We traveled swiftly through the rest of the deserts, until we came to a sign that said "Now Entering the Kingdoms of the Night."

"Oh, right," my Dad exclaimed," this is the nocturnal exhibit they put in a little while after the Desert Dome was finished." I don't think my little sister understood what "Kingdoms of the Night," meant. When we walked into the almost pitch dark she nearly clung to my Dad's leg. My Dad grabbed her small hand, and let her death-grip it as much as she wanted to on our way through. As expected the rooms were very dark to try to keep the nocturnal inhabitants happy. The first room was all bats, hundreds of them, flapping their wings just inches away from our faces; luckily separated by glass. My Mom although her facial expression was fear based said with a happy tone "Let's take some more pictures to send to your aunts and uncles back in California!" She then proceeded to snap a few shots of the vampire bats. She had left the flash on for the photos. The bats really didn't like that. One of them even screamed at her.

"Hey, you stupid biped, can't you read!"

I had to stifle a laugh while looking for what "Dracula" was talking about. I then saw a small yellow sign to one side of the confinement which read "Flash photography is prohibited." I pointed it out to my Mom, and explained that it hurts the bats' eyes. She then went about the task of awkwardly resetting her camera.

We walked onward; the damp cold of the cave slowly turned into a Louisianan bayou, complete with redneck cabin fixtures: old photos, oil lamps, fishing equipment, wooden bridges, and a wide assortment of caimans, crocodiles, and alligators, including the infamous albino alligator that was on-loan from a zoo in Louisiana. This really freaked out my sister, so to save everyone else from her whining we quickly exited and headed straight for the stairs leading up towards the outside.

Once we had all caught our breath we went to a rest stop to get some water and to figure out what we wanted to do next. My Dad set down the map so we could all see; he wanted everyone's input.

"So where to-," my Dad was cut short by my sister.

"The cheetahs, I want to see the cheetahs, can we go to that Cat duplex-thingy?"

My Mom gave a short giggle at Jean's mispronunciation "The Cat Complex, dear, and well the answer depends on what your Dad and brother think. I for one have wanted to see the new lion they advertised about in yesterday's paper. He's supposed to have an unusual color to his fur."

"That sounds pretty interesting," My Dad said "What do you think, Stephen?"

I tried to be as nonchalant as I could "Sure," I said "I actually need to take some notes for a-a Biology paper." As stated before I hated lying to my parents, but it had to be done.

"Well, let's go, Cat Complex, here we come," came my Dad's reply. Jean nearly shot out of her chair. She had to hold both my parents' hands to keep her from running off.

It's a pretty long walk to the Cat Complex, though it is mostly downhill. I spent most of our walking time thinking about what I was going to talk to Kovu about, well that, and I just wanted to see the look on his face when I showed him my new trick.

My family and I walked slowly while entering the sanctum of the Cat complex. The cages were very open for the animals, but the people on the inside got a nice, air-conditioned walk through. Which I thought was pretty unfair, I mean hell; the animals are probably hotter than we are; with all that fur and everything. It seems like I was right when I said that Nebraska was socially backwards.

My parents thought that today would be a good day to go to the zoo, and so did everyone else. The crowd surrounding Kovu's cage was enormous. Poor guy, he probably just wanted to be left alone, people just don't get that do they, when an animal is to the back of his cage and looks up only to scowl at you, I'm pretty sure that's a sign that he doesn't want company, or at least that much; and because Kovu was attracting all of the attention the other big cats weren't getting any that they were used to. A quick glance around to the other cages showed how bored they were; most just lied about soaking in the sun. The chatter going on around the enclosure was immense; Jean had to cover her ears. That's when I got an idea. If I couldn't talk to Kovu, then I'd talk to one of the animals that were by him, that way I get to meet more of the inhabitants of the complex and Kovu gets one less ear-full. It was perfect. Just by coincidence the three cheetah enclosures were just across the large hall to Kovu's cage. Jean nearly squealed when she saw them, she began hopping up and down, very excited. Another bright idea popped into my head.

I tapped my Mom on the shoulder "Hey, do think I could go with Jean to see the cheetahs over there," I pointed to the cages, "She's really excited to see them, and this way you two can have as much time as you want watching the new lion."

My Mom nodded, "That's a great idea, go ahead, and Stephen, be sure you keep her in your sights at all times I don't want to make this a trip to the hospital."

"No worries," I smiled as I turned to Jean "You wanna go see your cheetah friends, don't you, squirt, well come on." This was followed by a loud "Yay," and the scrambling of little feet as I took my sisters' hand and led her over to the two cheetahs my Dad spoke about.

_{Sandu}_

I watched them with anticipation as they approached. I was grateful really; they would be just about the only ones to give us any attention all day. Thanks to the hype that was our new neighbor, Kovu, neither I nor my mate-to-be Ira were getting any sort of praise. That was, until I spied an adolescent coming our way with a small female man-cub in front.

I quickly jumped to my feet and gave myself the quickest tongue-bath I could to look presentable. I did a few quick bounds to the front of my bars to get a better look at them. There was something odd about the adolescent, like he knew something, but wasn't telling. His eyes told it more than anything. But, he wasn't the focus of my attention. The little one, the child that had the adolescent in tow was one of the cutest man-cubs I've ever seen. Her eyes sparkled with an innocence that measured high above all others. A pudgy face and the way she wore her head-fur in two high knots accented those big, almost glowing, blue eyes even more, and in her little arm she held a small fabricy-animal that was made in the likeness of my kind. An almost accurate make of a cheetah cub. Now that I think about it looked a lot like me. I smiled at that. I'm glad to see at least one of them appreciates us. I thought it was time to wake up Ira; so naturally, I just started chirping his name.

"Ira, hey, Ira, get up!"

"What do you want, Sandu?" He replied, "I'm trying to soak up some sun." He was laying belly up in what little sun came into his cage, luckily for me it was very near the edges of my own cage. So I began tapping his face with my tail.

"Ira, you have to get up, we have company," he didn't even budge, "One of them is the cutest little-ones I've ever seen!" He stirred, flashing his golden eyes up at me; he gave a slight, growl.

"Alright, I'll take your word for it, but if she isn't completely adorable I'm gonna eat her-"

I interrupted with a small smirk "You couldn't do that, even if you wanted to."

He smiled at me "I know….I just wanted to sound kind of…" His voice slowly trailed off as the two humans got within the allowed distance, the stench of man wafted into our little homes. It took him only a matter of seconds before he saw what I was talking about. He pretty much scared the two out of their shoes at his little antics.

"YOU ARE SO FREAKIN' ADORABLE!" was the only audible thing I could pick up, the rest of his cutesy-gushing was mixture of words, high pitched growls, and chirps. When Ira is impressed he shows it. While the two humans were laughing at Ira, I tried to get the little girl's focus on me by rubbing against my bars and chirping lightly at her in a playful tone. It worked. She stared pointing and giggling at me; she turned and said something to the older human. He in turn pointed at me and said "Well, I think that's the male," and then pointed at Ira and said ", and that's the female."

Ira got embarrassed and offended at this and without thinking he scolded "Hey, it's the other way around, I'm the male" pointing at me with a single paw "She's the female."

The human male blushed, like he knew what was going on, and without missing a beat he answered in a nervous chuckle "Oh, I'm sorry."

Our jaws nearly hit the floor; Ira was the one to break the silence. He stared forward locking his gaze with the human male. "Holy shit, you can talk!" I rolled my eyes at his eloquent response. The human's eyes shifted back and forth between us two, and his face went pale; the child had a cute confused look as she turned her gaze to the male. He stammered at first then said to the younger one, "Stay right here real quick. I'm gonna go see what Mom and Dad are up to; don't do anything stupid." The smaller one nodded and the Talking-male walked awkwardly away.

Before Ira and I could start up a conversation the small female crossed the human boundary, and reached her little hand to my head. I was hesitant at first, but then I realized that I would probably never get this chance again. So, I leaned into her petting, and started the most sincere purr I've ever used. She started to say something to me when she was suddenly jerked away from my head by the Talking-male. He started to scold her, "Jean," he screamed, "what do you think you're doing, don't you know how dangerous those cats are, and they're not the same as the cheetahs on TV. These are wild animals, not trained pets." He continued scolding her for her bad behavior. She probably wasn't used to him talking to her with such a raised voice and she began to cry. The salty sting of her tears burned in my nostrils, and I backed off a bit. Ira stayed where he was. He walked to the edge of his enclosure, and spoke calmly and quietly to the male.

"Please," the male looked up, "please make her stop crying; I don't like to see them sad and afraid… I just can't stand the smell of a child's tears."

The Talking-male stooped down to the younger one's level, and quieted her down. He spoke very softly to her almost a whisper he said, "Hey, look, I'm sorry for yelling at you; I just don't want you to get hurt, you understand?"The younger one nodded again, and wiped her red puffy eyes. "Good," he said with a smile. "Listen, I'll make you a deal; I won't tell Mom and Dad about what just happened, and you won't tell anyone, about what I'm about to do." He glanced at us, and then back to the little one, "You promise," she nodded. He held out one of his fingers "Pinky swear." They intertwined fingers and held them there; I swear I'll never understand humans. They then walked over to the boundary between us. The male spoke to me.

"Could you tell me what your names are?"

"Sandu," I replied shyly; it was awkward talking to a human. I referenced to Ira with my paw, "That's Ira."

The human laughed a little, "Everyone I meet has such strange names; what is the origin?" He asked.

I looked at the ground, I had never been asked before, "I don't know, but when I was in the nursery, the dark skinned human would call me Sandu, if I remember right it means moon. I think it's pretty fitting." I winked my blind eye.

He looked over to Ira," What about him, he doesn't look like he has any identifying traits about him."

Ira gave a small smirk, "When I was brought here as a small cub, I was very, very shy; I had to be put into special care." Ira continued, "The human that took care of Sandu also took care of me, she would always talk about how my eyes gleamed like the sun; so she playfully began calling what I believe in her language means sun, Ira, and it stuck." Ira started laughing, so did the human. The human between his chuckles said, "That is the corniest story I've ever heard."

"Oh, yeah," Ira challenged, putting his face to the bars," then what's your name, funny-boy?"

"Stephen," he said plainly, "I have no idea what it means, my parents just gave it to me because I guess to them it sounded right," he paused then added "Oh, and this is my sister, Jean."

I walked up as close to Stephen as I could get. I wanted to be as sincere as possible, "I wanted to apologize."

"For what?" he asked.

"For earlier, I didn't mean to scare you into thinking that Jean was in any kind of trouble; she really wasn't, I rather enjoyed being petted, it reminded me of my days in the nursery." He looked as if he was hanging on every word I spoke so I continued "I would never in my right mind do harm to anyone, let alone an innocent child; please forgive me." I added. Stephen smiled; he actually smiled at me genuinely.

"Of course you're forgiven, I'm just trying to be a good older brother, you know?" He turned his attention to Ira "And, you, you are a total spaz," he added with a quick laugh," What was all that jumping and noises you were making?"

Ira stared down at his paws, he was so cute when he was embarrassed "Well, I was just really excited, your sister is just so precious I couldn't hold in my cub-like nature." He gave a little nervous chuckle.

Stephen looked at Ira with a quizzical stare, "Why are you so interested in my little sister?" He said this while slowly putting himself in front of little Jean, this one was really protective; almost lion-like in the back of my head I wondered it this was the human Kovu was talking about.

Ira scratched his head while trying to come up with a sane sounding answer. Stephen's question was actually one we've been trying to answer ourselves for some time now. Hopefully Ira was able to come up with something.

"Well…ummm…you see… It's just that… When we see someone so lively and full of youth, like Jean, we sort of age backwards mentally and start acting like cubs ourselves. Contrary to popular belief cheetahs are actually very playful, and as Sandu said we would never ever harm anything or anyone who had never done us any wrong; if that makes sense."

Stephen nodded, "It makes perfect sense sort of a 'monkey see monkey do' thing; except with this it's cheetah see cheetah do." We all laughed at his corny joke then he said "Excuse me a minute." He turned to talk to his sister so Ira and I went back to our sun-bathing

(A/N): Alright people, that was chapter 6! Sorry, that is took so long. Being an involved college student has its tolls, you understand, right? So, I already have chapter 7 started, it should be up by the middle of April. See you all soon, and happy reviewing.

~ The Puppet Master ~ SinxhetXXI