A/N: So, this came from me getting the funniest picture into my head and wanting to put it down on paper. It went on somewhat longer than I expected, but whatever. Enjoy, and tell me what you think!

" 'Trial courts consist of municipal, county, and common pleas courts. Common pleas courts may include separate general, domestic relations, probate, and juvenile divisions, or combinations thereof. The appeals courts are intermediate-level appellate courts that hear appeals from the trial courts in both civil and criminal matters. The state supreme court is the state's highest appellate court'... Niii-iiik…"

"You mispronounced 'municipal' and 'appellate'," was Niko's only response to my whining. As he stressed the correct pronunciations for a second time, I vigorously whacked my head against the dashboard, praying the impact would knock me unconscious and put me out of my misery.

"You can continue reading now." Niko's voice was casual and easy-going, as if this were all my idea, but the iron toe he dug into my shin said differently. So I continued, my brain squirming in disgust at the sheer boringness of the words in front of me.

We were in Ohio. Fan-frigging-tastic. And I thought I'd hated Wisconsin. As soon as we'd crossed the border of Ohio, Niko had stopped off somewhere and picked up about two billion (well, alright, maybe one billion) pamphlets on everything from tourism to agriculture to Ohio state law, all for me. "It will be educational" he'd said, and he meant it, but the wicked quirk of his lips told me it might have more to do with the packet of ketchup I'd purposefully squirted at him in a moment of crisis. And "crisis" refers to him making a wise crack about my inability to read Dick and Jane while my mouth was too full of food to respond verbally. The ketchup probably stained his shirt, but it was worth it to see the look on his face.

Or it was worth it. Now, with a throat scratchy from orally reading an uncountable number of pamphlets about Ohio (which had to be the most boring place in the whole world), I wasn't so sure. "…fall within that court's territorial area, and only if the claim does not exceed $15,000…" Damn, numbers. I could barely take words, much less numbers. I reverted back to whining. "Nik, can't we stop and eat?" We were in the middle of the woods, but we did have a bag of sandwiches, some bottled water, and one luke-warm grape Slurpee in the back seat.

I was sure he'd say no, but for once he seemed to take pity on me, and slowed his car, pulling it to a halt at the side of the road. He could've stopped it in the middle, for all the traffic that was passing through here. Did anyone even live in Ohio? Who wrote all the pamphlets?

I sighed with relief and dropped the pamphlet to the floor by my feet, where all the others lay in a messy ocean of information no one but the Ohio governor and maybe his wife cared about. "Thanks, Nik. You're the best." I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached into the back for the food. I took out two sandwiches and handed one to him as he turned the key and stilled the motor. It was quiet, suddenly, and nice. I liked the quiet, especially after such a long time spent listening to my own voice – which I'd been beginning to hate, by the way.

After half my grape Slurpee and most of my sandwich was gone, and Niko was about 1/18th of the way through his grass one, I asked, "Are we staying in Ohio or just passing through?" And added, petulantly, "Because I'm sick of it already."

"Passing through, I think," Niko said, taking a contemplative small bite and chewing. "I was thinking of Pennsylvania."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "City?"

The Grendels had found us too quickly back in that small town in Wisconsin, just when we were getting settled. I didn't want it to happen again, and I knew Niko didn't either. He nodded. "Yes. Philadelphia, maybe?"

As much as I groaned about Niko's iron-willed, school-related commands, what I really hated was hearing the uneasy indecision in his voice. It made him seem unsure and vulnerable, and reminded me that all the countless decisions he made for us weren't easy ones. He always had to think, so hard, and with our lives so often on the line. Sometimes I wished he would take a break.

But he never would.

So I tried to relieve the indecision, as much as I could. "Good. Sounds perfect. We'll aim for Philly."

Niko turned to me, but I purposefully missed his expression by staring out my window and chomping rhythmically on my sandwich. I was glad to be getting to the city. I'd been growing more tired than ever of all these woods. Seeing the same tree next to the same bush everywhere you looked could get awfully monotonous. Especially when…

I squinted. Was that… a monkey?

"Niko…?" I asked, reaching to roll down my window before I realized he'd turned the car off. "What the hell is that?"

It was crouched in one of the trees, long limbs entangled in the branches, covered in a shaggy black coat of fur. It sure looked like a monkey, except its body was somewhat off, and its paws were way too big.

"Interesting," Niko said, leaning over to look through my window. "It's a shug monkey."

"A what?"

A received a prompt smack upside the head. "You mean to say, you don't remember? We studied this particular supernatural being not three days ago." He pulled my hair lightly. "Remember?"

I didn't, not in the least. I tended to doze off in my brain whenever Niko started going with the supernatural junk. I mean, come on, why did I need to know how to bury a wine bottle with a Strigoi? It was all just damn boring, and whenever I could I took a brief vacation to la-la-land – anything to escape Niko's teacher voice. Right now, however, he wasn't using his teacher voice, he was using another, even scarier one, so I said amiably, "Sure, Nik, I remember. You bring it all back to me."

"Good," he said, and then before I knew it he'd opened my car door and nudged me out with his knee. "Then you'll know exactly how to catch it."

"Catch it?" I looked down at the last bite of sandwich in my hand and threw it into the scraggly grass, suddenly not nearly as hungry. "Hell, Nik, why would I want to catch it? Unless you want a damn monkey as a pet – just what we need. Besides, why make it mad? It's not bothering us."

Not two seconds after the words left my mouth, the shug monkey or whatever it was called ripped one of the tree branches off at lightning speed, hefted it in two huge black paws, and launched it at me. I threw myself to the side and it missed me by mere inches. "Damn," I muttered, glaring up into the monkey's moon-white eyes. It blinked once and then scuttled down the tree, disappearing into the underbrush, fast as all hell.

"Better get moving, Cal, or I won't even be able to grade you A for effort," said Niko from the passenger's seat of the car, watching me through the open door.

I turned and scowled at him. "You're grading me?"

"Some students need hands-on experiences," he said solemnly, his voice not betraying a hint of sarcasm.

I was about to remark at that when an acorn hit me square in the back of the head. Niko actually cracked a laugh, which almost made this whole ordeal worth it – almost. "Don't you love me anymore?" I muttered, reaching up to rub the back of my head.

"To death, little brother."

Another acorn. I cursed, turned round and started moving, more than ready to kick monkey ass, and tossed over my shoulder, "You know? I believe that."

Niko snorted. "A shug monkey is about as dangerous to you as is the grandmother of the last revenant you killed. You can more than handle it."

I could see the white eyes and the patch of black fur from inside the underbrush, only half-visible. The clueless of the world might pass it off as a wild dog or lost cat or a damn overgrown squirrel… not me. I knew what it was, and I also knew I could have it pinned to the ground or to a tree or underneath me in seconds… damn, if I couldn't win a fight with a monkey half my size, Niko may as well have been training a retarded brick all this time. I just wished the thing actually wanted to fight.

"I know I can handle it," I retorted grimly. "If it would just come close enough."

I made for the bush, but it was already gone, backed up against the tree it had previously occupied. And now, closer up, I could see it wasn't as fast as I'd thought. Fast, yeah – hell, yeah – but I was also fast. I'd corner it and catch it in less than –

Holy shit.

It vanished. Like some crazy magic trick… one minute it was crouched there and the next I could see tree bark through it. "Nik, it disappeared!" And from the scamper of heavy paws it was also making an escape.

"So it did."

He'd gotten out of the car at least, the bastard, and was standing a few yards off watching me, completely unperturbed.

"Look, Nik, if there's anything I don't want to do, it's run around after an invisible monkey."

"It's not invisible," Niko sighed. "If you paid more attention to me during studies, you would know that. In fact, if you paid more attention to me, you wouldn't be in this situation now."

I put my head down and toed a rock over. "So… what?"

"Legend has it that shug monkeys disappear like ghosts or apparitions, when in fact they are much more like chameleons. They merely blend into their surroundings as a survival mechanism," Niko said, folding his arms across his chest. "Legend also has it that shug monkeys are massive, but legend, as usual, exaggerates."

He looked like he was going to tell me more, and I cut him off. "That's great, Nik. But whether it's a ghost or a chameleon, I still can't see the damn thing. How am I supposed to catch it?"

"We went over this," said Niko calmly.

"We did?" I felt more mystified than repentant. I knew I daydreamed a hell of a lot, but… how to catch an invisible monkey? Really?

I heard more rustling bushes as the shug monkey, I don't know, mocked me. Niko tipped his head toward the sound and said, "Your grade is slipping."

Damn him. Shrugging off my pride, I darted for the undergrowth. I nearly caught the thing, I could feel the flash of fur in my hands, but I couldn't see it and in a moment it was gone, scampering away. So I chased it. For a good five minutes I was never more than a step behind it – except when it was in a tree and trying to kill me with tree boughs as thick as my waist – but it always eluded me. And then finally, like a ton of bricks in the head, I realized why it was so important that the thing was more chameleon than ghost.

I turned straight around and marched back to the car. Niko, who no doubt knew exactly what I was doing, didn't lift a finger to stop me or ask where I was going. Leaning in the passenger's side of the car, I grabbed the half-full cup of grape Slurpee and tore off the cover. The shug monkey was waiting for me when I returned… I could hear the bushes rustling as it waited impatiently for the game to start up again. Except I was done playing.

It almost darted away when it saw me coming, but before it could, I hurled the thick purple contents of my Slurpee onto it, and suddenly there it was.

I had it pinned and squirming against the ground in about two seconds. I could feel the moisture of the grape stuff seeping through my jeans, but the victory was so sweet I didn't care. Niko had ghosted up from behind and was standing over me with a small smile of appreciation… and amusement. "Good job, Cal. You get an A," he said, then gestured toward the whining creature. "You can let it go now."

I released my hold on it and stood all in one swift motion, to avoid whatever claws those big paws had, and watched a splotch of purple scuttle back into the deep of the woods. Then I turned to Niko. "Just an A? No A+?"

"You're lucky you get the A. It took you way too long to catch on." He smiled faintly. "Not that it wasn't amusing to watch."

I smiled back. "Bastard." I wandered back over to where I dropped the cup and stooped to retrieve it. "When we talked about this before, as you insist we did," I asked, "Did you happen to use a grape Slurpee in your example?"

Niko didn't even blink at the ridiculous question, but leapt onto it as another opportunity to teach me something no doubt vastly important. "No," he said evenly. "Mud would have worked well enough; granted, the shug monkey would have still blended a bit with the forest, but at least there would be something to see. Tar would also be an option, but as none would be readily available in the forest, one would have to bring it along. Some have been known to use tar to catch…"

I interrupted his lecture by walking back up to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. "Teacher," I said, and waggled the cup in his face. "I still have a little left."

He raised an eyebrow. "Right. And how much more would you like to know about Ohio?"

I sighed, defeated, and tossed the cup over my shoulder.

We made our way back to the car, and in minutes we were out of there, driving off toward Pennsylvania – which I hoped to God did not have shug monkeys.