Red's/N: So today's journal entry is written by me, Irken smeet Red. I've known about Purple's correspondence with you for a long time now, though since he was obviously trying to hide it I never said anything. I'll explain what happened later but for now I'm just going to answer the questions like Pur normally does.

The question from Rose Tyler is, "Why do you eat so much junk food and stay so thin?"
Basicly our Irken bodies run off of raw calories. It takes large amounts of energy to power our bodies and our PAKs. Purple has a habit of eating more and plugging his PAK in less. I'm just about a balance of the two.
-For a normal Irken the "junkfood" as you call it, is a good source of raw calories. A few irkens can over eat but most will find that good balance of plugging in/eating.
-For a Tallest, the body requires nearly double the energy of a normal Irken. Thus we could basically eat doughnuts non-stop and we still wouldn't get fat. You might think we're lucky because of that but with the other stuff that comes from being Tallest… I wouldn't really say it's lucky….

Year 9 Day 476

The news came as a shock to our entire planet.

Tallest Miyuki is dead.

Irkens don't cry, but that day I heard many muffled sobs behind closed doors. No one could believe it. Even those of us that knew of her disease, were not expecting or ready for this to happen. The labs are shut down for the day while the bureaucrats sort out funding issues. We haven't seen Spork all day but he sent a message to our room saying that he's fine and that he'll do his best to keep the search for the cure going. He's scheduled to become the Tallest next week.

Right now I'm sitting with Purple in the room.

I've tried making conversation but he just sits there in silence. He hasn't eaten since we got the news and that was 3 days ago. He didn't even try to fight me when I plugged in his PAK. I'm getting really scared that he's given up. I've got to figure out some way to snap him out of it.

While I try and think of something, I may as well fill you all in on how she died.

As you know, Tallest Miyuki was off on planet Vort, working with the scientists there. During that time, an experiment went horribly wrong and destroyed more than half the lab building. The place was in such shambles that no one really knows what happened. Lard Nar and Purple's combat instructor Soldier Blert were both there at the time; though apparently Soldier Blert wasn't in that area of the building so he doesn't know what happened, while Lard Nar is off at a hospital. The Vortian government has refused any Irken investigators access to question him.

The whole thing wreaks of a cover-up if you ask me.

The day before the incident, we got a call from Almighty Miyuki.

"Hey boys!" Her face popped up on the video monitor in our room. I was working on some homework from my tutors at the time and he was messing with a toy that Spork brought him from planet BoodyNen. When he noticed, Purple jumped off his bed and ran to stand in front of the screen.

"My Tallest! How are you!? Are you returning home soon!?" he was practically bouncing off the walls. At the time, I just rolled my eyes; but thinking back on it now… I can really see just how much Purple cared about her.

Almighty Miyuki laughed. "Not yet, but I'll be heading back in 2 more days. You haven't been waiting on me have you?"

Purple shrugged his shoulders and spoke casually, "Not really. It's been so busy, I hardly noticed the time."

I just couldn't help myself and spoke out, with a smirk, "He's been checking for missed messages after every class." Purple looked like he wanted to punch me (which I'm glad he didn't because he hits hard…), but my Tallest just laughed.

"Sorry I've kept you both waiting for so long, it's just," he smile crossed her entire face. She had almost the same expression as Purple. I noticed the background moving up and down on the video feed. If she was using her PAK communicator, that would mean she was bouncing up and down in place (even on her hover disk). She looked so excited. I turned from my desk wondering what was going on. Tallest Miyuki sighed, still smiling, and shook her head.

"Something big has happened. I… I don't want to get your hopes up but…" She really couldn't stop smiling. It was kind of cute. "I REALLY think that we're close to a cure. We found some… new information."

At this point I had to step into the conversation. "What kind of new information, my Tallest?"

"Well…" She looked hesitant to tell us, or more likely, hesitant to tell Purple.

"He probably won't understand it anyway," I pointed out.

Purple knew immediately that I was talking about him, "Hey!"

"Purple why don't you go wait out in the hall for a few minute?" Tallest Miyuiki suggested.

"Whaaat? Why?!" Why he whined like that was the question. He's a bit of a brat when it comes to Tallest Miyuki; which is really sad since we're nearly fully grown (and by "we" I mean our class in general, Purple and I have 2 more growth spurts to go through).

Tallest Miyuki smiled and pointed to the side of the screen that was closest to the door. Purple's antennae went flat in annoyance and he grumbled under his breath all the way to the door. I hopped off the bed when the door shut and opened it again. Purple had his antenna pressed against the door and was startled when I opened it. I shooed him off to the cafeteria before going back to talk to my Tallest.

"So what's going on?"

"Remember how we thought that the symptoms came from the same genetic mutation which causes the drastic height change?"

"Uh huh?"

"It was honestly an accident that we stumbled over it but we're now looking into a poison introduced to the body."

My antennae stood straight up, "You're kidding!? But why would a poison affect a Tallest but not a normal Irken?" She said nothing while I thought for a minute. She tends to do that a lot, trying to let me come to my own conclusions. Normally it's annoying, but that day I figured it out. "Not because of the energy distribution problems?!"

When I looked up, she was smiling, the bouncing of the background increasing, "Exactly! Turns out that this poison may be something that every Irken ingests on a daily basis, however it only drastically effects the Tallest BECAUSE our bodies can't filter energy as well."

"But that doesn't make sense. Why would this poison only increase the cellular destruction rate with the Tallest before you?" I don't know if Purple said this but the Tallest never used hover discs until Tallest Miyuki lost the use of her legs. Before her, the Tallests would live out the majority of their lives with the healthy use of their legs, and only lost that use during their later years (their lifespans were still always shorter than that of an average Irken).

"Like I said, we're not certain yet. It could be that it's from some food that was only introduced to Irk in recent years. Which… is why I asked Purple to go out in the hall."

"You want to know what foods he eats that I don't." That wasn't a question. I knew what she meant. Thinking about it, there were a couple things that came to mind. "Honestly… there's only three things I can think of."

"Which are?"

I laughed when I looked up at her; she was like Pur with a new toy. "Blorch Crumble Bars, Meekrob Static Soda, and raw Blerkelberries. I'll eat Blerkelberries if their cooked but the other two I really can't stand."

"Hmmm…" She stopped bouncing and touched her hand to her face. "I guess all of those did come with the recent expansion, didn't they…" She sighed then smiled at me, "Well I'll let the lab know and we'll get them tested. Other than that how's he holding up?"

"He's better now that he's back in classes every day," I lied. Truth was that Purple had been getting depressed that we hadn't heard from her earlier. Tenn told me how he was acting in class since I've mostly been focusing on just my tutor studies. Physically he's fine. His hand isn't hurting him and he's not as tired.

Tallest Miyuki gave a sad smile, "Good to hear. I'll be back in 5 days to bring you two to the lab here, try to keep yourselves contained till then alright?"

"You're not going to say bye to him? I doubt he went to the cafeteria like I told him." Purple wouldn't wander that far, but he also wouldn't be right on the door since he'd already gotten caught.

"No I think I should get back. And Red?"

"Yeah?"

"Try not to worry so much. We'll make sure he's okay."

I was stunned. She really is amazing to have noticed that I was worried about Purple. After all he's my best friend. Why wouldn't I be worried? All I could do was smile and promise to try.

When she hung up I called Pur back into the room and gave him the good news, but not mentioning the foods. I figured I'd watch how much he ate of them but I didn't want to scare him. He was so excited to hear she'd be back, and we'd be off to Vort soon.

…if only we'd known then…

I'm thinking now that I have to tell him. We may not be sure it's one of those foods but with even the smallest chance… its safer to avoid them all.

First thing I have to do is snap him out of this slump. I think I have a plan. Wish me luck!

A/N: :D Please note that I am now filtering the contents of comments and only letting Red and Purple see the actual questions if they don't interfere with the story.

Go head and leave a comment if you think you've figured it out! I think I might have made it too obvious at this point XD Sorry about that if I did.