Elle fumbled around, trying to get the tent pieces together while holding down the instructions with one knee. This just wasn't working at all and the fact that she suspected the instructions for the construction of this tent were written in some dead and probably alien language weren't helping at all! Orion was frantically meowing in his carrier, clawing at the sides demanding to be freed immediately. How much torture could one cat be expected to suffer? They were on a beach and there was the lovely odor of fresh fish in the air! He wanted his supper immediately!
"I'm sorry," Elle murmured to her cat as she fumbled around, finally getting a few of the poles to go in the right direction. Maybe this thing was faulty or something. "I'll free you as soon as I have our tent up. I don't know why they gave me such a big one."
"Isn't that just like a human? Can't even do a simple task right." X said as he came up to Elle, his arms full of various supplies and baggage. He had shed his human suit and the pig odor was incredibly strong.
"What do you want, X?" Elle grumbled as she glared at him for a moment before turning to the tent again. She thought that she might finally be getting somewhere. At least the tent looked a bit more upright now, anyway.
"You missed the other line. Here you go," X said as he set the things he was carrying down and then shuffled through them for a moment before producing a stack of air mattresses that he promptly shoved into her arms. "Those need inflated and then there are some sheets and stuff that you can use to make them!"
"What?" Elle moaned. What in the world was X trying to pull handing her all of these mattresses and expecting her to.... A chill ran down her back as she sensed impending doom approaching.
Suddenly the worms appeared out of nowhere, also out of their human suits, and loaded down with their coffee supply. Frank and the puppies were following behind with Frank clutching a large box in his mouth.
"Here you go. Cooking supplies and soap. Don't loose the bar. They only issue one per tent," Frank informed her as he looked critically at the work that Elle had done while the pups circled Orion's carrier yipping at the cat. "I don't think that's supposed to be leaning so much."
"Wait a minute. What are all of you doing here?" Elle demanded. "Why aren't you setting up your own tents or something?"
"Here," X said as he handed her a piece of paper. "You will note that this tent has a large number three on the back. Well, it would if you had set it up right. We're assigned to tent three. Let me know when you have my bed fixed."
"Just a minute!" Elle cried as she grabbed X by the ear and stopped him from escaping while she read the paper. Oh, this had to be a nightmare!
"We're roomies!" the worms exclaimed together as they looked at her with huge grins before heading into the tent.
"Wait!" Elle cried as she raced to stop them. "That tent isn't fixed yet!" Just then the tent shuddered and slowly collapsed inward, enveloping the worms in the fabric.
"Little help here?" they called.
"Alright," Elle murmured. She shoved the instructions at Frank. "Here. You read this." She reached over and caught X by the ear again. "Where do you think you're going? Get over here and give me a hand now!"
******
A little bit later, Elle looked over the tent with a sigh. She couldn't believe that they had finally got it up. It had been a struggle with X trying to escape every five seconds and Frank having to stop reading periodically to retrieve a puppy that had wondered off not to mention Orion's continuous meows of misery from the carrier.
"Shouldn't you get to work on those mattresses now?" X asked as she started to head into the tent.
"Wait a minute! Get back here" Elle shouted as she grabbed his ear. "You're not going into my nice clean tent! You smell like pigs! You're taking a nice bath! Frank, see about getting a nice fire pit dug, would you? We'll be right back."