Okay, I didn't get any reviews last time, so I'm hoping that this time somebody might take an interest and actually read this story. If not, I might consider just plain removing it altogether. Please review!
Lilo woke up the next morning to find that she was alone in her bedroom. "Stitch?" she called. She hopped on the elevator and went down to the main level of the house, looking for her best friend. She was surprised to find Stitch in the kitchen, attempting to make pancakes. "Hey, I didn't know you could cook!"
"I can't, but surely it can't be that difficult," he said as he flipped a burnt pancake off the stove with a spatula. It landed on the floor. He picked it up, dusted it off, and put it back on.
Lilo blinked, realizing Stitch had answered her in perfect English. "Uh…Stitch, is something wrong?"
He shook his head. "No Lilo, nothing's wrong. In fact, everything's wonderful!" He hugged Lilo. "That book you bought me yesterday changed my life! The teachings of that holy text have touched me, and I have decided to become a follower of Ban-Kar!"
"Oh…um, okay, way to go Stitch!" she said, a little unsure.
Jumba and Pleakley entered the kitchen. "I am smelling pancakes. What is going on?" asked the resident evil genius.
"Stitch says he's discovered religion," explained Lilo.
Jumba frowned and looked at Stitch suspiciously as he sat down at the breakfast table. "I am not programming him to find religion," he muttered.
Pleakley had a different view of the matter. "Well, I think it's good that the little monster has found some spiritual purpose in his life. Maybe now he'll stop eating my petunias!" he joked.
Although Stitch did indeed stop eating Pleakley's petunias, nobody had any idea just what other changes Stitch had undergone as a result of this new religion. Changes that would influence everyone in the household whether they liked it or not.
The next day…
Nani searched through her closet fruitlessly for a specific outfit she had in mind. Unable to find it, she went to the one person she could think of who would have taken it. "Pleakley, did you take my skimpy outfit from my closet?"
"Er, which skimpy outfit?" he asked.
"You know…the one that Lilo is never to see under any circumstances?"
"Oh…OH! That skimpy outfit! Well, uh, no, I haven't," he said apologetically.
Nani sighed in exasperation. "Are you sure?" she pushed.
Pleakley thought for a minute. "Wait, now that I think about it, I saw Stitch walking by with it and a few other outfits a little while ago."
Nani frowned. "And you didn't think there was anything wrong with that?"
The alien shrugged. "I don't know a thing about his new religion, for all I know it requires him to dress up in female clothing to perform certain ceremonies and stuff. Just like mine!"
Nani decided not to question Pleakley further and sought out Stitch. When she found him, she planned on getting an explanation. "Stitch, what were you doing with some of my clothes?" she asked.
"I threw them out."
"You WHAT?! Why did you throw them out?!" she demanded.
"They were skimpy and revealing. It is sinful to show parts of your body in public like that. Why did you want such horrible and evil clothes?" he asked.
"I was planning on wearing one of those to work today so I could have a better chance of convincing Mr. Jameson to give me a raise!"
He shook his head in dismay. "Nani, are you really so greedy that you'd resort to prostitution to get money?"
She looked at him in disbelief. "Money? We need more money, seeing as how I'm the only person in this household that works, while trying to feed a family of five and replace all of the stuff you destroy on a weekly (if not daily) basis!"
"If you want more money, then you must earn it fairly through hard work and perseverance, not through sinful means. I am ashamed that you would even think of resorting to such disgusting methods to gain a raise." With that, he walked away.
Nani restrained herself from going after Stitch and punishing him, reminding herself that they would all have to be tolerant and adjust to Stitch's new choice of religion for a while, like any good family would. She groaned. "Guess we're going to have to cut back on food and hula lessons again…"
Pleakley looked around his room. Nani had left for work after failing to find her skimpy outfit, Lilo was preparing to go to school, and Jumba was out in his lab on the ship. He grinned to himself. Now was the perfect time to indulge in his secret love of dressing up in female undergarments! Giggling to himself, he opened a locked drawer on Jumba's desk (which only he had the key to) and found all of his undergarments were gone. He blinked. That wasn't right. He quickly checked his locked chest in the closet, where he kept more underwear. It was empty, too. Frantic, he pried open a loose floorboard and checked the space underneath it. To his horror, that was empty too. Trying to keep himself from panicking, he realized there was only one person who could have done this. "STITCH!" he yelled.
The little blue experiment poked his head through the door. "Yes?"
"Did you take all of the Earth female undergarments I had lying about the room?" Pleakley asked angrily.
"Yes."
"Why did you take them?!" he demanded.
Stitch got a pitying expression on his face. "Pleakley, wearing female undergarments if you are not a male is perverted and sinful. You should restrict yourself to male clothes and quit disguising yourself as a female anyway. Cross-dressing is sinful, because those clothes are made for women and it is greedy of you to squander them all for yourself. I sold all of your undergarments and disguises to charity."
Pleakley gaped. "YOU SOLD ALL MY-"
"I also borrowed your sewing machine to make some new male clothes for you since I didn't have enough money to purchase them myself. Here you go!" Stitch handed Pleakley a pair of three-legged pants that were all the wrong length and had stitches on them, a large and ugly shirt made out of too many different kinds of fabric with sleeves of different lengths, and a hideous neon orange tie.
Pleakley bit his lip to keep himself from crying. The clothes were really that horrible. "You used my sewing machine without permission to make these…these monstrosities! My sewing machine is designed to make masterpieces, beautiful art in the form of clothing, not…this!" He threw the clothes to the floor in disgust.
Stitch frowned. "Fine. If you get damned for wearing female clothes, don't come crawling back to me." He left.
Fuming with rage, Pleakley managed to calm himself down, remembering he still had ONE secret place left. "There's no way he could have found the secret stash I hid under the bed!" he said eagerly, stretching his noodle-like arms under the bed in search of his underwear. He found nothing but dust bunnies.
Stitch poked his head back in. "By the way, I also found your secret stash under the bed." He left.
Unable to contain himself anymore, Pleakley broke down and cried.
Lilo opened the fridge. She grabbed a sandwich with a sticky note on it saying "Pudge". She started to put the sandwich in her backpack, only to have it grabbed by Stitch. "Hey, give that back!"
"What's this?" he asked, sniffing the sandwich.
"That sandwich is for Pudge the fish. If I don't give him one every week, he won't be able to control the weather and tropical storms will befall our pleasant island." She said patiently.
Stitch frowned. "Why is Pudge able to control the weather?"
"Because he's a god, silly. I've told you this before!" she explained.
"Oh." Stitch ate the sandwich.
Lilo gasped. "Stitch! Why did you do that?"
"Worshipping a fish as a god is pagan and sinful. I don't want to see you go to Hell, Lilo. I recommend you stay away from Mr. Pudge," he said sternly.
"But Stitch, if I don't give Pudge a sandwich today, he won't be able to use his god powers to stop the storm coming in!" Lilo protested.
Stitch shook his head. "Nonsense. Pudge the fish is no more a god than you or I."
Pudge, fish-god of weather, was hungry. The little human follower-girl was late with his weekly sacrifice. She was usually late, so he wasn't too worried. However, he had a strange feeling he wasn't going to get fed that day, or for many weeks thereafter. He shrugged inwardly. Oh well, if the little human girl didn't care about stopping climactic disturbances from disrupting island life, that was her problem, not his.
Lilo frowned. "We can talk about this later. Have you seen my voodoo dolls?"
"I threw them away."
She exploded. "You threw them away?! But I needed them for show and tell! How can I beat Mertle Edmond if I don't have voodoo dolls?"
"Use this!" said Stitch, handing her a doll.
Lilo stared at it. "…This is a Barbie doll."
"Yes. It comes with a comb and brush so you can do her hair and three separate outfits," Stitch added, handing her a box full of the doll's accessories.
Lilo was starting to get angry. "Stitch-"
He looked at the clock. "Oh, you should already be at school now!" He dragged her out of the kitchen and shoved her out the front door. "Have a nice day!" He closed the door and locked it.
Lilo stared at the door in confusion and anger for several seconds before clenching her fists and starting the walk to school.
Jumba focused all four of his eyes on the computer screen in his spaceship laboratory. "Yes…just a little bit more…" He carefully made a few slight changes to the image in front of him and pressed a button. The screen flashed cheerfully. He laughed and laughed victoriously. "Yes! I, Dr. Jumba Jookiba, have finally found a cure for cancer!"
"That's nice," said Stitch, pulling the plug on the computer and causing the screen to go blank.
Jumba gasped in horror. "What are you doing? I spent months working on that cure!"
"Yes, months that could easily have been spent doing something more productive to aid the community," said Stitch as he crushed the computer into a small mass and swallowed it.
Jumba looked at Stitch in confusion. "How is finding cure for cancer not productive?"
"Playing with genetics is the work of the devil. Ban-Kar decrees that only he may spawn life from nothing. All else is evil and sinful," Stitch explained.
Jumba frowned. "If I hadn't 'played' with genetics, you would not be existing."
"And would that have been such a bad thing?" asked Stitch. "You brought me to life through your evil science. I must now atone for my sin of existence by doing good deeds for the rest of my life," Stitch said humbly.
"That is what I am doing! Cure for cancer is good thing!" Jumba protested.
"If you are to cure cancer, do it without playing God. Or at least get a real job." Feeling he had finished his work there, Stitch left.
Jumba grumbled. "'Get a real job.' Who does he think he is being? I am bringing him to life and this is how he is repaying me? Hmmph." He pressed a button, and another computer popped up. "Is good thing that I am making multiple back-ups of all work in case of accident like this." With that, he quickly completed the original cure for cancer he had saved earlier, then began work on eliminating AIDS.
After Lilo left the house, it had started raining uncontrollably, (No doubt due to Pudge not getting any sandwich) soaking her wet. To make things worse, a car splashed mud on her, she accidentally knocked into the Sunburned Tourist (Under an umbrella) which caused him to drop his ice cream on her head, and she nearly got run over crossing the street. So as you can easily guess, this along with the other events of the morning was combining to plunge her into a really bad mood. But it would only get worse when show and tell started at school.
The big teacher guy (whose name always escapes me) applauded politely as Mertle finished showing off her new cell phone. "Very nice, Mertle. Just don't run up your phone bill by making too many long-distance calls, I learned that lesson when I got my first phone…Lilo, what do you have to show us today?"
Lilo, still sopping wet and covered with mud and ice cream, stepped in front of the class. The other students giggled and compared her to the mud monsters she so often loved to talk about. In a deadpan tone of voice, Lilo held up the Barbie doll. "This is a Barbie doll. It's stupid and acts as a negative role model for young impressionable girls like myself. It doesn't do anything but let you comb its hair and change its clothes."
The obnoxious little monster called Mertle Edmond snorted loudly. "How typical, Weird-lo. The first time you actually show up with a nice, NORMAL doll like my ones at home, you screw it up by looking like something that crawled out of the ocean and died. Freak." Mertle immediately regretted saying that when Lilo snapped and pounced on her.
Nani came home from work that day, with the same level of pay as before, and found out that Lilo was suspended from school for shoving a Barbie doll halfway up Mertle's nose and her family was thinking of pressing charges. Lilo was lectured, grounded, and sent to her room without supper, which may have been a good thing seeing as how the newly religious Stitch attempted to make pancakes again.
Okay, I'm hoping some of you liked this chapter more than the last one and will please consider reviewing. If you're wondering exactly why Stitch is acting so weird after demonstrating how much he disliked the Ban-Kar religion in the last chapter, you'll have to wait a while to find out what's going on. And if you think Stitch is irritating now, just wait until next chapter. You'll have to read it to believe it.