Prompt: It's "just another normal day..." until it isn't. What happens to make this day unique and crazy? Use two of these five characters in your story: Edward Weaver, Weezie, Cole, Kylen, and Picket.
This was so fun! I've never featured Jo before in any of my stories.
Jo stretched his arms lazily and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot. He needed to get to the orphanage to help Emma, but he could probably spare a few minutes of relaxing. He took a long swig of his coffee cup and scratched his side through his robe. There wasn't anything to hurry about. He had an hour until he had to be there.
He sat sprawled in the comfy chair in the living room and idly turned through the pages of a book nearby. Heather had probably left it last week. He wouldn't have noticed though. He hadn't been in the living room for a couple of days. He'd been in the kitchen mostly, actually. Those chocolates were really good, but he should stop eating them, honestly. Good thing they were finished.
His stomach growled at the thought of food. He needed to have some breakfast. He slowly brought his feet out from beneath him and they slammed onto the floor. Slowly he stood, narrowly escaping spilling a good bit of his coffee.
He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of oatmeal, dry oatmeal, and added some water. It was plain, sure, but fast and easy, especially on days wehen he had to hurry out.
He returned into the living room. He'd forgotten how comfy these chairs were. Oh well, when you'd been as busy as he'd been the last week, one could hardly blame him for not doing very much in his home, right?
He sat in the chair for a good while, humming a little tune to himself and eating rather quickly. It was a long walk to the orphanage where Emma needed his help and he should finish quickly.
So, he devoured his watered down oats and tossed the bowl, almost without looking, into the sink. Then with a sigh as he glanced back at the comfy living room chairs, he headed to his bedroom to get dressed.
After another half an hour of laying on the bed while getting dressed, he finally was ready to go. As he stepped out of the door and was locking it, a soft sound came from above and suddenly an avalance of snow buried him, him, covering his head and face and his whole body in snow. He sputtered for a few minutes before he was able to look back up at the roof to see who might have done it. But there was no one there.
He shook his head. Maybe it was coincidence? No, certainly not. That was too much snow to be accidental. Anyway, it couldn't hurt to investigate the roof.
He hurried around the house, his wet clothes cold against his fur, and climbed up the ladder to the platform on the roof. There wasn't anyone up there. He scratched his head. Nothing that could have made the snow fall. He peered around from his vantage point. Maybe he could see someone running away?
There was no one in sight though. He went over to investigate the place it had fallen from. There were the clear signs of it having piled up on his roof during the night, so maybe, maybe it could have fallen on its own, but he doubted it. But there was nothing he could do now. He shrugged and hurried down again. He was chilled to the bone.
He changed quickly and stood in front of the fire in the cozy living room for a few minutes. it felt lovely. So warm and comforting.
His eye fell upon the clock on the wall and he started. Emma was expecting him in less than ten minutes. He rushed around the house and grabbed his jacket and ran out the door, hardly stopping to lock it.
He tore down the streets, barely pausing at the corners to look for carters or other walking rabbits. Once he almost ran into a doe. He quickly apologized and moved on.
He neared the palace and wondered if perhaps Emma was running late too, and if she would exit the palace and join him and not get upset. He stood a short distance away, looking at it and hoping she would emerge, but she didn't. He sighed. Of course Emma would be ahead of the time. She was always thinking ahead. Jo ground his teeth, wishing he hadn't overslept.
He hurried on, the rushed walk warming him up. As he neared the wall of the palace, he was hit square in the mouth with a flying snowball. "Hey!" A startled yell escaped his mouth and he immediately knelt down and scooped up a handful of snow to fire back at the unknown assailer. But no one showed themselves, no laughter came from behind the pile of snow.
His eyebrows creased, then another snowball flew at him. He dodged it, but it still smacked on his leg, spreading the cold wetness all over.
He yelped again as the melted snow ran into onto his feet. They were already so cold. Did they have to be wet, too?
He fired his snowball at the place the snowballs were coming from, but it broke harmlessly against a building. He frowned. What kind of snowball fight was this? No one he knew would have fun in such a boring sport as this. Snowball fights were supposed to be back and forth, not one sided. There was no fun if there wasn't a challenge to it.
He dropped the second snowball he was holding and stomped over to the pile and peered behind the snow dune. His mouth dropped open. It was a snowball firing machine. A complicated machine was scooping up the balls from behind the massive pile and firing them randomly. He watched, awe struck, as one fired past him, then another.
He stared after the snowballs and was knocked on his face by a particularly large one hitting him in the back. He sprawled over on the wet ground and groaned. Now his clothes were all wet again. But he couldn't go home and change. He was probably already late.
He glanced at the machine. If he didn't dismantle it, the guilty party of this prank would probably use it on other rabbits. He wondered who had done it. Lallo perhaps? Lallo had mentioned doing something of the sort, though certainly not this elaborate, several weeks ago.
He strolled over to the machine and, hardly glancing at it, removed around ten of the gears. At the first removal it shuddered and stopped, but he removed the others just in case. Then he nodded, satisfied, and continued on his way.
He reached Emma's orphanage about ten minutes late.
"What took you so long Jo?" Emma asked as she greeted him. She eyed his outfit. "And why are you so wet?"
Jo flushed and mumbled something about ridiculously wet weather. He didn't want Emma to know about the pranks he'd played recently. These were probably a retaliation of those, now that he thought about it. He just had to find out who it was, he thought grimly.
He put it aside to help Emma though, trusting that there would be no pranks in her presence. He was right. The rest of the day was quiet. He began to suspect that the machine was the extent of it. Something so elaborate would probably be the most Lallo could handle.
He was almost confident it was Lallo. He had played several pranks on Lallo this week. From painting his chair when he sat down, to putting a pile of snow in his bed, he probably deserved these. They were very minimal though, he mused. Not masterfully done and executed, as his own always were.
Later that day as he went home he expected more pranks, because what prankist would leave it at two, and not very major ones, at that? Pranks were supposed to actually do something to the one on the receiving end beside just hitting him with snowballs.
So he rounded every corner on edge and stepped as lightly as he could, but nothing happened. He shook his head in amusement. Whoever thought they could really do pranks was clearly a beginning amateur. Definitely Lallo.
He hurried forward to enter his warm, cozy home and finally get out of his wet clothes. They were still quite damp, despite being in front of the fire at the orphanage for a good amount of time. Of course Emma didn't have anything for him to change into, so he had been forced to stay in his wet clothes. They had warmed some while he was there, but coming back out into the snow again had chilled him to the bone.
He shivered and continued on. When he came in view of his house he stopped short. Every door and window leading into his house was… completely covered in snow. If he had been holding something he would have dropped it in shock. Whoever did this was not going to get away with it.
He ran forward and walked all the way around the house. It was piled to every window. He rubbed his head. How could he move all this? And he was already so cold.
He heard laughter from above, on the roof. He glanced up quickly. Leaning over the edge was Picket and Cole. He clenched his jaw. "What in Natalia did you do?" he yelled.
Cole smirked. "Figure it out."
"Get down here and help me!" Jo shouted. "This is unacceptable!"
Picket raised his eyebrows. "Well then, so was blocking me into a room for hours on end. So was shooting an arrow right past Cole while he was holding the tea tray. So was-"
"I get it, I get it," Jo mumbled. "But at least I helped you afterward!"
Cole shook his head and smirked. "Eventually you did. We'll see you soon, Jo!" He and Picket disappeared from his view to go climb down the ladder.
Jo ran around to the other side of his house and he saw Picket and Cole running off in the other direction. "Come back!" he cried. "How am I supposed to get inside?"
He could barely hear Picket's shout over the wind. "Dig!" Jo groaned. He was not going to be warm any time soon.
The evening before:
"We need to put the snowball machine here," Picket said, pointing to the map they'd laid out on the table. "Then he won't see it coming."
"Do you think we'll be able to pile up all the snow in time?" Cole asked. "Before he gets home, I mean?"
Picket pursed his lips. "Maybe. It's hard with my arm though." He glanced at his shoulder. "Lallo would help us though. And Weezie would too. We can do it," he said determinedly.
Cole nodded. "It's payback time."