The Blue Werewolf

C/By Kenjaje

Chapter 3: Preparations

--October 29; 1:52 PM; The Tower

"...Finally! You're awake!" Stitch heard Lilo's muffled voice in his ears. He opened his eyelids with extreme force; they resisted him heavily. "How late did you go to sleep last night?" She asked, as he tried to sit up.

"Last night?" Stitch thought. He tried to remember, but his mind felt like a thousand rocks. "Naga nota." He replied, scratching between his ears. Lilo dropped down from his slightly raised bed and landed with a fumbling noise. Stitch peered over the edge, but Lilo was fine.

"Pleakley made breakfast." She spoke, as thought nothing had happened. "Come down when you're ready ok?"

"Oketaka." He told her, and she wandered to the elevator and pressed the button to go down, smiling at him as she drifted down from view. Stitch scratched himself over more; it felt as though he had just played in the grass. He scratched and scratched, but it didn't do anything to the tiny concentrated spots of tingling itch. While he scratched, he thought of last night. "Was it...real?" He asked himself. It felt as though it was a dream, but simultaneously it felt as thought it indeed was real. He couldn't decide.

Then he remembered the last bits of his "dream"; an animal bit him in the left arm. He felt the pain as he remembered it as if it were happening again; it felt very real. He ran a hand across his fur, trying to find bite marks or concealed blood—there was nothing. He shook his head.

"Sagasha makootaba." He muttered to himself, and hopped off the bed to the elevator, taking it down to the second floor. He finished stretching and yawning as it landed with a soft, airy thump, and proceeded down the hallway, scratching again at the prickles of itch all over his body.

He slumped down the stairs and looked to his right into the kitchen; two plates were left full adjacent to each other on the large wooden table. Lilo was nowhere to be found, he called out, but didn't get a response. He shrugged his shoulders and wandered into the kitchen. He walked in casually, in case he should be spotted, and proceeded past the table, and stopped; not at the counter, but at the coffee machine, of course.

He glanced around; to the right, to the left, behind him, above him. Slowly he turned his head to the center and eyed his thick, dark trophy in the little flask. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached his hand up to the side, and turned the handle to the front. He moved it with a soft, steady grind of glass against the bottom of the stand. He stood, waiting for something to happen, but felt it was safe. Slowly he tipped the flask over, inching the spout of it closer to his lips...

"HA!" Stitches fur puffed out with surprise as Lilo jumped out from the pantry to the right of him, darted over and tackled him; seizing the flask in one hand and holding him stable with the other. "You just can't pass up an opportunity, can you?" She said slyly. Stitch scoffed to himself at the fact that he hadn't recognized that this was a trap.

"Oketaka, oketaka; Stitch give! Stitch give!" He threw his hands up in surrender and waved them peacefully. Lilo let go of his neck and stepped up to the counter, placing the flask of desire back into the stand of the coffee machine.

"Good boy." She smirked. Stitch grumbled, but still smiled. As if nothing happened they walked to the table and sat to eat the cold bacon and pancakes. Stitch swallowed his whole in a fraction of a second, before Lilo had even started. "You're staying." She ordered.

"Uh huh." He agreed, not minding the wait.

"Were you able to get to sleep last night?" She asked with a mouthful of food.

"Eh." He replied. It was obvious they both had, but she was referring to the story, and if it was hard for him to close his eyes without being paranoid that something was going to come through their window.

"I can't remember when I got to sleep...I just got too tired after a while, I think."

"Lilo slept well, Stitch woke and saw."

"Nightmare woke you?" He shrugged. "It woke me up. I dreamt you and I were out in the woods and a werewolf ambushed us...I don't think I'm going to keep that book in my room until Halloween is over." She said.

"Two days" Stitch said, holding up two claws that gleamed in the sunlight.

"Yup, two days until candy...our own that is. I don't think we'll get many people this year..." Lilo said sadly.

"Esa choppa katooka." Stitch said highly.

"Yeah, I suppose it is the thought that counts. Maybe we can get some experiments together and go trick-o-treating..." Lilo stalled in her sentence and thought about that idea for a second. "Or...maybe not." She said, thinking of all the disaster that would inevitably come. Stitch giggled, thinking the same thing.

"Konjuta?"

"No, I haven't decided yet. Have you?"

"Naga." He replied, putting his hands to his cheeks.

"Maybe you and I should think of ideas that go together, like..." Lilo put the butt of the fork to her face and tapped it a few times. "A cat and a pumpkin...a mouse and a rat...what else?"

"Stitch and Lilo?" He said.

"That'd be pretty boring to go as ourselves..." She replied. Stitch lowered his face in agreement. "Well, we can think about that later, Nani's taking us either tonight or tomorrow so we have some time. Until then, we have to get ready for the event." She said, putting down the silverware on the empty plate.

"Gaba ju chuta?"

"'What do I mean'? The decorations silly." Stitch shifted his mouth, as if to say 'I know that'. Lilo laughed and pushed away from the table, the chair making a loud scooting noise across the tile floor. "C'mon, they're in the attic." She beckoned, motioning Stitch to follow her. He scooted out as well and waited for a second. After Lilo jetted up the stairs, he tiptoed toward the coffee machine. "And no coffee!" Lilo screamed from the hall.

"Oh..." Stitch groaned in guilt. "Coming Lilo." He pranced on all fours and skipped the stairs, climbing up the wall and scaling the side of the hallway, meeting up with her at the attic string that hovered above her head. He stepped onto the platform—that was 'down' to him—and pulled on the string. His feet lurched forward and he flipped over to reorient his positioning so that he landed on the ground. The stairs flew out from the latch that now hung wide open, and Stitch caught them with one hand, letting them down gently. "Aga-ju chata." He said, bowing and allowing her first entry.

"Thank you." She said, walking up the flight, he followed after she was out of the way. "Forget decorating the house." Lilo said, "This place is so scary we just have to ring people up here; there's a thick layer of dust everywhere." Stitch knew that before she said it, his nose clogged and his throat gagged at the amount of dust looming around in the air, and on the chests and boxes that littered the old wooden storage space.

"Chaki." Stitch pointed at the far end of the attic. He assumed that's where the Halloween stuff was, as there was a large jack-o-lantern sitting out in the open.

"Nice eye." Lilo said, clomping over to the chests. "I'll throw 'em down, you catch 'em."

"Eh." He replied, giving a solute before he dove down to the floor. "Ready!" He called up through the trapdoor.

"Ok, give me a sec." She called back, moving a heavy box onto the floor. It hit with a thump and grinded with the dust as she scooted it across the floor and dumped it through the opening in the floor. "Catch!" She called. A split second later she heard Stitch yell in pain and a crashing noise. She peered over the edge of the attic entrance and saw him on the floor, his arms in the air, and the box to the side of him, slightly bent. "Are you ok?"

"Oh...I'm ok," he said cheerfully, "I'm fluffy!" Immediately he groaned again and clasped a hand to his forehead. "This time, warn Stitch before dropping." He said.

"Ok, ok." She complied. Stitch saw her face duck back behind the ceiling, and heard her footsteps as she walked to his right. He heard the familiar sounds of her scooting another box over, and this time he was ready. "Ok, it's coming down." She said. He spread his arms and a moment later the heavy box dropped. With a grunt he caught it, hefted it, and set it down gently to the side. "Three more." Lilo said, as she ran back to the stash.

Five minutes later, all five boxes were in the hallway, and Stitch was helping Lilo step down from the stairs. He climbed the walls and shut the door on the roof, securing it, and then peeled off onto the floor. He carried four—one in each arm—while Lilo carried one.

"Ok, here's the deal," Lilo said, as they slumped the boxes onto the floor in the living room. "Nani's got me in charge of decorations while she gets extra stuff and candy." Stitch's eyes lit up at the word "candy". "Our job is to get all this," she motioned toward the boxes, "up before tonight. If we start now, we can probably finish by then." Stitch looked at the time, it was now almost three o'clock.

"Stitch slept late?" He asked, interrupting Lilo's little speech.

"Yeah you did. I spent all morning trying to wake you up." She said.

"Oh...soka." He said, not realizing she had been waiting on him to wake up.

"It's ok, I understand. I didn't get up until about eleven." Stitch smiled. "Ok, let's get starated, c'mon." Stitch nodded, and immediately they were underway, taking decoration after decoration out of the humongous boxes that seemed to migrate all around the house, depending on where they were needed. Along with a few more trips to the attic to get out big decorations they had saved for later.

All through the hours of their decretive project, however, Stitch kept thinking about the night before. Why did it seem so real...and yet so dreamlike at the same time? He tried to figure it out. If it was real, where was the bite mark? If it wasn't real, how did he wind up with so many grass-irritations? These thoughts lingered until the sun went down of their little house, and night fell once again. Halloween, was only a full day away.