Chapter 14: The Christmas Parade
Early Wednesday morning...
"Mike, why are you up so early every morning?" Stella rubbed her eyes and closed them again.
Mike walked back over to the bed. "This morning is the Christmas parade, dontcha remember?"
Stella pulled the blanket back over her head. "Wake me up in an hour...or a few, when it's a decent time..."
"You don't think two is a decent time?"
"No, now wake me up at six."
"That's a late time..."
Later that morning...
Caitlin sighed as she walked around the clubhouse table. "I'm sorry, Pashmina, I hope Bossy isn't doing you any trouble to babysit everyday..."
Pashmina set down her coffee cup. "Nah. He just wants a lot of things. Penelope likes him, don't you?"
Penelope sat on the floor with her arms crossed with an unpleasant look on her face.
"See, Caity? No problem."
"Well, could you watch after him all morning? I gotta go do a float for the parade, and I didn't want him to be out there in all that cold and I was afraid he'd get sick..."
"Sure." Pashmina stood up. "Bossy doesn't bother us." She walked over to the playpin where Bossy was lying under a blanket asleep. She picked him up. "Say bye to Mommy, Bossy!"
Bossy hiccupped.
Once they left, Caitlin went to go get ready for the parade. She dyed all of her brown fur black and put on a black dress. Caitlin sighed as she walked back into the main room to get a few flyers...
"Hey, Cait, c'mon in." Mike opened the big double doors that led into the Bad Hams Place. Caitlin walked past him into the Place.
"So when is the parade?"
"It begins at ten."
"It's only eight thirty..."
"We gotta go check out our float."
At nine, all of the Bad Hams left together to the parade. All of the guys were wearing black shirts and black jeans, and all of the girls were wearing black dresses. When they got to the parade, Stella asked, "Where's our float?"
Mike had an unbearably awesome grin on his face. "You'll see what I've arranged..." He then began walking down the line past all of the floats. The other Bad Hams glanced at each other and shrugged.
When Mike stopped, he pointed to a float. "That's ours."
It was a float, alright. I'll give it that at the least. It was a large, black float decorated with a big Christmas tree in the middle. The Christmas tree was kiddishly decorated, but in the middle read a sign...
"'Complimentarily decorated by the children who survived the Christmas train'?!?" Number 1 laughed so hard he actually fell back onto the pavement. "Mike, that's freakin' hilarious! You got them to do all of the decors?"
Mike laughed, too. "Yeah, what do you expect?"
Stella shook her head and put it in her paws. "Oh, dear God..."
A familiar guy came around the corner... Caitlin glanced up at him and knew exactly who it was. She pulled on Natsu's sleeve and whispered, "Oh my God..."
Natsu turned pale but then looked around. "What?"
"It's Vance, that gay-as-a-flower photographer!"
Vance approached the float. "Hello! Mrs. Taisho-Kun?"
Caitlin turned pale. "Y-, I mean, no, I'm Cait Shoxxi. I'm a friend of hers." Caitlin glanced down at the flyers she was holding onto and held one up. "Have you, er, seen her husband?"
Mike stared blankly at Caitlin with his jaw dropped open. He wanted to laugh, yet it sort of wasn't funny. He slapped his forehead and shook his head with a deep, groaning sigh.
Vance shook his head. "Report it to the police, not me." He turned toward all of the Bad Hams. "Anyhoo, I was hired by the parade to pose everyone on their floats. Listen up, peeps!"
"Oh, dear God," Number 1 whispered into Kayla's ear.
"Just what I think," Kayla muttered.
"Alright, all of ya big guys back there behind and surrounding the Christmas tree!" Vance clapped his paws together.
While Vance put the Numbers into place, Mike glared sharply at Caitlin. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Cait?"
Caitlin shrugged. "I just thought I'd try to find him, that's all."
"Alright, the rest of you, get on the float!" Vance beckoned the last eight to get onto the float. "Alright, Master Mike, get in the middle."
"Now this guy knows some class..." Mike stood in the middle of the float.
"Alright, Mistress Stella, stand beside him on the right..."
Stella followed his instructions.
"Roger and Becky, stand beside Stella. And alright, Shoxxi girls... Miss Cait, you stand on Mike's left, and then Natalie, Dilla, and Kay-Z, in that order!"
"He must be a big Bad Ham fan," Natsu whispered into the other double agents' ears. "He actually knew our aliases."
"Alright, that looks good! Stay like that!" Vance then walked down to the next float.
"Hold on, guys, I gotta go put up these flyers," Caitlin remarked as she stepped down off of the float.
"Cait, get back here!" Mike apparently did not like the flyers. "That makes us look bad..."
Too late, Caitlin was already running down the sidewalk passing out the flyers and posting the flyers. The people who saw the flyers looked dumbfounded and kind of amused.
"Alright, the flyers are out!" Caitlin got back onto the float. "Maybe that might help..."
Mike sighed and shook his head. Stella nudged him hard in his ribs and whispered, "How much longer are you gonna do this to this poor girl?"
"I truly don't know," Mike mumbled.
Caitlin stood beside Mike and sighed. "If you guys know anything, I'll appreciate it if you tell me."
"SHE'S SUSPICIOUS," Stella whispered fiercely into Mike's ear.
"I KNOW," he growled quietly. He coughed.
"Anyway, who's driving this?" Megan asked Mike.
"One of the parents' of the children who survived the Christmas train." A cute and mischevious grin covered Mike's face that actually made Caitlin begin giggling silently.
"Where's the children that survived the Christmas train?" Kayla inquired.
"Look beside the float."
Everyone looked on both sides of the float. There were the children who survived the Christmas train with huge bags of candy.
"Wow, so we don't have to throw out candy? Yay!" Number 1 continued laughing his head off.
"Natsu, what do you have?" Caitlin questioned as she poked the big bag Natsu was holding onto. "Becky has one of those bags, too..."
Natsu opened the bag. It was filled to the brim with paint balls.
"OH MY GOD!" Caitlin laughed.
Soon the Christmas parade began. Mike glanced around a few glances before wrapping both arms around the girls' waists that were standing next to him. Caitlin was caught off-balance by this and fell over. Mike sighed and shook his head.
"I'm okay!" Caitlin stood back up. Mike tried again to wrap his arm around her waist, and it actually worked this time because Caitlin wasn't being so lame. Stella giggled because of the first part that she was being firmly held against Mike's side and the second part that Caitlin was just lame like she is in real life.
"Hey!"
Anyway...
Caitlin glanced around and thought, Alright, I just hope Boss isn't around for this part of the parade... I hope he doesn't see me snuggled against the side of a pure Sex God. But I do hope some of those Ham-Hams do see me... HEH!
The children who survived the Christmas train walked alongside the float throwing out the candy. They practically dumped out the whole bag of candy to the first few people. Natsu and Becky were occasionally throwing their paint balls at certain little children. One child tried to eat it but found only paint!
"HAHAHAHA!" Natsu and Becky laughed.
The little children ran out of candy after about forty minutes. Natsu and Becky also had run out of paint balls. One of the little kids tripped, and...
"Was there a bump in the road?" Mike glanced around.
Caitlin's jaw dropped. Natsu and Kayla began laughing, and so did the Numbers. Megan and Stella shook their heads along with Roger and Caitlin. Mike slapped his forehead and shook his head. He then actually began laughing, so now it was the laughing float.