Twelve: Of GrammarBootCamp and Other Things
"So," said Joanna as they stumbled back to their car after dinner. "What are we going to do with the Jellciles? I mean, we can't keep 'em in their jars, that's inhumane."
Misty shrugged. "I'm not letting mine out in the car, just so you know. Alida seems to be a little... cranky."
She looked at her pixay. It snarled at her.
"I see what you mean." Joanna frowned. "We should probably look into a cage or something for them. Hey!" She grinned. "This is a junkyard! We should be able to find lots of things that we could use."
Misty groaned. "Do we have to today? I'm exhausted."
"Come on, little kitty. If we don't, then everyone else will get the good stuff. Who needs sleep?"
"I do. Otherwise I'll get cranky."
"You're always cranky!"
"That's not the point!"
"Sure it is! Now come on, and stop being such a party-pooper."
"Fine." Misty pouted. "Let's go."
They put down their jars and went out to look for something useful. Apparently a fair few others had gotten the same idea; they could spot Tera Earth rummaging through a pile of old clothes, perhaps in search of something soft for her Jellcile to sleep on. Ratha and Starfire were bickering over whether or not they would drag an aged washing machine and put it in the backseat of their shared car; and Richard and Kara were selecting between two rusty birdcages (one had a swing, the other had a mirror.)
"Now let's see," mumbled Joanna and let her eyes sweep across the junkyard. "We need something... sturdy, but not too big. We must be able to carry it back with us. You think Polly and Alida can share a place?"
"That depends," replied Misty dryly. "Do we want them both to survive until the end of the year? Pixays don't seem too keen on each other."
"Point taken. Maybe we can divide something..."
They went through the various assortment of trash for a good while, they even got in a fight with Sacai Stormcage about the birdcage that Richard and Kara had discarded (they had finally decided on the one with a swing) and been forced to run when the Pollicle student had started growling threateningly.
When they finally found something, it was late.
"That's it, I give up!" exclaimed Misty and threw herself down on the ground. "Let the little buggers live in their tiny jars for all I care. I want to sleep."
"You're heartless," sighed Joanna. "There must be something... Hey, look!"
She pointed happily at something that shone in the pale moonlight. It was made out of glass, and it was a wonder that it wasn't as broken as it could have been.
It was an old aquarium.
"It's perfect!" breathed Joanna. "Come on now and help me with it!"
Since they had become smaller, or if it was the surrounding world that had gotten bigger when they came to OFUC, it was something of a challenge to get the aquarium back to the TSE 4. Misty whined a whole lot, and at the end even Joanna felt like collapsing, but they somehow managed to get the ungainly thing into the passenger seat of the car.
"We should probably make it a little more homey," said Joanna. "But that can wait till tomorrow."
"You got that right. Goodnight."
Misty didn't even wait for a reply, she simply rolled herself up in the backseat in a very cat-like way, and soon she was snoring softly.
Joanna yawned. It had been a very long day. She picked up her blanket and lied down on her part of the seat. Soon, she was fast asleep.
They woke up to the sweet sound of mini-Pollicles barking. Loudly. Very loudly.
"This isn't fair!" wailed Misty. "It's Saturday! We should be able to sleep in!"
"Get up, you lazy little buggers!" came a voice from outside the car, which Joanna recognized as belonging to Ekwy. "The time is 4.49, the sun is shining... or it would, if it had been up yet, and the weather is perfect for a nice morning jog! Get UP!"
"Jogging is evil," muttered Misty and snuggled into her seat. "We'll stay in. What can they do?"
Joanna looked out through the dirty window and into the eyes of Bombalureena, Mistofyleis, Rumpolteaser and Mungojarry. They were growling threateningly, showing their sharp, yellowish teeth.
"Are you one hundred percent sure that you want to know?" she asked.
"They can't get in here." Misty looked out at the minis uncertainly. "Can they?"
"They have a Misto-mini with them, of course they can!"
Misty sighed deeply. "All right. Come on."
They got out of the car and were chased by the four happily barking minis to the area by the TSE 1. On the hood of the old car sat most of the Jellicle population, all with some amount of food in front of them. They looked like they were waiting for some sort of sport event to take place, and waved merrily when they spotted the fic-writers.
In front of the car, as body guards, stood Ekwy and Gecka. They had rather intimidating grins on their faces.
"Anyone knows what's going on?" Joanna heard Tie Kerl ask.
"GrammarBootCamp!" exclaimed Ekwy proudly. "We have put this off for far too long, and sooner or later you have to learn."
"Ten hut!" howled Gecka. "Form a line, you lousy sack of Pollicle-drippings! I'll get you in shape if I have to chase you around the junkyard myself! Go! GogogogoGO!"
The students hurried to form a straight line, which the two Agents started pacing down, inspecting their faces.
"You!" Ekwy barked suddenly and pointed at Puredeadthingy. "Spell 'than' as in, 'I would much rather eat caviar than Strassburg Pie'!"
"Eh..." said Puredeadthingy. "T-H-E-N?"
"WRONG! Drop and give me twenty! Anyone else dare to give it a shot?"
No one answered. That didn't matter, because Ekwy pointed at Aislin Kageno anyway. "You!"
Aislin's eyes darted around her classmates for help. "T-H-A-N?"
"Better! When do you use 'then' with an e, miss Kageno?"
"When... saying that something took place at a later date."
Ekwy smiled. "Good girl." Her eyes went over to the next person in line, which just happened to be Joanna. "Spell 'its' as in 'its ways are extremely annoying and vomit-inducing'!"
Damnit. The one thing that she could never remember. "I-T-apostrophe-S?" Joanna suggested nervously.
"WRONG! Drop down!"
Joanna groaned, but got on her knees and started making push-ups.
Ekwy glared at the students. "I-T-apostrophe-S is a contraction of 'it is'!" she called out. "What is it?"
"A contraction of 'it is'!"
"Once more with feeling! What is it?"
"A contraction of 'it is'!"
Gecka smirked and joined her sister in yelling at the students. "I-T-S is a term of possession, 'its habits are easy to monitor.' It's and its are not interchangeable! Repeat!"
"It's and its are not interchangeable!"
"Repeat!"
"It's and its are not interchangeable!"
"And I was just starting to like her, too," muttered Joanna as she did her sixth push-up.
It is never nice to be awakened in the crack of dawn and be forced to do a lot of gymnastics before breakfast. It is even worse if a bunch of Jellicles are sitting on the hood of a car right next to you, laughing and throwing pieces of mouse-cake with bread and dried peas on your head.
But bad things get better if you discuss it over breakfast with some friends, and that was what Joanna and Misty did.
"I hate OFUC!" proclaimed Allison. "I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!"
"My entire body hurts!" wailed Zazzie and ripped her bread into tiny, tiny pieces. "There are pains in muscles I didn't even know I had!"
"At least we don't have any classes today," said Misty and sipped her water with a grimace. "What do you suggest we do?"
"Well, if we want to graduate and get our fanfic-licences, then we should probably take care of our Jellciles today," replied DemiGold. "You heard miss Minnaloushe. We have to tend to them so that they can be GoodFic when they grow up."
"You're so boring," sighed Jessedandle.
"I have to say that I'm with Demi," said Joanna. "It's either that or you can stay at OFUC and be trampled on by minis until the day you die."
"I don't get to call a friend?" asked Misty and smiled a little. "Fine, I'm in. Hey, what do you suppose Jellciles eat?"
"Zorn eats lettuce," informed them Ralli. She had been considerate enough to bring her pixay with her to the table, and was now stuffing small green pieces of lettuce through the breathing holes of the jar.
Joanna took a peek inside. The red-headed Jellcile was currently ripping the lettuce into shreds before eating it, but she didn't look very pleased with it. That is, the eating part. She was very happy about the ripping-into-shreds.
"Maybe it's not her favourite meal, exactly," said Joanna carefully.
Ralli sighed. "No. But I tried a piece of that pie that the faculty threw at us this morning, and she wouldn't touch that at all, so I'm not really sure what to do."
"Skillet doesn't eat anything canon," informed them Eclectica. "I've tried rice pudding, salmon paste, even curry! She won't touch it. That's probably why Zorn's not too keen on lettuce, even though she will eat it. It's too close to cabbage."
"We have chicken on the table," said Joanna. "You think that's uncanon enough?"
Ralli shrugged and grabbed a chicken leg. "Let's see."
She carefully opened the lid of Zorn's jar, and dropped the food so that the pixay could eat it. For a moment, Zorn did nothing but stare at the chicken. Then she sniffed it... and then she attacked, viciously and suddenly. It was as if a tiny tornado had gone off inside the jar. None of the students could see what was happening in it, but when the fogs lifted, Zorn looked very full and nothing remained of the chicken leg but the bone.
"Like a piranha," said Loz impressedly. "Cool."
"Disturbing, the word is disturbing," Eclectica corrected her.
"Yeah, that too."
"We should probably go and check on ours now, Misty," said Joanna and got up from her chair. "They must be really hungry."
The two grabbed a pair of chicken legs and said goodbye to their friends.
They spent the day making the aquarium more habitable for their pixays. Misty found a piece of cardboard that they could use to separate it into two rooms, so that the Jellciles could get their privacy, and Joanna ripped an old blanket in two, thus giving their pets something soft to sleep on. The chicken legs and some water were put in jar-lids in the corners of the aquarium, and the top of the cage was covered with chicken net so that the Jellciles wouldn't escape. At the end, it was rather nice. Even Polly and Alida seemed somewhat pleased at their new home.
Joanna and Misty sat watching the pixays for a long time.
"They are rather cute, when they're not fighting and hissing at you," said Misty after a while.
"Yeah, they are. You think we'll be able to tame them?"
"Maybe. We can always hope so."
"Misty?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you like it here?"
Misty thought about it for a while. "It's... different. And we get injured a lot. But yeah. Yeah, I kinda like it anyway."
"Me too."
Answers to Reviews:
Eclectica: Brain... shutting... down... Bad... summary... cannot... compute... .:brain sizzles and dies:.
Antigone: I'm with you. CATS need more femslash.
Roman de la Croix: Hm, yes... good question. I suppose all ideas could be considered good, if they are done in a good way. So your Jellcile is an idea that both you and miss Minn will like.
Eponine: Well. Before I started this story, I needed a name for the course coordinator. So I surfed the 'Net for a while, and then I found a website with a bunch of quotes and poems and things about cats. And there I found the Yeats poem, and I shamelessly stole the name.
Jemima-luvah: Exactly. Practice. .:smiles a little:. Why do you think I'm letting the students take care of an idea before starting to write it? Antigone was the only one who 'ships a female/female couple and wrote it specifically in her enrollment form, that's why she is technically the only femslasher. I try to keep to the enrollments when writing something that has to do with student-reviewers, otherwise things would get too complicated.
Yeah, you can kill 'Sues in the Heavyside. But where are they gonna go once they've died again? Wisconsin?