Quack Quack walked into the dining room for breakfast.
"Quack," he greeted Kaeloo.
"Hello, Quack Quack," Kaeloo smiled as she watched him grab a yogurt from the fridge. His happiness and self-esteem levels were very high, which was a good sign. Nothing to worry about. Quack Quack sat down at the table. The table was square, so each person got to sit on one side of it. Kaeloo plopped herself down in the seat next to Quack Quack. Mr. Cat and Stumpy trudged into the room, the former stifling a yawn.
"Well, it's about time you showed up!" Kaeloo said in a slightly annoyed tone of voice. "You two should be more like Quack Quack and wake up earlier!"
She glanced at them and noticed that Stumpy's emotions had not improved since the previous day, and Mr. Cat's graphs measured pretty similar to Stumpy's, with his self-esteem being even lower than the squirrel's. Kaeloo briefly wondered if comparing them to Quack Quack was such a good idea, and if maybe she shouldn't have done that.
It was no coincidence that Kaeloo had sat down in the seat next to Quack Quack. The only seats available were the one next to her and the one facing the wall with the photo on it, and since Mr. Cat usually liked to sit next to Kaeloo, Stumpy would end up sitting in the seat where he could clearly see the photo. And, just as she had predicted, the two of them did exactly what she'd intended them to do. Kaeloo eagerly watched Stumpy's emotional indicators as he sat in the chair, waiting for him to look up. To her dismay, his feelings of negativity only increased when he looked at the photograph, and the expression on his face had shifted from tired to outright irritated. The picture seemed to have done more harm than good.
"Stumpy, would you mind trading places with Mr. Cat?"
It would probably be for the best if Stumpy wasn't sitting in a position where the photo was directly across from him.
"Why?" Stumpy and Mr. Cat asked in unison. Kaeloo couldn't exactly tell them what she was up to. Why did they have to ask so many questions? Kaeloo was already distraught by her friends' poor emotional states, and now that things weren't going according to plan, she was getting stressed.
"BECAUSE I SAID SO!" she screeched, slamming her fork into the table. Everyone else jumped back a little, and Mr. Cat and Stumpy hastily swapped seats. Once they were settled in, Kaeloo checked Stumpy's emotional indicators again. Fear and anxiety were running high, presumably from the shock of what had just happened. Well, Kaeloo supposed she could just check on him a little later, after he had calmed down a bit. With that in mind, she decided to just focus on eating her breakfast, so she turned away from Stumpy to face her plate, catching a glimpse of Mr. Cat's emotional indicators as she did so.
Kaeloo was absolutely horrified by what she saw. Not only were Mr. Cat's sadness levels up, but his self-esteem level was somehow even lower than before. What on Earth was going on? He appeared to be intently staring at something behind her as he poked at his cereal with his spoon. Kaeloo accidentally-on-purpose knocked her phone off the table.
"Oops! Let me just pick that up," she said. Those lying lessons Mr. Cat gave her were really working well. Kneeling under the table, she turned around to scan the wall behind her, searching for the source of her friend's discomfort. The only thing there was the photo she'd hung up the previous night. Why would that upset him? He wasn't even in the - oh. Oh. This wasn't her intention at all. Not only had her plan not helped Stumpy in the slightest, but she had hurt Mr. Cat's feelings by accident. There had to be some way she could make him feel more included and boost his mood.