Klaus POV

'Ben! Where's the cotton candy pink yarn?', I yelled out, frustrated as I was digging through the drawers in our craft room.

'Um, have you checked the bottom drawer of the organizer in the far left corner?', he yelled back, from the other room. He was working on spicing up our Etsy site, and I was running around like a maniac trying to fulfill orders. There were so many cat sweaters to make that I felt like I was losing my mind.

'It's not there, Ben!', I yelled back, after flinging every object out of the said drawer. Not there. Ugh.

Ben came walking in, holding the laptop we shared for business purposes. He set it down on the desk, scooting over cluttered piles of cross-stitch materials and embroidered wedding pillows. He looked down at the table, and then grabbed something.

'It's right here, Klaus. Right where you were sitting.', he said, waving it in the air calmly.

I snatched it from his hand quickly. 'Cheese and crackers, Klaus.', I mumbled, and then sat back down. I looked at the laptop, seeing the shop design he was working on.

'Looks nice. It needs more cats, though.', I said, scrolling down the page.

'It already has like six cats. All on the top page. We need people to know we make custom clothing for other animals, too, not just cats.'

'Do we ever actually sell anything other than cat clothes?', I asked, trying to get him to see reason. He shook his head shyly. 'That's what I thought.'

'But hey, listen!', he said, getting excited. 'I have and idea, look.'. He started rummaging through the drawers and then pulled out a smaller knit blue hat, and then walked over to our turtle terrarium. He picked up Davriel, our turtle, and brought him to me.

'Look.', he said, putting the hat on Davriel's head. 'Turtle hats.', he said, smiling widely.

'That'll never sell, Ben.', I said. 'Think economically.'

He glanced down nervously at the laptop, cringing as he still gripped Davriel in his hat.

'I kinda already uploaded the products.', he said, smiling nervously.

I grabbed the laptop, exiting the editing page and going into our shop. Yes, ten different designs of turtle hats, all available in twelve different colors and patterns, 4.99 or 5.99 depending on the size of your turtle.

'This is a partnership, octopus boy.', I said, rubbing my temples. 'We needed to have a meeting about this first.'

'What was I supposed to do, come into the craft room and say, 'hey Klaus, I have an idea. I think we should offer turtle hats now'? I feel that my creative expression and ideas should get just as much air as yours do.'

'Bu-'

'Remember when you put out cat belts? Yeah?'

'Yes.', I said, nodding my head timidly.

'And how did those do?', he said, giving an expectant face.

'We sold a bunch of them.'

'And guess what? You didn't consult me first. So guess what again? I'm leaving the turtle hats on the site. That's final. '

'I'm just saying that the amount of people who have turtles is going to be far less than the amount of people who have cats, Ben. It's obviously not going to do well.'

'It's all about product placement, Klaus, Imagine.', he said, picking up a marker as he sat Davriel back in the terrarium. He started to draw something.

'See, this is Davriel.', he said, pointing to his turtle drawing. 'He has no hat. He's a turtle without a hat. Boring.'

I nodded, kicking back in the chair.

'See, turtles without hats are boring, and probably sad.', he said, erasing the turtle's smile and giving it a frowny face.

'But see, if we add a hat, it's not boring anymore, and the percentage of the turtle population that's happy goes up, presumably.', he said, sketching a knit beanie onto the turtle and giving its smile back.

'But see also, that turtles are much more exciting animals when they wear hats, correct?'

'Correct.', I said, rubbing my chin hairs.

'So, the big idea here is that if turtle hats are available, then people will see that and be more enticed by the idea of having a pet turtle, and in turn, they buy more turtles, and then order our hats. Because if they don't, they wasted their money on a boring turtle. So it's a cycle. Case and point.', he said, putting the cap on the marker.

I clapped, slowly. 'Bravo, Ben.'

He bowed, laughing.

'Turtle hats can stay.'

Right as I said that, the laptop dinged. I checked it, and Ben came walking over to see too.

'Oh, somebody ordered a turtle beanie! See. Told you.', he said, looking proud of himself.

'Huh. Guess you were right.'

Another ding.

'Oh, another one.'

And again. Ben's face lit up, and I was super shocked.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

'Holy crap, Ben, what the heck have you done?', I asked, freaking out.

And the series of dings grew quicker and quicker, people ordering them one right after the other, and Ben and I ran around the room frantically.

'How on earth are we gonna make this many turtle hats?', I screamed at him, scared.

'I don't know, shut up and knit!', he said, chucking a pile of yarn at me, nearly knocking me over.

After some time, and after we had covered the entire floor in strung out yarn and were still frantically working, there was a knock at the door.

'Come in!', Ben shouted, tying up the end of a puffball on the end of a pink, purple and blue turtle hat.

It was Roman. He opened the door, his face utterly confused to see the mess we were in, and then almost left.

'What do you need?', asked him, not looking up from my frantic knitting. Still, the orders kept coming through. They had all night. But we were in a knitting frenzy. We could not be stopped.

'I need to talk to you...', he said, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.

'Only if you come help us knit turtle hats.', I answered firmly.

'T.. turtle hats?', he asked, even more confused.

'Yes. Turtle hats. Now come in and sit your butt down and help us.', I said, throwing a half used ball of teal yarn at him. He caught it, and sat down. He got to work.

'What did you need to talk about?', I asked, starting a new hat.

'Um... I'm kinda worried about Annie.', he said, his voice nervous.

'Annie? What about her?', I asked, not too concerned.

'Well, earlier when we went out to Griddy's to study, she went out to follow this random stranger she saw across the street, wouldn't tell us where she was going, or why.', he explained.

'Yes, continue.'

'She hasn't come back yet, and we drove around the entire city looking for her. She isn't in the city.'

I plopped the turtle hat I was working on down in my lap, on the pile of all the others I'd finished.

'How long has it been?', I asked, concerned and stressed out, shaking cramps out of my hands.

'Thirteen hours.', he said, stopping his knitting.

I looked over at Ben, who still frantically knitted.

'Do you have any idea where she might be?', I asked, rubbing my temples.

'No idea. We've looked everywhere.'

I thought for a moment. 'I mean, Annie's a smart girl. She wouldn't get herself into trouble. Also, if she was in danger, she's stupid powerful. She could get out of it if she needed to, with a flick of the wrist.'

'Yeah, that's what I thought too, but why isn't she back by now? What if someone hurt her?', Roman asked, his concern growing. I appreciated that. He truly cared for Annie.

'Did you see the guy she followed?'

'Briefly.'

'Describe him.'

'I'm not sure. Brown hair, bit of a scruffy beard, sunglasses, khaki pants I think.'

I pursed my lips together.

'And about how tall did he look? Young or old?'

'Maybe six foot? And he middle aged. Maybe mid-forties? I swear, he looked like a pedophile. I wanted to run after her, but I didn't.', Roman said, cringing.

I dropped my knitting needles and cleared my lap off, shaking the hats into the floor.

'Can you handle the rest of this on your own Ben?', I asked, looking down at him.

He sighed deeply. 'I can try.'

'What's going on?', Roman asked, standing up, confused.

'I know who the man is. And if she's still with him, she's in big trouble.', I explained.

'Then we have to get her back.', Roman said, nervously winding up the ball of yarn he was using.

'Agreed.'