Chocolate Pudding-chan: Enjoy, you reviewers, you.

"All right. Taruto, you've given me no choice but to review," Pai paused for suspence "The List"

The tallset alien stood in front of the projected screen, pushing his glasses up onto his nose, as Kisshu smirked, yanking another porcupine needle out of his friend's arm, as the ten-year-old let out yet another yelp.

Ever since Taruto had "accidentally" eaten Pai's contacts, the older alien had been forced to resort back to his reading glasses.

Which, of course, just gave him ANOTHER reason to despise his friend, who could be commonly be reffered to by people on the street who have encountered him as, "THAT kid?! OH MY GOSH!"

"OW!" Tart screamed, as Kisshu pulled out another long spine.

"Kisshu, you pull, and we," Pai motioned to Tart, "shall review The List."

Tart whimpered. He hated that stupid list, almost as much as he hated artichokes. What's the point of an artichoke anyways?

Pai pulled down the screen, and then hit a button on the projector as the image of "The List" appeared.

It was a list of things, accompanied by illustrations, entitled "Things to never EVER try to hug"

"Now," Pai said, picking up a ruler and pointing to the first picture and caption.

" 'Birds of prey' " he looked at Tart, and the young one frowned, then winced as Kisshu pulled another needle out of his side.

" 'NO' " Pai said, reading the caption. " 'Large Snakes, NO' "

Kisshu was trying as hard as he could to keep from laughing.

" 'Alligators/Crocodiles, NO' " Pai smacked the ruler under the next picture. " 'Porcupines' " he hissed, and Tart whimpered again,

"I'm sorry, it just looked upset, it was probably having a bad day, and—"

"Taruto…" Pai interrupted, taking off his glasses and rubbing his forehead, "What are we going to do with you?"

"Make me lunch? 'Cause I could really go for a pepperoni and pickle sandw--"

"No, Tart. No lunch today."

"Why?" Tart asked innocently.

"LOOK AT YOU. YOU HUGGED A PORCUPINE. What idiot in their right mind would even go NEAR one of those?!"

Tart shrugged.

Pai, exasperated, snarled "Oh yes, I forgot, YOU'RE NOT IN YOUR RIGHT MIND!"

But Tart still had feelings, and his friend's words hurt him as much as that grumpy porcupine had. Tart KNEW something was wrong with him, all those people in their clean suits with here fancy couches and ink blots had told him so. But no-one knew WHAT was wrong, not even Taruto himself, and that's what made the child so worried. He didn't know WHY he acted the way he did, he just did it.

Kisshu gave a yank, and the last needle was pulled out of Tart's leg. But he didn't feel any pain, his mind was somewhere else...

"I'm going to bed…" Pai said flatly, and disappeared.

"Nice job, kiddo." Kish remarked, looking down at his friend, who still had many red spots on him from where the needles had poked him. But he noticed that Tart had a face on Kish had never seen before. He'd expected, once again, for Tart to lose his focus and then just say something random like usual, but that's not what happened.

For the first time in awhile, Taruto's eyes clouded up. He looked up at Kisshu.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked quietly.

Kish kneeled down so he was at Tart's level.

"I don't know, kiddo. We've been trying to figure that out for a long time, but nobody knows why. Why would you ask that?"

"I…I don't know why either…"

Kish sat, thinking. "Even HE doesn't know what's wrong with him. If Tart himself doesn't know why he acts the way he does, than who will?"

Then, he noticed that his friend was sobbing.

"Taruto…." His said quietly. "I don't understand, how do you REALIZE they way you've been acting?"

"Because everybody tells me so…" he choked.

"Oh, I see…." Kish understood now. Tart had finally cracked under the pressure of being called insane so many times.

"But if he KNOWS he's crazy," Kisshu thought, "Then he's not really crazy at all…"

He helped Tart off the table. "You want a chicken wing?" he said, trying to cheer his friend up.

Taruto perked up right away "YAY!" he cried, speeding to the kitchen; as the thought repeated in Kisshu's head.

"Then he's not really crazy at all…."

Chocolate Pudding-chan: I think we ALL should review The List.