I woke up the next day at around seven. Felt fresh and full of energy.
Once I was dressed and ready, I went down the elevator, to second floor, where the Breakfast Dining Room is. The same one that's in Chapter One.
Everyone was already sitting down and eating. Greeny was eating cereal and drinking grape juice. That kid's hooked on grape juice. I mean, he's just addicted to grape juice.
Robert was having scrambled eggs, bacon, and cranberry/black cherry juice.
Kathy was having what she almost always has: toast bread, strawberry yogurt, and chocolate milk. She says it's to keep thin. Let's just say she's the most self-conscious member of the family.
When I came in the dining room, Patty was serving me chocolate chip waffles, with chocolate-banana milkshake. Hey! Being a teenager and a King is a good combination.
"Good morning, dear family," I said. After giving everyone a good morning kiss, I sat down, and started eating away. "How'd you all sleep last night?"
"Just fine," Patty said.
"Did you two get your homework done?" I asked Robert and Greeny.
They both nodded. "Sure did, Spiny," Robert said. "Patty even checked it for us."
"I must say, for the first day, they did great in their homework," Patty said.
I sat down and started eating my breakfast. "Yeah, well, even Tyrone and Kylie do good on the first day. Just wait for the first report card in nine weeks," I said.
At that moment, in came Larry. "Very good morning to all!" he shouted. He plopped down in the seat next to me. "Ooh, waffles? Can I have some?" he asked, reaching out to grab my waffles.
I hit his hand with the fork. "No! You can't have one!"
"Oh, thanks. I'll have two." Then, he took two waffles and swallowed them whole. He burped, didn't say "excuse me", and then patted me on the shoulder, saying, "Thanks for sharing, pal."
If it had been just the two of us, I would've really let him have it. I owe him about 875,000 knuckle sandwiches and about twice as much beatings.
But, I wasn't going to ruin my breakfast with that.
"Forget it," was all I said. I put my napkin on the table and stood up. "Well, I'll just get my thermos and my keys and I'll be going."
After I had gone to brush and floss, I filled my thermos, and grabbed my keys. Then I came down to the front door, where everyone else was getting ready to leave. "We should be back by…7:30, right, Larry?"
He tilted his head and started to think. Then, shaking his head, he said, "I don't think we'll be here that early. We could make it by 7:31."
I stared at him sternly. He just have me his usual silly grin. Oh, he thought he was so amusing. Well, he's not. Not one bit.
But you see what I have to live with? I'm surrounded by smart-alecks. In my life I've had to change diapers, punish my siblings, argue with girls, fight with guys, but I can never get used to a smart-aleck.
On the other hand, Larry is my best friend. Like they say, nobody is perfect.
"I'll call you when I leave the office," I said to Patty.
"You want me or Kathy to pack you a quick lunch?" she asked.
"Nah. We'll order from the office. They have a delicatessen on the ground floor." Larry showed up with my briefcase. "Well, we're ready to go."
"Okay. Bye, Spiny," said Patty, kissing me on the cheek.
"Bye, Kathy," I said to my sister, kissing her.
"Bye."
"Bye, Robert. Behave yourself," I said patting him on the shoulder.
"I'll try to."
Then, I kissed Greeny on the head, saying, "Take care of the girls, okay, pal?"
"Okay, big brother."
I waved one last goodbye, and then walked out to my vehicle, the TIV. Larry sat in the passenger seat beside me.
Once we went outside the gates, the escorts immediately fell into formation around us. A light summer breeze was blowing from the northeast.
The air felt warm, light, and…summerish. You know. Hazy summer evenings. Something like that.
While driving on the way, I said to Larry, "You get plenty of rest last night?"
He crossed his arms and said, "Yeah, boy. One of the best. Want to know what I dreamed about?"
"Is it corny and boring?"
"I don't think so."
"All right. Go ahead. It'll make this twenty-minute trip shorter."
He turned to me and said, "All right. Here goes: I dreamed that I ate half of a fifty-foot marshmallow."
A what? If I hadn't been driving, I would have probably stared at him for three straight minutes. All I said was, "A marshmallow? You dreamed about a marshmallow?" I mean, what was going on in this guy's mind? If he had one.
"Yeah, too bad, though. It's going to cost me $5 for another pillow."
Huh? Now what was he talking about? "You need a pillow?"
He nodded. "Yeah. You see in the dream, I had just eaten half of the marshmallow, when I woke up. I found out that half of the pillow was gone. I had feathers in my mouth and nose."
What the...! He had eaten the… "You ate your pillow in you sleep?"
"No, I didn't eat the pillow in my sleep. I ate it in my bed."
Sigh. You see what I mean? Larry is known by another name: The Dinosaur Joke Machine or the Jokesaurus. You give him any word and he'll give you five jokes about it.
Speaking of which….I turned left on the next on-ramp and onto the highway that led to the city. I said to Larry, "You're not normal, you know that, right?"
He blinked his eyes. "Aww, I thought you'd never notice."
I think Larry is…no, I'm sure that Larry is half-weird and half-stupid.
But you get used to everything. Well, almost. Some things you never get used to.
Anyways, we got to the office at 8:45 am.
We sat down at our respective desks. In the mornings, we usually go over weekly reports that state the overall situation in various departments.
Larry usually reads them aloud while I type them on the computer as PDF documents. Then, I email those reports to the Royal Assembly, the High Congress, and the heads of all the departments.
Anyways, once we both sat down, I got on the phone and said, "Kelly?"
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
"Tell the delicatessen to send up one frappe mocha for me and an iced latte for Larry."
"Right away."
"Thanks."
I hung up and turned on my desktop. "All right, Larry. Read me the reports. Start with economy."
He fumbled through several papers on his desk. "Oh! Here it is. Ah, let's see. The stock market fell 0.2 points. The agricultural companies are back in business."
"They almost went bankrupt, right?" I said, still typing.
"Yep. Oh, and our tourism level has dropped sharply in the last few months. Quite a drastic drop. This is our lowest level in 52 years."
That got my attention. "Fifty-two years? Since 1962? What happened back then?"
"Cuban missile crisis."
"Oh. What could make people so scared like that today?"
"It's because of the Ehbola outbreak?"
"The what?!"
"Ehbola…Ivola…uh, the um…"
I shook my head in annoyance. "Ebola. The word is Ebola. You can't even say it. How can I go through with it?"
"Sorry," he said, putting on—or trying to put on—an innocent smile.
At that moment, my Royal Budget Supervisor, Falakros walked in. He's a Pachycephalosaurus.
When Larry saw him, he said, "And in comes the bald-headed jellyfish wearing glasses."
Boy, did Fal get steamed up over that. But Larry just kept going. "And the jellyfish takes the glasses off and says"… "Spiny!" they both yelled.
I laughed quietly. Had to bite my tongue, but I still snickered. Then Fal said what he's been saying to Larry for the past 3,203 years. He stares at Larry square in the eyes, and says, "Yech!"
You see, this species of dinosaur has a dome-shaped head, and it makes it look like they're bald.
And unfortunately for all bald guys in the world, Larry is an expert at baldy jokes. I mean, he wrote the book about it. A whole encyclopedia.
Anyways, I said, "Larry, would you please let him be?"
"Let him be what?"
Ignoring him, Fal handed me some documents. "Spiny, I came here to give you your family's budget for this month."
"Oh, thanks. Nothing of concern, I hope. Our electric bill was really nuts last month. Because we were watching the World Cup."
"Yes, well. Where you're going to have to look is at this page here," he said turning to the back page. Huh?!
"That for cell phone usage?"
"Now, just so you'll know. I don't think it was from your cell phone."
Ha! One name came to mind. "Kathy," I said aloud.
Fal nodded.
"You could've told me. You know, earlier. Why didn't you?"
Before Fal could answer, Larry said, "Because he's stupid, that's why."
"Larry, would you please save the insults for later?"
"Why? He's here now."
"Larry!"
"Oh, fine." He walked back to his desk.
Then, I turned to Fal and said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it."
"Very well," said Fal. Then he started to walk to the door. Larry said, "And try to cover Capital Dome, 'cause I think your brain's catching cold."
Fal stopped cold, turned around and stared at me. "In the meantime, would you please tell Smokey the Bear to climb back to his tree and stay there until he's struck by lightning." Then he left, slamming the door.
Larry laughed and went back to his seat.
"Anyways, uh, back to the reports?" I suggested.
"Sure, where were we?"
"Uh, we were on…agriculture."
"Oh, yes. Our food surpluses are at normal levels. Precipitation in the Great Desert Region is slightly below normal, but we expect good results from the Northern Plains and the Rainy Basin."
"Good, good. How about Education?"
"Normal."
"Border security."
"Well…yes and no," he said with a nervous voice.
"What do you mean? That wasn't a yes and no question."
"Well, um, you see, some…tourists were here on a six-month visit, and, uh, decided to stay longer."
I looked at him in silent shock. "…what?"
"Just what I said."
"You mean their visas expired, they knew it, and deliberately stayed here?"
Then, with a pathetic smile, he said, "Hey! You sure are a smart one, ain't ya?"
Uh huh. "Do we know where these dear visitors are?"
"Um, some in Sauropolis, Waterfall City, and in Sky City."
"Do we know where they're from?"
"Uhhhh…you know where they have great garlic bread? There's a nice place down 5th street right on…"
"Larry!"
"Um, uh, heh heh. " Yep. He gave his "I'm-in-trouble" laugh. With a nervous chuckle, he said, "Most of them come from, heh heh, the US."
With a sarcastic, angry smile, I said, "I thought so." Then I switched back to a serious face. "How do you like that?"
"I don't like it," Larry said.
"Me neither," I said. "Well, what are we doing about it?"
"We sent a special police unit to track them down."
"All right. How about Foreign Relations."
"Uh, well. First, though, are our enemy countries?"
"All of them or the main ones?"
"Main ones. Say, the Top Seven."
"Ah, let's see; North Korea, Egypt, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria."
"Right," he said, writing it in a notebook. "With which countries do we get better along with?"
"That would be Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Canada."
"We're good on Foreign Relations. Nothing that should cause concern or alarm."
"Good."
"Uh, except…"
I looked at him, waiting for him to finish the sentence. He didn't. "Except what?" I said.
"Well, we have a jealousy problem."
That struck me odd. "How can jealousy be an area of concern?"
"Well, you know how we have space armies?" Oh! Another quick FYI. Larry is commander of several space armies from other galaxies. They're tens of millions of them and we use them as a last resort.
Anyways, I said to Larry "Yes, I know. Don't tell me there are revolts."
"Oh no! No, no, no. They'll never revolt. They're incredibly loyal. Perfect. It's just that, well, a very small number of them are Amarkians."
I shrugged. "So?"
"Sooo…let's just say that they have a ton of wealth and prosperity. Even more than our richest citizens."
"So?"
"So, they're coming to Amarkia for Foundation Day on October 16."
That's when my light bulb turned on, so to speak. Compact fluorescent, of course. "Oh, and you think that when they come here Amarkians will get jealous?"
"No, I don't think."
"You don't?"
"No, I'm sure."
I rolled my eyes and started to think. "You suppose this'll cause a lot of trouble?"
"Eh, not too much. Just as long as we keep them away from crazy fanatics."
"That's a good first step," I responded. I looked at the clock on the wall. Nine thirty-five. "By the way, where's the coffee we ordered?"
Larry was looking through some files in the cabinet at the back corner of the room. "I dunno. Usually takes ten minutes. Want me to call and check?"
"Yea, please. If not, I'll be asleep by lunchtime."
He walked back to his desk and dialed a number on his desk phone. After about three rings, "Hello? Yes, we ordered two items for the King's Office. It was around forty minutes ago. No, still hasn't arrived. Huh? What happened?"
That got my attention. "What? What is it?"
He continued talking on the phone. "Yeah? No! Really? Is that so? No kidding! All right. Thanks." He hung up, and suddenly, burst out laughing. Uncontrollable laughter. I mean, he fell in the floor.
Naturally, I was curious. I like funny things myself. "What is it?"
After he calmed down, he said, "Know why coffee didn't come? He was in town driving an ice cream truck. Well, he crashed into a beer truck. All over the street…beer a la mode." Then he fell to the ground and laughed.
See what I have to live with?
Case in point.
