Note: This note is very important. I don't want to have to make a big change to the episode by this point, but I've dug myself into a weird hole that I need to get out of. But you have to understand my original intentions first.
Hoppy and the gold rabbit (name not mentioned yet) are the 2 rabbit OCs introduced in this episode so far, if you recall from chapters 2 and 5 of this episode (Hoppy started as far back as the Prologue). They don't have a purpose until Episode 2, but they've been in the story this early because they were gonna be woven into the main plot of Episode 1.
Yeah, I'm not doing that anymore.
It'd be distracting, and convoluted on their behalf to have their 'origin story' be as spaced out as it's been, so they will not appear again until we get to the last 2 chapters of this episode. Forget about Hoppy and the other rabbit for now. EVERYTHING about them will be recapped once we get to the final chapters.
Ep. 1, Ch. 8 - RJ + Heather (~7k words)
"Let me tell you a story of… You- You know where we are, right? Did the thing happen? The thing did happen. Yes. Okay. It's a story about chips. That's where we are now. Just those yummy yummy, yum yum yum ranch-flavored chips. Nothing else of significance to see here. Hoot hoot!"
ACT I: Jailbreak
The next time RJ and Heather meet comes a few days later.
RJ plus Heather. It's engraved on the side of the vending machine.
The web-ridden light on the ceiling struggles to keep the rest area lit enough for the eyes of humans, but a couple nocturnal animals should do just fine. Vincent's cave howls from here. Nobody's planned it, nobody's seen it, so it's a bit of a surprise for the vending machine to draw a couple visitors on this night.
One would think: With all the food in the world, this stupid bag of Snazzy Ranch chips wouldn't be causing such a stir, but no. RJ, in his Spuddies crown, rubs his chin. Between the vending machine and the satanic drawing of it he's crafted inside his journal, he just can't figure out how to approach this anymore.
Heather's eyelids slump. She examines her paper tiara, and sits sluggishly against the tiled wall. She folds it, pokes at it, swishes its sides inward like she's trying to figure out its meaning, and her countenance wants to know whether she likes it at all. "Yeah, genius, I'm pretty sure it's just a vending machine-"
"You wouldn't understand, Heather. He's a capitalist menace. He smells. He looks at me weird. I hate him."
Heather suddenly emerges from RJ's golf bag to wisely place her head on top of his. Her tone is moonlit in the absence of all creatures but him. "RJ, being your 'Possum Pal makes me a little like your therapist sometimes, y'know?"
"You'rrrrre on the start of something. Please translate your vague statements of intent."
"RJ…" She yanks his head up so their faces come point-blank. Her eyes and ears look embarrassed to admit it: "I'm insecure."
"That's crazy. Like the One Direction song?"
"Real crazy. And I kinda get you because of that, y'know? Look." Heather crawls over his head, tumbles down, and shows him her phone. "They're so… freakin'… hot. With all (like)… creamy bods, and… long, velvety legs."
It has her drooling over the screen, but RJ doesn't see quite the same in the hyperrealistic, innocent opossum images she found from a quick web search on the antique version of Google they had in 2007.
"And my-… My legs are fatter than chicken wings," Heather broods.
"I like chicken wings."
"Point is, RJ, like me, I think your whole grudge against this vending machine is because it has something you don't."
"What would THAT be?!"
She thoroughly investigates RJ's luxurious brown build. She spends too long looking at the vending machine in comparison before she turns back and says… "Clout."
"I don't care how much everyone likes his glorious cheesy flakes with that magical dust you lick off your fingers. I have a foot to kick butts with, and he doesn't. Bring it on, tin can!"
He ends up stuck inside the vending machine after tackling himself into the flap.
"I didn't know they sold raccoons in vending machines," Heather grins.
"Heather. You can't just reference OTHER fanfictions IN A FANFICTION. NOBODY'S gonna get it! Jeez lewis." RJ loses himself trying to squeeze his giant head row by row towards the last chips.
If he's going through his typically comical struggle, emptying his bag for an answer, Heather has nothing to do but go through her phone. Her camera roll has some good laughs. The first thing she finds staples her eyes open. RJ's angry voice leaks from her phone. She drives it deep into her arms. She has to strangle it before he notices, and doesn't think to just turn the recording off at first. In the initial second of it, she hears the phone jump to hide in the fur on her back. The screen goes black and dark red. After turning down the volume, Heather finally decides to put her phone to her ear and listen carefully. The audio's fine enough. She gathered Verne's 'court case' in its uncut entirety, ready to present. Several pieces she zoned out on back then return to her now:
"Uh, helloOo? Knock knock? Is that Verne in there? Fight or not, the humans are taking the forest! If you're trying to keep that log safe then congratulations, Uncle Verne. You've saved it from me about to bash it in with this nine iron. Because the gig's up. We're done. We quit. You can paintball me with blueberries, stick underwear over my head, burn off my armpits with a body spray flamethrower, as alllll my photographic evidence here PROVES, but if you don't like our family… then go start your own, and they can die alongside you at your place. Peace… out."
Those photos didn't prove anything, Heather knows. Now, though, she's hit a brick wall. As RJ envelops Verne in an unblockable offense on the phone, she slowly nudges her head towards the RJ who grunts and growls in real time within the vending machine. The pads of her feet get cold when she steps from her spot. She breathes in deep. The impulsive movement of RJ's tail becomes more animated and aggravated the closer she creeps towards the glass screen. Apart, for now, she has to pull herself together and close this gap.
From outside the blinding interior of the machine, Heather intercepts RJ right before his hand snags the tip of the chip bag's corner. He hears her quietly shout his name behind the glass. Her tail gives his the death grip. She drags him into the black depths away from his prize - his escape route - and back out the hatch.
"Why'd you make up a million things about Verne?" There was hardly a second to waste there. Now that it's off her chest, Heather's phone goes in front of her. The footage is mostly meaningless, because the camera's swimming in Heather's gray hair at the time of its recording, but he only needs to listen.
"Uh-"
RJ's own voice patches up his utter lack of explanation. It plays out, and even though it was a few days ago by now, it's sounding fresh and new. The way he sounds on camera earns a sting to his ear. Did he mean anything he said? By definition, no. Even without choppy technology to fuzz up the details, his provoked rage was purely artificial.
"Uh, eh-he-heh, heh-" RJ one-ups her by asking, "Oh hey, what's this little thing doing here?"
He flips to a page of his notebook covered top to bottom in her purple ink. It reads 'I'm insecure' over and over and over until every line is obscured. That's right, she's been venting there… a lot.
She avoids his face like the chilly wind just took over her neck, then taps him on the closest place she can reach. "I touched Hammy's tick and now it's on you."
"It's on you again NO BACKSIES!"
In an incredible match of social inadequacy, neither have an answer prepared, but RJ takes his bashfulness one step further. He takes a sprint for the open road, because she couldn't POSSIBLY try bugging him then. Like a flooding river, a massive semi-truck rockets near his path and steals his soul from his body, freezing him up before he would've fallen dead from fright.
Heather grabs her chin and runs out to bug him some more. In the river of roadway trash, a raging gust from the next set of wheels flips RJ and Heather over each other into a clump of dead meat in the middle of the street. They lose their crowns. Their cheeks kiss concrete.
By no will and all survival instinct, they rise at once with hands and torsos clasped together. They never dare to pry them apart as they dance the tango in shot-by-shot frames around every max-speed truck wheel. The white hair on their stomachs become static from rubbing together. Their eyes steer towards each other until both tones of blue connect over the double yellow lines of the road.
RJ scrunches his eyebrows and bites his lip. His mask shrinks.
The next vehicle rattles them. They keep going.
At the spot the pavement slumps into the untouched forest, they release one last breath.
Now they lie exhausted, having fallen into and having their fur matted by the wet grass. Heather has climbed over RJ like a stuffed toy, tongue out, eyes smushed shut - plenty like her dad. RJ's mask has frizzled up. He stares at the rest station way over yonder.
The ceaseless airstream highway between them and their vending machine returns the hats to them. After all the trouble that a few words of truth can cause, they don't hesitate to fix them even more tightly onto their heads.
"You're making-... You're making me insecure." RJ's spiked hair to the sides of his mouth are completely shaken up. "About Verne. I didn't know that was possible."
Heather hears that and awakens, one eyelash at a time. Maybe she understands him a bit more, after she's gotten him covered by herself with no chance to escape her any longer. He's so confused from staring dead at her, with his elbows backed up behind his shoulders from gripping the ground.
Heather exhales onto his nose. "So you- You didn't wanna… y'know. But we gotta… because y'know?"
He nods because she said it best, but he still needs an answer of his own. "So why are you… venting in my notebook instead of social media?"
"It's 'cause I can't take another night thinking about Verne, RJ. It's gonna kill me for real."
"How can I help?"
Her ears spark up. "Binge-eating tends to do the trick," as always.
"Then let's get your face so full it puts Hammy to shame."
After about five cups of leftover popcorn, she lets him know that the mask is strapped on tight.
XXX
Their feet can't tell if they're ready to hop over the creek again and return to Awesomeland, and even more so when they have to pace into the glare of the open moon, nearing the face of the cliff. A sleeping quarters has been created out of that snug cave within it, hidden perfectly by the hollow, young log stuck out of the cliff. It's a Den now.
Something in the trees feels like it's about to move. Not to mention, the chime of classical symphonies began the second they set foot into home. Then it crescendos behind their necks, stiffening the hair.
"Do… Do you hear Beethoven?" RJ vigilantly deduces.
"Do you smell cheap air freshener?" Heather squeaks. She halted a few steps ago. Her fingers squirm a little.
Beethoven's violin sustains a menacing measure, snickering behind the edges of food mountain peaks and even farther, into the trees. Then… MENACING…
"SCENE - SNEAKING HOME, LATE AT NIGHT."
All Heather does is cringe and try to smother her face with her tail. RJ's already looking upon her embarrassment.
"They say being a 'possum is about balance, parenthood, and above all…" Ozzie bids a cape (baby blanket) off his body to reveal himself hanging in a tree behind them. "...respect. You lied to me! Not even that: You never even mentioned you would be gone 3 hours into the night." He grasps his chest as his jaw falls into dismay.
Heather starts, "Dad, hold on-"
"Now what in heaven's name-"
"Dad-"
"-were you two-"
"We were getting chips, dad. Not like they'd kill us or… whatever."
"Unless the Sniffer laced them with rat poison," mutters RJ.
Ozzie would've lost his balance just from RJ blowing on him ever so slightly. Heather elbow-jabs RJ for it.
Upon rising from the ground, Ozzie brushes himself off. "Either way, you are going to your room."
What Ozzie doesn't understand is that Heather is an innocent, wholesome creature living in the completely open wilderness. "Dad, I don't even have a roo-"
So Ozzie writes 'Heather's Room' on the front of the cardboard box once he's done cutting out a window on the front for her to see from. He trims out squares with scissors until Heather's frown from inside reveals itself.
"Dad… Just 'cause I don't like playing dead anymore doesn't mean-"
"This isn't about playing 'possum anymore, Heather. This is about you going out into the open world and trying to put on the most unpredictable performances only because RJ's around. If I can't tell whether my grown-up daughter is dead or alive unless I keep her forever in my sights, then it shall be as such."
"Can you just get over that thing we did with the oven already? And like, every other sort of stupid thing we've ever done… like, ever?"
"No. Because I love you. And because I love you, you are grounded until your birthday. Now, I rest my head. You rest yours." Before Ozzie hits the sheets, he adds, "And DON'T touch your phone."
In fact, he put her phone under strict rubber ducky surveillance a few feet from the box.
"Why do I have a mouth?" Heather whines.
Conveniently, RJ passes by, free to chew on a big chocolate bar while she's barred inside. "I could tell you. Ahem. Number 1: Profound human scientists have observed that food is better digested when inserted through the entrance, not the exit. Number 2: Injecting whipped cream directly into our bloodstreams was not as cool as it sounded. And number 3-"
Heather's tail flaps out like a frog's tongue to snag the chocolate bar for herself.
"…is so anyone's actions can be freely and brutally scrutinized by anyone."
Heather grabs the window bars and whispers, "How're you sneaking me out?"
RJ already looks sour enough that she nicked his Choc-Louis, and now his head jolts backward, terrified. "Hey, woahhh, let's make this clear: I will gladly help you with anything that DOESN'T involve daddy." His pupils contracted as he said that. "That's not my drama to facilitate."
"But- but-" The back of Heather's hand wipes some theatrics off her forehead. "You wouldn't leave your objectively-and-subjectively-cute princess to be… locked away in her tower… would you, you jerk?"
RJ stares at her, before flipping his tail end at her.
Heather slams her face into the box. "But Dad's gonna keep me in baby jail all dayyyyy."
"I'm not involved in your little… oo-ooo, family drama." RJ flees into the dark horizon. "HA! I'm never having kids! Y'know what babies do? They cry. I CRY AT NIGHT ENOUGH ALREADY! WOO-HOOO!"
He eventually realizes he doesn't know where he's even running to, and directs himself to the Den with everyone else. Heather watches him fumble over all the rows of little hills for a painstaking minute while this happens, and sighs. They shouldn't have let themselves get so blissful from sugar after venting their problems at the vending machine. His insulting, large grin was so numb to the situation that it didn't come from the same raccoon she knew. They're nowhere in the same boat anymore.
The sparse stars continue to sweep over her head. The busy street carries on without her, keeping the same pace like she wasn't even there… ever. When a heavy thrust of wind throws a can of Spuddies off the peak of the new Mt. Feeds-a-Lot, her short stubby arm can't reach the offer. The clearing remains exactly as it is without her, almost pitch black. The moon comes over her from the tulip tree on the hill. She can imagine it in an ice cream cone. Moon-flavored ice cream doesn't sound appealing, but what if it were vanilla?
Vanilla happens to be Verne's favorite flavor. If it were his birthday in two days, he wouldn't have to remind anyone, and if it were his birthday in two days, he wouldn't be the only one left to care for the Log. No matter how many bushes and shrubs he's torn through to gather enough leaves to fill the entire Log, his shell's still so cold on the inside.
Heather and Verne sleep in shifts from however many miles apart the new family is from the old. One manages to acquire some sleep whenever the other is awoken with a cramp in their neck.
The Spuddies go frolicking over her home. Heather NEEDS a bite of that hyper-processed junk. Not just because she's hungry, because everyone should know by now that she's always hungry, but because her stomach's talking to her brain and her brain's talking to her stomach and all in all, Verne isn't leaving her system any time soon.
Somehow, suburbia shines in her eyes all the way here. There's another solution to this. But it's no route any part of the family EVER should've been qualified to take, with humans being the most deadly invasive species to ever walk the forest. RJ makes the magic happen, thus, he makes her life happen. Without him, she doesn't know if she'll even make it through before being eviscerated by whatever super-accurate laser death beams the Verminator should just hide inside the Hedge itself. Luckily, humans are too smart to actually be smart. She could use this to her advantage.
So come close to morning, she has to make a move. The sky's heating up as a warning. She's getting microwaved, as boiled in the stomach as she is blood-flushed in the face. Her heart's pounded its share in her cheeks and ears, and she's so done with it. A single firefly flares up outside. Heather sends her tail to snatch a pair of scissors from the ground and attacks the cardboard.
The side of the box explodes once she stabs enough holes to make her break for it. In a stealthy stance, so fed up that she doesn't care if her muddled claws appear somewhat rabid, her nose examines her circumstances and she works quickly with the rest of the night she has. She comes to the doorway of the log embedded in the cliff. The complete family sleeping inside the Den produces a collective, happy hum without her. She picks out the scent of Ozzie's gross air-freshener. Dragging him by the tail doesn't awake him, and only creates a light rustling of his hair against the soft floor that disturbs no one.
The box is Ozzie's room now.
"Oops. Almost forgot your phone. 'Don't touch it'!" Heather throws a ladybug phone at his nose and laughs.
"Heather, you come back here right now young lady. This is NOT how opossums-"
"Whatever… DAD… I'll let you out whenever you wanna be cool like possums again. I miss the cool Dad."
Ozzie searches for an escape, looks out the window, and discovers she wrapped everything in an impenetrable layer of duct tape.
Heather cures her Verne regrets with more of the popcorn she never ate on any of the movie nights they've forced her to have since the thing happened. It's even more stale now. She splashes across the creek to get to her and RJ's giant mountain of CDs kept in the corner of the campout patch. One of them, a solid navy blue, has been rated a smiley face by both her and RJ - titled 'Our Town'. Yeah, it read her mind, it is time to make it her town!
RJ caught every step of her jailbreak ever since her sinister shadow engulfed the Den in a furry cloak. Out of his sleeping bag, he gets his golf bag and follows her through the forest as the sky heats up from blue to purple.
Curiously enough, Hammy's wood tick, Fred, was disrupted enough on the squirrel's sleeping back to hitch a ride on RJ and spy on her too.
"I want to be part of the family. I want to help," Fred begs RJ. "I want to help if it kills me."
"Yeah, c'mon, Fred. You're a real one in this family."
ACT II: Our Town
It'll be no cinch. That early morning, at the time every girl and boy should've been heading out for the last day of school, a special broadcast infiltrated every TV in suburbia. It was the Verminator. He came to make an announcement. He brainwashed the town into lockdown under the threat of nothing more than the tie-dye mix of infectious diseases the vermin certainly carry. He wouldn't have needed to explain how 'mating season is the breeding ground for the plague'. They would believe anything he says anyway. Half of those diseases were made up. Half of them involved symptoms of unpleasant toilet trouble.
The suburbs have been placed in complete Vermination quarantine, most likely as a direct offense against the animals' prior construction meddling that set back their pace of deforestation by a few crucial days.
The idiotic part is that the humans are still bravely stupid enough to form an angry mob against the death-bringers to mankind. In fact, whoever manages to catch one of those freaks will be awarded a lifetime of Verm-Tech services… and the latest flat-screen TV model.
Speakers on rooftops make up a universal intercom that the Verminator alone controls. Until there's an interruption by Rebecca Wright: "Mr. Dwayne. When I said 'up your game', I didn't mean you're now the one who runs this town. Half of the things you're installing on our real estate are outright illegal-!"
"Yeah? Well all's fair in WAR!"
"That is not even factually true-!"
The Verminator boots her off the signal. "Sirs and ma'ams of Camelot Estates, welcome to your honorary Verm-Tech employee training guide, starring your elder graduate: The Verminator. Follow the steps inside your Verm-Tech instruction booklets closely. Calibrate your taser sticks by hitting the button- No, not THAT button, the OTHER butt- Forget the taser sticks. Just go into your homes and grab a flip flop or something- No, not to WEAR, to BEAT… VERMIN… BAHOOTY!"
The Hedge rustles ever so slightly.
"Now, Einsteins, turn on the pair of smell receptors located somewhere above your mouth and below your eyes. You can identify a raccoon by the scent of a portalet. There's a possum - smells like tuna. I hate tuna."
"WE HATE TUNA!" many human beings repeat brainlessly in the street. You'd think they'd be wearing mind-control caps, but no. They're just humans.
RJ trips into the suburbs following Heather, gripping desperately onto a mini-CD player in her tail. This one is green. "Wait a minute! Fred hasn't come back with the recon yet!"
Heather is completely unmoved by his presence. She's sick, VERY tired, and determined. She fends off Ozzie's inevitable phone call to her flip phone, loud, bugged, and firm: "Voicemail. Being cool. Bye." She has one hand reserved for her popcorn, and she forks the other at RJ. "Gimme a soda already."
RJ isn't inside her pair of headphones like he always is. She wears them alone, plastered around her neck. Before her drink - he gets uncomfortable allowing her to down it like steroids - she stood having a depression in her waist like she didn't truly belong in this unusually stubby possum's body.
Across all corners of suburbia, in every front lawn going miles and miles, small Verm-Tech-issued net sentries beep in her direction. They lock aim at RJ and Heather one by one. It pans down the endless road, lights on a runway illuminating at their arrival. Heather was so absorbed in the music that she hadn't yet looked ahead. Her peripheral gets sucked into a tunnel.
Gathered here today is the entire town's population, armed and ready. Their ugly, naked faces are ready to kill. Kids, adults, pets - every human in the cavalry has shown up. Skinny humans, fat humans, tall humans, short humans, humans from all walks of life joined, facing the two of them with pet cages and kitchen knives and crusty rakes. Heather has a dorky CD player, popcorn, and a pair of headphones. The line the humans have formed on the street is impenetrable.
RJ catches Heather at such a loss now that he can actually cling at least one of his arms around her. Still, he's not any less terrified than her.
"NO, it's- it's not going down like this!" Heather pounds into her head. "I'm on vacay! I should be invincible!"
"Who're you folks waiting on? Paul Revere?" the Sniffer yells over the intercom. "'The vermin are coming, the VERMIN are coming'!" He screams as long and as cracked as a middle-aged man can.
ATTACK!
The humans commence the race for that sweet flat-screen TV, sprinting towards them like bulls from a mile's length that rapidly shrinks. RJ snips his hand out randomly towards the Hedge to catch a leaf of it and abandon the plan. Heather has other impulsive ideas. She cranks the volume in her headphones up to max.
She gets a few feet before RJ locks his hand into her popcorn cup.
"You won't last all day in there, princess! The Sniffer will be up your flank in no time! Humans have GUNS. REAL-ASS GUNS. Ever think about that? NUKES. POODLES!"
She rips him away from her coping mechanism and jumps up the nearest fence. "Go back and chill. If you stick with me, you'll get in trouble with Dad." As if that's what this is about.
"We can talk something out with your dad! Look, getting in your dad's way could cause SO many more problems than it solves… but you're worth it. I'll help."
Heather faces him. He wasn't gonna help last night, when he possessed the food and not her.
"'Possum Pal…" RJ reaches. "Take my sweaty hand and come back to your Awesomeland place with me. You don't have to spend the day hanging out with anyone but me if you don't want. We could have the TV all for ourselves. I'm sure we could get the kids to leave us alone, and y'know, maybe Hammy'll be too busy with Fred to care. It could be just like it's always been - you and me. Every one of your folks would want it like that."
But Heather can't bear the flashing image of that purple throne. "I just can't go back to being you guy's princess, alright? Everyone is making me totally stressed out of my fur because I missed my chance to fix EVERYTHING with Verne!" She pulls her hair until it just about comes out of her head. "And if doing SOMETHING that only I want makes me look like some edgy rebel to any of you guys, then what-ever!"
She leaves him to go enjoy her day out, if she can, with an electric guitar inside her headphones blocking him from her life. RJ barrels after her as the mob closes in with flaming marshmallow sticks and pepper spray.
Heather runs through the first abandoned yard and glances in the rearview. It becomes very clear right away that RJ - nor any human in the entire world - will leave her mind or body alone.
"Heather, look out!"
That single electric guitar note in the intro of her 80s song continues to reverberate to a deafening degree. The raccoon's voice swiped too much of her focus to process what's ahead: a garden gnome. Ceramic bashes against her skull, and she falls into a grid of red lasers. Popcorn flies everywhere. There is already an incident with some unfortunate animal - small as a bug - left evident by a little smoked stain in the fake grass in front of her muzzle. The enclosing cage of red lights flicker repeatedly in sync with what sounds like a car being stolen. At the same time a heavy alarm sounds from the other end of the yard, with unparalleled adrenaline, her headphones shout:
THREE!
TWO!
OOOOOONE!
Sunrise. Thursday, May 24th. Mostly sunny. Moderate winds.
A special broadcast on the TV wakes the Hedgies up a bit earlier than anticipated. They were too sore to see it in time. Nevertheless, the TV set is unclaimed. The seat is empty. There is not a single sign of neither RJ nor Heather among them.
Most confusing of all, Ozzie is inside a cardboard box wrapped in duct tape, trying to dial the same number repeatedly on a ladybug-looking phone.
"What happened, Oz'!?" Stella kicks through clovers and rubber ducks until she's cleared the path for everyone.
Blue light only shines very dimly on Ozzie's side curled in the corner. "…I'm grounded until my birthday."
Stella has Tiger claw apart Ozzie's dum-dum-dad box.
"Heather and RJ ran off with about a million pounds of caffeine!" Ozzie exclaims. "Do you know what that means?"
Stella rolls her eyes immediately and, honestly, she wishes she would've just left him in there. "You're in dad mode?"
"…Is that what they call it?"
"Look," Stella continues, "you're too far up your own… dad places. And you must be mighty tired, cuz your eyes look as dark as your daughter's."
"She snuck off to 'buy chips' last night. I couldn't bring myself to sleep until I could make sure she would be free from the claws of uncertainty."
"And did the girl come back with any chips, Oz'?"
"She did not!" He hoists a finger into the sky.
"Awww, she made you miss out on the best chips in town? What a shame."
It takes him a few seconds to try to accomplish anything else in front of her. "Stella… Unless you have chips for me, not a single one of my dad places will be feeling any better."
Courtesy of Lou and Penny, the local coffee machine already finished brewing, and the last drop dribbles into the pot with meaning, graceful… and delectable. The ripples of smooth liquid ping into Stella's ear. Ozzie smells his daily brew ripening.
They shout "MINE!" like seagulls.
Everyone's in the way of Ozzie and Stella's aggressive fixation on the coffee machine that particular morning. It's the perfect object for them to exhaust their disagreements onto. Half of it spills and scolds the fronts of their fur by the time one gains dominant control over the big black handle, and now there's only enough coffee for two adults to share. Somehow, they jab and shove and claw at each other so poetically that they serve up two cups of equal volume.
"You shoulda picked decaf today, Oz'," Stella says.
"Speak for yourself!"
Stella just stares through her hair and takes another slurp of her good coffee. "By my stinking bum, every time I catch you talkin' 'bout your girl anymore it's cuz you're upset she's out in the open world trying to live her own life with the raccoon there to look out for her! How bad do you think the humans have it goin' in there? Does anything ever change around here? Tig'uh, talk some sense into the man."
"Ozzie, dear friend, I don't know if there's a simple way to put this, but… You're wrong," Tiger bluntly explains.
Something has changed, because it hasn't become apparent until now that someone other than Heather, RJ, and Verne is missing from Awesomeland.
Suddenly, with one head in the family not counted, the dark backs of every shrub turn inward and become grimly whole. Nearby, someone - someone rather young - weeps. In between a cliff and a creek, Hammy kneels in the mud like his legs are paralyzed between the stiffness of a rock and the boneless flow of water. His ears have lost their straightness. His tail hasn't flicked once. He's unbelievably concentrated on something in his hands… Stella weaves around his side and finds it looking like a burnt piece of popcorn, but it can't be that. It has leg stubs springing off of its body, all of them snapped over their tiny joints. It's a bug. And it's smoking.
"Hey, Hammy, hun-?"
"Fred's dead."
The sun hasn't even fully risen, and it may be possible that it'll stay this dull all day. There's more yellow on the ground itself, where their personal belongings have been drowned by the rubber ducks they've realized they might have absolutely nothing to do with. The blue umbrellas that came from the Log and the old home block out the oversaturated, artificial emotion bleeding in an unrecognizable hue that makes enemies with the mud and the roots, the trees - some of them carved out by emerald-sheened insects - even the rustic, natural colors of most of the animals' fur.
Hammy, however, is typically bright orange, and one of the umbrellas does its best to let him cover that too. Upon entering underneath, the white stripes on Stella wear down. She can't think of anything to say about Fred for a while, until she asks, "How'd he-?"
"I think he went to find them. It's too scary in there." Hammy shakes. "There's killer robots everywhere. There's red lights in every yard. The red lights killed him," he cries well before his eyes do.
Tiger walks closer. Stella sits parallel and sets her hand on Hammy's hip over his back. With color stripped away, their tails are almost one in the same breed. "C'mon, hun', it's okay. All your bugs come and go like that someday, 'n then we help you pick yourself up and see that life goes on jus' the same. Me 'n Verne did that all the time when you were a younger squirrel. Life goes on, right? You have a family, you have friends, you have Heath'uh. You like your cousin Heath'uh, don't yuh?"
"But she could be dead too." He takes his last look at Fred. When his eyes go there to say goodbye, they freeze.
Time seems to stop too. After he can weakly tame his lungs and his tears, he sets his next dead bug into the soil and lets him lie still, out of his quivering hands. He finds a small white flower. He's alone again. Stella, Tiger, Ozzie, Lou, Penny, Bucky, Quillo, and Spike wait motionless in their sympathy for him to return to reality. The rest of the forest doesn't move either.
He almost screams as he runs for that suburban glow in the horizon. The fate of his crumbling world rests on his shoulders.
All the others see is one point in time where Hammy's there, and another where the entire path towards the Hedge is paved with the fallout of a sonic boom over the grass. He also left a flower over Fred's grave during that time.
"What was he talking about with killer robots?" Spike wonders. After all, it sounds like something out of a game.
"Red lights?... What's that Hammy language for?" Stella decides on her best guess. Her eyebrows tense. "We gotta grab those two."
When they follow Stella to the creek and are about to cross, Ozzie's feet abruptly stop. "…Maybe Hammy's just finding nuts. He could be finding nuts, right?!"
"Nah." Stella grabs his shoulder. "He's finding THE nuts. The fat both of 'em."
XXX
The Hedgies rally together to track Hammy's wind-wave into the quarantined suburbs. A big burst of light from over a fence provides Stella with her first bit of harrowing validation. Next, the planks of wood blast apart in front of their faces. They storm through the flaming hole left behind.
The situation is just as maniacal as the rest of the town is. RJ and protein-boosted-Hammy huff to death in the weapon's aftermath, planted into gardening soil with their hands on the bars of a metal cage. Presumably, they moved it in time, considering the tips of their backs are lit like candles and the mud underneath them has been spread forward like paste.
The green, militaristic abomination must've been aiming for whatever was once inside it. Instead, it blasted the giant hole in the fence. The machine lies in wait from its camouflaged post within large, stringy bushes at the end of the yard. A bit above its omnidirectional wheels is the signature Verm-Tech seal. A few missiles are missing from its plated array of vermin-assured destruction. The separate black control panel installed near the house's patio is labeled 'Depelter Turbo'.
But Heather's not in that cage. She escaped, if that were even possible.
"What?" RJ wheezes. "She's out of her mind. She's gone rogue."
"Answers, funny-man!" Ozzie barrels towards him with dad-like poise.
"I don't HAVE answers! She dipped! Like chip dip!"
"Ozzie, look out!" Tiger calls out of nowhere.
A second before he runs into a misplaced garden gnome, Ozzie grips his throat. To drop dead, he falls as slow as physically possible right over a red laser.
"Noooooooo-!"
The Depelter Turbo activates again, after an alarm. Everyone takes cover from the missile.
It went right over RJ's head, and his body was traumatized. Despite everything, he can't ignore the dead bug Hammy shows him.
Fred never came back from his recon.
"H-Hammy… I had no idea, I'm- I'm so sor-"
"We gotta find Cousin Heather, RJ. Or else she'll end up like that rabbit…" Every time the figurine smashes the white rabbit on the Sniffer's truck in the street, Hammy's limbs get clammier.
Ozzie swims through the grass and brings himself upright in front of RJ. "I can't rest until I know Heather hasn't ended up like that." He rocks the raccoon's shoulders lividly. "What have you done to get her like this?!"
"Oz'. I know I've got something of a reputation, but I swear down, THIS was not the doing of your good pal RJ, right, pal? Heh- Y'know what, blowing up that kitchen last week wasn't even my idea!"
Stella mutters, "I don't buy it."
"All she wants is to see what life in suburbia's really like for these humans. That's why she sticks with me. You guys aren't just foragers anymore. You've got real lives, AMBITIONS…"
"So what's really up with the girl, huh? I've got a hunch that Grandpa isn't overreactin' dis time."
'Grandpa' fell dead yet again when the laser system flashed back on, after the porcupine kids played around with the control panel. Subsequently, a round of hyper-accelerating incineratory missiles hurl through yards and take out another twenty-four hundred square feet of real estate somewhere in the open suburbs.
Tiger clears his throat and sits up straight.
"Task at hand, please," Stella snaps.
Lou and Penny don't appreciate the epic prank either, so they go and plug the kids' quills into their own and wear them like clothes on a hanger.
"Verne…" RJ sighs when answering Stella's question. "Verne is what's up with her, 'kay?"
"Well gee, what a guess, Tiger."
"So it's a front," Tiger translates.
"Yeah DUH it's a front! And I know fronts!" says RJ. "Your 'princess' is a royal mess right now."
"Why?" Quillo asks from Penny's back.
"You gotta understand, kids… She feels guilty about our uncle."
On Lou's back, Bucky pipes up first: "So what? We like human things and he doesn't. Uncle Verne's just old and LAME!"
Spike quickly gets pressured into sticking his tongue out too. "Yeah! Old and lame!"
"Enough with the attitude, kids!" Lou commands them. "Verne is a good slice of pizza. He may have all the wrong toppings, and they may have messed up our order there, and our eating experience may be completely ruined because of that, but he's still tasty in his own way. Tell them about the pizza metaphor, hun'."
Bucky's the blunt one, and Spike follows along with any of Bucky's opinions, but… What kind of Verne hate club has RJ spawned? It's hopeless to try and contest it right now. RJ gets out a small house phone and dials Heather immediately. "Heather, please, Hammy's tick is dead, Stella's peering into my soul and your dad is worried sick."
"Voicemail. Being cool. Bye." That's Heather's pre-recorded message from earlier.
RJ slams the phone into his bag and twitches in frustration. Quietly, he wishes, "Come back, 'Possum Pal."
"So how do we find her?" Ozzie pleads.
RJ has a plan for him, at least. "Alas, Ozzie." RJ shoves Ozzie's torso down into a feral position. "You out of us would be the one to memorize her nautralle odeur. Start SNIFFING, boy!"
Ozzie's pupils widen and he sniffs the entire lawn, crawling wide-legged like a lizard. He finds something puffy and yellow. It tastes stale in his mouth. "Popcorn. Heavily buttered."
"Atta boy! He's got her trail. Let's go find our princess."
XXX
"Heather, please, Hammy's tick is dead, Stella's peering into my soul and your dad is worried sick-"
In the meantime, Heather forces her ears to listen to some of the calls that have pestered her all morning. She leaves the rest of her body dug into garbage inside this cold, dented can.
"I can't believe, I CAN'T BELIEVE I just ran away from them like that. It was such a selfish thing to do. Whatever, RJ, I get it. Like c'mon, I already got Verne dumped. Now I probably got Fred killed somehow. I've pissed off Dad all spring, just 'cause- I dunno, Mom couldn't have made herself look like this much of an idiot, I guess. So Dad has to be all weirdly obsessive over everything I do, otherwise I'll kill myself out here." She can't stand the look of her own dark hands on her eyeballs. "I'm just the stupid, clueless teen everyone thinks I am… edgy rebel… insecure prick… Obviously I can't handle any responsibility. I can't even eat junk like normal 'possums anymore. Everything smells so gross right now, eww."
Jam jars and scraps of rotting produce line the layer she uncomfortably lies upon. Not many champagne corks and wine bottles deep, a slip of paper grabs her attention. Its border is discretely multicolored, and there's tons of fancy writing inside the box, which she'd love to let her gray sights enter. Invitation. Something about a moving-in party, and a birthday bonanza fest for their son. It'll all take place on May 24th. Funny, that's only a day before Heather's own birthday - That's today!