It was a bright and sunny day in Smileyland (as usual) and the main four were sitting on the couch. Mr. Cat's favorite news program was on, and the others had tuned in out of general curiosity. Stumpy was even more jittery than he normally was, and he chewed on his fingernails excitedly.

"Mr. Cat, did you replace the water in the drinking fountains with energy drinks again?" Kaeloo asked suspiciously. "Stumpy's been acting really hyper and excited today!"

"Well, not as much as his sister, he isn't," Mr. Cat said defiantly. At that moment, as if to prove his point, Vitamine rode by on a scooter-horse, just a rapid blur to the naked eye.

"YEE HAW!" shrieked the happy child, clutching her cowgirl hat to make sure it didn't fall off.

"I'm finally going to get the Mr. Coolskin vs the Emperor of the Mutant Cucumbers game!" Stumpy explained.

"Quack?" (Didn't that game come out last year?)

"Well, yeah, but I had to save up the money to get it! Mom got kind of suspicious the last time I took money out of her purse, and I was able to blame Violasse for it, but she's started keeping an eye on her wallet now, so I had to save up my own money for it, and that took a while," Stumpy grumbled.

"Oh, Stumpy! It's not nice to steal from your mother! Or to blame your little sister for something you did!" Kaeloo scolded.

"You're clearly an only child," Mr. Cat quipped sarcastically. If his own experience with older brothers had taught him anything, it was that they were the type of people to ruthlessly exploit the littler ones.

"Anyway I ordered the game online this morning and it's arriving tomorrow!" Stumpy said, bouncing up and down in his seat. A commercial began on TV, depicting Mr. Coolskin beating up various villains. The words "Mr. Coolskin vs the General of Staphylococcus Dragons" and "New Game Releasing Next Week" flashed across the screen.

"NOOOO!" Stumpy screamed, falling to his knees.

The next ad began, a commercial for Checkmark brand shoes. A teenage boy was shown to repeatedly fail at various sports, but he put on a new pair of Checkmark sneakers and was suddenly able to run extremely fast and win at every game he played.

"I find this lacking in credibility," Mr. Cat complained.

"He reminds me of Vitamine!" Kaeloo said.

"Quack." (He is very fast…)

"Say, Nutcracker… why don't you get your sister to audition for one of these things? You could earn tons of money that way!"

Say what you wanted about Mr. Cat, but he was always looking out for his friends in their time of need.

"Mr. Cat is right!" Kaeloo said, looking admiringly at Mr. Cat. "Being in commercials, especially for a big brand like Checkmark, earns a lot of money!"

"How much money?" Stumpy inquired. Quack-Quack used Gogol Search to look it up for him, and showed him the result on his phone. Stumpy's eyes changed into euro signs. He waved his arms back and forth frantically, trying to get his sister's attention. Vitamine crashed her scooter and zipped up to where Stumpy was sitting.

"Hey Vitamine, do you want to try auditioning for a commercial for Checkmark sneakers? They'll pay us lots of money!" he explained to her.

Vitamine pulled out a notebook and wrote "Sounds like fun!" The notebook had been Mr. Cat's idea. If Vitamine couldn't speak to Stumpy normally, she could write instead, and Stumpy could read the message at his own pace. Just then, Pretty walked by, typing furiously on her phone.

"Oh, hello, Pretty!" Kaeloo greeted her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm canceling this guy on Amstramgram," Pretty explained.

"Isn't that when you call for a person to be shunned by everyone?" Kaeloo frowned.

"Yeah, exactly!" Pretty grinned.

"Quack?" (What are they being canceled for?)

"Well, everyone else is really mad at him, and I don't really know why, but there must be a reason. So I'm sending all my followers after him," she explained.

"Sounds legit!" said Stumpy, pulling out his phone. Kaeloo grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddies! Shouldn't we wait and assess the situation before spreading hate towards this person? Maybe it was all a misunderstanding!" Kaeloo said gently. She was much more of a fan of the approach of talking things out with others.

"Well, if he wasn't a bad person then people wouldn't be saying bad things about him, Kaeloo! I'm doing a good thing here! I'm trying to be a better person! Why don't you want me to change?" Pretty asked angrily. Kaeloo cowered defensively.

"I -" the frog began, but Pretty cut her off.

"Who are you?" the rabbit asked Vitamine, having finally noticed the little squirrel. Vitamine scribbled out her name on a piece of paper.

"That's her name?" Pretty said derisively, before noticing everyone staring awkwardly.

"... What a beautiful name!" she said, forcing a too-big grin. Kaeloo was easily fooled by Pretty's clumsy cover-up.

"Vitamine here is going to audition for a commercial for Checkmark brand shoes!" Kaeloo explained.

"Checkmark?" Pretty asked, euro signs forming in her eyes.

"Say, how about I help you?" Pretty asked, kneeling down to face Vitamine. Vitamine scribbled the word "sure" onto her notebook and handed it to Pretty.

"Oh, that's a great idea! Especially with your knowledge of fashion-related things, I'm sure you could help her with her audition, especially since it's her first time!" Kaeloo smiled.

"Froggy, a quick word in private?" Mr. Cat asked. Kaeloo obliged, following him behind a nearby bush.

"The rabbit?" Mr. Cat asked, raising an eyebrow. "How do we know she's not going to exploit the poor kid?"

"Mr. Cat!" scolded Kaeloo. "Pretty is trying to change! She's trying her best to be a better person now and we should encourage her!"

"I still have my doubts…"

"Mr. Cat! You're way too much of a pessimist! You always see the worst in everything!" Kaeloo protested.

"Oh, fine! Don't say I didn't warn you though," he sighed.

If only Kaeloo had remembered what Ki Cé Ka Raison had taught her: that Mr. Cat was usually right.

Author's Notes:

I just finished watching season 5 of Kaeloo! I love all of Stumpy's sisters and Vitamine is one of my favorites so I decided to write a story about her. I also really hated what they did to Pretty this season because her so-called character development is really rushed and forced and she feels like a different person altogether, so in this fic, instead of portraying her as a nice character, I decided it would be better to portray her as a manipulative bully who only pretends to be nice. I think that would be a much more interesting character than the bland, boring Pretty we were forced to watch in season 5.