Here you go, chapter 6. Oh my gosh, I had like, two crazy dreams, and one of them had the girl from the Ring in them, and it was weird, but then it ended up being a flying dream, and it was AMAZING. Oh my gosh, oh my! It was the greatest thing every, and lie, gah! I can't stop gushing about it. I've never had a flying dream before! So... Great!

Anyways...

R&R! Excuse me, if this chapter is a little drawl. None of the fun stuff happens until later... *pout*

Chapter 6

"Cuddles?"

"Here."

"Flaky?"

"Oh! Here, Sniffles…"

"Alright. Pop, Cub, Lifty and Shifty?"

"Mmm." Pop lifted his pipe and Cub waved his hands in the air. Both raccoons obnoxiously sat up in their chairs, leaned over Toothy and waved their arms around like idiots. "Oh! Here we are! Over here Sniffles!"

"Will you two just shut up seconds? Please?"

"But Sniffles, this is stupid!" Lifty whined, slumping back in his seat.

"Yeah," Shifty said. "This isn't grade school; you don't need to call our names to know we're here."

"Everyone who's here, raise your hand!" Lifty shouted, throwing his own hand in the air. Before thinking, everyone did what they were told. Sniffles only crossed his arms in tedium, frowning at the cackling brothers.

"I'm just making sure everyone's here!" Sniffles retorted. But the raccoons seemed to think that was hilarious. They burst into another round of laughs (which were broken into sections by their coughs) before Toothy finally got tired of them. The beaver elbowed them both in the stomach. Lifty and Shifty grunted and fell back into their seats.

"This is kinda stupid," Cuddles said. Giggles gave him a look, but it was only half-hearted. The rabbit continued. "I mean, you can tell the only ones who aren't here are Splendid and Russell."

"And Cro-Marmot," Flaky added.

"Yeah, but when has Cro-Marmot ever been here?"

"We saw him earlier," Cuddles piped in, "on our way here. He gave us ice-cream."

"I still don't understand how he can do stuff like that…"

"Um, guys…"

"I mean, he's stuck in a block of ice – how can he do all of the things we think he does?"

"You don't have to think about it so hard Petunia, this is Happy Tree Valley we're talking about. Us dying and coming back to life every day doesn't make much sense either."

"Guys…"

"Achoo!"

"Didn't I tell you to stop sneezing all over me, bro?"

"I told you it's not my fault! I – cough – can't help it."

"Alright, everyone, just hush up for two seconds."

The crowd settled down, resuming their previous positions, staring up at Sniffles tiredly. The anteater sighed, hands on his sides, thinking. When he tore a page off of his clipboard, he said, "Alright, here's what we're going to be doing. Flippy, come up here, please."

The bear stood from Flaky's side and walked onto the table Sniffles was standing on. The second he was gone Lifty and Shifty took residence on either side of the quivering porcupine. "Hey Flaky, looking good," Shifty said, smirking. Flaky couldn't help her blush. "I – um… th-thank y-you…"

"Yeah." Lifty nodded his head, laying his head in his hands. "You look nice in that fancy dress of yours."

"I-I-It's n-n-not th-that f-f-fancy."

"Sure it is!" Shifty put a finger to his chin. "You know what this dress reminds me of brother?"

"It makes me think of black licorice," Lifty answered, licking his lips. Flaky flinched and scooted back in her chair, but was halted by Shifty. "Mm hm." He older brother nodded in agreement. Then, as both raccoons smirked, they bared their teeth and said, "Mind if we had a bite?"

Flaky couldn't help the squeal that erupted from her throat, and the porcupine shot up from her seat, diving towards one behind Petunia, who sat with Nutty and Handy. The skunk frowned and rubbed a hand on her friends back, sending the mirthful brothers a glare from behind.

Flippy growled silently at their antics. Why did they always have to go bugging Flaky? Sure, Flippy understood that it was easy messing with the porcupine, but after a while, wouldn't they just have gotten tired of her repetitive reactions?

Flippy momentarily blocked them from his mind. He climbed onto the table and leaned by Sniffles's shoulder, watching as the anteater drew some kind of three-columned diagram. At the top of each column, Sniffles scribbled the word 'light, medium, heavy'.

"What is that for?" Flippy asked. Sniffles paused and quickly looked over the crowd before the two. "There's just so many of them…" the anteater muttered. Then he set Flippy at his side and, while the bear was slightly distracted with the chattering crowd (though sometimes conversations were halted by fits of coughing or sneazing), grabbed the bear's tail and pinched.

Pain shot through Flippy's tail and shock at the action caused the bear to let out a defensive/surprised roar. Which seemed to be just what Sniffles wanted; it got everyone's attention.

"Alright, listen everyone," Sniffles began. "We've already established that we don't know what in the world is going on, or why we all seem to have gotten something like the cold. But If it's contagious, then everyone is going to have to stay at the hospital-tree until I can judge whether or not we can spread it." This announcement was met with groans, but the anteater continued. "Another thing – it seems that the infection has stages, or levels, and it's affecting some of us more potently than others. Take for Flippy for example."

Sniffles turned to Flippy and without the bear's consent gave his chest a firm pat. It definitely caught Flippy off guard, enough so that he didn't anticipate the stampede of coughs that erupted. He hunched over and covered his mouth with a fist, trying to control the hot, itchy coughs. A few of the animals winced as Flippy fought to regain control of himself. The coughs sounded painful.

"A simple hit on the chest triggered a round of harsh, painful coughs, while I myself-" Sniffles thumped his own chest, "-don't suffer from anything like it."

Flippy attempted to wipe away the tears without anyone noticing. Flaky sent him a worried glance, but he didn't see it.

"So what we're going to do is split everyone into three groups."

"Groups?" Petunia asked. Sniffles nodded and tapped his clipboard. "Yes, three groups. I'll write down who are in the worse condition, who are only moderately sick, and who seem relatively unaffected by the illness."

"Why do you want us separated?" Handy asked. Petunia rolled her eyes but the action went unnoticed by the orange beaver. Sniffles answered, "So I can examine everyone by how they've reacted to the infection. Maybe I can find out why some of us are worse off than others. But until then, it's best to keep everyone separate. So."

Sniffles handed the clipboard to Flippy and told the bear to write his own name down in the 'heavy' column. The bear did as he was told and then Sniffles said, "Does anyone else think they should go on the heavy list?"

"Heavy list?"

"The ones who are sickest."

"Oooh, we do!" shouted Lifty and Shifty. Sniffles nodded to Flippy and the war veteran wrote down the names. "Who else?"

"I think the Mole should."

Flippy glanced up to look at Handy, whose nub was pointing towards the Mole. The purple Happy Tree Friend was sitting in the back, listening quietly to the discussion. He frowned and asked slowly, "What makes you think that, Handy?"

"Aw, come on, you were practically hacking your brains out on the way here, and scratching your eyes like you were trying to wear them out of your skull."

"Sounds reasonable. Put him on the heavy list," said Sniffles.

And so it went on like that. Flippy, Lumpy, the Mole, Lifty, Shifty, Petunia, Lammy, and Nutty were all on the heavy column. Sniffles and Mime were placed under the medium section. That left Disco Bear, Pop, Cub, and Handy beneath the light section. Cuddles, Giggles, and Flaky, on the other hand…

"You three don't seem to have acquired any attributes of the infection," Sniffles told them. The three stood before him; he'd left his position at the table and had sent Flippy off to escort everyone to their hospital rooms. Animals that were on the heavy list would be kept on the first floor – there was a large enough room in the back, and they would be close enough for anyone to reach in short notice. The mediums would be placed on the second floor, in a slightly smaller room but still big enough, and the lights would be across from them, in a room just big enough for four people.

"What does that mean for us?" Giggles asked. Flaky stood at the chipmunk's side, ears down, eyes looking at Sniffles through a curtain of her hair (she found it was useful for avoiding eye contact at certain times and enjoyed the ability to do so). She was nervous, not for herself but for everyone else. Though it was a regular thing to die, it almost always happened in horrifically painful ways. What if the disease got worse? None of the Happy Tree Friends liked pain all that much, and accepting death was a crime against instinct. They would always fight until the end. And even when the end came it was still scary.

Flaky also wondered why she herself hadn't been affected at all. Sure, Cuddles and Giggles weren't as bad as the others, but Flaky noticed she was the only one who hadn't been coughing or sneezing at all. There seemed absolutely nothing wrong with her. The fact made her curious.

Sniffles was answering Giggles's question. "What it means is that, since I myself won't be able to keep watch on everyone, you three will have to do the honors."

"What?"

"Giggles, Cuddles, you two are barely sick," Sniffles told them. He met their surprise with calmness. "And you, Flaky, you don't seem to be sick at all; it also helps that you have some medical experience. You've helped me out around the hospital before."

"Y-yeah…" Flaky couldn't argue with that. She liked to volentear to helpe friends out when they were in the hospital or when they'd been reborn. It made her feel useful. "B-but I d-don't have that m-much experience… Flippy probably knows m-more about this kind of thing th-than I do."

"But Flippy's sick. Listen, you three won't have to do too much. I'll be in charge of the ones in the heavy room. But as for the lights, you are going to have to look over them yourselves."

"How come?" Cuddles wondered. "Because I'm in medium," said Sniffles. "And I don't want any of them getting any sicker. They might catch more infection if I mingle with them."

"But w-what about you, then?" Flippy said. "Wouldn't you be under the same risk as them, if you were always around the friends in the heavy room? And us too. We could all easily be giving the sickness to one another."

Sniffles huffed, fur bristling, but then he forced himself to calm down. "I'm well aware of the dangers in this plan," he told them. "But it's the only plan I can think of so far. And if any of us four do get sick from being around the others, then at least we'll know that it's contagious. But we're going to have to take some risks if we want to try and figure out what's going on."

The three nodded, and Sniffles went on to tell them more about their jobs. Cuddles would check up on the guys, while Giggles and Flaky kept an eye on the females. But Cuddles didn't agree with that plan.

"It's just that there are so many more guys than girls," he said. "I mean, if Giggles and Flaky are only taking care of the girls, then they only have Lammy and Petunia to worry about. I could use a little help, don't you think?"

"That is true," Sniffles said, nodding his head. He turned to Giggles and Flaky. "One of you girls is going to have to take up both duties. Are either of you willing to help Cuddles with the males?"

Flaky and Giggles exchanged a look. Though they didn't mind the males, the idea of taking care of them seemed strange. At first Flaky expected Giggles to answer the call immediately. But then Flaky remembered that she was the least sick of them all. She might be less likely to catch anything, if she hadn't already. And most of the boys were in the heavy ward. It would be best if she took the job.

Another thing was that Flippy was in the heavy ward. If she helped out with males and females, then she would be able to see him more often. The thought made Flaky feel relaxed.

"I, um, I'll do it," she stuttered, raising her hand. Sniffles gave her a look but then smiled and nodded. "Alright then. Cuddles, Flaky will help you with the males. Now, let's go about this the right way. Cuddles, Giggles, first you two will…"

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