Chapter 5:
Isolation

I

"Sorry, sir! My bad! You can sue if you want!" The frantic apology confused the plump, shirtless man as the young girl who had bumped into him ran past. He was not comforted by the bright green ice cream cone formerly in his hand now upside-down on the soft, orange sand. "Hang on a second..." He was too disappointed to react to the flash from a camera the girl had taken out of her backpack. "They make mint taste kinda like paint, anyway!" Lilo's reassurance fell on the spherical man's deaf ears, though she didn't have time to notice. She was already running late, and the weight of the blue backpack she carried was a constant reminder of it.

II

Despite running faster than any exclamations from her overzealous gym teacher could motivate her to, Lilo still arrived at the blank, yellowish-brown brick of a school to find the usual bustling crowd of students absent from its undecorated front. She didn't bother going to her classroom, as she knew that she'd only be told by the irritable Mrs. Robinson to go see Mr. Durand. The only thing more frustrating would be the tasteless, thoughtless insults from Mertle and her friends, or friend, rather. Lilo had a theory that Mertle just had one friend and cloned her twice perfectly to create three. She knew all of this was inevitable, but seeing the principal would at least grant her more time to brace herself for it. She was wary around Mertle since two days prior, anyway. Regardless, he was not pleased to find a student arriving later than requested.

"Twice this week, Lilo," He sternly began. His dark green jacket and scarlet tie were draped like a cape over his chair, leaving only his partially buttoned up dress shirt. Lilo always wondered why he didn't just leave the jacket at home in the boiling Hawaii weather. She stood across from his desk in his broom cupboard of an office, feeling like a suspect before a judge in the world's smallest court. "Is there something wrong at home? Can your sister not drive you to school in the morning?"
"No, she can; she had her full license. I just like to walk to school. It's not very far, anyway,"
"Then why are you tardy more than once?"
"It's, uh, kind of a long story,"
"Could you abbreviate it at all?" He was responded with a raised eyebrow. "Could you make it a short story?"
"Alright..." Lilo took a quick breath, and then started her story off with the speed of an Olympic runner. "I was on my way to bring Pudge his daily offering, but Nani, for some reason, decided to pack me a tuna sandwich for lunch today instead of ham. I almost always offer ham to Pudge, but even if it wasn't that, I could never offer him tuna! You know what tuna is, right?"
"...Fish-" Mr. Durand was befuddled, and Lilo's speed was not helpful.
"It's fish! What kind of creature would I be if I fed Pudge tuna?! We'd have storms for months, the town would be destroyed! So I had to go back home, only to find that we were out of ham! So I made a peanut butter sandwich, gave it to Pudge..." She took a deep breath. "And then I came here,"
The principal was silenced for a moment. "Is Pudge a fish?"
"Yeah. I didn't say?" Lilo finally slowed to an acceptable speed.
"And what was that about storms?"
"Oh, Pudge controls the weather,"
"That's why you give him these 'offerings?'"
"Well, of course,"
Mr. Durand was speechless for another second. "Look, Lilo, you're barely skimming by as it is, and this kind of tardiness isn't helpful to your grades at all. If you want to improve, you can start by organizing your priorities and-"
"Organizing what? Sorry," Lilo looked confused, only irritating her principal.
"Putting school first and getting here on time. At least give us the impression that you care about your studies,"
"If you say so, Mr. Durand..." She turned to exit the cramped quarters.
"...Lilo?" He called her back just before she left. "You know you can always come here if you have something to say," His stern tone became as soft as it could manage.
"Yeah, I know." She shut the door and headed down the hall to waste another six-and-a-half hours in Mrs. Robinson's class.

III

Lilo wished Nani would arrive sooner. The one day that she desperately wanted to walk, and she needed to wait for her sister to pick her up for some droll social worker. Even if it was considerably cloudier than it had been that morning, movement was always an effective distraction. She could hardly bear to stare at the condescending 'C-' any longer. She soon came to the simple solution; crumpling the paper in her fist, though she found its disappearance did not erase its image from her mind. A distraction quickly came to mind, though; she split away from the bustling crowd of students and the echoing gibberish of their combined voices, setting her bag down on a free part of sidewalk. After zipping open the second largest pouch, she pulled out a flimsy doll of her own creation. It was had many pale shades of green from the different sources of fabric it borrowed from, and had two enormous buttons for eyes. It had yellow hair that was tied up to appear like a tower on top of its head, and its mouth consisted entirely of stitches.

"How are you doing, Scrump?" Lilo asked her craft.
"Pretty good. How are you, Lilo?" Scrump asked. Though her mouth of stitches was immobile, she had a playful, bouncy voice, though its deepness was obviously faked. She sounded similar to Lilo.
"I'm doing OK, I guess. Kinda screwed up my science test, though." She held Scrump's floppy head up, feeling the four eggs stuffed within it.
"Aw, that sucks,"
"Tell me about it..."
"Well, at least Nani doesn't have to see, right? I mean, no need to get a twenty thousandth earful from her,"
"Yeah, you're right. I don't really have to show Nani; I never even told her about the test anyway." She made the egg sack tilt to one side.
"Is Pudge the Weather God on his good side today?"
"Yeah, Pudge is good, too. He was a bit annoyed that the offering was late, but since he liked the peanut butter he said he'd only let it rain a little bit tonight." They both glanced up at the clouds, nowhere near as grey as they had been a few months ago.
"Phew, I was worried he'd make another huge, slippery rainstorm. That wouldn't be good..."
"No...It wouldn't be..." Lilo's voice trailed off. Her head hung pathetically as she shut her eyes. Scrump was quick to deter from the sensitive subject.
"Sheesh, your sister better get here before half-sight shows up,"
"Yeah, I hope Nani shows up before Mertle comes along, too..." The doll's tactic was effective. "I know I might've gone just a little bit overboard, but she kinda deserved it, if you think about it." Scrump slouched.
"Of course she did! Her copy-paste friends are too dense to do anything, and that bitch Mrs. Robinson-"
"Language, Scrump!"
"Sorry. That butthead Mrs. Robinson...?" The doll groaned.
"Better,"
"-Can't pay attention to anything but her stupid 2-year-old, so somebody had to do it!"
"I guess..."
"...Hey, maybe that social worker Nani called can tell you how to put up with half-sight!"
"Maybe. Social workers are supposed to solve problems and stuff. Maybe he'll have some weird, secret trick for it or something. We'll have to see..." Scrump looked to its right, where Lilo's focus was promptly attracted.

"Oh, shit..." Scrump muttered.

"Oh, no..." Lilo muttered at the same time. To her dismay, another student was approaching her with a look of revulsion on her face. She had curly hair that burned orange, and glasses that Lilo thought she only wore to appear intelligent as opposed to improve her vision. More recently, however, the left lens overlapped a bandage instead of an eye. The injured girl was closely followed by three others, all blank slates with little differences aside from the colors of their hair, eyes, and clothes. They were always behind the first girl. "Hi, Mertle." Lilo disguised dread perfectly with cheerfulness.

"Hey, Lilo," Mertle, however, made no attempt to obscure her contempt. "Still talking to a bag of eggs?"
"Her name's Scrump," Lilo corrected her, holding her makeshift doll close. "And at least she's not being a snothead like somebody else around here,"
"Yeah, I can see her now,"
"I was talking about you,"
"Yeah, sure,"
"...You feeling any better?"
"A little, no thanks to you,"
"I didn't mean to hit you that hard,"
"Well, what should I have expected from a crazy person?"

"Yeaaaaah!" Mertle's companions chimed in an irritatingly bland snarl that would make one abhor their ears.

"Still, though..." Lilo persisted. "I didn't want you to get any bandages. I just wanted you to stop talking about how much better your essay on democracy was than mine,"
"It's not my fault that you're completely stupid, Lilo!" The dark-haired girl could feel something in her head throbbing, trying desperately to escape in some form, perhaps through her mouth her arms. She glanced down at Scrump.
"I'm not doing that again, Scrump." She then looked back at a muddled Mertle, smiling and holding out her creation. "Here, why don't you introduce yourself?" The cheerfulness seemed truer this time, though it was in vain. Mertle smacked the doll out of Lilo's hands, and it landed on the street, where a long, ominous, black car was passing through. The school's presence limited its speed, but regardless, Lilo, becoming pale and scorching, hurried into the road to retrieve Scrump far ahead of the car, which seemed to slow down as it passed her.
"You're such a weirdo, Lilo," Mertle snarled, before her mouth curled into a contemptible smirk. "Weirdlo,"
"Weirdlo!" Her cardboard friends repeated. Lilo was too out of breath to respond before they turned and left, laughing their obnoxious, high-pitched laugh. Lilo tried to steady her breathing, but the throbbing trying to break free of her head was too persistent. She couldn't contain it any longer; she swept up her bag and ran down the sidewalk, too quickly to notice the shadowing car still by the sidewalk.

IV

And although it's always crowded,
You still can find some room.
Where broken hearted lovers
Do cry away their gloom.
You make me so lonely, baby,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I could die.

These old records were among the few remedies for the hammering within Lilo's brain. Her father's old record player was set on a coffee table next to the couch, sharing room with a shaded lamp. An assemblage of Elvis records lay scattered across the floor, omitting the carpet's bright red, yellow, and orange pattern from view. The troubled girl lay back against the short bookcase, formerly by the shut curtains but now more to the right, barricading the front door, letting the music drown out the inaudible sound of her own clamorous thoughts.

"Bullseye!" Scrump noisily proclaimed. She was slumped down beside Lilo, holding an array of magnetic darts, which the troubled girl was throwing one by one at a circular board propped up on the couch across from her. A crude doodle of Mertle was taped to the board, with some assistance from the darts already thrown. Lilo continued to mouth the lyrics to 'Heartbreak Hotel' as a dart struck Mertle's forehead. "Thanks, Scrump. It's all in the wrist movement," She replied her doll's compliment. Once Scrump's supply of darts was exhausted, Lilo forced herself to her feet to strip them from Mertle, and then return to her former lifeless posture. Only one dart had been thrown and one more verse had passed when there was suddenly a banging on the door behind the bookshelf.

"Lilo?!" The most familiar voice in the world called from outside, audibly concerned. Lilo pretended not to hear and persisted her lip-syncing, putting a dart through Mertle's sizeable nose. "LILO?!" Though angst was still detectable in Nani's tone, her volume was raised significantly. Lilo could feel a banging on the door through the bookshelf not dissimilar to the one she was repressing in her head, yet did little more than readjust her aim for her next throw. "Lilo! Not this again..." She could tell that her sister had peeked through the dog flap to find a blank square of wood instead of the house's interior. "Is that the bookshelf?! Lilo, are you bonkers?! What do you think the social worker's gonna think when he sees this?!" The persistent rattling finally got through to Lilo, and she stood up, scooped up Scrump in both arms, and left the room. She remembered that the toaster had pinged a while ago, anyway.

"Lilo, come on, open the door!" Nani tried her best to steady her voice as she pleaded with her sister. She bent down on her knees, dirtying her dark pink t-shirt against the green welcome mat, and attempted to push the bookcase from the door through the minuscule dog flap. She was successful, though the deafening sound of a heavy amount of wood hitting the floor was not congratulatory. She stood up, trying to be optimistic that at least the door was functional again. She breathed in and out deeply for a moment, hoping to release as much of her anguish as possible before...

"The Pelekais?" A voice as deep as an abyss asked right behind Nani. Turning around in a jolt, she discovered an enormous, black, brick house of a man donning a suit darker than the most shadowy night. Between his bald head and rugged jaw was a pair of translucent, dark sunglasses, behind which Nani was somehow apprehensive to see behind. "Is this the Pelekai residence?" The discomforting man repeated when a response did not seem imminent.
"Oh, uh, yes! Yes, this is the Pelekai residence and I am..." Something important in Nani's brain shut down as her stomach performed acrobatics inside her.
"Yes?"
"Nani! I am Nani Pelekai and you must be-"
"The 'dumb maniac,'"
"Oh, uh...Oh!" She was suddenly returned to an event mere minutes ago, in which she honked at and loudly scolded a slow, ominous, black car after discovering Lilo's disappearance from their planned meeting spot. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea it was you, sir! If I had, I never would've called you, uh, that! I was only, uh-"
"If you say so...Nani." The man's engulfing voice was like a serpent coiling around Nani's head, and then securing itself far too tightly.
"...I'm so sorry, I haven't asked your name yet, Mr...?" Nani forced her strongest, toothiest smile.
"Bubbles," He answered slowly. Were Nani on the outside of the situation looking in, she may have felt compelled to let loose a chuckle. In her real position, however, anything even remotely humorous was undetectable. "Might I come in? I'd much like to meet your daughter-"
"Um, my sister actually; Lilo,"
"Your sister?"
"Yes...A few months ago, there was a car accident...Our parents were, uh..."
"I understand..." He answered lowly. Nani didn't realize that Bubbles' voice has softened until after it had passed. She missed it dearly. "What did they do?"
"Our mom taught, uh, hula just a few blocks from here, and our dad was an author, only published twice,"
"I see...Now, I would like to see Lilo,"
"Certainly. Um..." Either open the front door and show him the toppled bookcase, or descend the two flights of pale balcony stairs, go around the wooden house with a scarlet roof, and enter the house via the back door. Considering it in the minimal instant she was allotted to do so, Nani rationalized that getting Bubbles through the front would at least establish some form of competence. Without another word, she pushed the door open, immediately regretting her decision at the sight of the scattered records accompanying the fallen shelf and books. The bizarre illustration of a girl in glasses pinned by darts against a circular board only contributed to the eyesore.
"Do you mind my asking what your sister was doing home alone?" The slimy serpent of Bubbles' voice persisted before Nani could dream up an excuse.
"Did, uh, did I say she was on her own?" She was beginning to disbelieve that smiling required fewer muscles than frowning.
"No, but I noticed she was not with you when you were trying to enter this house. That would dictate that she was already inside when you arrived,"
"Oh, well...You sure are clever..." She spat out a hollow chuckle. "Sorry about the mess, um, kids will be kids, you know?"
"If you say so." He glanced over at the drawing on the dart board. "She's done something like this before, then?"
"Wha-, uh, no, no. Just getting all that youthful energy out, ya know?" Nani accompanied her nervous cover-up with a seemingly enthusiastic swing of her arm.
"Hm...Where is your sister now?"
"She's, uh, she's around...Lilo?!" She called out as motherly as she could, masking her desperate hope that her sister would appear in a respectable manner. "Mr. Bubbles is here and he wants to meet you..." Thankfully, Lilo actually emerged from the kitchen, one hand holding Scrump, while the other held a piece of toast that looked more like buttered coal. She was silent, staring at Bubbles with a static look of unease.

"Hello, Lilo..." The social worker's disposition was as rock hard for Lilo as it was for Nani. "I've heard a lot about you..." The silence persisted for a moment longer.
"You don't seem like a social worker..." She said with no particular emotion.
"I'm a special classification,"
"...Have you killed anyone?" She asked calmly, as if she were conducting a job interview.
"That's a different subject for a different time..." The repellent smell of smoke filled everyone's nostrils. Bubbles looked suspiciously at the pitch black bread in Lilo's hand. "What is that you're holding?" It took the young girl a moment to answer.
"I made you some toast..." Her blank expression remained unbroken. "Then Scrump and I went to play darts while we waited for it to cook, but we got a bit caught up in the game and..."

"Oh, no!" Nani was already speeding into the kitchen by the time an irritating beeping sounded from it.

"That's very thoughtful of you." Bubbles knelt down to be level with Lilo, but his naturally giant height made it impossible; the girl's blank stare was still directed upwards. "Are you often left home by yourself?"
"Just sometimes. Nani has waitress shifts in the afternoon, and I have hula practice twice a week. Other times I practice at home or play with Scrump." The doll wobbled playfully in her hands.
"Do you and...'Scrump' often play darts?"
"I guess so,"
"And listen to records very loudly?"
"Oh, yeah! Nothing's better than Elvis!"
"Hm, well, I can agree with you there." The social worker managed a faint smile. Lilo did not realize how satisfying it was until his face had reverted to stone. "I wanted to ask you about that drawing on the dart board..."
"Oh, that's my friend..." Lilo's face became blank again when Bubbles raised an eyebrow. "She's been naughty, so I have to punish her..."
"I see..." He paused for a moment. "Lilo?"
"Yes, Mr. Bubbles?"
"Are you...Happy?" It was now Lilo's turn to take a pause, though hers made Bubbles' seem like less than a millisecond. Nani's anxiety had been transparent to the social worker, as were many things in the endless cases he had worked in over nearly a decade, but Lilo's empty face, staring up at him as he did down at her, was completely impervious. Were his face not fixated on his typically strict mask, he might have furrowed He reached into his jacket's breast pocket and retrieved a small, white card. "I want you to call me the next time you're home alone." He handed the frozen girl the card, and she only stared blankly at it after taking it. The beeping had ceased a while ago, and Nani now re-emerged with a moist brow.
"Your first name is Cobra..." Lilo's tone could not be described as anything more than a general statement, to which Cobra Bubbles did not even reply. The gigantic social worker only stood up straight and looked at her older sister. Though his sunglasses masked his eyes, Nani could sense a stomach-turning disapproval emitting from them.
"You and Scrump can run along now, Lilo," He nodded to them lowly. The girl and her doll scurried back into the living room without another word. Bubbles turned to Nani once Lilo was out of sight. "Your sister tells me you work as a waitress in the afternoons?"

"Yes, that's right," Nani calmed her voice as best as she could. "At the luau just a few blocks from here. I drop Lilo off for hula class on the way there on the days she has it, and then pick her up afterwards,"
"I see...And the conclusions of your shift and her class; they coincide?"
"They do..." Nani thought she might never smile again after today; doing so might resurrect her disguised dread from this conversation.
"Hm..." Cobra reached up to his pitch black glasses, revealing to Nani what she had been hesitant to see since the moment he appeared. She briefly recalled the creature Medusa from Greek mythology, as the social worker's dark brown eyes similarly petrified her once her own eyes met them. "Don't think I can't see everything wrong with what you've shown me today..." His voice was somehow lower than it once was, though Nani was unsure if it was simply her own consternation. "I would list them, but I can clearly see that you've already identified your own mistakes, leaving your sister unattended and such..." Her hoarse smile persisted, though it had shrunk considerably since the sunglasses were removed. Neither of them could deduce why Nani did not simply cease smiling altogether. "In that case, I will merely write this off as a 'bad day' that people typically excuse their failures on. I will see you again tomorrow in the hopes that you will be better prepared, but know that you are not off to a good start. Quite the contrary, in fact." He took a single step towards Nani, glancing down at her not unlike he had at Lilo earlier. The smile was finally vanquished and hurriedly replaced by the true unease Nani had disguised all this time. "I will show myself out...Have a nice day..." With that, he was out the door, which was shut obstreperously behind him, as if it lead to a nuclear fallout shelter.

Nani let out a load of carbon dioxide, feeling like she'd been submerged in water for far too long. Everything was already difficult enough; juggling work with Lilo, day after day. All the troubles she and her sister had to push through, together and individually, she was barely able to handle. She never asked for this overwhelming duty, and yet fate cruelly forced it upon her regardless. She wanted to do everything in her power to help her sister, to find that one particular keyhole in a child's imagination that Nani had long since lost to adolescence. She had called for a social worker in the hopes that there was someone else who held the key to the lock, but all she was given was a wider burden. The weight she carried was already limiting the strength she had at the untimely age of 19; what Cobra brought was less than unnecessary, it was like a malicious prank from Mübi. The overflowing barrel of her responsibilities and anxieties rattled around inside her skull, nearly impossible to keep upright. Finally, when she accepted that it wouldn't stand, she set it on its side, and released its contents.
"LILO!" Though her volume covered the entirety of the house, no response was audible. Nani breathed carefully, figuring that a less clamorous call would be more effective. "Lilo!" She was calmer now, and surely enough, a series of increasingly noisy rumbles sounded from between the kitchen and the living room, where the stairs were. A small figure wrapped in an long, bright green duvet like a hood soon zipped past Nani before she could react. "Lilo!" Why did she always have to do this? All Nani wanted to do was talk to her; why did her younger sister rebel so strongly against such a simple notion? "Lilo, can you come here, please?!" She walked quickly after her in more than a stroll but less than a march, yet she still evaded her as if out of fear. Nani eventually grew exhausted of her elusive sister's insolence and gave proper chase. "Lilo!" Her exclamations were still ignored by Lilo, who seemed like a hooded thief fleeing from an infuriated guard. After a multitude of laps around the house's lower level, the younger of the two eventually turned left past the stairs, entering the laundry room well ahead of Nani. Her elder slowed down, too frustrated to feel weary, and entered the miniature room slowly. As she stepped onto the chequered blue and white floor, she noticed an immediately familiar, bright green duvet within a white plastic basket in front of the two cubic, white machines against the far wall. She lifted her head back at the heavens, taking a deep breath before tearing the cover from Lilo's oblivious hiding spot. The young girl let out a yelp before attempting escape again, though she was quickly pulled back around the waist and replaced in front of Nani.

"Lilo, what was going on with you back there?!" She questioned her like an unforgiving police officer. Lilo still struggled to flee, though Nani held her in place. "What were you thinking; making that mess in the living room and barricading the door again!?" She received only a frustrated grunt in response. Lilo did not even open her eyes to face her. "Why didn't you wait at school?! I thought I told you that I'd pick you up today!" Only more grunting and more struggling. "I told you that we had to be ready for the social worker! Now he thinks were a couple of loons!"
"NO!" Lilo suddenly exclaimed.
"Are you listening to me?!"
"NO!"
"No what?!" Her persistence yielded no valid answer, only an obnoxious amount of drool on her forearm. This distracted a disgusted Nani long enough to allow Lilo to escape, though now she moved in little more than a sombre stroll. "Lilo, this behaviour has got to stop!" The older sister stood up and wiped the saliva away with the dropped duvet, following the unhurried girl back down the hall. "You're not making things easier for me or yourself!"
"It's not getting easier anyway!" Lilo suddenly turned back and trumped her sister's volume. "What do you want from me?! You're always moaning about how crappy your stuff is like I'm the one who gets the easy stuff! Why don't you just get a rabbit instead if you don't care about me!"
"Well, at least a rabbit wouldn't talk back at me like that!" Nani did her best to sound like a parent, though the tone tasted stale in her mouth.
"You do to me, so why can't I?! You're not my mom!" The younger girl then turned and slowly ascended the stairs.
"No, but I'm the oldest, so you'll listen to-"
"So?! You get to do everything just because you're old?!" Lilo was halfway up the stairs now. Her sister remained on the lower floor, shouting after her. "Is that the only reason you listened to Mom?!" This earned an infuriated grunt from Nani.
"Go to your room!" She demanded clamorously.
"I was just going there, stupidhead!" Lilo was angered enough to stop and turn around. "What is the point of telling me to go to my room when I'm already going up there?! I mean, what is-WHAT IS THE GODDAMN POINT?!" With that, she turned back and stormed into her room like a charging rhinoceros, slamming the door with enough force to put Cobra to shame. Both the door and two pillows prevented either sister from hearing each other's frustrated screams mere seconds later.

V

Neither sister knew why the bunk beds in Lilo's room still stood. It was a surprise from their parents on the girl's fourth birthday, and it overjoyed them both. They never assigned themselves bunks; who got which one was playfully randomized each night. Sometimes a game of checkers or chess was played to determine the bunks, the latter of which was occasionally simply won by whoever did not surrender. However, with both the passage of time and Nani's head start on it, the elder of the two eventually moved into another room down the hall, formerly useless aside from holding random furniture. Though the primary function of the bunk beds had since been unnecessary, they were never dismantled. Nani's best rationale was that it would only take more needless work to separate them than to leave them be. Lilo had been alternating bunks alone for years, and now she lay on the bottom bed. She had been there for nearly an hour, wishing dearly that she had brought up the record player or the dart board, so she'd have a reason to create a crude doodle of Nani. After a while, however, she had opted to remaining horizontal on the bed with Scrump, fishing her camera from her bag as rain began to hammer peacefully on her bedroom's window, just above the desk across from the foot of her bed. Though it was barely a sprinkle compared to the rain from months ago, it still forced upon Lilo the excruciating weight of melancholy. She automatically floated up like a balloon into the cold, translucent clouds in the most uninviting depths of her skull. Like an ominous, abandoned house surrounded by horrific rumours, it was a place that filled one with dread to be in, yet somehow enticed them to return. She drifted for several minutes, letting the endless, grey storm carry her away.

"Wow!" Scrump grabbed her roughly by the foot. "And I thought the woman at the luau last weekend was porky!" Lilo was abruptly pulled back down into the present. The doll had commented on a picture on Lilo's camera's screen; the device had been held up by the girl's vertical arm as automatically as she had been floating away.

"Oh, yeah, I took that one this morning..." Lilo now recalled a much earlier event; photographing the enormous man and his spilled, paint-tasting ice cream, from seeing his picture again. She scrolled through the collection of pictures in the camera, each one containing another spherical individual. "Aren't they beautiful?"

"Whatever you say, Lilo..." Scrump sighed, poorly masking disagreement. The door suddenly creaked open; Lilo didn't see it, but she could recognize the sound anywhere. "Oh, crap, here she comes..." The doll groaned.

"Hey..." It took Nani a moment to speak. When her sister didn't respond, her sight still locked onto the gallery of plump citizens above her head, she assumed her entry would be tolerated. To her relief, it was. She held a plate with a single, cheesy piece of pizza, rid of its refrigerated coolness courtesy of a microwave. "I brought you that last pizza slice in case you were hungry..." Lilo's response was not immediate, though she eventually let her arm flop back on the bed, dropping the camera, and then sat up with her body facing Nani, but her head facing the floor.

"We're broken..." She said quietly.
"Broken?" Nani was initially confused, but mentally concurred just as her sister began to elaborate.
"Our family, I mean. It's broken,"
"No..." She tried to speak as softly as her mother did. "Well..." She set the plate on Lilo's light brown bedside table, not far from a framed photo of their more youthful selves with two other individuals. A woman nearly identical to Nani held a smaller Lilo on her shoulders. She wore a fluent grass skirt, a peaceful, green shirt patterned with white flowers like Lilo's red muumuu, and a radiant necklace of pink dahlias. Next to her was a man wearing sunglasses, which did little to obscure the energy in his face. Beneath his gelled, black moptop was a beam wider than any human before him could create. Against his fiery orange t-shirt, with the last two buttons left undone, he hugged Nani, depicted her mere inches taller than the Lilo on the bed in front of her in the present. "Maybe a little..." Nani pulled her eyes from the photograph and back to Lilo as she knelt down to her level. The younger girl looked up at her with an expression half-upset and half-irritated. "OK, maybe a lot, but...Broken things can be fixed, right?"
"I guess..." Lilo picked up Scrump and fiddled with her flimsy hair.
"...I'm sorry I yelled at you," Nani said after a moment. "I keep forgetting how hard this must be for you, but yelling doesn't exactly make it easier, does it?"
"It's OK," Her younger sister replied, her gaze still on her custom doll. "That's what sisters do, right?" They both chuckled.
"You might as well be right," The elder mumbled as her laughter faded.
"...I'm sorry I swore earlier." Lilo looked up at Nani now. "I didn't mean to,"
"It's alright. I know I'm supposed to tell you you shouldn't curse, but honestly, there are worse things people can do,"
"I know..." Lilo had a fleeting glimpse of mere days ago, when Mertle's endless supply of boasts and insults poured into her brain like fuel into a gas tank. The fuel had boiled inside her skull for a minute, scorching beyond toleration, before her head couldn't stand it any longer. Her head had passed the fuel on to Lilo's hand, and her hand had passed it on to Mertle's face. "...I like you better as a sister than as a mom," She said to Nani once she remembered her surroundings. The older sibling didn't know what to say, so she only smiled and nodded.
"And I like you better for a sister than a rabbit." She sat down next to Lilo as pulled her close. The younger girl now smiled as well, though she still held Scrump.
"What's that spooky social worker up to?" Lilo curiously inquired.
"...He doesn't think I'm doing a good job at looking after you...At least from what he saw today..." Nani's tone sharpened slightly as she looked down at her sibling, though remained far from the volume she had demonstrated downstairs.
"That was all my fault, though!" Lilo sat up without so much as an attempt at defending herself. "How the hell is-Oops, uh, heck is that your fault?!"
"That's just what some people are like," Nani chuckled, relieved that she and her sister could now converse in a civil manner. "'It's always someone else's fault,'"
"...I think that's why Mertle Edmonds never gets in trouble,"
"That the girl you hit the other day?"
"Yeah." Lilo's gaze returned to the hardwood
"Hm...Tell you what, Lilo?" Nani successfully returned her sibling's gaze to her. "If I promised not to yell at you ever, except on special occasions, would you promise not to hit Mertle, barricade the door, leave the toaster on, or make the living room look like a hurricane went through it?" Lilo pondered the deal for a moment.
"Would tuesdays and bank holidays work?" She asked merrily.
"Works for me,"
"Then it's a deal!" They sealed it with a playfully firm handshake.

Suddenly, the window across from the foot of Lilo's bed lit up with a light orange. Curious, the two siblings were drawn to lean over the desk in front of the window to discover the color's source. They discovered what appeared to be a shooting star falling from the sky like a damaged aircraft. It left behind smoke that seemed thick as a house fire at first, but quickly faded into transparent air. The front seemed to the source of the orange light; it glowed brighter than the orange shirt the sisters' father wore in the framed photograph. It was bright enough to make a small chunk of the pitch black, raining sky appear as clear as the day before it. It was falling too fast to be seen for more than a few seconds, and then it hit the distant ground silently, the orange light becoming brighter before vanishing completely. Lilo and Nani stared off at the general area behind the rain where it landed, and then Lilo burst out.

"Get out! Get out!" She hurriedly pulled on her older sister towards the door, though in an excited panic as opposed to a malicious dismissal. "Come on! I have to make a wish!"
"Oh, you have to?" Nani cheerfully and sarcastically responded as she was led to the door.
"Yes! I called it! Come on, God gave you legs for a reason!"
"Yes, but I have them turned off now to save the batteries." The taller sibling playfully slumped onto her knees.
"Oh, come on!" Lilo half-groaned and half-laughed as she continued to try and drag Nani by the arm, but to even less avail than when she was standing.
"And so are my arms," The toppling girl continued. "And my entire body." She slumped down completely on her back, savoring this rare moment when she could forget about being a guardian and just be a sister again.
"Then why can your mouth still work?!" Lilo took Nani's foot and pulled, though there was no movement aside from the leg hovering above the floor. She then traversed to Nani's head to hoist her up under her arms. Her back only hovered as well, though Nani decided to giver her sibling a break and pretend to be moved from the ground. "That's it, no more ice cream for you!" Lilo got her to the door before her weight seemed to fall against her again. "You're doing this on purpose, Nani!"
"Maybe." The elder sister chuckled before allowing Lilo to successfully thrust her out the door. "Oh, so now you stand up!" Lilo exclaimed hurriedly before slamming the door, which Nani discovered the hard way that her head had been too close to. She rubbed her throbbing head, though quickly chuckled it off at the amusing tomfoolery that preceded the small injury. In the midst of all the bustling that she had been thrust into, small games that lasted mere minutes or even seconds were like traveling backwards in time to a completely carefree era. An era in which all the concerns of her present were still several college years away. Nani was quickly pulled from her reminiscing when her sharp ears found Lilo's uncommonly soft voice from behind the door. Recalling what Lilo wanted to do in light of the shooting star, she leaned an ear against the door and listened more deliberately.

"Hey..." She heard her say peacefully. "I hope you're alright...You should be, otherwise that place is false advertising...I saw your star, so...I was wondering if you could...Maybe send me someone? A friend; someone who won't run off or be a stupidhead...Maybe you could send an angel. The nicest angel you have...If you could...But a friend would be awesome, too...Thanks...Sweet dreams..."

Nani remained at the door even after the prayer's conclusion. An idea was brewing in her brain like a delectable soup, its silent noise loud enough to blot out Lilo's gasp when what appeared to be a frog collided with her bedroom window. It wasn't long before the stew was ready to serve, and Nani's mouth curled into an excited grin.

VI

"I think we should get something nice and sturdy!" Lilo merrily suggested as she and Nani entered the box-like building. "Something that'll live for a long time, like a billion-and-a-half years!" She did not display the excitement that children exhibited on Christmas morning, but the more balanced level displayed upon the last snowy day of school before the holiday.

"We'll see what they have, Lilo," Nani replied. The animal shelter's bright orange interior was far more inviting than the dull shade of its outside walls. There were no decorations, pictures, or anything of interest on the walls aside from a tall, thin plant with very few branches in the lower left corner. The room was divided in half with a thin desk of the same shade of orange, with one part at the end having nothing but a top, along which a woman on the further side collected a signature from another on the opposite side. The shelter worker had ginger hair, and wore a plain white shirt and contrasting dark green pants, both baggy enough to make her seem more twig-like than she really was. The other woman was redheaded, and sported a sky blue t-shirt with a single button and long pants of a darker shade. Next to her, a girl about Lilo's age cuddled a dog coated with fluffy, snow white fur. The girl had scarlet hair like her mother's, tied into a ponytail, a radiant yellow shirt, and a face dotted with infinite freckles. As the girl exited the shelter with her mother, Nani couldn't help but notice the radius of her beam, coming near to one herself to think that a similar one would be on Lilo's face all too soon.

"Good afternoon!" The slender shelter worker greeted them. Perhaps the departed girl's wide smile was borrowed from her. "Adopting?"

"Uh, yes!" Nani was surprised by how quickly this enthusiastic employee's service was, considering nobody other than her seemed to be present. "What did you say you wanted, Lilo?" She gently encouraged her sister.

"Um..." The young girl's eagerness was replaced with a sudden timidness once she looked up at the grinning worker, which lasted barely a second before her eyes met the floor.

"Hey, don't you worry! We've got lots of dogs here!" The woman encouraged her, lowering her volume by the slightest fraction. Though Lilo's head remained lowered, her eyes were drawn successfully. "Why don't you come have a look at them all?" The shelter worker gently lifted the part of the desk that was only a top like a door, despite Lilo being short enough to duck underneath it without crawling. Lilo was enticed to enter the sky blue room that lay in the archway ahead; half of her was somewhat afraid to proceed, while another half was irritated at her strange and inconvenient fear.

"Go on..." Nani got down on one knee to nudge Lilo ever so gently forward. She looked back at her older sister after the forced step. "Go pick someone you like," She warmly added. The younger sibling's irrational fear was effectively vanquished, and she ventured into the blue room room with even more excitement than she had before.

"Hello?" She called out to the two rows of cages, which all seemed strangely misplaced against the colorful walls and posters of cartoonish children and dogs embracing. Lilo might've donated more thought to the inconsistent coloring, had it been more interesting than the discovery that, as she walked slowly further down the single hall of cages, that they all appeared vacant. The further halves of each of them were obscured in shadow, so she thought to try calling them out. "Hello?!" Louder than before, though the room was still silent enough for a pin dropping to sound like a monstrous roar. "Are there any animals in here?!" She was sickeningly reminded of her ignorant schoolmates. She had reached the sky blue wall without seeing a single dog, and so she turned around to search again. She found a result sooner than she expected; a dog of which sort she had never seen before was sitting right in front of her. His fur was the same blue as the calm ocean, and his body was a perfect balance between fat and thin; Lilo almost wanted to cuddle it immediately. His head was round and long horizontally, with towers of ears that stretched beyond it. What fascinated Lilo most, however, were the two large eyes that sat above the huge, circular button of a nose. Although the eyes were black, they felt crimson; the dog's eyes were burning. His muzzle was stretched into a wide beam that shriveled his fuzzy cheeks, but the eyes did not belong on the same face. There was no doubt in Lilo's mind that his eyes were on fire, the flames licking the sockets around them and aging them to dust. There was a translucent shield that prevented her from seeing the true flame, though, but she had a powerful feeling that there was an endless list of people who could see the fire in its entire hellish glory. The rest of the dog's face was as inviting as a child's, but his eyes belonged to a hateful revolutionary. Lilo recalled the irrational doubt she had felt before entering the hall of cages, and somehow knew that this dog had felt similarly only once, and regretted it enormously. Though his eyes housed their own impression of Hell, Lilo found no reason to fear them here. She smiled timidly and raised her hand. "Hi..."

As bizarre as this creature was, he might just be the angel she had prayed for. Though nobody would ever dream any angel could possess such demonic and rebellious eyes, Lilo was hopeful that they only hid a true friend behind them. It was only a matter of time before he revealed himself. To the girl's surprise, the dog raised its front paw, just as she had raised her hand, and spoke.

"Hi!"