CHAPTER 5 - THE IDEA AND THE SQUIRREL PROBLEM

A month has passed since Elias, Kate and Max had left New Mobotropolis, and things were going smoothly. They still hadn't been found by Geoffrey St. John or Ixis Naugus, and the general public were none the wiser about them being there. Kate had read a few newspaper headlines about them leaving, but most were misinformation and all three agreed that nobody in New Mobotropolis would believe all that stuff.

Or would they… ?

"I'm sorry, Kate, but it's pretty bad. The general public don't want you guys back, they want Naugus as the King now." She sighed a hopeless sigh, she hoped she wouldn't have to hear those words come out of Luke's mouth.

"But why?! What happened?"

"All the stuff that he's done. You know, healing Bunnie, taking the crown, letting Geoffrey get off scot free from his crimes, it's all adding up, and I'm sorry to say that you guys running away has made everyone believe that you abandoned them in their time of need, which obviously isn't the case since you had to leave for a valid reason."

She shot Elias a look that told him it all, and he just put his head in his hands.

"Damn it… What about the others?"

"No one close to you believes the lies, how could they when they know the truth?"

"Oh thank god… As long as you guys don't believe it, it'll be easy enough to convince the general public when we come back… if we come back…"

"Don't be silly, you know you'll be back. Truth be told I've heard rumors that Naugus could possibly be dying, so maybe he will and you can come back and rule."

"Big chance of that… Sucks too since we were working on the next album too, I was so excited to release it."

That gave Luke a lightbulb idea. "What if we did finish it?"

"What?"

"Why don't we finish it? I mean, I assume you're not doing anything in the house, so surely you'd have the time to do this?"

"Don't be ridiculous, I don't have my guitar, my piano, nothing-!"

"But I'm not being ridiculous! Me and Em can still do the drum, guitar and possibly the piano work, all you have to do is provide that sweet sweet voice, which is easy enough, right?...And I suppose you'd have to write a few more songs to give a fuck you to Naugus too, eh?"

"...I mean, I suppose so? I have had some ideas for some really cool songs. What ones did we already have written for the album?" She heard the fumbling of Luke behind the phone as he searched for the notebook they kept everything in.

"Uhhh… Daydreaming, Future, Be Alone, Fast in my Car, Grow Up, Hate To See Your Heart Break and One of those Crazy Girls."

"So that's 7… We'd probably need another 5 to 6. I've got some ideas already so I can get writing and I'll call you back later so we can go through it together with Emma."

"Good! Great even! I'll go and find her, see where she is and ask her what she thinks of the idea."

"Right, I'll leave you to it." She proceeded to hang up, putting the phone in her pocket and going to get some paper and a pen.

"So, Paramore's coming back, huh?"

"We had to eventually. I might be the former queen, but I have a duty to provide for my band when they need me most, which is exactly what I'm doing."

"Wow, those are some pretty meaningful words."

"I'm glad you agree, now…" She picked up a pen and notebook, proceeding to sit down and start to write… Except she didn't. Her mind totally blanked. Fuck. She sighed and put the pen and paper down, the paper still totally blank.

"You lost all your ideas?"

"Yeah. Unfortunately. Maybe going outside will help me think better. We need more apples anyways." She stood up, walking off to get the basket, and when she came back, Max was waiting for her enthusiastically. She could already tell what he was about to ask.

"Want to come with you."

"You want to come with me to pick some apples? Sure. Let's go." She pushed him to the door, helping him down the steps before getting him back in his chair, handing him the basket.

"You can put the apples in the basket when I pass them to you." He nodded happily, ready to get some fresh apples for baking. Kate cracked her knuckles and climbed up the first tree, proceeding to start picking apples and tossing them down to Max for him to put in the basket.

"Are you doing good down there?"

"I'm fine!" He reached down to pick up another apple that had hit the floor, watching Kate with fascination as she clambered higher and higher to get more apples up high. It was impressive.

"Woooaaahh, there's a squirrel nest up here!" She peeked in curiously, seeing the mother gray squirrel and all her babies inside. It was adorable. Kate wanted to reach out and pet it, but she knew she'd get attacked, and so just watched, completely forgetting Max was down there waiting.

"KATE? ARE YOU OK?" She snapped out of it and looked down at the small wheelchair-ridden Mobian squirrel below her, and remembered what she was doing.

"YEAH, I'M FINE! I JUST FOUND A SQUIRREL NEST AND GOT DISTRACTED!" She started climbing down and safely made it to the ground, looking at the amount of apples they'd gotten.

"Hmm… Maybe just one more tree will be fine." She walked over to the other tree, and climbed into it, and the process repeated.

Though, as Kate was picking apples, Max was looking around at his surroundings and… spotted something else falling out of a tree nearby. Something that was too… long to be an apple. Worried, he put the basket down, and started wheeling over to the area where he saw the thing fall. His eyes scoured the area, looking for it, before spotting… something reddish. And it was moving. He came closer, and leaned over to try to see it, and it was… a baby red squirrel. No more than 2 months old. His eyes filled with sadness. The poor thing had fallen out of the tree and was probably hurt. He leaned further to try and get hold of it, but he misjudged and toppled out of his wheelchair, falling face first onto the ground next to the squirrel. Ouch.

Kate hadn't even noticed, she was still throwing apples down as she was picking them, but eventually it became… suspiciously quiet. She looked down and lo and behold, Max was gone. She quickly got down, looking around, and spotted him on the ground, immediately running over and noticing he was… Crying.

"Max? Are you ok? What happened?" She knelt down next to him, grabbing his face to make him look at her. It was covered in dirt and his nose was bleeding.

"Oh dear, did you fall out of your wheelchair and hit your face?" He nodded, and, through the tears, managed to speak as she wiped his nose down with some tissues she had.

"N-Not crying because of that."

"Well then why are you crying?" She looked as he tilted his head towards his hands, and that's when she saw it. The baby squirrel in his hands.

"Where did you find it?"

"I-It… Fell out of th-the… The tree!"

"Aww, it fell out of the tree? Did you see it?" He nodded, sniffling, trying to get the blood away from his nose.

"Let me see." Kate slowly took the squirrel from his hand into her own, getting a good look at it. It didn't seem too badly hurt, but was still thrashing and making noises, clearly distressed. She pulled it closer to her chest, giving it some pats on the head to try and calm it down.

"What's wrong with it?" Max wiped his nose with his sleeve, getting blood all over it. Kate sighed and handed him some tissues so he could start cleaning himself up.

"It doesn't seem like it's hurt too badly but I definitely think we should take it inside to keep it safe and warm."

"What about Elias?"

"I'm sure he'd be fine with it."

"Nooooo, he wouldn't."

"What makes you say that?"

"He didn't let us keep the rat we caught."

"That's because it was a wild rat that probably had a disease and needed to be put outside."

"Well this is a wild squirrel and we're bringing it inside! Who's to say it doesn't have any diseases?"

"Look at that face, does it look like it has a disease?" She held the squirrel face to face with Max, its small, black eyes staring right into his blue eyes. It wasn't dangerous at all.

"I still don't want to tell him."

"Fine. We won't then. But if he finds out and gets mad you're getting the blame."

"Fine." And so Kate put the squirrel in her pocket, and got Max back up into his wheelchair. She'd clean his face properly once they were inside. They both went back inside, making sure to grab the basket, and Elias immediately noticed Max's face.

"Dad, what happened to you?"

"He just fell out of his chair, he's fine, didn't even cry."

"My nose bled."

"Yeah, it did, but I think it's stopped now anyways. Now we just need to wash your face." She quickly took him over to the sink, giving him the cloth to wash his face as she then went into the bedroom, taking out the tiny squirrel and sitting on the bed, holding it. It wasn't making any noise anymore, and was just sitting in her hand, eyes shut, asleep. She laid down properly, letting it rest on her chest, her own eyes shut too, deep in thought. Elias wouldn't be mad if he knew, right? It's just a baby squirrel that got hurt, surely he'd understand if they needed to take care of it, he always was quite an empathetic person towards animals. Her thoughts were disrupted when she felt someone touch her chest, like they were taking the squirrel. She yelped and shot up, thinking it was Elias, but once she sat up, she saw that it was only Max, who was looking at her with a confused stare, the squirrel gently cupped in his hand.

"Why did you scream?"

"Because you touched me unexpectedly and took the squirrel!"

"I want to hold it."

"You could have asked first!"

"I found it on the ground, it's mine, I don't have to."

"You don't own it, Max, we're both taking care of it and once it's better we're releasing it back into the wild."

"It's mine for now."

"I-!" She wanted to argue more, but knew this would attract Elias if she did. "You know what, believe what you want to believe. We won't be keeping it anyways."

"And I believe I own it. Finders keepers."

"This is literally an animal we're talking about, not an inanimate object, the rule doesn't apply to an animal."

"Who says it doesn't? You didn't make the rules!"

"You're right, I didn't. But I know it doesn't apply to animals."

"Grrr… SHUT. UP!" Max was getting annoyed with her, why did she have to argue with him over this? They both froze when they heard banging at the door, and Elias' voice ringing out.

"What's going on in there? Why are you shouting, dad?"

He couldn't blow their cover, even he knew that. "Nothing! It's fine now!"

"Y'Sure?"

"Yes."

"Aaalllrrrriiigghtt then, if you say so." Elias backed away from the door, sitting back down on the couch, though slightly suspicious. It seemed like they were hiding something in there.

"Phew, that was close… Now then, we need to find somewhere to hide it." Max seemed to be 2 steps ahead of her, as he opened the closet door, reaching down and pulling out a shoebox.

"Hide it in here."

"That's actually a good idea!" She got a blanket, folding it up multiple times until it fit in the box, and placed the squirrel in, putting part of the blanket over it before shutting the box and putting it back into the closet amongst the other boxes. It worked perfectly.

"There we go, it's all nice and safe and warm in there, and we can just come and go and take it out when we need to feed it or give it water."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"I don't know, I can check later. For now, leave it alone to rest, ok?" Max nodded his head despite wanting to take it out of the box and cuddle it.

"And whatever you do, don't tell Elias. You said it yourself you didn't want him to know."

"I know. I'm not dumb."

"I know you're not, I was just reminding you." And Max nodded again before leaving, probably going to find Elias to watch TV, as Kate sat on the bed again in deep thought. How long would they be able to keep the secret of the squirrel from Elias?