As Travis stayed behind and chatted with the farmers, Leilani and Duke followed the deer into the large tent.
A young animal, mostly white with a few black splotches, dressed in a pink hoodie and plaid purple slacks, sat on a couch and played a game on her phone.
"Unusual lookin' goat," Duke whispered.
"Her fur's pretty curly for a goat," Leilani whispered back.
The deer cleared his throat. "Excuse me, PJ? There's some weasels who wanna work here?"
The animal looked up from her phone. "'Kay. Thanks, Raymond." She sat up, looked at the weasels, and patted the free spots on the couch.
The deer left the tent.
Leilani and Duke sat next to the animal on the couch. Leilani admired her blue sparkling eyeshadow.
"So, I'm Paula Junior, but you can call me PJ, like most animals do. So, you're looking for jobs here? Why's that?"
"Well, you see, my husband and I have just fallen upon hard times, and we need to make easy, quick money before we end up homeless."
"Dang. Sorry. Sounds awful. So, what're your names?"
"I'm Leilani. Leilani Must—Weaselton."
"Duke Weaselton."
"Cool. So, you guys interested in farming, delivery, genetic modification?"
Leilani and Duke nervously stared at each other.
Duke stood up. "Uh…could me and my wife just talk about this privately for a sec?"
"Yeah, cool." PJ returned to her phone and reclined as soon as Duke and Leilani left the couch.
"I got no idea what we should pick!" Duke whispered as he and Leilani stood against one of the walls of the tent.
Leilani glanced at PJ and was relieved she was too focused on her phone to be suspicious of them. "Well, I mean, if we picked genetic modification or farming, we'd be around PJ and the farmers more, so we'd be more likely to find out what's going on."
"Yeah, sounds good, toots. So, what do ya know about gene modifyin' stuff?"
"Uh…nothing. Let's go with farming!"
Duke nodded. "Yeah. I don't know nothin' 'bout gene modifyin' stuff, either."
The two confidently approached PJ.
"We've decided we'd be best at farming," Leilani announced.
PJ put her phone down. "Okay, great. You two are hired. Pay's every Friday, and Ray's gonna show you the ropes. Can you start tomorrow at eight a.m.?"
Leilani opened her mouth to talk, then closed it. "I'm sorry, PJ, can I have a word with my husband again?"
"Sure. Feel free. Who am I to tell animals how to live their married lives?" PJ chuckled and returned to her phone. "Man, I'm funny. I should do stand-up when I get a chance."
The weasels returned to the same wall.
"I have work tomorrow at ten; when do you have work?" Leilani whispered.
Duke nervously set his teeth. "Uh…I actually have work at the same time."
"I hope this won't hurt our chances of getting hired!"
"We'll just tell her we gotta babysit our niece. How long you got work?"
"Five hours. You?"
"Four."
Leilani bit her claws. "Well, hopefully we can start tomorrow afternoon."
"Only one way to find out!"
Leilani and Duke returned to PJ.
"We'd love to start at eight, but we gotta babysit our niece. Her mom's in the hospital, and her dad's got work, so it's not always predictable when we gotta watch after her." Duke sadly nodded.
"Aww, really? How old?" PJ asked.
"Two," Leilani piped up.
"Well, family's important. I would know. Wish more of my familyknew, but it is what it is." PJ grimaced. "Anyway, when's the earliest you're available?"
Leilani took a moments count in her head. "Would four-thirty in the afternoon work?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure! We could use some afternoon shift workers, anyway."
Leilani squealed and clapped. "Yay! Thank you so much for hiring us!"
PJ appeared a bit startled. "Uh, yeah! No problem."
"Travis!" Leilani shouted as she ran out of the tent. "We're hired!"
Travis stopped watering the plants. "No way! Great! You're gonna love PJ. She's another good thing 'bout this job."
"Yeah, and we'll be coworkers!"
"So, what jobs did you and Duke take?"
"We're going to be farmers. PJ said that Raymond would teach us."
"Yeah, well, he's been at it for a while. There ain't really much to learn, though." Travis continued watering.
Duke emerged from the tent and ran up to Travis. "Travis, I just gotta know…why's PJ's fur so curly? I ain't ever seen a goat with curly fur."
"Come to think of it, I don't think she has horns either!" added Leilani.
"Oh, uh, well, she's…" Travis lowered his voice to a whisper as he bent down to Duke and Leilani's level, "A geep."
"A geep?" Duke exclaimed. "What's a geep?"
"Shhh!" Travis frantically turned his head in all directions. "She's half goat, half sheep."
Leilani gasped. "No way! Really? That's fascinating! I heard of them here and there, but I didn't know they were real! I wonder if PJ can bleat like a sheep and a goat!"
"I ain't actually ever heard of 'em ever!" added Duke.
"Shhh!" Travis waved his paws at them.
"Hey, what's your problem?" Duke threw his paws in the air. "What's so bad about talkin' about PJ bein' a geep?"
"Well, nothin' exactly." Travis shrugged. "It's just…ya know how touchy of an issue cross-breedin' can be. For all I know, some animals here might not treat her the same or even keep workin' here if they knew. Some probably already figured it out, I mean, you guys kinda did."
"How'd ya know?" Duke asked.
"Well, ya know, she don't look like a regular goat, and out of curiosity, I looked her up online and saw that her birth made the news about twenty-five years ago."
Raymond approached the group. "Hey, ready for me to show you the ropes?"
Leilani and Duke turned to him.
"Oh, right. Yeah," Duke answered.
That evening, Leilani and Duke sat on the couch and watched Family Goat. They both agreed it would alleviate their nervousness about their "mission."
They were mostly right.
"Ha, Peter Goatffin ain't got nothin' on that guy. He's totally gonna lose the race," Duke said, his mouth full of popcorn.
"Well, I mean, he's Peter! He's not going to figure that out until he actually loses the race. I mean, on one hand, I want him to win, but on the other hand, he needs to stop being so full of himself." Leilani took a handful of popcorn.
Duke swallowed. "Ya know, I honestly can't believe I found a job at your workplace. I mean, what are the odds, right?"
"Yeah!" Leilani swallowed and took a sip of her apple juice. "I guess a lot of married couples would like that, I don't know."
"Yeah, I guess."
After a few more episodes and a finished bowl of popcorn, Leilani announced she was going to brush her teeth.
When Leilani finished brushing her teeth, she peeked out the bathroom door and saw Duke unfolding the blanket on the couch.
She really didn't want him to sleep on the couch again. She really enjoyed cuddling with him the night before, and she felt like she needed to again, because of how worried she was about tomorrow.
"Say, Duke?"
Duke dropped the blanket. "Yeah?"
"After you brush your teeth, do you wanna…sleep in the same bed again?"
"Oh, wow! No way! Yeah! Thanks!" Duke ran through the door as Leilani held it open.
"Yeah, I'm just really nervous about tomorrow, so…"
"Yeah, it's cool!" Duke began to floss.
In the dark, with hints of moonlight and city lights peeking through the blinds, Leilani and Duke silently laid in bed facing each other.
"So," Leilani said after the few minutes of silence, "How did you become part of the criminal underworld, anyway?"
Duke felt a lurch in his stomach. Nobody had ever asked him that before.
"Oh, uh, well…it's kind of a long story."