Of Strawberry Ice Cream

      The four nodded agreement and watched as she went out, closing the door firmly. A bit firmer, and it would have been a slam. There was an expectant silence, broken by the disco Kau's exuberant yell of "Yaaaayyyyy!" The Kau galloped up the stairs in twos and the other three heard the crash of a door opening, then slamming shut. A moment later came the noise of Yotaria jumping up and down on her bed.

      The remaining three looked at each other, then, without speaking, they filed down the stairs and into the kitchen, where the ice cream awaited. A sketch Kiko floated over and counted out three spoons, then another. "Yotaria, want any ice cream?" Lyrian yelled over the noise.

      The noise stopped, and from the sound of it, Yotaria had left her room and was now taking the stairs three at a time. The Kau skidded to a halt in the doorway and nodded, picking up a spoon. The others, a yellow Aisha in a trenchcoat and a small Wocky wearing a red collar, had already taken theirs.

      Lyrian took out the ice cream and set it on the table. It was about three-fourths gone already. "Let's see..." the Kiko murmured. "I think we can each take a spoonful without Fj0rd noticing."

      Four spoons dug into the strawberry ice cream, and four tongues licked them clean. The Kiko, looking at the ice cream, decreed, "Another one might not be noticed, either."

      Once more they all took a spoonful and ate it. "How about another one?" Yotaria asked, licking her spoon clean.

      "Hm... sure," Lyrian grinned.

      "Okay."

      "She probably wouldn't notice another one missing..."

      Half an hour later, they all sat leaned back in their chairs, grinning at each other. Their grins disappeared, however, when Lyrian tipped the container so they could all see inside.

      "It's all gone," Yotaria said dismally.

      "Not all gone," the Aisha, McCandry, said reasonably. "There's one last dollop left." That said, he scraped it up with his spoon and put it in his mouth. "Now it's all gone."

      "What're we going to do? Fj0rd said-"

      "We'll just have to get more ice cream," Lyrian said.

      "Yeah..."

      "And how do you propose we do that? The shops are undoubtedly closed," said Yrael, the Wocky.

      "Um..."

      "I will find some," said McCandry, whipping a pair of dark sunglasses out of his pocket and putting them on. He glowered around at the others. "I'll be back," said the Aisha, and slipped out the door.

      They awaited his return, which came after an hour and a half had passed and Yotaria, Yrael, and Lyrian had fallen asleep. McCandry slid into the kitchen and set down the container of ice cream, then glanced around at his sleeping siblings. He shook Yotaria's shoulder, and she awoke with a yell that woke all the others.

      "What happened?" Lyrian asked.

      "She yelled," Yrael said smugly.

      "I kind of guessed that... oh, good!" Lyrian said, looking at the ice cream.

      Yotaria and Yrael looked at it, too. "But we had strawberry ice cream before, and this is Tigersquash," the Kau said.

      "It is?" McCandry looked surprised. He peered closely at the label. "I guess it is..."

      "Could you go back wherever you went and get some strawberry?" Yotaria asked.

      "No."

      "Okay, then... we'll just have to make it look strawberry, so Fj0rd thinks it is," the disco Kau said triumphantly.

      Everyone stared at her, except for Lyrian, who bobbed up towards the ceiling and shouted "Muffins and coffee!" They all ignored him.

      "Okay," Yotaria said about five minutes later. They'd dumped all the tigersquash ice cream into a big bowl and were trying to figure out what to put in to make it look like strawberry. "How about we try... ketchup," she suggested, picking up a bottle of it. McCandry shrugged, Yrael curled up on the countertop and went to sleep, and Lyrian took the bottle of ketchup from her and poured a liberal amount over the tigersquash ice cream.

      Yotaria mixed it well, and they all looked at the ice cream.

     "...It's sort of..." McCandry ventured, "...well..."

     "Still orange," Yrael said, yawning. He didn't even glance at the mixing bowl.

     "We should try putting more in," Lyrian said.

     "Okay." Yotaria squirted a long stream of ketchup into the bowl, then gave Lyrian the spoon and let him mix it up.

     "Still orange," McCandry said. "Kind of... reddish orange. But orange."

     "Fyora," Lyrian said solemnly.

     They didn't even glance at him, used to their brother's strange comments. Yotaria went over to search the cupboards for something else to put in. "How about this?" she asked, holding up a bunch makeup products, all pink. "There's lipstick, blush... Well, that's about it, really."

     Lyrian tried to shrug and ended up bobbing in the air. McCandry looked askance at the makeup. "How would that help?"

     "Well, we could smear it on top and Fj0rd might not notice... or we could always just scrape it out, stir in a little water with it to dissolve it, and mix it into the ice cream," Yotaria suggested.

     McCandry nodded. "Sure," he said, and did just that with the lipstick while Yotaria did the blush.

     "It's still kind of orange-y," Yotaria said, surveying the results of their experiments. "Um..."

     "How about this?" McCandry asked, taking something out from under his trenchcoat and placing it on the table.

     "A pink paintbrush! McCandry-"

     The Aisha looked at the ground. "Okay, okay. I stole it," he said, sighing. "But shouldn't we be getting on with this here?"

     Yotaria nodded agreement and took up the paintbrush. First she swirled it over the top of the ice cream, watching as the reddish-orange melted into pink, and then used a spoon to scrape the rest of the paint off the bristles and mix it in. With the paint added, it looked slightly more pink. In fact, it was pink, except for a few swirls of orange and black in random places throughout the bowl of ice cream.

     "HM"

     "I think that'll be good enough. You think so, Lyrian?" McCandry asked.

     Lyrian looked at the orange-black-and-pink ice cream. "Yeah, I think so. Should fool her, anyway."

     "Okay." McCandry picked up the bowl and started to spoon it back into the container.

     "Aren't you forgetting something?" Yrael asked sarcastically from the countertop.

     "What?"

     "The ice cream was three-fourths gone when we got to it."

     Yotaria, Yrael and McCandry looked at each other in utter and complete shock.

     "You eat it," the three said in unison, pointing a spoon at one of their siblings. The pointing spoons formed a circle.

     "I'm not eating it," Yotaria said. "It's got ketchup in, and lipstick and blush and paint!"

     "It's all non-toxic," McCandry reassured her. "Or at least, we hope it is."

     "Ew..." The Kau shuddered. "I'm still not eating it."

     "Me neither," Lyrian said decisively.

     "Not me!" said McCandry.

     "Well..." Yotaria said thoughtfully. "We could all eat some."

     They looked at each other, sighed, and began to spoon about half of the ice cream into three bowls-Yrael said that since he hadn't helped too much in its creation, he did not deserve to be punished for it.

     An hour later (they'd eaten it as slowly as possible, with lots of breaks to drink water and get the taste out of their mouths), they sat back. Yotaria got up and put the 'strawberry ice cream' away.

     The sound of a key sliding into the lock on the front door, and the door opened. Fj0rd stepped in. "Hi," she said. "I came back early," Fj0rd added, as if that wasn't obvious.

     The teenager's first thought was to check the ice cream. She did so, and looked at it in wonder, then glanced at her pets with a smile of triumph. "I knew you could do it! Here, have some ice cream."

     "NO!" they said in unison.

     "Why, what's wrong with it?" Fj0rd asked, pausing halfway to the stack of clean bowls.

     "Um... you tell," Yotaria said, nudging McCandry.

     "No, you tell," McCandry said, poking Lyrian.

     "You tell," Lyrian said, looking at Yotaria.

     "Well..." The whole tale spilled out of their mouths in a confused jumble. It took a few questions for Fj0rd to figure it out, and when she did, her pets fell silent. Fj0rd was quiet, too, for a few moments, and then she burst out laughing.

     Her pets looked at each other, confused-they'd expected anger, not laughter-and slowly came to the realization that it was not only funny, it was hilarious.

     Their laughter wound down and Fj0rd said, still giggling, "I'd better take this over to the Hazardous Waste Disposal place tomorrow." She tapped the container of 'strawberry ice cream'.

     They all laughed again.

The End

Author's Note DISCLAIMER: Paintbrushes and makeup were never made to be consumed. Except by Skeiths and Grarrls, I suppose. Anywho... any damage done by this story is not my fault; it's yours for reading it. Muahaha.