A Skunk Story: Part One

“I can’t believe it,” Lavalilly, the faerie Pteri, said as she poured herself a bowl of NeoCrunch at the kitchen counter. “Naninhah hasn’t said a word since he got here. How long has it been? A month maybe?” She then looked up. “Misha, pass the milk, will you?”

     “Sure.” With his paw, Misha, the mutant Gelert, slid the milk to the other side of the counter where Lavalilly was sitting. He was already finishing up with his bowl. He decided to contribute to the topic of conversation. “It is hard to believe,” he said. “I don’t know how anybody could keep their mouth shut that long.”

     “Yeah!” Lavalilly chirped.

     “I’m sure you would know, Lavalilly. You can’t keep your beak shut for a minute,” I said from across the room. I was sitting over at the kitchen table other than the counter like the other two were. Lavalilly and Misha seemed like complete opposites, but they communicated better with each other than I could with either of them. My guess was because they were true blood siblings. I, an Island Kougra, was not.

     “Silver! I can so keep it shut. Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?” Lavalilly started yelling. For a Pteri she definitely was extremely loud.

     “Lavalilly, calm down,” Misha said in his usual low, dull, but strangely calming voice.

     Everything went silent when a black creature appeared, walking downstairs to the living room. Everybody stopped to look over to him. His yellow, frightened eyes saw everybody looking at him, and he immediately turned his head to go walking back up the stairs.

     “Weirdo,” Lavalilly whispered so everybody in the kitchen could hear.

     I didn’t move for a second. The creature, a skunk Usul, was Naninhah. Only recently I promised myself that I was going to become friends with this new pet. He was, after all, my new little brother. Recently my owner brought him in from the streets and my siblings hadn’t bothered to talk to him since.

     I got up and started making my way upstairs with my bowl of NeoCrunch. I didn’t need to hang around in the kitchen and listen to my siblings talk about Naninhah anymore.

     “What’s with him?” I could hear Lavalilly ask in the distance when I was already halfway up the stairs.

     I opened the door to Naninhah’s room. There he was, sitting on his bed with his plushie Huggy. He was petting his Huggy softly when I came into the room. He was completely startled, I could tell, when I opened the door. “Hey,” I said.

     Naninhah sighed in relief when he discovered it was me who came in. His sigh made me happy. If it had been Czenko, my owner, or any of my siblings, he might have had a heart attack.

     “How come you’re not downstairs?” I ask in a sweeter voice than usual. “Everybody’s downstairs waiting for you to eat breakfast with them.”

     His ears twitched and he shook his head to indicate that there was no way he was going to go downstairs. It was only expected.

     “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” I said. I looked down at my plate. “Here. Want my breakfast? I didn’t take a bite out of it so it doesn’t have any Silver germs in it.” I hopped on the bed next to him and handed him the bowl.

     He took it from me. Slowly, he took a spoonful and looked over at me. His expression seemed as if it was asking, “Are you sure?”

     “Go ahead, Nanin. Dig in.” He slowly began eating his breakfast. This wasn’t the first time I’d done this for him. Naninhah hadn’t worked up enough courage to be in the same room with all of the pets at once. Though Naninhah had only said a word to me, he was more open to me than any other including our owner.

     “Is it good?” I asked, but Naninhah didn’t respond. Typical Nanin thing to do. Things were silent for a few minutes. All that could be heard is the crunching of NeoCrunch in Naninhah’s mouth. I look around and then notice Unforgotten, the Huggy, sitting next to me. “Unforgotten” was the only word Naninhah ever said to me. He named the Huggy himself, so when I heard the name, I immediately assumed that Naninhah had a heart-breaking past. It was then when I decided to treat him with loving respect because I figured that Naninhah never had it before.

     I reached over to pet Unforgotten, but Naninhah saw it and his eyes widened. He dropped the spoon and grabbed my paw before I was even able to touch the plushie. I pull my paw back. “Well then... I guess I should leave you alone, huh?” I got up to leave the room. He only just continued eating his cereal.

     I walked back downstairs to the living room. This time Misha and Lavalilly were on the cushy couch, still talking to each other.

     “So how did your visit with Naninhah go?” Misha asked when I appeared.

     I figured that it was best not to answer. Naninhah wouldn’t want me to answer that question. I remained silent and continued walking. I made my way toward the kitchen which led to the screen door that was the entrance to my private garden out in back. I didn’t have a bedroom. Only a garden which is where I sleep and write stories.

     “Silver’s not answering,” Lavalilly stated the obvious. “Naninhah probably talks to him and he doesn’t want to let us know.”

     “For your information, he doesn’t,” I said disappointingly.

     “This really is strange,” Misha pointed out.

     Lavalilly and I were silent, but I could tell that we were both mentally agreeing with him.

     “If Naninhah wants to be a part of this family then he has to act like it,” the faerie Pteri said after the moment of silence. “If he won’t talk to us then this family really isn’t fit for him. As a family we com-mun-i-cate and apparently that doesn’t suit Nanin’s fancy.” She said the word “communicate” chopped up as if it was a hard word to understand.

     “Well, he is rude,” Misha agreed.

     I didn’t like where this was going. They didn’t know him and they were already making conclusions that they didn’t like him. “Just give him time. Naninhah’s still pretty hurt from being out in the streets, I’m sure,” I said.

     “But there had to be a reason why he was even out there in the rain,” Lavalilly argued. “He doesn’t appreciate us, so why is he even in this family?”

     I didn’t know what to say. This just didn’t seem right. There was no way I could think of to argue to argue against them, but it just didn’t sound right.

     “Lavalilly does have a good point. I must say that I agree with her,” Misha contributed. “If Naninhah doesn’t start communicating with us soon, then he probably shouldn’t be in our family.”

     The Pteri nodded, “Sounds perfectly fair, but how could we convince Czenko that it’s a good idea?”

     “We’ll bring up our concerns when we have the chance,” Misha said.

     I was frozen. They actually wanted to get rid of Naninhah, but they sounded perfectly reasonable by the way how they talked about it. It only sounded right that he would be re-pounded if he wouldn’t give anybody trust himself.

     “Sounds perfectly fine with me,” Lavalilly said. She glanced over at the circular clock hanging next to the kitchen door. “Oh... I should get ready. I’m going to go see Jazzmosis in concert today.” Lavalilly’s big on music.

     “Sounds good with me,” Misha said. “You enjoy yourself.” They both walked in opposite directions. Misha walked upstairs to his own bedroom and Lavalilly flew into her room which was on the first floor in just the other room.

     I was alone for a bit. I sat on the chair by myself, thinking about what had just happened. Lavalilly and Misha wanted to get rid of our little brother. If we got rid of him, he wouldn’t be much of a brother anymore. Their reasoning was fine. They had a right to believe that they should pound Naninhah, but I wasn’t sure if I was really for it.

     At that moment, I felt something poke me in the shoulder. My ears perked up and I turned my head to see Naninhah with his big yellow eyes. He held the empty bowl of NeoCrunch in his paws.

     “Oh. Thanks, Nanin.” I held out my paws. “Do you want me to wash that bowl for you?”

     He stared down at the bowl and eventually decided to not put it in my hands. He walked over to the kitchen sink and started rinsing the bowl out himself. I watched him.

     The way how the skunk Usul moved and acted, though completely without words, was extremely cute. When listening to Misha and Lavalilly talk, it seemed as if Naninhah was a bad person, but by looking at him, he really wasn’t. He was only adorable. There was no other word to describe him.

     “I’m not going to lose you, Nanin,” I said aloud. Naninhah’s ears perked up and he turned his head to look at me. I could tell by his facial expression he didn’t quite hear what I said. I wasn’t going to repeat it, but I meant it. There was no way I was going to lose him.

     He became my little brother almost a month ago, so he will stay my little brother. I needed to find a way for him to open up with my family... somehow.

To be continued...