Never Mess with Superglue

Atyr gamboled up the garden path, sending a flock of Weewoos into a hurried flying motion up into the sky. Her oversized paws scrambled up the three steps to her Neohome as she hauled herself up them one by one.

     That was the problem with being a pup; everything was too large for her, which made it difficult to steal an extra cookie after breakfast, or reach her favourite book on the bookshelf, or stop her older brother Charun from holding things out of her reach.

     The shadow Gelert pushed the door open. It was too heavy for her tiny weight, and it took a great deal of straining to manage. Then she bounded inside.

     The walls of her Neohome were covered in a flowery wallpaper which her brother despised. The floors were carpeted in what had once been clean white carpet, but was now a light tan from various spills and muddy paws. On either side of the hall, doorways led to the other rooms of the house.

     Standing at the far end of the hall was a Halloween Ixi, an evil grin plastered across his face. In one hoof he held a small tube of an unknown substance, which he waved tauntingly in the air two metres above the ground, far out of Atyr’s reach. His wings fluttered lazily as they kept him hovering in the air.

     “Hey sis, come look at this,” he called.

     Atyr narrowed her eyes, determined to get whatever he was holding. She started towards him, and didn’t notice his smile widen. Even as she soared through the air, trying to grasp the tube with her black paws, he lifted it higher, and she came crashing down. Her claws tried to get a grip on the carpet, but her momentum sent her straight into the wall.

     She growled and shook the dust from her collision off her head before turning to face her brother.

     “Why’d you do that?” she demanded, her eyes beginning to moisten.

     Charun was in the process of rolling around on the floor laughing, but at her words he stopped and grinned. Then he showed her the tube, keeping it just out of reach. Atyr squinted, trying to read the miniscule writing. Then Charun whisked it away and began laughing again.

     “It say ‘Keep out of reach of children,’” he read slowly when he paused for breath.

     Atyr furrowed her brow in a pout and set about sulking. “Mu-um, Charun is being mean to me,” she wailed.

     There was the sound of footsteps, and their owner walked out of the kitchen and saw them. “Why does that not surprise me,” she sighed, placing her hand to her forehead.

     Jess sighed again and looked directly at Charun. “What did you do this time?” she asked in an exasperated voice.

     Charun cackled. “I was only following the instructions on the tube.”

     “Here, let me see that,” she said suddenly, stepping forward to take it.

     Charun grudgingly gave it up and Jess read the label.

     “Charun,” she began in a dangerous tone. “Did you get this off my desk?”

     Charun shifted uneasily under her gaze, then he looked up and beamed winningly at her. “I just remembered that I have to clean my room,” he said, and without further ado he hurried out of the room.

     Jess stared suspiciously at his retreating back and then said to no one in particular, “Since when has he ever cared about cleaning his room?”

     Atyr, who was still lying in a messy heap, finally got to her paws and tried to get the tube out of Jess’s hands. Jess shook her head.

     “As much as I hate to admit it, Charun is right; superglue shouldn’t be given to children.”

     Atyr’s pout returned. “But I’m not a child, Mum,” she said.

     Jess smiled and looked down at her. “When you get higher than my knee, I’ll let you have the superglue,” she told the crestfallen Gelert.

     Atyr watched as Jess went back into the kitchen. Then she sniffled and padded to the back door, colliding painfully with the glass. She frowned at it. “Who put that there?” she muttered to herself as she opened the door and stepped outside.

     The garden was a jungle of tall grass, innocent looking shrubs, and a lot of trees. Atyr bounded straight over to her favourite; a tiny rock tree tucked into one corner of the yard. She wanted to prove that she wasn’t a baby anymore.

     As she thought, she heard the sounds of stomping from Charun’s open window and knew he was far from cleaning his room. If she knew him properly, he was probably pounding holes in the floor. Her eyes narrowed; she was going to pay him back.

     The smell of freshly baked cookies wafted to her sensitive nose, and she sniffed hungrily. Jess made the best cookies in the street. But she only gave them out as special treats. Atyr could guess where they were going now – straight into the cookie jar on the kitchen bench. If she couldn’t have the superglue, she would at least try to get a cookie.

     She got to her feet and as stealthily as she could she pushed open the back door and padded into the hall. The kitchen door stood to her right, and her mum’s room to the left. The smell of fresh baked cookies was still strong, and she grinned happily. Then she quietly made her way to the kitchen.

     She peeped around the open doorway and scanned the room for any of her family. To her surprise, no one was occupying the room, which was quite strange, because usually Jess would be hovering over her cookies to guard them, or Charun would come running at the first whiff of food so he could nick some. But the kitchen was empty, besides the presence of the cookie jar on the bench.

     Hardly believing her luck, Atyr snuck in, her tiny heart pounding. All the furniture seemed giant to her, but she faced it bravely and her eyes never left the prospect of a cookie.

     Her first obstacle was getting onto the bench, and avoiding the various pots, pans and cutlery littered on almost every surface. The noise would bring a suspicious person running. She clambered onto a nearby chair with great difficulty and rewarded herself with a rest. Then she continued.

     Her next step was to grab the handle of the utensil drawer without pulling it open. She managed to get a firm grip on the handle, which was difficult considering that she didn’t have thumbs. She gathered her legs beneath her, ready to spring up, but the effort pulled the drawer towards her.

     Her legs dangled in space, but she drew them up and clambered into the drawer itself, stepping on a wooden spoon and barely avoiding a whisk. The automatic drawer began to close, but she jumped onto the bench.

     Unfortunately she missed the bench and fell paws first into the sink, which was filled with hot water and detergent.

     “Arrgh,” she screamed, pulling herself out and shaking off the water.

     She paused to listen for any approaching footsteps, and to groan at the mess she had created. But the cookie jar stood only a metre in front of her, and she dived towards it.

     The cookie jar was made up of many porcelain cookies. The lid was a giant cookie, and the word cookie was spelt in fake chocolate chips on the side. She remembered when they had first bought the jar.

     Charun had glared sullenly at it, then muttered, “Well, at least I can tell it’s a cookie jar. But I’m not sure Atyr will.” Atyr had just poked her tongue out at him. He was just grumpy because he couldn’t steal the cookies off the tray anymore.

     She was about to lift the lid off when she caught sight of the tube of superglue tucked behind it. She wondered why Jess had put it in a place that Charun was obviously going to find it. She had probably been distracted.

     A thought came to her head and she chuckled to herself, reaching for the tube and unscrewing the lid. She was going to prove how responsible she was by not stealing a cookie, and leaving them all for Charun. After she had played a little trick.

     She knew that the tantalising smell of food would bring Charun running into the kitchen quite soon, so she worked swiftly, barely getting any glue on her paws at all. Still, as she made her way back down, she managed to gain the permanent company of a plastic spoon.

    ***

      Two minutes later she was safely back in her bedroom, trying to remove the spoon from her paw, and taking quite a few strands of fur with it. She winced in pain, but then paused to listen as she heard hooves tip-toeing past. Her plan was in action. With one last tug, the spoon came free and she tossed it into the bin and pressed her ear against the door to listen.

     In a matter of seconds, she heard Charun’s voice hollering down from the kitchen. “What in Fyora’s name?”

     A few moments later there was a loud crash and Atyr could imagine the bottom part of the jar crashing to the ground as the Halloween Ixi tried to shake the lid from his hoof.

     “Charun?” came the small growl of an angry person, low and menacing. “Why do you have the cookie jar lid stuck to you? Were you trying to steal a cookie?”

     “Ah...” began Charun.

     Atyr took this as the moment to walk into the kitchen and saw the jar split neatly in half on the floor with two-dozen cookies spaced out on the floor. Her brother stood by the sink with the lid glued to his hoof, and standing over him was Jess, her eyes narrowed.

     Atyr began gathering the cookies up into a pile on the floor, grinning at Charun all the while. When she was finished, she saw that Charun had been sent out, and Jess was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, holding the lid in her hands. She smiled down at the shadow Gelert pup.

     “Well done,” she said. “I was hoping that you’d find the superglue.”

     Atyr looked surprised. “What?” she spluttered.

     “I knew you’d come for a cookie, but I also knew you wouldn’t be able to resist a little pay back.” Jess grinned. “And you didn’t take a cookie either. I’m proud of you.”

     Atyr blinked once in confusion, then she returned the grin and leapt up to her owner’s lap. Jess smiled and stood up, placing Atyr on the chair.

     “And I have a little surprise for you,” she said, heading towards the oven.

     Atyr’s eyes brightened as she saw a second tray of freshly baked cookies. Jess picked one up and placed it into her paws, then she tucked the superglue away in her pocket. As she walked out of the room and left the shadow Gelert to eat as many cookies as she could (which wasn’t many, considering her size) she grinned to herself.

     “Never mess with super glue,” she said triumphantly.

The End

Note from nummy_yummy_stuff: Hi guys, if this has made it in, then it will be the second Atyr story. I hope you like what we’ve written and there should be more Atyr adventures coming your way. ^^

Note from rachelindea: I'd like to say that my dad and my sister actually did hold superglue out of my reach when I was younger... which is pretty embarrassing, but still true. I also hope that you enjoy this story.