Cricket and the Red High Heels Ch. 4 and The End

Remembering...nothing. She couldn't remember what she was remembering. Umbrellas? Buttons? No. Frankenstein? Close. Wait. Frankincense? Fraggleshteen? Fraggle Rock! That was it! She had been watching Fraggle Rock! She was asleep now. Now she remembered.
Thank goodness, she thought. I can't handle talking to Moses anymore. That guy may have been a patriarch, but seriously!? Yikes. He could talk the red high heel off a hooker.
Wake up, Cricket. Wake up. Pleeease wake up! Before Moses realizes you're asleep and makes you stay in dream land forever! Maybe if I start running, I'll wake up. That sometimes helps, right?
Cricky started running her tiny little legs in place trying to wake herself up.
"Stop that! Stop that! You're rocking the boat!" screamed Moses.
"Wake up!!!!!!!" Cricket yelled.
She was rocking the boat so forcefully that she tipped both she and Moses straight into the river.
"Brou-ha-ha" he sputtered.
"I'm outta here!" Cricket said.
And she woke up, running in place and squeaking her little cat sounds.
I'm never sleeping again, she thought.

That resolution lasted exactly one hour, before she fell back into dream land again.

The End.

Cricket the Greyhound Ch. 6 and The End

A giant float balloon of Snoopy. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She was shocked. How on earth did that giant balloon get in the middle of the Rocky Mountains?! Yes . . . she had run all the way to the Rocky Mountains. She took cover behind an unsuspecting mountain goat who had been doing yoga in the sun. The goat had not seen the Snoopy balloon yet, and Duck was sure that once this "rocky" mountain goat clapped eyes on the balloon, it would have the fright of a life time. Then Duck noticed who was holding the giant festive balloon . . .

Thomas Kinkade! But how ever was Ducky to catch him? She was about to start caterwauling (ha!) when, like a flash, Cricket appeared bolting up behind her. Cricket headbutted Duck up into the air so that Ducky did a flip and wound up standing on Cricket's back. As she was running, Cricket launched onto the mountain goat, used him as a spring board, and flew through the sky! They landed directly next to Thomas Kinkade on the balloon.
"I say!" he yelled.
"No! We say!" Cricket yelled back.
"What? I'm confused."
"Stop running!" Cricket shouted.
Ducky had a death grip around Cricket.
"I'm not running! You stop following! I'm allergic to cats."
"No you're not," said Cricket.
"I'm not?"
"No."
"Oh."

The balloon landed and Cricket, Ducky, and Thomas Kinkade decided to go out to dinner and talk about all their adventure.

The End.

Cricket and the Red High Heels Ch. 3

Cricket ignored Moses after he listed #32 of his cats (who, by the way, was named Neil). She instead began to enjoy the beautiful Colorado scenery. Majestic mountains. Golden plains. Green gators. It made her want to sing-Wait a minute! Green gators?? There aren't any alligators in Colorado! And while Cricket was thankful that they were gators, rather than crocodiles (far cuter in her book, what with their slender noses, freshwater tendencies, darker black skin, and upper jaw that gracefully accommodates the lower), she still wasn't quite happy that the gators were swimming around her while she was in the water.
As she watched and Moses droned on, she began to hear a distant song...
. . .
A song that Cricket had grown up with. A song that was connected to her soul. The Man from the Snowy River theme song!! (its such a good song its called Jessica's Theme, you should look it up . . . now). Cricket closed her eyes. A grin spread across her face like butter on toast and a fang popped festively out of her top lip making her look juvenile. She was remember . . .

The Hare: Ch. 5

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this service message. We at The Birthday Skunks do not endorse Fleabler cruelty in anyway. Please do not harm your fleas. Thank you.

A crashed hair! I mean, Hare! His tiny little jet was crumpled and smoking and the Hare was toppled over out of it, one leg bent inside. He looked like a rag doll minus the stuffing. When Magnum saw this horrendous crash site, his tiny Fleabler heart swelled with compassion and terror. And that's a lot of stress to put on a heart that could fit inside of a freckle.
The Hare groaned and turned towards Magnum. He was wearing goggles and a silk scarf.
"AAAIIEEEEE!!!!!" the Fleabler shrieked in terror.
"AAAIIEEEEE!!!!!" the Hare replied.
"Why are you screaming?!" Magnum wailed.
"I don't know! Why are you screaming?!" the Hare replied.
They both stopped screaming.
"I think I broked my leg," said the Hare.
"Broked? I think you might have sustained a head injury as well."
"Ha! That's what you think! We Fleablers don't get hurt!"
"...FLEABLERS??" Magnum wondered.
He slowly began to realize that the Hare must have really bumped his head and now thought he was a Fleabler! What was a Flea to do...
. . .
Magnum yelled "SHOTGUN!" (which is a phrase you can yell almost anywhere except a crowded music theater - i cannot take credit for that . . . im watching psych.) Anyways, after Magnum yelled shotgun for reasons unknown to me. . .the hare who now thinks he's a Fleabler fainted. Magnum inched closer to the hare. He reached the hare's ears first, which seemed normal, then he tippy toed down the ears to the face. Then suddenly . . .

The Hare: Ch. 4

"Yes, Monticello," Jacopo began.
He, unfortunately never got a chance to find out what Monticello had been prepared to propose. For at that very second, a brigade of minuscule carrots began raining down on the delicate little Fleablers! They heard a fierce cackling as jet-flying, dive-bombing, carrot-flinging Rabbitteers (that is to say, bunnies in tiny jet planes) zoomed by, reveling in their attack. Never before had such a horrendous, unexpected event happen to the little fleas!
The fleas screamed in terror, watching the Rabbitteers circle around for a second barrage.
"AAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" they screamed in unison as the Rabbitteers' re-formed into attack position.
Amidst all the chaos, one tiny Fleabler, Magnum, heard a violent rustling in the nearby dandelion patch. He went to investigate in hopes of either quelling an attack or acquiring help against the bumbling bunnies, bitsy flea-sized heart thumped in his chest.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump...

The tiny Fleabler army crawled up to the edge of the bush. The bush stopped rustling long enough for Magnum to poke his head into the bottom corner of the bush. He jumped back as the bush began the shake again. He wondered around the bush slowly gathering leaves, licking them and sticking them on to his bony little legs as disguise. Did you know that Fleabler spit is very sticky? It's like super glue, really it is. . .go squeeze a flea till his tongue pops out and wipe his tongue on something and you'll see. ANYWAYS . . . the now tribal looking Magnum leaped into the bush only to find . . .

The Hare: Ch. 3

*Now returning to our regularly scheduled programming after Dana's questionable drug use*
(way to go Dana)
(don't do drugs, kids)
(or write stories when you're not paying attention)
(and then leave your BEST FRIEND to clean up the mess)
(this is just ridiculous)
(ugggggggggggggggggggghhh)
(but always practice forgiveness and move on from there)

Ahem.
So, backtracking, The Fleablers piled legs to shoulders atop one another, Jacopo being the highest link, seeing as he was the shortest, after all. As they towered in their 5/16" glory, The Fleablers felt like this is what they had been made for! Rather then being lone rogues, they were now one giant flea, ready to take on the world.
And then, they took their first unified step.
And, whatever Dana wrote happened(?).

As the Fleablers laid down in a tangled mess a la' pick-up-sticks, they bandaged their wounds (fleas have notoriously tender skin) and discussed how they could improve their stature. Statute? Statue. Statue!
"We'll make a statue!" they all simultaneously thought. And since The Fleablers all took a telepathy class as a group in the 10th grade, they all understood one another immediately. Not one word needed to pass from their lips.
Yes, fleas have lips.
The Fleablers began crafting their statue plan...

- - -

The Fleablers sat on their yellow fold up stools and brain stormed. One Fleabler thought it would be a good idea to sculpt a giant raisin out of ice . . . his idea got shot down. Another suggested a potato salad cook off, which, as you can tell by logical reasoning had nothing to do with what they were trying to figure out so THAT idea was thrown out the window too . . . literally {he may have broken a few tender little Fleabler legs.} Finally, after a couple other unrelated and lame ideas, one little Fleabler paw was spotted in the crowd, timidly quivering, waiting to be called upon . . .

The Hare: Ch. 2

Well these little fleas (who sometimes called themselves the Fleablers) (no, I don't know why, so don't ask), decided that they deserved some kind of recognition for the work they did. They never ever ever (quite often) slept! Their eyes would get stuck open for days (minutes)! And WHO ever thanked them! No one (Actually, everyone did. They even named May 6th Royal Fleabler Day)!! The fleas decided that they were finally going to make their stand.
Literally.
They decided to stand on each other's shoulders and make themselves as tall as they possible could until they towered over all the other woodland creatures. They only wished there were some dust mites, since they were the only creatures naturally smaller than they. Besides towering, the Fleablers didn't really have a plan. They just assumed that something excellent would have to happen once they were a full 5/16 inches tall (they would be 6/16, but Jacopo was 1/16" shorter than the other two. And then if that was so, they would have to reduce their fraction down to 3/8", and fleas are notoriously bad at mathematics).
And so they put their plan into action...

- - -

{i am so confused} - so the plan that the Fleablers had concocted inside their little Fleablers brains was to stand as tall as they could {as kelly said} and stand they did. For hours, nay DAYS! (3 and a half minuets). They tumbled into a Fleabler pile after Manly Stanley sneezed and brought down the whole gang. They viewed themselves as a Band of Brothers {not the 10 episode HBO WW2 TV masterpiece} but literally a brotherhood of Band-Aids. They ended up untangling their limbs and bringing out their Band-Aid collection.

The Hare Ch 1.

Once upon a time there was a rabbit. This rabbit could have also been classified as a bunny, although perhaps a hare would be the best word to describe this creature. I believe it is quite necessary to the story to provide the definition of this said hare, which is as follows: "a fast running, long-eared mammal that resembles a large rabbit, having long hind legs and occurring typically in grassland or woodland." {mac book dictionary}.

Now that you know just what this animal looks like, you should know what he smells like. Moldy cheese and green moss. Yes I know, rather malodorous in deed. How on earth could such a graceful stag bleed forth such a nasty stench? Well here is the reason, this small {yes he was smaller then your average hare} springy specimen lived in a wardrobe. Obviously hares who are surrounded by four walls of solid wood {which his very wardrobe was hand crafted mahogany} never yield anything that smells like sugar or spice, therefore leaving this hare to smell like walking compost. Unlike most wardrobes however, this one was most certainly not magic, in fact it was as non-magic as it could get. Dust did not danced inside this wardrobe like fairies when the sun shown through the cracks, like most flecks of dust do, and there was no magic trail of mushrooms leading to the entrance like there sometimes is.

Well enough about this stinky hare's none magic wardrobe, let me tell you about his very unique neighborhood, which consisted of a single chef who had been around large amounts of garlic so long that it had began to fuss with his brain capacity to work correctly. This chef had a very personal dispute with the hare about three months ago with what was thought to be a beat, a turnip, and a yak, but no one knows for sure what really happened. Anyways, this chef always wore his white hat, even to bed, and always talked with a French accent even though he was from Montana.

I know I said that the only other thing living in the hare's neighborhood was a chef, but are fleas really filed under the human or animal category? I think not. Anyways, there were three fleas who lived in the old abandoned clock tower. They had a job, a single simple job. They were to watch for intruders . . . which would sometimes consist of be a wayward tumble weed or an adolescent squirrel. These three fleas were very vital to the neighborhood but were never properly acknowledged for their countless hours of hard work. I mean I did not even classify them in a living creature category for crying out loud.

Cricket and the Red High Heels Ch 2.

Duck swirled the suds with her bushy tale hoping the sharp hairs on her tale would pop most of the bubbles. Little did she know it only multiplied the suds by a billion. Before Duck could even realize what was going on, the whole entire bathroom was covered with suds, floor to ceiling.

Cricket was soundly sleeping in her bathrobe without a care in the world. She was dreaming about the rain down in Africa {inspiration -> Toto - Africa} which doesn't seem to happen very often. Suddenly the rain in her dream began to flood her picnic basket that she was sitting in. She felt like she was going to drown . . . she woke up with a start only to find . . .

that Moses was laying in the reed basket next to hers. (She knew he was Moses because of the beard).
"Hey!" Cricket mew-yelled. "I thought you were in the basket in the Nile when you were a baby! And how did I get in the Nile!"
"Well, sweet Cricket, let me tell you." Moses propped himself up on his elbow on the side of the basket. "You're dreaming. And you're not in the Nile. We're in the Colorado River."
"What! How did I get here? More importantly, how did you get here?"
"As you were falling asleep, you were imagining how nice it would be to be an Egyptian cat who was worshiped all the time, were you not?"
"Yes."
"Well, I am the man who comes to visit cats who dream of Egypt, since that is where I was born. Plus when I lived in Pharaoh's house I had 73 cats. Would you like me to list them for you?"
"Oh. Uh..."
"Zippy, Sandy, Ibis, Babu, Hakizimana, Jafari, Moss, Mosi, Mosa..." Moses droned on and on and on and on...

Cricket the Greyhound Ch. 5

Mean while Cricket was still stuck in the paper bag. She danced around like she was standing on hot coals. Her head neatly lodged inside the paper bag tied off with a bright pink ribbon. Cricket stopped fussing for a second and started blindly backing up - as most cats do when something is on their heads. She backed up for ten whole minuets . . . then she hit a wall, or a corner rather. She could not back up any further, so she decided to sit and think of what types of food she would eat when she got her head out of the bag.

Duck on the other hand was changing the corse of history with every step she made. Ever paw in front of the other yielded daisies and birds of paradise, a hive of bees even appeared out of no wear and started humming a happy tune. Duck began to run even faster, fascinated by her new found super ability. She forgot all about her original quest of finding her hero Thomas Kinkade and just watched the splendor unfold in front of her very eyes.

Suddenly she felt the heat. It came on so fast that she didn't have time to think. Her fur seemed like it was on fire. Her brain felt like it was going to explode. She slowed to a trot, but her paws felt like they were going to burn off from the hot ground. She came to a stop and glanced back, her eyes wide in horror at what she saw . . .

Cricket and the Red High Heels Ch. 1

Cricket sneezed, then wiped her nose on the corner of her bath towel. She had been stirring the bath tub with the end of a rose stem for quite some time now, trying to conjure up an adequate amount of bubbles for her bath. She was so very picky with the number of suds, which she was terribly allergic to, that she had gone though three and a half towels and was now sailing on towards her fourth.

***

She had accidentally put in too many suds this time and was waiting for them to die down before she hopped in. Cricket sniffled and snuffled and sneezed.
"Ha-CHEE!"
"Bless your naughty nose," Ducky said as she pawed into the bathroom.
"Thank you," Cricky replied.
"Why don't you get all wrapped up in your robe while I try to douse some of these blasted bubbles."
"That would be wonderful! Thank you!"
Crick-Snick got hunkered down in her red robe, waiting for her bath to be drawn. As she laid there, she began to drift off into sleep...

***

Cricket the Greyhound Ch. 4

NO she really didn't know what just happened. In fact, Cricket reviewed what just occurred in her head and began to have a panic attack, which made her hate Duck even more.

Duck on the other hand wondered why Thomas Kinkade (her idol) had run away like a noodle when she asked him for his autograph. And what did he say to her? She wished she could understand humans when they flapped their gums and sound came out.

"Oh well, it was a chance of a life time" she thought.

Meanwhile Cricket had gone into the kitchen and fetched a small paper bag. She stuck her head in it and began to try and control her breathing. Duck realized that Cricket was so completely distracted by trying to save her life that she would not notice what Duck was about to do.

---
Ducky grabbed a bright pink ribbon and wrapped it around the paper bag on Cricket's head so that her head was stuck inside the bag! Now, Ducky had no plans to try to kill Cricket (thankfully it was a paper bag, rather than a plastic one). She just needed to get her out of the way for a while.

With naughty Cricket's preoccupied inside, Ducky sprinted out the front door after Thomas Kinkade. She ran and ran and ran and ran and ran, but to no avail. Poor Ducky couldn't seem to find Kinkade anywhere!

But she realized that the faster she ran, the warmer the weather seemed to get. It had been an absolute blizzard when she left, but now, the flowers were bursting to life everywhere! Tulips and white daisies, green clover and maple trees. The sun popped out from behind the clouds and warmed Ducky's back as she ran.
Unfortunately, the weather kept getting hotter and hotter the longer she ran...

Cricket the Greyhound Ch. 3

A plan that would make the world spin in the opposite direction. A plan (haha i wrote plant at first) that would make pink the new green and lady-bugs man-bugs. The wind would no longer howl but meow and the roosters would crow right before bed time (im watching robin hood - and there was a rooster).
Anyways, enough about this supernatural plan that Duck was plotting. Cricket was being her naughty mischievous self placing a jar of spiders in Duck's bed and taking the best seat in the house (in front of the furnace).
Duck was quietly finishing her favorite Thomas Kinkade puzzle when suddenly a knock was heard at the door . . .
---
When Ducky opened the door, she saw Thomas Kinkade himself! She was so incredibly surprised! (For those of you that don't know, Kinkade is an American painter of realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects, which Ducky just so happened to love). Thomas barged inside, snow billowing off the shoulders of his swishy nylon jacket. He had frozen flakes of snow stuck to his beard and mustache, making him look like Jack Frost.
"Ducky," he wheezed. "I need your help."
"Meow," she answered.
"I understand," he said, running back outside and fleeing, arms flailing like noodles.
Ducky stared at Cricket.
"I have no idea what just happened."
"Neither do I," said Cricket.
Or did she...
---

Cricket the Greyhound Ch. 2

Ducky, unlike Cricket, did not favor her fur. She could care less about what colors she liked more. She however had a different quality that she secretly delighted in, her mittens. She had not always adored her deformity. She was made fun of in pre-school and once in middle school for her misshapen paws. It was hard to grow to like them but she was a definite fan of them now. She was able to open peanut butter jars and cough drop wrappers with great ease.
---
As amazing as Ducky's and Cricket's individual talents were, they weren't friends. Cricket felt like The Family was hers (and only hers!) since she adopted them first. Even though Ducky was incredibly sweet, Cricket wanted to kill her. Or at least make her life miserable. Sweet, sweet Ducky never retaliated, even though her giant mittens could have batted Cricket miles away into the ionosphere. Cricket picked on Ducky, Ducky didn't react. But Ducky was secretly hatching a plan...
---

Cricket the Greyhound (who is really a cat) Ch. 1

Cricket was a cat with different colored fur. She favored the white portions of her self the most but could not choose which of her black and tan portions she liked best. She had slender paws that bounced across the kitchen floor like rain drops on a sky light when she scampered.

---
But what Cricket loved even more than her white fur was FOOD. She would lie awake all night- only pretending to sleep- waiting for breakfast to come around. Her little paws curled up whenever she remembered that she got to eat.
Unfortunately for Cricket, however, she had to share her meal time with another cat.
Ducky.
---