Warning: this story takes place during the Stranded Saga, so obviously, beware of spoilers for that Saga, and the New Tenneb Saga.
You are Lavender, and right now, you’re really worried.
A few bwite times ago, mistah Cal, Marley, and bunch of the Kay-oh-ticks went on a mission to a pwanet called New Tenneb.
You know that the bad mistahs Duwen and Scha came from a pwanet called Old Tenneb, and that… something happened to make it disappear.
It happened right after that whole thing with Dwak-oh-nee-yah and the bad wich Dehak. All of the Tennuh-bites who lived on Old Tenneb disappeared with their pwanet, and the ones on New Tenneb thought that it was mistah Cal’s fault.
Anyway, there was another bad mistah on New Tenneb who had gotten some kind of weird ball thing with magic powahs called the Wee-ver’s Orb, and the Kay-oh-ticks went there to get it back.
You don’t really know the whole story, but when the Kay-oh-ticks came back to Uwf, they brought a whole bunch of people with them from New Tenneb. The pwanet went boom, but the Kay-oh-ticks got everyone out of there first.
There were five weird mistahs wearing the same weird aw-mow. One of them was an Aw-kay-dee-yun.
But most of the people were Tennuh-bites. You were a bit scared of them, because you’d heard that they kept trying to give mistah Cal and Marley forever sleepies.
Sure enough, they all looked a bit like Duwen and Scha, with the same color skin and black not-fluff, and Duwen and Scha were there too.
Weren’t those two supposed to be doing forever sleepies?
Forever sleepies are supposed to be forever sleepies, aren’t they?
That really doesn’t mean a lot these bwite times.
You didn’t ask about them at the time, because dok-tow Pierre said that mistah Cal and Marley didn’t make it out in time. That they might have gone forever sleepies when New Tenneb went boom.
And that was more important.
You couldn’t believe what your earsies were hearing. You thought it was another scary sleepy picture.
You calmed down when you remembered that people seem to come back from forever sleepies all the time now, so maybe mistah Cal and Marley would too.
Mistah Scott was right there, and you saw him go forever sleepies. And Duwen and Scha were there, you saw Duwen go forever sleepies too.
And Umbra is still in his sell under the Skoow! You saw him go forever sleepies three times!
But then some of the Kay-oh-ticks went to dok-tow Deston’s housie, to do something called a wite.
What did the dok-tow call it? The Wite of Ash-Kenny?
Something like that.
You don’t know what it does, but when they came back, they had good news for the rest, and they had bad news.
The good news is that mistah Cal and Marley didn’t go forever sleepies when New Tenneb went boom.
The bad news is that no one knows where they went after that. They’ve got to be somewhere, the dok-tows said, but either the Kay-oh-ticks has to find them, or they have to find their own way home.
And it’s been a few bwite times since then, but they still haven’t come back.
So yeah, that’s why you’re worried.
It’s like when you had just started living on the fawm, and your old not-a-munstah-yet daddeh went to Amm-stew-dam for a week.
But this time, it’s a lot worse. At least you knew where your old daddeh had gone: to Amm-stew-dam, of course.
Even though you didn’t know where Amm-stew-dam is at the time. You do now. It’s in a place called the Neffuh-lands, where mistah Niek and his fluffy Spacecake live.
Spacecake can do the floaty thing too! But she does it differently than how you and Nardos do it. You do it with your mind, but she does it by controlling something called gravy-tea.
You know what gravy is, and you know what tea is, but you don’t know how making tea with gravy makes things float.
There’s a lot of Kay-oh-ticks members who are from Bwittan, and some of them told you about a drink called “boff-will”, and the way they described it, it sounds like boff-will is gravy-tea. A lot of hoomins in Bwittan drink boff-will when they go to watch footsie-baww games.
Your daddehs and uncle Jim like to watch footsie-baww games too, but that’s apparently a different kind of footsie-baww, they drink beew when they watch it, and they call the kind of footsie-baww that people in Bwittan play “socker”, which annoys mistah Miles a lot for some reason.
Is that boff-will stuff the same gravy-tea that Spacecake controls to do the floaty thing?
You should probably ask a hoomin to explain it for you. You know lots of smart hoomins.
And when your old daddeh was in Amm-stew-dam, you knew when he’d be back: in a week.
Again, even though you weren’t sure how long a week is. Seven bwite times and dawk times, right?
That always bugged you. Why isn’t a week eight bwite times long instead?
That would make things easier. You just can’t figure out how long half a week is. You know that half of eight is four, but what’s half of seven? Is it four, or three?
Or is there a secret number hiding between three and four?
There’s probably a hoomin who can explain that, too.
On top of that, you also knew what your old daddeh was doing in Amm-stew-dam: he wanted a hookie, and there’s lots of hookies in Amm-stew-dam.
You still don’t know what a hookie is, though. You asked mistah Victor, but he said that if he told you, your mummah would kick him in the special lumps again.
He’s planning to take you to New Woss Vay-gus. Daddeh said you could go help mistah Victor make muh-nees there, as long as he keeps you safe and out of trouble, and you get a fair cut of the pwoff-its.
And it took a while, because Old Woss Vay-gus burned down. Right after daddeh finally decided to give his permission.
Even you thought it was a bit funny.
You’ve never seen what gam-bwin is like, so mistah Victor’s been teaching you about that, before you go to New Woss Vay-gus.
That’s when you asked him about hookies.
The point is, when you look back, that week you spent waiting for your old daddeh to come back from Amm-stew-dam wasn’t so bad, compared to this.
Because you don’t know where mistah Cal and Marley are, or when they’ll be back, or what they’re even doing.
And if there’s one thing a fluffy is scared of more than wawas and darkies and munstahs, it’s uncertainty.
You hope they’re both doing okay, wherever they are.
Every dawk time, when you and all your fluffies curl up together in a fluffpile, you hope that you’ll have one of those future sleepy pictures, to tell you when mistah Cal and Marley will be back.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you have a future sleepy picture about something good happening for once?
Why does it always have to be about bad things?
Right now, you’re on the fawm, at the twain-in dummeh mistah Cal gave you.
You’re teaching Nardos how to throw the dawts. He’s a big fluffy by now, obviously.
The rest of your herd is watching too. Daisy, Rose, Oak, Elm, Rowan, Mary-Jane, Helios, Noel, Valentine, Ivy, and Eddie, James’ fluffy. The whole gang’s here, they always love watching a twain-in sesh-un, as mistah Cal puts it.
You use your powahs on one of the big, soft dawts, making it float up.
“Wotch cwose-wee, Nawdos.”
And you use the floaty thing to fling the dawt at the dummeh.
bonk
It lands on target, right in the dummeh’s face.
“See? It am dat ee-zee. Nao yu gib it a twy.”
As the dawt falls, Nardos looks up at the dummeh in concern.
“Dat nu am gibin dat poow mistah owwies, am it?”
“Nu, nu, da dummeh nu am a mistah, am jus a fing.”
“Oh, otay.”
Nardos concentrates, making a dawt float like you did.
But when he flings it at the dummeh…
bonk
It hits the dummeh’s tummeh.
Nardos frowns.
“Dawn. It nu did gu hai enuff.”
You smile encouragingly at him, remembering how many times you messed this up.
“Nu woh-wee, Nawdos. Yu jus gutta pwak-tiss. Pwak-tiss make pew-fek–”
!!!
What was that?!?
You just felt something weird!
Something really powerful! It made your fluff stand on end like you just got a shockie!
And for a moment, you saw something in your mind.
It… it looked like mistah Cal, but with really long white not-fluff… he was screaming, and glowing white…
Was that his power you just felt?
You didn’t know you could even do that!
You can sense what people are feeling, but…
But when can you feel how strong people are?
And why was mistah Cal screaming? Is he in trouble?
Okay, you can’t figure this out by yourself.
Oak looks at you, and he and all the other fluffies are worried.
“Wavendew? Am yu otay?”
“Wavendew… Wavendew nu am suwe.”
You turn to Nardos, who is just as worried as the rest.
“Keep pwak-tiss-in, Nawdos. Wavendew gutta gu tawk tu daddeh…”
After finding your daddeh, he brings you into the housie, and in the kit-chin, as you stand on the table, you tell him what just happened, and what you just saw.
It takes a while, because you don’t really know how to put it into wordsies.
When you’re done, you look up at him, more worried than ever.
“Su wut du dis meen, daddeh?”
He shrugs, looking just as worried.
“Lav, sweetie, I don’t know. Maybe your psychic powers have developed to the point that you can sense people’s power levels? I think we should call Des.”
Dok-tow Deston is in charge of the Kay-oh-ticks while mistah Cal is away, you know that.
And mistah Dave took charge of the search for mistah Cal and Marley.
“He’ll be able to help with this. Cal and Mar can sense power levels too, but…”
“Dey nu am hewe wite nao–”
!!!
There it is again!
This time, you saw a flash of a purple rockie with eight sides, and then…
Flowers?
Why flowers?
“Lav? Did you just feel something again?”
You nod.
“Wavendew saw a puwpwe wockie.”
“A purple rock?”
“Yuh, wif ate sidesies.”
Wait a minute, you know what that was!
It was one of those Stonies of Ock-tay-voh that the Kay-oh-ticks have been looking for! Like the blue one mistah Cal used to give Vuw-cah-nus forever sleepies, and the red one that made those bad wobots in Shan-guy move!
You remember what the skwad that went to New Tenneb said when they came back. That there was a Stonie in the Orby thing all along. Mistah Cal cut the Orby thing in half, which turned out to be a bad idea.
So there is a purple one!
You look at your daddeh, who’s talking on his fone now.
“Really? Oh, that’s great! I’ll tell Lav, she’s right here! I guess we’ll have to discuss our problem later. See you soon.”
But he quickly hangs up and smiles at you.
“That was Des just now. Good news, Cal and Mar have been found!”
You feel elated, and you can’t stop your tail from wagging.
“Weawwy? Whewe am dey?”
Daddeh strokes your pretty purple fluff.
“They’ve been brought back to the School. They crash-landed in a meadow outside town, Lav! The same one Future Quin and Mar arrived in!”
You’ve seen that meadow. There’s lots of pretty flowers there.
So that’s why flowers.
You have no idea what exactly is going on. How did mistah Cal and Marley get back? What took them so long?
And what does the Stonie have to do with all of this?
Your other daddeh and James run in, both looking excited.
“Did you hear? Cal and Mar are back!”
“The team’s preparing to party down at the School as we speak!”
“Les, grab your coat and find the others, you’re invited too!”
You look up at them.
“Wavendew gut a wotta kwest-yuns fow mistah Caw.”
James laughs, a lot nicer than how Bad James laughed.
“So do we, Lav. Cal and Mar are being debriefed as we speak, so I’m sure that they’ll tell the rest of us at the Party Zone.”
Then uncle Klaus runs in.
“You guys heard? Cal and Mar are–”
Your daddeh nods.
“They’re back, we heard. Did you tell Scott?”
“Duh. He’s gone Up There to tell Quinton, Ellen and Mika. But they might already know.”
You know who those people are. Mistah Cal and mistah Scott’s daddeh, mummah and gwampa. You’ve never met them, they all went forever sleepies a long time ago.
Klaus looks at you.
“Lav, you wanna go break to the good news to the other fluffies?”
You nod, using your floaty fing to float off the table, onto the floor.
“Wavendew weft Nawdos pwak-tiss-in wif da dawts. An da west wuz wotch-in, su Wavendew knu whewe dey am.”
Your daddehs pull their bloopers out.
“We’ll tag along, I’m not sure your blipper collar can blip all of them.”
“Klaus, James, we’ll see you there. Don’t worry about Helen, Jim and Keith, we’ll find 'em.”
You waddle out of the kit-chin, your daddehs following you out.
Later, once the whole family has blooped to the Skoow, you all walk into the Party Zone, and you see mistah Cal and Marley, and the whole Kay-oh-ticks.
When they spot you, mistah Cal waves. His not-fluff looks like it usually does.
“Hi, guys! We’ve been waiting for you to start the recap!”
While you’re overjoyed to see them, you can’t help but notice that mistah Cal has a beawd now.
Hold on. They were only gone for a few bwite times, weren’t they?
Is that long enough to grow a beawd?
As the family greets the Kay-oh-ticks, you waddle over to mistah Caw.
“Wavendew haf mist yu, but yu, uh, wook diff-went, mistah Caw…”
He laughs.
“Ah, Lav. I’ve missed you too. There’s a logical explanation for the beard.”
Marley nods.
“An it nu am faw intu da stowy.”
“Now that you guys are here, we can begin.”
“An wuns we gut da wee-cap owtta da way, we can git dis paw-tee stawt-ed.”
Mistah Prommy cracks a grin.
“How about you start with the part after New Tenneb blew up, Cal?”
“First of all, where’s Iyatagg?”
You see mistah Iyatagg raise a handsie. He’s tall, and green, and doesn’t have any not-fluff. He’s wearing a white tuw-bun, and drinking a glassie of wawas.
“Right here, Cal.”
Mistah Cal points at him, a big grin on his face.
“Let me just say that I have the best news for you, big guy.”
He pauses.
“You aren’t gonna believe who we met on the first planet…”