“Hi!” Hopper said excitedly.
“Grunt.”
“So cute!”
“Grumble.”
“AHHH CUTEST EVER Hey little guy, want some coffee? Yes? Here you go!” Hopper happily fed Caffeinated Fish with a spoonful of coffee, despite the fact that his tank was full of it. (of course, the tank was full of caffeine-less coffee. They had to change it regularly because Fish only breathed the caffeine in it.)
“GNORF-SPLAT!” Caffeinated Fish spat the coffee out into Hopper’s face. “Too sweet,” he grumbled.
Glaucous sighed. “Hopper, how many sugar cubes did you put in that coffee?”
“No, it’s that he just likes his coffee without any sugar,” Shade called from inside the cave.
Hopper exclaimed in horror. “NO SUGAR? At ALL?” she screamed. She took a sip of the coffee in her hand. “Yum!” Aileen could practically see her eyes vibrating from the sugar overload.
“She put all the sugar cubes left in that coffee,” Sparky whispered so that Hopper couldn’t hear.
“WHAT!?” Shade yelled. “THAT WAS A NEW, FULL PACK!!!”
“AWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” Caffeinated Fish screamed his shock from his giant coffee cup fish tank.
“So, what are we having for dinner?” Glaucous asked, changing the subject to protect her friend. She brushed the strands of her long, whitish-blue hair out of her eyes.
Both Hopper and Glaucous had decided on disguises. Glaucous, much to the annoyance of Shade, didn’t enjoy disguises much. She had dyed her hair blue and white to make herself unrecognizable from far away, but if we went on an official mission where we needed to be disguised, she would cover herself in a thick layer of ice with her powers. Hopper could change her appearance because she was a shape-shifter, so she, as always, had her bunny ears, but her eyes were blue, her hair was blonde, and she had freckles. She still had the same mischievous and hyper look, though.
“YEHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! DINNER!” Caffeinated Fish yelled. He swam into the underwater tunnels connecting the caves. Soon, we could hear him shouting from the dining room, “I’M WAITING!!!”
Shade sighed. “I’ll go make some knotweed mash for us.”
“I’ll make it!” Sparky volunteered.
“OH OCTOFROG HAVE MERCY PLEASE NO!!” Shade and Aileen yelled at the same time.
Sparky looked hurt. “I thought you liked the mash I made yesterday.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you because you cry fire,” Aileen said.
“Wouldn’t that burn up your eyes?” Hopper wondered.
“Eyes are overrated anyway,” Shade answered.
“Um, but, also,” Aileen jumped in, “Sparky doesn’t burn. She lives on fire! That would kinda be a bummer for her if it hurt her.”
Shade hurried off into the garden with a little knife. She chopped off a few mature sprouts of knotweed and picked some fresh garlic, then went to the kitchen to cook it all up.
Caffeinated Fish came back into his tank. “Humph,” he grumbled. He expressed his anger that they had served him mashed knotweed, not pizza. He sulked to the bottom of the coffee cup, stirring up a cloud of silt.
Hopper immediately tried to calm him down, pouring her coffee into his tank. Fish coughed and retreated to the tunnels.
“I shudder to think of what would happen if Fishy got a sugar overload,” Sparky said. True to her word, she shuddered.
“Dinner Time!” Shade called soon from the kitchen.
“YES!” Caffeinated Fish screamed and darted into the tunnels. “PIZZAAAAAAAAAAA” he yelled as he left.
Aileen led Glaucous and Hopper to the kitchen, and Sparky followed. Aileen finally got an excellent taste of what Shade’s knotweed mash was supposed to taste like. It was a mix of sweet and savory, with just the perfect amount of garlic and green onion. Shade was a superb cook; Sparky was most certainly not.
Somehow, she had also found the time to make a pizza for Caffeinated Fish. He gulped it down immediately and spun away, satisfied. He was vibrating, so Aileen guessed Shade had heavily caffeinated the pizza.
Glaucous was quiet during dinner, but she seemed to be naturally shy around everyone except Hopper. It was funny how they had lived with each other because they were total opposites. But maybe Glaucous calmed Hopper down.
Hopper ate her mash quickly and was a loud chatterbox for the rest of the dinner. She blah-blah-blah-ed about. Honestly, Aileen doesn’t know what. She wasn’t listening.
Shade ate her mash quickly and quietly, then stood up.
“Girls and fish, I’m going out this evening,” she said. “Lord and Glaucous, take care of Sparky and Hopper, will you? Great. Thanks,” she added. Aileen assumed that she had read our minds because she was okay with it, but she hadn’t said anything.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning… probably. Don’t be worried if I’m still gone when you wake up. I need to visit an old family friend.” She slipped away without another word. Soft whirring a few minutes later told me she was flying the Twilight jet we had ridden to go recruit Hopper and Glaucous.
Aileen looked around the dinner table and shrugged. “Sparky, Glaucous, you’re on Cleanup Duty.”
“That’s not fair,” Sparky protested. “I did it yesterday.”
“You won’t do it tomorrow. It’ll be Glaucous and Hopper. Then it’ll be Hopper and me. I have a system, okay? I know what I’m doing, running this group.”
“Shade isn’t on that routine list of yours!” Hopper pointed out. Aileen scowled at her, water dripping from her chin. “Do you really need me to tell you the entire cycle?”
Hopper looked down and mumbled, “No, Lord, sorry.”
Aileen glared at her but lifted my chin and nodded cooly. She seemed to be fitting right into the role of leader of the OctoFrog Cult.
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