Friday.

Some people believe that Fridays are magical. The weekend was just around the corner. They saw Fridays as a promise of parties, happiness, and freedom. But I didn’t feel happy.

Nice sunlight tickled my nose. Sleepily, I snuggled deeper inside my pillow. I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to leave my dreams. Dreams of a wonderful future. Of a nice apartment and the perfect boyfriend. I wasn’t ready for a new day on the farm. Or for strange people that ran around at night. Why did that person glow? Was it a joke from Phileas? He wouldn’t be the first to try to scare me after he heard, that I wasn’t good with ghost-stuff. But why would he wear a dress? To make fun of me? To be extra spooky? And that figure was spooky!

The only good things here were Lali and her funny birds. She chased a chicken yesterday since she wanted me to pet it. The chicken had other plans. Lali’s parents were nice people. But I didn’t like it here. It was smelly and muddy and simply EW! And it was raining again. Not a hurricane, but the ground got soaked again. Nice.

Something nudged me. Confused, I opened my eyes and looked right into the sillily happy face of Farty. The alpaca tried his best to wake me up. Behind him stood another alpaca. It looked into my eyes blinking. „Oh. You brought a friend!“ I pulled the blanket over my face. Until it downed on me. There was an alpaca in my room.

Again!

Two alpacas!

I heard how Farty stepped away, but he quickly came back. I slowly looked up from under my blanket. Farty and his friend looked at me. The glass door stood open even though, I closed it last night. I was sure of that. Why was it open?

Farty nudged me again. „No!“ I grunted. „Go away! This isn’t your stable!“

Farty kept staring at me. Like his friend. Farty looked at Oscar again. I turned pale and rescued him under my blanket. „No, no! Bad alpaca! Go home!“

„Did you leave the door open again?“ That was Phileas voice. I looked at the open door. „Farty and Pretty weren’t where they are supposed to be. Do you like to have guests here? Noelle?“ He smiled. Heaven, this ass looked good. Annoyed, I hid under my blanket again.

„Just get them out!“, I cried. „Get them out, please!“ I hated alpacas!

„Fine, fine!“ Phileas laughed. „So? Why did you leave the door open, if you aren’t fond of these fellows?“

„I didn’t!“ Just get them out!

„And the wind pushed the door open? Or Dad’s ghost? Maybe you forgot… Farty? Pretty? Time to go home!“

Yes!

„Pretty boy?“, the alpaca-boy called to me.

I glared at him, slowly leaving my cover.

Phileas looked at me with amusement. „Come along. You can meet the alpacas. If they keep being guests here, you might as well get to know them!“

„No, thanks!“, I grunted.

„Come on. They won’t bite you. They‘re all quite nice! You don’t have any classes today, right? We can go buy you some rubber boots, and sneakers or something like that. All you brought are high heels. Some don’t look, like people are actually supposed to walk in them!“

„No. And I can walk just fine!”

A white and pale beige alpaca, Phileas called it Pretty, pulled at his green shirt. He petted it softly. The alpaca stepped away. „Come on. You live on a farm. Knowing the animals is always a good thing if you're at a farm.“ Phileas looked at Oscar the Long for a second. My friend peeked out from under the blanket. Alpaca-boy raised his eyebrows. „Some living company might do you good.“

„I have human friends!“, I hissed. „And Oscar is decoration! Art!“ Rude!

„If you say so.“

Great! Just Great! Now he thinks I… Lucky, me. I put Oscar back on the bedside table. Shit. But why do I even care about what this farm boy thinks?

In the end, Phileas didn’t accept a No. And he had some good arguments. I needed to know what to do, and what not to do with these animals around. Especially if they broke inside my bedroom! So I agreed to come along. I planned to take a shower later. After visiting the monsters.

Phileas told me, that he one day woke up with a cat sleeping next to him, that wasn’t his cat. It came through the window. Another time his mother slept on the couch. She left the patio door open, and all chickens came inside. It was a mess.

A was still wearing my pajamas. (I didn’t sleep in boxers this time, since people kept showing up at the glass door.)  I only put on a bit more flat heels, to follow him. The air smelled like rain.

The held onto the two alpacas, while I followed him to a pasture, where the two other alpacas were already waiting. I also spotted Lulu and Ferdinand. The two donkeys. I waited at the fence while Phileas called all the stupid alpacas over. They came running and seemed very happy. They greeted their two friends first, and nudged Phileas after that, to get some nice scratches.

„Okay. You know Farty and Pretty. The brown one and the white-beige one!“ Phileas smiled and petted Pretty.

I pouted. „Yes. And I saw the other two when I arrived here. One is in a relationship with Lulu.“

„Yes! That would be Wooly. The black one. He is a bit grumpy. Farty and Pretty are two cuddle bugs. The white one is Daisy. She is shy. Lulu and Ferdinand trotted over. Wooly nudged Lulu. They stood close to each other, while Ferdinand screamed in happiness.

I nodded and kept my distance. „Is that all to know?“, I asked hopefully.

„No. Not at all!“ Phileas softly pushed Ferdinand away, since the donkey tried to lean onto him. „Alpacas aren’t cuddly. In nature. These ones know that cuddling is nice. They learned it. With snacks. But Daisy still doesn’t want to get touched. Also, never separate them. They need each other. Wooly is castrated, or he and Farty would fight a lot. I got Wooly from someone who kept the poor animal alone. He thought Wooly would get nice and cuddly when he gets castrated. Poor little Man. That was wrong, of course. Wooly spitted and kicked his owner. It was easy to persuade him, to sell that rascal to me. It took some months for Wooly to accept being petted. But he got along well with the others quite fast. They can kick and spit at you. Never be mean to them. Stay calm and nice. All the time.“

„Farty went to my room alone. And today with Pretty!“, I contradicted. “He seemed fine on his own.”

„That is a bit unusual, yes. I don’t know why he does that. Pretty probably followed him. But stop making such a fuss, if an alpaca shows up at your doorstep. Unless you want to get spit on. Or kicked. Oh! And never feed them any food, they aren’t supposed to eat. We have special food for them. I can show you where we keep it.“

I rolled my eyes. „Thanks. I’m not interested in feeding them anything! I’m also not planning to become a farmer. Thanks anyway. I guess.“

Phileas furrowed his brows. „I can work with that…“

„Good Morning!“ Lali ran over to us and was greeted instantly by Ferdinant and Pretty. Her goose waddled after her. Dodo squawked at me.

„Morning Twerp!“ Phileas ruffled through Lali’s unkempt hair. She, too, was still in her pajamas. A purple one. Like mine. She stuck her tongue out at him. „I’m not a Twerp! Jerk!“

„Twerp?” I shook my head. “Why are you calling her that? It’s not nice?“ Probably because he wasn’t a nice person, but I felt the need to protect Lali. Jerk wasn’t nice too, but…

„Why?“ Phileas laughed softly. „She kept calling me that as I toddler. That’s why I started to call her that back. It kind of stuck.“

„I never did!“, Lali grunted. She climbed over the fence and petted the animals, ignoring her cousin.

„She just can’t remember“, he told me.

„Maybe you should stop.“

„Maybe. But as her older cousin, it’s my job to tease her. Joke aside. I always try to not call her that anymore, but I’m too used to it!“ He sight. „Maybe I should come up with a new nickname. What do you think about dwarf?“

„Some mean kids called me that in High School.“

„Oh.“  He nodded.

Mean kids… I remebered that ‘ghost’ at night. “Did you try to scare me last night? If so, stop, please. It wasn’t funny”, I asked him.

“Scare you?”

“Yes. Some ghostly figure was at the stable. I don’t like ghost stuff, but that is no reason to make fun of me, you know?”, I hissed. “Also… The donkeys were loud. Maybe because of that joke.”

“Oh.” He looked confused. “Sorry, but I have no idea, what you’re talking about. Ghost? Because of Dad's ghost story? It’s just a story. Maybe it was a bad dream? Or one of the neighbors’ kids? So, I wouldn’t know, why they would do that.” He shrugged. “They don’t know you. And we wouldn’t see it from the house. And I would never scare Lulu and Ferdinand. Or a guest.”

“Hm… Okay.” It wasn’t a dream. Where some teenagers just making a video? Scaring the donkeys?

“Well, thanks. If teenagers are here at night to do some mischief, we need to stop them somehow.”

“You’re welcome?” No ghost? Teenagers?

We watched Lali playing with her animal friends. After some time, she started to play catch with Ferdinand and Pretty. I chuckled.

We left her to play with the animals and Phileas showed me his beehive. This time from afar. It was close to the pasture. We could still hear and see Lali playing with the alpacas. Now, Lali's goose chased them all.

Bees. Smiling, I looked at the small insects. They found their way to their home with the help of colorful stickers. Some came over to look at me. One landed on my nose and started to clean itself.

„You should smile more often!“, Phileas said. „It looks good on you.“

„Thanks?“ I let the Bee climb onto my hand and watched it. It was so pretty and cute.

I liked bees.

I really liked them.

We heard Lali laugh. I turned around to look, at what she was doing. The bee flew away.

Lulu tried to cuddle with Lali. The girl nearly fell over. Her goose ran around her and scolded as only a goose could. It flapped its wings until Lali picked up the big bird and cuddled with it too.

„Silly bird“, Phileas mumbled.

Bonus:

I met some nice alpacas. So cute!