Necrokitty Tales: Trouble in Inkwell Isle (Chapter 7)
Authors’ note: Remember, Necrida’s writing will be in italics and SPKC’s writing with be regular font.If you have no idea what this roleplaying thing is, you can start from the beginning here.
Harvey woke up at the sound of his mom banging a pot and blearily looked at the time. “Oh no! I’ve slept in!” He gasped, jumping out of bed and quickly getting dressed. He was about to dash out of his room when he doubled back for Mina’s notebook.
Shoot, he didn’t get to show this to his sister yet. Maybe Mina would come over after school and they could show her together.
That’s what Harvey hoped as he grabbed his lunch box and dashed out the door, not even looking at any of the surroundings.
–
Mina kissed her mother goodbye and took the road to school. At the observatory she saw the broken tree and a strange hole on the floor. This caught her attention! She immediately got close to the tree, mentally analyzing the cracks and shards. Same with the hole. She looked carefully at the way it was digged, there were no claw marks… so she ruled out mole-people. No, this was something else… something… that smelled like flowers. She looked up to the sky, maybe the answer was out there…
She realized she was going to be late if she lingered any longer, so she decided to come back later, maybe with Harvey, and take notes in her adventure journal. And so, she went to school happy and excited for her new discovery.
Mina got in class right when the bell started ringing. She had to run all the way from home and she was out of breath. She took her seat and looked around to see if Harvey was around yet.
Harvey made one last final sprint as the bell rang into the classroom and faceplanted with his desk.
The other school children started to giggle as the teacher shook her head and muttered under her breath. Harvey looked up, rubbing his forehead only to spot Mina and wave excitedly.
Mina got worried for Harvey and was about to go check on him when he waved at her showing he was ok. She smiled and waved back. The lessons of the day begun.
Unbeknownst to Harvey and Mina, Spike was already glaring at them both and plotting his revenge for detention the other day. His dad had tanned him good for showing up late to dinner so he was going to make sure he would return the favor.
–
Cagney did not sleep well. He kept jerking awake, sometimes mid transformation. He didn’t like the dreams he was having. They weren’t pleasant but exhaustion kept forcing him to try to sleep again, even as the sun was already up.
They were dreams of happier times between him and his former friend only for them to be tarnished quickly by his anger. Even a memory of a picnic turned to hearing his friend scream.
He tiredly opened his eyes. “I shoulda just let Tauros gore me,” he grumbled to himself. It probably would have hurt less to have two gaping hole chests in his chest than a big emotional one in his heart.
What was his plan if she did try to stop by? She wouldn’t. But what if? Would he violently throw her out? Or just burrow again. There was nothing the woman could do when he was underground. Not that she would want anything to do with him again.
Cagney decided burrowing was his best option. He was stubborn and if he said he never wanted to see her again and then he went to see her, she’d think she could just walk all over him. That she could accuse him of lying whenever she pleased without listening to him. If she had only give him a few minutes, he might have remembered that he caught the small spyglass and shown her the claw marks on the sheets covering the walls.
He tried to make his heart cold and it wasn’t quite working. Maybe with time. Time didn’t heal all wounds, but it certainly made them hurt a bit less. He wondered how long it would take to completely get over a 20 year friendship.
–
Hilda barely slept a couple of hours. She had spent the entire night turning in her bed, playing the night events over and over in her mind. That stare… She shivered. Since she couldn’t sleep she decided to start her day, there was a lot to be done anyway.
First she took a shower, hoping that might relax her a bit. She dressed up, and got down the stairs to the kitchen that still smelled like burn so she left the windows open. She skipped breakfast and went directly to the projection room. She grabbed a broom and a trash can from a closet and started sweeping lost in her thoughts.
HIlda kept swiping around until she stumble on the pieces of the big pot. She delightet herself remembering Cagney´s face when he saw the smaller pot inside. She really touched a sensitive fiber there. Her vision started to blur. She realised she was crying again. She immediately wiped her tears and she dropped the broom angrily.
“Stupid Cagney! That damn weed almost fucking killed me! ” She tried to change her sadness in anger again, but this time, it only resulted in more tears running through her cheeks. She cover her face weeping silently and slowly crouched hiding her face between her knees.
She hated herself when she succumbed to weakness like this. After a few minutes, she started to pick up the pieces of pot thinking she might be able to glue it.
She remembered Cagney’s comment about a failed art project and a shy smile showed in her sad face. He would definitely made fun of her if she tried to put this together. He would make a witty comment, and she would have a comeback, and they would forget about it with a laugh.
A stronger memory came back to her, terribly aching her heart: the time she got tricked by a certain someone, pretending to be someone else, made her fall for him so he would get her soul contract. She remember how Cagney fought for her, how he held her tight… He prevented her from losing her mind completely…
And last night… the way he looked at her… did he really mean it?
Near one of the pieces she found her old spyglass. She looked at it surprised, did they knocked out something when they storm off? She nearly gathered all the pieces of the pot when she found the statue.
Something was wrong here. She went back to the exposition room where those items belonged, nothing else was missing and everything was in order.
Her heart froze at the view of the purple flower next to the poppy.
Hilda put the things in place and got closer to check the plant. It was really pretty and … it had a note!
Her hand shook a little when she reached for it. It said : ‘Leaving a note to REMIND YOU we got reservations for friday. Also, try not to kill this one’.
“Oh… no… ” she felt the weight of guilt on her shoulders.
‘We’re definitely not going!’ Tauros voice echoed inside the woman’s head.
'What?!’ Gemini joined in. “We’ve planned this like a week ago!”
'Yeah! And it cost us a heated argument just to decide a place we both liked to go’ Sagittarius decided to join.
“C'mon you guys! You really think after what he said to me… after the way he looked at me! He would still go our date?” Hilda talked to herself.
'Oh! So it IS a date’ Gemini giggled.
“W-what? No… I mean… appointment? Rendez-vous-OH! Whatever! Point is, he is NOT gonna go!
And neither am I!” She threw the paper at the projection room.
Hilda stood in place a few minutes until she silenced the voices in her head. She took a deep breath and walked back to the projection room. She got discouraged at the sight of the huge mess and leaned on the wall.
She took some time to analyse the damage. There were shards everywhere! On the blankets, the pillows, the chairs… that dome was gonna cost a lot to rep-why there’s a hole on the wall?
Hilda frown and got coser, it was the vent! Why it was open? Her heart skipped a beat. Cagney was telling the truth? Somebody was stupid enough to break in? And she yelled at him. Her guilt was getting heavier by the second until she remember he almost choked her to death…
She held her head confused and sat on one of the chairs just to stand up right away at the feeling of sharp crystal in her rear. If she ever get her hand on the thief…
–
During lunch time Mina told Harvey about her discovery this morning.
“And, I’m telling you, that is NOT a mole people hole! It was way too big and no claw markings! Plus it smelled very good.”
Harvey scratched his ears. “Huh. I mean I’ve seen a few larger holes than normal but a really big hole? And a nice smelling one at that? Doesn’t ring any bells. The only nice smelling hole I’ve ever seen is the time my mom dropped an open bottle of perfume down a hole by accident.” The rabbit wrinkled his nose. “That wasn’t exactly a nice smelling hole though either. Did you wanna go check it out after school? What did the hole smell like?”
“We are definitely going to check it out! The hole smelled like flowers! And there was a broken tree near that too! My suspicion is…” she whispered to Harvey “Aliens! From Venus! I hope you remembered to bring my adventure journal, because this is a major discovery!”
Todd, the mosquito kid who was in detention yesterday with Spike heard them talking. With a grin he sat on Spike’s table.
“I know how you can get back to them!”
Spike eyed the mosquito classmate. “Lay it on me, bloodsucker. I’m itchin’ for it.”
“I heard them talking about a journal. It seems very precious to that new kid”. Todd smiled “it would be a shame if something happen to it.”
Spike rubbed his hands together. “It would, huh? Let’s say we visit the dorky duo on their way home, huh?”
The mosquito nodded at his friend with a grin.
–
Hannah waited patiently for the chance to talk to her cousin and the opportunity finally presented itself when her mother left the house for a few minutes to get a some things. She hopped over to her cousin and motioned him over. “Hey, Henry. I have a question.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you meet the big flower?” She asked twirling the red ribbon in her hair
“Yeah.”
“Was he as grumpy as Harvey says?”
“He was very grumpy. He yelled at me and threw me out and threw stuff at me.” Hannah’s face fell at that. She was really hoping her older brother had been exaggerating.
“Ah.”
Henry scratched his head. “It was weird though.”
“What?”
“He was really angry and stuff, but he asked me if I was okay.”
“Really?” Hannah asked, her face lighting up again.
“Yeah. And THEN he threw me out.”
Hannah wiggled happily. “Will you go with me to see him?”
“Heck no!”
“Darn.” Hannah thought of something else. “Do you think he needs a quilt?”
Henry thought about it. He didn’t remember seeing any bedding of any kind while in the pile of lost school supplies. “Maybe. I didn’t see if he had any.”
“Yay!” Hannah jumped happily. “I’ll get started.”
Henry shook his head as his cousin ran away to her room. This whole family was weird.
–
After what it seemed like the longest day of her life, Mina rushed Harvey to go faster. She really wanted to investigate and explore the hole.
Harvey was moving as fast as his floppy feet could carry him. He never had to be rushed before unless someone was chasing him. Usually he was the faster one.
But Mina’s excitement was contagious and even he found himself eager to leave school and go check it out, even as something was gnawing at him inside that the hole was bad news bears.
As they were passing near the flower field Todd and Spike blocked their way.
The little mosquito grinned maliciously and stood behind Spike with his arms crossed. Mina immediately stood in front of Harvey.
“What do you want, Spike?!”
—
It had taken the whole day, but Cagney had finally sorted his thoughts. Or at least enough to lapse into a restless sleep once more. He had not wanted to be gored, sure, but had his reaction really that extreme? He had been exhausted, high off panicked adrenaline (nearly getting crushed by a massive ton of glass could do that to a fellow) and then kicked out and caked and nearly gored.
Maybe he could be slightly justified in a counterattack and he could have just smacked her into a wall. That wasn’t much better but it was better than choking her. Could he really not have stood to hear her berate him anymore last night that it warranted suffocation? Well, he definitely got exactly that and she didn’t say another word to him.
And most likely she wouldn’t again.
He craved silence at the moment and stirred irritably in his sleep, almost aware of a loud commotion by his fence.
–
Spike grinned and chewed his lip. “I want your notebook, Mina. Now give it to me before I make you both sorry you crossed me yesterday!” He barked.
Mina looked at him surprised. How did he knew about her notebook?
“What notebook, you… you idiot!?” She was brave, but not very good in dealing with conflicts.
The shouting was starting to attract the other students heading home from school. They started to gather round, to see what would happen next. There was a general murmur of “What notebook? Like her homework notebook?’ someone asked.
Harvey winced and his ears drooped. Oh man, he’d normally high tail it out of here, not wanting to get beaten up in front of the entire class. Again. However, Mina was standing her ground, albeit not that effectively. And he didn’t want to lose a friend this quickly. So he remained frozen, holding onto their backpacks instead.
Spike barked loudly again. “We overheard you at lunch going on and on about your special little notebook. So hand it over!”
Mina noticed the kids gathering around them. Second day and she was already in a fight… normally it takes a week or two… and the notebook, her precious adventure journal… she should have been more careful when she talked about it.
“Go away Spike, before you get hurt! ” she showed her tiny claws hoping it would discourage the little puppy.
Kids around gathered even closer when they realised there might be some blood.
–
Cagney was growing increasingly irritated. He just wanted silence now but there was a buzzing noise now. He opened his tired eyes to see a bee nearby.
Normally, he wouldn’t mind the bees, but today was an exception. “Hey, buzz off will you for a bit. I’m trying to get some sleep,” he complained.
“No can do, bud. We’re way behind schedule as it is.”
“Ugh.” Cagney wasn’t in the mood to argue and throwing out a bee was never a good idea (stingers hurt) But another idea came into his head. He could hit the pest with a dandelion and when he was disoriented, plop him outside and send him on his way. It was a bit harder to cough up dandelions in his regular form but there was no way he was going to transform back into his monstrous form. He had done enough damage with that, thank you very much. So he started hacking and coughing in an attempt to pull them out.
The bee gave Cagney an odd look. “You need a glass of water, bud?”
“No, hchh, hchh, I’ll be done soon,” Cagney couldn’t help but chuckle at the confused bee.
–
Spike smirked. “Ooh, look, this bat’s got claws. Cute. Well I got these,” he opened his mouth, showing off his canine teeth.
When Mina still didn’t back down, he barked. “Todd! Pull Harvey’s ears!”
Harvey squealed at that, drawing everyone’s attention and pulling his ears down. “Leave us alone!”
With the kids distracted, Spike charged Mina.
Mina opened her eyes wide at the look of Spike’s fangs, she didn’t think of that…
Todd obeyed with an evil smile on his face and attacked Harvey.
Mina wanted to go and stop him, but Spike charged on her making her lose her balance and fall on her back facing him. She tried to find a part of his body where she could sink her claws.
Kids around started yelling, encouraging them to keep fighting.
Harvey swatted and tried to desperately kick at the mosquito before seeing Spike push Mina down! He gave one more final swat before running to her aid, trying to push Spike off the B-cat.
Spike winced as Mina scratched at him but with his thick bulldog skin, it wasn’t as effective as she would have liked. He gave her another good shove to the ground before yanking away her backpack from a distracted Harvey.
“Todd! Keep em busy!” He yelled sticking his hand to grab the notebook.
The other children were really cheering and yelling now. This was really exciting now. Most people just gave up to Spike but this was really different even if Mina and Harvey were losing.
–
Cagney was about to chuck a wad of dandelion at the bee when the insect jumped backwards in surprise. “Who’s doing all that yelling?!”
The flower didn’t anticipate that and reared back to avoid the stinger, only for his head to hit the bench of his tree. He coughed and breathed in the dandelion attack instead.
The bee fluttered over to Cagney as the carnation choked and coughed. “Hey, hey bud, you okay there?” The bee asked in concern, reaching out to shake the flower.
He stopped as Cagney unsteadily jerked toward him, revealing his pupils dilating manic under the effect of the dandelions.
–
Todd quickly pushed Mina as she was about to tackle Spike making her fall on a very muddy zone making it difficult for her to get back on her feet.
He turned to Harvey, pointing his stinger at him.
“You better not move, Dumbo! Or this time I’ll drain you!”
Harvey froze at Todd’s threat, not sure if he could actually do it, but not wanting to risk it if he could. He looked toward Mina worriedly.
Spike gave a triumphant shout and pulled out the notebook. He waved it in front of them both with a sneer. “Awww. So cute!” He laughed. He grabbed one of the pages and started to pull.
“NO!” Mina yelled when he started to pull the pages from her journal.
Harvey thought fast. He pointed behind Spike. “Hi, Mrs. White!” He yelled.
Spike immediately stopped pulling the page and looked around wildly. “Where? Where?”
Todd also looked back to see if Miss White was there.
When Harvey cleverly distracted Spike, she waved her wings with all her strength, release herself from the mud and was about to tackle Spike with her claws fully out.
“Ain’t no teacher here,” Spike realized, turning. He saw very very angry Mina lunging at him and panicked. He looked at the field, look at the notebook, look at the field, one last look at Mina and then chucked the notebook over the fence.
Harvey gasped. “Not the field!”
There were equal gasps and yells from the other kids as the notebook sailed over the fence and deep within the field.
Mina stopped looking with wide eyes at her notebook landing on the other side of the fence spreading some pages on the way.
She gave a furious look at Spike, her eyes filling with tears and her body shaking with anger. Then, she slowly walked towards the fence.
Harvey grabbed Mina’s arm. “Wait, wait, Mina! Don’t go in there, it’s not safe! We-we can go get my mom or something later just-!”
Mina was too angry, she just wanted to get her notebook and go home. When Harvey grabbed her arm she hissed at him. She cleaned a tear from her dirty cheek and climbed the bench with the agility of a cat.
She didn’t even looked around to see if there was somebody watching. She simply let herself down with the help of her wings.
Harvey stood there, every cotton fuzz ball on him standing on end. He swallowed and turned toward another student. “Can you go get an adult please? My mom or uh, someone?” And with that he jumped over the fence as well, trying not to freak as he did.
Two of the other children ran down the road. Looking for an adult.
–
Something landed with a loud flap near the bee and Cagney let a wild swing toward it, hitting a patch of clover instead with a dulled thud. The bee saw how hard he demolished that patch of clover and paled.
“Say, bud, I think I’m going to just head home. I’ll come back later.” The bee buzzed off quickly leaving a very disoriented carnation.
Cagney was really disoriented. This had to have been one of the stupider things he had done to himself. He laid still, seeing if that would make the world stop spinning but not by much. Unaware of the notebook that lay near him.
–
The two kids ran as fast as they could to the observatory and knocked at the door. Hilda was in no mood for visitors today, she had too much in her mind right now, so she decided to ignore it.
After a couple of minutes the kids started to lose patience and run to the next house.
They had more luck here, an adult was already outside the house gathering some berries from the nearby bushes.
“Help! Help please!” The kids yelled.
Isabella turned her hears at the direction of the sound. “Kids? W-what’s wrong?” She answered worried.
The kids were a bit out of breath but they managed to speak.
“Please, lady! Hhh you gotta help!”. Said one of the kids.
“The hhh the field hhh flower!” Continued the other one.
She heard 'help’ and 'flower field’’ and she immediately understood where she was needed. She just hoped Mina wasn’t involved. She dropped her basket with the berries and took flight following the strong smell of Cagney’s flower field.
–
Everybody looked in silence, almost as if they were holding their breath. Suddenly, they heard a thud nearby and they all gasped in surprise taking a step back, but they couldn’t see the carnation.
Todd, feeling that this wasn’t going to end well, got closer to Spike and whisper, “We should get outta’ here” and discreetly stepped away from the fence.
Spike did not move yet. “Nuthin happened yet,” he grumbled, “don’t be a chicken.”
Todd stopped walking away but he still kept his distance.
–
Mina stood still at the sound and tried to scan with her little bat ears the origin of the itm but her little heart was beating so fast it was almost the only thing she could hear.
Harvey tugged on Mina’s arm, drawing her attention and pressed a finger to his lips, giving her a scared, reassuring smile. The little rabbit pointed in the direction of a big tree. “I think I saw it go that way but we have to be really really quiet.”
The fact that the Carnation wasn’t already yelling might be a good thing. Maybe he was asleep. In which case they might be able to grab the notebook and leave. The two crept closer, Harvey still holding Mina’s backpack.
Mina looked at Harvey surprised and she showed a grateful smile. She felt very bad for hissing him before. She looked at the direction he was pointing at and nodded. She got on all fours and walked as discreetly as possible trying to keep her body hidden through the flowers.
Harvey spotted Cagney and prevented Mina from moving any closer. The flower was…asleep? Harvey wouldn’t have believed it, but yet there he was, lying down on the meadowy grass, not moving, facing away from them.
He sighed in relief but his ears drooped worriedly as they spotted the notebook. It was dangerously close to the carnation. He could see the b-cat’s eyes light up at it and he shushed her before she could shout in excitement.
“That’s Cagney. It looks like he is asleep…which is really lucky,” Harvey admitted. He was never asleep this late in the day. If someone was careful, they could probably get the book. He motioned Mina close and looked at his friend. She was awfully scuffed up from her brawl with Spike. Even her wings looked a little battered.
They wouldn’t have been in this mess it hadn’t been for him. He swallowed and pressed her backpack into her hands. “Stay here, I’m going to go get it. It’s my fault that it was even brought to school in the first place,” Harvey explained.
Mina gave Harvey an skeptic look and denied, moving her head. If the flower woke up she new she would be able to avoid it with her cat reflexes, she wasn’t so sure if Harvey would be able to move as fast. She really didn’t want him to get hurt…
She put on the backpack and pointed Harvey towards the bench to indicate him to leave.
Harvey was secretly grateful when Mina declined his offer. The carnation kind of spooked him a lot. He crept away just out of immediate reach of the plant and made a binocular hand gesture with his hands, hoping that would indicate to her that he was going to watch from a safer distance.
Mina nodded and smiled at him. She then turned to the carnation and walked closer very slowly trying to reach her journal with her arm. She realised she was shaking.
Harvey watched his friend creep closer and sighed. They were really lucky he was asleep. A little too lucky, Harvey realized, his attention flickering over to the flower. How could the carnation be asleep when the sun was out? There was no way they would could be this lucky. Unless…
Cagney wasn’t actually asleep.
Harvey’s eyes widened as he realized the carnation had moved slowly and maybe it wasn’t as noticeable if you were up close and could only see a part of him, but from where Harvey was, he could see the whole stem was twitching.
The rabbit suppressed the urge to shout. He had to warn Mina. He waved frantically at the bat who had his back toward him.
The little girl was too focused in not making a sound, she didn’t noticed Harvey trying to get her attention.
Finally she grabbed the notebook and picked it up as delicately as she could to prevent making any noise with the pages. It was really hard with a shaky hand. A few of the pages fell down making very little noise. Mina grinned her teeth and looked at the flower without daring to move.
–
Cagney’s eyes shot open at the small sound. God, he’s not sure if that was a real sound or not. In this state, he could probably hear colors. He should probably start with just standing and if he could manage that then maybe he was actually hearing real things.
–
Harvey hopped up and down now, watching the flower starting to rise up from his base, waving his hands frantically.
Mina bit her lip and quickly started to pick up the pages and putting them back inside the notebook. She turned around towards Harvey and this time she saw him jumping frantically. She thought he was just happy the she recover her journal and smiled at him holding the notebook triumphantly in the air.
–
Cagney’s head swiveled around as he rose to his full height. His eyes locked on a figure in front of him. One that wasn’t there before. He tried to focus on it but he couldn’t exactly see what it was. It was small, kind of dark. It didn’t ring any bells.
Until he spotted the pointed, cat like ears. And a tail. His eyes narrowed as his mind started to put two and two together. This looked just like the cat burglar from last night. Had she really been stupid enough to try to steal from him in his own garden. It even looked like she had a bag or something.
–
Harvey watched Cagney loom over Mina and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. He pointed and shook his head frantically back and forth, trying to get her to come to him. He didn’t think her vision was the best but she had to at least see that he was freaking out, right?
The little bat paled. Now she understood what Harvey was trying to say. She repressed the need to look back holding her notebook tightly against her chest.
In August of 2012, a large “pumice raft” appeared off the coast of New Zealand. Pumice is one product of explosive volcanic eruptions; molten rock with high gas content forms bubbles that build up in pressure and rip the rock to fragments. If the bubbles still have gas in them, they can be buoyant enough to bring the rock up to the surface, forming a pumice raft. This pumice raft, seen in the first photo, was erupted from the Harve volcanic seamount northeast of New Zealand. That pumice raft covered an area of about 400 square kilometers before it was dispersed by the waves of the Pacific. That’s about the size of a major city such as Philadelphia. This indicated to scientists that it was likely the largest submarine volcanic explosion on record.
In 2015, scientists took a ship to investigate the seafloor site and the results of this volcanic event. They mapped the site of the eruption and found a large caldera, as would be produced by an explosive volcanic eruption on land. The width of this caldera is 4.5 kilometers. The scientists estimated the volume of this eruption and found that it was slightly larger than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens volcano, but much smaller than the largest eruptions of the last century.
Interestingly, it turns out that most of the products of this eruption were pumice. Normally in eruptions such as St. Helens, much of the material that was erupted was blasted apart into fine-grained ash. However, in this eruption about 75% of the material came out as much more coarse-grained pumice. When scientists investigated the seafloor, they found huge pumice chunks – some of them described as the size of houses! This amount of pumice may indicate that these sort of explosive eruptions can have different mechanisms when they take place beneath the pressure of water; rather than splitting into fine-grained ash, the fragmentation in the volcano splits things into larger chunks. This could indicate that the depth where the molten rock is fragmented is different in submarine eruptions.
I have a like/hate relationship with the fact that you have to "go steady" in the games now. It sucks because I like to see all the heart events before making a final decision on who to marry, plus breaking up takes so much time and I feel so awful to have to be a terrible person to my significant other.
