Skip to main content

The Collar of the Two Skies Chapter 20

 Chapter 20 Which Movie Do We Choose?





 Aura had placed the giant pizza on the kitchen table and gathered all the humans around it.




"Son, this time we've invited ourselves over to your place for dinner, but I wanted to make sure we actually had something to eat," she said, giving Anemo a maternal smile. "A delivery guy brought this, but I forgot to change the address in the app, so it went to number 42."




"I was actually craving pizza, my dear," Professor Simoon said, "but I see the furballs remain your favorites—you cooked liver just for them."




A few steps away, the furballs were devouring beef liver, cooked without onions this time, especially for them.




Anemo measured each of them with his gaze, and since he couldn't help making a joke, he added, "My dear mother and her love for my furballs! Since you care so much about them, what would you say if I left them in your care for a while... not right now, but in September."




Mrs. Aura, however, noticed nothing of the whispered conspiracy at the edge of the table. She clapped her hands together, her eyes shining with genuine, pure excitement:




"Oh, son, what a wonderful idea! I was just thinking that my schedule at the book club clears up in September. Can you imagine how lovely it will be? I’ll rearrange their beds in the grand salon, right next to the Meissen porcelain display case, so they have good light for their naps!"




At the sound of the word "display case," Sirocco froze with a piece of liver still stuck in the corner of his mouth. He swallowed hard, lowered his tail, and with unsteady steps, hurried out of the kitchen toward the living room. He urgently needed a crisis strategy session with Mistral.




Anemo turned pale, realizing his innocent joke had triggered a double disaster: a firm promise from his mother and a feline rebellion ready to destroy his peace. Taking advantage of the fact that Professor Simoon had started explaining to Aura the logistical details of a misplaced pizza order, Anemo leaned toward the little girl and whispered desperately in her ear:




"Fleur, I beg you, go to the living room after them right now! Smooth things over however you can. Tell them it was just a bad joke, that nobody is giving them away anywhere, and most importantly... tell Mistral that under no circumstances do I want another deep cleaning! You're my only hope, lifesaver!"




But before Aura could even answer, Mistral, the most gluttonous of the furballs, straightened his spine, adopting a posture worthy of a feline runway, and marched out of the room. He addressed the topknot, as she was the only one who could understand him without being in contact with the collar:




"Please remind Anemo that I haven't forgotten who came up with the nickname Durga for Mrs. Aura. You were right there too, topknot, but you're pretending you forgot! I can easily arrange an email or a message asking her to help him with a deep spring cleaning! That is all I have to say!"




The topknot had just taken a huge bite out of her pizza slice, leaving her with a red mustache—not on her nose, but at the corners of her mouth. She stood up to reach Anemo's ear and whispered Mistral's message to him.




*




With Fleur and Aeolus in their midst, the furballs were on the living room rug, discussing Anemo's bad jokes and Mistral's blackmail. Bise made sure to reassure them:




"As Fleur already told you, nobody is sending you to Aura's house! It was just a joke. If he could, he would take you all to Egypt, but you know that's not possible. Fleur, why don't you put on a movie for us instead?"




Fleur grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and sat back down on the rug next to the furballs.




"Great idea!" she said. "What are we watching?"




Mistral, Sirocco, and Aeolus answered immediately in chorus... a strange, unharmonized chorus:




"Gay Purr-ee!"




"The Count of Monte Cristo!"




"Tom and Jerry!"




Now, as to whose preference was whose... I'll leave that for you to guess. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Collar of the Two Skies Chapter 10

   Chapter 10 The Map Since the summer solstice, the dynamics inside the house of the winds had completely shifted. The peace, the sweet, specific peace of our picturesque street was entirely gone, and Anemo's life had become an endless string of unannounced visits and unexpected phone calls from Arbalest or Trenci, or the distinguished Daisy Queen, who had made a habit of dropping by every time she took her precious dog, Lady Bell, out for a walk. On top of that, there was Fleur, who wasn’t exactly a nuisance but had turned into a sort of editor, almost as nagging as Archibald, and Noel's pigeons had become incredibly noisy, accompanied by Skye's barking; Aura Gale called him but also visited daily, threatening him with a fresh, textbook-perfect deep clean, and his inspiration had fled somewhere, God knows where, despite the hours he spent on the living room armchair in front of his laptop. Sleep eluded Anemo both night and day, leaving him with massive bags under his eyes...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Collar of the Two Skies Chapter 8

    Chapter 8 The Backpack Kidnapping While Anemo and Arcibald were in the kitchen discussing how... completely untraceable she was, Remi, Bise crept stealthily toward the coat rack tree. It was loaded even more heavily than a Christmas tree, and she needed to map out an attack plan. The backpack wasn't even visible anymore... actually, only a strap could be seen, a tiny piece of a strap. But that was enough for the sharp eyes of an Angora cat. "To free the backpack, I need to get up there! To get up there, right above the coat rack tree, I have to make a daring leap. I'll get a running start, like this, get a running start... I'll go up the stairs, and from there, I'll definitely reach the top. Thank Heaven I can still find a way!" Elegant and agile like a true feline, Remi climbed about seven steps. She practiced the leap a few times just in her mind, then gathered momentum and, with one single bound, landed right on top of the coat rack tree, making it wobb...
Post a Comment
Read more

House of Winds Chapter 20

Chapter 20 The Great Grounding  Aeolus had vanished from among the white geraniums, but not entirely. He hadn't fled from the TIIIIII that was shattering the garden. He wasn't afraid of big words. He had gone on a mission... Agent 003.5. Half the size of James Bond. Twice as brave. With a license to press red buttons. He couldn't leave Anemo prisoner to that dreadful microphone, with all its feedback and his implausible, rambling, and... elucubrant speech. A prisoner of the burning spotlights. The audience held its breath. Daisy Queen had dropped her fan. Remi was biting her lips. Anemo wanted the earth to swallow him up, microphone and all, but he couldn't stop spouting "pearls." So, Aeolus said to himself: “Enough.” He slipped under Arbaest ‘s table. He sped past Daisy’s heels. He turned down the side aisle, past the green, black, and brown bins. There, hugging the wall of the house, the gray cabinet awaited him. “ESB Meter + Garden Circuits,” it read. The s...
Post a Comment
Read more