Chapter 9

It was a night-filled evening back on the streets of Lunarton City. In a suite in a moderately fancy hotel, the five Sweetypie children milled about, mostly switching between looking out the windows and fiddling with some of the decorations lying around the suite. The TV was on and playing some random channel for background noise.

"Hey kiddos, who's up for a tasty jumbo shrimp platter?" Badgerclops announced with his custom showman's voice. In one of his hands was a shiny metal plate that held a sort of exquisite appetizer, being obviously shrimp decorated with green leaves and surrounding a single cup of red dipping sauce. The kids stopped what they were doing to swarm around him, already getting ready to clamber on him for a share.

"Whoa! Whoa, hey!" he tried to keep all of them back, "one at a time!" He managed to gently push the kids back down as they stood around him in an orderly manner. Badgerclops lowered the platter until it was at a reachable level for the kids, to which the kids reached over to grab shrimp in no time at all.

It did, however, prove to be a disappointment. There were only five shrimp on the platter overall, with the rest of the plate being completely empty and the central sauce cup having less than a millimeter of sauce left in it. Each of the kids got only one shrimp and could only dress theirs in just a droplet of sauce.

"Excuse me, but where's the rest of the shrimp?" Kevin asked.

Badgerclops didn't look at him. Instead, he innocently started in some other direction, wiping his mouth with his free hand. "Well," he coughed insincerely, "the hotel was kinda low on shrimp recently. This was all they gave me. Honest." The kids just gave him a deflated look before turning away to resume their activities, making an effort to enjoy their shrimps anyhow.

Badgerclops lifted and activated his mechanical arm to tap into available phone lines, trying to make an effort to call for some help regarding Adorabat. It took a bunch of hello-ing and repeating of his request to the place's local operators, mostly in part to lack of context on some instances and a language barrier in another. Granted, he expressed more patience in his calls than Mao Mao, but could only clarify himself for so long that he couldn't help letting a yell of his own.

"Hello!? I'm calling to get info on our deputy!" was more or less his blowup. Even if he did last longer than Mao Mao (he wasn't sure how he compared with Eugene), the pressure came down harder once he caved. It led to him feeling like sobbing. "Why are you making this so difficult!?"

Back in the lounge area of the suite, the kids soon felt like talking about the situation themselves.

"This is so pointless!" Ketchup huffed as she let herself drop on the couch.

"What do you mean?" Chubbum asked in response to the cynical statement.

"We're just sitting around in this hotel! The grownups are too busy wondering what's happening to Adorabat! We haven't gone anywhere since we left the airport!" Ketchup sighed. "This is not the vacation I wanted."

"Well, I just hope my pet spider's okay," Lucky sighed. "How could I leave my little friend behind?"

"This isn't about your spider, Lucky!" Ketchup reprimanded with her hands on her hips.

"I'm pretty sure Adorabat's okay," Chubbum tried to be optimistic. "I mean, she always talks about how tough she is and how she can take care of herself."

Ketchup wasn't assured. "But still…she's small just like us. We don't know what's happening back home." She noticed Badgerclops coming around the corner, letting out a frustrated growl-sigh before letting himself drop down on the couch. The badger tried to wind down with a bit of TV-watching. Ketchup approached him. "Um, Mr. Badgerclops? Is Adorabat going to be okay?"

Badgerclops didn't have a clear idea about how to answer that question. But it was too much trouble to expect the worst, not to mention it being a lack of confidence in his little deputy. "I think she'll manage."

Ketchup didn't understand what that meant. "You know if Adorabat is fine? Aren't you worried about her?"

Badgerclops tried hard to control and repress the returning frustration. "Well, her being alone is a little worrying, but I know she can make it. Mao Mao's on his way back."

But Ketchup wasn't out of questions yet. "You don't think anything's gonna happen to Adorabat at all?"

Badgerclops couldn't take much more of the child's badgering. He repositioned himself on the sofa to look directly at Ketchup, along with making sure the rest of the kids had their eyes on him too. "No, nothing's gonna happen to her, and here's why," he stated, using the fingers on his hands to count with emphasis, "One, she loves looking for challenges. Two, our house has smoke detectors and a surveillance system. And three, it's the winter season, where monsters are busy sleeping, meaning that nothing dangerous or exciting will ever happen at this time. Period."

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Later at night, a lone pizza delivery guy was riding the stair-like elevator up the cliff face, arriving at the top directly facing the front of Sheriff's Department HQ. He stepped through the moderately deep snow until he made it to the front porch, stepping up onto it and arriving at the front door. When he was close enough, he noticed a paper note attached to the door. Looking at it, it said to drop off the delivery at the side door. Judging by the drawn arrow, the delivery guy was directed to the door next to the waterwheel, the one that directly led into the house's kitchen area. Once he made it over there, he knocked.

"Who is it?"

The delivery guy wasn't sure about the gruff voice answering behind the door, but formalities were still in order. "I'm the delivery guy for your pizza. Your pizza's here."

"Leave it on the doorstep and get out of here."

The delivery guy recoiled at the rude response, placing the pizza box down in front of the kitchen door's smaller doggy-door. He would have left immediately out of indignation if it weren't for one loose end. "Alright. But first, money please."

Inside the kitchen, Adorabat used the remote to unpause "Angels with Impure Hearts", which was playing on the TV next door, the volume set to the max. "What money?"

The delivery guy was a little bewildered at hearing such a question, which soon planted a seed of frustration. "Money for the pizza, man. It's how it works. Pizza has a price and you pay for your order."

Adorabat hit the remote again. "That a fact? How much do I owe you?"

Hearing the 'man' behind the door get with the program made the delivery guy lighten up a bit. "$11.80."

As if on cue, Adorabat quickly and quietly slipped a bundle of bills and coins through the doggy door and onto the pizza box. She listened by the door and waited for the delivery guy to pick up the money and leave.

When the guy did pick it up, he took a few seconds to count the amount in his hands, making sure it was the exact same as what he had stated. "Thanks," he said once he concluded that the exact payment was made.

Adorabat decided she waited long enough, fast-forwarding and playing the TV at the part where it sounded, "Keep the change, ya' filthy animal."

The delivery guy had enough of the gruff rude voice. Pocketing the pay, he turned to begin trudging back to the entrance. He couldn't help but get back at the voice with by muttering "Cheapskate" under his breath.

Adorabat rewound the film on the TV and played it. "I'm gonna give you to the count of 10 to get your ugly, yellow, no-good keister off my property before I pump your fluff full'a laser beams!"

The delivery guy gasped and widened his eyes at hearing the looming threat issued to him, backing away and turning to flee in increasing speed when he heard the first two seconds of the countdown begin. But it was when the count immediately jumped to ten when the laser shots began firing, driving the delivery guy into taking off into a sprint, though he slipped on the slightly icy porch with the first step. Upon hearing the accompanying mad laughter, he had to make a flitting crawl onto the snow-covered yard to head for the elevator to consider himself having gotten to safety.

Adorabat carefully watched the pizza guy from the kitchen window and then the front windows and doors at the living room, only stopping the movie once he was out of sight. She returned to the kitchen and opened the accompanying side door, picking up the box of pizza. She closed her eyes and took a long sniff, briefly losing herself in the belly-filling scent.

"Ah, finally," she sighed, "a whole mealworm pizza just for me." With that said, she took it inside and pushed the door behind her closed with one leg.