Chapter 20
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.
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