When we arrived, my brothers did the usual routine of crushing me to death with their bear hugs and swinging me around like a rag doll. Yeah, I've gotten used to this. After the greeting ceremony, in which my parents joined as well, I hurried to my room to let Loki out of the bag. I'm pretty sure this was animal abuse.
I slammed the door and unzipped the bag, hauling Loki out, "Loki! Oh my God, are you okay?"
He stretched, groaning, "Yeah, I'm fine, but it was so cramped in there."
Stroking his fur, I gently placed him on my bed, "I'll get you some water, you must be thirsty after that long of a ride."
"Thank you."
Looking around the room, I remembered that I had an unused pencil holder in my drawers. I walked over and rummaged around and finally found the pencil holder and grabbed it. I rinsed it off in the bathroom, just in case of dust.
Uncapping the water, I poured some into the pencil holder and placed it on the ground for Loki, "I'll see if I can find anything to hold your food."
The cat jumped off the bed and started lapping at the water as I again went in search of something that could be used for Loki. I found a ceramic bowl Alice had made when she was eight and covered it with a plastic bag before pouring some cat food into it. I set it down next to where Loki was waiting patiently.
He face-planted into the food and immediately started devouring it, more than half the bowl disappeared within the next few seconds. Poor boy, he was stuck inside that backpack for the entire two-and-a-half-hour ride.
I stayed in my room until I was called down for dinner. So I had to leave Loki by himself in my bedroom. Well, he wasn't entirely by himself, he had his food that I undoubtedly know he enjoyed the company of over me. Before I left, I opened a window for Loki, just in case he wanted some fresh air.
Dinners at my family's house were always fun, my brothers and father would fight over who got the last rib or pork chop. It was a very amusing sight, to say the least.
After dinner, I took a walk in the garden. Where I found Loki playing with a very beautiful white cat. Was it weird to call a cat beautiful? If you think it's weird, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't if you saw it. With its beautiful white fur that almost looked like it was glowing and the strangely familiar grey eyes, it looked like an illusion.
"Loki, did you make a new friend?"
The white cat meowed at me, "Winston, do you really not recognize me?"
Oh nice, another talking cat. Oh, wait, another talking cat! What the hell. Then I looked at it more closely, the fluffy white fur looked sparkly, and the moon-colored eyes. Is this Luna in cat form?
Walking over to them, I squatted down, "L-luna? Is that you?"
She sighed, "It took you long enough to realize that."
"Yeah, sorry about that, and call me Alice. It would be weird if someone heard you call me Winston."
Luna blinked slowly, "And it wouldn't be weird if they saw a talking cat?"
I scratched the back of my head, "Well, I thought that if people come near, you could turn into your human form?"
The cat version of Luna shrugged, "I could, but I wouldn't. It takes too much energy to morph from one form to another."
"So, why are you here?"
The white cat stretched and yawned, "I was giving Loki his new collar."
"Collar? Why does he need a new one?"
She laid on her paws, closing her eyes, she mumbled, "Don't you know the saying 'curiosity killed the cat'?''
"But satisfaction brought it back," I said back at her.
One of her eyes popped open, and she smiled, "You-"
Before she could answer, I heard someone call my name. I looked over my shoulder to see who it was and panicked, it was my brother Jesse. I swiveled around to warn Luna and Loki, but they were both gone by the time I opened my mouth.
"Alice!" My older brother hurried to my side, "There you are! Mom and Dad have something to tell us. They told us to all meet in the sunroom."
As my train of thoughts flowed, I let him drag me away. What could Loki's new collar do and why did Luna give it to him? Also, why was she so adamant about telling me what it was for? No use, I'll tire myself out trying to guess, better to just ask Loki instead.
My brother and I stumbled into the room, both of us were kind of out of breath as we walked in, "We're here."
Mom clasped her hands together, "Oh good, you're all here now," she gestured for us to sit down.
When we sat down, Dad slid his hand into her's, they looked into each other's eyes and then looked at us, "We have something important to tell you, kids." He gently nudged Mom's waist, "Honey, you tell them."
Mom smiled and bit her lip before bursting out, "We're pregnant!" and Dad did jazz hands in front of her belly.
All of us were silent and then Sam and I both cheered at the same time, "Hooray! A baby!"
That set off the twins to trip over each other to get to our parents to hug our pregnant mother, congratulating her.
She giggled and mused, "There will be a twenty-year difference between my youngest and eldest child. I never thought I would still be fertile at this age."
I did the math in my head, "Mom, your only thirty-nine. You're not old."
Mom waved her hand around, "I'm plenty old. I'm almost forty years of age."
Alec jokingly said, with a smile on his face, "You're thirty-nine but you look twenty-one." There was an awkward silence as we all turned to look at our mother to study her face. No one laughed because he was right, she looked young enough to be our sibling.
Sam chirped, "Mom, you need to tell us your skin routine. You don't have a wrinkle in sight."
Mom blushed and shook her head, "You all falter me." She looked over at Sam, "Wash your face every night before you sleep and apply oil-less lotion. Oh, and drink a lot of water."
"Noted."
After that shocking news, our parents sent us to bed. But not before showing us how lovey-dovey they were.
Dad wrapped his arm around Mom's waist, "My love," before swooping in for a kiss. By then, I was halfway to the door faster than the speed of light and all I could hear were my mother's girly giggles. They were cute, but I didn't want to watch that, bleh.
Loki still hadn't returned to the room when I slipped under the covers. I wonder where he was, I still needed to ask him the question about his new collar. Whatever sleep was more important right now. He'll be back in a few hours.