Housepets: Curse of the Werenut, Chapter Two
Chapter Two
"Mom! Dad!" Grape
yelled as she clumsily opened the door to her house, carrying Peanut
inside. "Wake up!"
Hearing the desperate tone of her voice, both the Sandwich
parents got out of bed and came running downstairs.
"Grape, what's wrong?" Mr. Sandwich asked.
"It's Peanut!" the cat explained, tears running down her
cheeks, matting her fur to her face. "I
think he got struck by lightning!"
"He couldn't have," Mrs. Sandwich exclaimed. "It's cloudy outside, but not stormy."
Mr. Sandwich knelt down and took Peanut from Grape's arms,
setting him gently on the floor. His
hands brushed lightly over the burned fur on the dog's back, eliciting a soft
moan to escape from Peanut's mouth.
"He was hit by something, all right," Mr. Sandwich
confirmed, "and whatever it was, it was hot enough to burn his fur to a crisp." He looked up at Grape, his expression grave, "Grape,
tell me exactly what happened."
"I- I don't really know," Grape admitted. "We were just walking home from the movie,
and suddenly everything got really bright.
I heard Peanut yell, and the next thing I know he's on the ground,
knocked out!" She sniffed and looked at
the pup, causing a fresh wave of tears to come from her eyes, "Dad, he's going
to be okay, isn't he?"
Mr. Sandwich sighed, "His fur got burned, but it doesn't
look like he was actually hurt very badly.
Still, we'll need to take him to the vet first thing in the morning to
make sure."
"Isn't there anything we can do now?" Grape begged.
"All we can do is put some ice on the burn and put him
somewhere where he'll be comfortable," Mrs. Sandwich answered, heading towards
the kitchen.
"Don't worry, Grape," Mr. Sandwich consoled his feline
daughter, putting his hand on her shoulder, "I think everything's going to be
fine."
Grape closed her eyes as pain assaulted her heart, "But you
don't know for sure."
Mrs. Sandwich came back with a bag full of ice, and Mr.
Sandwich laid Peanut down on the couch so that his burn was facing upwards. Grape took the bag of ice and gently pressed
it against the burn. Peanut moaned in
pain again, but still did not stir.
"I'm sorry, Peanut," Grape whimpered.
"Try to get some sleep, Grape," Mr. Sandwich said. "We'll take him to the vet in the morning,
but there's nothing else we can do right now.
Try not to worry too much about it."
As her parents headed back upstairs to their bedroom, Grape
couldn't help but wonder how she was supposed to do anything BUT worry. Peanut, her best friend in the world, had
been struck by lightning, and might be seriously hurt.
Grape, open the
window!
Grape's ears perked up, but she quickly realized that the
voice hadn't come from next to her, it had come from her head.
"Tarot?" she asked out loud.
I'm outside, the
voice said again. Let me in!
Going to the nearest window, Grape unlatched it and slid it
open.
"Down here!" Tarot's voice whispered.
Grape looked down and saw the little Pomeranian standing
below the window, too little to reach it.
Reaching down, Grape grabbed her and lifted her inside.
"Where is he?" Tarot asked.
"He's on the couch," Grape answered. "How do you already know about this?"
"The Dragon told me," Tarot explained, hurrying over to her
where her boyfriend lay. "She said
Peanut had been hurt."
"He got struck by lightning!" Grape confirmed, the horrible
memory rising up in her mind once again.
"No, no he wasn't," Tarot said softly, inspecting the wound.
"What do you mean?" Grape took a closer look at the wound,
but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"It was only meant to LOOK like it was lightning," Tarot
explained. "But in actuality, he was hit
by a beam of moonlight."
"Moonlight?" Grape echoed, arching her eyebrow in
disbelief. "What the carp do you mean by
that?"
Folding her arms nervously, Tarot took a step away turned to
face the wall.
"It was Pete," she said hesitantly. "He wants to turn the tide of his and Dragon's
game, and so he caught a beam of moonlight and threw it at Peanut."
"HE DID WHAT?" Grape screeched, then clamped her paws over
her mouth. The two of them were silent
for a moment to make sure they hadn't woken her parents before continuing.
"I thought that they couldn't do anything to hurt us!" Grape
exclaimed.
"Technically, they can't," Tarot explained. "But what Pete did was completely against the
rules."
"So, does that mean he's disqualified or something?"
"Unfortunately, no," Tarot went on. "Pete may have cheated, but he did it by
exploiting a loophole. You see, he didn't
actually harm Peanut."
"Are you crazy?" Grape demanded. "Look at him!"
"I know, but the wound won't last for very long. It should be gone by morning. Because of that, Pete can't really be
penalized for what he's done."
"But... then why do it at all?" Grape asked, shaking her head
in exasperation. Her life had been so
much simpler before these stupid demigods had decided to play their little game
with them.
"Because of what the moonbeam would do," said Tarot. "You see, there's an old legend about what
happens if a dog is struck by moonlight."
Grape's eyes narrowed, "And I suppose this means that it's
more than just a legend?"
Tarot nodded, "To put it simply, the legend says that if
moonlight is put within a dog's bloodstream, he will be cursed."
"What kind of curse?" Grape asked. Her fur was already beginning to stand on
end.
"A curse that is activated by the full moon," Tarot went
on. "When the full moon shines on him,
the moonlight in his body will turn him into a..."
"Hey, what's going on here?"
Both Grape and Tarot turned to see that Peanut was no longer
asleep. Instead, he was sitting up with a
smile on his face, looking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Peanut, you're okay!" Grape exclaimed, and dashed forward
to wrap him in a big hug. With a gasp,
though, she recoiled. "I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to!"
"Didn't mean to what?" Peanut asked, cocking his head to the
side.
"You... your burn," Grape answered. "I didn't mean to touch it like that."
"What burn?" Peanut asked, standing up and looking all over
himself.
Grape and Tarot exchanged nervous glances.
"Peanut, turn around," Tarot ordered softly.
Peanut turned the other way, and Grape gasped in
amazement. Where the burn had been only
minutes before was now... nothing. There
was no burn, and his fur had even grown back like it had been before.
"Peanut, how do you feel?" she asked hesitantly.
"I feel great!" Peanut answered, his tail wagging. "Tarot, we went to go see Pridelands 3! I thought it was awesome, but Grape thinks it
was horrible, but you should have come with us because you would have liked it,
because I know you like movies like that, and we could have snuggled in the
dark theater, but then you would have probably spoiled the movie before it even
started, and then Grape would have been mad, and..."
"Peanut," Tarot interrupted, "that's great! Grape thought you might have gotten sick on
the way home, so I just came by to check on you." She smiled, "If you're
feeling all right, then I'll go home now.
It's really late!"
"Oh, okay!" Peanut agreed.
"I don't feel tired at all. In
fact, I feel less tired than when we left the theater, Grape!"
"Yeah, a good nap will do that for you," Grape answered,
following Tarot to the door.
Before she left, Tarot turned back to Grape one last time, "Keep
an eye on him," she whispered. "And let
me know if anything seems wrong."