Housepets!

"Sure!", Hybrid said excitedly. He sat down by the counter, rubbing his paws together to keep warm. "This is a nice house you got here." He says, looking around Lorne's house. "The pictures of the cars are interesting."

(As they're heading along)
Zachary nodded to the chair and the controls. "Does it do impressions," he asked with a smile.

Foxfan2164 wrote:"Sure!", Hybrid said excitedly. He sat down by the counter, rubbing his paws together to keep warm. "This is a nice house you got here." He says, looking around Lorne's house. "The pictures of the cars are interesting."

"Yeah I don't know to much about cars but these ones do seem interesting" he says as he looks around the house

Lorne looked over at his guests and said, "Thanks. You can thank my owner Zeke 'Tinstar' Strider. He got me into vintage cars and bikes. as he worked on them as a hobby at the ranch," before grabbing three mugs, along with the food, and started prepping everything, "Which is part of the reason why I moved here: I wanted to open my own mechanic shop that specializes in vintage automobiles. Plus, I wanted to see about making it on my own for a while. Dad was all for it and helped me set everything up," he then pointed to a picture, which had both him and his owner, on the wall closet to them, "I think you two would like him. Zeke's the nicest Native American and the best father out there...well best father to me hehe. Taught me everything I know. I chat with him via email or phone every so often", Looking back over at his guests, he lastly asked, "Ketchup or Tartar sauce for the fish?"

"Ketchup, thank you" he answers, "I can relate to having your dad teach you everything he knows about his career" he says with a chuckle, wondering if his dad is working on a new game

"Tartar sauce, please!" He answers, "My parents honestly don't tell me much about their careers." He added with a shrug

"All right den." Derek says, pulling the ferret into a brief hug before offering him a tissue.
"Let's get ya rugged up den so youse can go play." he enthuses, pulling the beanie onto Meeko's head and over his eyes in a jocular manner.
"Oh, before I ferget, 'ere's your allowances. Make sure you're back fer supper, okay?"
"Sure, Dad. Ready, Meeko?"

~~~~~~~~
Scotty grins at the question.
"Sure. Who do you want to hear? Stephen Hawking? Dalek? Generic robot?" he quips.
"I can also do the Chipmunks and I'm told I can download voice samples from all my favourite celebrities. Not sure if you can really call that an impression though since it's kind of cheating." the chair stops moving as the cat types and he has to push his joystick all the way forward to catch up to the fox again.

Lorne nods and reaches into the fridge for both the tartar sauce and ketchup. As he places them on the counter-top near the two, the oven dings and Lorne begins to bring the food out, along with pouring the hot water from the nearby into the mugs of hot chocolate mix. "Here you are!" He said as he places the mugs and plates in-front of the two before asking "How about you two? Wanna tell me about yourselves?"

"Well my dad is a video game developer, as you probably could guess I do beta testing for him" he says

"I... don't know who most of those are," Zachary admitted wistfully, "but I have watched the Mr. Hawking fella on the school TV I can see in the classroom." Again a grin as a small joke came to mind. "He has a very smart chair."

"Alright." Meeko said just before having to go blind. He was in a rather happy mood despite just having cried a little bit and was willing to play things light. He would try to reach out for his allowance while still being blind before reaching up with another paw to move the hat into a more proper position. From there it would just take a few moments longer as he had to get on the rest of the clothes that are supposed to protect from the cold temperatures.

"Of course Chris." He was smiling, maybe with the delay more in his favor this time around he actually would be able to get the first snowball thrown.

"Well.. my parents never really tell me where the are going, unless if I'm coming with them." he said, circling the cup with his paws. He then pick up the cup and drank a little bit of the hot chocolate. He then picked up the bottle of tartar sauce and started to put some on the fish.

"Right! Let's go, den! Bye, Dad!"
"Bye, Chris! Bye, Meeko! 'Ave fun!"
Chris steps out the door and immediately slips on a patch of ice, catching herself on the railing. A short scrabble later and her paws are firmly beneath her again.
"Careful, Meeko! Dat first step's a doozy!" she grins, taking the rest of the steps down to the gravel path a bit more carefully. It's not long before she's rolling her first snowball.

~~~~~~~~
"He sure does!" Scotty agrees.
"But I think mine's pretty smart too. It has a few tricks up its sleeve. Maybe I'll show you some time." he says cryptically.
"So, I take it you know the way to the laundry place? Because I don't."

"I'd quite like that, I think," Zachary added, still leading the way towards the Launderette and library. "Oh, uh, yeah. It's near the library, too. So I can leave this stuff there for a while."

Meeko waved goodbye to Derek missing Chris' warning and just like some sort of cartoon he ended up slipping right where Chris had before going through the same motions of trying to save oneself from falling. However instead of it being a good catch of the rail it was the well placed butt on the ground and forward momentum set him to the ground level. "I see." He said putting together that the second half of what was said was suppose to be a warning.

But that was not going to slow a ferret down on a mission and he was quickly getting as much snow as possible to throw at Chris.

Foxfan2164 wrote:"Well.. my parents never really tell me where the are going, unless if I'm coming with them." he said, circling the cup with his paws. He then pick up the cup and drank a little bit of the hot chocolate. He then picked up the bottle of tartar sauce and started to put some on the fish.

He gives him a look, "Do they leave you alone often" he asks tilting his head as he puts a blob of ketchup on his plate to dip his fish in

"Yeah." He said as he continued to eat the fish. "It gets kinda lonely sometimes."

"That sounds terrible" he says "If you want if they leave you lone you can stay with me till they get back"

"Hey, tell you what," Lorne interjects while taking a bite of his fish, "If you two are interested, I could use some help around the garage and yard. You'll mostly be cleaning and, when the snow melts away, doing some simple lawn care, weed picking and filling the bird feeders and all. I'll be happy to pay you as well."

Gael wrote:"That sounds terrible" he says "If you want if they leave you lone you can stay with me till they get back"

"Ok sure" he said.
"But I could help with the garage and the yard care." he said to Lorne.

Chris claps a hand to her mouth as the ferret falls, but seeing that he's okay, returns to stockpiling ammunition.
"'Ey, Meeko! 'Eads up!" she calls, launching her first projectile.

~~~~~~~~
"All right, cool." Scotty smiles.
"So... What do you like reading?" he asks, his chair bumping over a projecting root from a tree, bare this time of year, growing in a decorative cage on the pavement.

Meeko was just ready to throw a snowball when in that moment he ended up feeling the cold snow first. Since he was not able to get the first throw in now all that there was to do was just throw, which he did, to return the favor.

"Oh," Zachary commented, reaching over his head with his left handpaw to scritch the right side of his head to cover the embarrassment he was about to feel, "any I can get my paws on. They're usually... romances."

"Hey, nothing wrong with romance. I've... Not really read it much myself but hey, at least you're reading something. That's better than not reading at all!" the cat encourages, before having to play catch-up again.
"So what do you do for fun other than reading?"

~~~~~~~~
"Meep!" Chris tries to jump out of the way but gets hit in the tail by the snowball. Wagging the appendage to stop her fur freezing, she sends another missile at the ferret and takes cover behind the birdbath.

A hit and Meeko got hit again, he figured that he should have been doing something about that like finding cover like Chris did. It would have been fun to make a snow fort but the snow was not quite right for that since there was not enough. Better to just try to stick on the offensive was the conclusion made there so the ferret continued to make more snowballs to throw and attempting to throw them in between.

Gael wrote:"I'm not sure how good I'll be at it, but I'll try"

Foxfan2164 wrote:"Ok sure" he said.
"But I could help with the garage and the yard care." he said to Lorne.

"Great!" Lorne replied while finishing off his meal, "As for when you guys can start...whatever day works for you two." Getting up from the counter, he walks over to the sink and, while placing his dishes in the sink, looks over and adds, "By the way, you two can leave your plates and mugs there. I'll get them when we're done with the shoveling which...actually tell you guys what, I can finish up the shoveling as it looks like there's only the walkway to do, so why don't you two head home...I'm pretty sure y'all want to get some snowball fights in...OH before you go..." He brings out his wallet and pulls out two ten-dollar bills and hands them to the two, "Here, consider this my way of saying thanks for the help a while ago."

"Um," Zachary mused, "I don't really know. I have a job now and, between that, general survival and learning to read there's not much time. Ah, here's the launderette."

"Your welcome and thanks?" Hybrid said, taking the 10 dollar bill happily and put it in the pocket of his jacket. "See you later!" he then said waving a paw towards Lorne in goodbye. He headed out of Lorne's house and walked down the road toward his home. He only walked a few steps toward his house when he noticed a couple of other pets having a snowball fight. He cautiously made his way toward them, making sure to not get in the way of the ongoing "warfare".

Scotty is pleased to find that the entrance to the laundrette is level with the street so he wheels his chair in after the fox.
"That's cool. Not many animals have jobs, relatively speaking. What sort of job is it?" he asks, making sure to stay back out of the way.

~~~~~~~~
Giggling, Chris pops out from behind only to get hit in the face by a snowball. Spitting out snow, she starts laughing in earnest and lobs her own missile back at the ferret. She doesn't notice the approaching dog, her attention firmly on getting back behind cover.

"Oh," Zachary remarked, making sure his friend got in before the door closed, "I do genral dogs... or is that Foxesbody? Work at the Pizza place. Bit of cash and free food. All I need, really." he consulted with the lady in charge who told him which machine to use and where to buy liquid and how long it would take and, then, proceeded to load the thing. "So what do most of us do?"

After getting hit yet again one should think that a lesson would be learned but Meeko was still refusing to do anything different on the grounds that this was fun. The ferret kept his attention on hitting the dog that was trying to take cover, choosing to not focus on anything else.

"Great!" Lorne replied while finishing off his meal, "As for when you guys can start...whatever day works for you two." Getting up from the counter, he walks over to the sink and, while placing his dishes in the sink, looks over and adds, "By the way, you two can leave your plates and mugs there. I'll get them when we're done with the shoveling which...actually tell you guys what, I can finish up the shoveling as it looks like there's only the walkway to do, so why don't you two head home...I'm pretty sure y'all want to get some snowball fights in...OH before you go..." He brings out his wallet and pulls out two ten-dollar bills and hands them to the two, "Here, consider this my way of saying thanks for the help a while ago."[/quote]

Gizmo smiles "Thank you so much for everythi" he accepts the money graciously and puts the dishes in the sink

Foxfan2164 wrote:"Your welcome and thanks?" Hybrid said, taking the 10 dollar bill happily and put it in the pocket of his jacket. "See you later!" he then said waving a paw towards Lorne in goodbye. He headed out of Lorne's house and walked down the road toward his home. He only walked a few steps toward his house when he noticed a couple of other pets having a snowball fight. He cautiously made his way toward them, making sure to not get in the way of the ongoing "warfare".

Hybrid was already out the door before Lorne could answer back and only chuckled with a smile.

Gael wrote:Gizmo smiles "Thank you so much for everythi" he accepts the money graciously and puts the dishes in the sink

"You're also welcome," he replies, happy that at least Gizmo didn't rocket out the door, "Hope you don't mind me asking but what are your plans for the day? I'll probably just be sitting on the couch either reading or watching TV."

"Well, it depends on the animal. A lot of dogs are in police or security or just generally assisting people. Bigger animals like horses are sometimes still used for farm work or transport. Most pets are just pets though - companions and friends and suchlike. It's unusual for an animal to work in food service. Are you a pet then? Or do you have a den somewhere?"

~~~~~~~~
Popping out again, Chris slips mid-throw and the snowball flies off sideways towards Hybrid as the spaniel lands firmly on her tail, laughing again at her misfortune and squirming at the cold.

Zachary waited until he was loading the washing machine before he answered so the noise partially covered what he said from a distance. "Oh," he explained, "I sort of, well, have a small room under the school." He leaned over and whispered, "Not that they know, of course. Just me and Wed," he continued, lobbing in the liquid capsule the lady had given him and selecting the wash she'd told him to use. The 'one hour' wash.

As Hybrid made his way down the block he noticed a snowball hurling toward him. He tried to avoid it but ultimately failed and got hit. He fell backwards on the cold, icy ground. He sat up, rubbing his face with a paw, making sure he wasn't very hurt. "Ow... That hurt a bit" he said, reassuring himself. He tried to get up onto his footpaw but he wasn't able to. He need someone else to help him up.

Meeko took his chance to get one more snowball in to get Chris before he noticed just why he was not hit yet again. "Misfire." He walked over to Chris first to stop their little game while looking at her unintended victim.

Scotty nods in understanding and types again.
"Who's Wed?"

~~~~~~~~
"Oh! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" Chris apologises, bouncing upright and hurrying to offer the bigger dog a paw.

"She's a Rat I live with," Zachary said, probably a little too loud. "She's a very smart girl.
When she's not looking for Boy Rats... or hitting them... she's helping me read. She knows the complex words already. We, um, have an hour." He looked back out at the street. "Do you want to head back out or stay in here?"