The mid-afternoon sun shined brightly in the sky over a small Texas city. It was half-way through the second week of October. It was hot out, but the air was slowly growing cooler with every passing day.
At an auto repair shop, two girls were hard at work. Well... one was. The working girl was leaning over the left side of white Prius performing a routine tune-up and oil change, while the 'observing' girl leaned against the other side of the car, alternating between looking at something on her phone and handing the working girl tools when asked.
The 'observing' girl wore a blue jean mini-skirt with a black capped-sleeve t-shirt that had skeleton hands gripping the breast area from behind which exposed two inches of her stomach, and a pair of white ballet flats to match her white belt. She stood three inches taller than the working girl at five-foot seven-inches. Her golden brown hair fell down to her shoulder blades in soft curls. Hazel eyes shifted left and right as she read the small text on the screen of her phone.
The working girl was almost the complete opposite in the style department. She wore a pair of denim jeans, a burgundy form fitting tank top with her navy blue button up work shirt, that had her name embroidered on a white patch over her left breast, over it with the sleeves rolled up below her elbows, and a pair of black low-top Converse. Slightly wavy soft black hair flowed down to her waist, which at the moment was pulled up into a messy bun. Her dark brown, almost black, eyes focused on her work.
"Hey, Kim! Guess what," the hazel eyed girl questioned brightly as she handed her friend the green bottle and the funnel she had ask for. She slid her phone into the side pocket of her skirt, and leaned against the side of the car. Out of curiosity, she touched something inside of the car, and pulled her hand back quickly when it burned her.
"Jade, don't touch that!" Kim reprimanded after hearing her friend hiss in pain. Getting tired of feeling the brown haired girl's questioning gaze, she let out of soft breath as she continued working. "I don't know, what?"
"I'm moving in! Ain't that exciting," Jade said jumping up and down clapping her hands excitedly.
"My dad's letting you move in? When did you ask him," the dark haired girl asked turning away from her task of performing an oil change on a customer's car, as Jade had earned her full attention.
"Well... You see... I didn't..." she trailed off, looking anywhere but at her friend.
"So... You're just going to move in," Kim concluded, having had figured something like that had happened. Her friend was not exactly the type to plan ahead, and would wait to the last minute to do things.
"Yep! Pretty much," Jade confirmed.
"Why?"
"What, you don't love me? I'm hurt, right here," Jade whined pointing to her heart. Her finger was hovering above her right breast, as her face contorted in to a look reminiscent of a kicked puppy.
"Your heart is on the other side," Kim stated moving the girl's pointer finger to hover over where her heart was. The action caused her to get a bit of motor oil on her friend's hand, to which her friend grabbed a rag off of the giant, in her opinion, red tool box, and rub furiously to remove the oil. She continued, shaking her head at her friend's antics, "but that's not the point. It's just that... doesn't this seem a bit sudden. Not sudden, per se. More like out of the blue."
"Father is being an ass again. You know, favoring the Twin Terrors over me to impress the new wife, letting the wife blow all of his money on shopping sprees, new cars and all of that." Her face scrunched up in disgust. "He stopped sending me money, and you know that my job at the art studio doesn't pay very well. It does pay well just not enough to keep living where I'm living. Basically, I don't have enough money to make rent, and I haven't even made a payment in about five months. I'm going to be evicted soon, and I really don't want to leave the city," the brown haired girl explained to the girl she considered a sister in a single breath. "But you know how much apartments in a big city can be, especially if I want to live in a nice area."
"They can't evict you. You haven't even gotten a 30-day notice." Kim paused for a brief moment before continuing slowly, "Or have you..." the dark haired girl trailed off not really wanting to hear her friend's answer.
"Yeah, they did. About twenty-three days ago," Jade responded nervously anticipating Kim's explosive reaction. Just as the ebony haired girl expected, her best friend waited till the last minute to do something, like always.
"Jade!" Kim did not disappoint. Jade was lucky that her friend had completed the oil change, because if she hadn't she would have had be splashed with oil when her friend wildly swung her arms around; the empty bottle still firmly clutched in her left hand. Although, Jade would have preferred to have gotten hit with oil rather than be subjected to Kim's Demon Glare.
"Shut up, Kim!" She paused, something in the distance catching her attention. "Hey do you hear that," Jade asked her friend.
"Hear what," Kim asked confused. She had not heard anything other than the sounds of her working. "Hey! Stop trying to cha-"
"Shh, listen," Jade ordered as she put a finger to Kim's lips to silence the girl, and then a hand behind her ear to better hear the noise that had caught her attention.
Kim sighed. Taking her friend's word, she tried to hear what Jade had heard. She closed her eyes to block off any distractions, so as to better focus on the mysterious sound Jade spoke of.
Meow.
Meow.
Meow.
"A cat," Kim asked incredulously. "Jay we get lots of stray cats wandering around here." The shop only attracted stray cats because she would always feed them, but she wouldn't tell her father that.
"I know, but what if he's hurt with no one to take care of him. The poor little injured kitty could die," her friend retorted with a very convincing face of distress. Jade knew that pulling the injured animal card would work on her friend.
"I hate you. Using my weakness on me like that," she grumbled out, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Hey, It's not my fault that you're so caring and have to take care of every injured or sick, animal or person that comes your way," Jade reasoned to her sulking friend. She had a point.
"Shut up! Let's just go find the damn cat." Kim closed the hood of the car with a huff, and walked away in search of the elusive cat.
The two girls began searching throughout the garage. They spent about ten minutes searching and found not one but nine kittens. During that time an old lady arrived to pick up her car.
"What the hell! I only heard one cat meow, not nine," Jade exclaimed in shock. She stared at the nine kittens looking up at them. They were all sitting around where Jade was standing looking at the two girls curiously.
"My, my, my! Those are some nasty looking rats," the old woman muttered. Then she turned her attention to the girls and looked at them in disgust. She looked both girls up and down mumbling about how proper young women should behave and dress. She continued mumbling that there was no place in the auto repair industry for women and how they shouldn't be exposing so much skin, as she made her way into the car.
"Jade. Don't," Kim warned her friend before she could say anything. "As much as I would like to set that old hag on fire, I can't. She's a valued customer, and she always tips generously." She watched the old woman get in her car and drive away with a scowl on her face.
"Wow. That must really suck for you." At that point the nine kittens were looking between the two girls that were lounging on the cement floor, listening to their conversation with more interest than cats should be capable of.
"You haven't seen the rest of it yet." Kim's face contorted into one of pure disgust.
"What do you mean?"
"She likes to flirt with my dad. She clings onto his arm like a fucking leach, saying nasty stuff. Stuff that I never wanted to hear. The mental pictures I got were horrible. One time she gave him a picture of herself in sexy underwear," at that she involuntarily shivered. "Hell, she even proposed to him one time."
"Ewwww! No, just no. Did she ever say anything else? About you, I mean."
"Well... She called me fat one time, and told me that I needed to exercise more and go on a diet. Then there was another time where she told me that it wasn't healthy do be dying my hair such a dark color. Then I told her that I don't dye my hair, it's natural," she paused to think. "Oh, and let's not forget the first time I met the hag. She didn't believe me when I said that my dad was my father. She kept calling me a liar. Saying something about how it was impossible since my skin is so light and his is so dark. Honestly, just because my skin tone is a few shades lighter than his does not mean that he isn't my father. I have his eyes, his hair, hell I even have his face. That, and he was just too young to have a child my age. She needs to go up in flames or get blown up!" At that, the two girls thought they heard one of the kittens snickering and shout 'Katsu!' They shared confused glances before shrugging it off.
"Damn... and since I'm going to be moving in soon, I'm going to be seeing a whole lot more of her," Jade sighed in defeat to which her friend just smirked. The brown haired girl tilted her head to the side as she examined the kittens before her with a critical eye. "Do you think we should name these little guys? Some of them are weird colors, but they're still cute." Jade shot her friend a questioning glance. "Are we keeping them?"
"Sure why not," Kim said with a lazy shrug of her shoulders, answering both the other girl's questions.
Jade picked up one of the kittens at random. The kitten had indigo colored fur with pale lavender eyes. They would have thought she was blind, but the way the little kitten shied away when Jade's hands got near proved otherwise.
"Bluey!" Kim face palmed.
"You suck at this," she stated.
"Oh, like you could do any better."
"What about... Blueberry or Berry?"
"Okay... so maybe you are better at this. You and my future husband get to name my future kids. We now dud thee Berry," Jade said in a false British accent before putting the kitten down.
She then picked up the second blue furred kitten with amber colored eyes. She had a strange gray marking just below her mouth. "I would say Amber but that's mommy dearests' name. Maybe if she were a dog."
"How about Mari? It would be short for mariposa," Kim asked.
"What's a mariposa?"
"Mariposa is Spanish for butterfly."
"That is so pretty," Jade said with a sigh. "Hey!" Kim looked at her in confusion. "You named both of the blue cats, but you hate the color blue."
"I don't hate the color blue. I just never wear it because it makes my skin look orange, and I don't want to look like I work at a chocolate factory," she explained. Then she started to hum the song from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.
"Heh heh. You're already short, so all need is green hair dye. Or blonde hair dye and just leave it in for too long," Jade stopped her pondering at the return of the Demon Glare. A few of the kittens backed away from the dark haired girl in fear. "Okay so no green hair. What do we name this one?" In her hands was a golden blonde kitten with icy blue eyes, and a tuft of fur covering his left eye.
"I don't know," Kim said, her eyes softening as she inspected the cat. "Wait... Isn't he the one that got all excited when I was talking about making the old hag explode?" As if to answer her query, the kitten meowed excitedly, and made that 'Katsu' noise again. "I think this cat might be a terrorist in disguise."
"Oh! I know. We can name him Dynamite." She paused. "Hey! I actually came up with a good name. I deserve a pat on the back," Jade said while patting herself back, as Kim muttered something that sounded like 'idiot.'
Jade then set Dynamite down and picked up another. The kitten had brown fur with two downward facing purple triangle on her cheeks, and onyx colored eyes.
"Ooh, we can name this one Fang. Because, you know, the purple markings look like fangs. Man I'm on a roll," she exclaimed happily before setting the kitten down and repeating the process with another kitten. "I would say Spot, but that's more of a dog's name. Tiger! He looks like a tiger," Jade said motioning to the orange cat's fur with its black markings. "What do you think, Kim?"
"I like it. His purple eyes make him seem like a little bad ass," she stated scratching behind the kitten's ear before setting him down. Jade suddenly jumped up and sprinted across the room. "If you're getting into my dad's stash, bring me some beef jerky," Kim yelled to her friend. She came back about three minutes later with a Styrofoam cup and a plastic bag. "Did you bring the stuff," Kim whispered.
"Yeah, I brought the stuff. Do you have the money," Jade questioned in her best impression of a gangster.
"Bitch, I'm going to let you live here! You best be giving me my stuff free of charge."
"You my friend are addicted. I suggest rehab," she joked throwing her friend the package of beef jerky. Kim just stuck her tongue at her friend before biting off a piece.
"Yeah I could see the headlines now." She lifted her arms up in the air and spread her fingers out. "Seventeen year old girl enters rehab for beef jerky addiction."
"Don't forget those candies that your dad makes us. Cherry Hearts are so good," Jade said dreamily.
"Looks like you're coming with me to rehab," Kim smirked.
"They tried to make me go to rehab. I said no, no, no," the two girls sang in unison, albeit a little off key, before breaking out into a fit of laughter.
"Come on, we still have four more kittens to name," Kim wheezed, wiping a stray tear from her eye.
"Hmmm. Pinky, Lemon, and we could just get rid of the last two. Black cats are bad luck."
"Or we could just get rid of you. Besides I was born on Friday the 13th, and I'm not bad luck."
"Well that explains how you're so damn clumsy. Always tripping over everything and nothing, even your own feet," Jade stated as she brought the steaming noodles of her ramen to her mouth.
"Hey! I resent that. Let's see... The pink one with the sea foam green eyes that remind me of the springtime, can be named Blossom. The blonde one with the really bright blue eyes, judging by the way he's eyeing your food, can be Noodle." Jade set her cup beside her and the cat now dubbed Noodle ran towards it, sticking his head in.
"Damn cat is eating my ramen!" Kim could only laugh at her friend's misfortune. Jade noticed something that freaked her out a bit. "Eh!"
"What?" Kim asked, giving her body a once over before looking at Jade with questioning eyes.
"The two black cats are just sitting there staring at you. They've been doing that this entire time. It's starting to get creepy," Jade explained. "Maybe they think you're a witch or something."
"I'm not a witch." Kim leaned forward to pick up the two black kittens. They looked almost exactly the same. They both had black fur and onyx eyes. The only difference was that one had shaggier fur on his head while the other's fur spiked up. "So you two must be brothers. How cute! Well since you two are brothers, I want to name you guys something similar... Oh I know. I'll name you Crow," she said to the kitten with the longer fur. To the kitten with the spiky fur, "and I'll name you Hawk."
"You named them after birds. You do realize that cats eat birds, right?"
"You named a fish Moose once," Kim retorted, defending her choice in names.
"Hey now-"
Meow.
"Whaaa! I thought we had all the cats," Kim questioned when she heard the meowing. The two black cat that rested in her lap remained silent as she pet them, and the other kittens had been silent for the most part.
Meow.
"Well, looks like we missed one."
"Ten kittens. My dad's going to love this."