"It's not my fault." Blip hissed.

"Oh, shut up." Katherine hissed right back. "The important thing is, no one sees them. You know what Kayla would do to a group of creatures?"

"Be extremely kind and hospitable?" Offered Karr, from the trunk. He got three glares, if you can say Blip glared.

"So," asked Milo, "these are the norns you told me about? I honestly thought you were lying when you told me about the HoloDeck. I thought you were kidding."

"They're real." Blip whimpered. "They drug me here, I should know."

Katherine placed her hand to her head for a moment. "The important thing is, we gotta get them to someplace safe." Blip, Milo and Katherine's eyes (psuedo-eyes, in Blip's case) were simultaneously caught by a large structure behind them -- the barn.

"It's where most animals are kept." Milo pointed out.

"No one ever looks in there anyway," agreed Blip, "they'd pass out from the smell."

"They could stay in one of the stables." Katherine brightly figured. She motioned for Milo to help her lift the creatures out of the trunk and guided them into the barn.

-----

"What died in here?"

"What's that?"

"There was nothing like this in the OLD Albia.."

Assorted comments rose among the norns as they entered the barn for the first time. Odd animals they'd never seen before surrounded them -- large horned animals, small feathered animals, and pink thinks that made "OINK" noises when you got near them (as Ben and Boggles quickly found out). Katherine, Milo and Blip continued shooing them off, until they finally found a small corner of the barn, lined in hay and blocked off by a small, wooden wall.

"See this?" Katherine pointed. "This is a stall. S-t-a-l-l, Stall. This is where large earth animals are kept, when they're on a farm, f-a-r-m, which is what we're on."

"We're not that big!" Insisted Kass. She was right -- let's not debate norn heights, just assume that, for the purposes of this story, they're about 2 feet, or 60 cm tall.

Katherine just stared for a minute. "Just pretend. Anyway, to keep anyone from finding you guys, just stay in here. You can go out if you're really careful I guess.. but.."

"Why can't anyone find us?" asked Boggles.

Jenna laughed to herself. "I remember that story. It involves a certain grendel, cooking bourbon, and an asylum." She glanced over to Katherine, before mocking her. "A-s-y-l-u-m, asylum. That's where they keep the lunatics."

"I'm not crazy.." Katherine growled.

"C-r-a-z-y, crazy?" Offered Karr.

"Lunatic, l-o-o-n-i-t-i-k." Lydia followed suit.

"Now, you just stop that.."

"S-t-o-p, stop!"

"t-h-a-t, that!"

Milo turned to Katherine. "Do they always do this?"

Katherine shrugged. "Usually they're OK, but they do enjoy making my life a living -"

"Katherine!" Blip cut her off before Katherine made this story inappropriate for younger audiences.

"Err.. " Katherine gave a cough. "Anyway, just get in the stall,"

"s-t-a-l-l," offered Ben,

"Right, just do it." She watched the creatures pile in, then shut the stall door. "Not a word to anyone." She told Milo, as they left the barn.

"Well," laughed Kass, "that was certainly exciting."

Karr picked up a piece of straw, gave it a chew, and threw it down. "This stuff doesn't taste so hot," he observed.

"But Katherine DID say we could explore a bit..." Lydia reminded everyone, then gave a cough. Ben and Boggles backed her up with subtle puppy eyes.

Karr looked to Kass, Kass looked to Karr, Karr looked back to Jenna, Jenna gave him a look that said, "No, I'm Gramma, they're your problem," then he shrugged. "Sure, I guess.."

"Hoo hoo!" A collective cheer rose among the three as they pushed the stall (S-t-a-l-l! What, you're sick of that joke?) door (D-o.. OK, I'm stopping, I'm stopping...) open.

-----

Lydia, Ben, and Boggles learned a lot in the hour of exploring that they had taken. They learned that pink thingies live in mud, and although mud cakes against norn and grendel skin well and wipes off, thick ettin fur and dreadlocks tends to stain a bit brown without the aid of water, none of which had been available. They learned that large, white and black animals enjoyed getting their hangie-down things squeezed, but it was extremely messy. Feathered animals tended to be fun to trip, although it smarted when they pecked you. Round, white "rocks" are really gooey inside. And, last but not least, the brown animal that looks like the messy white animal but doesn't mess gets really mad when you rub its hind legs.

All in all, they had learned more than they ever could have just sitting at home.

Now the group was sitting behind a bush, recollecting what they had learned.

"That goo was sick."

"The white mess tasted good, though. Like the milk Katherine gave us once."

"Nrrr... Katherine'l hurt me when she sees mud all over my coat."

As they were discussing such important issues as the relationship of white mess to milk, something caught Lydia's eye. It looked like Katherine, writing in a little book. And it could have been Katherine, a dead ringer, too. Except, Lydia knew that Katherine never dressed like THAT. My gosh, where were the sleeves in that shirt? And what wolverine got a hold of the shorts? She shushed everyone and pointed to the Katherine look - a - like.

"Izat Kayla?" She asked.

Ben shrugged. "Katherine wasn't dressed like that. And besides, didn't Katherine herself say that the only people who wear those shirts are slu-"

"Shh!" Boggles interrupted, inadvertently keeping the story clean. "She's saying something."

The figure, aka Kayla, spoke as she wrote, because she's just the kind of person who does that. "Dear Diary," she began. "Today, I think I've finally got Katherine pegged. I plan to frame the twit for the disappearance of.. well, I can't say. But I'll finally ruin her already low-standing reputation. Maybe, if I'm lucky and really play it right, I can get her back in the asylum!" At this point, she threw her head back and laughed.

"Should we tell someone?" Lydia whispered back to our group.

"Maybe we should wait and see if it's important. Boggles replied. And so, they made their way back to the stall.

-----

"Chicken!"

"Mmm, I like chicken!"

"Ha ha! Yes! Chicken good!"

It was evening on the farm. Katherine's family was getting together for a family cookout, and Milo and Katherine were getting strangely large amounts of chicken.

"I think I'll get some more CHICKEN!" Katherine remarked, in a very fake voice. She never took acting lessons, mind you.

"Yes! Me too!" Milo never took the lessons either.

Kayla just stared. First off, she was a vegetarian, but second off, it was a strange thing, watching people make such a big deal over chicken. "It's just meat, dimwits," she reminded them.

"Hey," Katherine pointed the serving tongs at Kayla as she spoke, "it's finger-licking good, darnit."

"Can you pass me some more CHICKEN?" Milo held his plate out to Katherine, who happily put chicken on it.

Kayla rolled her eyes. "You two are weird. I wish I was adopted.."

The trio, after stocking up on chicken, went to set down at a picnic table, Kayla on an opposite bench from Katherine and Milo. Katherine pretended to pick up a piece of chicken and start to eat it, but then pointed behind Kayla. "Well! Is that a large and strangely appropriate clown?" She asked. As Kayla turned around, Katherine and Milo both dumped their chicken under the table.

Kayla turned back around. "I don't see a large and strangely appropriate clo- hey! Where on Earth did your chicken - "

"That was good chicken!" Milo insisted, pretending to rub his stomach. "I'm going to get some more. Will you come with me, Katherine?"

"Oh, but of course!" Katherine agreed. "I love chicken!"

They both fake-skipped back to the serving table.

Under the picnic table, Katherine's creatures looked at the chicken that Katherine and Milo had freshly dumped under the table.

"Never seen any of this." Jenna remarked, picking up a piece.

"Maybe they couldn't get cheese." Kass guessed, trying to make light of things. She tore a bit of chicken off, and, deciding it was palatable (She didn't care what anyone said, cheese was still better), consumed it. Everyone agreed with her, with the possible exception of Ben, who had found that the chicken made excellent ant bait, and used it to draw lots of the buggers under the table for a meal.

Back up at the picnic table, Kayla wondered about Milo and Katherine. I mean, they'd always been weird, Katherine had even been committed before, but my gosh. Chicken? After a long string of thought, she decided that the chicken might just of been dumped somewhere. Under the table? Worth a shot. She started to peek under.

"Waait!" Blip called, from out of no where. He hurriedly hovered over to Kayla. "You can't look under there!"

Kayla couldn't believe this. Katherine being nuts was understandable, Milo a stretch, but she just could not understand how a compact dishwasher could be totally insane. "What, has Y2K come already? Why not?"

Blip thought as quick as he could, and decided that faking it was the best answer here. "Error 122, Does Not Compute?" he tried.

"Yeah, right. Go download the Melissa Virus or something." She ducked under the table, but was brought up by a desperate Katherine, pulling her up by her shoulder straps.

"Chicken?" Katherine offered, holding a piece out to Kayla. Kayla screeched, and smacked the chicken away. It hit Blip, but didn't really do anything besides make him spin a little.

Just as Kayla was about to give Katherine the pre-prepared vegetarian's speech on how it was immoral to eat any living thing that just so happened to be cute and fuzzy, Uncle Paul called for everyone's attention.

"Hello, Riggs family!" He called out. "Welcome to the 1999 family reunion!" He then laughed a bit. "We may not be able to do this next year, with all those Y2K computer glitchey-thingies!" The entire family laughed, with the exception of Milo, Katherine and her dad, who took it upon themselves not to roll their eyes. "Anyway, I'm sure you all know what time it is.."

Katherine leaned over a bit and whispered to Milo, "It's time for Teletubbies!" He snickered.

"It's time to get out the old Family Album!" Uncle Paul continued. He produced a box from under a nearby picnic table, and opened it. His happy and essentially clueless look faded, when he looked inside. "It's empty!" he announced, "The album's gone!"