Chapter 4: Mrs Moore

Meddy came round to the sound of her alarm buzzing. She had set her alarm for Sundays to force herself out of bed on the lazy day. Was it Sunday already? She couldn't quite collect her thoughts even as she set up and noticed the glass of water on the window sill next to her. She reasoned Mother had been worried about her and left the glass there. Turning away from it she got out of bed and got dressed. She traced her knuckles that were bleeding just the day before. If only her problems could heal the same way - like they never happened. "Tsk."

"Morning, Mum," she mumbled as she approached Mother at the breakfast table. It felt bizarre staring at her bowl of oatmeal when her last meal was also breakfast.

"Morning, Sunshine," Mother bent down to kiss her forehead. "Mrs Moore invited you two to help out in her garden today, join her for some tea." You two? So much for the glass. Meddy scoffed in her head, but nodded anyway. Maybe Mother was having a bad day too. Mrs Moore lived across the street. She was very old and lived alone, so sometimes in the weekends she would invite Meddy over to play in her garden. Meddy always loved cutting the shrubs into different shapes, pretending they were the stars in the Milky Way, or fish swimming along a current. Of course shrubs could grow themselves according to any preset instructions, but Mrs Moore always said cutting them by hand was always more fun. It was probably just an excuse to invite people over to her place for tea, but Meddy loved being at Mrs Moore's anyway - she was a lovely lady (with a lovely veranda to have tea under).

"Here, make sure to use this to cover up that hideous tattoo," Meddy dropped the bottle of concealer in his hands. The morning had passed an a haze as Meddy tried to figure ways to extort the truth from the piece of turd. "What did you tell Mother," she said in a quite voice as dangerous as she could muster.

"Please don't be suspicious of me. I only carried you back after you fell asleep on the park bench, or should I have left you there?" Meddy force herself to calm down. Until she came up with a working plan she would have to put up with the devious thing.

"Whatever, poop. Just don't say anything unnecessary in front of Mrs Moore, 'kay."

-
"Mrs Moore! I missed you, and your garden!"

"I missed you too dear, you should come visit more often. Who's this?" Mrs Moore asked, gesturing to the guy.

"Ahh.. he's my brother now, Mother found him beaten up in one of those streets, the poor thing" Meddy replied dismissively.

"It must have been difficult, well please do take care of or little Meddy. Anyway I have a new patch I wanted to show you Meddy, come this way," Mrs Moore led them to the far end of her Garden. The air had grown cold and a heavy mist hung over the plants. In a small greenhouse was a row of vicious-looking plants. "They secrete sedatives when their flowers grow swollen." Tea with Mrs Moore was lovely, but she sure did grow stranger things in her garden.

Meddy guessed just under an hour had passed. The two of them - and the poop - were under the veranda. She allowed herself a huge grin when she saw the spread of little cakes on the table. Mother would never let her eat so many sweets.

"Orange juice, anyone?" Mrs Moore poured some for Meddy, then herself. By then Meddy had already dug into her first fruit tart, at the same time decorating her plate with even more sweets.

"Crunch!" A harsh sound came over from where poop was sitting. He was crunching on the ice cubes in his glass. Eek! Shouldn't he know better?

"You.. "Mrs Moore started.

"Ahh! He wasn't brought up well. I'll pour him some orange juice. I'm sorry," Meddy flustered.

"Hahaha!" Mrs Moore let out a hearty laugh. "You would do well to teach him the proper ways of us humans then!"

Huh?

"It's alright little Meddy, I can tell a Companion when I see one. Looks like you'll have quite a bit of trouble this time," Mrs Moore winked. Meddy couldn't really catch up with the situation, but poured the juice anyway.

"Don't drink an empty glass like a weirdo, and eat the cakes properly with a fork, like this," Meddy showed him. Eventually after some frustrating moments he somehow managed. Meddy might have seen his cheeks reddened somewhat. Was he embarrassed? Well he should be, but then again he was an unfeeling thing, so maybe it was her imagination.

Meddy let out a sigh. She couldn't worry her Mother with him, but she wondered how her Mother was so seemingly normal in his presence. He was like one of those dogs Daddy would talk about before the revolution - absolutely useless. He couldn't pick up a fork until taught. Maybe she could programme some common sense into him? But a Companion plugged into the system would be too suspicious. Did he even come here legally? Meddy closed here eyes. There were too many questions and the poop refused to answer any of them. She puffed her cheeks. Everything was too difficult.

When all the cakes were finished Meddy thanked Mrs Moore, gathered her things and turned to leave.

"Oh hold on, I have something to hand to you, give me a moment," Mrs Moore disappeared into her house, and came back with a shiny thing. "Here, keep this, have a lovely day now, you two!" Once again Meddy didn't know how to react. Mrs Moore wouldn't tell her what it was either. "Just think of it as a translator to read your friend over there." Meddy thanked Mrs Moore and slipped the thing into her pocket. Mrs Moore sure kept even stranger things in her home.

"Let's go home," she said to no one in particular. Certainly not to poop anyway.