A blaring alarm jostled Gruff from sleep, and he fought off his blankets. Grabbing the clock, he flung it at Jonah's bed with trained accuracy, yet it hit nothing. Sighing loudly, he stomped over to his brother's bed, grabbed the object and hit snooze. I never set this blasted thing, and Jonah always wakes up before it even goes off. Gruff reached up to push his hair out of his face when he realized it wasn't there, but it's always in his face…
Cautiously, he made his way to the mirror on the wall, his hair stood straight pointing up in a multicolored mohawk, stomping out of the room, furious, he barged into the living room, and the pungent smell of cricket stew gagged him as he charged out of the room. Ma, Marcia, and Jonah were gathered around the table, eating breakfast. Ma looked up, and milk spurted from her nose.
Sputtering, she asked, "Jonah, where in the world did you learn that spell?"
"Turn it back, Jonah!"
"Why should I? You look good like that."
"Turn it back," Gruff clenched his fists. "Or else!"
"Or else what?"
Gruff rushed at the man, who jumped from his seat, expertly dodging the boy, who found himself faceplanting to the ground. Jonah pulled down one eyelid and stuck out his tongue blowing raspberries.
"You turd!"
"Oh! So now we're resorting to name-calling, are we?"
"Jonah, act your age." Marcia said, grabbing his ear and yanking hard.
"Change it back, you jerk." Gruff repeated as he got up off the floor.
"Fine!" Jonah rubbed at his sore ear, then spoke, "Normal."
Black hair cascaded against Gruff's eyebrows, tickling his forehead. The boy reached up, smoothing it out before pushing it out of his eyes only for it to fall back into place. He would have to ask Ma to cut it for him again.
"Why insist on torturing Gruffy like this every year?" Marcia firmly placed her hands on her hips.
Gruff's face burned from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. "Marcia, I told you not to call me that anymore."
Ma once more began laughing. "It looks like we won't need a Christmas tree this year. Gruff's face can light up the whole room!"
"Just like Rudolpho…" Jonah poked Gruff's face. "Happy birthday week, little brother."
A sinister smile slivered onto Jonah's face, and Gruff rolled his eyes.
Turning to Ma he said, "So, why the cricket stew?" Pinching his nose, he approached the stinky stew sitting on the counter. It looked and smelled just as putrid as ever.
"My sister-in-law sent it. Luis sent us a mission, and she thought it would soften the blow." Ma said, still wiping milk from her nose.
"To be fair, we never told her we hate the soup." Jonah yanked the ladle from the pot and a large black eyeball floated to the top of the murky mystery liquid.
Gruff gagged, as Jonah shoved the ladle to his face.
"Jonah, that's disgusting." Marcia grabbed the pot off the counter and began to drain it down the sink.
"Wait," the man reached for it, stopping from pouring more of the slop out in the house. "Half of it's already gone." He sighed, "Now it's going to reek of Auntie's stew in here."
"Crap, you're right!" Marcia said, turning the faucet on, washing bits and pieces of cricket towards the drain, clogging the sink where murky water began to collect.
Jonah quickly reached over to turn it off. "You're making it worse."
"What do we do now?" Marcia panicked, grabbing a glove from the side of the sink, she reached for the giant cricket head bobbing up and down in the water. Pulling it out, she dripped stew juice all over the floor.
"Don't do that!" Bile rose in Gruff's throat, "It's disgusting."
Marcia turned to him with the cricket head in hand, and Gruff rushed to the sink, throwing up on top of the soup.
"Doesn't look much different, does it?" Jonah admired the mix of throw up and cricket stew floating around before pinching his nose, "Doesn't smell much different either."
Ma burst out laughing. "That's Luce's soup for you, alright. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't stick the cricket in whole," Taking another sip of milk she added, "or add a healthy handful of dirt with all the unwashed vegetables in there."
"Even still," Gruff wiped his mouth. "Because of her, I'll never eat cricket stew, ever!"
"Oh! Don't be so dramatic! Traditional cricket stew is delicious. It's just that Luce doesn't know how to cook."
Jonah threw the rest of the stew out the back door before turning back to the group, "So Uncle Luis sent us a mission to soften the blow from Auntie's stew, right?"
"Yeah," Ma threw down a paper. "He must have known Marcia would throw the stew down the drain again."
"I didn't mean to, Ma, I swear."
"All jokes aside, what's he got for us this time?" Jonah pulled up a chair beside Ma.
"As the three of you know, monsters are susceptible to going into killing frenzies like they are mad. Luce and Luis have been tracking the movements of a certain group hiding out in our mountains for some time now. They've come to the conclusion that a specific object might be keeping them from going insane."
Gruff looked at the paper in Ma's hands, "So what's this object?"
"It's an orb. Luce and Luis want us to obtain it so their friend can study it. They hope to apply its effects to all monsters."
"Who is this friend?" Jonah asked, "Anyone we know?"
"He travels around a lot, mostly in the Eastern Nation, so you all have never gotten a chance to meet him, but he's been researching the madness for years."
"I thought we saw the last of the madness when we brought Gruffy back home."
"I'm sorry to tell you, it's only been getting worse since then. The Western Nation has been particularly affected. In fact, the monsters we are going to investigate came from there, which is why Luce and Luis were investigating them." Ma sighed, "I truly hope that the orb can cure this madness, because otherwise… It'll only start getting worse from here, for all monsters." Ma glanced at Gruff and Marcia,
"Why is that?" Jonah said.
"We haven't seen much of it since we live in the Northern Nation, but I've gotten word that more and more monsters have been going on rampages in the other three nations, as well as on The Dragon's Island."
"What about in the desert?"
Ma shook her head, "I don't have much information, but from what I've heard, the madness has been the same within the desert."
"From my understanding, this orb might possibly be the cure to the greatest problem in The Ams since the bombs?"
"That's what we are hoping for."
"When do we head out?"
Ma glanced at Gruff, "It'll be on your birthday, sorry kiddo."
"It's okay, Ma." Gruff said honestly, it was a little sad but… "If we're preparing for a mission, Jonah will have less opportunities to prank me this week."
The room went silent and all eyes fell on said prankster. Jonah smiled ear to ear and said, "Who says I won't just prank you after the mission?"
"Please don't!" Gruff said sternly.
"Please don't!" Jonah repeated with duck lips as he pointed across the table exaggeratedly.
"You're always like this, can't you act like an adult?" Gruff grumbled.
"Act like an adult." Jonah chirped with his arms up like a chicken.
Marcia snorted, "Gruffy, you know he only acts like this with you because you react, right?"
"No! He acts like this because I'm the only other guy in this house." Gruff stormed out of the room, and the three burst into laughter.
"Ew!" Jonah exclaimed loudly. "I can still smell the stew!"