Kadie settled in to her new home and routine nicely. She passed the time by doing what she did best: mind-numbing temp work, but she was a star, especially when it came to photocopying and making cups of tea.

One day Jenny hurt her ass. No one knows how.

So, after a visit to the hospital for emergency surgery, Jenny returned to the tree house to rest. She spent the entire week watching West Wing and bemoaning that she was about to watch the season finale.

“You realize my life is going to be devoid of all meaning after this, don’t you?”

“I’ll let you use the good mug, if it’ll help,” in a rare streak of generosity Tyler has just offered THE MUG. The mug they fight over every time someone makes tea.

Kadie still thought Jenny was crazy but offered, “If you need to talk…”

“I will need to talk. You don’t have to listen, but I’m going to need to talk at you.”

“Seriously, though, it’s just a show.”

“Just a show?! Just a show?! It is not just a show. And you would know this if you had an active brain cell in your head.”

“Hey, no need to get nasty, you crazy ass.”

“I’m crazy? You’re crazy.”

“Your mom’s crazy.”

“Well, your mom, your dad, your gran-mammy…all crazy AND,” Jenny was getting pretty riled up by this point, “YOUR CUZZO IS A WHORE!”

Silence.

Red Squirrel walked through the tree house humming the theme song from Indiana Jones, so they all joined in.

Things usually settled down pretty quickly in Pentney’s Tree House.


THE ENDINGS... (part 5)

You have your choice of abrupt endings for this story: an English ending or an American ending.

English ending: During a tea party the day before Kadie was to return to the land from which she came, Kadie choked on a piece of Victorian sponge cake and died (there was no one present who was bold enough to perform the Heimlich or jab a pen in her throat). A symbolic rain fell to mark Kadie’s death. The animals mourned by drinking excessive amounts of tea and talking about the weather. The funeral services took six weeks to occur because BT* wouldn’t release Kadie’s body to the crematorium.

American ending: Kadie rode off into the sunset with her new friends Jenny and Red Squirrel. With guns blazing (she got the fire arms license from a Cracker Jack box; they’ll give anyone a gun where she’s from), she went falcon hunting. She tracked down and shot Tyler as a symbol of her free will, as well as her right to bear arms and kill things. She later sued Tyler’s family for pain and suffering (she broke a nail on the trigger).

*BT was the Internet company we used over here that made me a bitter, bitter kid during the six weeks it took to get Internet access.