This just sort of kept getting less funny as it got longer. Bleh. I can't seem to think of any situation involving animals that would drive people apart via comedy, I guess.

And skunks are darn cute.

---

"Okay, so 'Mr. Albernon was clueing Mrs. Hagerstad in on the situation.'" Gita paused in her typing. "Crap. How do you spell 'clueing'?"

Shelly shifted her weight on the mattress, leaning to peer at the screen. "'C-l-u-i-n-g', isn't it? Hey, the spell-checker's not underlining it, anyway."

"Yeah, but it looks wrong . . . Huh, 'c-l-u-e-i-n-g' is right, too. What the heck?"

"The English Language is messed up, that's what." Okay, Shelly thought, this isn't going too bad. She's not crazy, she's not obnoxious, she doesn't decorate with skulls or something . . . So far, the new kid wasn't bad. Out of class randomly assigned partner project, not bad. So far.

The house had thrown her at first--immaculately clean despite the country location, with little doilies under the flower vases and an overabundance of Precious Moments memorabilia. Yech. But Gita's room was almost normal, and that was a comfort.

Scritch. Something sounded over by the window, and Shelly puzzled at it for a moment. Gita didn't seem to notice. Skuhscritch-scritch. "Hey, Gita . . . mind if I open your shade?"

"Huh? Oh, you heard that? Sure--it's probably just a chicken--they keep getting stuck in my window well. I was just gonna leave it until we got done."

Shelly couldn't help but look, even if it was just a chicken. Reaching behind the typing Gita, she lifted the ribbed edge of the curtain. "Oh m'God!" she exclaimed, dropping the shade with a clack of plastic and clapped her hand over her mouth.

"What?" Gita demanded, shutting the laptop in a mixture of worry and curiosity. "Is it bleeding or something?"

"Gita," Shelly hissed, setting a finger to her lips, "there's a skunk in your window well!"

"What? Oh, wow!"

Shelly didn't understand why Gita was so casual about this. A skunk! A freaking skunk! As Gita began to raise the window shade, Shelly batted her hand away. "Don't do that! What if it, I dunno, gets mad or something!"

Gita snorted and tugged the curtain up with a smooth movement. "It's just a skunk, Shell. It's not gonna hurt you." She pressed her nose to the glass, peering at the cornered animal with a soft sort of smile. "Look, it's just a baby. It's cute."

"It is not cute. It's vicious. It'll give us rabies, and spray us, and we'll smell for weeks." Okay, Shelly admitted, it was sorta cute. Kinda. Maybe. Like a little striped kitten. But a skunk!

"It will not." Gita pursed her lips, then sighed. "I'll take care of it later. Look, let's just get this thing finished already."

"In here? With it right outside?"

"It's not like it was freaked out by us when we were working before." Mildly exasperated, Gita tugged the shade closed again. "It won't even see us, right? Maybe it'll get out by itself."

Shelly wasn't listening. She gnawed on the edge of her lip. "We gotta get rid of it. Shouldn't we, like, call Animal Control or something? Or the police? Or the fire department? Or your dad? Your dad could take care of it, right? He's home, right?"

"Shelly, it's just a baby! Let it alone, okay?"

"Gita, please can we get rid of it? It's a skunk."

Lifting the edge of her window shade, Gita watched the puff of black and white scrabble at the smooth wood planks of her window well. It was so helpless, so fragile. Just trying to survive and all that. She let the shade drop. "Alright, fine. I'll get my dad. But you gotta help me bury it." She slid off the bed and toward the hallway.

"Wait, what?"

Gita rubbed the tip of her nose. "Well, you're right. I mean, we can't really move it without it spraying, so . . . he'll probably shoot it to take it out. So . . ."

"Oh." Shelly peeked behind the shade for herself. It was so very small. And kinda cute.

"I was gonna see if I could get a plank or something it could climb later, or see if it could get out by itself, since it's got pretty good paws and all, and . . ."

"I guess . . . that's okay. It's . . . not so bad, I guess." She lifted the laptop and opened it on her own lap. "So, clueing, right?"

Gita smiled and climbed back onto the bed. "Sure, cluing."