Giant Solidarity G/T

Chapter L: Sendoff

Early the next morning, I awoke to the heavenly smell of syrup and sausage wafting into the room. In a fresh, uncrusty pair of pajama bottoms, I walked to the kitchen and found Larry blissfully chomping on his dry food, and Alma keeping Rey company on the countertop, while the latter busied herself with the waffle iron. "Waffles and sausage," I said happily, looking at the repast underway on the stovetop. I kissed Rey on the cheek from behind and patted Alma's whole back with my fingertip. "Alma's favorite breakfast, how appropriate."

Alma smiled, her feet swinging over the edge of the counter. "I told Reagan not to go through so much trouble for little ole me, but like the mama she is, she insisted. Right Larry?" she called down to her four-legged friend at his food bowl. He simply turned around curiously, licking his whiskers in response.

Several months before, I had hammered four tiny legs of a plywood platform, the size of a saucer to the top of the dining room table, our human breakfast nook. Alma sat on the old stress-ball she used as a chair with her bottle cap-sized plate, and doll-sized teacup of chamomile. Rey and I sat in the big wooden chairs. As we ate breakfast, both Reagan and I fed our tiny friend piecemeal portions of our gigantic plates of syrupy waffles and chunks of sausage. Some fresh, cut fruit was out too. Neither my girlfriend nor I could resist pampering and overfeeding Alma. This might be our last opportunity for a while.

"Guys, stop I can't eat anymore!" giggled Alma, embarrassed by all the attention. She rubbed her stomach, full despite that she at hardly a mouthful worth to us. "Yummy as this breakfast is, I shouldn't spend my first day in the wild sluggish and full of carbs."

"Exactly Alma, who knows when you'll eat like this again," said Rey, looking at the tiny with a pouty, yet proud face. She followed up by kissing the top of Alma's head.

"Don't get syrup all over her head Rey," I kidded, passing Rey a napkin for her lips. I cleared the table while the ladies did another sweep of the apartment for Alma's belongings.

My cellphone vibrated, and I smiled, seeing Crystal's caller ID. Recently she acquired her own human-scale cellphone. Gone were the days of the Human Hotline. I knew who was calling, before seeing the contact's name just by my picture background for her number. The pic featured tiny Crystal posing next to my forefinger, approximately her height, which was in a giant splint. This silly photo was taken following a triumphant finger wrestling session, in which she was so much the victor, that she sprained my finger and Rey had to doctor it. "Morning, Spitfire!" I said, putting the phone to my ear.

"How're you doing, Heavyweight?" asked Crystal. Her voice broke up with feedback and I thought I heard air whishing by.

"Everything okay?" I asked, furrowing my brow as I collected Alma's packed luggage with my free hand. "Sound a little flustered."

"Running late for work," her voice explained. "Drying off from the shower, then taking the human elevator and basement tunnel down to the shelter. I have an aerobics class in half an hour." If she was in that cubbyhole of a human bathroom Harley built for her in their bedroom that certainly explained the interference.

"How's the job going anyhow?" I asked. Crystal had taken a position as a tiny personal trainer at the shelter. Continental Human Relief Fund paid her. She taught classes like volleyball and weightlifting, even coached a softball team in the newly founded human intramurals.

"Incredible!" she replied, as I listened to her elevator idle downward in the background. "You should see some of these teenagers they rescued from pet stores play basketball. Muscles aren't fatigued at all, even after living in cages for years."

I stuffed a handful of green grapes in my mouth to get the sticky maple aftertaste out of my mouth. "Well, they've got a gold medalist for a coach," I said, drinking coffee to wash down a grape, I almost choked on.