peregrination

[ sechs. ]

Ashton was left staring out the front door after Journey, wondering what the hell was wrong with his neighbor, "Um, Tori? Phillip? Shit, what...was-"

He was cut off with a loud meow, turning to face a cat with the name Sir Frederick XVIII engraved into the dark grey name tag.

Ashton let out a girly scream in shock and slowly backed away from the cat.

"Tori! Phillip! It's your friendly neighbor, Ashton. I'm supposed to be babysitting you tonight, so it'd be great if you could come here!"

As if the universe just hated him, two more cats strode into the room, confirming his worst nightmare had just begun, "I'm babysitting cats. This-This is not what I was expecting."

The three cats looked up at him curiously before walking closer to the nervous boy. He let out a girlish squeal, jumping over the couch and hiding behind it.

"I have to call Journey and tell her to come back. Good thing she left her phone number...all the way in the kitchen," Ashton gulped nervously, eyeing the large distance between him and what he assumed to be the kitchen. He had since realized that he was talking to himself, but it made him feel better, so he would continue to do so until he could phone Journey.
Thinking quickly, Ashton tossed a random piece of pepperoni that he had found in his pocket across the room to distract the cats; his plan worked, and the cats were happily distracted as Ashton ran to the kitchen.

"Phone number, phone number, phone number," he muttered to himself, glancing at all of the counters and seeing only one with any paper on it; which, of course, had way more paper than he even found possible.

"Oh, come on! Why is there so much paper?" Ashton grumbled as he shuffled through the piles of paper, freezing when he heard a loud meow. He turned to his right, Sir Frederick XVIII standing on top of the counter; if that wasn't enough, the cat was sitting right on top of the page where he could see the first three numbers of a phone number.

Ashton backed away, running into the refrigerator, and came up with a brilliant plan of how he would get the fat cat off of the counter: he would simply try and feed the cats. He yanked open the refrigerator's door, only to be met with a full fridge, and he suddenly realized that he forgot what shelf Journey had told him.

"Shit. Um...I'll just give them some of this chicken? Cats like chicken, right?" Ashton asked Sir Frederick XVIII.

The cat meowed, so he grabbed the chicken out of the fridge and threw it on the ground, squealing as the cat moved to see what it was, and then picked up the piece of paper with a number written on it.

"867-5309? You've got to be kidding me."

He had to admit, it was pretty funny; well, it would have been funny had he not been trapped in the house of Journey Evans with three of her cats.
Ashton quickly dialed her number and waited for the quirky brunette to answer her phone.

It rang. And it rang. And it rang. Until finally, "The person you are calling has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ashton yelled, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"Journey? We came home early, sweetheart! The convention got cancelled!"

Ashton's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he quickly tried calling Journey again to inform her that the people, who he assumed were her parents, were home. But it was too late, because the woman before him let out a scream, "WE'RE GETTING ROBBED, ROB!"

The woman then proceeded to attack Ashton with her purse, until Rob came over and said, "Dear, that's just the neighbor. Journey told us he was going to be over here, taking care of the cats. Why'd you have to attack him? Now we're going to get sued, Sue!"