Chapter 7

Three and a half months after returning home from Mexico, James stood at the kitchen door looking at all of the Quatyl running around the living room floor. Nancy came up behind him and said, "Aren't they the cutest things you've ever seen?"

"There sure is a bunch of them," James said losing count at twenty. The four adult Quatyl chasing after the young looked rather frazzled by the experience. The other four were still in their dens imprinting the rest of the eggs.

"You're right. It kind of makes me think of the Star Trek Tribbles," she said. They were starting to go through a lot of applesauce, but she didn't even think of putting them on a diet. Although she was buying food by the case now, she was pretty sure that the sudden population boom wasn't occurring because they were getting over fed.

"What are we going to do with them all?" James asked. He didn't want to give them away, but he knew they were going to end up with close to a thousand of them at the rate they were breeding.

"I guess we could take them to the grocery store and give them away to nice people there," Nancy said thinking it wouldn't be right to sell them. She had gotten rid of some kittens that way when she was younger.

"I suppose. Still, I'd like to make sure that the people who get them will take good care of them," James said noticing four new Quatyl emerge from their dens. It was odd how they always appeared whenever he and Nancy were discussing them.

Thinking that it was sweet of him to care so much for the Quatyl, Nancy leaned over to kiss him. When she did there was a mass exodus of Quatyl headed in the direction of the bedroom. She paused and said, "That's so strange. Every time I go to kiss you, they run away. I wonder what that is about."

"I don't know. Did you notice, but almost every time we have sex they lay an egg," James said wondering if there wasn't some sort of connection.

"Hmm, maybe we make them horny," Nancy said with a grin.

"I don't know about them, but you tend to have that effect on me," James said kissing her neck. He swore that he could hear a whimper come from under one of the chairs.

"What are you doing?" Nancy asked several days later.

"I'm making up care and feeding of Quatyl instructions," James answered while typing on his computer.

Looking over his shoulder, Nancy checked out the list. She said, "Don't forget to put down the soaked seaweed. They really love that stuff."

"I was about to add that to the list of foods," James said. Looking at the screen, he said, "Let's see what else I have forgotten."

"That thing about sex scaring them," Nancy said.

"I wasn't talking to you," James said distracted from his thoughts.

"Who were you talking to?"

Shifting nervously, he answered, "The computer."

"You talk to your computer?" she asked even though she knew that he did it. He tried to hide it from her, but there were times when he slipped up and would go into long discourses about whatever he was writing. She enjoyed his little rants at the computer tremendously. He really came up with some off the wall stuff.

"Only when I'm writing," he answered.

"And what kinds of things do you say to it? I bet you talk sexy to it," she asked looking over at him with a smile on her face. Since that was the only use he had for his computer he talked to it all of the time he was using.

"Oh baby, make love to me. Let me stroke your mouse, fondle your keys, and gaze upon your monitor," he answered with a grin. The sounds of Quatyl leaving the room filled the air.

"You scared them away," Nancy said watching them flee the room. The older of the young Quatyl left in pairs.

"I swear that they understand what we are saying," James said shaking his head in wonder.

Lear stood at the doorway of the den watching the pair. She had finally figured out most of the language and had been teaching it to the other Quatyl. It helped when he left the television on since it gave her a lot of contextual elements in which to place the language. She wasn't sure that she liked being called Face, but there wasn't too much she could do about it.

Looking in the direction that the Quatyl had headed, Nancy said, "Have you noticed that some of the young Quatyl have already formed pairs?"

"Yes, I noticed that last night," James said.

"What is going to happen when we give them away?" Nancy asked glancing over at Face. There were times when the Quatyl seemed far more intelligent than your usual animal.

"I guess we'll have to put them up for adoption as pairs. I'd hate to break them up. You never know, they might mate for life. If we were to break up the pairs, it is possible that we'd be condemning them to a life of misery," James said with a frown. He added that to the care and feeding instructions.

Face listened to the conversation with interest. She had known that the children were going to have to move out. There were just too many of them in such a small area. The prospect of having them leave had filled her with dread. This was such a dangerous world. Hearing that the pets were taking this matter seriously gave her a small measure of relief.

"You will make sure that they are given good homes?" Nancy asked with a worried expression on her face. The idea that the Quatyl might end up in homes where they would be mistreated really bothered her.

Taking her hand, he gave her a reassuring smile and said, "You will be there with me to approve every adoption."

"Good. I think we should avoid placing them in houses with young kids. They can be so rough," Nancy said.

"You're probably right," James said.

James set up a table outside the local grocery store and set a box on the table with sixteen of the young Quatyl in it along with Scout and Scar. He had brought Scout and Scar with him so that people would know what a full grown Quatyl looked like. He didn't think he would have to wait long before giving away all of them. They had come to the store with twenty of the young Quatyl, but the manager and the assistant manager had taken one look at them and adopted a pair each.

The young Quatyl had selected their owners by having all but a pair move away from the person reaching for them. It was weird, but all of the Quatyl had growled when the produce manager had tried to take a pair. Nancy had put her foot down and wouldn't let the man have them. James was more than willing to use force if necessary. He'd never seen such a negative reaction to a person by the Quatyl.

They had just finished setting up when a young woman stopped at the table and looked in the box. One look at them and she was hooked. She cooed and said, "They are so cute. What are they?"

"They are Quatyl," James answered.

"I've never heard of them," she said. A pair moved forward and she picked them up. The pair of them was small enough to fit in one hand. Together, the young Quatyl purred to announce that they had decided to adopt that particular person as a pet.

"They are a new species," Nancy said. She gestured to Scout and said, "These are two full grown ones."

"They're so small," the woman said glancing over at the adults. Considering their size, they'd fit in a small apartment without a problem. Her eyes were drawn back to the pair in her hand. She petted their backs and exclaimed, "Their fur is so soft!"

"We have some care and feeding directions," James said holding out one of the sheets he had printed.

"Baby food? They eat baby food?" the woman asked after looking over the list.

"Yes. They love pureed peas, applesauce, watermelon, and soaked seaweed," Nancy said. She leaned over and said, "They are so easy to care for, too. Believe it or not, these are already house trained."

"You're kidding?"

James shook his head and answered, "Nope. It seems like they are born knowing to use a litter box. All you have to do is show it to them."

"Wow," the woman said looking back at the pair of Quatyl in her hands.

James looked over at Nancy and said, "Nancy, would you like to explain about the you-know-what?"

Rolling her eyes, Nancy said, "There is one little problem. It seems that having sex around a Quatyl tends to trigger a breeding activity with them. You need to give them a little distance or you'll end up with a bunch of them."

"What?" the woman asked staring at Nancy in shock. She glanced at the sheet and noticed that there was a line saying that people shouldn't have sex around a Quatyl.

"Yes. We started with eight of them. By the time we realized what was going on, we had almost a hundred," James said.

"That's weird," the woman said.

"One other thing, they lay eggs. It takes them about three months to hatch," James added.

"They lay eggs?" she asked looking at them wide-eyed.

"Yes," James answered.

"Like a platypus?"

"Yep," James answered.

"Neat," she answered.

Nancy put together a small box and put a scrap of cloth at the bottom of it. She handed it over to the woman and said, "You can keep them in that box until you get home."

The woman carefully placed the pair of Quatyl in the box. Looking up, she asked, "How much are they?"

"They're free. We just want to make sure that they get into good homes," Nancy said.

James picked up Scout and petted it. The Quatyl produced a loud happy purr of contentment. He said, "That's right."

The young woman looked down at her box and said, "They're so cute."

It took them two hours to get rid of all of the young Quatyl they had brought. While they were packing up, James said, "That went well. Twenty gone, only eighty more to go."

"I really liked that elderly couple that came in," Nancy said. The woman had reminded her of her grandmother.

"Same here," James said. He grinned and added, "They were the only ones who didn't think the sex issue would be a problem."

"Just wait until their kids come for a visit," Nancy said with a grin.

"You know, giving them to elderly couples might not be such a bad idea," James said. He thought about how many elderly people lived alone and needed companionship.

"We could stop by one of the retirement villages with the next batch," Nancy said hoping they didn't have any pet restrictions.

James said, "It's weird how they rejected three-quarters of the people who stopped by."

"Yeah, it's like they could sense something wrong with those people," Nancy said.

Nodding his head, James said, "That one guy was a real creep. All of the Quatyl started growling before he even reached the table."