It was Howler's turn to go grocery shopping. He went through the store, putting this and that into the cart. He was walking down one aisle looking at the shelves and not paying attention to where he was going when his cart suddenly collided with one coming from the opposite direction.
Howler and the girl behind the second cart both apologised to each other simultaneously for their clumsiness. Then their eyes met. The girl was Kittie Dred.
"Kittie?" Howler said.
"Howler?" Kittie said.
They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment. Neither of them knew what to say.Finally, Howler spoke up.
"Um...fancy running into you here," he said.
Kittie giggled.
Howler smiled. The tension was broken.
Howler looked at the contents of Kittie's cart. It was filled with bags of sugar.
"Got a bit of a sweet tooth?" he asked.
"Oh, no. This is for Fly," she explained, "He eats tons of this stuff."
"Oh," Howler said.
More silence. More tension.
"Well," Kittie said pulling her cart back, "It's been nice seeing you outside of your battles with my dad. I guess I'll be seeing you around."
Kittie started to push her cart past Howler when he stopped her.
"Kittie," he said.
"Yes,"
"Could you answer a few questions for me?" he asked.
"Okay," she replied.
"Why do you keep helping us?" he asked. "You know, the guys and me."
"You guys helped me," she answered.
"But you're...you're a..."
"A what?" she asked.
"A Dred," he said.
"That doesn't mean I have to act like one," she said, "It's not all its cracked up to be you know."
"Oh?" he asked.
"Oh yeah," she replied, "you can get pretty much what you want whenever you want it, but the only reason you can do that is that people are afraid of you. Besides, I don't get greedy."
"But, Dreds are always greedy." he said.
Kittie looked at him and cocked her head.
"Okay. I know. You don't have to act like one." he admitted.
"Anything else you want to know?" she asked.
"Well," he said, "the guys and I had never heard of you, so we looked for information to try to find out more about you."
"What did you find out?" she asked.
"Well, we found your birth certificate," he started. "Your birthdate, March 27, 1982. Mother's name, Rebecca. Father's name, *snicker* Virgil. Your name, Catherine Allison Dred...Did you know your initials spell cad?"
"Ugh! Don't remind me!" she winced. "That was dad's idea of being 'cute'."
Sorry,"
"That's okay,"
Kittie started towards the registers. Howler turned his cart around and followed her and continued talking while they waited in line.
"We also found school records. You had perfect grades,"
"My IQ's 180," she explained.
"Wow!" Howler said, impressed. "Anyway, we only found up to the 6th grade. After that, there aren't any more records. You said something about a boarding school in that T.V. thing a while back."
"Yes," she confirmed, "The Criminal Academy. It's a place where evil villains and criminals can send their kids to learn the tricks of the trade. You saw the T.V. thing?"
"Yep," he said, "every minute of it."
They both laughed.
They checked out at separate registers and exited the store.
Howler left his cart at the Drakster and followed Kittie who was parked further back in the large lot.
"You know," he said catching up with her, "You really know how to handle your dad."
She stopped and looked at him, flattered. "Really?"
"Yeah! And the way you convinced Mummy Man that I was Anubis... I loved it!"
"Now that was fun!" she exclaimed. "I didn't even know if it was going to work. But, you looked like a dog, and you guys were in kind of a bind, so I figured...what the heck?"
"Huh??"
"Mummy Man is a little slow. The re-animation process dad used on him didn't restore all of the brain cells and...he bought it!"
Howler couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had gotten a bit of a swelled head over the incident and Kittie had just deflated it. He stood there pouting.
Kittie stopped talking and noticed the look on Howler's face.
"Aw, hey! I'm sorry!" she said, ruffling his hair a little. "I'm not saying you're not attractive. I'm just saying... you're no Anubis."
She smiled at him and pushed her cart on through the lot.
Howler watched her, still pouting. He was thinking to himself, "Well at least...wait a minute!"
He jogged up to her and started walking backwards beside the cart.
"Are you saying I'm attractiii..." he was cut short as he tripped backwards over a decorative island divider near the end of the lot and sprawled on the grass.
"Omigosh! Are you okay?" Kittie asked, helping him up.
Howler stood up and looked her in the eyes, "Are you saying you think I'm attractive?"
Kittie smiled and blushed. Without a word, she turned and pushed her cart towards a van with the anagram "O.G.R.E." printed on it.
Howler followed, almost tripping on the divider again. He got to her as she was opening the van. It was filled with more bags of sugar.
"Whoa!" Howler exclaimed, "Why doesn't your dad just buy a factory?"
"He probably just wanted to get me out of the way for a while," Kittie said, "He thinks I'm nosy."
Howler helped Kittie put her current purchases in the van and offered to take the empty cart back up to the store for her. She thanked him and started to get in the van.
"Um...Kittie," he said.
"Yes...?"
"One more question."
"Okay."
"Do you like...movies?"
"Movies?" she asked.
"Um, yeah," he said, "You see, there's this new horror flik at the multi-plex and...well,"
Kittie was stunned. "Howler, are you asking me on a date?"
"Well...um...yeah.I...aw, I'm sorry! It's a really stupid idea," he said and turned to leave.
"I'd love to!" Kittie said.
"What?" Howler spun back around.
"It'd be fun!"
"But...what about your dad?"
"I don't have to tell him where I'm going. I'm not a child you know."
"Okay,um...meet you at the theater?"
"When?"
"Around 6:00"
"Okay."
"Okay! See ya later then,"
"Okay! Bye," Kittie said and closed the door of the van. She smiled and waved to Howler as she drove off. Howler smiled and waved back.
Howler got home with the groceries and Drak and Frakie helped bring them into the house. Draka and Joni started unpacking the bags.
"Is that it?" Draka asked as the boys brought the last bag inside.
"Howler, you didn't get half of the things on the list," Joni said. "What happened?"
Howler had been so excited he had forgotten to finish shopping.
"Oops! I guess I got distracted talking to someone." he explained.
"Who?" Drak asked.
"Ah...a girl."
"A girl?" Draka and Joni asked together.
"That's so sweet," Joni said.
Howler blushed.
Frankie came up beside Howler and started chanting, "Howlie's got a girlfriend! Howlie's got a...Ow! Hey!"
Howler punched him in the arm.
"Well," Draka prompted, "Who is she?"
"No one you'd know," Howler told her. He didn't lie. Draka hadn't met her yet. It seemed to satisfy Drak and Frankie because neither of them asked themselves.
Howler turned to Drak and asked, "Can I have the car tonight?"
"Why?" Drak asked.
"I got a date," Howler said.
"Awww!" Draka and Joni said together.
"Howlie's got a..." Frankie started chanting again but stopped when Howler turned and glared at him.
"Alright," Drak said, "But first...go get the rest of the shopping done."
Howler turned to leave and Drak added, "And remember to take your pager. If Dr. Dred makes an attack tonight, I want you right back here."
"Don't worry," Howler reassured him, "I'm sure if he were going to attack he would have called you on one of his secret meetings."
"Your dad doesn't have anything wierd planned for tonight does he?" Howler asked Kittie as they waited in line at the theater.
"I think he did," Kittie said, "but, right now he's too busy looking for some parts to the device he's been working on. He seems to have misplaced them."
Howler looked at Kittie. She smiled and winked at him. They both laughed.
Howler and Kittie exited the theater when the movie was over and went into the mall that was the theater was adjacent to. It was still early and they decided to get something to eat in the food court.
They sat down with their trays and the conversation got steered toward Kittie's days in the Criminal Academy.
"I didn't know ther was a school for that sort of thing," Howler said.
"Well, it's kind of secretive," Kittie explained, "There are a lot of illegal things that go on there. I had to go out of my way to avoid getting involved and pass all of the classes at the same time."
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"The classes taught us how to commit crimes," she said. "They start with the basics like pickpocketing and shoplifting and work up from there."
"Sounds like Oliver Twist," he observed.
"Exactly," she said, "Only, I didn't want to commit any crimes and most of the final exams require you to go out and field-test what you'd learned. I had to come up with ways to look to the teachers like I was committing crimes when I actually wasn't."
Howler was puzzled. "How on earth did you do that?"
"Well, it's tricky," she said, "I had to have some outside help."
"Outside help?"
"I confided in some grade school friends with what I had to do. They told their parents, who knew my dad and what kind of person he was, and they offered to act as petty-crime victims. One of them even paid for the item that I 'shoplifted' as I was sneaking it out of the store. I did some odd jobs for them all to pay them off."
"And it worked?"
"Yup. The teachers never investigated who the victims were. They just watched you ripping them off and took the proceeds. Of course there was never anything of real importance taken because the 'victims' were tipped off in advance."
"Does your dad know you did all this?"
"Nope. Don't you dare tell him either."
"Don't worry. I won't," Howler said, smiling. "What if you couldn't get around actually committing a crime?"
"Then I made an effort to fail. I always passed though. It's the only school that actually teaches grade alteration."
"Grade alteration?"
"It's actually a section of forgery class,"
"Forgery class??"
"Is there an echo in here?"
"You shouldn't alter school grades," Howler scolded.
"You never went to this school. I had to pass everything to get out of there and sometimes I had to pick the lesser of two evils. Besides, it wasn't a legitamate school anyway."
"Why didn't you tell the police what was going on?"
"I did. They either didn't believe me or didn't want to believe me."
"You could have run away,"
"And go where? I was twelve-years old."
"What about one of your friend's families? Maybe one of them would have taken you in."
"Those were the first places dad would have looked for me and I would have been sent right back to the school."
"What about your mom?"
Kittie's face fell. "Mom was in a mental home."
Howler didn't know what to say. Kittie looked at him then down at the floor. She was obviously hurt. Howler was embarassed. What had started out as a fun evening had turned highly emotional for Kittie and he felt somewhat responsible.
"I'm really sorry," he finally said.
"That's okay. You didn't know," she mumbled, still looking at the floor.
Howler still felt bad. He sat there looking at her, not knowing what else to do. He suddenly thought of something and smiled.
"Hey! I know what'll cheer you up!" he said excitedly. He got up from the table, took their trays and dumped the trash in a nearby recepticle.
"What?" she asked. She really wasn't in the mood to be cheered up.
"Come on," Howler urged, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of her chair. "I'll show you."
Kittie reluctantly got up and Howlerheld her hand and led through the mall. Soon, they were in front of the arcade.
"The arcade?" Kittie asked, unenthusiastically. She stopped and wouldn't go in.
Howler let go of her hand and stepped behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently through the door of the arcade. "Come on, you'll like this. Close your eyes."
"Why?"
"You'll see, just do it,"
Kittie sighed heavily and closed her eyes. Howler guided her through the arcade with his hands on her shoulders. They got to a far corner and Kittie heard a familiar voice.
"I'll get you yet, Drak Pack!" the voice said.
"Omigosh! Dad!" Kittie exclaimed and opened her eyes. She tried to run, but Howler stopped her.
"It's not your dad. Look," Howler said, turning her around.
Kittie looked. In front of her was a video game. The banner above the game read "Drak Pack: The Video Game".
Kittie looked at Howler. "What's this?"
"Something Drak cooked up," he said, smiling, "Take a look."
Kittie went over to the game to get a better look. There were three joysticks on the front with four buttons beside each one. One set was red, one green, and one blue. On the screen, a digital figure of Dr. Dred appeared. The figure shook its fist and said, "I'll get you yet, Drak Pack!" The Drakster then swooped across the screen, revealing the title "Drak Pack: The Video Game".
"Drak got the idea after your dad trapped us in some other video games. He submitted it to a company and they liked it and built the game," Howler explained.
"Dad trapped you guys in a video game?" Kittie laughed.
"Three separate ones. We had to get all the way to the end of the games to escape. In this one we have to find Dr. Dred, take his device, and foil his evil scheme. Wanta try?" Before Kittie could answer, Howler plunked a couple of quarters in the slots and started the game for two players. "You play Drak, I'll play myself."
"Okay," said Kittie, smiling. "What do I do?"
"As you go along looking for Dr. Dred, you have to pick up boxes that allow you to use one of your powers. Yours are red. The plain ones will give you hypnotic powers and the ones with a bat will let you transform into a bat."
The game started. The figures of Drak, Frankie, and Howler in monster form were shown standing on a street corner. A Dr. Dred figure stepped out onto the screen and announced that he had a shrink ray and that he was going to use it to shrink the world's treasures to make them more portable and steal them. Dr. Dred then ran off the screen.
"Okay, now we go after him," Howler explained, "Watch out for the other O.G.R.E, members. They'll try to stop you."
Howler and Kittie moved their figures in the direction that Dr. Dred went. Since no one was playing Frankie, his figure stayed behind.
The figures ran through the city streets, occasionally being accosted by one or more of the O.G.R.E. members. They were able to fight them off by using the powers they found in the boxes. The Drak figure would grab a red box and O.G.R.E. would become mesmirized, allowing Drak and Howler to run ahead. The red boxes with a bat turned Drak into a bat that Kittie used to distract O.G.R.E. so that Howler could run ahead and then flew it quickly past itself. Howler would grab a plain blue box and blow O.G.R.E. down, or a blue box with a musical note that made him howl causing O.G.R.E. to hold their ears. Howler explained to Kittie that the plain green boxes would give the Frankie figure an extra burst of strength and the green boxes with a lightning bolt would allow him to use his electric neck bolts.
The figures finally got to a museum where they found Dr. Dred going through, shrinking various works of art with his shrink-ray and putting them into a large carpetbag. This level proved to be be much more dangerous because Dr. Dred would occasionally take pot-shots at the Drak Pack figures with the ray gun. Kittie forgot to duck out of the way with Drak and he shrunk away and disappeared.
"OOps!" she said.
"That's okay, you get another turn," Howler reassured.
The Drak figure soon reappeared and they continued the chase.
Soon, a red box with a bat appeared on the screen. Kittie moved the Drak figure and picked it up. Drak turned into a bat and when Dr. Dred had the ray gun aimed at Howler, Kittie made the bat fly over Dr. Dred and grab the gun. She then made the bat fly over to Howler who took the gun, aimed it at Dr. Dred, and fired. Dr. Dred shrunk down to miniscule size and squeaked, "O.G.R.E.! Retreat!" Dr. Dred and the rest then ran off leaving the Drak and Howler figures celebrating on the screen.
The screen faded to black and a message read, "You have beaten Dr. Dred and O.G.R.E.! Would you like to continue with another adventure?"
Kittie started laughing. "That was so cool!" she exclaimed.
"I knew you'd like it," Howler said, smiling.
Three kids had come up behind them to watch the game. "Hey, can we try?" one of them asked.
"Sure," Howler said.
Howler and Kittie stepped aside to let them have a turn.
"Does my dad know about this thing?" Kittie asked.
"I don't know. I don't think so," Howler said. "Don't tell him."
"Don't worry, I won't," Kittie reassured him, "It's too much fun. They even used the right shade of blue for dad's skin."
"Why is his skin blue anyway?"
"You don't know?"
Howler shook his head. "We never could find out."
"He got me a chemistry set for my fifth birthday," she explained, "I mixed something that turned out to be volitile and had to be treated under a lamp until it settled. I went to bed and dad got curious and took it out from under the lamp before it was ready. It exploded on him and the chemicals turned his skin blue."
Howler snickered and said, "I bet you were grounded for months."
"No," she said, "He was so impressed that I made something explosive that he forgot about punishment."
"You had one messed up childhood," Howler observed.
"Tell me about it," Kittie said. "Let's play another game."
"Okay," Howler agreed.
Howler and Kittie played games in the arcade until the mall closed. Then Howler walked Kittie to where she had parked the O.G.R.E. van outside the theater. Kittie thanked him for the fun evening and kissed him on the cheek. She then got in the van and drove off, smiling and waving to Howler. Howler smiled and waved back.
Howler stood watching the van drive off into the night. He put his hand to the cheek that Kittie had kissed and sighed. He really liked her. She wasn't at all like her father. A little devious, maybe, but at least she was using that quality to fight against her father. He went to the Drakster and drove home.
Howler returned home late and waited in the car until he thought everyone was in bed. He didn't want to be grilled and have to tell them who he had been with. He wasn't quite sure how they'd react. He figured he would have to tell themsomeday, but right now, he was too tired to deal with any consequences.
Howler finally got out of the car and went to the front door. He opened it slowly and tiptoed in, shutting it quietly behind him. He started up the stairs when heard someone calling to him. He stopped and turned around. Big D and Aunt Beth came from the formal parlor to greet him. He had forgotten they would be up.
"Howler, ve heard you vere on a date," Big D said.
"Yeah, I was," Howler said, smiling.
"Vell, vhy don't you come to the parlor for a minute and tell us how it vent?" Big D insisted.
"I would, Big D, but..." Howler faked a yawn and stretched, "It's kind of late and I really wanted to turn in."
Big D didn't buy the act. "Howler, you're hiding something," he said sternly. "Don't make me heepnotize it out of you."
"Vlad!" Aunt Beth scolded.
"Betha, I'm just trying to look out for the boys,"
Howler figured he'd better confess. Big D had hypnotized him and Drak and Frankie before if he didn't think they were telling him the whole truth about something and Howler didn't want to be in a vulnerable state when he told him.
"Okay, I'll tell you," Howler said, quietly. "Could we go in the parlor first? I don't want the guys to hear."
Big D and Aunt Beth led Howler into the parlor and Big D closed the door.
Big D looked at Howler and crossed his arms. "Vell?"
"I was out with Kittie Dred," Howler confessed, quickly.
"Kittie Dred?" Big D and Aunt Beth asked together.
Howler dropped to his knees, pleading, "I'm sorry! I saw her at the store and she's pretty and before I knew it I asked her on a date and she said yes and we went out and had fun and please don't be mad at me!"
"Is that all you did?" Big D asked.
Howler nodded.
"Then vhy vould I be mad at you?"
Howler looked up at Big D. Big D was smiling. So was Aunt Beth. Howler was confused. He had expected, at the very least, a long-winded speech about hanging out with the wrong crowd and what it could do to the Drak Pack.
"Because I was on a date with the enemy?"
"Whose eynemy?" Big D asked, "Kittie's been helping you boys. Now, get up. You look seely."
Howler got to his feet, still looking at Big D. "You don't mind?"
"Howler, you're the forst von in the group to truly realize that she is an ally, not an eynemy," he explained. "I didn't expect von of you to date her, but as long as her father doesn't find out, you have my blessing. Just don't tell the rest of the group yet."
"Why not?" Howler asked.
"They need to learn to trust her by themselves. For now, you can act as a sort of liason so you know vhat she's up to. So, vhere did you take her out to?"
"A movie, and then we ate at the mall and went to the arcade."
"Vas it a romantic film?" Aunt Beth asked.
"No," Howler answered, "Screech 3."
"A slasher flik, fast food, and wideo games? Kids today!" Big D exclaimed. He turned to Aunt Beth and took her hands in his, "Betha, my love. Do you remember our forst date?"
"Oh, Vlad!" she sighed, looking into his eyes.
"The Banqvet...the seemphony...the moonlight stroll on the moors...and then..." He paused when he realized Howler was still in the room. "Howler, vhy don't you run along to bed?"
"Noo problem!" Howler said, already shutting the door behind him.
Big D looked into his wife's eyes and said, "Are you thinking vhat I'm thinking?"
She smiled and nodded.
Howler moved quickly and quietly through the front hall towards the stairs. He could hear furniture being moved around the parlor. He didn't know what Big D and Aunt Beth were doing that for. He really didn't want to know, either.
As Howler started up the stairs, he could hear the first strains of Gloria Gaynor singing "I Will Survive" coming from the phonograph in the parlor and Big D saying, "Let's boogie!"
"Disco?? Old people!" Howler said to himself as he hurried the rest of the way up the stairs to his room.