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”What on earth is going on?” Athan asked as he opened the door and did not stumble to the normal empty waiting room with only Kezia’s round smiling face behind the reception desk.
His visit to his aunt’s place had been shorter than he had planned – which might be because his foster mother’s sister had had this negative aura towards him ever since he dropped the law school – So he had thought coming back to work a day earlier. What he hadn’t thought was that he would find all his new colleagues with colorful puffs in their hands, covered with grey dust.
“Oh, our male Oracles have finally decided to arrive”, Kelpie’s forever chipper voice slightly dulled when said up from the ceiling. Her hair was unusually flat and the bright pink color of it was lightened by the dust that had been falling from the tops the lambs she had obviously been dusting awhile now. And what was little humorously was that now was actually the first time Athan saw Kelpie wearing something whole and not torn up.
“What is happening here?” Athan asked again and walked to the reception desk where Kezia was going through a paper pile couple feet high. He made sure to pass Kelpie far away though, since she seemed a bit scary, dusting angrily on those dangerously looking ladders.
“This? This is just the annual Christmas cleaning. There’s actually no assignments for you since you so cleverly took the vacation, but since we have seen you now, you can take the shelves”, Kezia said, barely lifting her eyes from the papers she was going through. This was unusual because normally you wouldn’t get her to look at the papers at all.
“Don’t we have cleaning personnel for that?” Athan asked curiously. Cleaning wasn’t exactly his favourite pass time hobby but he had certainly met people who liked it even less. And it seemed that at least Kelpie and Kezia were one of those.
“Of course we have. You think a corporation as big as this that is run by the honorable Ammon Hartley wouldn’t have enough funds to hire professionals to keep this place clean?” Said the strict and serious voice of Jemima’s behind Athan, giving him a jump. He still didn’t get it how everybody here managed to always sneak up on him.
“Honorable my ass! That old geezer is just cheep. He knows the holiday season is quiet time so he makes us to do something to earn our pay check!” Kelpie screamed angrily up from the ceiling, the ladders she was on swaying dangerously.
“Calm down. Just because you still look like a child you don’t have to act like one”, Jemima said, putting down the files from her hands and looking pithily Kelpie over her glasses.
“I’m five times older than you, you – body thief!” Kelpie yelled, swinging the puff in her hand angrily.
“Then act like one”, Jemima said, her smile twisted.
“You – you – hum-yaaaach!” Kelpie screamed as her platform boots cave in and she fell from the high ladders. Luckily Athan had already watched the swaying ladders and was fast enough to half catch the falling teenager before she hit the ground. The ladders weren’t as luckily though, and they hit the floor with loud clatter and bang.
It took only few seconds for both of the doors that let to the inner quarters of the office to open, revealing two very different questioning looks.
“Ha-ha! I knew we weren’t the only ones in here. Why isn’t he cleaning”, Kelpie asked, turning to face the very old and wrinkled face that belonged to their leader Ammon and pointing the other door where a tall, dark haired man stood grim as usual.
“My, he isn’t?” Ammon asked smiling a little. Worry had vanished from his old eyes as he saw that the awful noise outside his office was nothing more than the normal ruckus made by his children.
“I don’t have to. The slatz have always done such chores for my kind so we barely know what the word means in the first place”, Kieran said from the door, leaning his back to the frame.
“I’ll buy you a dictionary for Christmas. While looking up the word ‘cleaning’ you might want to check the ‘slatz’ too since I don’t think it is really used on this side”, came the somewhat bitter remark from the front door. There was now a nice draft going through the reception room since all the doors were open, the last one occupied now by Ralph.
“Now now, Kieran. You know that the kinds of Ralph have no obligation to serve you and your kind on this side”, Ammon said smiling gently but his look was firm – he was not tolerating this kind of attitude and Kieran knew it very well. “Now Ralph, did you get it?”
“Yes, I had to rob the local store near empty but I got them enough for you”, Ralph said walking hands in his pockets across the room and giving a plastic bag for Ammon “Why do you need this much tooth paste anyway?”
“Oh it is best for polishing silver. Anyway I need that collar of yours too”, Ammon said smiling, taking the bag happily.
“My collar? Why?” Ralph asked suspicious, touching the base of his neck.
“I’m polishing all our silver equipment every year, you know that. It includes your collar”, Ammon said still smiling, but this time his firm eyes were looking Ralph.
“Fine, what ever”, Ralph said rolling his eyes and taking his belt off.
“Ammon said to take your collar off not your clothes. Maybe I should buy you a hearing device for Christmas”, Kieran said smiling mockingly to Ralph.
“I know what he says. I happen to like these pants very much and wouldn’t like to see them torn”, Ralph said with a great stretch on his voice while stripping to his underwear and then starting to work with all the silver jewelry he was wearing, last taking off the thick, two inch collar.
Athan, Kezia and Kelpie were all smiling humorously and even Jemima and Kieran lift up the corner of their lip, while Ralph stripped. They had all witnessed the young man wearing blue boxers with yellow ducks on them so it was interesting to see what had been the day’s underwear choice. Apparently Ralph had learned from the last time since he was now wearing normal loose black boxers, stealing all the fun from his co-workers.
It took only few seconds after he had took the collar off that the change started. One minute later the loose boxers were stretched over muscular hairy legs as much as the loose sweater was tight over the barrel like chest.
“And now if you excuse me, I go to my room to groom myself a little. I’m shedding like a Persian”, Ralph said his normally soft voice coming raspy and bark like through his snout. He took the door where Kieran was still leaning to the frame and left the room.
And with that it seemed the drama had ended. Kelpie picked up the ladders, wised up from her fall, took off her platform boots and started once again the mission to eliminate the dust. Jemima started helping her sister with all the files on her table that was the result of the fact that she had done nothing secretary like in the past 11 months. Athan picked up the microfibre cloth and started going through the huge and very full shelves that covered almost one whole wall of the reception room. Half a hour later, Kieran joined them too, helping the dust fall like the white snow outside.