Log - Laurie, Kyle, and Cain

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Sunday morning, Cain drives Laurie and Kyle to pick up yet another four-legged addition to the mansion's menagerie.



Laurie knocked on Mr Marko's door, almost vibrating with excitement,
today they went to pick up her pot-bellied pig and she couldn't wait.
The sun may have just been cresting over the horizon but she assumed
Mr Marko would already be up anyway, groundskeepers usually were in
her estimation. So it wasn't like she was really waking him up at some
ungodly hour, she was just...giving him company at an hour he might be
feeling lonely. Brilliant!

Cain opened the door, a large mug of coffee in one hand that would
have been a pitcher to anyone else. "Oh, hey," he said, looking down
at Laurie. "today's the day, ain't it?"

Laurie nodded enthusiastically, a wide grin on her face as she stood,
somewhat instinctively, to attention. "Yup! Is it okay if Kyle comes
with? I sort of wanted another opinion on which one to get."

"Pigs are food, not pets." Kyle chimed in from the hallway. "The
only thing I'm consulting on is which one looks the least tasty so
we're not all tempted to eat it with fried eggs." Pets were supposed
to be normal things, like cats or dogs or parrots. Not pigs. But he
wasn't able to say no to Laurie - or Angel, or Jennie. He was just
glad it wasn't Yvette who'd wanted a bacon pet. At least Laurie wasn't
making with the big blue sad eyes.

Cain shrugged and grabbed his jacket off a peg near the door. "Okay
then. You know what you're going to have to do to take care of it,
right? And this place you found raises those, whaddyacallem, little
pot-bellied midget pigs, right?"

"I think so, they said something about baby pigs, anyhow." Laurie
replied, poking her tongue out at Kyle for good measure. "I figure
they'll have all types, right?"

"Well," Cain said as he stepped into the hall and looked down at the
two teenagers, "there's pigs and then there's pigs. You'll
see."

***

Laurie looked out the window of the pickup truck, eyes widening as she
realised that this pig farm obviously had several different varieties
of pig...including some rather grumpy looking sorts that appears to
have little tusks.

"Um, you weren't kidding," she said, glancing at Cain.

Kyle raised his head up from the bed of the truck, and looked across
to the pens. "Those." Kyle declared. "Are demon pigs. They are pigs
from the gates of hell. I've seen them in video games." He let out a
huff, and pulled his hat over his eyes. "Lemee know when you find the
minipigs. Those are too big to make bacon of without them eating you.
I saw it in a movie once."

"There's no such thing as a demon pig, Kyle." Laurie said, before
pausing to think about it for a second. "At least, I think we'd have
to ask Illyana about it, but I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as
a demon pig. Anyway, mini pigs, onwards!"

Cain shook his head as he slid out of the truck and looked around for
anything that looked like an office. "Looks like these folks raise
pigs for one of them big-name companies," he said as he noticed a
number of corporate logos on feed towers and trucks. "Bet you most of
these are sausages and bacon waiting to happen. You sure that you got
the right place to pick up a pet?"

"Hmm, I guess maybe not. I sort of just did a search on google under
'baby pigs' and 'pet'. It had this as the first response though, so
maybe we could go ask?" Laurie replied, looking at a rather large
specimen that appeared to be giving them the evil eye. It was
following them along the fenceline as well, and she was almost
positive if it hadn't been there, they might have been in for some
trouble.

Why any pig would be stupid enough to be aggressive in the presence of
someone as large as Cain, she couldn't be sure but she wondered if it
was a 'guy' thing.

"Why was this a good idea?" Kyle asked, almost to himself. "Dude, I
could've claimed a pig phobia." He leaned against a fencepost,
frowning. "Laurie! I have a pig phobia!" He called out. "We should
go home before I have one of those.. things. Where you freak out from
having to be around stuff you have phobias of." Not that he thought
she would buy it, but it was worth a shot.

"Don't look now, but I think you're being challanged." she said,
grinning up at him.

"The day that pork chops are a challenge, I'll hang up my hat," Cain
drawled, ignoring the pig and jerking a thumb towards a trailer that
seemed to be the closest thing to a business office. "Suppose you
oughta go ask there."

Laurie nodded and walked over to the trailer, knocking firmly against
the side and listening to the scrap of a chair within. After a moment,
the door opened and she was greeted by a somewhat weathered looking
man with steel grey hair and possibly the greenest eyes she'd ever
seen. "Um, hi. My name's Laurie, I was wondering if you might have any
pot-bellied pigs for sale?"

The older man - "Russ" by the name on his shirt - looked down at
Laurie, then over to Kyle and Cain standing by the truck. He shrugged
once then looked back into the trailer. "Pig for sale?" he hollered. A
barely audible reply came from somewhere inside and he grunted back a
response. "M' daughter put the ad up, I s'pose. They're 'round back.
C'mon."

Laurie followed the man somewhat bemusedly, noticing the various
enclosures full of different species of pig. It seemed like a rather
interesting operation to say the least. It was then that she saw him,
her pig, he was tiny and brown and had white stripes.

"Oh, he's gorgeous," Laurie said, hurrying over to the pen to reach over.

Russ grunted as Laurie ran for the pig. "Ain't gon' get much bigger
then a dog," he drawled, looking through squinting eyes at the small
pigs in the corral. "Picked 'em up by accident, ain't much use f'r
stock. Iff'n y'got a place t'keep 'im, prob'ly make a good pet.
Two-fifty, sound good?"

"For a pig?" Cain finally chimed in, looking over at the old man. "You
gotta be kidding me. Those things eat enough as is. Suppose she'd be
doing you a favor taking it off your hands. A hundred."

Russ snorted, then looked at Cain and shook his head. "Two-fifteen."

"Hundred five."

"Two hundred."

"Hundred twenty."

"Hundred seventy-five."

Cain sighed. "Come on, kids. Might as well head out..." He'd barely
turned away before Russ cleared his throat.

"A'ight, hundred-fifty."

"Hundred fifty and you throw in a bag of feed," Cain concluded,
sticking his hand out towards the grizzled pig-keeper. Russ eyed the
big man cautiously, then shook his hand.

Laurie looked back at Cain, and noted the sealed deal before she swung
a leg over the fence and dropped down into the pen. She knew the exact
pig she wanted, he looked a little smaller then the rest and seemed to
be a little way away from the others.

Kyle followed, a few steps back. He knew where this was going. Bugs
loved Laurie, his cat loved Laurie, Angelo's dog loved Laurie. And
he'd seen that stupid Silence of the Lambs sequal where the guy wanted
pigs to eat people. He was not letting Laurie get eaten by pigs. Even
midget pigs.

Laurie hadn't counted on the mud, and she hadn't exactly worn the best
shoes in order to be slogging through it. It was only a few seconds
before she lost a shoe and she looked down mournfully at the hole,
wondering how she was going to get it out.

Baby pigs had started gathering around her now, and they looked up at
her, snuffling their noses as pigs were want to do.

"What?" she asked, somewhat more grumpy then she'd intended and she
could see them start and move away for a second before crowding back
again. "Mr Marko? Kyle? Can one of you help me get my shoe?"