The Sun Shines

by Convalescence

Episode 3: Missing Marsupial Madness!

There are more restaurants in Ponyville than just Sugarcube Corner. It has the best desserts bar none, and nopony can beat one of Pinkie's parties there, but most of the time, grown ponies go other places to eat. Not everypony can share the pink mare's sweet tooth after all.

Fluttershy, local animal caretaker-turned-national-hero, is one such pony. The demure, butter-colored, pegasus sits at a table with her pet bunny-rabbit, enjoying a salad made with local flowers. As she politely nibbles on a piece of lettuce, she sees a certain chocolate-coated unicorn leave the kitchen.

Falcata walks past her to clean a recently vacated table, smiling and nodding as she goes. On the way back, she catches Fluttershy between bites and asks, “How is everything?”

Fluttershy brushes the curtain of pink mane out of her face before answering in her normal soft tones. “Oh, it’s very good, Falcata. Thank you.”

“Excellent, I am glad to hear it,” she replies before smiling and leaving the pegasus to her meal.

Fluttershy goes back to eating, with her pet occasionally grabbing a piece of lettuce or carrot to munch on. Not long after, the pegasus sits back and waits for her bill to arrive.

After finishing a few more janitorial duties behind the counter, Falcata emerges to check on her customer and finds that she’s done. Approaching the table, she floats the slip of paper to Fluttershy and says, “I hope everything was to your liking.”

“Yes, definitely,” Fluttershy agrees with a small smile, fetching the coinpurse from her saddlebag. “Your salads are the best in town.”

“Oh, thank you!” Falcata says, not quite beaming at the compliment.

“How early do you open by the way?” She asks, putting the bits on the table. “Something for breakfast might be nice tomorrow, before I leave. Um, if you serve breakfast here…”

Falcata floats the bits up to eye level and quickly checks the amount. “Certainly,” she says, smiling and tucking the bits into the pocket on her apron. “I open at nine in the morning and serve breakfast until midday.”

“Oh, I see…” Fluttershy frowns in thought. “I may need to leave before then…” She’ll find out again how much time she’ll have before the train leaves then think about it more. “Well, thank you anyway.”

“You are welcome,” Falcata replies, pondering the situation. “You have to leave so early? I could possibly open a bit sooner if you would like. Where are you headed?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you… You don’t have to do that,” the polite pegasus immediately insists. “I’m going to Canterlot for the day to meet with a pony researching Manticores. Or, um, I am if I can find somepony to help watch one of the animals.”

Falcata nods a little. “I do miss Canterlot and would like to visit myself again sometime soon, and that doth sound like an interesting pony to meet with.” She tilts her head. “What sort of animal do you need watched? I am sure there must be somepony who could do that for you.”

“Oh, it’s just one little opossum…” Fluttershy tells her. “But the problem is that he’s sick, and I’ve been keeping him away from all the other critters. I have somepony to watch the other animals, but having them watch both would be very hard. I was going to ask Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, but they’ll be in school.”

“Oh, is that all? Seemeth he would not be too much to mind. How long will you be gone?”

“O-only the day, but you don’t need to do that. You have to work after all,” Fluttershy points out before she goes and inconveniences somepony by talking about her animal problems.

Falcata smiles and says, “While that may be true, I do have two foals who like animals and could watch him for you. Doth he need any special care since he is ill?”

“Thank you, Falcata,” the pegasus mare happily says and smiles. “If it really won’t be any trouble, it’d be so kind of you and your children. And no, no medicine yet or anything like that. Just um, keeping him in a warm place with plenty of water to drink.”

“I believe we can manage that,” the unicorn replies lightly. She didn’t mind helping somepony like Fluttershy. “If you wish to bring him by at any time you can, or you can bring him in the morning if you wish?”

“I do still have getting ready to do… Yes, I’ll bring him tomorrow morning. Oh, thank you again for helping me.”

“You are welcome. A way for me to thank you in turn for being a good customer,” Falcata says with a smile. “Tomorrow morning will be fine. I hope you enjoy your trip to Canterlot. Say hello to the princesses for me, if you happen to see either.”

Fluttershy’s smile doesn’t lessen, but she does blink at the oddly casual mention of the princesses. “Um, okay, I will…” She thanks Falcata again, then apologizes for thanking her so much before leaving to finish getting ready for tomorrow.

[Theme song plays]

That night, Falcata returns home with some interesting news for her two favorite foals. Over dinner, she informs them that she’d volunteered to watch over the sick little critter for sweet, kind Fluttershy and that it meant that they’d have to help out.

Kopis finishing nibbling his glazed carrots and asks, “So, um, how do we do that? What does it eat?”

Falcata shakes her head slightly. “I am not terribly sure myself, but Fluttershy assured me that it was simple enough. I assume she hath something to feed him with, or it is something simple and cheap. We only have to watch him for tomorrow while she is gone to Canterlot, so I doubt it will be overly difficult.”

Kris puts her fork down and asks, “So, how’d this happen exactly? What does she normally do with her animals if she has to travel?”

“She hath other friends to watch them, but she said there was nopony to watch the opossum for her this time. When she told me that she would have been unable to travel over it, I could not in good conscience let such a trivial thing stop her…” Falcata smiles sheepishly and taps her forehooves together, realizing how silly it was that she was having to justify to her own foals why she was doing something that seemed perhaps a little too generous for somepony she didn’t know personally. “Can I count on ye two to help? All ye will have to do is keep an eye on him from time to time and ensure that he hath food and water.”

Kopis and Kris exchange glances and shrugs. “Sure,” they say in unison.

Falcata grins. “Excellent, thank ye. Fluttershy is a very kind mare who deserveth a bit of help on occasion.” She stands and prepares to collect everypony’s plates, and says, “She should be bringing him by in the morning. Kopis, since thou dost not have school until the afternoon, thou wilt need to keep an eye on him while thou art here, alright? And Kris, thou wilt return home before me tomorrow, so help thy brother when thou returnest home, alright?”

Both foals nod and stand too. “Okay,” Kopis says, picturing what a sick opossum must look like and figures it couldn’t be hard. He’d probably just lay around all day anyway.

---

The next morning, Kopis finds himself roused by his mother at an unholy hour in the morning, with claims about some kind of creature that he was going to have to help watch, and that he agreed to all of this the night before. Guh. Did his mom have to get up this early every morning?

He stumbles into the front room after refreshing himself a little and grabbing some kind of iced pastry that his mom had waiting on him and his sister. He plops down on the couch and starts munching on it as he waits. Kris comes and goes with her pastry in her magic and her book bag on her back, and finally his mom settles down on the couch to wait with him. “I am not certain when she will be by. Before I had to open up this morning at least.”

Kopis nods and keeps chewing on what he thinks is strawberry flavored goo inside of the pastry. “Mmkay.” Bed was calling his name…

Only a few minutes later, two very quiet knocks sound at the door.

“That must be her,” Falcata says, hopping up from the couch. She opens the door and steps out to meet their guest. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. I hope it’s not too early…” Fluttershy tells her apologetically. Unusually, she’s wearing a hat and dress, which makes more sense with Falcata knowing she’s going into the city today. On the steps in front of her, there’s a wooden carrier of the kind that somepony would use to keep a small dog. However, it’s empty.

“Oh no, I have been up for some time already.” Falcata points at the carrier. “Is the opossum with you?”

“Oh, yes he is.” She turns to the side to show the animal resting between her wings. Its coat is silver-grey, turning to white at its face and black around the ears. Its pink nose, feet, and thick, leathery, tail lack fur. The opossum is sleeping soundly in its feathery cradle.

Falcata smiles and resists the urge to pet him. “He is a cute little thing. Is there anything else I need to know about caring for him? What doth he eat?”

“They aren’t very picky eaters at all. Vegetables, fruit, nuts…” Fluttershy lists the things a pony would probably have in their kitchen, knowing most ponies don’t keep meat or fish around. “I’m sure you can find something here he’ll eat.”

“Ah, alright. Yes, that should be no problem then. Shall we take him inside and get him situated?” she asks, stepping aside and holding the door open.

“Yes, thank you,” Fluttershy says, walking in past her with the carrier in her mouth. “I can’t stay for very long, because my train will be leaving soon,” she says after setting the carrier down in the living room and gently letting the opossum slide off onto the couch.

Kopis blinks sleepily at the sleepy little thing. “Oh, this is him?” He leans a little closer. “What’s his name?”

“Mhmm. I call him Patter or just Pat. For the sounds his little feet make when he scampers around,” Fluttershy says in a cute tone, petting the resting critter.

“Oh, that is a cute name,” Falcata says.

Kopis nods. “Uh huh.” He looks between the mares and asks, “So, um, I just need to keep an eye on him?”

His mom nods too. “Yes. I will go get something for him to eat, one moment.” She backs away and disappears into the kitchen.

“He isn’t feeling well, so he should sleep like an angel,” the pegasus tells Kopis. “Just makes sure you give him water in a bowl if he wants it, and has somewhere warm to sleep.”

“Hmm, okay.” He grabs a blanket from the back of a chair and makes a little nest for him to settle into if he wants. “How’s that?”

Fluttershy gives him a warm smile. “That’s very good. I’m sure he’ll be comfortable.”

Kopis grins, happy that he’s apparently qualified to make beds for small mammals. Around that time, his mom returns with a small bowl of diced veggies of various sorts, including some carrots, chunks of potato and some stuff that Kopis can’t quite identify. She sets it on the floor next to the couch along with another bowl of water. “There, I hope that is all to his liking.”

“It looks delicious,” she assures Falcata softly. Standing up, Fluttershy looks towards a clock. “I’m sure he’s in good hooves. Thank you both so much for doing this.”

She smiles back. “You are most welcome. When will you be returning to pick him up? Tonight or tomorrow?”

“Later tonight for sure. I’ll only be in Canterlot for the day.” Expecting them to watch him overnight would be a little much.

“Alright then. I am sure I will be home by then.” Falcata turns toward the door. “Well, no need to keep you waiting so that you miss your train.”

Fluttershy nods. “I’d like to tell you more about him, but I need to leave… Thank you again,” she says to both of the ponies after giving Patter a final pat.

“You are welcome,” Falcata repeats, walking her to the door. “We will see you again tonight.”

And so Fluttershy says her goodbyes to everypony and possum, and moves on to the train station before she’s late.

After waving her off, Falcata heads back inside to grab her things so she could head off to work. She stops at the couch and gives the opossum a little stroke. “You will be fine here without me this morning, right?” she asks Kopis.

He chuckles weakly. “I always am.”

His mom gives him a little brush with a hoof at the smart comment. “Alright then. I am off to the restaurant. Take care and have a good day at school.” She leans down to give him a little peck on the cheek.

“Okay mom, I will.” He gives her a little hug and waves to her as she heads off. Once she’s gone, he hops back up onto the couch and curls up into a little knot. Ugh, he hated getting up this early. He points a hoof at Patter and says, “Don’t go anywhere, okay?” He nods. “Okay.” While he wasn’t going to try to go to sleep, he wasn’t going to try too hard not to either. It didn’t look like Patter was in much of a mood to wander away anyway.

---

Kopis jerks awake with a start, having drifted off to sleep almost unintentionally and had a weird dream about trying to sneak past some ponies while in his ninja outfit and using the book, but being spotted anyway. By an opossum.

He stretches and licks his lips, trying to remember why he was on the couch instead of bed and wondering what there might be to drink in the fridge. He looks over and sees an empty blanket folded up into a nest, and an unfortunate realization strikes him.

“Uh oh…”

He jumps off the couch and looks around. “Patter? Hey, you around?” He starts searching the room for any sign of the little fuzzball. Oh crap...

From the kitchen, Kopis hears soft scratching, scrabbling sounds. His ears perk up and he scurries that way. Dang it, of all the rooms in the house for it to go messing around in, the kitchen! If it ate anything important his mom was going to be mad… He hurries into the room and sees a box of pasta clatter to the floor, which thankfully wasn’t something rare or super valuable. “Patter!”

The opossum in question is hanging by its arms off the top of an open cabinet. It looks over at Kopis and sneezes, but shows no sign of guilt for its climbing. That’s just what opossums do.

Kopis trots over to the cabinet and props himself up on it, but frustratingly the little furball was well out of reach. Argh, why couldn’t he have a horn like his mom and sister? They always built stuff without thinking about him! Well… the house and cabinet kind of existed before he did, but still! He sits and glowers at Patter. “Don’t go anywhere… I’ll be right back.” There had to be a stepstool or something else he could use to climb up and reach him.

Patter stays still, hanging from the door of the cabinet with his tail swinging back and forth.

To his luck, there’s a step stoop in the pantry itself, which he snags and positions strategically to allow him to recover Patter.

By the time he has the stool in the right spot, the critter has moved further up, now hanging off the top of the cabinet itself. His tail is braced against the inside to steady himself, and when Patter sees Kopis under him, it moves and snags a bag of flour. The bag tumbles down through the air and towards the floor!

At the last moment, Kopis snags the bag with his hooves before it becomes a flour bomb. “Hey, sit still!” He sets the bag somewhere safe and tries to reposition himself to grab Patter. Seemed he’d have to do something his mom really wouldn’t approve of. He jumps up onto the counter and hurries toward the cabinet.

Patter peeks over the top of the cabinets, looking down. The possum sneezes again, but doesn’t feel the need to hurry. Though he does see something interesting in the kitchen…

Before the animal can go investigate, Kopis scrambles up the cabinet shelves at an incredible pace! Before Patter knows what happened he finds himself grabbed and squirming to get out of the pony’s hooves. He’d never seen one climb like that before!

“Gotcha!” Kopis secures the opossum and sits back on the counter for a moment. “You shouldn’t be climbing around in here. You could get me in a lot of trouble if mom was home. ‘Kopis, get thine hooves off of the counter!’” He snorts and slips off back down to the ground, realizing it was going to be hard to carry an unwilling critter and walk. He really wished he had magic sometimes…

Thankfully for Kopis, despite being as big as a cat and having some nasty teeth, Patter is docile enough to not try too much to get away. Kopis can hobble along on three legs, with the fourth holding the occasionally twisting animal.

Once back in the front room, Kopis deposits Patter back on the couch and holds the food bowl up for him. “Here, you hungry?”

He responds by impaling a potato chunk on one of his canines, eating it, then moving on to the rest of the veggie bowl. His tail wags back and forth slowly, like he’s seen some of the other animals that live with the yellow pony do.

Kopis smirks and sits back, holding the bowl steady. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The critter chows down until there’s nothing left in the bowl, then promptly lays back down in the bundle of blankets.

Kopis gives Patter a little pat and lays back on the couch himself. “There you go.” Hey, he could do this caring for pets thing. It was easy. They fed themselves for the most part.

After a minute of sitting there, Kopis remembers that the kitchen was still messy after their little escapade, so he slips off the couch. “Don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll be right back.” He trots off to go put the flour and step stool up before he forgets completely.

The potential mess is cleaned up easily enough, thanks to Kopis’ reflexes earlier. It only takes a minute or two to put the flour back where it belongs, though it does involve more standing on the counters. When he gets back to the living room, Patter is in much the same place he was left.

Good, maybe he’d learned his lesson. ...whatever that was. Kopis decides that he’s going to need something to do if he was going to avoid having Patter vanish on him again, and he ducks into his room to grab a sketch pad and pencil. Returning to the couch, he gets into a comfortable position and starts thinking up stuff to doodle while he waited for time to go to school.

He manages to keep himself alert and occupied for a while, doodling Power Ponies, ninjas, wonky looking opossums and other random shapes. He has to subdue Patter a time or two, but fortunately the critter can’t get too far before he does. “Y’know, I’m going to have to put you in that cage when I head to school. If you keep going all over the place I might have to do it sooner.” He flops back on the couch. “Not sure what else to do right now. Ugh, so bored.”

Showing little obvious signs of understanding Kopis, the opossum looks away from him when he stops talking and moves over to his water bowl. His drinks the last of it down, then nudges it a few times.

“Thirsty?” Kopis stretches and hops down to retrieve the bowl. “Okay, a little water coming up.” He disappears into the kitchen to refill the bowl like a good little caretaker, then returns to the front room to present the refreshing liquid to Patter.

Or so he thinks! The opossum is again gone when he trots back there. The blanket laying partway off the couch from his clever escape plan.

“Oh you… thing...” Kopis grumbles. He’d been had alright. “Yep, you’re going in the cage when I find you.” He sets the bowl on the floor and starts searching for his runaway.

Kopis figuratively turns the living room upside-down in short order, looking in every possible place, and finding no trace of Patter… until from behind the couch he sneezes and darts out into the kitchen again.

“Hey! Don’t go back in there and make a mess! Mom’ll be really irritated if you do!” He gives chase to the little booger, hoping to catch him before he can burrow his way into a stack of boxes, bags or pots and pans.

Before Kopis even stops, the coughing marsupial is scrambling up the cabinet in front of the sink. He scrabbles after him, again cursing his lack of magic that would let him snag Patter from where he was. “Come on, don’t go up there, please?”

Patter looks at Kopis and tilts his head… then looks back behind him at the open window that Kopis failed to notice before, very slowly stepping towards it.

“Nononononono,” Kopis pleads as he dives for the opossum. If he got outside he was in so much trouble! He could go under the house or into the woods or something!

Patter looks back at Kopis, and then back at the inviting outside world. This place does have some more parts to explore, and some seemed warm and comfortably dark… The colt lunging at him makes up his mind, and the opossum hops out the window.

“Fffffffffuuuuuuu-” Kopis crashes into the cabinet and stares at the window Patter vanished through. “-udge.” He jumps up and darts for the door. “Darndarndarndarn!”

Outside, the morning in Ponyville is sunny and a little chilly, but nothing a coated pony would feel. Kopis can’t see Patter, but from somewhere further down the street he hears a mare shriek.

“Oh crap. Oh crap.” Kopis swallows his fear and bolts in that direction, hoping it wasn’t somepony just being dramatic for the sake of it!

A few houses down, Daisy, a mare he knows vaguely as one of the flowers vendors, is talking to Rose and stomping her hooves quickly. “Ew, ew, ew! It was like a giant rat! And it ran right under me!”

Kopis skids to a halt next to them and demands, “Which way did it go?” How fast could an opossum go anyway?

“That way,” the mare says and points without thinking. Apparently he’s still moving down the street, for now… As the colt moves on, he can hear the upset mare mumble, “I think it sneezed on me… I need to see a doctor.” Her friend rolls her eyes and goes back to tending her own flower cart.

“Thanks!” he blurts out as he dashes that way. Come on, it didn’t seem this fast at home, he had to be catching up!

Unfortunately for Kopis, a critter with the sniffles is just as fast as one without, if a little unhappier. While running, he does spot a familiar tail go around a corner up ahead. Bingo! He pours on as much speed as he can and gallops around the corner after it.

As he approaches the corner, he hears a familiar filly’s voice, but can’t slow down in time to avoid almost colliding with its owner when he turns the corner. “..They’re supposed to live in the forest, I’m not sure why-” Sonata and Peat dodge out of the way to either side. “Hey, Kopis!”

Kopis prances in place and flashes them a nervous smile. “Hey guys. Um, did you see an opossum running through here just now? It’s kinda important.”

“Yeah, it went that way,” Sonata says, pointing towards the nearby stream that runs through town. “What’s going on?”

Kopis starts backing that way while still prancing. “Oh, you know. Mom volunteered to watch it for Fluttershy and it got outside. Um, gotta go!” He turns and bolts toward the stream.

“How’d it get out?” she asks trying to keep pace alongside him. Peat follows too, and the three foals can spot a small silver-white shape running towards the a log that lays across the stream.

“Um, the window was open.” How that happened he still didn’t know…

Ahead of them still, Patter hops up onto the log and scurries across to the other side, using his large tail to keep his balance above the water. If he keeps running how he is, he’ll reach the edge of the Whitetail Woods soon!

Crap! Kopis scurries after him, caring not if he gets wet or worse. “Sonata, can you get him with your magic?”

“No, not from here, it’s too far!” She shouts back from behind him. By the time they reach the log-bridge, the critter is on the other side.

“Patter! Stop, come back!” Kopis shouts, leaping after him. He manages to keep his balance as he crosses the stream and gains on the creature, with his two friends running behind him. All of them approach the treeline, with the opossum getting there first. But, to everypony’s relief, he climbs up the nearest tree, instead of running further into them.

Kopis isn’t so sure he’s going to stay in that tree though, and worries he’ll try to jump to another. “Patter… come down, please! I’m sorry, I won’t put you in the cage, okay?”

With all four legs and a tail wrapped around a thick branch, Patter looks down and with an opossum’s limited range of facial expressions, somehow manages to give the colt a skeptical look. Then he sneezes again and has to right himself on his perch.

The colt walks under him and stares up. “Man… mom’s going to kill me…”

Peat sits on his haunches, and still manages to almost be eye-level with the other two. “What’re we doing about this?” He points a hoof up.

“I don’t know…” Kopis whines.

“One of us could climb up after him,” he suggests, clearly meaning himself or Kopis.

Naturally. Kopis looks down at his hooves, which very obviously weren’t intended to be used in scaling trees, and tries to figure out how this was going to work. It was his fault that Patter was out here though, and he wasn’t going to back down from a suggestion like that. “Mind giving me a boost?”

“Eeyup.” Peat kneels beside the tree, and standing on him, Kopis can definitely reach high enough to grab the first branch.

“Thanks.” Kopis steels himself and reaches up, grasping the branch securely with a hoof. Or as securely as he could anyway. Hesitantly, he hauls himself up, kicking little flecks of bark free from the trunk as he goes. “Okay Patter, don’t go anywhere…”

Despite it being a hard thing for little ponies to do, Kopis makes his way up the tree slowly but surely. Patter backs up on his branch, but find himself out of room on the branch and with no higher ones to move to. The colt hangs on to the trunk for dear life… and has to wonder how he’s going to grab a squirming critter and climb back down.

Yep, being anything but an earth pony would be so awesome right now. Kopis sighs and sees that this isn’t going to be easy. “Okay Patter, c’mon. Don’t you want to see Fluttershy again?”

Patter stares at the small, brown, pony, not understanding, except that he made the sound he others call the yellow pony. Except she isn’t around, and he has no idea where she went. He’ll stay right where he is until she comes to get him.

“Ugh, so much for that.” Kopis stretches a hoof out tentatively before snapping back to the trunk. “Um… um… you two have any ideas?”

“Nope,” Peat answers. He’d thought Kopis would try to grab it, but it is a big fall…

“Maybe I could fake Fluttershy’s voice? He might listen to that. I usually don’t do anything besides music though…”

“Okay,” Kopis replies anxiously.

The unicorn filly concentrates, and after a moment her horn begins to glow. From nowhere, but centered around her, a mare’s voice sounds. “Oh, uh… Patter? Could you please come down out of that tree?” To the colts, it doesn’t sound very much like Fluttershy specifically, besides being quiet and demure, and has a little too much of Cheerilee in there.

But, it’s apparently enough for the opossum. His dark ears perk up, and he looks over the side of his branch on both sides, then drops down to a lower one and again until he’s on the ground. He sits down and looks all around, holding up his tiny pink feet. She’s still here after all! Now, where is she…?

Kopis waves his hooves frantically, trying to instruct his friends to nab the little critter while he was confused. If he tried to climb down from this tree Patter was going to make another break for it long before he got down there!

Sonata obliges, snatching up the critter in a hazy, aqua, field. He tries to move around frantically, for a second before shutting his eyes and going totally limp.

“Whew, thanks.” Kopis very cautiously lowers himself out of the tree. “Man, I thought he and I were goners for sure.”

“Uh…” Peats nervously gestures at the possum with a hoof. Maybe Kopis spoke too soon!

Now what’s he doing? Kopis leans in to scrutinize Patter’s apparently comatose body. “Hey, wait.. isn’t this what they call playing possum?” He pokes Patter once. The animal doesn’t even flinch, true to the title. “Mmhmm. That’s it. I’m on to you…””

“He’s okay then?” Peat asks, unsure.

Sonata answers, still holding him in her magic. “This is what possums do when they’re scared. He’s just acting.”

“Yep.” Kopis looks back toward his house. “So, um… guess I should get him home again. And lock the windows this time.”

“Yeah, I hope!” Sonata jokes. “Want me to help carry him back?”

He chuckles nervously. “If you don’t mind. Kinda hard to carry him and walk at the same time if you just have hooves.” He wasn’t going to carry Patter in his mouth. Even if he wasn’t sick. Eww.

“Yeah, no problem.” Sonata can follow him back home and carry the critter, but Peat has to get back home to start getting ready for school.

“See you soon,” Kopis tells his fellow earthpony before trotting back home with Sonata. “Well, that was more excitement than I wanted this morning. Never thought I’d be looking forward to school.”

“I’m still not,” Sonata admits, setting Patter down on the couch. He lays down, apparently having tired himself out.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to babysit and chase this thing around all morning. At least now I can stick him in the cage. Well, have to I guess.” Kopis starts to do that, but hesitates. “I guess I can wait until I get ready to leave though.”

“Can I stay until then?” Sonata asks, sitting down on the couch and scooping up Patter to cuddle with the cute critter.

He nods and joins her on the couch. “Sure. How long do we have anyway?”

Petting the possum, she glances around. “Where’s the clock? ...Oh, we have a while.”

“Hmm, okay. Now… what to do…” Kopis starts trying to think of some kind of group activity to keep them occupied until school started, but he’s not coming up with much. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if they just sat around and talked?

Moments later, the door pops open and Kris trots in. “Hey you two. Still got the opossum inside and safe?”

Kopis blinks at her, then remembers something about her having a half day that day. “Oh, uh, yep. No trouble. I’d keep the windows closed though.” He chuckles nervously.

Kris drops her bags next to the door and nods slowly. “Uh… huh…” She steps closer to get a good look at Patter. “So, uh, I guess it’s my turn to watch him now?”

“At least when we head off to school, yeah,” Kopis replies.

Sonata is still holding the peacefully snoozing animal in her forelegs and petting him. “You have to watch him closely, he’s a tricky one.”

“I’m guessing that’s got something to do with that window comment from before?” Kris asks her little brother.

“Uh… yeah. Mom doesn’t need to know about that though…”

Kris smirks and shrugs. “Just as long as he behaves himself now.”

He seems to, for the rest of the time the younger ponies have. The sweet creature sleeps peacefully, occasionally sneezing or coughing. Patter only moves to finish his food from before. Eventually, Kopis and Sonata leave for school, leaving Kris alone with the opossum. Deciding to enjoy her time with the house all to herself, she sits back on the couch and opens a magazine… just as one of Patter’s eyes opens.