AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She made the same oscillating sound again. It sounded friendly enough.
“Are you here to watch Morgan, too?”
Miso hopped across the bedspread in rolling waves reminiscent of a Chinese dragon during a street festival. She paused two feet from me and lay down in a snake-like coil.
I tapped my pen on my knee and glared at the screen, willing the camera to return to Morgan. Instead, it flipped through other people as they crafted.
Waylen honked his air horn. Everyone put their hands in the air as if they were getting robbed. He said some words about judging as a man and a woman in business suits whispered to each other and walked between the tables.
Layana made a fake cupcake with pillow stuffing for icing, and a paperclip butterfly topper. Apparently she considered herself sweet and sparkly. That wasn’t what I had seen of her so far, but she probably didn’t want to represent herself with a shiv and a threat to the judges’ balls.
Other contestants I didn’t know or care about were highlighted. Some had created introductory posters and hodgepodge collages. One had made a doll out of garbage and broken glass that was meant to look like its creator. It didn’t. But it would most definitely haunt my dreams.
Finally the camera returned to Morgan. Her expression was feral excitement, like a toddler at Disney World. She was actually having fun, which was as much of a surprise to me as it likely was to her.
On the table in front of her sat a golden statue of a weasel.
I turned to Miso. “It’s you.”
“Is that…a ferret?” the female judge asked.
“A weasel,” Morgan replied, pride saturating her words.
“As in you’re sly and sneaky?” the male judge asked.
“No.” Morgan’s expression dropped a fraction. “Weasels are adventurous. They’re heartful.”
Both judges eyed her with suspicion. A poorly-constructed graphic of Morgan running crossed the bottom of the screen with a hammer held up in her hand. The eee-eee-eee stab sound played.
Fury coursed through my veins. How dare they portray her in such a cruel and misleading way?
How dare they dismiss what she said like that? I wouldn’t exactly characterize Miso as heartful, but Morgan earnestly would. She had created a well-crafted piece of art out of garbage, and she’d given a thoughtful explanation as to why she made it.
Morgan deserved better.
Frustrated on her behalf, I rose from my seat and paced between the bed and the television as the judges went through the rest of the pieces.
Miso watched me from her spot on the bed, one eye open.
Waylen called the top and bottom three.
Morgan was neither.
How she hadn’t made the top, I had no idea. I punched my thumb onto the remote, and the screen went black.
“The way she’s being treated is inexcusable,” I told Miso.
She closed the eye she’d had open, completely ignoring me.
Irritation fueling me, I kept pacing. I tried to sit but couldn’t handle staying still. Eventually, I decided a change of scenery might help, so I walked the hotel halls, took the stairs to the lobby, and walked for a while there before returning to our room.
Miso wasn’t on the bed.
I did a quick search in the hall, a small flare of concern rising in my chest, before I spotted her tucked happily into her cage, sleeping in her ferret hammock. The door to the cage was still shut, the latch in place.
I didn’t have long to wonder about Miso’s escapist ways before I heard the click of the door opening.
Morgan burst into the room, her eyes wide, her grin wider. Her hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders. The room felt brighter with her in it.
