Autumn Broadcast

“Deep breaths Cassy, you can do this.”

A crow tengu talked to herself as she stands by the door to exit her new home.

“It’s just a new town, a new beginning, with new friends.” She takes in a deep breath and sighs, “Robin set you up to meet up with her cousin here to start a social network anyways, it won’t be that bad.”

Another knock is heard at the door, causing her to flinch and make her nervous once again.

“YOU. CAN. DO. THIS.”

Taking in another deep breath, Cassy opens the door.

“There you are.” Responds a new voice.

Looking down at her porch, Cassy was introduced to one of her new associates. Berri, the ratatokr.

“You must be Robin’s friend, Cassy.” She announced, adjusting her glasses as she looked up to the tengu.

“And you must be Berri.”

“Ah, you’ve done your research. Good! You’ll fit right in.”

Both nodded, knowing that neither would need any further introduction since both already knew enough about the other as it were.

“Welcome to the neighborhood, I’m certain you’ve already figured out where the important things are and where we’re meeting up with the others, but-“

“But it would be a good gesture to still offer to show me?”

“Hehehe. That’s right. You’ll do just fine with the rest of us. Well, no use just standing here. Follow me!”

The sweater-clad ratatokr hopped off the porch and waited for Cassy to follow suit.

Berri was a friend of Robin’s cousin, Katy, who was a member of the local ‘Gossip Circle’, so to say. Every place had one, be it a town, a city, a school, any place that had more than 2 people. Being Crow Tengus themselves, it was natural that they’d be part of this circle. Ratatoskrs were also fairly common to be found in the group as well. Hakutakus weren’t uncommon, and neither were gazers. Truly, the oddity was amongst the two individuals walking to meet the group right now. Both of them would be the youngest two in the group.

As the two walked under the fall trees, Cassy wondered how Berri became involved in this group. Berri was of the same age as Cassy, not that the size would be any sort of indicator, but to be involved with a group that was so much older than them. She knew why she herself had ended up becoming involved. She was the youngest of six, and Robin was originally one of her sister’s friends. It made sense that being involved with her sister’s friends would end up having her make friends with an older age group. But of Berri? She is the eldest amongst her siblings, so it unlikely from that. Unfortunately, Cassy did not have enough time to find an answer to that during her research. This was a new town, too much information and not enough time to fully grasp every aspect of it.

Soon enough, they reached the point of interest, the local park. Since it was Saturday, many of the locals would take a walk or go to the playground area if they had kids. As such, the group would meet up near the chess tables, otherwise they’d meet up by the fountain at the center of the park.

“Welcome to Rodin Park. C’mon, we’re almost there. Gran’s probably already there.”

“Gran?”

“Oh you’ll see.” She smiled.

This was the issue with such hurried research. You end up missing things.

Cassy sighed once more. Worrying about it wasn’t going to fix anything, but curiosity was getting the best of her.

Who was it? Gran was probably short for grandma, but which one? Half the group had grandchildren as it were. Which one was she talking about?

Arriving to the chess area, one could see why this was the group’s meeting place. It was empty, save for a pair of old timers busily playing at one of the stone tables.

At the opposite end was single person pouring sugar into her cup of coffee she had gotten from one of the nearby cafés. This must be Gran.

As if though sensing the two, the purple tinged woman looked up from her cup and turned to face the newcomers that were still on the opposite side of the area. She wiped a lock of her green hair out of the way and smiled, raising her hand to greet them.

“Ah, so that’s Gran.”

“Yep.”

Gran was the echidna of the group. The great-grandmother of the group.

The two made their way to her, to which she stood up to greet the newest member to the group.

“Hello there, you must be Cassy. I’m Stephanie, but you can call me Gran.”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hey Gran.”

“Hello Berri. Any trouble showing her here?”

“Not at all. She’ll do just fine with us.”

“Oh that’s good to hear, we could always use a fresh pair of ears.”

“Hehehe.”

“Oh, please take a seat. No use in standing.”

The group sat down at the table as one of Gran’s snakes began to stir her coffee with the wooden stirrer.

“So Cassy, what brings you here to our little town?”

“Oh please ma’am, I’m sure you all already know.”

“Please, call me Gran. And even so, we like to make sure we got our stuff right.” The echidna chuckled.

Cassy cracked a small smile, reminiscing on doing the same with the new members back home.

“Very well, I came here for a job at the local news station. I’ll be working as the assistant for Michael Rowes on channel 5. I got informed about this job from Robin who had gotten it from Katy. I start next Tuesday and am at $14.25 an hour.”

“Hmm… sounds about right. Berri, if you’d please.” Gran asked, outstretching her hand to the squirrel.

Berri handed her a notepad that Cassy was surprised to see considering that Berri didn’t have any pocket in the clothes she was wearing. Looking back to her, she could see Berri reaching into her tail and pulling out a bottle of chilled coffee… she should’ve guessed.

Not paying attention to the two, Gran lifted the notepad to her face as her other snake lifted the pair of reading glasses that were hanging off her neck. Looking through the half moon shaped spectacles she reviewed scribbles of their youngest member.

“Hmm… seems like we were MOSTLY right. Looks like Debby was off by a day for the start date and Maggy was off by 25 cents. Looks like we need to brush up.”

Taking a sip from her coffee, Gran then continued.

“So. What so you know about us?”

“Only the basics. I know Berri is the youngest of the group, beating me by a few months. She is the oldest of her siblings, which she occasionally uses as her information network. For you, you are the mother of 18 children, of which are the mothers of over 40 children thus far, which have continued the line to 6 great-grandchildren as of… last week. Most of which no longer live here, but you still have family here. Your information network was primarily through children, being that you were almost constantly surrounded by them and how easy it is to have them carelessly relay information to you.”

A sly smile formed on the Echidna’s face as she heard this. She gently blew on her coffee and took another sip from it.

“I think you’ll fit right in with us sweetie.”

END