Plouie's Reactions to Stimuli Are Inherently Unpredictable

Yesterday afternoon I spent several hours happily rearranging my books.  This had some unanticipated consequences: a terrified chupacabra and a religiously inspired penguin.

Submitting my dissertation a few weeks ago necessitated returning all of my library books.  We're talking about sixty, seventy-odd books; an entire bookcase was devoted to holding them.  I acquire new books faster than I can read them, and I read very fast (as in, I've had complete strangers come up to me and comment on how fast I read), so that extra shelf space was sorely needed, let me tell you.  Now I actually have five empty shelves, which is a dangerous thing.

Since I had so many empty shelves, I decided to let the chupacabra have one.  It had been sitting with the books on mythology, but it had to be on the very edge, and I thought it might prefer a bit more space.  Plus, there are more people for it to talk to on the other side of the room.  We still can't communicate with it, but I'm hoping that if it's closer to a larger number of potential conversation partners, it might start picking up bits of English or Common.  So the chupacabra now shares a shelf with the Calling Cat and the Elegant Elephant.  You have not previously heard of the Calling Cat or the Elegant Elephant because neither of them is plush.

Seleucus, Rusty, Magick, and Plouie had been hanging out in the south room last week, but it was time for Seleucus and Rusty to go back to the north room, so AJD came to get them.  (This is just as well, because I don't really have capacity for more than two visitors.)  Seleucus was ready to go back of his own accord, but Rusty wanted to stay, especially with Magick in here.  He didn't have a choice in the matter, though: Alfredo was insistent that his brief vacation from lessons was over.  Rusty was only persuaded to go without being forcibly dragged when it was pointed out to him that he wouldn't have to put up with Plouie any more.  After that he was rather eager to leave.

Before they headed out, AJD asked how Plouie had reacted to the chupacabra, and I realised that he probably wasn't aware of it yet.  Plouie's observational skills are predictably minimal.  He wouldn't have noticed it from across the room, and the chupacabra's new shelf isn't particularly near the floor.  AJD admitted he was very curious to see what would happen when Plouie finally noticed the chupacabra, and pointed out that there's no telling how Plouie will react to anything.

We looked at each other.  The temptation became too strong to resist.  We had to introduce Plouie to the chupacabra immediately.

I moved the Calling Cat a bit so that there was room for Plouie to roost on the shelf.  The moment I plunked him down, Plouie all but pounced on the chupacabra and started hugging it.  I had to pull him off.  The chupacabra tried to disappear into its corner.  It was terrified, poor thing.  It's usually so inscrutable, too; I think this was the first identifiable reaction we've seen from it.  (We apologised, but I'm not sure it understood.)

Our first thought was that Plouie was in love with the chupacabra.  This was a reasonable conclusion, given the data.  ('Poor chupacabra,' AJD said.  'An amorous Plouie would scare anyone.')  But this turned out to be incorrect.  After I'd removed him from the shelf, Plouie turned around, looked up at the chupacabra, and started repeatedly bowing to it.  He was venerating it.

Naturally this confused us immensely.  After all, Plouie's thoughts on religion are very well-known around here, and the chupacabra is very clearly not a blue penguin.  

The only way to unravel this conundrum, unfortunately, was to ask Plouie himself, and this took a very long time, because Plouie is Plouie.  There wasn't an obvious way to ask him about his religion without mentioning the Blue Penguin of Happiness, and whenever you do that he gets very excited and starts jumping all over the place exclaiming 'The Blue Penguin of Happiness!' over and over and basically becomes even less coherent than he usually is.  But we were finally able to get an answer out of him: Plouie has concluded that the chupacabra is the Footman of the Blue Penguin of Happiness and therefore to be adored and venerated.

Apparently the Blue Penguin of Happiness has both a Footman and a Handmaiden.  Who knew Plouie was capable of such complicated cosmology?

Anyway, so Plouie thinks the chupacabra is some sort of divine avatar.  We need to explain this to the poor chupacabra (and also assure it that we're never going to let Plouie get that close to it again), which probably means we need to bring in Pedro.

Goats

IS sent me links to three adorable pictures of baby goats.  They were sufficiently adorable that we decided to smuggle Nicodemus in past the chupacabra to look at them.  This was accomplished by AJD singing 'Granada!' while I slunk by with Nicodemus, keeping my back to the chupacabra.

Here you are, three adorable pictures of baby goats - with bonuses!

This one is asserting its natural position: dominance over sheep:

And this one comes with a bonus Archbishop of Georgia.

I told IS that there should be a rule that all bishops (arch or otherwise) have a baby goat.


Nicodemus enjoyed the goats, but then I made the mistake of casually referring to how it was worth smuggling him past the chupacabra, and he got twitchy.  Really, really twitchy.  So we smuggled him out again.  This time we were singing the opening song from Curtains.

A Cryptic Arrival

My brother's been here visiting, so I've gotten behind on posting stuff.  I really should have posted this a week ago.  But better later than never.

So.  I have mysteriously acquired a chupacabra.

AJD and I went to Vericon the weekend before last; I was sharing a room with KEH.  She got there first, and the room was in her name.  When I got to the room, both of the beds appeared to be claimed: one of them had a book and a blanket, and the other a mysterious cryptid, a note, and a flat wrapped package.  I'd thought there was only to be the two of us, so I was rather confused.  When KEH came in, I asked her which bed was hers, and she said the one with the book, and I asked her about the cryptid, and she said, 'Oh, I thought that was yours.'

Clearly she did not think he was mine, because the room was in her name and she had arrived first, and all, but she maintained complete innocence as to how the mysterious cryptid came to be in my room.  She pointed out that it is well known I have a habit of taking in plush creatures and perhaps my reputation led him to me.

Upon investigation, we discovered that the cryptid was a chupacabra, the wrapped package was a book about cryptozoology, and the note was in Spanish, and typed in an eldritch font, as follows (the original capitalisation and punctuation have been reproduced faithfully):

QUERIDA DAMA

BUSCO ASILO EN SU PAIS

TRAIGO CONMIGO ESTE LIBRA PARA QUE SEPA UD LOS CONOCIMIENTOS DE MI PUEBLO

SE PUEDE CONFIAR EN MI COMPORTAMIENTO EN COMPANIA DE LAS CABRAS

We have not yet verified whether he can be trusted with goats.  It seems best to be cautious, for Nicodemus's sake.  Anyway.

This is, at present, all I really know about the chupacabra, as he speaks only Spanish and Cryptic, and AJD and I speak neither.  While we were at Vericon, I left him in the hotel room with the TV remote control, and he entertained himself by watching Mexican soap operas, which he seemed to find hilarious.  But I can't ask him where he came from, or even what his name is, and he's a very inscrutable little chap who doesn't give much away. 

He has spikes all the way down his side, and also wings, neither of which can be seen clearly here, but you can see the book he brought with him just behind his right shoulder. 

So we have a mystery.  How and why did the chupacabra come to be here?  Can he truly be trusted with goats?  Can he be trusted at all?  I've become quite fond of him, and I don't really think he is here for sinister reasons or with a sinister purpose, but he's rather hard to read, so I can't be totally sure.