Fathers, Children and Utter Catastrophy
A tale of unfortunate accidents and illbegotten parents
By Sanae Chameleon-Cat


Chapter 1
Where The Trouble All Began


It was a fairly normal day in the Prower/Rose household. Tails was 
snoozing on the couch, the TV loudly blaring some children's cartoon show 
where a dog and a cat were simutaniously exploding. Marian sat on the 
couch next to her father, munching down brightly coloured cereal and 
laughing loudly as the dog got an anvil dropped on his head and waddled 
around as a pancake for the next few minutes. Amy Rose was sitting in a 
chair, distractedly flipping through the pages of a magazine, uncaring 
that it was one of Tails' magazines and featured a wide aray of business 
suits and men's underwear. She was too busy talking on the phone to 
care.
"Uh-huh......" she murmured, casting furtive glances at Tails' orange 
hair over the couch back, waiting to see movement. Besides the steady 
intake and outtake of breath, she saw none and continued her concealed 
conversation. "Yeah, he's done nothing but lay around the house since he 
got back from training. He's really got it coming to him. Twelve 
o'clock? Yeah, sure, I'll have Marian all ready. Tell him? What makes you 
think I'm going to tell him?" She laughed. "He'll figure it out soon 
enough. All right. Goodbye." She replaced the phone back on its holder and 
turned, smiling to herself. Marian giggled loudly as there was a bang 
and pieces of the cat flew all over the television screen. Amy sighed and 
swept over beside her daughter. She looked down at Marian and was met 
with a multicoloured grin, as she was pretty much covered with the 
multicoloured cereal.
Amy Rose sighed and looked over again at her sleeping husband. She 
couldn't wait for twelve o'clock to come, and then she would be able to do 
something she'd been wanting to do for a very long time. A smile crept 
on her face at the very thought of what was coming and she gave Marian 
a napkin and looked out the window.
'Hurry up, hurry up,' she thought desperately, listening to the sounds 
of the cartoon cat getting blown up once again. 'By the Ancient 
Walkers, hurry up!'


********************


Across town, a similar conversation was taking place, and the household 
was in just as much (if not more) disawary than Tails'. Queen Sally 
shifted the phone and plugged up her available ear, shouting into the 
reciever. In the background, Miles had chased one of the cats underneath an 
armchair and it was hissing and spitting like mad, swiping at 
everything it could. Julayla was sitting next to Sally, a broken bottle lying at 
her feet and bawling her tiny little eyes out.
"Hold on a minute, will you?" she shouted, then covered the phone with 
a hand and shouted over Julayla's bellowing. "Miles!"
He looked up, surprised, the cat's tail in one hand. "Yeah?"
"Get your sister a new bottle of milk please!" she hollered, as 
Julayla's crying rose another few decibles.
The boy hedgehog nodded, released the cat, and walked over to his 
screaming sister. "Shut up, Julayla!" he screamed in her face, making her 
crying even worse as she flopped backwards on the tile floor, wailing 
with all her might.
Sally turned back to the phone and ajusted the volume to full-blast. 
"What?!" she shouted, clamping the phone to her ear. "You want me to do 
what?! Leave them with who?" There was a pause and her eyes seemed to 
bug right out of their sockets. This time, she shouted again, but no 
longer for lack of hearing, in plain old-fashioned shock. "What?! You want 
WHO to take care of my children?! Do you have any idea what would 
happen if I left them with him?!"
At that moment, everyone's actions were interrupted by a loud hissing 
noise, followed by a tremendous yelp. Julayla stopped crying momentarily 
to look over and see what caused the noise, as did everyone else. There 
stood Sonic, looking extremely ill-tempered, a large rip in the leg of 
his pants and the cat (who had decided it was safe to retreat out from 
under the sofa) spitting loudly. It took them all a moment to realise 
what had happened, but when they did, they almost laughed.
Underneath one of Sonic's boots was the ginger tail of their cat, and 
it was quite unhappy about it.
"You stupid animal!" the hedgehog roared, picking up the hissing cat by 
the tail. It swiped at him again, making him even more furious. In one 
swift movement, he opened the front door and chucked the yowling cat 
out of it. Then, slamming it, continued making his way across the living 
room.
His reaction to the cat's attack was such a surprise that Miles forgot 
completely about the bottle he was holding in his hands and it slipped 
from his grip and smashed into a thousand pieces on the floor. This 
just spurred Julayla into her crocodile tears once again and Sally tried, 
desperately, to hear the person on the other end of the phone.
"Oops......" Miles said, reaching down to mop up the spilled milk with 
a towel in one hand, having stuffed the other one in his ear to drown 
his sister's cries.
Sonic growled and cupped his hands over his ears as well. "Shut her 
up!" he cried loudly, moving towards Sally and the refridgerator where 
Miles was bent, trying to mop up the milk, but only succeeding in making 
an even larger puddle.
Sally looked at her husband, who looked as though he was in a great 
deal of pain, and then thought about the proposition she had just been 
offered. "I don't think so......It's really not a good idea." There was a 
pause as she listened to her correspondent's response. Her eyes never 
left Sonic's aggrivated face as he waded through the two piles of 
spilled milk and stuck his head in the refridgerator. "It's tempting, 
but......I don't think he really deserves that, I mean......" There was a 
momentary pause as her eyes lit up and she jumped up. "In that case, bring 
'em over! Twelve? Absolutely, I'll have them ready. See you then." With 
that, she hung up the phone and supressed the urge to cheer.
She looked down at her sobbing child and sighed, her eyes still 
glittering and picked her up.
"Shhh......shhh......It's alright, sweetie," she said, rocking her back 
and forth.
"Grrr......" came a low hiss from behind the refridgerator door. 
"Sally! Why the Hell don't we have any food?!" Sonic demanded, raising his 
narrowed eyes over the door of the refridgerator.
"We have plenty of food, Sonic, you're just not looking hard enough. 
Now, I'm going to go change Julayla," she said, beaming and listening to 
Sonic grumble as she walked down the hallway, bouning the now-quieted 
Julayla in her arms.
'I deserve this...... Yes, indeed. Come on, twelve o'clock!'


********************


"Julie, I'm hungry!" came Knuckles' whining voice as Julie-Su attempted 
to hear her part on the other side of the phone. She glared at Knuckles 
and mouthed the words "In a minute". Knuckles looked crestfallen and 
rubbed his stomach, plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs and 
sighed. Beside him, Locke seemed to be looking for something and was ducking 
underneath the table and looking all around the chairs.
Knuckles raised his eyebrows and stuck his head under the table to meet 
his son's gaze. The boy let out a yelp when he saw his dad there and 
forced, what looked like, a nervous smile. "H-H-Hiya, dad......"
"Locke, what are you looking for?" Knuckles asked simply, his 
dreadlocks hanging upside down as he looked at his little boy.
"Uhh......er......um......breakfast?" he said, waiting for the verbal 
thrashing that was to follow.
There was a pause and then Knuckles beamed. "Okay. Mom said she'd fix 
it in a minute, why don't you come back up here?"
Locke breathed a sigh of relief and crawled out from under the table to 
join his father, his eyes still darting every which way. He smiled 
weakly and looked around.
"Oh, that was my first thought, too, Sally. I mean, you know how 
capable my husband is, but I think that certain sacrifices can be made for 
us. We deserve this, c'mon." She paused, looking over her shoulder at 
Knuckles who had his head rested in his folded arms on the table. He was 
sighing frequently and looking rather impatient. "Well, if this will 
change your mind, they're having a sale at Shoes 'n' Stuff today...... 
Great! I'll bring 'em by today at Twelve. Okay, see you then. Bye."
As Julie-Su hung up the reciever, she felt somewhat triumphant. This 
was going to be wonderful, no doubt about it. The only question was, how 
was she going to tell her family about it?
She didn't have to ponder that much longer, because in a 
red-purple-white-and-blue blur, Lara-Su came tearing through the room, bookbag in 
hand. "Hi, family! Bye, family!" she shouted, tearing through the 
entryway.
"Lara!" she cried just as she hit the door and she turned quickly to 
her mother, a look of urgency on her face.
"What, Mom? I gotta get to school!"
"Lara," she said gently. "I'm glad you're so eager to learn, but today 
is Saturday, you don't have to go to school today."
Knuckles sniggered, as did Locke, and together they ducked their heads 
under the table to hide their laughter. Lara-Su looked surprised and 
instantly dropped her bag.
"Oh......uh......" She looked at her watch, which was beeping 
furiously, causing Julie to raise an eyebrow. "I just remembered, I gotta go 
study with Emilio. Bye, mom!" With that, she was out the door.
"Oh, honestly, that girl......" she murmured, shaking her head. She was 
about to turn back to the stove and begin preparing breakfast for her 
two boys when she felt something brush up against her neck. It was an 
odd sensation, like someone was sucking on her neck and she smiled. 
"Knuckles......not in front of Locke." She giggled.
"Huh? I'm just looking for breakfast...... Why shouldn't Locke see 
that?" came her husband's voice from a few feet away, digging in the 
refridgerator.
Julie-Su whirled around to see him looking at her, perplexed. Then, her 
hands flew up to her neck and found something there. She yanked with 
all her might and, upon looking at the object in her hand, let out a loud 
scream.
"Snuffy! There you are!" Locke cried, leaping out of his seat and 
taking the large black and yellow bug with large yellow suckers hanging from 
its nose and mouth out of his mom's hands and stroking it. "Bad Snuffy! 
I thought you had run away, I was worried."
"Snuffy?!" Julie screamed. "What in the world are you doing with 
that......that horrible thing?!"
"He's not a thing," Locke defended nervously. "He's a bug. Goshin and 
me found him a few days ago. He's really neat, isn't he?" he said, 
shoving the bug once again into Julie-Su's face and causing her to holler 
again and nearly fall onto the heated stove.
"No, he is not neat! You throw him away this instant!"
"But, mom......"
"NOW!"
Locke sighed and headed for the doorway. He looked down at the little 
bug in his hand, sucking on his palm, and looked crestfallen. Then, 
looking back to make sure his mom wasn't watching (she was too busy beating 
Knuckles over the head for being a bad influence) and stuffed it in his 
pocket. "Stay there. Snuffy. I'll keep you safe."
Julie turned back to the stove, leaving her black and blue husband 
laying on the table, and began to break open eggs. 'I need this so badly! 
Thank the Walkers I only have to wait another hour.'

End chapter 1