literature

[Mothscouts] The Volcano Catastrophe

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Cress lugged the giant science kit over to the center of the room where an empty desk sat. It was the “science workshop”. Mothcats of all ages were in the cozy room, some busy working on their own science projects while others were content to just chatter with one another. It was a gloomy rainy day but the hustle and bustle of the room seemed to lift everybody’s spirits. Cress paused in front of the table she was sharing with Vivianos, panting. “I brought, I brought the kit that Pinewatch was talking about.” She said breathlessly to the pretty grey mothcat with delicate blue butterfly wings. She glanced at the outside of the kit, examining the many labels and pictures displayed on the back. “We could make a rocket!” She suggested to Vivianos, pointing her paw at a picture of a styrofoam rocket covered in all sorts of wires and beeping technology. “It looks a bit too complex though…”

Vivianos looked at the back of the kit with Cress, studying the pictures.  “I don’t know…. That might be a bit much for a first project.  What about the volcano?  That looks easy enough.  And it’ll erupt just like a real volcano!”  She said cheerfully, pointing to one of the other pictures.  

Cress nodded. “That sounds like a lot of fun! Let’s make a volcano!” The cat reached over and ripped open the kit and spilling out its content onto the wooden table. “Hmmmm,” Cress said, flipping over each bag of supplies. “Aha!” She exclaimed, holding up a large back with a premade paper mache volcano along with a box of white powder and a bottle of clear liquid. “Oooooo,” she said, poking the volcano with a paw. “Now what?” She asked Vivianos.  

While Cress was getting out the supplies, Vivianos had grabbed the instruction booklet and was reading through it.  “So it says here we need to put the volcano on a steady, flat surface first.”  She paused and looked at the desk where Cress was setting everything up.  “Yep, I think that works.  Next is…. Pour in the powder.  But only one third to half of the powder.  It says they gave us enough powder to do this experiment a couple times if we want.”  She said, looking to the bag of powder.

Cress paid no heed to the second part of Vivi’s instruction. She cut open the box and stared into its contests. “Technically, if I put more powder in, there’ll be a bigger explosion!” She grinned at Vivi. “There’s nothing better than having a giant explosion!” And without another word, Cress dumped the entire box of powder into the volcano. Innocently, she turnd back to Vivi. “What do we add in next?”

“Cress!  It says no more than half the powder!” Vivianos said, shocked that the blue cat would ignore her instructions so blatantly.  “What if the explosion is too big?  Shouldn’t we be careful?”  She asked, looking a little worried about what would happen with such a big explosions.  “The next step is to add the liquid, but we’re not supposed to use all of it like this.”

Cress shrugged. “We can just add more liquid to even it out! After all, we don’t want to get the ratios wrong, do we?” She asked Vivi with a big grin. The cat had never used the word “ratios” before but it sounded fancy and she had really wanted to use it. “If we mess the ratios up, the volcano might not even explode! And that’s all we’re supposed to do.” She moved to take the bottle of liquid from Vivianos.

Vivianos stepped back from the table, looking worried.  “I’m not sure about this Cress….”  She said worriedly.  “I think it’s a bad idea to use so much of all the ingredients.”  She was holding the instruction booklet in front of her like a shield, watching nervously as Cress went to add the liquid.

Cress gave a scoff. “Nah, it’ll be fine!” She added in the vinegar to the volcano and then tried to peer at the instruction book Vivianos was holding. “It looks like…” She squinted. “Looks like the next step is to add food colouring!” Cress reached around in the science kit for a tiny bottle of red dye and went back over to her bubbling volcano. “This is the last step!” She said to Vivianos. Unfortunately for the dark blue cat, she wasn’t able to complete the last step, the volcano had erupted.

“Cress!!”  Vivianos tried to warn the mothcat as she grabbed the food coloring, but it was too late.  Cress wasn’t paying attention to the grey mothcat anymore, or to the volcano bubbling away.  Before she could add the food coloring to the mixture, the bubbling had gone from simply bubbles building up to a full out explosion, sending the foamy mixture flying everywhere.  Vivianos squealed and ducked, holding the booklet over her head to protect herself.  Thankfully, between the booklet and the distance she had backed up, she remained mostly clean.  The same couldn’t be said for Cress though, standing at ground zero of the explosion.

Cress squealed as the volcano exploded, sending the mixture all over her. “Eewwww!!!!” She cried as the foamy “magma” dripped down her head. Tears began to form in the corner of her eyes as she felt everybody’s eyes on her.

Vivianos slowly lowered the booklet to look at Cress, wincing as she saw the mess of foam all over her dark blue fur.  A part of her wanted to say ‘I told you so’ but she quickly squashed that thought, seeing the tears forming in Cress’s eyes.  There was silence throughout the room, everyone staring at Cress and the result of their huge explosion.  

Suddenly a voice broke through the silence, the rolling Australian accent making it obvious who the speaker was even before the mothcats turned to look.  “Well now, ain’t that jus’ the biggest explosion ya’ve ever seen.”  Merle clapped his paws together, smiling warmly at everyone.  “Ya’ll can go back ta work now though, as th’ show’s over.”  He sauntered into the room, grabbing a cloth as he passed by the cleaning up table.  He moved to stand in front of Cress, gently cleaning off her face.  “Don’ cry now, lil one.  Happens ta th’ best o’ us.  Ya jus’ got a lil over eager, that’s all.”  He reassured her with a smile.

Cress gave a sniff and rubbed the tears welling up in her eyes away with a messy paw. “Th-thanks Merle.” She stuttered as the cat began to clean up the mess. Once Merle had wiped off all the goo off her face, Cress hung her head and walked down to the end of the room to grab some paper towel. She tried her best to ignore the stares and whispering as she walked through a row of especially chatty cats. Returning back to Vivi and Merle’s side, she began to do her own part of cleaning up.

Vivianos took some of the paper towels from Cress and started helping clean up.  Merle pitched in too, working to clean up the huge foamy mess.  “You’re Cress right?  Vivi’s little friend that made th’ peanut butter cookies.  Those were some damn good cookies.  Took everythin’ I had not ta wolf ‘em all down right away.  Almost as good as Mel’s watermelon cookies.”  He said with a playful wink, trying to cheer the little cat up.

Cress gave a laugh at that. “I don’t believe that you didn’t eat them all in one sitting.” Feeling much better now, she began to clean up her mess with a vigor, almost scrubbing table raw. “Done!” She meowed triumphantly, the table as clean as it was before the volcano catastrophe. “We still made the volcano explode, right? We still get our badge?” She asked as their scouts master came over to their table.

Pinewatch nodded. “You made it explode so technically you guys are both scientists.” He grinned. “Just try to make it explode over a small area next time.” He gestured toward Cress’ still dirty fur. “You might want to clean that up before you go and try to earn your next badge.” The Northern mothcat turned to Merle, who was grinning goofily and staring out the window, probably daydreaming about cookies. “And you, I can say you just earned yourself the kindness badge right there! You didn’t make that mess and yet you were the only cat that came forward to help clean up! Here’s the kindness badge for ya!”



Word Count: 1426

Boop boop! Lit collab between LuckyTigress and me

Cress and Vivi try and make one of those really cool volcanos but Cress should've followed the instructions! 

I'm almost done all the badges ;-; Just one more to go! LuckyTigress and I were originally going to be doing a comic but stuff happened and I didn't end up lining it. With the end of the event just looming around the corner, we decided that a quick lit collab was the way to go!

Vivianos and Merle (c) LuckyTigress 
Cress (c) Me

Scientist and Kindness Badge for the Mothscouts Event

Mothcats are a closed species by floramisa 
:iconmothcats:
© 2016 - 2024 aquilala
Comments8
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LuckyTigress's avatar
I love Cress.  :3  She's just so adorable.  And here comes Merle to save the day!  Which, Cress knows he totally ate all those cookies at once.  lol