Happy Birthday, Cait! This is our overseas birthday present!

Cait: That Other Birthday Llama
Part 1: The Llamalicious Tale

Once upon a time, in a far, far away little village in England filled with old people and rich people, amongst other odd people, lived a girl named Cait. Who was sixteen, and legal, despite her rather childish sense of humour and appalling addiction to a terrible television show.

Cait was an okay girl, in the aweso way. She was rather quiet at first, then unbearable noisy once you got to know her. She was extremely short but liked to pretend otherwise by acting condescending towards other, taller (and smarter) people (namely one of the authors of this) and her constant use of sarcasm.

But there was more to Cait than her height implied. Because Cait was, in fact, a member of a highly secretive league of extraordinary people – she was an AH'er. An AH'er was someone who was so awesome – so powerful, they had a language unto themselves. These people came from all over the world, with one solitary mission: spreading civilization through imperialism but justifying it by calling it globalization.

(Wtf?! How'd my History homework get in here? Sorry, Cait. Anyway ...)

Unfortunately, these people were also quite mad, so they ended up being locked away in a very special Attic. After a while, the Attic grew too mad to sustain them, so a few more prominent AH'ers put some sofas in another room and called it the Lounge. In the sacred Lounge ... they talked a lot about the weather.

Of course, the fact that Cait lived in England meant that she had a lot to say about the weather. Most of it was, "It's raining ... again!" and "Again ... it's raining!" which is what I call 'variation'. She knew that weather like the back of ... well, not the back of her hand because if she doodled on her hand, then it would change everyday, wouldn't it?

But back to the tale at hand (no pun intended), it soon happened that Cait ventured out of the Attic and the Lounge into ...

Cue drum roll please.

The. Big. Wide. World.

In other words, she went for a walk around the village, decided it was okay-looking, walked into a few lampposts and decided that she should go home. Unfortunately for Cait (and quite a few bruised lampposts), she didn't actually get home. Because, she got kidnapped!

Nope, that's a complete lie. Really. She got llama-napped.

But things never go to plan for the llama-nappers. Because, unfortunately for them, their llama-clavas had shrunk in the wash. (Look! I'm sorry, guys! I wasn't to know!) So, she recognised them. Which made this llama-napping possibly the worst one in history. Not counting that time we tried to take the legless llama – boy, that llama can run.

"Daniiiiiiii!" she exclaimed. "DBieengao! Nate! ... Other people that Dani, the person writing this section, can't remember!"

"Dani," Deena chastised, sighing. "This is all your fault for shrinking our llama-clavas! No wonder she recognised us!"

"I dunno," Dani mused. "I think she recognised your hair, to be honest. Y'know, AfroBeast."

"I can't believe you're in my tiny easily-forgotten village!" Cait continued. "Why?"

Nate seemed to be thinking long and hard about his answer. Finally, he said, "35, take it from here!"

Dani blinked and turned to Deena. "Bingo, take it from here!"

Deena blinked too then turned to Cait. "Cait, take it from – oh, wait, we were explaining to you ... Um ... Well, it's your birthday."

"Yeah, I know," Cait said, shrugging. "That's why I decided to go out for some fresh air. And it felt good – until I hit that parked car."

Dani sniggered, ignoring Cait's glare. It was less powerful in real life.

Deena continued: "So we thought we'd visit. And you better appreciate us coming, because I took a flight to be here and listen to your Hermione-Granger-like accent!"

Cait smiled. "Really? For me?"

Well, there were also some amazing lampposts and cars in the area, but, hey, the llama-nappers weren't going to tell her that! Not unless she asked, anyway.

"Suuuuure," Dani said. "Let's go with that."

"So what should we do today?" Cait asked. "Oh, wait, tiny village ... Not much to do except –"

"No Misfits!" Dani interrupted. "Anything but the Misfits!"

"Awwww, but N –"

"Nooooooooooo!" Dani dramatically wailed, falling to her knees.

In true llama style, the others walked off without her, talking about their day (or flights, in some – most – cases). They managed to avoid most lampposts (one hit Bingo as she was about to kneel down and tie her lace), and every single parked car, and quite a few moving ones too. An achievement, for the day.

Around 57 words later, Dani caught up just as Deena let out a loud shriek.

For a moment, everyone thought she'd been llama-napped, till they realised they were they llama-nappers. So they stared at her instead, wondering what could illicit such an impure sound.

"We almost forgot!" she exclaimed then wafted some strip of papers in front of everyone. "We got these and forgot!"

Cait, in a very rude yet completely allowed gesture because it was her birthday, took them and shuffled them.

"So..." she said. "Anyone up for a game of cards?"

Nate raised an eyebrow. "Sure."

Silmultaneously, the rest of the llamas did what could only be described as a 'facepalm', leaving red marks on their foreheads.

"No, you're supposed to read what's on them!" Mllama, a new recruit and a rather cool one at that, corrected.

Nate and Cait (Ha! Rhymes!), who were in the middle of their fifth game of blackjack on Cait's new Invisible Fold-out Portable Table, looked up before Cait took them all back and looked through them.

"Oh," she said, with a look of dawning comprehension. "They're tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie." And then it sunk in. "They're tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie! But they're not even touring!"

Stevencria a.k.a. Satanic Steven shrugged. "Say the sentence before this five times fast," and then he realised what he was saying and carried on, "Well. When you're a llama, you can do anything. Except fly. We haven't worked out flight yet."

"Speak for yourself," said Rocketllama, who was currently floating around seventeen-point-five centimetres off the ground. No one paid her any attention for the simple reason that she did it often and with varied results. Sure enough, a few seconds later, she had both feet firmly on the ground.

Cait stared. "But – they're not touring! This is amazing and awesome and –"

"Awesome and amazing, we get it," they chorused.

"When is it?!" she demanded of them. When they shrugged, she looked back at the tickets. "Tonight! Ohmygod, I'm going to see them ... again! Thanks, guys!"

With her abnormally large arms, she managed to give them all a big hug. Ignoring Dani's look of disgust, she carried on.

"And I hope they play all my favourites!" And –" She gave an inhuman shriek. "I was supposed to be home after the tenth paragraph! You llama-napped me!"

"Well, yeah," Deena said, raising an eyebrow. "That's the whole point."

"How did we waste 38 paragraphs wondering around my village?" she demanded. "Without hitting a single thing but shrieking loudly at inopportune moments!"

Everyone shrugged again.

"You guys don't know anything!"

There was a murmur of agreement from the other llamas. All except Nate, who knew the meaning to life but was being evil and not telling anyone. But still, agreement.

"Wait," she said slowly, counting the tickets. "There's enough here for all of us ... and one extra for Dani's alter ego!"

"I don't have an alter ego!" Dani protested.

"Sorry. I meant, Ian," Cait muttered. "We have enough tickets for Ian, the figment of all our imaginations."

Deena smiled and made herself taller. Did she eat Alice in Wonderland cake or something? "Well, there's only one thing for it," she said, in an overly dramatic tone to overly dramatic music. "We're going... to a concert."

--

It took everyone around thirty-seven-and-a-half minutes to change their clothes and arrive at the destination. As the venue was in Birmingham and Cait lived around an hour away, it was quite an achievement. Also, another achievement was the fact that Mllama managed to PhotoShop some new llama-clavas for them using his trusty laptop/computer/fishfinger.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Cait sighed, as they stood in the swiftly-moving line. They were going to enter the door in just 27 words. "I can't believe we're here! In Birmingham! Not at Dani's house! And we're going to see Death Cab! As AH'ers! And llamas!"

They nodded as they entered the doors.

"Yeah," Dani agreed. "Especially as I only know three songs. And one of them is that Twilight song..."

Cait made a disgusted face at the mention of Twilight and Death Cab in the same paragraph. They had wristbands put on (so that they could be scanned to check for brain activity) and found themselves in the concert hall, among hundreds of other people. Dani, the shortest, cursed the fact that she was short and jumped up to see the stage.

"We are seeing Death Cab!" Cait said excitedly, hugging the nearest person, who wasn't actually one of the llama clan at all. "We – are – seeing- Death Cab!"

"We got you the first time," Deena pointed out. "Right before 'Cait said excitedly...'"

"But – it's Death Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab!"

"." This was Nate's input into the conversation.

The lights went up. Brilliantly, due to the fact that they weren't supposed to be touring that day, there were no supporting bands. Cait didn't think that she'd be able to handle the idea of a supporting act. She wanted Death Cab and she wanted him now!

Ben Gibbard, lead singer, came on stage first, giving the crowd a wave and a smile as he went up to the mike to speak. When he did, Cait got the shock of her life.

"Hey, there, we're Death Cab For Cutie." Lots of cheering. "We're from Washington!" Some more cheering. "We hear that there's a birthday girl in the crowd." Lots of confused faces. One girl fainted but thankfully, it wasn't Cait. "Cait? Are you out there?"

The llama-nappers, having devised this whole plan, began pushing Cait forward, into other people, to her dismay.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "I can get there myself!" Then she proceeded to crowd-surf to the stage. The llama-nappers remained where they were while Cait managed to get onto the stage with her favourite band.

Unfortunately, her eyesight was starting to go a little blurry now. There were spots dancing in her vision. This hadn't happened last time she'd crowd surfed.

"So ... Cait ..." Ben Gibbard (still the lead singer) seemed to be speaking very slowly. Cait was curious as to why.

"It's ... your ... CAIT MAGGIE MCLARTY!"

Cait almost died right there and then as her mother's voice burst out of Ben's mouth. Awesome but also very, very creepy. Ben didn't seemed to notice as he kept speaking, and the crowd kept yelling and Dani kept jumping to see the stage.

"CAITLIN!"

He carried on yelling her name until Cait's eyes popped open and she realised ...

It'd all been one hell of an annoying dream. And she had school. This wasn't such a great birthday after all. She wouldn't meet the AH'ers or the llama-nappers, nor would she go for a walk around town. And she wouldn't be given tickets to see Death Cab For Cutie. And she definitely wouldn't be bought on stage to meet Ben. And she would never seen if Deena really did have an AfroBeast on her head.

She sighed, calling something out to her mom. Then she went downstairs and looked at the doormat. There was a letter.

"Mom – there's a -"

She blinked at the address.

Caitllama.
Cait's street.
Cait's town.
Cait's postcode.

So, obviously, it was directed at Cait, whoever that was. She opened up the blue envelope and looked at the note inside:

"Enjoy the show! It's your birthday. So have your cake and eat it. We would like to leave you with these words: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

Part 2: The Small Quote Collection of Awesomeness.

Deena: I think Cait is awesome. She's also a little bit dotty, and has issues with misfits. Her sarcasm is like a ray of sunshine on a sunny day, and her shoes are as awesome as her issues. Also, she makes funny typos, and her name rhymes with Bait.

Dani: I think Cait is the PM of Sarcasm (See? I didn't say Queen!). She's also obsessed with Death Cab For Cutie (this makes her awesome) and Misfits (this is not so awesome). She is also my bladder-buddy, which is cool and odd at the same time. But mostly odd.

Dani: What do you think of Cait?
Nate: Oh, gawd. Ummm.. (logs off)
(Nate: Man of few words, apparently.)

No, really. We wish you an awesome birthday, now that you're sixteen and all. On the downside, you also have to accept responsibility for your actions. Just saying.