[green eyed reptiles...monsters]

Mira's POV

I was eating breakfast with the others and it was a little uncomfortable. Ravi was feeding his baby lizards at the table and I wasn't enthused about it. I was sitting next to Luke at the counter eating my bacon and it tasted weird.

"Open up the hangar, here comes the airplane!"

I looked at Ravi and one of the lizards sprinted out of its chair. Thankfully, Jessie caught it before it could go anywhere.

"Ravi, does Mrs. Kipling's babies have to eat every meal with us?" Journey asked him.

Jessie put one up to her face with a grin. "Not that we don't enjoy their little footprints in the butter."

"Now if I could just train them to jump in the jam and scurry across my toast." Ravi says smiling.

"What is this?!" I heard Emma ask as I see that she was holding up a piece of lizard skin, as I gagged a little knowing why my breakfast tasted a little off.

Ravi got up and grabbed the piece of skin. "Aw, one my little treasures has shed it's skin. They grow up so fast."

Next to me, Luke pulled a piece of lizard skin out of his mouth an my mouth gaped open in disgust, as all of us were.

"Ew." Journey muttered.

Luke looks at the skin. "Mmm. Yeah, I thought my bacon tasted a little scaly." He says.

"And yet, you ate it." Jessie says pointing and then Luke continued to eat the lizard skin like it was actual bacon. All of us gagged, looking away as I looked like I was going to get sick.

"EWW!" Emma exclaimed. "This is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen!"

"Right them, Bertram ran into the kitchen in his bathrobe, screaming. All of us watched him run by and gave him a weird look.

"That was disturbing." I mutter as I inspect my orange juice to make sure it's not scaly. When it wasn't I took a drink out of it.

"Second most disturbing thing." Emma corrects.

"Still number one for me." Jessie remarked. "...And I helped a Texas Longhorn give birth." She says as Journey nods her head agreeing with her sister.

"I really earned that merit badge."

"Most definitely." Journey says.

✺✳ ┅ ⑅ ┅ ✳✺

After breakfast, Jessie called a family meeting about the lizard issue. We are were upset about it and it needed to be discussed. "Okay, I called this family meeting because there seems to be some unspoken tension about Ravi's lizards." Jessie starts. "And by unspoken, I mean endless loud whining." She says as we all nod our heads in agreement as Simba was playing with his cat toy. "Ravi, would you care to respond?"

We all looked to see a sleeping Ravi and Emma slapped his arm out from underneath him, causing him to wake up. Ravi has bags under his eyes and he looked exhausted.

Said boy rose to his feet and responded in a weary voice. "My babies, complete me. I have never been happier."

"Poor, Ravi. You look like a sleep-deprived racoon." Journey mentions.

"Not in high fashion way." Emma adds.

"I can't cope!" Ravi blurts out and walks over to Jessie. "Why did no one tell me that parenthood would be like this?"

I felt bad for the kid. He's having to raise a bunch of baby lizards on his own at a very young age." "If kids came with warnings, I'd have been out here a long time ago." Bertram says leaning back with folded arms.

"If butlers came with warnings, we would have hired a maid." Luke counters as I snickered as we both fist-bumped.

"Twelve tiny mouths are eating my soul!" Ravi exclaims with distress. "I have no me time, I have no yoga time...and I have no social life!" Ravi breaks down, sobbing quietly.

"You can't put that one on the lizards, buddy." Luke says patting his brother's shoulder.

"True." Ravi says. "I have but one person to blame for my misery."

"Oh, Ravi, don't be so hard on yourself." Jessie says assuring him.

"I'm talking about you!" Ravi snaps as Jessie leans back with a look. "You are the nanny here! Child care is your responsibility!"

"Human child care! That's all I signed up for!" Jessie protests, defending her case.

Ravi pulls out a slip of paper. "I have your contract right here. There is a lizard cause."

"What?! Let me see that!" Jessie says as she snatched the contract and reads over it. "Lizard clause!" She says as she looked at it. "Aha! One giant Asian Water Monitor!" She glances at it again and her expression changed. "Hey! I'm supposed to get two nights off per week? When has that ever happened?"

"How hard can it be to babysit a few lizards?" Zuri asked.

"Ooh, lightbulb!" Ravi beams and went up to Zuri. "Zuri, I am preparing to make you my part-time lizard nanny at a highly competitive rate of one dollar per-hour."

Zuri stood up to protest. "Who do you think you're dealing with? Jessie?"

Jessie looked up and gave Zuri an offended look. Luke, Journey and I shared a shocked look of amusement.

"Two bucks per hour. Per lizard." Zuri negotiated.

"Deal!" Ravi chirped in and the two shake hands. "Murray's Yoga Workshop with complimentary Vegan snacks, here I come!"

✺✳ ┅ ⑅ ┅ ✳✺

Third Person's POV

That night, Mira, Journey, Luke and Zuri were in Ravi's room. Zuri and Mira were putting the lizards to bed, but they weren't ready to go to sleep yet. Luke was playing a video game with Scooter, one of the lizards, Mira was reading a book and Journey was putting on an epic concert singing Taylor Swift.

"Okay, kids, time for bed." Zuri confirmed.

"Aww, just five more minutes." Luke complains. "Scooter still has the high score."

"Not surprised that a lizard is better than you." Mira joked as Luke rolled his eyes at her playfully.

"Wait! Stop it! Get back here!" Zuri scolds trying to catch a lizard from escaping. Ravi walked in and he looked relaxed and happy that he is free from taking care of the lizards. 

"Ah, the sauna was delightful." Ravi sighs and then he got worried when he noticed the rambunctious lizards. He immediately picked up Scooter, putting him back in his bed. "Why are my litter angels up passed their bedtime?"

"You want them to stay in bed?" Zuri asked and pointed. "Hand me that stapler."

Ravi gasped. "You monster! How could you?"

Jessie ran into the room to stop the fight. "Okay! Who is being a monster? Besides the actual baby monsters."

"Zuri threatened to staple my babies to their beds!" Ravi cries.

"Hey, did I ever tell you kids about my ex-boyfriend who worked at the mattress store?" Jessie asked us.

"No, don't--"

"He got fired for sleeping on the job." Jessie finished as she laughs.

"Wait!" Zuri beamed and Luke went up to them. "That gives me an idea. We can use Jessie's love life to bore the little suckers to sleep!"

"That's how Journey used to get to sleep." Mira says as Jessie rolled her eyes. "What she told me."

"Of course she did, not surprised." Jessie says with a little groan.

Zuri squatted down to the lizard's level. "Once upon the time, Jessie had a lousy boyfriend named Thadd."

Mira laughs as Luke looks at Jessie. "Was he the one with the oddly hairless legs?" 

"No, that was Brad." Jessie corrects. "Thadd had the big ears and bad gas."

"Look, who's talking? You went on a ate with his little brother." Jessie shot back at Luke as Mira rolled her eyes. "Who has the same problem."

"Look! It worked!" Zuri whisper shouted standing up. They all look to see all the lizards had fallen asleep as Luke and Mira walked away as Journey had already left.

"So you go for guys with big ears and bad gas?" Luke asked with a smirk.

✺✳ ┅ ⑅ ┅ ✳✺

The next day, Mira, Journey went to the park with Luke, Ravi and Bertram. Ravi is wearing a disguise for some reason. It's so he can observe how Zuri is handling the lizards.

"So why the disguise?" Bertram asked.

"I do not want Zuri to know I am spying on her." Ravi informed them.

Both Mira and Journey glance down and question he's brain on this. He's not being very subtle about it, because Mrs. Kipling gives it away. "Okay, but I think a seven foot lizard might give you away." Journey advised, Ravi gesturing to Mrs. Kipling.

Ravi went over to Zuri when he saw her not treating the lizards well. Mira was texting her mom as for once her mother isn't calling her. But she isn't gonna complain, Jana is probably too busy to actually talk to Mira as she is probably with her boyfriend or boyfriends. Mira doesn't really seem to care as she stopped doing that a while ago.

"M." Luke says as Mira hummed an answer as Nala is walking beside Mira as she is on a leash as Mira trained her to be on a leash she's a very adventurous cat. Which is fine. "Has the she-devil called yet?" He asked as she shook her head.

"Nope, I don't care either way. It's a good thing because I don't want to talk to her anyway." Mira says.

"Makes sense." He says to her as she nods her head. "I think it's cool, you trained Nala to be on a leash. You don't really see cats on a leash." He says.

"You really don't actually." She says to him.

✺✳ ┅ ⑅ ┅ ✳✺

That night, Mira had jinxed it as her mother did call her but it didn't last, as she had dinner plans to go to but Mira could honestly care less. She just wishes that everything could go the way they were before her biological father hadn't left. Then again, she can see why her father left, as her mother isn't the easiest person to get along with.