The Clone: Chapter One

Chapter One: Da Booshibu?

     As the elevator reached the dome that was Lilo and Stitch’s bedroom, the girl riding it gasped in horror. Scrump, the doll she’d loved and cherished for years and years, was gone. Trying not to panic, she looked around wildly for the doll. Nothing. The girl could only think of one reason for Scrump to be gone, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. Hoping desperately that she was wrong, the girl realized that her dog must have done something to it. And since the dog had been acting up lately, destroying things that weren’t his to destroy, the possibility that Scrump was still intact looked small.
     “Stitch!” the girl cried. “C’mere!”
     The strange-looking blue “dog” that was Stitch came scrambling up to the dome. “Lilo?”
     “Have you seen Scrump? She’s gone,” Lilo replied helplessly.
     Stitch shook his head. “Naga.” He sniffed the air. “Hmm.” He smiled, pointing down into the elevator shaft. “Scrump… that way!”
     Delighted, Lilo followed Stitch into the living room where another experiment was sitting in front of the TV. She looked like a light pink version of Stitch with long, thin antennae.
     “Angel,” Stitch said to the experiment, “nala lucha Scrump?”
     She shook her head and turned back to the TV. “Naga.”
     Stitch sniffed the air again and growled. “Angel took it,” he declared.
     “I knew it! You see Stitch, she’s no angel,” Lilo said, glaring at her. “You’re not fooling anyone, 624, now give Scrump back!”
     “‘Scrump’? Angel naga knota this… Scrump,” Angel said.
     “You know very well who Scrump is,” said Lilo. “Now give her back!”
      But Angel simply shook her head. “Angel naga steal!” She looked at Stitch. “Gaba ‘Scrump’?”
     “Lilo’s dolly,” supplied Stitch. When his cousin still failed to understand, he pulled a piece of paper off of the floor and quickly sketched a picture of it.
     Suddenly Angel grew pale. “Um… doll was… important?”
     “Of course she was!” said Lilo.
     Angel’s ears drooped. “Angel didn’t know. Soka.”
     Stitch cocked his head. “Is okay, booshibu.”
     “No it’s not!” cried Lilo. “What did you do with her?”
     Angel smiled weakly. “Don’t remember.”
     “You do,” said Lilo, growing impatient with the pink experiment.
     “Angel tired. Fell asleep on floor. It was hard, so used Scrump as pillow,” Angel explained. “Had bad dream and…” She hung her head.
     “What happened?” Lilo demanded. She suddenly knew why all of her things were getting destroyed.
     Angel pulled out one of her extra arms, holding the remains of Lilo’s beloved doll.

     “Angel has got to go,” Lilo told Stitch, in private.
     Stitch shook his head. “Stitch was bad at first. So is Angel. She’ll get better.”
     “She’s destroyed half our house in only a few days!” Lilo protested. “We gotta do something!”
     “Ohana,” said Stitch. “Booshibu!”
     Suddenly Angel came up the elevator. “Gaba?” There was a book under her arm.
     Stitch cocked his head. “What you holding, booshibu?”
     Angel showed him the cover. “‘Ugly Duckling.’”
     Stitch growled. “Angel! That Stitch’s book!” He grabbed The Ugly Duckling. “Mockeecha! Give… it… back!”
     “Naga!” Angel held strong, pulling on the other end of the book. Suddenly a huge ripping noise sounded through air. Angel went flying against the wall, holding half of Stitch’s book, and Stitch went flying against another.
     He held the cover up to his face and gasped. “Ruined…”
     Angel’s ears drooped. “Soka.”
     A single page fell out of the book and dropped to the floor. Lilo picked it up. It wasn’t a page of the book, but a photo of a girl in a hula costume. Lilo turned on the pink experiment, scowling. “ANGEL! What were you doing with this picture?”
     “Soka,” Angel repeated.
     “Is that all you can say?” Lilo glared at Stitch. “Stitch, will you teach this little pink nuisance a lesson?”
     Stitch looked at his booshibu. And then he looked at the ripped pages of his favorite thing in the world that he still held his hands. It was destroyed, and could never be fixed, all because of Angel. “With pleasure,” Stitch replied.
     “Booshibu?” said Angel weakly.
     Stitch only growled in return.

     A few minutes later, Angel was standing outside of the house. She looked up at the dome on the roof. “Stitch! Booshibu!”
     Stitch, apparently having heard her cries, closed the skylight.
     Angel scowled. “Chi-ka,” she muttered. “Bye-bye, booshibu.” And with her nose in the air, Experiment 624 walked away from her loved one, without ever once looking back.