Printed Norns

    "OK, I'll come." I said.
My new friends, Wendy, John, Karlos and Lissa, had an idiotic idea to sneak into the RBTV headquarters. I had thought about it and realised the reason they wanted me to come was as kind of a seal of friendship, proving that I was a friend of theirs. So we walked over to the RBTV headquarters, which were currently off-limits until Rocky and Bullwinkle cleared out all of Fearless Leader's stuff. We climbed over a fence and snuck into the building.
    "Ouch." I whispered. "I tore my shirt on the fence."
    "Youch!" Wendy said.
    "Shhh!" A couple other kids said.
We wandered around. At some point I found a laptop and an extremely fat book. I'm still not sure why I took them, but I did. I stuck them in my backpack, in the bottom. We explored some more, then left, sneaking out the building. Just as we were climbing over the fence a man noticed us.
    "Hey! Kids! Stop right there!" He yelled.
Of course we didn't do that. Instead we ran away as fast as we could. He and a couple other guys followed us. We darted down an alley with them close on our heels. Then we ran out and luckily, the intersection near there was allowing pedestrians at this moment. We ran across and dashed past people walking. Then we found a crowd at a park and hid among them. After a while we went back to school, where we killed time until the lunch hour was over.
     For the next few days, we didn't mention sneaking into the RBTV headquarters. Then my social worker told me that my foster mother had gotten pregnant and was sending me away because she needed time for the baby. So I was going to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to stay with a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Sweet. I got on the plane wondering what the Sweets would be like. School was out by now, so they might be really interested in getting to know me, or just let me play around. Or maybe they'd treat me like a slave. When I got off the plane, I was immediately greeted by a woman with very short brown hair, and a business suit.
    "Hello. You must be Anna-Marie. I'm Mrs Sweet." She shook my hand. I looked at her. She didn't seem like a Mrs Sweet. She seemed like a stern person, the kind who would make a good police officer or something. I noticed that she seemed to be alone.
    "Where's Mr Sweet?"
    "Oh, he's on a trip. He's a pilot."
We went to her car and as she drove me to my new foster home, she said:
    "We've got two other foster kids, twins. They're a girl and a boy. They're nine years old."
She also told me that she was a lawyer, who was working on a very important case right now. She had to get back to work as soon as possible. I'd have to look after the other two for a while. When we got home I was shown where the kitchen, bathroom and my room were. I also met the boy, named Anno, who was playing norns. I was surprised he liked them too. We agreed to let me raise some of my norns in his world. The girl was asleep so I didn't meet her. Then I went to unpack.
    As I unpacked I found the laptop I had taken from the RBTV headquarters. I had forgotten about it. I set it aside and unpacked the rest. When I was done I took the book and opened it. The title on the outside was worn to the point of being unreadable, but inside I could see it. The Computer Degenerating Imagery Official Manuel, it said. There was then a table of contents. The first item was: Using the CDI. I shivered. The CDI? The thing Boris Baddenof and Natasha What's-her-name tried to use on Rocky and Bullwinkle? I stared at it. Then Anno called:
    "I'm ready to import some of your norns!" Dropping the manual, I ran down. We imported some of my best norns and I entered information saying that they were my norns. I told Anno that my norns used to be named according to generation until Zorro mated. Now they were named things like Qiu30, son of Sara29 and Jo20. The norns I imported were Alto55, Ruth43, Forah50, Jokio45, Yorah60 and my highest gen one, Qorl89. Already in the world were Annita, Mr Sweet, Kara, of generation 1; Lio, Ullu, of  generation 2, Keyboard, gen 3, and Littlefour, gen 4.
    Anno was amazed at the high generation I'd got to. I told him I'd been playing Creatures for a year. I had all my norns on floppies, and each floppy also contained information on each. I decided to export, copy, and reimport Anno's norns, with a small description saying whose norns they were and their generations. After I reimported Kara, she mated with Qorl89. Anno was excited and so was I, to have a gen 1 norn pregnant with a gen 90 baby. I told Anno that since Kara was his norn, he could pick the name and I'd add the 90 to it. When the baby hatched, we named her Wowie!90. I added her to the disk I'd stuck Anno's norns on, noting that her parents were Anno's norn Kara and my norn Qorl89. Then I reimported her. We discovered that she had a new lobe that seemed to make her much smarter. She grew up and had Smartiepants91, Bored91, and Island91. Island91 was named after where he hatched. Then I showed Anno the CDI.
    "Hey what if we went in it and brought out norns?" He said. I said that was a great idea. "I think we should get Smartiepants and Wowie, from their baby exports." We decided I would go into the computer and Anno would make sure I got printed. Then Anno activated the CDI.
It zapped me, and I felt a yank. Then I started falling. Everything became a blur, except me. Then suddenly I was sitting on an envelope speeding away from the CDI computer. I leapt off, tumbled, and landed on an envelope headed another way, also away from the CDI. How am I going to get printed at the right place? I had to get to the printer connected to the CDI, with Smartiepants91 and Wowie!90. I suddenly remembered Anno's e-mail address. Twinboy@yahoo.ca. I e-mailed myself to him, then waited. After a while I was downloaded by Anno into the CDI. I took Wowie and Smartiepants and printed myself out.