Tomo Takino paced the high street in a sort of tetchy way, perhaps like an excited child being told to wait.
Maybe that was the perfect way to describe her, being a hyperactive twenty-year-old trainee policewoman trying her hardest to realise her ICPO dream by being a student at a police college and file clerk at her local police station. She was supposed to be patrolling the police college's local shopping district, nicknamed Azkaufen by Spanish tourists for reasons she couldn't remember, and she'd been doing a good job too, although maybe going for the diet Coke from McDonald's hadn't been the best of ideas.
She was bored.
But, suddenly, she found a little girl sitting on a bench in the middle of the High Street with a comic, crying her eyes out.
Tomo walked up to the child.
She looked about three or four years old, and had wavy brown hair and bright, dark eyes. She was dressed in a cute sort of way, wearing a lilac top, a green corduroy skirt with white tights, and a pair of tan-coloured boots.
"Uh... Why are you crying?" Tomo asked. She still hadn't grown out of the stage where she was the most important person on the planet, and found it hard to be sympathetic.
"I was not crying!" exclaimed the girl indignantly. "I was... washing my eyes out! Ha!"
"Er... what's your name?" Tomo was slightly freaked out by now.
"It's Holly... Do you know where my mum is?" The girl looked up at Tomo with pleading eyes.
"Um... No, but why don't you come to the police station? You can... have a lollipop if you come!"
Holly didn't want a lollipop, but she thought it would be in her best interests to go anyway.
Tomo motioned to the lime green police pedicab (which she drove because, not only was it garish, but it was probably safer than letting her drive.) Holly got into the back, and Tomo drove to the station at forty miles per hour, on a pedicab.
"Y-you d-drive... l-like m-my mum..." stammered the poor girl.
A woman came out of the school supplies shop and scanned the high street for her daughter.
"Crap, where did she go? Little brat, she probably hitched a ride in a police car or something!" This sounded a plausible theory so the woman ran in the direction of the station, long brown hair streaming out behind her in the evening wind.
Tomo took a lollipop from her pocket, removed the bright purple wrapper, and bent down to give it to Holly. She took it, and just as the child had crunched the centre, leaving glassy pink candy stuck to her teeth, her mother came in.
Tomo's jaw could have hit the floor. She bowed so fast that she could have broken her back.
"Uh, f-fancy seeing you here!"
"Tomo..." The stranger took something out of a carrier bag.
"Why the hell did you give her something with so much sugar! Now she'll have to brush her teeth again!" screamed Holly's mother as she brought an Advanced English textbook down on Tomo's head.
"Ow..." moaned Tomo, rubbing her head. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Yukari Tanizaki, a responsible mother.
Yukari Tanizaki, a responsible mother?
Wow, writing Azuchild is fun! Don't worry, it won't happen again. Even after I'm done with Changes. :D Azkaufen- Azu plusthe German word Einkaufen which means buying in. I think. :D
Please review, I love knowing what you think!
S-D