It was that time of year again. Russell made his way to the filing cabinet and opened the drawer to the files of all the pets that had ever checked into the day camp. The hedgehog always tried to clean out the files or add in pets that hadn't been filed, Sharukh for example.
As Russell opened the cabinet, Blythe appeared behind him. "Hey, Russell. What are you doing?"
"Hi, Blythe. Just organizing the pet cabinet."
"I'll help. What are we suppose to do?"
Grateful for the assistance , Russell explained how to clean out the cabinet. "Read each pet's file and add anything that isn't mentioned, Like Vinnie losing his tail, or erase anything that doesn't matter anymore, like when Zoe thought the dog food had poisoned her."
"Got it."
Both grabbed the first two folders in the row: Minka Mark and Penny Ling. "We really need to alphabetize these."
Blythe opened the folder and read Minka's medical information. Apparently, she had an allergy to daisies and had broken her tail when she was a few months old. Her owner was a high school artist named Isabella "Izzy" Mark. Finding nothing incorrect, Blythe put the folder back in place.
She picked up Pepper clark's folder while Russell looked through his own. Pepper had a history of getting sick a lot during the spring. She has to get a shot in a five weeks. Her owner was John William Clark, a comedian that had visited Blythe's school and had laughed the school to tears. The only error with her file was it said she was a year older than her real age. Blythe put away Pepper's portfolio and opened Vinnie Terrio's file. She found that everything was right, except his owner wasn't listed.
"Russell, who's Vinnie's owner?"
The Hedgehog put down Sunil Nevla's file. "I was about to ask you the same thing about Sunil."
"we'll ask them about it later," Blythe shrugged and opened Zoe Trent's portfolio.
"VINNIE! SUNIL!" Russell yelled. "WE NEED YOU!"
Sunil was about to make a house of cards float with his wand when...
"VINNIE! SUNIL! WE NEED YOU!"
The cards fell over in a heap while the jumpy mongoose hid under the table.
"What?" Vinnie called back. Sunil looked at his reptile friend a saw that he had been practicing his dance moves and had fallen from the sudden screaming.
Actually now that he observed the day camp area, everyone looked startled. Penny was tangled in her ribbons, Zoe's mirror was shattered when she fell against it. Minka's paints fell all over her and Pepper had hidden in her joke box.
"NOW!" Russell yelled again.
"We're coming!" Both Sunil and Vinnie glared at the door.
"He better have a good reason for scaring us like that," Vinnie growled.
"well it's not so bad," Minka replied. "I look better than ever!" everyone turned to the pink monkey. She had green paint all over her face, purple and red on her arms, blue and yellow on her on her stomach, and she had stepped in orange paint. Of course an abstract artist would think she looked great when she was a mess.
Zoe wailed. "My mirror! Ruined!" Immediately she burst into tears.
"Little help?" Penny-Ling asked, still tangled. Pepper grabbed on end of the ribbon and pulled. The adorable panda quickly spun loose. "Thanks."
"I SAID NOW!"
Everyone jumped, but this time, there was no damage.
"Alright!"
Everyone walked towards russell and Blythe.
"This better be good," Pepper mumbled, glaring.
"Yes? What is it Russell?" Sunil asked as politely as he could.
Blythe answered: "We're organizing your guy's files and we noticed that Vinnie and Sunil don't have their owners listed. Would you mind telling us?"
Sunil stared wide eyed at them. "You're joking." Russell had scared the living daylights out of them, for the name of his owner? He yelled at them for a name? he couldn't have just walked up to them and ask?! "Just for that, I'm not going to tell you!" He left to fix his magic set.
"Ditto here!" Vinnie followed his best friend.
Russell's mouth dropped. "Why not?"
Pepper's eye twitched. "Gee I dunno, Russell Maybe it's because you scared us half to death? For a really stupid reason!" With that, the skunk shot herself at the hedgehog, ready to kill.
A while after Sunil and Vinnie left the group, and Sunil's magic kit was fix, the two friends were playing ball and talking.
"It's not really a big secret. Why don't we just tell them?" Vinnie asked.
Sunil pondered for a minute, letting the ball pass between them a few times. "She's coming home today. So we'll be picked up early. They can find out then."
The ball was passed between them a couple of times before Vinnie spoke a gain. "When is she picking us up? Not late, right? I'm getting sick of waiting until nine at night for her sister."
The mongoose shrugged. "I believe I heard she is coming at 3:30 pm or 4:00 pm." Both Sunil and Vinnie glanced at the clock. 3:15 pm.
"UGH! She won't be here for hours! Forget it, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when she gets here." Vinnie left to fall asleep behind a chair.
Blinking after his friend, Sunil didn't bother explaining that their owner would be there in less than an hour.
"So you two have the same owner?" behind him stood Zoe. he couldn't remember if she had followed everyone to find out why Russell had yelled or if she had stayed to mourn the death of her mirror.
"Yes, Vinnie and I have the same owner. Her name is Allison."
"Why haven't we seen her?"
"Allison lived and studied in London, England in an exchange student program. Then, she spent the summer there with her English friends. She returns today."
Zoe suddenly understood. "Oh I see. You and Vinnie have been coming to LPS for nine months! That's why we never saw her!" She smiled at the realization of knowing something before Russell. "So why did she go to London? Besides the desire to travel."
Sunil chuckled a bit. "She's actually a homebody and didn't want to leave, but she really wanted to learn more." A few old memories entered Sunil's mind, along with a tearful good-bye at the airport.
"Learn more what?"
"Hm? Oh, machinery. She likes to play with wires and moving metals and computers. She likes to consider herself a geek, but she's far from it. A genius really."
"That sounds like a really cool owner! I can't wait to meet her."
As the Cocker Spaniel turned to leave she looked back over her shoulder. "I won't tell anyone, by the way. Just to keep it a fun little secret."
Blythe couldn't help but feel a little guilty for scaring the pets. Russell and she could have been a little more civil. She sighed and tried to push the gulit away. As a distraction, she opened her sketch book and tried to create a new outfit for the pet fashion expo.
The front door opened at he worked on the collar of a super cute top. "Hi, I'm here to pick up two pets."
Blythe looked up to see an Indian girl about her age. The girl had pretty tan skin,light brown eyes, and dark brown hair that fell down her back in a neat braid. The girl dressed in a simple pink and light blue Indian sari and had a silver hearing aid in her left ear.
"Wow," Blythe breathed. "Nice dress."
The girl blushed. "Th- thanks. Uh... my pets."
"Oh right! Sorry. All pets are in the day camp." The girl nodded her thanks. "I've never seen you before."
Without making eye contact and studying the ground, the girl nodded again. "Ih- I'm Allison Nevla. But I prefer Alli. You are?"
"Blythe Baxter. You're Sunil's owner?"
"And Vincent's. But you probably call him Vinnie."
"Wait. you're the mystery owner?"
Alli cocker her head to the side. "Huh?"
"Uh- The day camp is this way."
As the girls entered the day camp, Blythe opened her mouth to call the mongoose and gecko, but Alli beat her to it.
"Sunil, Vincent! I'm back!" her outburst wasn't really loud, but compared to how quiet she had been earlier, it was a surprise.
Vinnie started awake from his nap and Sunil looked up from his book. At first, they glared, but once they saw Alli surprise overcame them and they ran into her arms receiving a well missed hug. "It's good to see you guys again, too!"
Russell approached her with caution. "Is she your owner? You two have the same owner?"
Zoe answered for the pair, "Yeah, she was in London for a year studying mechanics."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I went up to Sunil and asked him in a civilized manner. You could learn a thing or two from me," Zoe replied smugly.
Alli looked at all the pets before her. "So what are you're names?"
The other human answered: "The panda is-"
"No, no, Blythe. I want them to introduce themselves." Alli giggled.
"But pets can't speak English."
Alli smiled as she pet Sunil. "Well of course not. But you and I can understand them, yes?"
"Whhhaaaaaaatt? Pfft, I wish," Blythe laughed nervously. "I-I-I can't talk to pets. That's impossible! Ha ha, no way."
"Sunil and Vincent told me about your special ability over a phone call," Allie continued as if she hadn't heard her. "I can understand pets because of my hearing aid." She pointed at her left ear. "I made it about two years ago. By accident. Sunil and Vincent didn't tell you?"
"They never even mentioned you," Russell pouted.
Vinnie and Sunil glanced coyly at one another. "Must've slipped out minds."
Alli laughed. "These two are know for forgetting things. Especially Vincent."
"Please stop calling me that."
The pets chatted with Alli a while longer, until an orange convertible rolled up to the pet shop and honked.
"Oh, there's my sister. Come on Sunil, Vincent. see you tomorrow Blythe!"
"See ya!"
The moment the car was out of sight and obviously not returning, the other pets and Blythe chatted excitedly. This new girl was fascinating!
Apparently she was born in Downtown City, which was why she didn't have an Indian accent. Allison Nevla lived about two miles from Blythe's apartment. Her father had left her mother, Nita Nevla, 18 year old sister, Jennifer Nevla, and herself. A few years later, Nita married Louis Terrio who has a daughter,the same age as Alli, Emma Terrio.
She adopted Sunil from a kennel, he had been illegal captured from India, sold illegally to a man, who sold him legally to the kennel. Vinnie was born in captivity at a pet store. He was a gift for Emma but she was too girlie to actually appreciate and practically left the gecko to die. However, by then Alli had owned and taken care of Sunil for a few months and gladly took Vinnie under her wing.
Allison really did have a specialty with machines and when Blythe had showed off her kiosk, Alli had offered to make it a bit more extravagant. She also claimed the measurements were uneven ("Sorry, I don't mean to offend you. It's just... anything uneven is a major pet peeve of me.").
"She seems great. Do you think she'll try to work at the shop?" Pepper asked Blythe.
"I sure hope so. It'd be a huge help around the store. Maybe I can recommend her to Ms. Twombly!"
Hey who enjoyed today's new episode! I was glad to see Vinnie and Sunil work as a clumsy team together! Well I hope you liked my story. Review and tell me what you think! Constructive Criticism is welcomed!
-Over and Out!