A/N: I LIVE! After two whole weeks without an update to speak of, I have returned at last! The ending of Little Angel of Mine was so that I could concentrate on new fanfics like these! this is a bit longer than my first chapter, so you have more to look forward to from now on! I hope you enjoy!

I don't own the Borrowers, or else I'd finally be rich enough to get my license and pay off my student loans.


Chapter 2

I awoke to the light sifting through the window of my room to the backyard of the house. I groaned weakly before I rolled out of bed and went into the kitchen. As I became more awake, I noticed that my father wasn't at the table. I looked around the house, but he really was nowhere to be seen.

"Guess he really is gone," I said to myself, "and who knows when he'll be back."

While I pondered on this, I looked out the window to gaze at the expansive and well kept backyard. As I did, I then wondered why I woke up to this instead of my new alarm clock. I went back to my room, and noticed that the mini radio clock, which stood next to my bed, was not even showing the time. I opened the back of the device, and I took out the long cylindrical battery, which was about as long as my leg. I then looked at it curiously and gave a tentative lick to the side that was marked with a plus sign.

"Huh," I smirked, smacking my lips. "I guess the battery's dead."

In case you were wondering, I had just used an old bean trick to test for the charge held in a battery. If the battery tip tasted awful, then it held a strong charge. If the tip had no taste at all, it held little to no charge at all. Instead of putting it somewhere else, I slipped the dead battery down a chute which lead to the kitchen trash can. I knew well enough about batteries to be extremely careful with them, even dead ones, because they can be dangerous if not handled correctly. I then looked around in my room for a while, trying to find a replacement battery, but my search had yielded no result.

"I guess it's time for some borrowing," I said, rubbing my hands together.

I downed some of the leftover soup from last night, looked inside my borrowing bag to make sure that I had everything that I needed, and I set out towards the maze of borrower tunnels connecting our house to all sorts of places throughout the bean's house. There were ladders and climbing ropes leading up to the higher levels and cabinets, and there were slides and ramps leading down to the floor, in case we needed a quick escape. The only place the network did not lead to was the attic, but no one ever goes in there, not even the beans themselves.

I grabbed a rope and used a crank to bring it down to my level. I grabbed the rope with one hand, and let go of the crank with the other. As soon as I did so, the rope shot me up to the higher level of the house. I followed the tunnels that led to the kitchen, where the batteries were held, and I noticed that I was passing by the master bedroom. I couldn't help but sneak a peek inside to see who the new bean was, and I was startled by what I saw.

The girl who was sleeping in the bed was almost the same age as me, give or take a year or two. Her face was the same as the girl who lived here all those years ago, and the memories of my childhood here were brought back to me as vivid as if they had just happened yesterday. I moved some of my short dark brown hair from out of my dark brown eyes to get a better look. Her long ginger hair was in a mess as she almost noiselessly breathed in and out. Just then, she began to stir, and her eyelids slowly opened, revealing almost startling clear blue eyes.

Whoa, I thought to myself. The little bean girl did grow up after all.

Just then, she started to move. She rose from her bed and began to yawn and stretch. I took this as my cue to leave, having no wish to be seen anytime soon, and I started rushing down the tunnels to the kitchen cabinets. After a few minutes, I reached the borrower's door to the utility cabinet, and opened it. I was greeted with a deep darkness, which meant that the true door to the cabinet, the ones that the beans used, was closed. Relieved at this, but frustrated that there was no light, I resumed my search.

I darted around the dark space, trying to find what I was looking for. I tried to be as silent as I could, so that I wouldn't cause a noise which would make the girl investigate in to what made the noise, or in this case, who made the noise. As I stumbled around, trying my hardest to not trip over anything or mess up something, I cursed myself for not bringing my lantern. I then noticed a large box, with a black and brown label, which showed at least a dozen similarly colored cylinders behind a case of plastic.

The box of batteries! I knew I'd find it in here somewhere!

Now came the difficult part: getting one out of the box. I slowly tipped the box over to see a pull back cover on the back side of it. I peeled back the paper seal as hard but as quietly as I could, and little by little, the seal came undone. When I had enough room, I slipped one of the batteries out of the case, and stood the box back right side up again. I checked the side of the battery to make sure it was the right kind. Sure enough, three small capital A's lined the copper top of the battery.

"A good hunting," I said to myself in a faux British accent, "now for home again."

Just then, I heard a very loud rumbling noise and felt like the ground shook. Scared that I was about to be seen, I made a mad dash for the door, slipped through the doorframe, slammed it behind me, and stopped to catch my breath. I then heard another bang and felt another rumble, but this noise sounded more like a crack or a bang than a rumble. Speaking of rumbling, the whole house shook again, but just a bit more harshly. As I tried to maintain my balance, I then heard a repetitive noise that made me realize what was going on.

"It's just starting to rain," I said, regaining my composure. "It's awful loud for a rainstorm that's just now started, though."

I then quickly but carefully made my way back to the house. Once I got in, I locked the door behind me and went into my room to install the battery. The noise of the rain hitting the side of the house was louder now, since our house was built near one of the storm drains. Luckily for us, the bean's house was built on a smooth hill, and our house was slightly higher up in the walls than the storm drain. As a matter of fact, our house was under the floorboards of the closet of the girl that lived here now. I opened the radio, put in the battery, turned on the device, and the radio crackled to life.

"…so once again, the Shasta county area is going to be subject to massive thunderstorms and possible flooding on and off all this week," a loud rushed voice came from it, "so be sure to stay careful on the road, and be secure in your homes. We'll be right back after this break with more on the…" Getting the message, I turned off the radio.

"Well, so much for a nice, relaxing day outside," I grumbled. "Now what do I do for the rest of the day?"

I sighed and plopped down in my bean bag chair, which was an actual bean bag, in case any of you were wondering. It came from a game that I've heard beans call 'hacky sack', though I can't say that I've ever seen any beans actually play it before. My dad says he did see young beans play it all the time when he was a kid, but they all just stopped playing it. I looked out the window and watched the rain fall as I pondered these thoughts, along with others concerning today and the days to come, now that my dad was currently absent.

Just then, as I thought on these thoughts, a new thought occurred to me. This thought was unlike anything I had ever thought in all of my twenty years. It was crazy, stupid, and could result in something unimaginably horrible for me and even my dad when he came back. However, I felt that it was something that I just had to do. Call it fate, call it instinct, call it intuition, or even call it insanity, but I felt somewhere deep inside of me was a sense of curiosity that would not be satisfied until I had done what I had to do to slake its thirst.

"Dad's so going to kill me for this," I said to myself, "and I'm probably going to regret this."

As I said this, I left my house and went along the tunnels towards the other rooms in the house. Even though I had traveled these tunnels countless times very quickly, it seemed like this journey had lasted for several hours when it was only a few minutes. After a while, I arrived at my first destination, which was the kitchen. I peeked in through a hole under one of the cabinets that hung over the sink, and I saw that I was facing the kitchen table.

The girl was at the table, reading the newspaper while drinking a cup of some dark liquid which I presumed was the substance that humans called coffee. Apparently, whatever the ingredients that went into it caused beans to become more alert, if for a moment. I always figured that it was so that they could normally keep themselves awake easier. I looked at her again, and noticed that her breakfast consisted of a banana, a small glass of milk, and something that appeared to be eggs, sausage, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and other assorted foods wrapped up in a flat, bread-like substance.

"That must be one of those new 'breakfast wraps' that my dad's been telling me about," I said to myself. "They do sound sort of interesting."

Just then, she grabbed her throat and started coughing violently. I tensed at this, afraid that something was wrong with her, but then she stopped coughing and took a sip of milk. I breathed a silent sigh of relief at this, and turned back to watching her.

"Well, that went down the wrong pipe," I heard her say. "Lesson learned: never do more than one thing when you're half awake." I then took notice of her taking notice of the window." Man, it's pouring out there. I'm sure as heck glad I got moved in before this deluge happened."

With that, she finished her bizarrely made meal, and took her plate to the sink. I got away from the hole, so that she couldn't see me, and hid behind the wall. I could soon hear the loud sound of rushing water hitting glass, which stopped after a few seconds. I then heard loud shuffling noises, and peeking out from my hole, I noticed that she was leaving the kitchen. Retreating back through the tunnels, I went along the inside of the walls, listening for her movement to ensure that I wasn't far behind her. After what seemed like a moment or two when it was really thirteen minutes, the noises stopped. I then made my way to the nearest borrowing hole, and peeked out from behind it.

I looked out into a bedroom, and I saw that I was standing on a windowsill and facing a large bookcase. I then noticed there were marks on the side of the bookcase and that they were placed methodically and were all too intricate to have been made by a bean. What was most interesting about them was that it looked like they were made for a Borrower to climb on.

"That's interesting," I said to myself.

I then looked around at the room I was in, and noticed that it was the very same room that I had passed by not too long ago. I noticed there were a bunch of scrolls on the walls with characters from various anime shows, as well as a small bedroom mirror over a writing desk, with an electric lamp on it. Directly across from me, however, was a large bed with thin blue sheets draped over it. Resting on the bed, calmly reading a book while listening to a music player not unlike mine, was the human girl.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I then crept out from the hole in the windowsill, climbed down the bookcase, and dashed inside the bookcase and hid behind some of the books. My heart was pounding in my chest and my insides were about to explode from the rush of adrenaline, but I kept my cool and made myself calm. Peeking out from my new hiding spot, I saw her rise from her bed and move to her writing desk.

She pulled out a piece of paper, but didn't take a pencil out as I thought that she would. Instead, she took out a strange looking pen and started scribbling at first, but then started making long lines that crossed each other and went in ways that I had never seen before. I stared at her for a long time, completely entranced at her activity, even if I had no clue as to what it was. After about ten minutes, she stopped what she was doing, and dropped the pen onto the desk. She then took the paper in her hands, and I saw that she had drawn a picture.

The paper showed a rough black-and-white sketch of her standing at the outside of the house. She was staring off into the distance, her hair blowing gently in the wind, with a smile on her face. The way that she drew herself and the house was unlike anything I'd ever seen. She didn't draw herself as a cartoon, nor did she draw herself realistically either. It was a sort of style that was totally new to me. Her eyes were wide and round, and her hair was wild and had many lines and points to it.

While I thought of this, I walked backwards, and nearly tripped over something. Looking down, I saw it was a black pencil with the words 2B branded on it. I looked back up at the girl, and noticed that she was crawling on the ground, on her hands and knees, looking for something. Tensing up, I gasped and hid quickly behind one of the bedposts.

"Where did that stupid pencil go?" she asked herself as she prodded around her wooden floor. "I know that dang 2B couldn't have gotten far. It was there when I set up my drawing desk, so where is it now?"

"So this is one of the girl's drawing pencils," I said to myself, while looking at the pencil.

Just then, I felt something crept up behind me. Most of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I slowly turned around to find the source of my new anxiety. As I moved, I came face to face with a huge cockroach, easily half my size. I don't mind to mention this, but ever since I was a little kid, I've been mortally terrified of most bugs, primarily ones that could hurt me, like bees, hornets, or wasps. There was one notable exception, however, and that was cockroaches. One time when I was kind of young, which was on another rainy day, a cockroach crept into my room in the night while I was sleeping and decided to nest in my bed. And on me, no less. Ever since, I've been mortally terrified of cockroaches.

When that new bug moved its antennae in my face, I was horrified to see a large hairy spider crawling towards me as well. When those two came close to me, I did the first thing that came to mind.

"EEEEAAAAAUGHHHHH!"

I bolted from my hiding spot like a maniac, screaming at the top of my lungs. As I looked back, I saw that the insect and arachnid followed me in hot pursuit. Either they smelled some food from me, I was in one of their nests, or they thought that I was prey. Cal me paranoid, but I felt that the latter was the more likely explanation. But I had no time to think about that. In fact, I had no time to think at all, as I looked forward and, all too late, saw myself heading for the wall of the bookcase. Right as I noticed this, I couldn't stop myself form running, and I smacked right into the wall, my head hitting the wood surface very hard. I then slumped to the ground, and I knew no more.

[===]

This morning was just one weird thing after another for me. First off, I wake up to the fact that it was raining hard after being completely dry and with few clouds for the past two days. Secondly, I suddenly choked on the first few bites of one of my new microwaveable breakfast burritos. Thirdly, I lose my brand new 2B sketch pencil and end up realizing it after I finish a rough pencil of my latest work. Finally, as I looked for my pencil, I heard a scream from under my bed, and noticed something rushing out from under my bed, followed by a soft thud, as if something struck hard wood. I then looked back at my bed, and noticed that this new thing was running away from a large spider and an equally large cockroach.

"What the heck?" I said, but upon seeing the creepy crawlies that appeared on the scene, I gasped.

"Yikes!" I shouted, and pulled on my robe.

I grabbed one of my pairs of sneakers from across the room, and brought them down on the spider and the roach. A loud squelching noise emitted from the ground, and the insides of the little monsters flew out from all directions, though not far enough o make a fuss. I then darted into my bedroom bathroom, grabbed at least a yard of toilet paper, and went to the scene of the killing. I then pinched the remains of the dead pests into the folds of the tissue, and flushed them down the toilet. After wiping up the space with a wet paper towel and drying it with a regular towel, I washed my hands very quickly and very thoroughly to get the mess off of my hands.

"Now what was that other thing?" I asked myself.

As I looked around, I noticed something small was near my bookcase. As I knelt down to look, I realized that it was a person, and a young man, though he was probably no more than four inches tall. His eyes were closed, and his dark hair was in a mess. He wore a simple white t-shirt with a dark red vest over it and faded blue jeans. I thought that either he had taken those clothes from a premium fashion doll, or he had made them himself.

"Wait, how could he even do that?" I asked myself. "Come to think of it, how does 'he' even exist? What in the world is he?"

Taking another look, I saw that he had a relatively large red spot on his forehead.

"He must have hit his head on the bookcase," I said, rubbing my chin. "Whatever he is, I'd better help him."

Sighing heavily, I reached down and very carefully pinched the small person's shirt with my index finger and thumb, and lifted him up an inch or so. I then slid my other hand underneath the boy's tiny body, and slowly dropped him onto the center of my palm. With him secure in my hand, I slowly unfolded my legs and brought him to my large desk. I took a pair of socks from my open sock drawer, placed him on top of them, and pondered on how to approach the situation next.


A/N: Interaction at last! What will happen next? Stay tuned and find out!

-JeremyX signing off!