Figure I
The following excerpt is from Wishful Thinking: The Standard Guide to Becoming a Fairy Godparent.

"A Fairy Godparent can do more than turn a pumpkin into a carriage. In her career, a Fairy Godparent will likely be called upon to help a patient break a curse. Contrary to popular belief, curses are actually very easy to break—that is, they are easy to break if one knows the right way to go about it. In this lesson, you will learn just how curses work and how to counteract them with their counter curse." (pg. 42)

"DO NOT try to reverse the curse by giving the patient a blessing! Though there have been some cases where a blessing has successfully counter-effected the curse, there have been many more cases where the blessing has, in fact, made it worse.

"In Lesson I: Basic Safety Precautions, you learned that mixing magic can be highly dangerous. You have probably seen a movie or TV show in which two characters attack each other with magic at the same time, and where the two magics meet, there is a resulting explosion. Now imagine that happening to your patient.

"Explosions between two magics are very rare, but it's better not to risk it. Remember to only use blessings to cure curses only when it is approved by the Magical Usage Conduct Committee (MUCC). We will study this further in Lesson VIII [...]" (pgs. 43-44)

---

Onto the show!

CHAPTER 4
In which a copious amount of notes are exchanged, a broom takes a nap,
and Uotani meets a disagreeable cat.

Hana didn't much care for another misadventure through the Relatively Dark Forest, so after spending the night at her grandmother's house, she sent a letter to her friend, Arisa Uotani, via owl. The letter read as such:

"Midway on our life's journey, I found myself lost in the dark wood, the right road lost. I'd rather not travel through the wood again so soon, and since Magical Pumpkin #12 isn't in service today, could you pick me up at my grandmother's house this evening? If you follow Yellow Brick Road and don't take any advice from strange wolves, you won't get lost. Please send a response with Errol."

Note (Author's note, not Hana's note): Due to scenery cuts in the abridged version of Hanajima's Mad Crazy Adventure through the Relatively Dark Forest, the part about the wolves was not explained. Sparklenotes, however, states that Hana first turned off the right road when she got advice from a wolf who gave very bad directions. Sparklenotes also suggests that the wolf was somehow allegorical to political problems during the time the conversation was written.

Errol the post owl, who sat patiently while Uo read, enjoyed several adoring pats on the head before Uo walked around her room a bit in search of something with which to write. It was very early in the morning, and Uo was still in her pajamas. After she eventually found a feather quill under her bed, Uo wrote a quick reply:

"No problem. See you in a few hours."

Uo signed her name at the bottom with an elaborate flourish before walking back to the window and tying the letter to Errol's leg.

"Be nice to Hana's grandmother," Uo advised in a conspiratorial manner. "She makes darn good cookies, but only to polite owls. Now fly, fly!"

Errol hooted twice and took off; Uo closed the window behind him.

Now, instead of going into detail of how Uo spent her morning, there will be a short note to the reader that the reader may read that reads as follows:

In the interest in saving more time than necessary as well as building a certain amount of suspense and mystery, the suspenseful disappearance of Yuki, Shigure, and Kyo Sohma will remain a mystery and not be explained quite yet.

The morning passed quickly, and after lunch, Uo finally got around to writing her column for The Daily Prophet. Uo was something of a celebrity, having traveled to many parts of the world, so her columns were very popular.

At the same moment the clock tolled hickory dickory dock (tick tock), Uo finished writing.

"Perfect timing," Uo said aloud, snapping her feather quill on the desk with a faint whiff! as she pushed back her chair and stood. She could pick up Hana and drop off her own article to the editor on her way back.

A few minutes later, Uo, carrying her writing in a folder of her work and a road map of Fafaraway, grabbed her broom from the closet and opened one of the kitchen windows.

"High ho, Sliver!" she said, straddling the broom. If something were supposed to happen, however, it didn't happen.

"To grandmother's house we go," Uo tried after a moment, but again: nothing.

"Shoot," Uo said.

"Bang!" shouted a wand from another room.

Magnanimously deciding to ignore the wand, Uo got off her broom and studied it with some consternation. Did she forget to fill it up with Dust-B-Gone, or did the bristles need to be replaced? When was the last time she checked the batteries?

Note: Unbeknownst to Uo, she was looking at an ordinary broom. Her other broom, Sliver, had fallen asleep in the back of the broom closet and was having a wonderful dream involving long walks, the beach, and the feather duster that lived next door.

Uo sighed and dropped her broom unceremoniously on the floor. Before she could get Hana, Uo would have to take a short detour down Memory Lane.

---

Fifteen minutes and four-and-a-half blocks later, Uo knocked on the second door on the second floor of the second apartment complex on Memory Lane. Hardly a minute passed when the front door was opened, revealing a comfortably small entrance hall with a young woman named Tohru standing in the middle of it. Tohru was taking classes at a local college as a fairy godmother-in-training. The tuition hadn't been terribly expensive, and Tohru had been able to save up enough money to pay for college and an apartment all on her own.

"Welcome!" said a very cheerful Tohru. "It's good to see you again, Uo. Please come in!"

"Thanks, Tohru. It's great to see you, too!" Uo said, smiling just as brightly and as goofily as Tohru was at that moment. She briefly explained her purpose of coming over, and Tohru readily agreed to help.

"I heard that Hana's grandmother was ill," Tohru continued after she finally remembered to invite Uo inside. Once they were both together, Tohru shut the door behind Uo.

"Oh, no, the grandmother's fine. It's the house that was feeling sick," said Uo.

"Oh, poor thing!" Tohru cried. "What was it? Creaky steps? A broken window?"

"I'm not sure, but I'll ask when I get there."

As they were talking, Tohru took out a set of keys that she had been wearing around her neck and under her shirt. After pulling the chain over her head, she selected a long, skeletal-looking key and put it in the lock, twisted the key, and reopened the front door.

Uo was suddenly blinded by the outside sun, but when her eyes adjusted, she realized that this wasn't the way out to Memory Lane. Instead, she was greeted by a beautiful garden of rosebushes.

"Oh, wait," Tohru said bashfully. "This is to the Labyrinth."

Listing off apologies, Tohru closed the door and searched through the keys again.

"I'm so forgetful. I can never remember which key goes to the broom closet. Oh! Here it is."

Tohru smiled triumphantly as she tried another key. This time, the door opened up into a closet, and she grabbed her broom, Dusty, from the back of it.

Uo stared at Tohru.

"Did you do that?" Uo asked, finally remembering to blink.

"Do what?" Tohru asked innocently, holding out Dusty for Uo to take. Uo didn't.

"That garden?" Uo said incredulously. "Did you...?"

"Oh, that!" Tohru smiled. "Yes, the Goblin King needed a temporary gardener to tend the Labyrinth for a while, and I was the only one who applied. He gave me this magical key –" Tohru held up the skeleton key "– so I could get to there every day, and this one –" she held up the key she had just used, which looked like very much like the first, but instead of a skeleton, it looked more like a knobbly stick "—so I could get to the supply closet for tools, and this one--" she held up a third key, which looked like a rose without thorns "--so I could get home.

"I think it was really nice of him," Tohru continued, her face flushed a faint color pink with bashfulness. "The Labyrinth is really very far away, and he made it so easy to get back and forth."

"The Goblin King?" Uo exclaimed, coming to her senses. "Tohru! Don't you think that was a little dangerous to trust a guy like that?"

"Oh, no. He was always very polite and kind. Well, sometimes he threatened to throw me into the Bog of Eternal Stench... but I'm sure he was only kidding. Really."

"Can't you get employed by someone, I don't know… NOT known for their bouts of insanity?" Uo continued as though she hadn't heard Tohru. "First there was that mad scientist in that remote mountain castle, then the Translvanian with the sharp teeth, and now a Goblin King!"

Tohru slumped her shoulders.

"Uh oh," Uo thought suddenly.

"I tried to get employed by someone in town," Tohru said, "but not very many people are hiring Fairy Godparents-in-training right now. "

"She's going to cry," Uo thought desperately. "I made Tohru cry. Oh no..."

Instead of crying, however, Tohru balled her hands into fists and held them up in a never-give-up! sort of attitude.

"But that's okay!" Tohru said resolutely. "I'll do my best, and I'm sure I'll get a job in no time!"

It was Uo who burst into tears for Tohru's wonderful bravery in the face of economical hardship. She hugged Tohru very close and absently used Tohru's shoulder as a handkerchief.

"That's the spirit," Uo managed after a moment, pushing Tohru away as she continued brushing away tears brusquely. Tohru beamed up a bright smile at her.

"Thank you!" Tohru said, still grinning a million-watt smile. Because Uo forgot her super-cool sunglasses at home, she was temporarily dazed and blinded.

Note: Five minutes later, Uo was still blinking away after-images.

The two women continued talking for a while longer before Uo reluctantly took her leave, but not before planning a dinner date between herself, Tohru, and, of course, Hana. As Uo took off from the ground via broom outside Tohru's apartment and into the sunny blue sky overhead, Tohru waved from the entrance mat of her door.

"Be safe!" Tohru called after her friend.

---

About the same time Uo and Tohru were saying their goodbyes, Yuki and Shigure were waiting downstairs for the doctor's arrival. Kyo was on the roof sulking.

Whenever Kyo felt all emo (which is short for emotional and should not be confused with emu, as emu is a kind of bird), namely angry, he would go to the tallest place he could find and mull over whatever it was that was troubling him. This should give the reader a pretty accurate indication of how Kyo felt when he lived at the dojo in the Mountain of the Morning for the past three years, as it was the tallest mountain in Fafaraway.

This morning, Kyo was upset about the following:

1. Kyo had been transfigured into a cat.
He correctly assumed this had something to do with Electric Girl yesterday.
2. Yuki had been transfigured into a mouse.
Which normally would have made Kyo happy, or at least hysterically amused, but
3. Yuki, despite him being a mouse, could still kick Kyo's tail, despite him being a cat.
Kyo had tried a surprise attack this morning.

If Yuki was transfigured into a mouse and Kyo into a cat, Shigure, of course, was a dog.

The reader would be wise to remember that, in the beginning of this chapter, there was a brief excerpt from Wishful Thinking: The Standard Guide to Becoming a Fairy Godparent that explained that mixing magic has consequences. When Hana released a remarkable amount of electrical magic (3.2 kilowatts, wow!), it ruptured something in the scientific make-up of the Sohmas' respective curses, causing them to mutate into something else. The Sohmas did not actually disappear, as Hana had originally thought. No, the mutated curses somehow changed their physical appearance.

Kyo, still sitting on the roof, growled to himself, which came out more as a disgruntled purring sound. Because of where he was, however, Kyo was the first to notice Hatori and Momiji walking down the garden path to the house. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Hatori walked while Momiji more-or-less bounced. Though Kyo wasn't exactly friends with either of them, he knew Hatori had a degree in Fairy Godparenting, so he jumped from the roof to a conveniently placed tree branch and, from there, to the opened window in the second story.

Kyo was at the top of the stairs when he heard the front door of the house open. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard two loud POFF sounds. He was at the bottom of the stairs when he heard Shigure's barking laughter.

"A rabbit and a sea… a sea… a seahorse!" Shigure sputtered, not really trying to prevent bursts of laughter.

"But why did you change, too?" Yuki asked in a much more practical and appropriate manner.

Kyo paused at the bottom of the steps, correctly guessing that something related to the Sohma family's curse of tending to get cursed a lot was somehow related to both the above-mentioned quotes from Shigure and Yuki, respectively.

"What's going on?" Kyo asked as he slunk into the main room with little enthusiasm. Instead of finding Hatori and Momiji standing with Shigure and Yuki, Kyo noticed two new animals.

"What happened?" the rabbit echoed in Momiji's voice.

"It seems," said Hatori calmly as he flopped on the main room floor, "that the curse wasn't placed specifically on you three, but on the house."

"Oh," said Yuki and Momiji in unison. Yuki appeared to think on this a moment while Momiji studied his new rabbit feet and fluffy white tail.

Note: Yes, he was adorable.

Shigure continued to contain his laughter rather poorly, and Hatori continued to flop on the floor.

"Well, that's good, right? To break the curse, all we have to do is leave," Kyo said. He was the only character, for once, who didn't look ridiculously cute and silly at the same time, as he was merely sitting. Oh wait. He was a talking cat. Never mind.

"But if we leave the house," Yuki said, still apparently thinking to himself, "Where are we supposed to go?"

Although Yuki had asked this in a matter-of-fact manner, Kyo turned on him, suddenly angry. Or angrier than usual. His face was bright red, but this was hardly noticeable since Kyo was a cat and had pleasantly fluffy orange fur that hid any reddening of Absolute Rage!!

"Whaddya mean, 'where?' " Kyo snapped. "You can always go to the main house!"

Just as abruptly, Yuki's face flushed red too, but this was likewise hardly noticeable since he was a mouse and had a silky layer of silver-colored fur. What was noticeable and a little bit scary, though, was the icy glint in Yuki's eyes.

"You don't know anything," he said in a cold, steely voice. Kyo took a step back unconsciously, but bared his teeth.

"All I know," he hissed, "is when I defeat you, I'll finally be able to claim my rightful place in the family."

"This again?"

"You're really starting to tick me off."

"Funny, because I've found you irritating for the longest time."

"Why you – "

A fight would have started at that moment if it hadn't interrupted by Shigure.

"A seahorse!" Shigure almost howled, unable to contain his laughter any longer. "Of all animals… a seahorse!"

"You're not helping," Yuki said darkly, and though his face still radiated heat, he turned his cold glare away from Kyo and directed it to Shigure, who, as expected, mostly ignored it.

Hatori decided to steer the conversation back to its original point.

"There's no point in leaving the house," he said. "I don't think it will do any good now that you've already been cursed."

Kyo, still puffed up with anger and without an explanation, stalked out of the room with a swish of his tail. There was a brief moment of silence that was broken by Momiji.

"Are you okay, Hatori?" he asked. "You don't need any water, do you?"

"No, I'm fine," Hatori replied, secretly glad that someone finally noticed he was a fish out of water. "I'm afraid, though," he added, "That I will need to report this to Akito."

Yuki nodded stiffly, his eyes drifting down to the floor.

"Yes, of course," he said distantly. "He is the head of the family, after all."

And without a backward glance or an explanation, Yuki turned and wandered off in the same direction Kyo had taken earlier in the conversation.

For a moment, Momiji quietly looked at the empty space where Kyo and Yuki had been, and Shigure and Hatori looked at Momiji looking at the empty space.

"Momiji?" Shigure asked kindly. "Would you mind looking for Kyo? He is a bit of an idiot when it comes to survival instincts, and knowing him," he continued with a note of melodrama, "he might try to pick a fight with a bear or who knows what else."

Momiji, eyes wide in the picture definition of gullible, nodded.

"But if you can't find him right away," Hatori added, "come back here."

"Okay!" Momiji said, giving a smart salute before scampering off out into the afternoon.

---

Elsewhere, Uo was muttering a sting of K-rated obscenities as she hovered over the Yellow Brick Road on her broom. She was hopelessly lost in the same Relatively Dark Forest that Hana had been lost in the previous day, and she was just now realizing that she'd been holding the map upside-down.

Letting gravity have its way, Uo gently alighted on the ground and used the broom as something to lean against as she studied the map. Well, she had passed Dreary Lane a few miles back, so that would mean she was right about... here!

"Here" was right back at the mouth of the Relatively Dark Forest again.

Uo's left eyebrow twitched once before she threw down the map in frustration and kicked it. Since it was paper, though, it didn't go very far, so instead, Uo kicked at a rock that just happened to be sitting idly in the middle of the road right where she was.

Note: Yellow Brick Road was a misleading name, considering it was not made out of yellow bricks. The Yellow Brick Road was actually more of a beaten trail, really. Fafaraway was notoriously bad at keeping the trails maintained within forests of the dim to dark category. And so, naturally, one would expect to find several rocks mixed in with the dirt on Yellow Brick Road.

Uo felt highly satisfied as the rock was sent flying into a bush at her left.

"Ouch!" cried the bush.

Uo jumped.

"Who's there?" she called.

When no one answered, Uo shrugged and picked up another small rock that also just happened to sit conveniently close to her foot and chucked it into the bushes.

"Ow!" cried the same voice. "Knock it off already! That hurts!"

"Are you going to answer me or do I have to throw another rock at you?" Uo asked, already arming herself again.

"All right, all right, all right, I'm coming out."

Uo crossed her arms, rock still in hand. Dang straight he was coming out.

A fluffy orange cat poked his head out from the branches of the bush and stared menacingly at Uo. He would probably even be a cute fluffy orange cat if he weren't scowling so much. This was, as the reader may have guessed already, Kyo Sohma, but, as the reader may have also assumed, Uo didn't know that. The little wheels in Kyo's head were turning and trying to come up with a good insult, and it was taking longer than usual because he had just been hit twice in the head by rocks.

"You look like a dweeb," he came up with finally, waving his paw at Uo's blue dress and white pinafore. Not the best insult in the world, but it would do.

"Ouch, that hurt," said Uo sarcastically. She wasn't surprised that the cat could talk. She had traveled to many places – Discworld, Disney World, Abarat, etc. – and had met creatures stranger than talking orange cats.

"Shut up, Blondie."

"You want me to throw another rock at you, Carrots?"

"Pfft. You couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if you—owch!"

Note: I do not commend throwing rocks of any size at animals and especially cats. Uo is a trained rock-chucker, so she knows what she's doing.

Uo, after throwing her last rock, paused for a moment, for she had come to a point where most fairy tale characters came to. She now had to decide if she should ask advice from a helpful forest creature, or ignore him and take the chance that something weird would happen.

But, Uo reasoned with herself, he certainly wasn't acting very helpful. And Hana had said not to take advice from any wolves, either. Should that apply to house cats, too? Sure, wolves and house cats weren't anything alike, but maybe the moral of the story was don't trust strange animals that talk. Plus, this animal could be a political/social/cultural metaphor, and Uo certainly didn't want to get mixed into any of that. How dull!

"Hey, Carrots," Uo said, breaking her own reverie. "Do you know the way to grandmother's house?"

"Grandmother's house? Why the heck are you asking me?"

"Forest animals are supposed to know things like that."

"I'm a house cat! House cats aren't forest animals!"

"Fine," Uo said irritably, flipping her hair over her shoulder and mounting on her broom. "Forget it." She had just lifted up in the air enough so only her toes brushed the ground when--

"Hey!" the cat called.

"What?" Uo asked as she lifted off the ground completely.

"Two roads diverge in the woods and you, you don't take the one less traveled by, because that will make all the difference and you'll get lost," the cat said hurriedly and in one breath.

Uo chuckled. "Ha, you can't trick me, Carrots," she said triumphantly.

"Trick you? Why would I trick you?" spat the cat.

"I know better than to trust a talking animal. I'm taking the road less traveled."

"Like heck you are!"

"Oh yeah? Who's going to stop me?"

"No, really, it's a stupid idea!"

"Sayonara, Carrots," Uo called, waving as she zipped down Yellow Brick but-actually-rocks-and-dirt Road, taking a left at the road less traveled. Unfortunately, the moment she turned left, she rammed into a rather stiff tree branch and was promptly knocked off her broom.

…:…

Some time later, Uo's eyelashes fluttered, then parted as she gained consciousness.

Little cartoon birds and stars and angry orange cats were spinning around her head. Where'd they come from, and who did they think they were?

Not bothering to come up with an answer, Uo batted the apparitions away impatiently and sat up, taking note of where she was as well as spitting out three leaves that had somehow managed to get into her mouth. She was distracted, however, by a little fuzzy rabbit hurrying past her on the road. The rabbit took a pocket watch from... well, his fur, Uo guessed, and glanced at it.

"I'm late!" the rabbit exclaimed, jumping two or so feet in the air and landing back on the road with a puff of dust. "I'm late! For a very important date!"

The rabbit took a few hurried steps, then paused.

"Late and date," the rabbit said in a musing kind of voice. He clapped his paws together.

"Hey! That rhymed!" he said happily.

"Hey! Mr. Rabbit!" Uo called, getting to her feet woozily. Wow... the world was spinning...

The rabbit jumped again and looked over his shoulder at Uo, blinking his large eyes. Apparently, he hadn't noticed Uo lying down unconscious in the middle of the road.

"Oh, sorry," the rabbit said again. "There's no time to say hello. Good-bye! I'm late!"

And with that, he gave a cheery wave goodbye before scampering down the road.

"Hey! I just need to ask you a question!" Uo exclaimed, running after him. She had figured that the moral of the story was not "don't take advice from talking animals" since ignoring the cat had gotten her attacked by a tree branch. Maybe this rabbit could give her some advice, like where she could find a phone to call Hana and tell her she'd be late.

"Sorry, but if I stop, I'll be even later!" the rabbit sang remorsefully. "I'm overdue. I'm in a rabbit stew!"

And with that, and another "hey, that also rhymes!", the rabbit dove into the dense brush of the forest and disappeared.

"What the--" Uo muttered, slowing down to inspect said dense brush the rabbit had just jumped into. Kneeling down and pushing the branches aside, Uo discovered a rabbit hole dug into the slope of a hill.

A rather large rabbit hole, Uo amended as she crawled inside past the branches on her hands and knees. In fact, it didn't seem much like a rabbit hole at all, considering she could fit inside. It was more like a wolf's den, or a lion's den, only lions didn't live on this side of the tracks, so it couldn't belong to a lion. Lions didn't live in forests, anyway, did they? She'd have to ask someone when she got--

And at that moment, Uo's thoughts were interrupted as the floor underneath her suddenly and all of a sudden became nonexistent. Her knees dropped from under her, and Uo's hands went instinctively to hold down the hem of her skirt. No, wait, she was in the middle of the woods. No need to be concerned about being modest for a bunch of trees, a stupid cat, and a stupid rabbit. Thinking fast, she grabbed for a tree root.

Her hands scraped against the ground as it rapidly grew taller than her. Her fingers raked against a leaf of a feathery fern, and then that was gone, replaced by empty air.

She was falling!

Falling...!

Falling......

Uo was still falling five minutes later down a dark tunnel that didn't seem to have a bottom.

She crossed her arms on her chest and scowled in the dark. She was decidedly bored at this point.

"This tunnel has got to be very deep, or I'm falling very slowly," she mused to herself out loud. Her voice echoed around her, confirming her theory that the tunnel was very deep. After another minute of falling, she shook her head in disgust. "I wish I would hit the ground already. Then I could make some rabbit stew out of that- OW!"

She hadn't said "ow" because she'd landed on the ground. Rather, something had landed on her.

Rubbing the new bump on her head with one hand, she flung out her other hand blindly and caught whatever had hit her. After fiddling around with the object for a few seconds, she hit a switch, and light filled the tunnel.

"Oh, goodie, a lamp," Uo muttered to herself. "I'm so glad it wasn't anything useful like, say, a parachute."

Uo was about toss the lamp away when she noticed the walls of the tunnel. They were going by very slowly, and now and then Uo would pass a cabinet or a bookshelf nailed down, and, sometimes, falling objects would pass by her. Uo considered herself lucky that the lamp was the only thing that hit her, especially when a flock of winged bowling balls rained around her.

Falling for five minutes is boring, but falling for nearly half an hour is even more so. Luckily, Uo had snagged a flying book of crossword puzzles from the air and, with the aid of the lamp, she had managed to keep herself entertained until she hit the bottom.

And although falling wasn't very exciting, crash landing at the bottom of a very deep tunnel wasn't exactly fun, either.

Up ahead of her, Uo saw the rabbit scamper off down the new tunnel that was, thankfully, horizontal instead of vertical. Not only that, but it had hardwood floors, good lighting, and now and then, doors on either the right or left side. Uo dropped her crosswords puzzle (who cared about a six-letter word for "get in the way of" anyway?) and her lamp (which swung upside down on its cord inches away from the ground) to continue the chase.

The rabbit had disappeared around a corner, but it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out which door he'd taken. Assuming the rabbit had opposable thumbs, Uo had reasoned, he would've taken the only door that was short enough for him to reach the knob.

When Uo tried to open it, it was locked. She shrugged and kicked the door through with her foot. Teach that little rabbit a thing or two about ignoring her again!

After squeezing her way through the teeny tiny door, Uo found herself in a garden of rose bushes, no rabbit in sight.

"Gosh darnit!" Uo grumbled, stomping the ground with her foot. Too frustrated to look around her, she sat on the ground and fumed.

But it was really hard to fume, what with all the roses in full bloom around her.

Uo felt herself relaxing. It wasn't that she liked roses in particular, but these were so nice, the fragrance light on the air like a thin mist. It seemed like all of the buds were in full bloom, every single one, and not one of them appeared to be in danger of wilting.

"Amazing," she heard herself say. She reached out in spite of herself, and gently pulled the face of a particularly fat blossom of the bush towards her. It was almost as wonderful as Tohru's garden in the Labyrinth-- almost.

The stem snapped suddenly, severing the rose from the bush.

Uo mentally took back her good opinion of the rose bush quality here. Sure, the roses were pretty, and they smelled nice, but what kind of a dopey gardener would let the bush grow so weak that it snapped so easily? Tohru would never abuse flowers like that!

Remembering Tohru suddenly reminded Uo of something else.

"Leaping lizards!" she cried, jumping to her feet. "The broom!"

She didn't notice a squeak from near her foot, so lost in her thoughts Uo was.

Tohru's broom was still lying somewhere on or near the road less traveled by. How was she supposed to pick up Hana now, and how was she supposed to tell Tohru when she got back?

"Excuse me?" asked a little voice, but Uo was still thinking too fast.

Come to think of it, she left her essay behind, too! That really wasn't too much of a problem since she could still make the deadline-- all she had to do was print up what she had already written. But still, that really—

"Excuse me!" the little voice shouted politely, and this time, Uo heard it.

"What?" she asked, looking left and right.

"I… uh… don't mean to be rude, but… you seem to be standing on my tail."

Uo looked down and saw a mouse, and she was indeed standing on his tail.

"Oh, jeez. Sorry about that," she said, lifting her foot.

"Thank you," the mouse said, picking up his tail with his front paws and stepping away from Uo's foot with deliberate haste.

"Don't mention it. Hey, do you know where I could find a phone?" Uo asked. "I need to call a friend and tell her I'm going to be late picking her up."

"There should be one inside the house," Yuki informed.

"The house?" Uo turned her head and noticed, for the first time, the Japanese-styled house.

"One more thing," she continued, turning back to the mouse. "How to I get to grandmother's house?"

The mouse twitched at that. It was a little twitch, but it was noticeable.

"Go back down the road less traveled by until you reach the Yellow Brick Road. Then, take the second path to the right and straight on till evening," he said pleasantly, like he hadn't twitched or been stepped on at all. "If you hurry, you'll make it before dark."

"Great, thanks." Uo said, already heading towards the house to make a phone call, taking the particularly fat rose blossom with her.

...

Moral of today's story: Don't trust stereotypes or you will fly into trouble.