The other pets were over at the other side of the pet shop. Russell didn't really care why. He just knew that this gave him an opportunity to walk around without being asked questions he didn't want to answer.
As he walked, his mind wrestled with the thought that he might not be able to avoid Penny forever. Sure, she wasn't here now, but what about tomorrow, and the day after that, and after that, and so on? They would eventually have to talk to each other. Lost in his thoughts, he wandered aimlessly.
Suddenly he slipped on something. It sent him sliding across the floor into a nearby beanbag. His spikes became embedded in the beanbag, his feet helplessly hanging in the air. "Oh no…" he muttered. He tried to push himself out, but his spikes were pushed in too far. He looked at what he slipped on. He was annoyed to find that he had slipped on a piece of the note he was putting back together. That was his mess. He wanted to pick it up right away, but obviously he couldn't. He started struggling to get down again.
He stopped and tried to think about it logically. Struggling didn't help. It just wasted energy. The only other option was to wait. So that's what he did. One of the other pets had to notice eventually, right? In the mean time, he thought about the three riddles he had read earlier.
A donkey was tied to a 10-foot rope. 20 feet away there is a cornfield. The farmer comes back and finds the donkey in the cornfield. The rope had not been broken and the donkey had not slipped the rope off, nor has anything/one else. How is this possible? He pondered this for a while before finding the answer. The other end the rope wasn't tied to anything!
One Saturday, a diamond ring went missing. The suspects were the maid, the cook, and the maid's children. The maid said she had been waxing the floor upstairs. The cook said that he had been reading his new recipe book. The kids said that they had been at school all day long. Who stole the ring? This one was easy. It was Saturday. How could the kids be at school?
A detective was walking down the hallway of a hotel. He heard a woman shout "No, don't shoot me Steve!" and a gunshot. He ran to the room and saw a dead woman on the floor, gun on the floor, a maid, a mailman, and a waitress. The detective hesitated, and then told the mailman "You're under arrest for murder." The detective was right, but why? Russell thought about it. The only hint to the identity of the murder was "No, don't shoot me Steve!" So why did it rule out the maid and the waitress? Because Steve was a boy's name, and they were both girls! So it had to be the mailman.
After that, he was bored. Very, very bored. Then his eye fell on the note. He started putting the pieces in their place in his head. Pepper saw Russell and started laughing. She walked over to where he was trapped.
"Russell! What happened to you?" Russell didn't answer. His eyes seemed to be staring into space, and he was fervently mouthing words to himself. It was a little creepy. "Hey Rusty, what'd that beanbag ever do to you?" She tried again. No response. Pepper shrugged and tried to pull him out. She stopped after a while, breathing hard.
Suddenly, Russell started struggling. "Russell, stop! I've almost got you out! Just hold still and I'll pull you out!" Russell didn't seem to hear her. Pepper managed to get him out, despite his struggling. When she did, he just ran off. "What, not even a thanks?" She called after him.
"Wonder what was that about?" Pepper muttered.
"I don't know, but I think he's getting better." A voice said from behind Pepper. She turned around to find Minka doing something she hadn't done since the day of Aphrodite's birthday party.
She was smiling.