Chapter 25: Town Improvements

Thursday, April 2

As I came downstairs that morning, I heard my gyroid calling to me. "There's some early mail for you," it said.

I opened the door to get to the mailbox; it currently looked like a little birdhouse. "Thanks for letting me know," I said as I took the letters.

"It's my duty."

The regular mail was delivered at nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, so anything that came at another time was special. There were three letters for me: one from Mitchel, one from Tortimer, and one from the Chime City Real Estate Group. Heading back in, I left them on the table while I got something for breakfast. Pancakes were sounding good, so I got the mix and made a few.

I read Mitchel's first, wondering how he was doing. It was dated from the first.

'Dear Nadia,

I had a unusual day today. Apparently I've been under more stress than I thought, since I snapped at one of my co-workers for a rather harmless prank. Because of that, I took half the day off and went to visit the state park before the kids came home from school. I'm not sure what I was looking for exactly, maybe just a change of pace. I kept wondering what I should be doing with my life now. At times, I wondered what you would say, which made me sad again. But I need to be strong. I have a responsibility to take care of our kids and to do well at work. Maybe sometime in the future, I can take off to find God, or something like that.

I did find the first tick of the season. Or rather, it found me and now I'm itchy. But don't worry about me, Nadia. I won't let you down, not through big or little problems.

'Love, Mitchel'

For a moment, I wondered if there were ticks here. Puddles would know, so I put that out of my mind and put the letter with the others I kept from Mitchell. I'm sure that he can handle things. Then I checked on the note from Tortimer.

'To Nadia-

Hey there sprout. Would you meet me by the train station at nine o'clock this morning? As you've surely heard, Miss Pecan left a generation donation to the town's funds provided that we use at least a portion of this for outdoors lighting. I could handle this myself, but I'm afraid I'm no good at decorating (unless you don't mind everything being about my favorite tortoise shell patterns). We'll be meeting with the Town Planner from Chime City, since she's in charge of upgrades like this. I hope to see you there.

From Tortimer'

A town planner. They did have a lot of animals working in the background, it seemed. Perhaps this animal helped with establishing new towns, or checked over them before others moved in. I hoped she wouldn't mind questions. Finally, I checked on the Real Estate letter. Maybe it had something to do with the town planner? I thought that could be, but it wasn't. There was the letter and a postcard inside the envelope.

'To the anchor of Verdant Town:

This is a notice that a family of four has requested to move into your town, including two children. Given that this is a multi-person household, they will require a larger building and a few special accommodations. Please consider if you would like to add this type of residency to your town and mail the postcard with your response as soon as possible. Ask the mayor if you have any questions.

From CCREG'

Children? I remember hearing something like that a little while ago, but I couldn't remember who I'd heard it from. The villagers living on their own didn't seem to need permission to move in or out, and I didn't recall Monique and Bob having any issues like that. Then again, they lived in separate houses and I had seen evidence that there were married couples in Animal Crossing.

Once I had prepared for the day, I left my home, taking an umbrella as the sky looked cloudy. It was around seven when I got to the town hall, so Pelly, Phyllis, and Pete were all there, near the counter. "Nnngh, no, I was up late," Pete said, rubbing his eyes. "That new girl in town wanted all of her furniture delivered even though she moved in after dark. Isn't that right, Phyllis?"

She had her wings crossed in front of her chest. "Well you did stumble into the flight door after midnight." She then muttered something that I couldn't understand, but it sounded a little mischievous.

"Wow, you are a hard worker," Pelly said cheerfully before she came to the desk. "Good morning, Nadia! Did you need something?"

I smiled. "Good morning. Is Tortimer in his office? I wanted to talk with him."

"Sure, he just came out for coffee a little bit ago. I'll let you in." She lifted up the counter flap that blocked the way into the office so I could come through.

There were four apartments in the town hall: one upstairs for Pete, another upstairs for Pelly and Phyllis, a third upstairs for Helen, and the last on ground level for Tortimer. His office was the front part of it, decorated with many photos of towns and people that Tortimer had known. Other than those, there was a large fern in one corner, a few chairs, a large desk, and a few filing cabinets.

Tortimer was sitting in a blue armchair behind the desk. "Oh, good morning Nadia!" he said, smiling and waving me to another armchair in the office. "This is a nice surprise; I wasn't expecting to see you until later."

"Good morning," I said, sitting down across from him. "I'll be there for that, but there was another piece of mail I wanted to ask you about. There was a notice from a real estate group about a family that wanted to move into Verdant."

He nodded. "Oh yes, I got one of those too. There aren't many family groups around, but I don't mind them myself. Some animals get easily annoyed by the children, but I love seeing them play around town. They'll need permission from the both of us to move in."

"I see. So what are the special accommodations they need?"

He rubbed his beard in thought for a moment. "Most of them we don't need to worry about, such as needing a certain level of physician and psychologist around. Those people will be in Chime City and our town wouldn't have come up as a possibility for them if we didn't meet the requirements. Since they have children, they also need a librarian in town how can handle getting books and some materials for their educations. Oh, and if you decide to let them in, you should let Helen know."

"Right, she'd want to know before they arrived."

"Sable and Mabel should be told as well," Tortimer said. "Some animals don't mind mending clothes, but it'd be good if they knew ahead of time."

"Yeah, kids can be rough on clothes," I said. I wasn't sure if the kids here would grow as quickly as human children did, but even normal play could ruin clothes. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but would these be the couples' kids or something else?"

He laughed. "Hoorf, well I will say that you're one of the very few who would ask that particular question in this realm. They're adopted. In particular, the souls who arrive here as children are those who were rescued from the mists with a low level of identity. There's a few reasons they end up like that. They may have truly been pups, cubs, kits, or what have you, when they died; a few of them end up here, although most end up back in the regular cycle of life. Or, they may have been in the mist for an unhealthy amount of time, losing their memories and sense of self over time."

"Then either way, they would need to be watched over more closely," I said.

"Right. Most married couples are eligible to adopt kids, as well as a few single animals that have proven their worth and don't have other responsibilities. You'll have to be a bit more mindful with kids in town, but there's nothing different you need to do."

"All right. Well then I don't see any reason to refuse them. I'll go talk to Helen and the girls at the Tailor shop, then I'll be by to meet the town planner with you."

"Good," Tortimer said in approval. "Don't work yourself too hard now. You might not have noticed, but I've been watching how you've been doing. Take a day or two to relax around town. It'll do you good."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, smiling as I got out fo the chair. "Maybe next week when the trees are blooming."

"Yes, that would be perfect. Well, see you in a little while, sprout!"

I came back into the main room of town hall to find Phyllis complaining about the other two making her stay up longer than she wanted. While I was there, I filled out the postcard for the real estate group to get mailed out. This got Pete to start checking over the morning mail deliveries so that Phyllis could slip upstairs to rest. Helen was doing some cleaning before she opened up the library, but she invited me in when I knocked.

"I've started getting regular mail to lend books to people in nearby towns," she told me. "Some of the books I have to ask for from the Chime City library, but I'm hoping that these people will support the main fundraiser later on."

"I hope they do too," I said. "I might get a book or two later, but for now, I wanted to tell you that we're expecting a family with kids to move in sometime in the future."

Thankfully, our lizard librarian seemed happy with that. "That's wonderful. I'll work a learning schedule out with their parents, but maybe I should ask for a few children's book in our rotation now. We'll have to arrange for somewhere else for lessons, though, since this library is small."

"What about the museum?" I suggested. "Or they could use their home, I don't know. We'll figure it out when they get here."

"Right. But thanks for letting me know."

As I went to leave town hall, I noticed some streaks of rain across the windows. It was only drizzling so far, so I didn't bother to get my umbrella as I walked towards the tailor shop. It was a refreshing air, actually, and one could smell the rain strongly in the air. Perhaps it would be heavier later on.

I came across a new house, where Deena had once lived. Outside, I saw Eloise from the day before, working on what appeared to be an herb garden at the side of her home. "Good morning!" I called over to her. "I see that you decided to stay."

"Ah, good morning," Eloise said, looking up and waving back. "Yes, this seemed like a good place to stay, at least for a little while. But the environment of this town could use some more sprucing up, even if the intent is to stay natural, as it seems."

"We're working on it," I said. "Do you like gardening too? We're planning on having a big flower festival later on, so we need more flowers."

She shrugged. "I prefer growing herbs and vegetables, but we'll see."

She seemed set on working on her garden, so I said goodbye and headed over to the tailor shop. Inside, it was unusually quiet because the sewing machine wasn't running. Neither of the two hedgehog sisters seemed to be in there. For a moment, I was worried. The homes usually locked up if the inhabitants were there, so I assumed the stores did the same. "Hello?" I called, staying by the door.

"Oh, sorry!" Sable called from the door in back. She came into the store, carrying a bundle of clothing leaves. "I thought that it was going to be quiet this morning, so I was checking on our inventory."

"That's fine," I said, nodding. "Mable helping you?"

She shook her head. "Not at the moment. You might've noticed, but our door chime broke, so I sent her to town hall to fill out a repair form. I'm really sorry; I should've figured that would make it a bad time to be in back."

"I don't mind," I said. Then I told her about the possible family moving in.

Hearing that, she smiled. "It'll be no trouble to me," she said. "It might be more work keeping up with the kids, but that's fine; I'll just need to cut down on the out of town work. It'll be like old times."

"Yeah, you did say that you and your sisters grew up here in Animal Crossing," I recalled.

She nodded. "Yes. It happens with a lot of us kids that we end up as shop and city workers. Animal Crossing is our home realm and we don't have the same goals as the others. Although sometimes I wonder about things like that." She put a paw to her chin.

"What about it?" I asked.

She set the clothing bundle down to figure out which pieces to display while we talked. "We had wonderful parents, you see. I had the clearest mind when we arrived, so that I was unofficially the oldest even though all three of us were found together. On the other paw, Mabel arrived in pretty bad shape, to the point where she doesn't remember much of our first couple of years in Animal Crossing. That means that she doesn't remember much of our parents either, because right about at the start of our third year, our parents both passed their trials and were able to ascend to heaven."

"Then it was a good thing for them, but maybe a bad thing for you three," I said. "Did it make you sad or happy?"

"Both, at different times," Sable said. "They stayed for a little while, but when people make it to that point, well, you can really see the change in them. It's... well, they don't quite fit in, but they do... oh, you remember that fellow that showed up at Christmas? K.K., I think."

I nodded. "Yeah, K. K. Slider. I had been thinking about him."

She snapped her fingers. "Yes, that's him. I think he's one who can ascend whenever he chooses, because he has that same kind of, how do you put it? Purity, I suppose. My parents were like that: nothing bothered them and they were genuinely happy to be doing what they were. After a while, I told that that I would take care of Labelle and Mabel. I had been accepted as a mature animal a few months before that and I felt like they deserved to move on. Father asked if I was really sure I wanted to do that, and when I said that I did, he surprised me by saying that he wasn't worried about us because he believed in me."

"Well Mabel's so kind and friendly that you must've done well," I told her.

Blushing a little, she said, "Thanks; I'm always glad to see her happy. I think it'll be interesting having some kids around, after I had to raise my sisters. Thanks for letting me know. Did you come for anything else?"

Not really, but now that I was here, I glanced over at where the hats and accessories were. "Now that you mention it, I've been thinking about getting a hat again. The sun doesn't seem too bright most days, but it would be nice."

"It can get bright during the summer," Sable said. "I don't make most of the hats here, but there's a few you can try on. Here, I'm sure I saw a nice straw hat earlier."

We couldn't find it, even when she searched in the storage drawers. But then Mabel came back in from her errand. When we asked her about the hat, she said that it had been in the shop for three days, so she had sent it along to the next clothing store as part of the rotating inventory. They said they'd let me know when it came back in, so it wasn't too much of a disappointment. Besides, I wasn't even sure what it looked like. A straw hat could be many styles.

Checking my watch after I left, it was only 8:30. I started my usual walk around town, looking for weeds and new flowers, but only got a part of that chore done by the time I needed to head back up to the train station. It was actually raining by that point, with the sky a light gray from overcast clouds. Concerned about the old tortoise, I checked in with the town hall to find that he'd left a few minutes prior so that he didn't need to hurry. I walked along the main path, over the bridge and up the ramp, finding him not too far from the open meadow in front of the station. He seemed to be in good spirits, so it was fine.

The train pulled in promptly at 9:00, letting off a yellow dog in a blue dress. She pulled out a pink umbrella with daisies on it before coming down to meet us. "Good thing I checked the weather first," she said. "Hello, Tortimer! It's been a while."

"Sure has, sprout," he said, shaking her paw. "I brought the anchor Nadia along for this. Nadia, this is Isabelle. I watched her come in as a new soul in the last town I watched over; she worked wonders to get where she is."

"Oh please, you're embarrassing me," Isabelle said, blushing. "I just like seeing problems solved. But anyhow, good to meet you, Nadia."

"Good to meet you too," I said, accepting her pawshake.

"This place seems like it hasn't changed a lot," she said, looking at the trees and breathing in deeply. "The atmosphere smells good, though. You shouldn't be too far off from having an excellent environment rating."

"I'm working on that," I said. "You've been here before?"

She nodded. "Oh yes, I did the initial inspection while you were caught in the slow time of Rover's train. You could say that I was the first person who saw it outside of your imagination. There weren't any problems, although the presence of that tree certainly made me wonder the whole time."

"I never thought of it as a problem," I said. "Although how it got here might be."

"Well there hasn't been a lot of traffic reported along the branch... oh sorry, I didn't mean to get distracted!" Isabelle smiled sheepishly. "It's just one of those memorable things, you know?"

"We understand," Tortimer said. "So do we want to discuss this out in the rain, or head over to the coffeeshop? I don't mind getting my shell wet, but I don't want you girls to get muddy if you don't want to."

"It's not bad now," I said. "But the coffeeshop would be nicer."

"Oh yes, that would be a good place to discuss business," Isabelle said. So we all headed to the museum.

Tortimer offered to buy drinks for the both of us, so Isabelle asked for a mocha and I got a cup of green tea. While Brewster was preparing that, Isabelle set up a metal ring on the floor. It was three feet across and less than an inch tall. A device like a small tablet computer was attached to it by a wire, which Isabelle was using. Once she activated it, a patch of grass appeared inside the ring.

"I can show you all the options with this display, like a picture but it shows more," she explained. "May we get the lights dimmed out here to show the lighting better?"

"Certainly," Brewster said, setting one of the drinks on the counter. Then he fiddled with something under the counter so that some lights remained in his work area but there wasn't much in the main room where we were.

"Thank you. Is there any particular aim you have for the design of Verdant?"

"Ho ho, I don't do well with design, you know that," Tortimer said cheerily. "But I believe Nadia's looking to keep things of a natural beauty."

I nodded. "That's right. I wasn't even sure about using pathways other than what develops."

"That's different, but it could be really nice done well," Isabelle said, nodding. She searched the control device, bringing up the image of a burning torch. It was quite simple: a sturdy wood rod in the ground, a containment basket, and a bright orange flame. Even if it was just a simulation, it cracked as a fire should, causing shifting patterns of light and shadow around the room. "This is a simple one, but it lights a good area around it. It's popular to use on beaches, and won't go out in the rain."

"Is it going to be safe to use around the trees?" Tortimer asked.

"As long as you don't put it right under a tree, it should be fine," Isabelle said.

"There's a lot of trees in Verdant," I pointed out. "And, I'm not sure about having something with such a broad range of light. The beach and the lake are good places to look at the stars, so I wouldn't want anything sending a lot of light upwards; it would cause the fainter stars to be hard to see."

"That's a good point," Isabelle said, changing the image. "There are some covered lights that will only illuminate the ground. Hmm, but..." she paused at one that was short and black, with a cone top. It was quite bright on the floor while sending no light to the ceiling. "Finding one that fits into a natural theme could be tough. Let me look."

"Something like that in shape would be nice, but not metal like that," I said. It worked with lighting the pathway but was still a little obtrusive. And since security was not as much of an issue as in the mortal realm, a softer light would fit in better.

"I have one that's in bamboo," Isabelle said, showing that one. It was the same basic shape: a cone top, an open cylinder for the light, and four legs. "It's usually used in towns that grow bamboo often."

Tortimer nodded. "Right, it looks very nice with bamboo clusters. But it can be costly to start up a bamboo grove, both in bells and in space."

Isabelle showed us a few more styles, eventually coming on a style that caught my eye immediately. It was a glass sphere on three wooden legs with a conical cap. Colored pink, the sphere held a light within it, making it softly glow like the crystal lamps that were in the cave under Yggdrasil. It cast a surprisingly wide area of light, of a brightness that would match the light of a full moon. "These ones come in many colors, but they have an unexpected benefit. See, they're solar powered, so they don't drain power from a town's generator to work. Some summer thunderstorms can knock out a generator temporarily, but with these, your paths will always be lit no matter what the circumstances."

"Those would be nice," I said, thinking about our blizzard earlier. Although, with all the snow the lights wouldn't have done much good. Their legs were tall enough that it should stay above normal snowfalls. "Is there one in blue? We have some blue lamps elsewhere in town."

Isabelle nodded. "Oh yes, there's several shades of blue. Let me show you."

While there were a few other lights that would have worked for what we wanted, I liked the colored globes and Tortimer agreed that the solar power would be a help on occasions. Then we had to discuss where along the paths the lights should go and how they should be spaced. Our discussion with Isabelle took almost to noon. So once we were done, I did a quick check over the town for weeds and then spent the afternoon at the beach, relaxing and fishing. After that busy morning, it was a good break.

Sorry about dropping off suddenly; lots of stuff happened.

An interesting thing occurred in playing my Wild World town recently. I've currently got Goose and Snake (although they seem to be more friendly to each other in the game), as well as a third character who is part of this family moving in. I suppose Goose is a more common animal to get, since I've had him a lot. Snake's not quite as common to me.

I love those glowy glass lights! But the one my family has had didn't work that well. I've seen some really nice ones that do work great, though.