-Chapter Six-

It didn't take her long to notice me at her side. "What's this?" She took the note from me with bemusement but wasted no time reading it. Unlike Paul I noticed she had no trouble sounding out the words in one go. "The Wizard of Oz, book two?"

She seemed ready to brush off my request immediately but then I realized why — I'd forgotten the magic card. Quickly I scampered off back to my fallen hat, pulling out Paul's library card. I grabbed it between my toes at first but swiftly remembered to transfer it to my mouth to hold it like a normal pokemon would before bringing it back to her.

"Paul? He's your owner? I don't think I've seen him in here before."

"Ee?" I replied, not sure what to say about that. Obviously Paul wouldn't spend time around books when he had so many video games to play with instead, but I hoped that didn't mean his card had lost its magic.

"Did he send you to pick up this book for him?"

"Vee!" I nodded eagerly. I felt a twinge of guilt for lying, but this particular sort of lie was one I was well used to. I must have signed his name on hundreds of homework papers by now, so giving him credit for something I was doing was nothing too unusual to me anymore.

"This is highly unusual," she said, frowning. "But I guess it's fine if it's only one book. And if you promise you can carry it without dirtying it or leaving teeth marks."

"Eevee eev eevee!" I put my utmost sincerity into the oath and she seemed to recognize that, her frown slowly melting.

"I must be a fool to trust a young canine pokemon with a book but for some reason I want to believe you." My smile cracked a little at her saying I was young when I was already six long years old, but I held it in place. "I guess we'll give this a try — with the paperback mind you."

I hopped along eagerly as she lead the way to a particularly friendly second room of the library that I'd missed before. It reminded me of Paul's old kindergarten classroom. Drawings of unicorns and dragons were taped to the walls, and beanbag chairs lay scattered about the room practically begging me to leap on them. Even the books were different, slimmer and far more colorful than the books in the main room. This here was what books were meant to be in my opinion.

I could barely contain my excitement as she put some special stamp in the book before handing it to me. I froze before I could take it, caught in a conundrum over how I would carry it. I didn't want to seem odd by carrying it in my paws, but she'd just finished warning me about putting tooth marks in it so what did that leave?

'Oh!' I ran back into the main room to fetch my hat, returning in a rush that nearly had me tripping over it to get back before she lost patience with me. After a little urging and pointing with my paw she put the small paperback into my hat.

"You really are a smart little thing, aren't you. Eevee, was it?"

"Eevee," I confirmed. I wasn't sure I liked being called a thing, but it was nice to hear someone call me smart. I didn't think anyone had ever said that about me before.

The young woman watched with a faint smile as I maneuvered the now heavier hat onto my head. "Your kind is quite rare around here — and I don't just mean the library. I've never seen an eevee in person before."

Not surprising. Other than myself, I hadn't seen another eevee since Paul's parents bought me. My memories of that early time were dim now, mostly consisting of various fluffballs curled around me in our mother's hutch.

"You're not quite like what I imagined. Except for the fluffiness," she said, giving me a friendly pet on the back as her other hand helped adjust my sunhat. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

"Ee!" I nodded firmly, book shifting inside my hat. Even ignoring the excitement of being around so many books, I wasn't inclined to give up such a good petter.

Showing her wisdom and kind spirit she graciously held the library door open for me to leave. I paused as she gave me one last pet before hopping down the stairs one by one.

"And remember, the book is due back here in two weeks. Don't be late."

She wasn't overly stern in warning me but I was still startled, sitting in place as she turned away. 'Two weeks?' I was beginning to better understand how libraries functioned. I should have known there would a limit to the library card's magic. And while all in all it wasn't such a bad restriction, it still worried me. I wasn't sure I could get through the whole book in that length of time. The first in the series took over a month to get through, more than double the time she was giving me.

I stamped my paw on the ground, a tiny puff of dust shooting out around it as I resolved myself to the task. I could do this. I wasn't distracted by schoolwork anymore, and I was a much stronger reader than I was then. With luck I wouldn't have to spend quite as much time flipping through the dictionary with clumsy paws or struggling to decipher longer sentences. Two weeks, I could do it.

There was no time to waste, so despite my fears I stopped my dithering and set out back for home. I'd gotten through the grass once without problems, I could do it again. There was probably no reason to worry anyways. What sort of wild pokemon would come so close to humans.

"EE!" I shrieked as I came across a rattata that looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was gnawing on a nut but with those massive teeth I worried that wasn't all he could gnaw on. I knew from poke-studies class that a rattata weighed about half as much as I did but he was still just as tall as I was and I didn't like my chances.

Frightened into incoherence, I fell back onto my pokepet instincts. I shoved down my fear and tried my best to be as cute and nonthreatening as possible. Casting aside all conventional wisdom on self defense, I even rolled over on my back and played with my tail like I was a young kit.

The cuteness attack was super effective! To my great surprise, the rattata fainted instantly. He went stiff as a board and fell over onto his side without any reaction. I was half tempted to poke him to make sure he was still alive, but even if fear wasn't holding me back there was something about him that was creeping me out. There was a red glow on his cheeks that went right through his fur. Just what was he dreaming about?

I shook my head. It was probably better that I didn't know.

I didn't want to be around when he woke up so I got to moving, carefully walking around his body before taking off at a run. I stayed slow enough to see where I was going and not lose my hat, but other than that I ran full-out all the way home. I was a panting mess by the time I opened the latched gate and slipped inside the family yard.

"Eeeeeeev." I made it. To the library and back with a book in tow, and not an injury to show for it. I did feel filthy from all the dust and bits of grass I'd picked up on the run though. I couldn't even think about reading my precious treasure until I cleaned off and calmed down.

I dragged myself over to the pool area, pink tongue lolling out ever so slightly from my mouth. I carefully set aside my sunhat with the book still inside before flopping gracelessly into the pool.

Summer swimming sure was nice.

P.S. - I think this chapter just brought me up to 100k words on this site.