"Super-Duper-Mega-Bummer!" Selphie exclaimed when she heard the bad news.
"Yeah I know." Rinoa agreed. "The next train to Dollet leaves in a couple of hours. Let's cross our fingers and hope we find him safe and sound there." She paused and stared at Zell who had the fingers of both hands crossed along with his legs, his arms and eyes. "Right... So meet back here at 3 'o' clock?"
Everyone nodded their heads and they turned around to head out of the station.
* * * *
Squall jumped out of the train and squealed with excitement. The trip through the underwater tunnel was fun and he wanted to do it again. A sign in front of him read: 'Welcome to Dollet!'.
"Hello Dollet!" He waved to the sign before following the other people who got off the train. They lead the way out of the station and into Dollet.
Once in the town, Squall discovered the many shops. The first one he came across was the pet shop. A litter of adorable puppies greeted him at the window, scratching on it with their paws. Squall got down on his knees in front of the window so he could be level with the puppies and put his face up to it. He began to paw at the window as well, squishing his face into the window in the process, turning his nose up to look like a pig's.
Inside the shop, Squall was excited to discover more animals. There were lots of fish in many aquariums lining both sides of one aisle. The fish were very pretty to watch but he found them 'boring' because they didn't respond to his constant tapping on the glass. Moving on, the SeeD saw some very interesting bugs. He was very fascinated as he slowly moved along the aisle until he came across a spider staring back at him from behind glass that was too thin for his liking. It was a very big spider, bigger than his fist, and very hairy. He quickly backed away and bumped into a cage behind him. Inside the cage was another hairy critter. A rat.
Squall squealed and ran away from this 'awful' side of the store. He passed tanks with snakes of all sizes, patterns and colours. Some coiled, some stretched out to extend as far as the length of their glass-walled homes. It was quite a frightening experience but he finally escaped the scary animals and arrived at the bird cages. Squall liked the birds. He wanted to be just like them. Flapping his arms and making his best attempts to chirp, he 'flew' around the store until one of the employees approached him.
"Excuse me, uh, sir. Either you are going to calm down or you'll have to exit the store. You're going to frighten the animals." The young man told him.
Squall obediently put his arms down and placed them in his pockets. When the employee left, he stuck his tongue out at his back. "Some people can be soooo mean." he complained.
"Raah! Sooo mean! Raah!" one of the more colourful birds, next to the exit, screeched back at him.
Squall raised his eyebrow. Well this was cool. A pondered for a moment to think of the best line for this bird to repeat.
* * * *
"We're going to put the par-TAY in search party!" Selphie exclaimed when they boarded the train. Rinoa, Zell and Quistis stared at her blankly. "Well we might as well have a good time while we're at it." she explained. "Hey Zell, you want to put the card in so we can get into the SeeD car?"
"Sure." Zell grinned. He was proud to be doing what was normally Squall's job.
"Tee hee, thanks!" the energetic young woman said before running through the now open door. The others followed her, a little less excited.