Ellen: Hello! I hope you like this next chapter! Oh, by the way, for those of you who don't speak Toddler, here's the translation from the last chapter:

"Mister Count D? My mommy and daddy told me to come here, because there was a strange man in the house and I ran before he could see me but I don't know what happened to my mommy an' daddy-" she took a huge breath, "-but I came here because they know you but the door was closed but I saw a little door on the side so I came in and I guess I was a little sleepy because I fell asleep and then you were here…"

Cheddar: It's just one long, run-on sentence. Cyute! But, we haven't been that age in a while, so maybe we laid the accent on a little too thick?

Ellen: I'll lessen it a bit for this chapter. See what you think.

The next morning, as Di woke up, she could hear the muted screeches and growls of the many pets that she knew to inhabit D's pet shop. She padded out into the hallway, and, picking a direction at random, began to explore. Most of the doors lining the hall were locked, and the doorknobs of some others were too high for her to reach. Still others didn't even have doorknobs. The ones she could open, however, led her to a beach, a jungle, a desert plain, and many, many rooms of cages, some ordinary-looking, some elaborately decorated with silver, gold, and precious gems. Di wandered slowly through these, peering into each cage as she went, finding all sorts of interesting, cute, and scary creatures, that seemed to look like people, but also resembled animals. Di made a mental note to ask the Count about it, but promptly forgot it upon reaching the next cage. Finally, the hallway brought her to the front of the pet shop, where D had set out a plate of breakfast for her on a table near the entrance of the hall. D was currently chatting with a blond man in jeans and a t-shirt with words on it that Di couldn't read.

"So anyway, there were slash marks found on the parents' bodies, and no trace of the little girl…" The strange man looked around suddenly, and started upon seeing her standing in the threshold of the hallway. "Hey D, who's this?" he asked.

"Oh, good morning, Diana!" D said with a small smile. "I set out some breakfast for you, if you are hungry. This is Detective Leon Orcot." The larger man grunted. "Chris, his brother, is in the back playing with the animals. You should go meet him, if you're not hungry."

"Hey D, she isn't one of your pets, is she?" Orcot asked. "Like, a dragon or a man-eating palm tree or something like that?"

D looked offended. "When have I ever stocked a man-eating palm tree?? And why would I allow one to play with Chris?" Di blinked a few times, and disappeared as she scampered down the hallway of the pet shop.

"Fine, fine then… But if she really turns out to be somethin' weird then I'll have you busted before you can say 'Flesh-eating koala'!!"

"I believe you, Leon," said D with an enigmatic smile.

Elsewhere in the pet shop, Di was looking for Chris, and eventually found a boy that looked just like a young version of Detective Orcot in a room close to the front of the store that she hadn't cared to look in before.

"Hi, I'm Diana," she said slowly, "but you can call me Di. Are you Chris?" The boy smiled, and all of a sudden, Di could hear what she thought to be the boy's voice, but it came directly into her head, not through her ears.

Hi! Yeah, I'm Chris.

Then Di noticed some of the animal-people hanging around Chris. One began to talk.

"So you know about Chris, eh? Then you must be a friend," said a young boy with a fin on top of his head. "My name's Phillipe."

"I'm T-Chan the mighty!" a young man with ram's horns declared with a wolfish grin.

That's true, but remember, I can beat you up with the best of them!

T-Chan didn't like to be reminded of that little fact. "Well, I let you win," he said with a pout.

One of the other pets, a young girl, turned to Di. "My name's Pandora," she gestured to the animals in the cages behind them, "and these are the pets of Count D's pet shop."

"So all of the animals fwom the pet shop awe like this?" Di asked. "I just got a bird hewe last week, and he didn't look wike dis at all…"

The pets looked alarmed. "A bird? You mean E-Chan?" asked Phillipe.

"How do you know his name?" Di was confused.

"How do you know his name?" inquired Pandora. "Wait, maybe I can explain this. We only look like this because of the special incense Count D burns in the pet shop. Did he give you any incense?"

"Yeah," Di said after some consideration, "but Mommy threw it away. She said she didn' want anything I might get burned on. But I knew I was caweful, so I got it and burned it in my room, 'cause I didn't wanna make Count D mad. Then Daddy found me, an' took it away again…"

Just then, Leon came to pick up his brother, with Count D following behind.

"Come on, Chris. Let's go home," said a frustrated Orcot, as he finally managed to drag Chris away from the pets after a few minutes of unaided struggle. After they were gone, Count D turned to Di.

"Did you have a good time with Chris, Diana?"

"Yeah, but…" she looked back at the pets for help, "was something wong with E-Chan?"

D looked confused. "No, Diana. Nothing is wrong with E-Chan, except that he becomes very attached to the one that adopts him, and that he's very intelligent…"

"In… tell…?" Being only four years old gave Di a hard time grasping any word with more than two or three syllables.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Diana. It means that E-Chan is very smart. But those are good qualities in a pet, correct?"

"Yeah, but – " At that moment, the two heard the soft tinkle of the bell on the door of the pet shop, signaling that another new customer had come in search of love, hope, and fulfilled dreams.

"Oh," murmured the count. "I'll be back in a bit, Diana."

After D had gone, Diana turned to the pets again. "He said E-Chan was good, right?"

"Actually, Count D really doesn't know as much about his pets as he would like," Pandora replied. "He probably didn't know about E-Chan's mean streak before he sold him to you."

"So E-Chan is bad?"

"Well," said Phillipe, "he's not entirely bad, but he's missing an important thing we like to call a conscience. E-Chan is very reckless, and doesn't think about the consequences of his actions before he does them. However, he's very good at covering up whatever he does when it's something not good."

Di, lost, simply nodded.

Ellen: After some debate, I decided to allow Di to be able to hear Chris' thought-speaking. At first she wasn't able to, but I figure this makes the story a bit smoother.

Lauren: We're almost at the climax of the story! I didn't think it would go this fast…

Ellen: We're sorry about the slow posts, too.

Soup: We've been laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy!! zz

Ellen: ; Anyway, we hope to be making more progress in our stories soon! See ya!