Author's Note: HEY HO! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY… Well, it's close enough, I suppose. If I didn't get this on my anniversary, it's probably on the day before or the day after… But if it is the twenty-fifth, YAY! This is the first anniversary of the publishing of the first chapter of my first fanfic on the net EVER! Which is… Dun dun dun dun! Hawaiian and the Hunchback. Sad, huh? Been a year and I'm still not done. I've got quite a few chapters to write still, and I hope you stay here with me to read them all. HEY! You know what? I'm not good at this. The writing in this chapter is… weird. BUT HEY! Clopin's in it, and that makes me happy! And Congrats to SERENGETI DAWN AND CATHY for figuring out who the mysterious woman is in this story. If you find yourself in the story (or at least the characters who took your name (I don't know either of your real names so I had to make renditions of your screen names), which is not at all a hard thing to do, I'll give you a cookie.

Chapter 17

There was a great explosion of applause and laughter, most drawn from the young children that stood in the amassing crowd that circled about the old gypsy and his pet. There were gentle murmurs of approval, others of disbelief, and still more of wonderment. What was happening, one may ask, to arouse such an interest?

If one stood at the very back of the crowd, which was not too far but not too close, all that one would see would be a crude chair, a stool, a rather large and colorful ball, and a very surly cat… all balanced on top of one another in that exact order. And who stood beneath this great pyramid of assorted household items? None other than a curious blue dog, balancing on its stunted hind legs, its squashed nose in the air, the gold-plated trinkets woven into his oddly colored fur hanging behind him and clinking together with bell-like metal peals.

It was a wonder what gave him the ability to execute such a phenomenal deed, considering both the stunning equilibrium and the amazing strength. Some might say it was born into the animal, weird breed that it was. Others would say that the credit went to the trainer, supposedly the old vagabond that publicized the creature. But most would say witchcraft, not unusual considering the times. Of course, it might as well be any of those things; people (well, most of them) didn't quite care, just as long as they were being amused. On a day that there wasn't a hanging or a torturing, medieval Parisians needed to find entertainment anyway that they possibly could.

Stitch, which all of you people know to be that very "dog", grumbled in discomfort and frustration. He had submitted himself to Matthias's training regiment, the whole course gone by quickly due to Stitch's eagerness, and just a little bit of his alien strength and ability. He figured that that was the only way for him to get outside and find Lilo, other than destroying the whole court in his quest to get outside and breaking into every house in Paris searching for her. And anyway, odd shows always attracted Lilo, if ever she found them, so this might help him as well. But, he thought in anger, this was becoming very irritating. Children had a tendency to yell out rude things at him, or demand more things to be forced up there on his nose. Well, kids, here's the thing! He wasn't going to do it! It wasn't that he couldn't lift it all if he wanted to, but more on the fact that, well, there was a cat up there! If he threw another thing up there chances were the poor thing would be crushed and Matthias wouldn't be very happy, because he borrowed that cat. He wanted to make money, not lose some.

After several more minutes, and a grand finale of throwing all the objects up in the air and juggling them for several seconds and putting them all in a line, perfectly unmarred, in their order, Stitch finally sat down on the corner for a rest. He watched as the crowd dispersed, many people first coming up to Matthias and placing a coin or two into his strange cap. Stitch sighed and shook his head. Lilo was not among them.

"It's such a strange animal," said a young voice to the side. "What is it, mama?"

"Do not question the gypsies, Dawn," the mother answered. Stitch lifted his head and saw a young girl being pulled away by an older woman. Stitch felt himself missing Lilo even more. Dawn, Stitch noticed, was about Lilo's age, if not a little older, and had the same glint of hidden intelligence in her eyes.

"Why not, mama?" she asked, looking from her mother to Stitch. "Look, mama, he's looking at me!"

The mother turned and noticed Stitch's curious stare, and with a frightened start, she turned round and hid her daughter behind her back.

"You monster!" she exclaimed, holding a rosary before her as if to ward away any evil that his glance might portend. "Stay away from my daughter!"

And, with that, she rushed away, her daughter in tow, Dawn looking back at Stitch with a quiet and apologetic wave. Stitch let out a frustrated growl and slashed a long and angry mark down the wooden side of the building he sat against. People here were so uptight, so much more frightened than they were in Kauai. Of course, the fear was fundamental; it seemed that anywhere one would go the estrangement of the "normal" from the "oddity" was obvious. There were people that accepted others the way that they were, whether it be Lilo or that little girl Dawn, who seemed she would've easily recognized Stitch as nothing to be feared (which wasn't exactly the truth, but it was a very nice thing to think).

He shook his head. He wasn't sure how much more of this stupidity he would be able to take. In Hawaii, Lilo was there for him, but now, in Paris, he was with only Matthias, who acknowledged him only as an ugly rabbit who would make him a lot of money. Of course, there was that king of his, that Clopin Trouillefou that Matthias felt such disparagement toward. But he was undeniably annoying. Nice, interesting, skilled vastly in his artifice…. But annoying.

"Come, rabbit," Matthias said, tugging on the rope leash that hung from Stitch's neck. "Time to move."

Stitch growled again, but followed after the old gypsy. He had to find Lilo.

"Is she still crying?"

"Well, yes, wouldn't you still be crying if your sister disappeared with no explanation and you didn't know where she was?"

"I wouldn't know," Jumba answered, crossing his legs and straightening out his newspaper. "Only child, you know."

Pleakley rolled his single eye and straightened out his shirt. This was becoming a very uncomfortable situation. Nani had been crying up in her room ever since the police escapade, and more guilt began piling up in Pleakley's head. They knew what had happened to Lilo, they knew what was being done in order to try and get her back, they knew what chances that they had to find her… but Nani didn't. She was the only one in the house in the dark, but she was also the most affected by the happenings. It seemed almost cruel to keep the secret from her, all for the sake of evading trouble.

"Do you think we should tell her, Jumba?" Pleakley asked, fingering the hem of his shirt.

"Tell who what?" Jumba asked, peeking over the edge of his newspaper with four curious eyes.

"Nani, should we tell Nani what's going on?"

"And get my scientificking stopped altogether?" Jumba asked incredulously. He shook his large head and returned to his paper. "Huh, ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous."

"You are nothing but an insensitive fluff trog, do you know that?" Pleakley exclaimed angrily, getting to his three feet.

"Just a little," Jumba answered, not even glancing upward this time.

"She has a right to know!"

"Know what?"

Pleakley and Jumba jumped at the voice, and turned to see Nani making her way down the set of stairs. Her nose was red, her eyes were bloodshot and tired, her hair a disarrayed mess. She was clutching a single tissue in her hand, which she continually raised to dab at her eyes.

"Know what? What do I have a right to know?" she repeated when no answer came. Her voice was crackled and thick from her earlier weeping.

"Who says that you have a right to know anything? I didn't say your name!"

"You said 'she'," Nani replied, a hint of anger in her voice. "And unless I'm mistaken or someone in here is gender-confused, I am the only woman in this house."

"Oh, no, no! I was talking about… about Jumba's ex-wife, yes, weren't we, Jumba, talking about your ex-wife?"

"Why would I want to talk about that elephant?" Jumba asked. Pleakley slapped him sharply on the shoulder. "Which is… what we were talking about! Yes, yes, I hate her, very very much, mmm hmm. That is why I am not wanting to talk about her."

Nani was quiet for a while, as if trying to understand, but she ended up shaking her head and swatting away the thought.

"I'm not even going to try to understand you to right now," she said, holding her temples as if she had a headache. "Just tell me, where's Stitch?"

Jumba and Pleakley exchanged an anxious glance.

"Um, he's not here right now, maybe we can take a message?"

"I just… nevermind. Just tell me when he comes back, okay? I really need to talk to him," she sighed, then turned and made her way back upstairs. Jumba and Pleakley sighed quietly.

"Poor girl," Pleakley muttered, shaking his head. "I'm starting to wonder how long we can keep this up. And if Stitch doesn't come home with Lilo… then what?"

"There's only two ways to find out, my little one-eyed friend," Jumba said, putting down the paper and scratching the back of his large head. "Either one of us makes a what-if machine, or it actually happens. So, let's hope that one of us has enough brains in their big, four-eyed, purple head to invent that totally unnecessary device."

Clopin waltzed down the long boulevard, singing a tune of his own invention, laughing every other moment, and flipping halfway down the road. It was just about time he made his way to the court for lunch and he had just had a very successful morning at the old puppet theatre. The children were obviously becoming more and more accustomed to seeing his masked face smiling at the corner, which meant that either they avoided him or they came right on up to listen to his stories. Whether or not the former held more bodies than the latter was unknown, but God knew that there were enough children (with money) watching him to ensure the gypsies have a good meal for once.

Breaking out into random song as he gallivanted down the street, he twirled about on the old cobbles, waltzing with some invisible being. He had just reached the intersection between his current road and the one leading out of the market square when he heard a quiet murmur of a whispering crowd. He stopped for a second, looking at an accumulated throng that circled about an unseen subject, and stroked his chin in wonder. Finally, he made his way up to the outer circle of the crowd and tried to peer above the high shoulders of those that formed the mass.

Damn it all, Clopin thought in annoyance. Why is it that the freakishly tall people forever stand in the back of these groups?

He would've liked to push the two large men before him away and get into the crowd, but now was not the time to be rude. They had been there first, after all.

"Bartholomew, I think you've gone too far this time!"

Clopin, lifted himself on his toes to see who had spoken, spotting a young woman with long brown hair. Bartholomew… he thought, raking his mind for information on that name. Ah, that big brute with the celery. What did he do this time?

"What do you care, Belle?" A rough voice retorted, obviously angered.

"She's only a child!"

"She's a gypsy and she was trying to steal one of my apples!"

"One of my apples, you mean," the girl replied, her clear voice edged with resentment. "You had no right to do that to her…"

"Gypsy?" Clopin repeated, surprised at the news. The two tall men who stood before him twisted their necks momentarily to take a glance at him, rolled their eyes, seeing that he was a gypsy himself, and returning to the sight before them. Clopin shook his head, and continued to listen through the thick of the crowd.

"Mama says that gypsies are bad," a little girl said, her face hidden from the Gypsy King's view.

Belle gave out a quiet sigh.

"They aren't bad, Catherine," she told the young girl. "They're just different. Your cat and your dog are different, but that doesn't make them bad."

"I guess not… but why don't they go to heaven then?"

"That's ridiculous."

Clopin couldn't help but smile and look at the French woman with admiration. There were few in this society who would recognize that being different meant little, and even fewer who would admit to feeling that way. He stroked his goatee for a second in thought before turning back to the situation.

"Don't you go filling that child's head with your crazy ideas!" Bartholomew exclaimed with ire. "This child of damnation was attempting to steal, whether it be from me or from you, Belle!"

There was a quiet murmur of agreement, others of disagreement, and some of fear. Clopin furrowed his brow in confusion, feeling from this group a wave of discomfort. There was something happening now, something that he couldn't see beyond the shoulders of these disgruntling men. During his years in the entertainment business, Clopin had learned how to read crowds and this one was evidently unsure… What was it?

"No, don't!" screamed out the voice of the child named Catherine. "That's not right, Uncle Bartholomew, that's not right!"

Clopin, vehement on saving anyone that might be of his troupe, finally decided that now was the time to be rude. He pushed past the two men before him and forced his way to the inner circles of the crowd, ignoring the angry grunts of those he moved to the side. He pushed his way to the closes ring, and saw one Monsieur Bartholomew L'etoile, the one vendor that most gypsies in Paris would not be audacious enough to cross. His face was distorted in anger as he argued with those who demanded he stop, his hand gripped about the long wooden shaft of a pitchfork whose points aimed downward, threatening the likes of whoever lay beneath it.

Clopin ran his eyes down the splintering rod to where it pointed at the ground and found himself instantly full of pity.

There, lying on her belly upon the cobbles of the street, was a little girl. She was garbed in a patterned red dress, an odd bag lying beside her, its strap still barely on her shoulder. Her skin was dark, her hair was black and shiny, now stained with a dark red with the blood that slowly trickled from an open wound on the back of her head. She certainly resembled a gypsy, but that was all that Clopin could say. Her facial structure was different, her nose was too snub. One of her hands was stretched out before her, where inches away a dusty apple lay. Her other was bent at her side, clutched tightly into a fist.

Clopin squinted his eyes in curiosity. There was something in that hand… something that he could barely see. What was it? He saw the rim of it, peeking from the space between her thumb and her index, a spot of tarnished gold…

"I don't care! No gypsy steals around Bartholemew!"

Clopin's eyes darted upward, and he saw him, the large and ugly vendor, lifting the pitchfork upward, getting ready to plummet it downward into the body of the young girl. The gypsy king could not take anymore of this. Gypsy or not, the killing of so precious a girl was heartless, inhuman!

"STOP!" cried the gypsy king, extending one imposing hand forth. His face, hidden behind his magenta mask, was still obviously upset, his mouth frowning, his piercing eyes staring deeply at the fruit vendor, who had just then stilled his hand. Had Clopin not stepped forth, the little girl would've been almost certainly dead.

Bartholomew was stunned. Here, right when he was at his most daunting, a man stepped in from the crowd, garbed in the clothing of a jester, demanding the stop what he believed the right thing to do! He could've easily felt anger, but before that, Bartholomew felt curiosity. What was this gypsy going to do?

Clopin knelt down beside the little girl, running a gloved hand over the base of her head, where a small wound was evident. Whatever he had used to hit her had cut badly into the skin against her skull, and she was in fact bleeding. Not to death, no, that would take much longer, but it was something that one would not want to leave alone. He flipped her onto her back, supporting her head with his arm, and looked at her quietly, his expression still unmoving, and he brushed away the hair that lingered at her face. He outlined her round face with his free hand and for a while continued to peruse her expression, that mixture of surprise and despair that she had managed just before she had fallen into shadow.

Finally, his hand went to her fist, where the unknown object rested, clutched tightly as if in security. He gently opened the tight fingers and pulled from her hand what to the crowd seemed nothing more than a discolored gold trinket, of little importance or use. But, Clopin's reaction proved that it was not that. It was a gypsy talisman, marked with the initials of a certain family that had long ago been traveling but had disappeared with little markings of their existence. Apparently, this child, who lay silent in his arms, bleeding from a wound inflicted by a racist man, was in fact Romany. How else was it possible that she laid claim to such a medallion?

This new bit of information raised Clopin's anger, before then just a simmering of disappointment in the man's heinous plans and actions, up to an indignant ire. He glanced up at Bartholomew with a stare that would frighten away a tiger, a long and bitter look that sent the large man into uncertainty. He then moved his other arm to the young girl's knees, supported her small body with his hands, and lifted her off the ground.

"Hey!" Bartholomew exclaimed, putting an angry hand on the gypsy's arm. "Where do you think you're going? She's mine! After what she did…"

Clopin need only look at him to shut him up.

The crowd parted as Clopin made his way out, his fingers still gripped about that trinket, and he followed their path without a word or glance. He stopped for a moment before Belle, that pretty woman that had defended the girl and perhaps saved her life.

"Thank you," he whispered to her, bowing slightly. Belle accepted the thanks and returned the bow with a curtsy and a "welcome", and Clopin went his own way.

"Hey, King, look at all the money that the rabbit… Oh dear lord, what is that?"

Matthias stared at the body that the Gypsy king held in his arms, a look of concern and wonder on his tight-skinned face.

"The victim of an idiot's attack," Clopin answered grimly. He looked back down at the girl, clicking his tongue quietly. "Poor girl, she's got quite the scrape on the back of her head. Where's your dog?"

"My rabbit," Matthias answered, putting a harsh emphasis on 'rabbit', "is coming along fine. He's doing well… But about this girl… is she…?"

"She'll be fine, with a little rest, maybe a few bandages…"

"No, no, that's not what I mean. Is she a…"

"A gypsy? She seems it in some respects, in others she doesn't but the evidence points to yes, or at least a probably. But whether she is gypsy or not, we have to get her back to the court. She needs help."

"Ah, yes, yes, of course," Matthias said, nodding. He tugged hard on the rope leash that he held, which rounded about a corner, behind the edge of a stone wall that fenced about an old house. "Come rabbit, come one. We've got to get back to the court."

Clopin nodded and glanced up at the heavens.

"And we'd better do it soon. It looks as if it's about to rain."

A/N: And that's the end. You might be thinking: Oh, her two updates weren't that far away, she must be updating sooner! But no. The next chapter is going to take forever to come up! evil laughter ensues Read and Review, my friends. Yeah, yeah, I made Clopin kind of a savior in this bit, but I needed to do something. I also made Nani kind of cranky… I tried to make her sad, but it came out wrong. Well… Next chapter is in the court, the reuniting of Lilo and Stitch! READ AND REVIEW, AND COME BACK NEXT TIME!

note to Serengeti Dawn and Cathy: cookie not real. Do not eat cookie. I repeat, DO NOT EAT THE COOKIE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHOMEVER HE MAY BE TO YOU, DO NOT EAT THE COOKIE!

Fun fact #5 (if anyone reads this, tell me. I might just be writing this for my own viewing)

In the original draft, Clopin was supposed to have found Lilo as she was wandering away from Notre Dame. She was singing "Aloha Oe" and nobody understood the words that she was saying. Clopin noticed that she was lonely and decided that she looked like a gypsy and took her back to the court. But I realized that, first off, she's got a translator in her mouth. So, if she said anything in Hawaiian, it would come out in Old French. Second off, I thought Clopin and the gypsies could tell better than others what gypsies actually looked like. Hawaiian and gypsies don't look exactly like each other, so in this draft, I put how he only thought she was gypsy because of the talisman. OH YEAH… In the original draft, the talisman didn't even exist. But, I put more meaning into it. You'll see. BYE!