At the schoolhouse, another day had finally passed.
"Alright children. Time to go home!" shouted the teacher. However, no one moved. Instead, they stared at the window, watching the rain twinkle down.
"I said, time to go home!" she yelled again. This time, however, her voice echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the walls. Finally, the students were able to happily move away from the window, and make their way to the door with their bags, along with the work that had made during the day. The teacher watched as they happily frolicked outside, where their parents were waiting for them. The pitter-patter of their little feet echoed throughout the room.
However, one kid in specific stood out. She was a young girl named Abri, about five years old. Her red hair was braided into two tails on either side of her head. On top of her head sat a large white hat; it was rather large, nearly covering half her face, which was covered in freckles. She was wearing a tie-dye shirt and a light blue pair of pants, paired with a white pair of shoes.
She stayed behind, unlike the others, and instead walked up to three cages in the said classroom. In the cages lay a guinea pig by the name of Linny, a duckling named Ming-Ming, and a red-eared slider terrapin called Tuck. She opened the cage doors to each animal, one by one, and began to pet them softly. They looked up at her with their big eyes and seemed very happy to see her. She smiled back at the animals, making sure not to disturb any scales, feathers, or fur on them.
"You little guys are so cute!" she whispered happily. She didn't have many friends or siblings, so she especially loved the pets since they felt like family to her at times.
She even gave them small presents. Linny was given a big stuffed animal moose, Ming-Ming got a blue blanket, and Tuck got a small sailboat. She then took a look around the classroom and noticed a small set of stickers on a desk, with the designs being made to look like flowers and hearts. She picked up the set and put said stickers all over the cages with the animals inside, along with the whiteboard.
Finally satisfied, she placed the now-empty sticker sheet back onto their respective desks and exited the schoolhouse.
After the visit and gifts from that rather sweet child, the pets were filled with serotonin. After a short bit of silence, Ming-Ming looked up at Linny.
"Hey, Linny?" she said, her voice muffled due to her mouth being pressed into the blanket. "Isn't she just the sweetest girl ever?"
Linny nodded in agreement. "Oh yeah, she is. I wish I could meet her again," she replied. "Better yet, I wish we had more kids in the classroom that were like that."
She looked at her turtle friend, Tuck. "Don't you agree?" she asked him. Tuck dipped his head towards her and nodded. "Why wouldn't I?"
Linny turned away from her fellow animal friends, and made herself comfortable with her new stuffed animal, slowly beginning to fall asleep. As for Ming-Ming and Tuck, they were simply... chilling in their cages.
But this was interrupted in a matter of a couple of seconds, as the "phone" (which was in fact, a can attached to a string) began to ring, waking the three of them up.
Linny, now awake, reached into a corner and pulled out an orange cap, threw it onto her head quickly, and began to sing. "The phone! The phone is ringing!" She picked open her cage and jumped out, fell into a toy truck that was coincidentally next to her, and began to ride it toward the counter where the phone is.
Ming-Ming followed in pursuit, adjusting her aviator's cap and goggles onto her face before continuing the rest of the song. "The phone! We'll be right there!" Just as Linny had, she picked open her cage and began to fly to the phone.
Tuck continued afterward, getting his sailor's cap and continuing the song. "The phone! The phone is ringing!" He proceeded to slowly crawl out of the water and out of his cage, leaping onto the counter where the phone had been.
"There's an animal in trouble!" Linny continued as she reached for the phone.
"There's an animal in trouble!" Ming-Ming repeated as she continued flying next to Linny.
"There's an animal in trouble somewhere," emerged Tuck, as he continued to crawl over to the phone.
After their little song, Linny picked up the phone and put one of her furry ears into it. "What baby animal are we gonna save today?" she thought to herself. She put the other ear back to her head and waited for a reply.
"How do you know it's a baby animal? It could just be some random person calling about something that doesn't concern us, just like last time." Ming-Ming interrupted.
"Well, I don't know. But someone must have a baby animal in need of help. So we better get to it!" Linny responded, still holding the phone.
Ming-Ming huffed and took a seat on the counter. She was not in the mood to do stuff with her life today.
Linny continued to put her ear to the phone, waiting to detect a noise. Then, all of a sudden, she picked up some sounds. These, however, were not the sounds of any baby animal.
She heard heavy breathing, along with the sound of running footsteps. She stood there in shock for a little bit before uttering the word "Hello?"
The heavy breathing got louder after her response, synchronized with very faint speaking.
"You... Park... tomorrow... Come... please... I can't keep running..." came a weak male voice.
This was indeed the sound of either a person or an animal, running for their lives from someone or something. The problem was, they couldn't tell who or what it was.
The phone seconds later went silent, and they didn't hear anything for a while. All of a sudden, the phone began to ring again.
Linny jumped up in surprise and picked the receiver up. "Who is this?!" she demanded.
"Please... I'm waiting for you..."
The phone hung up once again, leaving her in silence. She walked over to her animal comrades.
"So," Ming-Ming said, breaking the silence. "What animal was it?"
Tuck jumped up and down happily. "Yeah, yeah! Tell us!"
Linny just scratched her head in confusion. "I... don't know... It was an animal or person... saying they needed to run from something... and they were in a park...?"
"That doesn't help much..." Ming-Ming mumbled.
"No, it doesn't!" Tuck agreed.
Linny sighed and looked down at her hands. She rubbed them together in a tired gesture. "Well... I guess we should go back into our cages." The Wonder Pets agreed, going back into their cages, now bored out of their minds.
Linny, however, was a little bit worried. Was that an actual animal in trouble that they were just going to ignore? Was it a prank pulled by someone? She didn't know and decided she didn't want to know at all, as she attempted to go back to sleep, cuddling her stuffed moose.