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Sudden Departure

To say that Lance would have expected Rikki to suddenly run off on him, would be untrue. He merely heard Rikki say to him: "Lets meet up tomorrow at the Juicy Bar!" before she ran off.

An annoyed expression upon his ruddy countenance, Lance called out to her: "What? Scared of a little rain?"

Giving the air a small kick, Lance made his way home. A fine ending to this day. Met some people, saw some places, but was otherwise abandoned by the end of it. Still, maybe he would meet up with Rikki at the Juicy Bar tomorrow. Even if she had suddenly taken off, Lance could not help but admit that he kind of liked her… Still, she was fairly attractive and he was rather common, not much to look at, especially with his nose that must have brought Cyrano de Bergerac to mind!

And his eyes! Compared to Rikki's large, reddish-brown eyes, compared to the eyes of everyone that must have allowed more expression that his own, his mismatched eyes with their close-fitting lids must have resembled those of a pig, or something else that had eyes that looked small and triangular!

Between his eyes and nose, he must not have been that good looking. Then again, since when did guys need to be tall, dark and handsome to get anywhere in life? The redheaded guys of average height and common appearance would have their day in the sun some day… At least he hoped.

As the rain began to come down more and more, Lance rolled his eyes. Wherefore did this have to happen his first day in Dolphin City? Maybe this was why his dad always insisted that he check the weather before going out.

Passing by a used bookstore with a canopy at the front, Lance took a moment to look around and plan. There had to be a route he could take where he would barely get wet. If he did not get soaking wet, then he would not get sick and miss a few days of school… At least, he hoped that was the case. Back in his hometown, he had been able to take a route and move with such speed that he did not get wet at all when returning home from a walk during a rainstorm… Though, even he admitted, there had been plenty of trees to give shade and whatnot, so perhaps it had not been his speed.

Sighing, Lance looked through the window of the bookstore and so did his eyes fall upon a storybook adaptation of "The Little Mermaid" with the art done by some person named "Van Gool." Half-raising an eyebrow and half narrowing his eyes, Lance leaned in. The art made it look like a tie-in for some animated film. Was there some animated adaptation he didn't know about? After the segment from "The Daydreamer" and the episode from "The Fairytaler" would another animated adaptation be that interesting to him?

Shaking his head, Lance looked out back at the paths before him. A comic book store showing the first debut of Namor and now a used book store showing a storybook adaptation of "The Little Mermaid". Was there some sort of deeper connection going on that was to tell him something about living in Dolphin City or was it just a coincidence? Unless his mother turned out to be a long-lost princess of sunken Atlantis and Rikki turned out to secretly be a mermaid, he doubted it. This was the real world, not some fantasy story!

Of course, given the belief that the fabled White Mermaid was somewhere in this area, maybe the bookstore owner just wanted to keep that in the public's mind somehow. Looking back at the bookstore window, Lance saw a copy of "Treasure Island."

Nodding his head, Lance thought the answer obvious.