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The Used Bookstore

After a while, Lance departed from the Juice-y Bar and walked around town. As he walked, he thought about various things, for instance his mind going back to Zane's invitation to join the film club. Had he ever been much of a club person? Back in elementary school, he had tried out a few clubs… Gymnastics club when he had been six… The board game club when he had also been six… That had introduced him to Chinese checkers. There had also been the cross country club, when he had been seven. There had been the science club when he was ten, the only one that he had not abandoned altogether. Those had been his elementary school years, but now here he was, a high school student… Maybe he should give a club a shot, maybe film club would be fun… Or maybe he would be bored out of his mind.

Stopping at the used bookstore he had passed his first day, Lance paused and looked at the used books that were out on a table. One book was "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling and the sight of that caused Lance to smile. Had he really attempted to read that when he was six years old? Looking back, he had trouble believing that was the case. He did finally read it last year and he enjoyed it, the three Mowgli stories, the four non-Mowgli stories, all of it with the story "The White Seal" being his favourite. With all of the attention the Non-Mowgli stories got it was only natural, but a story that has nothing to do with India? Nothing to do with the jungle? A story set in the northern oceans? He really did hear the Allure of the Deep.

He had "The Second Jungle Book" on his to read list and Lance had no doubt he would get to it soon enough. He only wondered if he would enjoy it as much as the first and if there would also be a story that had nothing to do with India and its jungles. He could have looked that up online, but Lance wanted to be surprised.

After looking at several other books on the table, Lance found nothing that really interested him that much, but there were some odd ones. A Latin translation of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A. A. Milne? Several volumes of the dictionary to Middle English? And what was the ship from "Star Trek" doing on a cover for "War of the Worlds"?

Under his breath, Lance muttered: "Now that is just weird."

For a moment, Lance thought about going into the store. What did he think he was going to find? Some good? Something not on his to-read list? Something weird?

Maybe another time.

Shaking his head, Lance put his hands in his pockets and continued his way, his mind wandering back to the question he had asked Rikki. Had she danced with anyone at her father and stepmother's wedding? What sort of a question was that to ask? Doubtless she had, a pretty girl like that, any unrelated boy that wasn't Lewis or Byron must have been lining up for the chance to dance with her. What? Did he have a crush on her?

No, it was impossible.

Pausing in front of a store with a mirror in the front window, Lance heard the words Zane and Miriam had said when they first met him. "With eyes like his I'm surprised he can even show his face in public", followed by Miriam's comment of "His eyes? If I had that for a nose, I wouldn't show my face in public!" His eyes, his nose, they didn't look that bad, did they? Sure, due to his closefitting lids his eyes looked small and triangular and his nose was a bit on the big side, but he didn't look that bad did he?

Maybe, he did. Maybe, he did not. Zane and Miriam were only two people and even the former did not think his eyes so bad that he couldn't act civil towards him… If it suited him.

Yes, if it suited him.

NOTES

Originally, Lance was supposed to meet Miriam and Cynthia on his walk, resulting in Cynthia showing a rather less jerkish attitude toward Lance than Miriam. A second idea involved Lance meeting Abby for the first time and a discussion over the various things that happened to Dolphin City during the series happening. Ultimately, I elected for something quieter that had Lance by himself.

Lance wondering about if he has a crush on Rikki is an in-joke on my part. As I mentioned back in the twelfth chapter, I was originally going to do something that took inspiration from both the live-action and animated continuities with Rikki having a few love interests, with Lance being a nice, stable one while Nate would have been the opposite, leaving a third who was somewhere in between. Rikki would have been the only one of the three mermaids with multiple love interests due to the fact that the three of them would be different ages: Emma would be thirty-six and married to Byron, Cleo twenty-eight and engaged to Lewis and Rikki would have been fifteen, making her friendship with Emma and Cleo intergenerational, her relationship with the former also being reminiscent of a mother and daughter while her relationship with Cleo would be more sisterly. If I were to go ahead and go with my original idea now, people would probably want Lance to be the one to end up with Rikki. At this time, I am electing to downplay the romantic aspects with it only coming up a few times.