The saturday afternoon was partly cloudy and a crisp fourty eight degrees. Traffic wasn't too busy that day either, and the sidewalks weren't too crowded. Perfect conditions for a walk and maybe some window shoping, at least to Lily. It was only three weeks since she had moved in, but she already wanted to familiarise herself with the town and possibly find a few new pieces of furniture while doing it.
Maybe I'll at least find a good lamp or something, she thought as she walked towards the town square, her tail swishing gracefully along the ground behind her. As she made her way down the sidewalk, Lily couldn't help but notice a few passerby ocasionaly stealing a glance at her here and there. Whether it was due to her wardrobe, word spreading about her talk with the mayor, some combination of the two, or some other reason entirely, she didn't know. Or really care too much for that matter.
"Alright, let's see here..." she muttered to herself as she pulled up her GPS map, "looks like there are a few decent shops nearby." She smiled as she pinned a well rated store nearby the town square before switching to her personal playlist and adjusting the volume. "Ah! Here's a good one." she muttered to herself, a new subtle rythem now in her step.
It wasn't long before she began to see the damage.
At first it was subtle, a broken branch on the street here and there, but nothing really bad enough to be noticable. Then came the crushed benches, the claw marks, the piles of goop that carried the unmistakable scent of decay. It was the giant turtle footprints in the street that made her remember: Dutch Day was held at the town square.
"It's all nearby..." Lily whispered to herself, her attention clearly on the road ahead. Now at this point, most people would have decided to take an alternate route. Most people woud have listned to their inner voice telling them to turn back. But Lily was not most people, not by a long shot. And it was clear that her inner voice did not have the majoriry rule, that is if it even was objecting. And the more Lily walked, the less likely the chances of any inner objections existing in her.
"I still don't see why you still blame me for this!" a voice rang out from nearby, likely that of a young boy, "I wasn't the one who came up with all that science-y stuff!"
"But you did blackmail Victor into creating that invisible goldfish." another, more menacing voice responded.
"And then you didn't even bother to keep it a secret. If I remember correctly, you just walked up to my house and showed me and Bob on a whim." yet another voice added.
"Yeah! And now dad said we're stuck with helping the clean up every weekend until this place is spotless!"
"Would you boys just shut up already?" a somewhat older woman harshly shouted as Lily finally rounded the corner.
What she saw when she rounded the final corner was something between a construction site and a warzone. Bits of scrap metal and broken wood layed scatered about the street alongside more goop and the turtle tracks. The four boys, local students as she assumed, were each cleaning a part of the street, likely under the "supervision" of the woman, who appeared to be in her thirties and had a no nonsence look to her.
"Where is that weird girl at?" the woman asked, clearly irritated already.
"Sorry I'm late." a voice said softly from behind Lily, drawing the attention of everyone to the young girl. She didn't look much older that the boys, with pale skin and blonde hair. She wore a light pink floral dress which she smoothed out a little as she walked past. She barely looked up at Lily as she walked past, a look on her face that told Lily that something was clearly on her mind.
"Alright, what's your excuse this time?"
"My mom had to go into work last minute to fill in for someone who called in sick, so I had to walk here."
"Well then, maybe plan ahead for when that happens again. Now get to cleaning already!"
Lily couldn't help but clench her fists a little at the interaction. It was clear this girl had something weighing her down, and the last thing to do was talk to her so harshly. Not to mention someone having a sick day and needing someone to fill in for them isn't exactly predictable. But she didn't want to make things worse, at least not in this scenario, so she tried to just walk by without drawing much attention to herself. But of course, a new girl with fox ears and a vulpine tail tends to not have much stealth in the open while she has music playing.
"And you are?"
"Oh, um, I'm Lily. I just moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago. I live across the street from the Frankensteins."
"I'm Edgar." one of the boys introduced themselves with alongside a somewhat unsettling smile.
"My name is Nassor." another followed up with, his tone making Lily unsure of how he felt about her moving in.
"Toshiaki." the third boy replied somewhat bluntly, clearly not the most friendly kid in the neighborhood.
"And I'm Bob. I actually live on the same street as you." the last boy stated, his appearence somehow familiar to Lily.
"Nice to meet you all!" Lily said, her attention turning to the girl who just passed by her, now picking up scrapwood, "Who's she?"
"None of your buisness! At least not if you're going to be a distraction!" the older woman shouted.
"Sheesh lady, what's the problem? I just want to get to know the locals."
"The problem is that this clean up is supposed to be a punishment for these kids, not a time for socializing. So I'd suggest you keep moving."
Should have asked what her problem is, Lily thought to herself, clearly getting more ticked off by this woman by the second. She glanced up at her fox ears for a split second, trying to calm herself down as much as possible. Just... don't let her see.
"Look, I understand that you're just doing the job you're assigned, but I don't see why you have to be so harsh about it!"
"Maybe if you show a little more respect, things would be different you wolf obsessed weirdo."
"Look lady, respect is earned on a two way road. You don't give any, you don't get any, and based on what you said to these kids earlier, it seems like you certainly aren't giving any. And for your information, I'm a fox loving girl. I honnestly thought that even the most untrained eye could tell the difference between the tails from the canis genus and the vulpes genus."
What followed was nothing but silence out of supprise. The older lady simply stood there, looking clearly offended but unable to think of something to say in retaliation. The boys looked equally dumbfounded, staring at her as if she had just performed some impossible miracle. The silence was only broken by the sound of them dropping whatever they were holding in near unison. Even the girl that walked past her was staring, albeit with a less readable expression.
"Wow." Toshiaki said, his supprise clear.
"What?" Lily asked, not understanding what she had done to impress the kids so much.
"No one has ever stood up to Miss Catherine like that!" Edgar responded enthusiastically, dramatically gesturing with his arms, "Not even the other teachers at our school!"
"Really?" Lily said in a subtly teasing tone as she glancef back at Miss Catherine, who was now starting to look a little uncomfortable.
"Yes, really!" Bob quickly answered with an enthusiasm similar to Edgar's, "You're going to be a total legend at school!"
"And before you say anything contrary to that statement, I will have you know that word tends to spread quickly at our school." Nassor followed up with.
"You don't say..." Lily said softly as it became clear she made quite an impression on the kids she didn't expect to leave. All she had planned was to go shopping, and had only suddemly adjusted said plans for an addmittedly tourist-y reason, and now she had heard that she'd be a legend to the local kids. Do not let this go to your head, Vixie, she told herself.
"Well, you look like you have some... important buisness to take care of, so I'd suggest you keep moving." Miss Catherine finally managed, clearly trying, and miserably failing, to sound confident after some eighteen year old stood up to her.
"I mean, I do have a few errands to run." Lily replied, looking back at her GPS as she started to walk away. The boys began to resume their work, picking up whatever they dropped. Lily couldn't help smile as she walked away, knowing she had unintentionally gave Miss Catherine a much needed reality check on how much power she held in the community, despite addmittedly knowing little about it outside what Edgar and Bob told her. Her tail swishing behind her again, she was just about to exit the town square.
Until she felt someone lightly grab her shirt, causing her to turn around and see the girl that walked by her earlier.
"Sorry about that," the girl told he in a soft, slightly sorrowful voice, her head still low, "I didn't mean to cause that, but all I do is make things worse."
Lily kneeled down to the girl's level, "What are you talking about? You didn't do anything wrong. All you did was be an innocent bysander." She gave a sympathetic look as the girl raised her head. "You, know, I never managed to catch your name in all that."
The girl heasitated a little before replying, "I'm Anne."
"Nice to meet you, Anne." Lily stated, "You can call me Vixie."
Author's note: Sorry this chapter took so long! I was hoping to get this out in mid October, but when I got to the point where Lily tries to learn Anne's name, the dialogue I planned in my head just didn't look right, and that evntually turned into a bit of writer's block. Currently, I'm planning on writing one or two more chapters where Lily meets the charactes from the movie, depending on where my current idea goes.
B.T.W.: For those who wer wondering, I got weird girl's name from the frankenweenie wiki, where it was stated in the trivia section of her page that her name was Anne Chambers.