Lucky Rabbit

Something in Pandy rebelled against the idea of ‘wasting’ much more of her time with Shifting Faces, but she did think it was a good idea to do one more check of the room, and this time she was going to look around the office as well. So, with one last look out of the window, she dropped back to the unyielding surface of the bed and hopped down to the floor.

She started with the small vanity, where she opened each and every one of the little pots and gave them all a sniff. She wasn’t sure what she thought smelling them would achieve, because she had no idea what deadly nightshade or foxglove smelled like, but all she got out of it was a sneezing fit.

She did set a few of the fragile containers of cosmetics off to the side, because she was fairly certain she knew what to do with them, and people would expect Ms. Wellington to wear makeup, which was a thing Pandy had no experience with. Still, bright colors went on the eyelids, red on the cheeks, and pink on the lips, right? Or was it red on the lips and pink on the cheeks? Either way, there were richly pigmented creams and powders, ready to be applied to her skin when she grew brave – or desperate – enough to attempt it.

She found a hairbrush, comb, tweezers, and hairpins in a shallow drawer in the front of the vanity, but even though she pulled the drawer out and examined it and the empty space it left behind, she didn’t see any hidden compartments. There was nothing hidden behind the mirror, either, so she gave that up and moved on.

In the closet were a few more changes of clothes, so Pandy quickly swapped out the one Chancellor Blackwood had seen her wearing. He probably didn’t pay that much attention to what the teachers wore, so long as it was appropriate, but if she did have to appear again, it was probably best to do so in different clothing. She didn’t want to be like a character in a video game, always wearing the same thing.

Pandy didn’t find anything else new except a tidy little handbag that had been tucked up on a shelf in the closet. Two hat boxes, complete with hats, occupied the rest of the shelf, and though Pandy carefully examined boxes, hats, and bag, she found nothing strange about any of them. The handbag, however, was a good size to contain at least some of her new coin collection, and Pandy quickly shoved a single gold piece, a few coppers, and several small silver coins into it before placing it in her inventory. She half-expected it to be rejected, or for only one part of it to go, but the game-like inventory management allowed it, and Pandy wasn’t about to question why.

Once she was certain she’d given the entire room a good looking-over, Pandy moved back to the office. Like the chancellor’s desk, Ms. Wellington’s was suspiciously bare. In Pandy’s experience, the worst people to work with were the ones who had nothing on their desks. They tended to be the strictest, and usually seemed to believe that when people were at work, they weren’t people any more. She wasn’t sure where the chancellor fit into that, since he didn’t seem the type, but Ms. Wellington certainly did.

To her surprise, the drawers were just as bare, except for a lone pen, a few pieces of blank paper, and a manila folder in the largest drawer. Inside the folder, Pandy found six more pieces of paper. The first five were filled with gibberish written in a graceful but cramped hand that Pandy assumed belonged to Ms. Wellington, because otherwise why would the woman keep them?

As far as Pandy could tell, the language of West Altheric – spoken and written – was the same as English, or at least translated to English in her head, which she assumed was the result of one of the few things Keros had managed to do correctly. These symbols, however, didn’t even look like letters, and they didn’t flow like English either, with some ‘words’ taking up whole lines, while other lines were entirely filled with single symbols, neatly spaced, one after the other.

Pandy stared at these five pages for far too long, though she could feel time slipping between her fingers. For all that no effort had been made to hide them, she had a feeling that they were important, and she desperately wished she knew what they said. There was nothing she could do about it, though, so she put them back in the folder and looked at the sixth page. Which was her – or rather, Ms. Wellington’s – schedule. Honestly, Pandy could have cried, but she didn’t, just tucked this page away as well and closed the drawer before searching the rest of the room.

That didn’t take long, since there were no pictures, shelves, or personal items of any kind in the barren space. Two wooden chairs had been shoved back against the wall to each side of the door, as if to make sure any visitors felt as unwelcome as possible. The chair behind the desk was a slightly larger version of the other two chairs, with padded arms to go with the cushioned seat. All three chairs were just chairs, even though Pandy flipped them upside down and felt along the edges of the cushion to make sure nothing was hidden inside them.

All in all, it was a waste of ten minutes, and Pandy wasn’t happy when she re-entered the little apartment. She perked up almost immediately, however, when she felt the small breeze and smelled the fresh air coming through the open window. She’d never been much of an outdoorsy person, primarily because the outdoors didn’t seem to be a Pandy person, but since spending time with Thaniel and then Geraldine, playing outside, it was definitely growing on her.

All right. She had filled all five inventory spaces now, which she didn’t like, but she did like knowing she had options. She would have to find someplace else to hide the stretchy clothing and the dagger so she didn’t have to carry them around all the time, but she had a few ideas about that. Right now, she needed to get out of this room and rejoin Thaniel.

Between making her cautious way up here, talking with the chancellor and Timon, and tidying and searching the rooms, she’d used up quite a bit of time. The bell ending breakfast had rung, and when Pandy peered out of the window, she could see that a few people were now walking through the woody area below. The question was, where was Thaniel? Had he gone back to his room to wait for Pandy, or was he spending time with his friends, in which case he could be anywhere? She really needed to talk to him and make a plan.

But first, she had to leave this room. She could simply walk out as Ms. Wellington, but then anyone who saw her might wonder if she was really too badly injured to return to work, or, worse, might want to talk to her. She could also hop out as Bunny, and the benefit of this idea was that whoever found her would make an effort to return her to Thaniel, relieving Pandy of the need to find him herself. This would also give Bunny a reputation for wandering, however, and Pandy wasn’t sure if that would be good or bad, so she wanted to avoid it for now.

That left the window, and while Pandy knew it was the riskiest way, she also really kind of wanted to try it. She had never been a risk-taker, since the world seemed determined to take risks for her, but now? Now, Pandy was all but indestructible. She was strong and fast, with the ability to heal herself from almost anything that didn’t actually tear her to pieces. There wasn’t even a downside, since doing so would just bring her closer to her next level in Minor Heal.

The only hard part was actually getting up to the window. She didn’t want to spend Corruption Points to use Hop, but Ms. Wellington’s rather round shape definitely wasn’t going to fit into a space that was only about as long as her hand and forearm, and half as high. In the end, she tried pulling herself upward with her hands, then transformed into Bunny on her way up. She landed back down on the bed several times, leaving behind claw marks on the windowsill from where she’d desperately tried to grab on, but eventually she managed it, then sat there, staring down at the pretty, sun-dappled paths and benches, feeling like she might have made a minor miscalculation.

It wasn’t fifteen or twenty feet. There was no way it was the same height as a particularly talented cheerleading squad doing a pyramid. No, it was a hundred feet, wasn’t it? Maybe two hundred? Whatever it was, the ground seemed to blur away in the distance, and there was no way Pandy was jumping. No way.

And then she did. Her legs bunched beneath her, and she thought, just before she pushed off. 

Hop successful. One hundred eighty-nine uses remain before next level.

Her limbs windmilled, making her tip to one side, and she saw the nice, sturdy branch she’d been aiming for slip from the center of her vision. Several much thinner branches hove into view, and Pandy wondered if they would even hold her. Was this how squirrels felt, when they consigned themselves to the void? Was it a desperate leap and a hope that the wind wouldn’t blow? What gods did squirrels pray to?

Branches slapped her in the face, and Pandy grabbed at them with everything she had. Claws, teeth, all four limbs, and somehow, miraculously, she held on. Twenty points of Agility and eighteen points of Strength came to her rescue, and she dangled from a whip-thin branch that sagged nauseatingly downwards beneath her weight, but didn’t break.

Pandy’s eyes were closed, but she managed to force them open, seeing that she was hanging head down, puffy tail up, directly above one of the stone benches conveniently placed for students and staff to sit on nice days. Glancing around, she saw a few students, but no adults, and none of the students were looking at Pandy, in spite of the noise she must have made as she crashed through the tree. Thank goodness for the obliviousness of children. Some children, at least.

Pandy released her death grip on the trembling branch, but was immediately brought up short as she flipped end over end, paws flailing in the air. It was only then that she realized her teeth were clamped around the slender branch, and she had to force her jaws to open, releasing her to fall toward the bench. She didn’t land on it, however. Instead, someone snatched her from mid-air with a quiet oof. She was then thrust into someone else’s arms, and Thaniel’s familiar voice said, “Bunny?”

Pandy looked up, doing her best to look innocent. Of course, with sap staining her mouth and leaves in her fur, there wasn’t much chance of that, and the looks everyone was giving her made it obvious that she had some explaining to do. Slumping down in Thaniel’s arms, Pandy released a long sigh, allowing her ears to flop around her face in the picture of dejection.

It didn’t work.

“Why was your rabbit in the tree, Thaniel?” Eleanor’s very confused voice asked.

Thaniel looked around at his friends, then leaned in and whispered, “Code Scrubs,” so loudly that everyone within twenty feet must have heard him. Geraldine’s face lit up, Eleanor blinked, Abbington blinked too, but in an entirely different way, and Isidor – who had apparently caught Pandy as she fell – rubbed his palm down his face, transferring white fur to his cheek. Pandy was at least glad to see that Suzanne wasn’t with them, though she would miss the Corruption Points the girl brought with her.

“Where?” Geraldine asked, eyes bright as she, too, leaned in and whispered.

They all looked at each other, and Abbington finally said, “Pond’sclose, mebbe?” He looked ready for them to turn him down, but the others just nodded. Decision made, they headed for the stable, and the field behind it, where a certain clever capybara would be waiting for them. Peering over Thaniel’s shoulder, Pandy could see Miss Cupcakes and Lord Winston trotting along at their masters’ heels. So whatever was about to happen, they would all be there for it, and Pandy could already feel a migrating flutter of butterflies gathering in her stomach.