Young Writers Society

"Oh, right." Lillian squinted at her list. Gosh, Sandra had awful writing. "Okay, uh, just a lot of different kinds of pet food. Small bag of rabbit food, big bag of puppy food, two bags of cat food, and um, small bag of skunk food? If you have any."

Fingers crossed he wouldn't ask about skunk food. She was tired of trying to figure out this confusing human and just wanted to get back to the animal shelter as soon as possible. At this rate, they were going to grill her on what had taken her so long when she got back. Oh, you know, stumbled upon a tough guy I go to school with cuddling some kittens, and then made him let me cuddle with the kittens, and it was really quite awkward but the kittens were cute I guess, so that's nice.

Pratik smirked a bit at the mention of the skunk food. Maybe volunteering would be worth risking his image after all. "No, uhh, can't say that we get requests for skunk food often... but they're insectivores, right? We've got some hedgehog food... I imagine they'd be similar? Maybe we should Google?"

Lillian scrunched her mouth in resignation. Her visit to the pet shop was once again prolonged. "I, uh...maybe? I don't really take care of the skunk much, I'm, y'know, not super partial to the idea of getting skunk-sprayed."

She pulled out her phone and was met by a sad, empty wifi symbol. Right, she had used up all her data researching poetry on a car drive to the cottage that weekend. As one does. "Do you have the wifi password, or?"

"Uhhhh, we have the shop computer up front," Pratik said, starting that direction without waiting for a response. He wanted to get his laptop closed and hidden before she could see that his laptop was from a different decade. "Already connected to the wifi."

"Perfect, we-" Pratik was halfway across the shop before she had a chance to utter three syllables. Why was he in such a rush? He didn't strike her as much of an introvert -- and surely he couldn't hate talking to her that much. Although really, she was probably as foreign to his friend circle as he was to hers.

Lillian slowly followed him, grabbing a bag of cat food on her way to the front. "So what does Google have to say?"

"It's, uhh--" Pratik slammed his laptop shut and shoved it across the counter, hoping the display of collars on the counter would hide it. Or, well, at least be distracting enough that she wouldn't notice. He cleared his throat. "Right, let's see..."

Pratik was acting like some redhanded criminal trying to hide the incriminating evidence. Murder? Probably not. Robbery though? Honestly, she wouldn't put it past him. He gave kind of touch-me-not Robbin Hood vibes.

Lillian peered over his shoulder from afar as he pulled up the browser. "I'm placing bets that skunks' appetizer of choice is durian," she joked softly.

"Ewwwwwwwoooof," Pratik cringed, remembering how vile that fruit was. He laughed a bit as he typed skunk food into the browser. "That'd explain why they smell so bad, huh?"

"Uh huh, that or they're just all adolescent boys with awful hygiene." Lillian bit the last word off short, realizing that she was, in fact, addressing an adolescent boy. Oh well, she'd given up on trying to make a good impression on him ages ago anyway.

Pratik snorted, but smirked. She was funny. That was nice. Not that people like her would ever hang around with people like him. "Hah, yeah, maybe. Probably why you try to avoid them, huh?"

He hadn't meant to say that. He bit his lip and looked back at the screen, clicking through the top few suggestions.

"I don't avoid-" Lillian reconsidered. "Okay, yeah, maybe I do. Their loss, they don't get to hang out with a quiet English nerd. Prime exciting, adventure-faring friend material right here."

She shook her head. She was not making jokes with and befriending Pratik. Absolutely not. Get the pet food and get out of here, crazy girl. "So? Skunk food?"

Pratik smirked a bit more. She was like a different planet compared to the people he usually hung around with, but it was oddly endearing. He pulled up a page then nodded. "Ah, yeah, hedgehog food works for them, too. We can get you a bag of that right now, and put a special order in for the skunk food... if you want?"

"Yeah, yeah, sounds good," Lillian quickly agreed. She went back around to the other side of the counter, where she had stockpiled the other bags of animal food. "How much is all this stuff gonna be?" she asked, gesturing vaguely at it.

A display of fancy collars caught her eye and she leaned forward, admiring the bright colours. She poked through them -- there were pawprint ones, ones with fish patterns, one with rainbow flowers. "I bet Pandora would look like a Greek maiden in one of these."

"Pandora?" Pratik asked. He glanced down at his laptop quickly, then decided it'd be more likely to draw attention it if he tried to cover it than if he left it alone, so instead he hoped he could keep her talking about the pet. He walked to the adding machine and started punching in the numbers.

"Mhmm, Pandy," Lillian agreed, examining an aquamarine collar with little mermaids swimming along the fabric. "Pandora, but I call her Panda sometimes 'cause she looks like one -- she's all black with white splotches. Here, wait a sec." She was awful at decisions, so why not get Pratik to help her choose.

Lillian pulled out her phone again and opened the photo gallery app. The first picture of Pandora she found was from earlier that week. She had been trying to do English homework but the cat had sprawled herself across her binder, and was chewing mischievously on an eraser. Honestly, Pandora was the source of most of her procrastination.

She held up her phone for him to see. "Do you think she'd look better in the blue or the red?"