The Pet Shop Helper [G/t]

Chapter Three

          I've been standing around the clothes aisle for at least fifteen minutes. I'm about to leave when I heard Zachary's small voice yelling, along with a girl's screaming at someone. I race towards the noise, and see a man holding the two tightly in his hand.

"Hey! Put them down!" I snapped. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I realized how much bigger he was compared to me.

"Are these your pets?" He asked, a hint of dare in his voice. I looked at the two borrowers in his hand. Zackary was squeezed against a girl with black cat ears and blonde hair. Her brown eyes looked at me desperately.

"Yes." I lied. The man looked at me for a minute. Then he walked up to me, causing me to straighten my stance. I cleared my throat. "I'd appreciate if you gently give them back, sir." I said calmly, hiding the fear I felt as this man who was a head taller than me was up close and personal. I looked him in the eye, and he just looked at me. Then he handed the two over.

"Keep an eye on your pets, little girl." He said, dropping the two as I clumsily caught them. "They'd make a great snack, and I don't see any marking on them. And no papers can make you lose them fast." He added with his lips curled.

"I don't support eating borrowers. And I don't believe in branding a person as if they are a cow is morally right." I said confidently. The man raised his eyebrows and scoffed. "Have a goodnight, sir." I said before walking away. Zackary and Amy looked up at me with fear.

"You're making us your pets!" Zackary exclaimed.

"Stop yelling." I said quietly. "I'm not making you a pet. But if I didn't tell the man you were my pets, he'd take you away. And I have a feeling he'd eat you without a second thought."

"Then what are you going to do with us? I highly doubt you're going to just let us be in your house." Amy said. She looked older than Zackary but younger than me.

"Well, as I told Zackary, I will give you a place to stay and food. As well as other things. I will have to get you papers, that way they say you're mine. You're not pets. But I have to sign papers that say you are in order to keep men and women like the one that just tried to hurt you from claiming that you're theirs."

"That made very little sense to me." Amy said.

"Basically, you'll be called pets but I will not treat you as such. If you aren't registered to me, then a thief can take you and I'd never get you two back to safety. But with the papers, which will automatically go into the system after I enter them, if someone were to steal you, you'd be transported back to me. And if you wanted to live on your own at some point, I would just have to put freed but under protection. Meaning no one can harm you or sell you to a pet shop. You'll be completely free then." Amy seemed to get it finally.

"That makes sense. But why are you doing this?" She asked. I took a deep breath and let it go as I shopped around.

"The way I see it is like this; what if giants and borrowers switched sizes? I'd want a giant to help me. Not to eat me." I said. Both of the two seemed to be amazed.

"I've never heard a giant even consider that." Amy said.

"You're a really nice lady." Zackary commented. I shook my head.

"I've done my harm to borrowers too. I dropped one in snow and left him. But the difference is that I didn't let the borrower die and I went back for them. I even cried too." I grabbed a borrower house that was fully furnished. "He's still actually in my home, along with another man. I work at a borrower pet shop, and when my boss told me to take them to the food market, I took them home instead." The two listened with interest.