PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter V Part III

"Be careful now!" Patches said in a sarcastic tone as Dellanor shut the door to the storage room behind her. She took out her pocketbook, flipping through it until she got to the most recent page. True to his words, Patches had written a list in cursive:

"~ Brownie Pembroke

~ Ginger Claret

~ Olive Higgins

~ Patches Ito

~ Sparky Fritz

(Don't forget your own file!)"

She closed the booklet, stowing it home back in her hoodie, and pocketed the keys with a jingle. She knew the lounge wasn't too far, but she'd need to walk past the Gym to get to it. Once she had reached the files, she could stow them quickly enough. Still, the assembly would be over any minute now, and she didn't want the teachers finding her intruding into the staff room.

Dellanor looked left and right out the library; there were still two students guarding the front entrance who were barely paying attention to anything but one another, just to her left. She waited for the moment when both were distracted, then moved further down into the school. She skittered towards the end of the hall, noting it was about 8:30, and passed by several doorways on her way to the teacher's lounge. The lounge was close enough to the gymnasium to allow Dell to hear some of the announcement. It sounded like the audience was getting up, and they all seemed quite cheery doing so.

Dell checked inside the teacher's lounge, noticing it was vacant for the moment, then unlocked it and rushed in, closing the door behind herself. The room was quaint but quite lovely; a fully stocked kitchen, several lounge chairs and sofas, a gorgeous fireplace bereft of any fire, a coffee machine to the door's immediate right, and- bingo, a set of filing cabinets to the door's left, adjacent to the kitchen.

Dell quickly started flinging open the filing cabinets, trying to find the one with student files in it. After seeing more general documents, Dellanor managed to find the set of files she was looking for. She quickly took off her backpack, unzipping it and beginning to look for "Pembroke" amongst the P section.

Once Dell had gotten it, the bell outside started ringing, and Dellanor's eyes went wide. She turned her attention to the files, flipping out her notebook to double-check the first letter of each name. Once that was done, she paused for a single, poignant moment. She began leafing through the files again, flipping through the E's.

"El, Em... En!" She heard movement outside the doorway and began to rake through the files. "Come on, where is it?!" Once she finally found the file she was looking for, she spared no time in tossing it onto the pile with the others.

"I know I can convince him," she said to herself, shuffling the papers to be uniform with one another, "and when I do, it's better if they don't have his address..."

Dellanor stuffed the files into her backpack and ran for the door. She got outside just as the first wave of freshmen were leaving. She innocuously started walking towards the library. Dell used the cover of the dozens of students around her to avoid the duo of guards and pop into the room, locking it behind her.

Once inside the library, Dellanor rushed for the door to the storage closet, swinging it open to find Patches was still there, staring out the window, with a large wooden cabinet turned around to face the wall, and no Rover to be seen.

Patches turned around and smiled at Dell, expectantly holding his paw out for the files. When they were placed in his mitts, he could barely keep hold of the massive things and put them on a somewhat vacant desk next to the cabinet with a scowl on his face.

"Well, I suppose getting too many files is better than not getting any at all." Patches turned his attention to the first folder, finding "Claret" with remarkable speed, then moving to the next and repeating the process. When he was done, he opened one of the desk's drawers and started tearing, then stuffing the useless folders in, finding it rather hard to do so due to their bulk.