PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter X Part III

"Oh man, did I just hear Felix? What's up? You find your wand yet?"

Felix very visibly blushed from receiving any attention whatsoever, but rather than acting flustered, he simply started chattering his teeth as usual in response to a dog speaking to him. "N-N-No, but everyone's h-h-helping me look for it. It's not with P-P-P-D-D- the bad dogs at least."

"Hey, that's good? Anyways, let me lay out this exposition so I can get back to receiving tips from the patrols."

"Alright, go ahead Holly," Sparky said, readying himself to commit the words to memory.

"Alright, so, turns out there's a lot of files missing. We found most of them in the library, but after we checked through a few of them, we realized Patches' file was missing, and so was... a good chunk of the others. Luna's still putting together the files with Doug, but there's hundreds, and a lot of em are torn up or just straight up missing, so it's gonna take a while."

Sparky cursed. "So, we're out of luck, then?"

There was silence from the other end of the line. "Well... we have a bunch of terriers we've found who might match the dog you're looking for?"

"Cujo," Mitt uttered, eyes frozen in contemplation. "The rat terrier said the name 'Cujo' before she attacked me."

"Wuh? Why would she say that?" Tigger asked, her boisterous tone of voice almost making the question sound like a demand.

"I'm not sure."

"Well, that's a name we could look for then, but there's still a lot of files here and they're all sorted by last name, not first. I'll go ahead and ask Luna if she's seen something like that," Holly said, uncertainty just barely coming through the static-fraught phone.

"Well, I mean, how do we even know which files are missing, then?" Sparky asked, cocking an eyebrow. "It sounds like all we're able to do is re-organize them."

Mitt looked away from the phone at the center of the table, beginning to preen their fur as they waited for an idea to formulate.

Holly was silent for a moment, then piqued up, "Oh! That's right! Luna's been looking through the attendance records- she only just managed to get the whole school's worth and is gonna check 'em later." There was a shuffling coming from the other line, then Holly began to speak in a hushed whisper, "Honestly? I think she's working too hard on this stuff. Like, I get that she's top of the school and all, but she's got bags under her eyes, and she's getting kinda P/O'd at Doug for lazying around and stuffing papers in his mouth."

Tigger was the first to speak up, "Well, that's not chill. You think she'll be good?"

"Eh, maybe, but honestly, she's just a pain to listen to. It's why I'm over here in the teacher's lounge; she wouldn't stop bothering me otherwise."

Tigger almost frowned. "How bout I come over to keep you two company then, eh?" she said, curling a bicep towards the phone. Whisk couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Holly giggled. "I mean, sure! Just don't stay too late, don't want you heading back home alone."

"Whaat?! Dude why don't we just sleep over at the school, like we did yesterday?"

"Well, what if the teachers come and kick us out?" Holly said, her smile audible through the phone.

"BRO, I'd like to see 'em try!" Tigger said, flexing.

Amongst the giggling, Whisk scoffed. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think we have more pressing matters to talk about right now, don't we Angel?" Whiskers said, looking at the siberian with as genuine a smile as he could muster.