The Girl Who Cried Wolf

Chapter 24

"did you do it?" a voice next to me asked.

I turned and looked up at Felix, then nodded.

"and you didn't shift" he whispered, more to himself then to me.

We sat in silence for a moment, then finally left the exhibition.

"where to next?" Felix asked me, gesturing at the map.

I read a few of the animals.

"well" I tried to make up my mind "I've got a bird.... Why don't we try a small animal? Sometimes a squirrel can be a bit..... They're not the most common animal anyway. I need something fairly common".

Felix nodded silently and started off in the direction of 'Little Big World', the small animal part of the zoo.

Out the front of a small gift shop next to the entrance of Little Big World was a fairly large clown handing out colored balloons. A small boy with red horns had just asked for a yellow one with orange stripes that kept changing colors.

"don't the humans see the strange features of these people?" I asked, looking sideways at Felix. He smiled.

"they don't see anything other then normal people" he said quietly, dodging a pair with lime green skin.

"so they won't see us at all?" I asked, but it was hardly a question. Felix, however, chuckled to himself.

"no" he replied "they see regular people like them. It's a law of our world that we cannot go out of our cities without some sort of spell that prevents humans from noticing our unusualness".

"I-I don't have a spell..." I suddenly panicked as images of a dark jail cell underneath the city filled my head. Lying on a cold floor, screams echoing all around me...

"it's ok" he chuckled "we LOOK normal. As long as we don't shift in front of humans, we're fine".

I relaxed, letting out a deep breath I hadn't realized I was holding in.

This seemed to amuse Felix.

"it's not funny" I pouted as we entered Little Big World's tacky entrance. It was basically just a load of small animals such as mice, squirrels and other small animal painted all over a wooden frame. Inside it smelt like dry straw and animal fur.

I could hear barking, letting me know that there were small dogs in there too.

"is this some kind of... Petting zoo?" I asked Felix. He nodded. "it's basically for the kids and people who love small animals"

"I can hear dogs..." I pointed out.

"there's not just dogs, there's cats too" Felix explained "It's basically small animals and household pets. A pretty weird combination, not the smartest but..." he trailed off.

Inside was a few different rooms with large petting zoos with high fences so the animals couldn't escape and wrack havoc.

There were kittens in one small pen, most fast asleep. Cats lay by their sides, some being picked up by various children.

Another rooms held different breeds of dogs, all of them small of course. They weren't fighting each other, which surprised me. There was a chorus of loud, high pitched barking that made me want to cover my ears.

Some were in fairly large pens away from the other animals. These were probably the breeds that didn't fit in with the rest.

I stopped in front of a fairly large one labelled 'Pomeranian'. The dog was incredibly fluffy, like, fluff mania. It was probably the most adorable dog I'd ever seen.