Chapter 5:
"Missing: Angel"
"C'mon, Miss. Kittie". Fluttershy giggled with her usual kind smile on her face: “It's time for your bath”.
It had been two hours already since Fluttershy had opened the animal shelter and so far things had been going smoothly...Maybe a little too smoothly. The young girl had already taken care of almost all her chores. The floor of the store shined like silver thanks to her excellent cleaning skills, while the animals had their tummies full and their enclosures clean. The only thing remaining on the youngster's to do list was giving her little friends a warm bubble bath.
Most of the animals in Fluttershy's shelter did not complain too much before bath time, even those who normally did not like water. After all, no creature in the store would miss a chance to be in the young girl's arms; even if that meant a bath.
Little did the youngster know though that the particular feline, which she was holding at that moment, had a different idea in its mind.
At the exact same moment it heard the sink opening, with one formidable leap it jumped away from Fluttershy.
“Where do you think you're going, young miss?!”. The youngster exclaimed, noticing the animal was trying to get away. “You haven't taken a single bath in days. You need to get cleaned”.
As a response the cat hissed furiously at the girl, as if it were threatening her.
“Listen up!”. The usually quite girl said, almost shouting. “I am not in the mood for these kind of games today, so either we do this thing nicely or I'll be forced to use the stare! Which one do you choose?”.
Hearing the girl, did not seem to affect the animal, which was now hissing even more loudly than before.
“Very well then...”. Fluttershy sighed, realising that her yelling had not done anything but make things worse. “Don't go saying I didn't warn you”. At that point the girl fixed her blue eyes on the feline, staring deeply at the creature.
Naturaly at first the cat did not realize what the youngster was trying to do, but who can blame it for that?
Fluttershy did not obviously mean to harm the animal, yet her staring eyes were something even the toughest creature in the whole world could not bear.
Suddenly the feline felt something odd, growing inside, something unknown. The animal did not manage to understand what it was or what had caused that weird sensation... Fact is that it made hard disobeying to Fluttershy, so hard that after a few seconds, spent struggling, the cat was unable to resist and began to slowly walk back towards the sink.
Having grabbed the rebel animal, Fluttershy placed it under the running water of the sink and applied some special shampoo on its fur.
The water itself was not that bad: it was neither too cool or too warm and the shampoo did not have have a bad smell at all, but the girl's new friend was a very proud creature, which would not have bowed before anyone for anything...Anything but the "stare" that is.
Truth is that we all very well know what had happened a moment before and what had caused that feline's will to bind.
It was an unusual phenomenon alright, but certainly nothing new to Fluttershy who had in fact used her so called “stare” many time before.
The girl was not too keen on taking advantage of what seemed to be some kind of special power she had, especially because she preferred communicating with her animals in a friendlier and nicer way. But desperate times do call for desperate measures and a dirty cat, walking in the animal shelter, was indeed one of those tough cases, which had been made more grave by the uncooperative nature of the cat.
In the end the poor girl had been forced, as we already know, to use the “stare”on the animal in order to calm it down, so she could wash it up nicely and without warring about being attacked any minute; plus after almost seven days I imagine we would all agree on the fact that Fluttershy's new feline friend desperately needed a good bath.
At this point I fear we may have talked too much about rebellious cats and baths, so we shall move on to what happened next.
As we mentioned before, things were going too smoothly in the animal shelter: no animals on the loose or complaints from Angel about the quality of his food. The atmosphere in the store was so calm some of the animals had even decided to take an afternoon nap, which was nothing unusual during summer.
The only problem was that the heat was practically killing Fluttershy. The youngster would have happily turned on the air conditioning, yet knew too well that a sudden change of temperature would be no good for most of the animals in the store. Some of them were in fact reptiles, cold blooded animals that naturally prefer warmer temperatures.
So it was that the poor girl decided it would be best for her to just think about something else and pretend to ignore the fact that the remote control was only a few inches away.
Fluttershy neared the section of the store in which the fish were kept, a section she liked to call “The Aquarium”.
“Hey, little guy!”. Fluttershy whispered, trying to communicate with one of the scaly aquatic animals. “How's things? Have I ever told you that you have got beautiful fins?”.
As a response the fish blew a bunch of bubbles at the girl, right before turning around and swimming away.
“Oh, okay. I guess you and I will talk later then”.
The youngster's first attempt to establish a communication with the animals in the store had been unsuccessful. Not that if was her fault if fish are not usually the most loquacious of creatures.
After sighing in disappointment, the youngster decided to give it another go: after all if her magical gem gave her the power to understand and talk to animals, she really could not let all that power go to waste.
Smiling she neared another enclosure, this time the one where the reptiles were kept.
Some of them were really fascinating: giant iguanas, the scales of which were as big as pearls, a rare specimen of crested gecko, the tint of which reminds the color of gold, and numerous types of snakes.
There was a young male albino snake, presumably enjoying the warm sand at the bottom of his enclosure, and a gravid female bullsnake, which from the looks of it would start laying her eggs in nothing but a few days.
“I can't wait to see them”. Fluttershy said the moment she laid her eyes on her. “I just love to witness the beginning of the magic of life”.
There was even an uncommon African egg eating snake: it was not too large or too big and its color reminded the sand of the desert.
These kind of snakes are ideal for the ones who do not really fancy the idea of feeding their reptile friends on things like mice, as a simple juicy egg will surely keep these pets satisfied for some time, plus it is certainly interesting to observe the way these snakes swallow their meal.
While observing those curious animals, a pleasant memory occurred to Fluttershy. She remembered the day her dear friend Sunset Shimmer decided it was finally time for her to get a pet and all it had taken to convince her was letting her watch the other girls, preparing their animal friends for a photo shoot.
At first the girl had tried to hide her true feelings, but in the end she had given up at the fact that she, too, would have loved a pet, running in her house.
When Sunset had spoken the words. “I've changed my mind...” Fluttershy had smiled almost as much as the moment she had heard Sunset ask her for help to choose the prefect pet.
Naturally that had been no simple task, after all that was the first time Sunset had visited an animal store to do something different than helping out Fluttershy with the cleaning.
At first Fluttershy had suggested that her friend should take a fluffy, cuddly hamster with her, but Sunset answered she would prefer something a little less furry.
On second thought, Fluttershy had recommended that Sunset should choose a fish, but her friend would rather get something she would be able to hold in her arms.
Hearing those words, the young pink-haired animal lover understood that the perfect pet for her friend Sunset would be a reptile.
The girl's hunch turned out to be right: the exact moment Fluttershy showed Sunset the reptile enclosure: the red-haired youngster put on a smile so wide that it made her look like a child the moment she is given a treat from her parents.
But among all those fascinating scaly creatures, one particular animal managed to catch the girl's eye.
It was smaller than the other reptiles: its head probably measured no more than Sunset's thumb. Its golden scales shone at the light of sun, its eye were like two rare black diamonds.
As it saw the two girls, getting closer, it acted shyly, trying to hide under the sand, while Sunset's jaw almost dropped from excitement. Fluttershy herself had never seen her friend so happy before: she was shivering, as if it were the middle of winter, and her pupils had suddenly grown large as ponds.
The pink-haired girl smiled, understanding that her friend had found the perfect pet.
And so it was that the leopard gecko became Sunset's beloved pet, taking the name of what it had seemed to Sunset in the first place: a little Ray of Sunshine.
“Oh...”. Fluttershy sighed, while thinking about these things. “I wish every pet were as lucky at finding their new home as Ray”.
The thing that was bothering the youngster the most was that she had not seen a single soul at her animal shelter during the last few months. It seemed like everybody in Canterlot City had suddenly lost their interest in pets.
This was surely not a good thing for the animals Fluttershy took care of: she loved everyone of them, of course, yet at the same time she knew too well that she could not possibly keep all of them with her forever.
She also knew that if she had not managed to draw people to the animal store, as soon as she could, she would not have enough funds to go on and, if the worst occurred, she would have been forced to shut the whole place down.
The only idea of having to let go of all the little cretures in the shelter, without having found a nice home for them, made Fluttershy shiver: she of all people had spent the most of her life in the company of animals and she of all people was conscious of how much love and care the ones in her shop still needed.
But if she truly wanted to help them, if she really was determined to find them a place they could call home, she would have to find a way to bring people to Canterlot animal shelter without wasting any more time.
“I can't just sit here twiddling my thumbs”. The youngster thought to herself, realizing that daydreaming would get her nowhere. “I need to come up with an idea, a brilliant idea!”.
The thing is that the young girl had already attempted to convince other people to come to her shelter though without success.
At first she had tried to gather a group of new volunteers for the animal shop, but it had seemed that most of the boys and girls at school were a little too busy to pay her any attention.
Secondly, Fluttershy had come up with the idea of creating a charity calendar to advertise the shelter. The project had seemed really nice to her friends and all of them had quickly agreed to let her shoot a photo of their pets together for the calendar.
In the end, although many people had been interested in buying the calendar itself, very few had decided to take a pet or two from the shelter back home with them.
Of course in that particular occasion had been special to Sunset, who had finally found her best pet friend, so Fluttershy considered the whole thing a big success.
The latest idea that had come to her mind was making a video, featuring some of the animals in need, currently living in the shelter, then publish it on the internet. The youngster remembered the time she shot the video with a smile and maybe even some slight embarrassment.
At the beginning the only thought of having to speak in front of a camera had made her feel like she had butterflies in her stomach, which certainly had not helped her during the actual video shooting session. Fluttershy had lost count of how many times she had to start shooting the video over and over again.
After an hour, spent in front of the camera, she was feeling so sick she had fainted on the ground.
Luckily for her Applejack and Twilight had happened to be passing by and heard an awkward noise, coming from the animal store. The teenage girls found Fluttershy on the ground and, while it did take them quite a long to make her come back to her senses, they quickly figured out a way to solve her problem.
In a flash Twilight made an amazing advertising video for the animal shelter out of the various scenes Fluttershy had filmed on her camera; the result had been amazing: more than a thousand views. Yet not even that big success had in the end managed to give home to every animal that Fluttershy kept in the shelter.
“Oh, what do I have to do?!”. The young girl kept saying to herself, while trying her best to come up with an original idea. “Do you have a plan, Angel?”.
She then asked, turning her head toward her furried friend.
“Angel?”. Fluttershy repeated, realising no answer had come. “Angel...Angel?!”. The girl repeated desperately.
Still no response.
The young girl spent the rest of her day, as you can imagine, looking for her pet. She searched high and low, behind every corner of the store, but without success.
Suddenly a terrible fear took hold on her. What if the bunny, had decided to leave the shelter and started wandering the mall?
“Oh gosh!” Fluttershy exclaimed, incapable of controlling her emotions.
“If that is the case, he could loose the way home. And if he gets lost, he could starve or worse be kidnapped!”.
Terrorised by those terribe thoughts, Fluttershy left the shelter, hoping her little bunny friend had not gone too far, but, as soon as she laid her eyes on the crowd in the mall, she realised she could not find Angel all alone in that enormous shopping center.
Fact is that her friends were all busy with their part time jobs, too. In the end the girl decided to go for the first good idea that flashed in her mind.
Fast as lightening she printed a few missing posters and hanged as many as possible around the mall. The youngster spent hours, doing so, but in the end, still seeing no sign of Angel, she took seat on a bench she had come across and started weeping.
Those moments were probaby the worst in Fluttershy's life: for the fist time she felt her heart tightening in her chest, as if a pointy spear were piercing it; yet her crying was soon interrupted by a familiar feminine voice.
“What's causing you to frown like that?”. The voice said gentily. The moment she heard that question, Fluttershy raised her head.
“Trixie?”. She exclaimed, surprised.
“The one and only”. The magician answered, grinning. “Now, how about you answer my question?”.
“Well...”. While the other girl was delaying her reply, Trixie noticed what Fluttershy was holding under her arm.
“Ah, so it's that!”. The magician said, seeing the poster with the phrase “Missing bunny” written on it.
“Yeah”. The pink-haired girl sighed sadly. “He's been gone all day. I don't know where to look for him any more...”.
“Fear not, my dear!”. Trixie suddenly interrupted her. “The great and powerful Trixie will generously aid you her help. Now witness Trixie's latest magic before your very eyes!”. And with these words the magician pulled a fluffy white bunny out of her hat.
“Angel!”. The pink-haired girl exclaimed, as her little furry friend jumped into her arms. “But how?”.
“I caught him, wandering at the opposite edge of the mall a couple of hours ago”. Trixie answered proudly. “I wanted to bring him back to you, so I looked for you at the shelter, but you weren't there or anywhere else to be found”.
“Oh...”. Fluttershy said, hearing these things. “I see”.
“Anyway now that you've found your friend again I guess my job is done, so, bye”.
“Wait!” .The pink-haired girl suddenly shouted, drowing Trixie's attention back.
“What is it...”.
Without giving the time to finish her sentence to the magician, Fluttershy hugged her in a tight embrace.
“ Wow! What is this for?”. Trixie exclaimed, surprised.
“For everything”.
“I haven't done that much”.
“To me, you have”.
After breaking her hug and saying goodbye to the magician, Fluttershy began to slowly walk back to the animal shelter, but this time she had a big smile on her face. A weeping Bulk Biceps kept her on her way a few minutes, but in the end she managed to get back to the store in a short time.
“What where you thinking, going out there alone, without warning me?!”.The pink-haired girl said to Angel, finally blowing off her stem.
“I was worried sick about you. Do you realize that if Trixie had not found you in time, something very bad might have happened to you?!”.
Angel rolled his eyes in response.
“Don't you dare do that in front of me, mister!”. Fluttershy went on angrily. “You need to listen to me for your own sake.”
“Uh...”. At that point a voice was heard, coming from the front door of the animal shelter. “So sorry to interrupt”.
“Bon Bon?”. Fluttershy asked, surprised to see her schoolmate in the shelter.
“Yeah, it's me. Though I guess not at the best time. Maybe I'll come back later”.
“Oh...No, it's okay. What can I help you with?”.
“Well...”. The girl said, while her cheeks were turning red as tomatoes. “Could you show me where the pets are kept...I'd like to take one”.
At the sound of those words Fluttershy could not believe her ears. Bon Bon had been one of the girls who had ignored her in the first place, when she had began to ask for help at the animal shelter and now she was saying that she wanted a pet?
“You'd like a pet?!”
“Yeah...”. The other girl repeated, embarassed. “I know it sounds surprising, but seeing that bunny of yours, running free all over the mall, made me realise what I was missing. It's absolutely adorable. So Fluttershy, would you help me choose a pet?”.
“Gladly!”. The pink-haired youngster replied, struggling to contain the joy she was now feeling in her heart. “Follow me.”
“Hey, Fluttershy!”. Another voice, coming from behind her back, exclaimed. “Don't forget about me!”.
As soon as Fluttershy turned around, she saw Lyra Hearstrings, approaching.
“Or me”. Another voice said.
“Or me”.
“Or me”. And so on.
Fluttershy could not believe her eyes. In front of her stood a crowd of at least a thousand teenagers eager to enter the animal shelter to choose a pet friend to take home.
Blinking her eyes from the shock, the youngster turned her head toward Angel. “Did you do all this?!”. She asked confused.
The bunny just smiled proudly in response.