Page 22 of Lila

The commotion was enough to draw Gray’s attention away from the penguin and he makes excited noises as he jumps up and down in front of me.

“You wanna see?”

He nods and I squat down so he can get a better view.

“What do you think?”

“Keep,” he declares.

I chuckle. “It is super cute. But I don’t think we can just keep it, buddy. We have to find out where it came from. If it belongs to someone,” I say as I scratch the back of its head and it makes a contented noise and vibrates against me, rubbing its face in my neck.

Our first stop is the info desk I saw when we came in. Maybe they’ll be able to tell me if any guests came in with a… whatever this is.

“Excuse me,” I start as we stop at the desk. “Do you know where this guy came from? Have you seen him around before?” I ask the young woman manning the desk.

“I have no idea what that even is. It’s definitely not a marine animal, so I don’t know what it’s doing here.”

“So you didn’t see anyone come in with it?”

“Nope. I can call animal control though. They’ll take care of it.”

The creature squeaks and tries to bury itself in my neck. I guess it doesn’t want to go with animal control. Not that I can blame it. They’re not always the nicest.

“That’s okay. I’ll take care of it until I can find out where it belongs.” It purrs as it rubs its nose against my chin and I know I made the right decision.

“Whatever.” She shrugs.

“Come on, Gray. We’ll walk to town, maybe there will be a missing pet flyer posted.”

Chapter 16

Lila

WewalkthroughSilverSprings trying to find my cuddle bug’s home, but no one we ask knows anything. One person informed us the soft bundle is a chinchilla, so that was helpful. But we still don’t know where it came from or what to do with it. Gray may get his way and I might take it home with us. Just until we can figure out where it belongs.

As we continue down the sidewalk, Gray starts clapping his hands and making his excited sounds. “What’s going on, G?”

“Arcade. Arcade. Arcade.” He presses the word over and over.

Looking to my left, I see what he’s talking about. “You want to go to the arcade?”

“Pac-Man.”

“Sure… as long as we don’t get in trouble for bringing the chinchilla inside.”

Gray runs to the door but stops abruptly when he gets too far ahead of me. I smile as he huffs and catch up to him at the door, opening it and letting him enter first. He tries to rush to the arcade he wants to play, but with my hands full, he can’t drag me like he did at the aquarium.

A petite blonde woman walks up to us with a bundle wrapped in a blanket in her arms.

“Hey there! Welcome to the Arcade,” she greets before her eyes light up as she catches sight of the chinchilla. “Oh my goodness, and who do we have here?”

I force a smile, worried she’s going to kick us out until I see the lizard on her shoulder.

“My name’s Lizzy, this here is Stoic. And the little bundle snoring away is my tiny Timmy.” She gestures with her arms as she pulls the blanket away, revealing a sleeping pup.

They must be pet-friendly here.

The lizard launches itself at me, scaring me half to death for the second time today when it lands on my shoulder. He scurries from one shoulder to the other until his face is close to my furbaby and I panic. He flicks out his tongue in a hiss and I don’t know if he’s friendly or he has some poison spit that’ll kill my fuzzy friend. It’s not a conscious decision when I shrug my shoulder, flinging the lizard off of me.

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