"No no no, move it a little to the right. Now a little to the left." Samantha told her dad as he was hanging up a new bell to signal our breaks. Like what's wrong with our old one, right? I looked at Mr. Raven who was helplessly following Sam's instructions, hoping that the bell wouldn't look lopsided after he was done.

"Can you make up your mind, Sam?" He grunted as the ladder wobbled under his weight a little.

"Move it just a tad bit to the right..." Mr. Raven moved it ever so slowly, "And there!" Sam half shouted, making Mr. Raven almost drop the bell and start all over again. He sighed deeply at his daughters' enthusiasm and character, marking the outline of the bell on the wall and taking a hammer and a nail, getting ready to hammer it in.

I smiled at their relationship. Mr. Raven was more of a man who keeps to himself unless he's talking to his employees, while Sam was more like her mother who was a designer and always has to say something about the little things.

I turned away as they had their own little argument about what nail to use. Family probs. We've all been there.

"Dad, just use one of those boxing nails."

I zoned out of their conversation while I walked into the storage closet to get a broom. In a pet store, you not only had to feed and take care of the animals but also be the janitor as well. That includes bathrooms as well. I wrinkled my nose as I walked into the bathroom to sweep. Okay. Maybe the palace was slightly better than this. After I finished sweeping and cleaned the mirrors a bit, I decided to sweep around the cages as well. I've always been known to do more than what I'm expected of, not in a bragging sort of way of course.

Pumpkin looked up at me while I swept. His brown eyes bore into mine. I sighed.

"Alright big boy, if I let you out, be on your best behavior," I warned, opening the cage for him. He slowly wagged his tail and walked out, but of course sitting back down on the dark brown wooden floor. I shook my head in bewilderment. "You dogs amaze me some time." It the same floor like the one he has in his cage, but I guess I'd love to come out too if I was in a cage.

"Hey 'Lil," Sam walked up to me, "do you want to hang out today? Maybe my place? Got a new laptop, we can download some cool songs?"

I smiled, "I'd actually love that, better than sitting in my room all day. Ready for SOC?" Sam is going to a different college than me, to learn about the marine life. It's called South Ocean Community for a reason, right?

While she's going for the ocean stuff, I'll be leaning towards the medical field, which happens to be in the College of Saelia. 

Sam groaned, "Please don't remind me."

I laughed, "It won't be too bad, in a couple years we'll both have college diplomas and a good job. It'll be exciting."

"That's just the thing," Sam glanced over at me, while she picked up a new shipment of dog food off the floor, "you've always loved school."

"Oh Sam, it's not that, at one point you actually wanted to be a teacher," I argued.

"I was foolish back then, second graders say things they don't mean," She opened the box, and took out one bag, going around the room, feeding the dogs. "and besides," she continued, "that doesn't me..." all of a sudden, she stopped mid-sentence, "why is Prince running around?"

I strained my neck to look outside, and sure enough, I saw Prince dart past our pet store. I sighed, if this is a setup, I'm definitely going to talk to Max about this. "Wanna go catch him?" I offered.

"I'd be honored to." She replied.

I rolled my eyes, as we both got up, and ran outside, looking both ways, in case one of the royal officials were already chasing him, oddly enough, there was no one. From the past, I've learned not to chase a startled animal. It'll just make them more frantic and run faster. So taking some precautions, we devised a plan to corner him on East Main Street. Which to our luck, has a small ally. Before we started to follow the dog, we hadn't noticed Pumpkin slip outside, who was running the opposite direction. What is up with these animals all of a sudden?

Sam groaned, "You go after Prince while I'll take care of Pumpkin." I nodded and ran down the direction I saw the golden retriever run off to. Down the street, I saw Art, who also seemed to be looking for the dog, because he gave a whistle. Running up to him, breathless, I said, "What is wrong with your dog?"

"Teaching him new tricks...?" He joked.

"By running away? Seriously, he won't just run off." I noticed that he attempted to put on a disguise, due to his hair facing every which way, and dusty blue jeans. A gust of wind hit us both.

In the distance, a few reporters and paparazzi were starting to slow down, as if taking second glances at us.

"Let's go get that dog." Art muttered as we took off, searching for Prince and at the same time, hoping no one would recognize us and take pictures.

We called his name and even asked passersby and fellow neighbors. I hoped that Sam already caught Pumpkin. Minutes later, we finally caught sight of him near a hardware store, panting. When he caught sight of us, the dog ran to the other side of the street. By now, we were out of breath.

"Geez," I tried to catch my breath, "What did you do to him?"

Art also took deep breaths, wiping the sweat off his forehead, "That's what I'm trying to figure out."

When we were somewhat rested, we half-jogged towards Prince, being careful not to startle him.

"Here boy," Art called out to him. The dog perked up and took one step back. "I have a biscuit for you." He pulled out a dog treat from his jeans pocket. I don't judge him, if I have extra money, I would buy dog treats for Pumpkin as well. Prince took a step towards the biscuit, but just as we got our hopes up, a car drove past us, startling the poor animal making him turn and run.

"Oh come on!" I kicked the side of the building. Art also looked distraught. Wasting no time, and ignoring the stares we got, we ran after that dog, dodging kids and other stray animals. We ran into the city park and looked frantically around for the dog. With no luck, we started to head back, until the sprinklers came on that are used to water the grass in the park. We ran back to the sidewalk where it was dry.

"What a way to ruin the day," I grumbled.

"It doesn't have to be bad," Art offered, I glared over at him.

"I don't see you with any ideas. We lost Prince and Pumpkin, now we are both soaking wet." I did my best to get the water out of my loose shirt that I was wearing.

"You lost pumpkin too?" He raised his eyebrow.

I nodded, "He ran out before Sam and I ran after Prince."

"Oh." Was all he said. We walked back the direction we came from. I looked up at the sky, as I felt a few rain drops Angry looking clouds covered the sun, threatening to spill more water. Trees were disturbed by the cool refreshing wind. My hair went in different directions. The moment I'm glad I brought a hair tie, I quickly tied my hair up, soon after, it started pouring. Ignoring our tired legs, we ran searched for some shelter. Thankfully the Pet Patch wasn't too far away, so we both ran into the pet store dripping wet. Mr. Raven looked in our direction.

"Lily! Where have you been?!" He exclaimed. I didn't know if he was angry or delighted to see me.

"Um...we were chasing the dogs." I Stammered.

"Sam already caught the dogs, one of these days you need to get a phone." He shook his head and walked into his little office. Ouch. That sounded more like an insult than a statement. I rolled my eyes. Art just chuckled.

"So now you're laughing at me?" I looked over at him.

He brought up his hands in surrender, "No, not at all," that grin never leaving his face. As if right on cue, Sam walked in with Prince and Pumpkin who looked oddly happy as they wagged their tails. Sam stopped right in her tracks and smiled nervously.

"Hey guys!"

I crossed my arms, "You could have gotten us before it started raining you know." Art also attempted to look serious. 

"I uh...did, er, tried, but you know how dad is, always should be on the job." She laughed nervously again. 

"Uh huh, right."

"At least you two had a lovely afternoon!"

"Running around like lost children and getting wet twice?" I reasoned. I looked over at the dogs who were both sitting obediently, their ears perked up as if they understood every word. I couldn't help but let out a smile. "Okay whatever, it felt great to be outside after all that's been happening."

"I, for one, agree." Art spoke up. Prince got up and walked over to him. Art bent down and scratched the dog behind the ears. Whatever happened earlier was now forgotten as the attention shifted over to the dogs. With the heavy rain outside, there weren't any customers to attend to, so we all went over to the small cafe that was built into the pet shop and poured ourselves something warm.

We made small talk about the weather, the kingdom and eventually led to college. Since Art is into medicine like me, there are only two colleges in Saelia for that. The Saelia University or the Jefferson University, named after a guy who invented the lighbulb. Pretty dramatic to name a college after him, right?

Anyways, I decided to not ask him which college he planned on going to. Plus, since he is royalty, he has full right to go to any college he desires to, while commoners like us needed to work for it.

After a while, two built men came into the store, both soaking wet. They looked around and when they spotted us, they walked over.

One of them cleared his throat, "Your...I mean Art, we we're looking everywhere for you, Karina needs you in her office a.s.a.p."

Art rolled his eyes, "Chill guys, it's not like I got kidnapped, I had to chase Prince after he started chasing a squirrel." Prince lifted his head at the mention of his name.

"Very well," the same guy continued, "but we need to leave right now. We need you to finally take responsibilities, you are not a little boy to be chased after. We could have sent someone else to get Prince."

Art nodded, looking as if he has heard the same lecture before. "Alright," he stood up, and turned his attention to us, his smile broadens for a split second when he looked at me.

"I apologize for being brief with you girls but duty calls."

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, "Please, no need for formalities now, it's just us here."

Art smirked as he extended his hand, I brushed my hands on my now damp T-shirt and shook his hand, just out of politeness. He shook Sam's hand as well before he turned and filled the guys out the door, Prince followed close behind. Once the door was shut. I let go of my breath that I had need holding.

"I still don't understand what has come over the animals today."

Sam shrugged, "Eh, who cares. Just some doggy instinct."

"Doggy instinct, huh? What ever you say." I stood up from my position and started cleaning up the remaining mess. Sam swept the floor for any crumbs, preventing any guests that might decide to have a party in here.

Mr. Raven walked in, and smiled at us, "Alright girls, we will close a little earlier today, there's a storm brewing."

Sam was the only one who jumped up, "Yay!" When she realized she was the only one, she looked confused, "What? The rains nice."

I chuckled, "I love you Sam."

"I know you do."

Mr. Raven secured the animals, and ushered us outside into the rain, locking the pet store. Me being without a car, they offered to drive me home, to which I reluctantly agreed to.

Once they dropped me off and wished me a good night, I did small errands around the house, before I finally called it a day. I hadn't realized just how tired I was as soon as I hit the pillow. I welcomed the tiredness with open arms.

Excuse any mistakes! I was too lazy to fix them. I will edit when I'm done with this book though! I apologize it took me forever to update. God bless and please vote and comment!