"Fauna." I offered. "Right!" he exclaimed then gave me a look of confusion, "Have you been to the Town Hall?"
"No, sir. I came to check everything out here."
"Well, then!" the tanuki escorted me outside, "Don't come back here until after you go to the Town Hall!"
I hauled my luggage along the few feet separating Nook's Cranny from the Town Hall. Inside the Town Hall, everything was much tidier than Nook's Cranny. A large circular pinstriped red and orange rug lay on the wooden floor. A small green mat and a red one lay in front of two opposing windows with white pictures on them. A formal, elderly turtle was snoozing in a desk at the back, and a jolly, white pelican was answering questions given by a red squirrel. The squirrel was extremly beautiful! She had a yellow pinstipe curling along her tail, with paws that looked dotted by whipped cream. Her curly yellow hair tempted me to touch it and her bright blue eyes looked like the ocean, which were lined with green eyeliner at the top. The squirrel said, "Thank you, Pelly." And trotted a couple steps before she saw me. Pelly went back to work, how polite of her not to spy. The squirrel said, "Hello. Pelly made an announcment about your arrival Fauna." She smiled, her lips were so thin you could miss them if you blinked just once. Her fragile smile creased back to a frown, and the squirrel burst into tears. "Oh I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry! Please forgive me!" I was startled at this. First of all a gentle squirrel was crying while holding onto my waist, and second of all, I didn't understand why! "Excuse me?" I said. The squirrel looked up at me. "What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry for being so rude..."
...
"My name is Caroline."
I forced myself not to show it, but that was sad...someone crying because they forgot to introduce themselves...to me. I thought the idea was a bit obsessive toward new people. Then I remembered how polite she was to even care that I was a living breathing person. Back in my old town, Gronzo, no one said a single word to me. I had no friends, except the ones my mom and dad made. Living alone, with someone to actually care, I think that's what I've been wanting. Caroline seemed to respect that I was hesitating, because when I finally replied, she had gotten on to her hind paws. "Nice to meet you."
"Thank you. Fauna, if someone is giving you a hard time, don't forget to come visit me! Living alone can get rather dramatic." With that, Caroline trotted off, her paws seeming to hover across the floor.
Pelly looked up and said, "Caroline is a sweetie isn't she?" "Yes," I agreed. Pelly put her papers down and explained, "I have papers for your new house almost done. As soon as they're finished, you should head over to Tom Nook's store next door. He will be your landlord and help you out. I'll send you a notice for all of this. For now, why don't you ask someone if you can stay over for awhile?" Pelly winked at me, she knew that I was going to ask Caroline.
"Okay, thank you."
I set off to find Caroline.
According to my map, Carloline lived by the beach. I met the other residents, Blaire and Elvis along the way. Blaire was rather cold and looked regretful to meeting me. But I greeted her with a smile anyway. Elvis was a bit kinder, but called me plucky for going into "the lion's den." I also went to the museum, the tailor Able Sisters and met all of the kind people there!
I stood in front of Caroline's large house. I knocked my knuckles against the baby blue door. It opened up and Caroline said before I could explain, "Of course you can!" Everything about her just seemed to make her more amazing. Someone so nice, pretty, and lucky to have a giant house. Caroline led me to a small bedroom. Fluffy, white disarray beds were lined up, just two. Caroline asked me which one I wanted. "Uh...the one that's neater." Caroline gave me an amused grin. I put my luggage there and Caroline explained, "I knew you'd be coming today, so the day before I did a little research on you." I nodded. "I also went ahead and bought some new things for you. I had this whole plan planned out."
"Even the part when you cried?"
Caroline looked at me with small abuse and extreme 'Is that what you think of me?' I looked away unable to meet her gaze. Why did I ask that? Would she kick me out? I felt tears burning up in my eyes. I grabbed her waist and threw a giant tantrum on her skirt. After a few minutes, i felt Caroline's creamy paw sit on my back. I listened to her hot breath agaisnt my cheek say, "Caroline wannabe." I looked up to see her smiling her thin smile. Though tears were still visible on my cheeks, we both just broke out lauging. I got up off her waist. Both our dresses bore a wet stain. "Now we have matching shirts," I said, and we both giggled, "I planed that happen all along." And we both broke out laughing.
Caroline took my downstairs to the kitchen. There was a bucket of fat fish on the counter and Caroline told me what to do to make fishsticks. I started singing as we fried a fish. "We are frying some fish, fish, fish," I sang.
"Fish, fish, fish!" Caroline repeated.
"We are baking some fish, fish, fish!"
"Fish, fish, fish!"
We sang the whole time until it was done. I was ravenous, but Caroline took nibbles asnd told me stories of past time in Animal Valley. After ward we went back up to the bedroom. She turned on the lights and I saw it was much bigger than I saw in the dark! Much more furniture too! There was a long dresser made of maple wood that was lined with pictures of Caroline and some of her friends. Paintings lined the upper left corner. Designs of shirts were on display. A couch and small television was in the middle. Everything here depicted who Caroline was, a squirrel with a dream. The dream soaked into me, but yet I didn't understand it. Caroline was oddly confusing, but we had a lot of fun anyway.
