“And there” Vanessa said as she set down the last mini chair in the scenic outdoor cafe, set in a large old fish tank, she sat crossed legged on her greenhouse ( which was made from an old stranded ufo) floor surround by mini plant people, whose bodies were made of all types of colorful flora, and some fungi, tiny oohs and ahhs shared among them as they gazed at her creation. “Alright, everyone I declare the Sweet Alyssum Cafe to now be OPEN!” She announced. cutting mini red ribbon with regular size scissors. The succulent subjects quickly swarmed their new digs, enjoying every small detail Vanessa had put into the place, most of the stuff was made out of household objects, everything from the candle lit stove to the little chairs made out of paperclips bottle caps. She even decorated the area with some of her mini animal wood sculptures. It wasn’t long before the plant people started sitting down, taking orders, enjoying sweets and chatting amongst each other. One of the flora being who took the role of chef, invited Vanessa to join in the “grand opening” festivities by offering her a large honey (which was large to them but about the same size as half of a twinkie)
“Oh, man I would love to join you guys, but I still got some things to take care of” she took the sweet offering from the chef’s tiny hands “but I’ll be sure to hang out later, promise” she added a wink before taking a bite of the sweet cake.
This gesture brought a smile to the tiny chef’s face, and he firmly nodded before eagerly running back into the cafe to continue his job.
Vanessea took another bite of the miniature cake before standing up and dusting off her patchy paint splatter sparkly, bunny, and flower embroidered overalls, layered on top of her pastel nasa star studded tee. She exited the greenhouse and crossed the bridge that connected to her room.
She kicked off her garden boots and headed to her room. Vanessa’s room was adorned with plants hanging from the ceiling, the floor splatter with paint the amount of splatters grew closer to the creative nook the area under her loft bed a that Vanesssa use for her painting or potion making, complete with a cluderen pot, a bookcase filled with various spell books, magic ingredients, other magical nit naks, art books, paint brushes, and an easel with some canvas leaning against the wall. One side of the room had a top roll drawer desk, where her PC sat and drawers filled journaling/scrapbooking supplies. The desk was decorated with plants in jars, pots, old soda cans reused as pencil cups and pots, cute mini figures of animals and other cute creatures ( like moogels and pokemon).
Next to her desk was a small compact kitchen where she liked to make tea and other cute snacks when she was too lazy to go downstairs to the actual kitchen. There was a rack with various different types of tea packs mixed in with hot chocolate mix. There also sat her tea pot that was white and had cute little bunny ears on top. The other side of the room was a door that led to the bathroom and her large closet was in front of the room.
Vanessa climbed the ladder to her loft bed, where her furry companions were still asleep, usually Vanessa won’t mind sleeping in with her beloved buddies. But today she had to wake up early to finally finish the cafe for the plant people, so they would all have a nice place to have breakfast together.
Vanessa watched for a moment as her small long eared bunny friend, she named Flaps, slept bundled up in his scarf on top of the much larger yellow, fluffy yet shaggy haired, long ear dog/bear like creature, she named Buddy. While it was cute to watch the two sleep, she knew if she didn’t wake them up for breakfast they both would be pretty upset about it , especially Flaps despite his small size the little guy can put away a ton!
“Come on, guys it’s time to wake up, you dont wanna miss breakfast, do you?” Vanessa said nudging her furry friends. Buddy slowly opened his eyes and took a big long yawn and stretched, this motion awoke Flap, who rubbed his eyes with ears and let it a smaller yawn. Buddy looked up and wagged his tail in delight to wake up to a friendly face, Flaps flutter up by his wings and sleepily nodded his head. Vanessa giggled and softly patted Flaps on the head before placing him in her overalls pocket to let him rest a bit longer, Buddy hopped on the homemade dumb waiter as she climbed down the ladder and pulled on pulley of the dumbwaiter to let buddy down and placed him on the floor. She walked downstairs to the sun lit, flower wallpapered, cozy kitchen, Buddy hopped up on a chair with some books stacked on top , patiently yet excitedly waiting for breakfast to be done.
Vanessa quickly whipped up some fluffy, yet super gooey chocolate chip pancakes, decorated extra chocolate chips, strawberries that were freshly picked from her garden, and all topped with mountains of whipped cream,with chocolate syrup.
“Breakfast’s ready” Vanessa said with a smile, holding the plates of pancakes in
Buddy chowed down on the pancakes as soon as Vanessa set the plate down, and the amora from the pancakes served as a pretty good wake up call for Flaps, who sprung right up, and started to devour the flapjack stack. Vanessa smiled and turned around to get to her own plate and she also made herself some tea, she took out a newspaper to read to see if she could find someone in need, or some big event to take part in to kickstart her new adventure, but today’s news seem pretty slow today just stuff about an ongoing election in a far off land and someone found their lost cat..aww..how sweet.
“Hmm…nothing in the news today, I guess I could just chill today, maybe I could just work on some terraforming” Vanessa said looking outside at the flower flooded terrain, she had made a forest in the backyard with a lake,a cave that led to an underground lake in the center of a flower field, and a few rivers. It was a beautiful area, but more could be added, a beach, or one of those little gazebo things, or a designated area for picnics, but the backyard lake is already good for those.
While thinking about cool terraforming ideas, Vanessa heard a knock at the door. Vanessa went to investigate.
“Morning, Ms. Vanessa, you’ve got mail!” said her post-man, a half jackalope half elf fellow as he bowed , Jack as he pushed up his circular specs and handed her a handful letters.
“Thanks, Jack” She said as she took the mail from his hands. “You wanna come in and chat for a while, I got some tea and strawberry chocolate chip pancakes.”
“Thats sounds wonderful!” Jack said as his ears perked up, the freckles on his face seemed to lit up and he got a starry excited look in his eyes, he took in deep breath, the aroma of the pancakes were strong enough he could smell them from outside, and he was almost so captaivitaed by the smell he almost fell over, but then quickly shook his head as to get rid of the idea. “B-but the last time I stuck around my boss gave me an earful…”
“Okay, but if you ever wanna hangout, my door’s always opened"Vanessa said as she gave a sympathetic shrug
” That’s very sweet of you, but I’ll be off , uh tell Buddy and Flaps, I said ‘Hello’!“ Jack said as he waved goodbye to continue his route.
Letters, Vanessa always got a ton them , but never from the same people every time, since most of them were busy people, but it was a nice way to keep in touch with all people she met on her travels,since some of them didn’t have phone, or sometimes didn’t even know what a phone was, and she found letter to be away more personal. She flipped through the batch of letters as she walked back to the kitchen, this batch came from a friendly, cute photographer, a fashionable bewitching lady, some letters from a group of masked vigilantes, and a letter from an old friend.
“Whoa, look guys it’s a letter from Del!” Vanessa said gleefully, showing the letter to Flaps and Buddy. Flaps squeaked in delight and Buddy wagged his tail with joy. Vanessa quickly opened the letter and started reading….
Hey, Vanessa
Sorry, I haven’t gotten around to talking or writing to you as much as I feel like I should.There’s just so much going on, I’ve took your advice from the last letter you sent me, and I’ve started to sell my seashell necklaces on the beach to make extra money, I’ve kind of opened a shop, well the owner of the surf shack let me set up my shop in the area where he used to sell his homemade kombucha (which no one brought well except for me, but I just did that because I felt so sorry for the guy, but I do feel relief that I don’t have to chug that stuff just to keep myself from vomiting anymore ). Christi has start her own atelier teaching people how to make clothes and dresses while making her own clothing line, she also wants the atelier to become a hip place for all the cool people in town to hang, so she’s going to start selling some of her sweets there as well, While Nikki has started her own yoga studio, where she teaches yoga (well, duh) and aerobics, with some help from Christi she also sells some athletic clothing as well (but she makes sure to tell Christi not to make the outfits too fancy and frilly) and she has been training for the town’s sports day games this year.
Naomi got a job at the Zoo taking care of the animals, her animal-talking abilities come in pretty hand, she climbed the ranks from elephant cleaner to head zookeeper pretty quickly, she loves being the camp counselor for when zoo camp starts in the summer, if we wouldn’t listen to her nerding out about animal facts, those little kids sure well, and look to her as some type of animal goddess, it so cute. While we’re still working on our dream jobs, and figuring out what we want to do with our lives, we still make time for our mayor squad tasks, things have gotten so much easier for me ever since I let the other girls help with my mayoral tasks, and thanks for pushing to make that decision by the way. At first we let citizens visit our home if they were in need of help for a task or to make a suggestion, but that got annoying real quick, you won’t believe the amount of people who would show in the middle of the night asking for help to look for their cat, so we made a separate build far way from our house, its about the size of a clubhouse but it does the job. Its there where we take people’s suggestions and at select hours of the day 5 to 8 pm because that fits in with most of our job schedules on Mon-Fri, but 10 to 6 on weekends, so we can still sleep in and have some girl time and movie night afterwards.
Its been fun sharing the town task, it always becomes a mini adventure like the type we used to have when you were around, our next big task is celebrating the town’s 13 anniversary. Naomi said that we shouldn’t because its bad luck, but I want to do it because I really like the movie 13 year, and I want to do something big to prove to myself that I can make a big event without screwing it up..so yeah…hehe. That’s gonna be a thing, I’m kind of nervous, it’s times like this I wish you were here, but I KNOW I can do it! I just gotta believe, right? Sorry, if this letter is really long, its just that SOOO much stuff has happened, and I’m busy and then I feel like you’re busy. I don’t wanna slow you down or annoy you, maybe I just miss talking to you..I guess or whatever. I think that’s all I have to update you on…OH wait I forgot to mention…uh.. I maybe…kind of.. like… have a..boyfriend now. Yeah, I met him while we were delivering apples to the annual gala, I kind of bumped into him there, then I started to bump into him EVERYWHERE! I kept running from him because of how embarrassed I felt, and I thought that would make him give up on me, but then he just came to the house and asked me out, and I couldn’t say no so I said yes, of course. He’s real sweet and has the cutest little sister and– Whoa this letter’s long enough, I guess I’ll fill you in later, whenever I get time to sit down and write again. Hope I didn’t waste your time.
From, Del
(P.S I enclosed this letter with a necklace I made just for you, I added a mini jar to this which something I just start doing with my necklaces, I hope I actually remember to put it in the letter, and it actually looks good)
Vanessa shook the letter for more of the contents, the sea shell necklace fell out of the letter with a small clang as it hit the table. She picked up gingerly and looked at it, running her fingers over the textures of each and every seashell,mini starfish, appreciated every little detail in the small jar of beach sand. “Oh, Del” Vanessa said fondly. She quickly went to the hallway mirror, and it looked even lovelier in the mirror and surprisingly it matched with her outfit. Vanessa couldn’t stop grinning, she felt like she could stand and look at it for hours, but it also gave her a nostalgic feeling, she thought about all the adventures she had with Bree and the other girls, how much fun it was to set up parties, parades, and grand opening, she got that similar feeling from holding the mini grand opening for the plant people’s nature cafe. It was nice to see people enjoy what you made, this thought got Vanessa really thinking,
“Hey, since I don’t have anything big to do today, why don’t I pay a visit to Well Sun Valley?” Vanessa said, thinking out loud while looking at her furry friends, who nodded in agreement. “Yeah, wait let’s not just make it a visit I could just like you know, stay” she nodded as she headed back to the kitchen and placed the breakfast plates and cups in the sink “Yeah, I mean still have my wrap stones from all the other places I’ve visited before, so if I need to go back to those place I’m pretty set” she began quickly wash and rinsing the plates, while passively passing them to Flaps, who held up a plate, so Buddy could dry them with his tail. “Shame that I didnt make a wrap stone to Well Sun before I left, but I didn’t even how to make those back then, so its alright, I can just take the train….”
she looked at the clock “Oof, I gotta start packing” Vanessa quickly rushed out the kitchen, but then backtracked and gathered the other letters, and raced up stairs. Vanessa entered her walk-in closet and dragged out her pink and purple holographic suitcase and started to grab a few outfits, while changing her current outfit to a strawberry tee, with a plaid skirt.
She also packed her travel journal to share her adventures, some books and her laptop to keep herself entertained on the train. Once she was done pack she then went to her desk to read and sent responses to the other letters she got, she was debating if she should send a letter to Del or not, she settled on not because she was coming anyways and wanted it to be a surprise! She looked up the time for when the nearest train depart to Well Sun Valley, the nearest one was about to leave itin 45 minutes. Vanessa held out her hand and thought, and two tickets quickly manifested in her hands “Aw, man my manifest powers still need work, I thought too hard” she said, she inspected the tickets closely and she got the important train details right..
“Let’s go” Vanessa said as she placed Flaps on her shoulder and bounced out the chair, grabbed her suitcase, and headed outside with Buddy following behind, she made a stop at the mailbox to put her letters in, she bounced on the wrap portal. She was teleported into a bush and stumbled out “Oof, got to work on those teleportation skills” Vanessa shook her head to regain her equalium. She looked around to see that she landed near a train station that was a small station in a valley across from a lake, not far from a small town. She ran to get in line, but was stopped in her tracks when she saw the no animals sign. “Oof, time to hide, guys” Flaps hid in Vanessa loose curly hair, and Buddy made himself invisible. “Great”
She loaded in with the another passengers and was show by one of the workers to her room in the sleeper car, her room had two beds one on each side.
"Guess, I lucked out” Vanessa shrugged to herself. She placed her luggage under one of the seats, but not before taking out her laptop. It would take 2 days to reach Well Sun Valley, so might as well enjoy the ride. Vanessa headed to the dining car, watch some videos while she soak up the atmosphere,and to see if the cafe has any cute treats.
Vanessa found herself a nice seat near the back so she could get a good scoop of everything. She wanted to get lost in the murmurs of background conversations, the light clanking of plates, cups and utseils, the humming from the coffee machine and warm auroma that was wafing from it that mixed pleasently with savory smell coming from the kitchen
she peered up to check to see if her island was following her and it was, set up her laptop, despite the train having a rustic old times aesthetic the wifi was pretty good, and order herself a cute strawberry parfait.
Vanessa patted Buddy on the head as he snuggled up right next to her, other than the morning rush everything went pretty smoothly. Might as well just sit and enjoy the atmosphere, but just as she was about to, the back door bursted opened, Vanessa turned to see a guy coming out of the back door, he was hunched over–his knees were almost down to floor. At first his face was covered by a mount of messy almost shaggy blond hair. He shook his head vigorously revealing his bright blue eyes that contracted loudly against his ghostly pale skin his face sprinkled with freckles, he had orange headphones that hung around his neck, The blue eyes were surrounded by dark circles,he wore a black turtleneck tunic, and he looked like he was being almost swallowed whole by his baggy orange jacket that draped his shoulders. His blue orbs widened looking like they couldn’t believe the scene they were witnessing.
“Oh, oh, God! P-people!? There are actual people!!Thank God!"He said falling to knees taken aback "I-I’m out,I’m out, I’m ACTUAL OUT. T-that means I can find him, I FINALLY–” He tried to run, but ended up tripping over his own feet. “Whoa, gotta sit down a sec” said to himself as he slugged into an empty booth nearby.
Vanessa was pretty confused by what she just saw, a random dude just came out of the baggage car. He didn’t seem like a stowaway, he didn’t seem sneaky at all, and the fact that didn’t even know he was on the train til now. The other passengers were too into their own businesses to worry about what’s going on at the back of the car. Vanessa was going to investigate herself, but her stream of thoughts was interruptes by a voice.
“Excuse ma'am, may I see your ticket” said the conductor with his hand out ticket ready
“Oh sure, here” Vanessa as she handed over her ticket.
The conductor punched her ticket and promptly handed it back to her “Thank you, ma'am, hope you enjoy your trip"he gave her a consumer friendly smile, and walked to back
"Hmm..I wonder if I could add his to my travel scrapbook” Vanessa said as looked at her punched ticket.
“Wait no, please let me stay on the train” said a panicked voice from the back.
“I’m sorry, sir but I cannot let you ride the ride without a ticket, I must ask to leave or I will be forced to remove you from the train myself!”
“No, please you don’t understand I NEED to be on the train!” The boy said practically begging
“I will not stand for this nonsense on my train” the conductor said as he stomped his foot “ You have left me with no choice”
The conductor grabbed the boy by his baggy jacket as he held onto the table for dear life! “ NO PLEASE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!! I HAVE NOWHERE GO!!!
"Well then, you have no business being on this train then”
“WAIT!” Vanessa shouted, making the two stop dead in their tracks. “He’s with me!” She held up her extra ticket like it was some holy item. “Sorry, I completely forgot to give you your ticket uh…” she slowly gestured toward the boy.
“Oh, uh Nick!” The boy said as he perked up “Yeah, I’m definitely with her” he pointed toward Vanessa. The conductor let go of Nick and took a closer look at the extra ticket, he looked back at Nick, who gave a sheepish smile, then punched the ticket “Sorry for the misunderstanding, sir.” The scary harsh persona the conductor was replaced with a consumer friendly smile. “Enjoy your trip” The conductor returned the ticket and walked away
“Oh God, Thank you!” Nick said as he heaved a sigh “you’re a lifesaver” The boy stood up straight all that slouching really did hid his almost towering height compared to Vanessa.
“My goodness, you look awful!” Vanessa said with consider in her voice as she gazed at the disshloved boy in front of her “Where did you come from?”
“It’s a long story..” Nick mumbled rubbing the back of his head, just then a growling noise came from his stomach
“I wouldn’t mind take some time from my two day trip, hear your origin story over some burgers and fries” Vanessa suggested gesturing towards her table
__________________________
“Hmm I never would have an old times train car to have such hardy burgers on their menu” Vanessa said looking at the posh, script-written menu and then looking at the hamburger meat that was wrapped bacon, topped with cheese that dripped slow as it melted from the heat of the hamburger, topped with cold tomatoes and lettuce all hugged up in two soft buns, served with some nuggets and fries.
Vanessa only had a small bit of the meaty mount, she was already content with her parfait from earlier, while Nick was wolfing his burger like he hadn’t seen food in forever, she never seen some eat food so fast, Nick became quite sheepish when he realized Vanessa was looking at him. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to act like a slob, I just can’t remember the last time I saw food–actually I can’t remember the last time I saw anything.” He wiped his face with a napkin thoughtfully, then timidly gazed at Vanessa’s plate.
“No, no its fine, I just never guess someone as lanky and skinny as you could put away so much” Vanessa explained then she gently pushed her plate towards Nick, “Here, you can have my plate, I had a parfait earlier so I’m pretty full”
“Oh, thank you” Nick said, accepting her offer, and took no time going ham on the beef.
“No problem, you said earlier that you were walking in the middle of nowhere?”
“Yeah, It felt like I was just walking forever, like years but I was getting nowhere, everything was so white it was almost blinding.”
“Do you remember how you got there in the first place, what was your life like before?”
“My life was pretty normal, I lived in a pretty small town, I had friends, I went to school, I used to go rollerskating alot, even I had a job kind of.” Nick said put down the sandwich, and looked out the window thoughtfully “The last thing I remember was that I finally got to talk to this cool guy, I was so happy because he really clicked. I would always see him around and we would chat here and there , but we never really got to have a real conversation, his friend was super protective of him–his friend didn’t get along with my friend, they were always at each others throats, so I rarely got to talk to the guy in a peaceful setting for long. Until one day when my best friend literally pushed me to talk to him, we just started talking and it was just so awesome, it was the last best day I remember having. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere with him and then next thing I know I woke up on the cold hard white floor all alone, with nothing for miles.” Nick started to passively rub the streaks of ketchup on his plate with a lone french fry. “I didn’t sleep or eat, I couldn’t feel anything but emptiness, not only did I lose track of time, I started to lose myself..if was terrifying”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry…” Vanessa said, she couldn’t imagine being alone like that for so long.
“Yeah, but I’m out of it now LITERALLY, I can finally find him now, I was planning to share something important with him before I woke up in the void. I don’t know where he is but I think this train might lead me to him. Where’s this train going again?”
“Just a sweet town called Well Sun Valley,” Vanessa said proudly “I used to live there a long time ago but now I’m coming back to stay.”
“You think I might find my friend there?” Nick said his eyes gleamed with hope.
“Well, Sun Valley is known for having the magical ability to bring the most interesting people together, I would say there’s a good chance”Vanessa said with a firm nod
“Oh, that’s a relief” Nick yawned his head now resting on his arms, his head slowly tiling to the left, his eyes blinking fighting back sleepiness. “I’m sorry, I think all that walking is finally catching up to me” Nick let his heavy eyes droop closed as he gave into the urge to sleep, all the nervous energy that harvested in body seem to vanish and was replaced by peaceful slow pace breathing, his face sporting rosy cheeks that seemed to have gotten redder than when he was awake.
“Aw..”Vanessa said looking at the sleeping boy, the poor guy deserve some rest after what he’s been through, but then so realized “Oh, wait I’m going to have to carry him back to the sleeping car” Vanessa was unsure if her magic would work in the area the train was currently in, plus the dining car was pretty much packed at this hour even for late lunch, and she wasn’t so sure if any of these passengers had see magic before nor how they would react to the site of a boy floating in mid air. “I guess I’m just going to have to do this the hard way” Buddy climbed up to the table to eat what was left of the sandwich Nick was eating, and Flaps emerged out of Vanessa’s hair to munch on the leftover fries.
“Would you two mind helping me with this” Vanessa said nodding towards the exhausted Nick, Buddy and Flap both sighed and shrugged…
END OF PART 1