"It doesn't seem promising," Emma admits. "Holly? Do you want to look by the river?"
Holly has to look through their notes to find 'river'. When she's found it she shrugs.
Emma looks around. It's getting dark. "We should probably go back," she says reluctantly. "But if I don't buy anything, my parents will be suspicious. Let's stop for something quickly?"
"Holly and Crystal need their charms!" Jenny points out. "Buy them bracelets!"
Alli rolls her eyes. "And then get yourself something too. Otherwise your parents will still be suspicious."
She offers them to the girls. "For you," she says. "Your coins, see?" She points at the charms with the blessing symbols.
"Mouse?"
"She uses them to make herself stay awake or heal blind people or whatever, and so she needs more?" Emma tries. "The mice seemed okay when she woke me up, though, I guess it's not like... immediate mouse death."
Emma rolls her eyes and ignores them. "We can look," she tells Holly doubtfully. "I don't know of any places that sell mice, though."
"Mice or -" Vague gesture. "Small, eat small. Mice good but -" Vague gesture.
After some searching, it's Jenny who finally locates the store with some caged gerbils in the back. "Aren't they cuuuuute," she purrs, scooping one up to cuddle it.
It promptly falls asleep in her hand.
She puts it back.
Ali peers at it. "Cute," she says grudgingly, "but I like the mice better. These are too... fluffy."
While Jenny and Alli bicker happily about the ideal fluffiness level of pets, Emma tunes them out and looks at a much more alert-seeming Holly. "You saw the gerbil, touched the gerbil, are you good now?" she asks. "Or do you want to buy one? More?"
"Mouse not - like gerbil," says Crystal. "Mouse, gerbil -" She mimes claws and bares her teeth.
While Emma has no doubt that this is perfectly true, she doesn't have any idea how that works with Holly's- whatever it is she does. "Um," she says blankly. "Claws," she supplies the hand gesture, and "fangs. Sharp," she uses her canines to attempt to demonstrate. "So- gerbil not like mouse- gerbil good? Gerbil bad?"
"Mouse good. Mouse?" asks Crystal. "No mouse - gerbil, gerbil, gerbil, gerbil. Child gerbils."