“Lucky Break”

    I chased the vibrant feather down to my home, but my net caught nothing but my mailbox. Butch caught up to it while I recovered, but it was knocked away towards the cliffside. Finally, Gala made a mad dash towards it, but missed herself when it was over the cliff. She lost her balance for a moment before I caught up to her to prevent her from toppling into the water.

“Thanks for the help, Nat…” She said with some relief in her tone. “I honestly was never a good swimmer, so that could have ended badly!”

“Like you said when we first met: we all have to look out for each other!” I said.

“But, chasing these feathers like this is getting us nowhere, ROOOOOWF…” Butch added. “We have our colors, but that’s the only one we need!”

“Just our luck...” I said. “Why don’t we go find the others? They might’ve found something!”

After walking for a bit, we found Isabelle and Blaire near Re-Tail by the eastern cliffside. They looked like they were having a fun time as they chased after each feather.

“There’s one right there, nutlet!” Blaire called out. She had pointed out a bright yellow feather behind Isabelle.

She reacted quickly. “There! That’s the last one.”

I clapped my hands cheerfully after seeing this. “Wow, you seem to be really getting into this, Isabelle!”

“Oh! I didn’t see you there, Mayor!” She replied. “Any luck yet?”

“We have our colors, but a rainbow feather dodged us again, snortie…” Gala replied.

“You two still look like you’re having fun, though!” Butch added.

Isabelle nodded, smiling. “I guess you could say I'm rediscovering what makes Windfall so great!”

“Like I always say, no one needs to stay cooped up forever!” Blaire said. “If you and Nat work together as good as you say you might be able to step out for the next event!”

“Well, I’ll have to host for Shamrock Day.” Isabelle said. “But, maybe I will not soon after!”

I nodded. “I think we can count on that happening.”

“It’s going to get away, fribbit!” Frobert’s voice called. “Get those knees up, Rosie!”

“I’m trying!” She replied.

“Uh-oh, we’d better move, ROOOOOWF!” Butch said as all five of us leaped away before Frobert and Rosie barreled in chasing a rainbow feather. Just like before, it too went over the shores.

Frobert looked disappointed. “Oh, barbells… we missed it again!”

“Those feathers are just so dodgy!” I said.

“We haven’t been having any luck catching it either, nutlet.” Blaire said. “In fact, I don’t think we’ve seen one yet!”

“We can’t give up, silly.” Rosie stated. “Pavè is counting on us!”

“You think maybe we should split up again, Nat?” Butch asked.

“No, we should go over to the main area of town, near where the town hall is.” I suggested. “There’s a lot more ground to cover there, so we won’t be bumping into each other too much.”

“Good point, Mayor.” Isabelle said. “I can guess everyone has their colors by this point. We need to focus on that one.”

---

    Near the town hall, all of us started our search. There were many different colors of confetti and feathers lying around, but there was no sign of a rainbow one anywhere. We searched for about an hour until…

“Mayor, look! There’s one over here!” Isabelle said. She had pointed one out not far from where the train tracks were.

I quickly dashed up to her, thinking it was still in the air at that moment. In reality, it was stuck in a tree!

“Well, now! It can’t run away from us while it's stuck up there.” I said.

“Maybe we can shake it off, snortie…” Gala said as she approached…

…but she was stopped by Butch. “Hold on, remember what happened with Nat when he first arrived in town?”

Gala stepped back almost immediately after that. “Yikes! I almost forgot!”

“Hmmm… there might not be a beehive in there this time!” Rosie said. “I can’t hear any buzzing in there, silly…”

“You won’t until they’re angry, fribbit.” Frobert said to Rosie. “Let me shake it off, I can run pretty fast if I need to get somewhere safe!”

“Are you sure, nutlet?” Blaire questioned. “I haven’t been seeing you doing anything other than dancing this whole day!”

“Why don’t we put it to a vote?” Isabelle suggested, pulling out a piece of paper. “Once we do so, it will be easier to set a plan if things go wrong!”

Everyone nodded. Once the paper was passed around, Isabelle counted the votes and revealed that I should try shaking the tree in a majority vote.

“Why me?” I asked.

“I just wanted to mess with you!” Butch joked. “Nah, I’m only fooling. I felt like you wanted to take another shot after the first time.”

“I think we can all agree on that.” Gala said. Everyone aside from Rosie and Blaire nodded in approval.

“I voted for Frobert…” Rosie said. “I thought we could take his word!”

“I threw Isabelle on my vote.” Blaire added. “Just because I can!”

I shivered a bit, but gathered my courage. “…All right, stand back.”

Everyone did so. Rosie and Gala even pulled out a net just in case as I gave the tree the biggest shake I could. I heard something drop on the ground, causing me to turn away and cover myself immediately. I expected to get stung then and there…

…but it never happened. In fact, I didn’t hear a single bee! Slowly lowering my guard, I turned around to find that a large leaf had fallen out along with the feather. I picked the leaf up, while Isabelle picked up the feather.

“Phew… I thought I was about to be swarmed!” I said. “But what’s with this leaf?”

“I don’t know…” Isabelle said as she put the rainbow feather in her pockets. “I’ve never seen any leaf that big aside from… wait!”

“Are you thinking what I am, Isabelle?” I asked. She nodded in response.

“What are you two talking about, ROOOOOWF?” Butch questioned. “I don't see anything different about this leaf...”

“That’s the thing. It may look like a leaf.” Isabelle said. “But if Mayor Nat and I are correct, this is actually…”

I set it down on the ground as if I was placing furniture down to reveal that it was a Laptop in disguise!

Rosie was shocked. “Did you see that?! It was actually a furniture item!”

“It looks like it still works, too.” Blaire added. “I’m so jealous, nutlet!”

“What are the chances?” I said with a big grin in my face as I picked it up. “I can’t wait to see what I can do with this!”

“You should probably put that in your house before we finally go to Pavè.” Frobert suggested. “If you want to do that first, we can just meet you at the Plaza!”

“Sure thing!” Isabelle said. “Let’s hurry, Mayor! I hear the fun’s about to hit its peak soon!”


Next – “Nat’s Curtain Call”