C'mon. Who are you kidding. You open the locker door!

You look Cameron in the eyes, then slowly shift your head over to the locker. You take a step towards it and, sensing what you're about to do, Cameron reluctantly takes his hand off of it. You slowly reach up to the door, and....

BANG!

"Debbie!" Cameron says, as you swing the door open with full ****, sending it off to bang against the other lockers and bounce almost all the way back to being closed. You only caught a flash of orange inside, but the door is slowly and creakily swinging open again now, so....

You grab Cameron by the arm and take a step back, leading him to come with you, both watching intently as the door sllowwwllyyy opens back up to reveal.... uhhhh..... wow, this is really taking a while. Just give it- hang on.

You reach out with one of your legs, kicking in the air to try get the door open again, but your leg is too short. You lean on Cameron with your arms for support as you hop a few hops forward, keeping your leg in the air and waving your foot around until you get close enough to push the door open with your foot. Then you jump back next to Cameron again, hugging his arm tightly for safety, squeezing your eyes shut!

When there isn't any sounds of rapid scurrying attacks or a bee swarm, you open your eyes and ease your grip on Cameron a bit. Inside the locker, you see... {if DelilahGotYa == True}wait, Toffee? It's Toffee! Delilah's orange cat that doesn't belong to her, from last week! Why's he in a locker?

"Toffee!" You call out happily, fully letting go of Cameron's arm and rushing up to the locker in excitement.

You lean forward on it, both hands on the inside floor of the locker, leaning in with a beaming face. Toffee's shining amber eyes look back at you as you lean in further and rub noses with him happily. His fur is just as fluffy and perfectly soft as you remember it being!

"Debbie, b-be careful!" Cameron says, moving closer. "Diseases, remember?"

"Toffee doesn't have any diseases!" You assure him positively. You turn back to Toffee, and reach out with one finger to stroke at the furry sides of his mouth. "Except maybe an infec- except that he has maybe an infectious personality, that is."

Cameron seems concerned, but doesn't argue and steps closer to look over Toffee for himself. Toffee moves his head from you to stare back at Cameron with those intelligent eyes, and you reluctantly back away to give Cameron the full view of him. Toffee's orange fur is intricately patterned with swirls and waves of winding, weaving oranges, designed better than a lot of carpets you've seen before, which leads into his proud white-furred puffy chest. His floofy orange tail swishes slowly back and forth behind him as he sits back on his haunches regally.

You look over to Cameron, giddily, and are very pleased to see that his face is one of the appropriate amount of amazement for how cool of a cat Toffee is. You step to the side to allow Cameron to tentatively reach his hand forward and stroke Toffee's incredibly soft and warm fur, which gets Toffee purring and leaning his head into Cameron's palm.

Even though Toffee enjoys the headscritches from Cameron immensely, he eventually drags himself back from his hand and looks between you both, looking like he wouldn't have done that if he didn't have serious business to get down to.

"meowwwll" He says. Oddly, you both seem to sort of understand what he wants -- Cameron steps back from the locker, and you shuffle a little bit forward, so that the two of you are standing in front of him equally. "meowwlll" He repeats. you don't understand that one.

Still, Toffee seems satisfied -- he looks between you and Cameron, amber eyes shining in the faint moonlight coming from the window on the other side of the hall, then hops down from the locker gracefully. With that, he turns and begins softly plodding along the hallway carpet with his paws. You both watch him all the way until he disappears around the corner.{else}a-an orange cat? Yeah, that's right, there's an orange forest cat in there, sitting back on its haunches proudly and looking back at you and Cameron with {if OopsToffee == True}(oddly familiar) {endif}shining amber eyes.

"meowwlll"

"Is that a cat?" Cameron asks. "Why is there a cat in a locker?"

"Yeah, really." You reply. "Stuff you bring home goes in backpacks."

You take a step towards it, but Cameron quickly reaches out to your shoulder and stops you.

"Debbie!" He says. "What if it has-"

He looks over at the cat, which stares back at him with those intelligent amber eyes. He leans in closer to finish his thought in a whisper.

"What if it has a disease?"

Oh no, that's right -- cats hate the water, don't they? You look back at the cat yourself, checking it for any signs of diseases. It moves its head to look at you with those eyes it has now, which you can almost feel speaking to you. The cat itself has orange fur in an intricate pattern, which winds and weaves in a beautiful blend of lighter and darker oranges like you've never seen before, leading up to a proud puff of immaculate white fur on its chest. Behind where it sits, you can just barely see a big floofy orange tail swishing from side to side, thoughtfully.

"mgonna risk it." You say at last, brushing his hand off of your shoulder and stepping forward towards the cat.

You reach towards its head with your hand slowly, testing its reaction. It looks at your hand, then back into your eyes, but does nothing to stop you or get out of the way. With your confidence building, you put your hand on the top of its head and start brushing your palm down its fur and along its back. It's... it's incredible!

The cat's fur is super-duper soft, and so much fluffier than you even knew an animal's fur could be -- it's better than any blanket you've ever tried, and there's an almost warmth to it and just makes you want to sink into it forever. Your heart melts at the sound of the cat purring, as it shuts its eyes and leans into your hand with its head, brushing the side of its face against your palm.

"Cameron!" You call back to your classmate. "You've gotta try this!"

Opening his mouth to object, Cameron instead sighs and walks forward to have a go at it for himself too. You reluctantly step away to make room for the cat's new (for now) caretaker, which is regarded and given a once-over by those shining amber eyes, and subsequently accepted after his hand gives it some nice headscritches behind the ears.

"...woah." Cameron says. He looks to you. "Is this- this isn't normal, right? Do all cats feel like this?"

You shake your head. Cameron looks back to the cat, silent, continuing his work until the cat leans out of his hand and looks between the two of you. Feeling like you sort of understand what it means, Cameron steps back and you step forward, so that the two of you both stand in front of it equally.

"meowwll" It says. You don't understand that one. Cameron looks over to you.

"I don't understand that one." You clarify to him.

Still, for the cat's part, it seems to consider your business concluded as it hops down from the locker and lands on the hallway carpet gracefully, before happily trotting off down and around the corner with a confident swagger that no other living creature could justify attempting to pull off, on account of having less soft fur or hair. Or worse, no fur or hair at all. Fish might have it good when it comes to health, but you sure wouldn't want to live like that.{endif}

You and Cameron exchange glances.

"Well!" You say. "Back to it, then?"

Cameron considers a moment, then nods. The two of you continue walking down the hallways, eventually completing your lap and returning to your room to get a few more hours of sleep before the day starts. You expect the chill to return when you enter the room, but it doesn't.

That was super cool!{if OopsToffee == True} But you could swear that you've seen that cat once before, somewhere... right? You'll have to think about it some more. But the{else} And the{endif} good news is, your dreams for the rest of the night go totally uninterrupted by bad ones. You can't help but feel like that's all thanks to {if DelilahGotYa == True}Toffee and his awesomely confident aura{else}that cat and its awesome fur{endif}. Anyway, when the sun rises, you both wake up again (at the proper time) and get ready for your classes!