Forest Protector in the City

Shopping and Small Talk

A.N. Author's notes are annoying to some people, but let me explain something real quick before we get further into the story. I don't know anything about foreign exchange students, or how that whole system works, so I'm just going to go off what it is like in my world. Keep in mind that the school system might also be different (hopefully better) since it is meant to be a more ideal education system. Now enough of me explaining, though I'll sneak in some more exposition here and there!

Our mission today, as my mom likes to call it, is to buy school supplies! One of my favorite times of the year! What? Yeah, I'm a nerd, just because I get excited over new stuff. Suuurrrre...
The main goal was to use this as a sort of introduction for Natofe, help her learn some new words for all the supplies. But I planned to use this as an opportunity to do some research as well. My plan: to gain her trust so that I'd be able to find out more later. At night is when I planned to really investigate, by staying up late in order to catch the monster when it shows up. But until then, shopping and small talk.

"What do you want first?" I asked in Mand. I had studied well beforehand in order to act as a translator. I was still iffy on a lot of words, but it was pretty easy to guess from context (I hope).

"Where are we?" Natofe replied, puzzled. I guess we had forgotten to tell her where we were going ahead of time!

"Oh! We're at the store! For school supplies!" I told her, forgetting to reply in Mand.

"What?"

I smacked my forehead for my ignorance. "Uh, iha kahufe, ruf kavul kahor," I translated poorly. Being a translator is hard! Never the less, I would try my best!

"But I don't echem know what bukaha of this is! Wase, what is this?" she inquired, holding up a package of hair chalk.

"That will not work for you. It make hair color. But it does not work on black hair," I explained, gesturing to her black pixie cut. But to my surprise, she showed me a different reason why she didn't need the chalk... Her hair could change color too! I already knew of their chameleon like skin, but no one told me Mandians could change hair color!

As I was silently staring in awe at her plum-pigmented pilus, she put the chalk back and began browsing the shelves again. I ran to catch up after snapping out of my stupor. Natofe had wandered all the way to the end of the aisle, where the school supplies actually were. She picked up a pack of pens and turned to me.

"So, I need some of these, right?" she asked.

"Well, yeah," I told her, a bit peeved that we weren't going to talk about her hair, but I figured it might be rude. The last thing I want is to get on her bad side. "Also, we were saying that this is a good time for you to learn English!" I told her, trying to incorporate mom's mission or whatever. "These are pens, one is a pen," I felt like I was being a bit patronizing, but I continued anyway. I wanted to be the best host student, even if my guest may secretly be a demon...

"And these are pencils, one is a pencil. Am I too fast, or too slow?" I tentatively waited for her response. She just chuckled.

"No, no! You are good! I learn!" She beamed brightly, restoring my confidence as world's best host student/translator! I went on to list almost every item on our shopping list, plus many more. Natofe seemed engaged! She would constantly repeat what I said, and she even put them into a few sentences! She's an even faster learner than I was with Mand!

We practiced for a while longer just conversing in a mixture of two languages, but mostly English for Natofe's sake. Eventually, my mom came by to check on us saying that we should wrap it up and head home once we got everything. As we made our way to checkout, something caught Natofe's eye. She grabbed something off of the shelf, putting it into one of the bags she was carrying.

"What is that?" I asked, trying to sneak a glance into her bag. She grabbed it out of the bag and tried to read the English label.

"Ohhhh... Hair chalk?" she spoke, pronouncing the "al" as in "alpha".

"I know I don't need it, but you seemed to like my hair soo... Does it work on brown hair?"

I was taken aback by her kindness, and that she noticed that! I guess I was staring a bit earlier... oops.

"Uh, yeah! Hey, mom? Can I have this hair chalk?"

"Sure! But you know it won't show up as bright as on the packaging, right? Those things are always false advertising!" Mom answered, rolling her eyes at the box. I cheered! Mom's always seem less strict when you have friends around. Almost as if they want to be seen as the "cool" mom! With that, we bought our stuff and headed off to the next challenge of the day...

LUNCH