Chapter Text
Gardenview was a lovely place, full of children, and had many loyal visitors.
The star of the show, Dandy, had developed a sick and twisted mind after they introduced the next star, Dyle. Then came along the mains, Shelly, Vee, Sprout, Astro, and Pebble. Including the holiday toons, which he didn’t know where they went during the year. He had almost known nothing about them. Well, he talked to Bassie a little, but that's just because they both have relations to flowers and plant life.
1987, July 11th.
Book club, it was Saturday, so they’d all been having a meeting, talking to each other about recent books they had read. And shared their opinions, theories, thoughts, and suggestions. Squirm, Astro, Brightney, and RnD were all sitting on a purple rug in the library. Holding their books in their lap.
Squirm’s book obviously had a few bite marks in it, but he hadn’t taken a full bite out of it.
Brightney treated her books like her babies, no folded corners, no cracked spines, no stains, nothing.
Astro talked the least out of all of them, he was mainly a listener. Not a talker.
RnD both had something to say about their books, they’d read two, counting as 2 individual people.
“Squirm, what's up with the bite-marks?” Brightney asked, they hadn’t known about Squirm’s book-eating habits (yet). The question got an ashamed whimper out of him. “Pebble.. Pebble bit it.” He lied, it was obvious, but nobody decided to push further, RnD DiD take a look though.
After a minute of silence, Brightney spoke up. “What about you, Astro? How was your book?” she said with a smile. “Ah, it was fine..” He responded, before adding. “Though, it did take me quite a bit to finish.. I'd been reading it before bed, and had kept falling asleep.” He mumbled, yet loud enough for them to hear.
Squirm fidgeted, a tad nervous after the bite-mark question, swallowing hardly. He hadn’t realized he’d been slowly raising the book to his mouth. Before the wooden taste of paper hit his mouth, his tongue swiping along the fine edges of the paper, resulting in him splitting his tongue. “Ah!” He gasped, the taste of metallics filling his mouth. He swallowed again, hoping nobody noticed. But Brightney was staring right at him with wide eyes.
“Squirm?”
“Hm?” he squeaked, a little anxious that she caught him chewing on a book. Specifically, her book. His antennae bobbed when he turned his head towards her, tilting it in question.
“You alright..? Why are you chewing on the book?” She seemed concerned, “Are you hungry? If you are i have extra snacks—“ He cut her off, “I’m fine, I'm not hungry..”