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[David comes into the room, glasses perched on his nose as he reviews a paper he'd copied at the library. His shelves don't have much in the way of personal items, but what he lacks in pictures and trinkets, he makes up for in writing utensils and even a few bits of simple lab equipment. Hardly anything found outside of a high school chemistry lab, but he has enough to keep himself occupied. He's humming as he absently reaches over toward a shelf, looking for a pencil.]

[Aglet hasn't been here many days, or he'd like to think he would have learned the Bean's schedule and avoided him. Supposedly a Borrower can feel when a Bean is present, but he's never felt anything like that...at least, not until it's too late to be a warning to him. Like now. Or maybe that's just nausea.

He ducks behind the nearest opaque object he sees and freezes, mind skittering along the various escape routes that will be open to him once the Bean goes into the next room. Too bad he's practically sitting on a pencil.]

[David's hand doesn't find the pencil where he thinks it should be, finally turning his attentions away from the paper and looking toward the shelf. His fingers are a few inches away from the utensil but he stops with a look of surprise on his face. He's not certain if he's going crazy or seeing things, but he could swear he sees...a figure behind one of his empty beakers.]

Um...hello?

[Aglet trembles and tries very hard not to even breathe. There's no way of knowing if the Bean really sees him, especially since he can't see the Bean. Everything in him screams to make a run for it, but to do that would be about as smart as sticking his head in a mouse trap.]

[Nothing happens, but he still needs to get the pencil which is just behind the glass anyway. He reaches out with a gentle grip to pick up the beaker. His palms may be thick and calloused but he has all the dexterity of a surgeon as he handles the glass. It's a much safer way to retrieve his pencil, than risk pulling it out from behind. He had scrounged long and hard for these bits of equipment, and didn't want to risk breaking anything.]

[It's not every day that Jennifer is reduced to accessing the Treat Shelf, which to anyone else would look like a random collection of scrap metal. But the Quarkbeast keeps giving her a mournful 'walk me' look, and she really needs to finish filling out these forms before she goes anywhere. It's not worth sending the Quarkbeast to find and pester Tiger, instead; her apprentice is busy tracking down the Mysterious X. All she really needs is something that will occupy the Quarkbeast for a few minutes, so she pulls her chair over to the bookshelf and stands on it, groping around for something with chrome on it.]

Aglet picks his way between the odds and ends, trying to imagine what any of this stuff is good for. The kitchen is more his domain; wizards are dangerous beans in general, but even they won't usually do anything terrible to their own food.

He's startled out of his examination of what used to be a bicycle bell by the creak and thump of a chair being moved, followed by the arrival of a giant hand. Aglet darts out of reach, so worried about being touched by those questing fingers that he doesn't see the bolt until he trips over it and sends it rolling.

[From Aglet's perspective, it doesn't look like someone being mindful of his possessions. It looks like the Bean has seen him and is going to try to grab him, or turn that glass over and trap him in it. The pencil goes rolling as Aglet abruptly skitters away, abandoning his meager cover and bolting for the other end of the shelf.]

Jennifer blinks as said bolt rolls over and bumps against her fingers, a frown creasing her brow. Given who resides in Zambini Towers, dealing with bits of errant spellwork is part of the job... but bits of errant spellwork usually result in something more dramatic than a rolling bolt.

Mice? She pulls her hand back, frown deepening. Pests are really the last thing they need. Then it occurs to her that it could actually be one of her charges up there - shrinking oneself is one of the tricks that the magical resurgence has made possible once again, and she wouldn't put it past one of them to try it out.

"Is someone up there?" she hazards, trying to peer around the bits of scrap. "Moobin?"

He freezes, heartbeat thudding in his ears. Someone? He's not aware of the extent of the wizards' powers; he's never seen them do much of anything all that impressive, and certainly none have ever shrunk themselves and come for a visit. So why would a bean think there would be someone on the shelf?

Rather than answer, he begins, after a moment, to creep along the back of the shelf, toward the hole from whence he came.

After a few moments of conspicuous silence from the shelf, Jennifer tentatively reaches up to push aside an old railroad spike and some other sundries, the better to look for whatever moved the bolt.

"You know there's paperwork involved for spells like this," she scolds, reasoning that if it turns out to just be a mouse, what she says to it won't matter. And if it turns out to be one of the wizards, then the scolding is richly deserved; she has more important things to worry about than her employers shrinking themselves so they can creep about her office, of all places. "As acting manager, I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't also point out that this is hardly the safest shelf for you to be creeping around. Quarkbeasts can climb, you know." Not well, but it's not inconceivable that it could make its way up the shelves.

The chair wobbles, and Jennifer shoves an old alarm clock a bit harder than she means to. It certainly wasn't her intent to block the hole a certain Borrower was creeping towards, but block it she does.

Her moving things around forces him to hurry, darting forward to get himself hidden before she moves enough out of the way to see him. He stops and crouches again behind a twisted chrome piece off a car, breathing rapidly but silently. There's not that much farther to --

Aglet can't stop himself from flinching, or keep in the groan of deepest misery that escapes him at the sight of his escape route blocked.

[OOC: You should go read his app-in-progress, btw.]

It's not a very loud groan, but it's loud enough for Jennifer to hear. Definitely one of her charges, then, and she scowls. The list of rights afforded to foundlings is laughably small, but she'd like to think she at least has the right to some privacy. Or the right to be spied on in a more dignified manner.

"Show yourself at once," she orders, "or I'm hefting the Quarkbeast up here and letting it find you." As threats go, it's not that severe - people aren't on the creature's menu, and it's disinclined to show malice toward anyone who isn't posing a threat to her safety. It would, however, be very excited to find itself on eye level with the Treat Shelf, and someone small enough to hide up there would also be small enough to suffer some injury in its mad scrabble to eat everything in sight.

[ooc: :D]

Aglet knows all about Quarkbeasts...or at least he knows what he's been told about them, which is that they're even worse than dogs. Dogs will only eat you; Quarkbeasts will eat the walls of your home and then eat you as well. He's seen her Quearkbeast, too, thankfully from a distance. His stomach lurches at the thought of its scaly face and razor teeth up close, and he gives the alarm clock covering his hole a forlorn look.

"Please don't," he says at last, not moving from his spot.

... That's not a voice she knows. "You're not Moobin," Jennifer says, more baffled than accusatory... until it occurs to her that this might not be a Kazam employee at all. They could be with the media, sniffing around for more information about the prophesy - and her involvement.

Jennifer inhales sharply, rigid with indignation. "Who do you work for?" She recommences shoving scrap aside. "The Daily Mollusc?"

Of course he's not Moobin, what's a Moobin? Aglet sits frozen in indecision...right up until the moment the decision is made for him. With a scrape, his cover is suddenly gone. He shoots an absolutely terrified look at the rampaging Bean and leaps up to run for the escape route his panicking brain has forgotten is no longer there.

Aha! She isn't so caught up in the rush of triumph that she fails to notice how completely terrified the little person looks, and she wonders if the whole shrink-down-and-sneak-around thing was his idea. But even if it wasn't, she also isn't inclined to feel all that sympathetic towards a spy.

"Oh, no you don't," she mutters, reaching for him before he can duck behind anything else. "Who put you up to this?"

"Oh, God!" It's hard to run amongst all the odds and ends, harder still when he doesn't actually have anywhere to run to. Her hand seems to come out of nowhere at lightning speed, and Aglet screams when he feels her fingers close around him. "Oh God, don't kill me, please don't kill me!"

"... Kill you?" Jennifer pauses for a moment, her fingers still wrapped around him. She's angry, certainly, but not that angry. Even though she can't imagine what reason he has to be so frightened, her expression still softens as she carefully lifts him off the shelf. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going to hurt you."

And now that she can see him properly, his terrified expression is all the more obvious. Whoever he is, he's clearly not a wizard, and she feels a reluctant stab of pity. What if he's a foundling, like her? Whoever did put him up to this ought to be ashamed of themselves.

"Really," she says, her tone considerably gentler than it had been a moment ago. "I can't say you'll get what you came for, but you won't be harmed."

Aglet squirms, trying instinctively to get free of her grip. His stomach flutters when she lifts him and he stills, opting to try to grab onto her fingers instead. He feels certain she's going to deliberately drop him no matter her reassurances, and he can all too easily visualize the long fall and the messy splat at the end. Moaning, he digs in his fingers as best he can. "Please, just...just let me go. Please."

She could point out that obeying that particular request at this particular moment would result in a very long drop to an unforgiving floor, but after noting how tightly he's gripping her fingers, she elects not to. Instead, she carefully steps off of the chair, which she then drags back over to her desk with the hand not holding her little spy.

"I'm going to put you on the desk," she informs him as she clears a few forms out of the way. "I suggest you refrain from trying to get away, as it's still a long drop to the floor."

"Quark," adds the Quarkbeast. It's probably just upset that she didn't actually obtain a treat for it, but the sound can also serve as a reminder that the floor isn't a very good place for the spy to end up, even if he should feel like chancing the drop.

Giving the little fellow a stern look, she advises, "Don't do anything stupid." Then, she sits back down in her chair and gently sets him down in the spot she cleared for him. Relaxing her grip, she carefully releases him, ready to nab him again if he tries to dart off.

He shuts his eyes and holds on tight, feeling like he's about to be sick. He feels every tiny shift in the muscles of her hand, and each one seems to portend imminent death by either crushing or dropping. Why did he ever want to explore? He hadn't needed the new tools and odds and ends he'd hoped to find that badly. If he survives this, he tells himself, he's never going to take even the littlest risk again, it'll be all night borrowing and only the things he absolutely must have.

He's jarred from his thoughts by her admonition and her efforts to set him down. For a moment or two he clings to her fingers, unable to let go even with his feet on solid desk, but then he's left swaying gently in place. He stares up at her with a dazed expression, still feeling his lunch threatening to make a reappearance.

And then he turns and runs.

Whoah! [David jumps back, his surprise registering, but his voice isn't loud in the least. However, his hand knocks the beaker and sends it wobbling dangerously as he tries to stabilize it with a panicked motion. Unfortunately, for how careful he'd tried to be, he's unable to keep it from crashing to the ground.]

Oh dear. [He just stops and sighs as he looks at it a moment and then glances up. He's expecting to address a mouse to be honest and there's a sound on the tip of his tongue that never leaves as he looks down the length of the shelf, his head tilting curiously.]

Tutting her disapproval, Jennifer blocks his escape with one hand and uses the other to corral him in the middle of the desk. "What did I just say?" Honestly.

Aglet bonks into her palm before he has a chance to turn and go another way and...bonk into her other hand. Staggering into the middle of the desk, he comes to a stop between her hands.

"If you're going to kill me, just do it!" he wails, apparently changing his mind from earlier.