2. One summer, the yellow cat started falling sick, and she bacme smaller smaller and smaller.
3. over their favourite roasted tuna fish dinner, whitopus said mao looked like she is about to faint
4. blackie & hedgy stayed by her side everyday when she was scared. all three of them were relieved when mao was occasionally able to take a day off, they stayed with her by the sea on quiet afternoons.
5. blackie & hedgy gave her some courage before she had to see new doctors again, but they secretly worried for her too "will there be more blood tests?" "what will they say this time" "she looks very very tired" exclaimed blackie.
6. "in the past she slept so little, but now she lost all her strength and would fall asleep once getting home." at one point, blackie and hedgy didn't know whether she would wake up again.
7. until she finaly met her doctor at the treetop clinic, she’s also very little, like hedgy and blackie.
8. Le petit doctor found out what was wrong inside her body. “Magician!” exclaimed Hedgy. hedgy and blackie were delighted to see that mao can eat again.
9. but le petit doctor also gave ms. mao a little rabbit helper & a little ghost helper(that lives in a syringe) everyday, hedgy and blackie will stay by ms. mao side, when she does the scary injection to send the little helpers inside her body to help move toxic away, and store nutrients, water etc.
10. it was a little difficult at first, hedgy was terrified, blackie who went to university also trembled a little. but soon, it became better, and things really started getting better.
11. after two little months, mao can run and swim again. hedgy and blackie were delighted.
12. but she didnt' just run or swim, she started running everyday! (complaint hedgy)
13. le petit doctor told mao that some of her patients can even do water sports, mao's eyes were shining with light, and she also started kayaking in the open sea as a junior patient, and she tried many other things. (shd have one of hedgy and blackie reading mao's interview on magazine) (dancing with sum sum at Teakha)
14. (you know how imaginary/invisible friends are no longer needed when the protagonist "grows up"?) what was worse of all, mao started carrying rabbit and little ghost wherever she goes! (poor hedgy must be very sad)
15. mao is very happy when little rabbit & little ghosts does their job well (illustration of moving things inside the body from one room to another room)
16. She would go running everyday to bring more air for little rabbits and little ghosts to does their job better
17. She spends time to cook boxes of food, and less time with blackie and hedgy.
18. And she stopped doing cake parties with hedgy and blackie altogether. “You know in the past, mao really liked to drink milk, and we would microwave milk together before bed, now, she has really strange rules of eating at specific time AND, she actually gave up milk altogether and turned to a NEW friend called marusan soya milk” said hedgy in a speech bubble.
19. She would treat them coffee & praise them as good girls when little ghosts and rabbits done their job well. Hedgy asks "but did she ever praise us?" Blackie responded "Yes actually she did praise us too, all the time" Anyway, Hedgy is angry.
20. One time, she even went so far as to telling her friends that she won't be able to survive without the little ghosts and little rabbits!
21. Everything looked great, apart from having to do many blood tests and injections, ms. mao looked very normal and good most of the time. She gets little red dots all over her tummy, and little white circle on the skin from blood tests, but she seldom complain about these, as long as little rabbits and little ghosts done their jobs well. She started drawing trees again, and would dance with many animals. Mao would invite hedgy in dancing too, but hedgy was still a little angry as u can imagine (if you have always known him)
22. Hedgy (and maybe blackie) couldn’t help but feel a little useless, and they became quieter. All friends thought so too, now that she had little ghost n little rabbit things she be back as if everything's normal.
23. But one night, to hedgy's surprise... little ghosts and little rabbits came and woke hedgy up from his dream.
24. They invited hedgy and blackie on an excursion. Hedgy turned his head away, because he didn’t want to talk with the little ghosts and little rabbits. But neither of them could believe their ears, Little ghosts and little rabbits said they would like to show hedgy and blackie their work in the factory inside mao’s body, naturally hedgy and blackie couldn’t resist their curiosity… at that same evening, under the half crescent moonlight, all four of them secretly visited the factory inside Mao
25. Once inside, little rabbit and little ghost started working very hard, to move the right things into the right room, it’s like working in a library, where you have to put the right books back on the right shelves, or like working in a post office, putting the right letters into the right box, hedgy was exhausted after 10 minutes (“wow, it’s quite good to be stuffed animals actually”)
26. The real reason little rabbit and little ghost invited hedgy and blackie there though, was because, there’s something they couldn’t achieve sometimes, and since hedgy and blackie have known mao for a lot longer, they thought maybe they could help
27. “There are times when all doors of the rooms inside mao’s body are closed”, the usually dancing rabbit now looked very worried. “and we can’t help mao from moving the good things to the right place, while flushing the toxin away” “Then mao will start looking very sick, the harder we try to hit the doors, the sicker she will feel, then her abdomen will start to get more painful, and we will get even more anxious and push harder… but we realize it doesn’t work, so we came for your help” added little ghost.
28. All four of them sat in silence, Hedgy has always thought that little rabbit and ghosts has done their jobs perfectly and without difficulties, and was surprised to hear that. And it is only now he remembers that he has been ignoring mao herself, not knowing what has been happening to her too.
29. “We were sent to do our jobs but something is wrong, sometimes we can’t do it no matter how hard we try… and we start to worry, because it will hurt mao, and she will become very sick and smaller and smaller and smaller again” said little ghost. “It has been like that for days now…and we need your help”
30. So the following days, hedgy put his anger away, blackie and hedgy secretly followed mao and see has been happening. "The rabbit n ghost are with Mao all the time, can't they find out what's wrong? " ask hedgy with a little frown "But they are so busy working and also in the dark, they can't see through mao's tummy to the outside world so they need our help" explained blackie
31. Mao is very good girl most of the time, she's a little detective at work, she runs in the morning even when she's tired. she dances in the evening and it makes her happy. But sometimes you can see that she's squashed in the crowd, her yellow colour fur dimmed to a light greyish blue, her eyelids too heavy to be lifted, and her head swings around like a merry go around.
32. Another day, she slept very badly, and woke up to work feeling very tired, but other animals at work didn't make things much better, they kept chatting and eating things that mao couldn't join, making her feel all excluded and alone on the side. "wow it happens almost everyday" exclaimed hedgy. "mao's feeling sick, but she's too scared to leave work"
33. (Image: she ran very hard, but the blood measurement is still really high, and her colleagues gets a little impatient and commented that “ maybe you should just stop checking altogether, then you won’t feel bad?” and another colleague said “maybe you should just eat whatever and it would become better”) "It's very strange comments they make, as if little mao has not been trying hard enough, everyone just wants her to do different things, until she shuts up and never say that she is sick again" exclaimed Blackie
34. (Once she was running, and then she started feeling sick, little rabbit and little ghost accidentally moved too much energy away into the store room, so she didn’t have enough energy to go uphill, she sat alone under the tree, and had to cure herself, but fainted before it was done, and then she woke up in the hospital) (":O oh she never told me that" said hedgy)
35. (paris lion looking into water one: sometimes she doesn’t want to bear with all the side effect from putting so many little rabbits and little ghosts into her body. And she gets so worried, all on her own, nobody else understood, and nobody knew what to say to her. Some just stayed silent when they didn’t know what to say, and she became more scared, because not only she need to put too many rabbits and ghosts into herself, making her feel uncomfortable, but she worries that her worries made her loses all her friends too.)
36. That night they met again, blackie and hedgy shared the stories with little ghosts and little rabbit. Even listening to the stories made all of them a little sad, useless and helpless. They realise, sometimes, it's these moments that made her all tensed, and all the doors inside her body closed up. “Seems like it’s nothing WE can change anyway…right? ” said little ghost "Maybe we can write her colleagues and friends some letters" said blackie? Hedgy, who is usually a little anxious, never the wisest, a little easily angry, and the kind of child that bumps into things when walking; somehow knew exactly what to do this time.
37. You might wonder what magic is required. It is not exactly anything special. The next morning, hedgy sat by the bedside waiting for mao to wake up, hedgy and blackie shared breakfast together, it’s lantana’s avocado and egg. Mao even made hedgy a cup of little coffee. They all drank coffee together. There’s no toast, but with hedgy and blackie’s company, breakfast tasted great even without the toast. (Hedgy whatsapped little rabbits and ghosts “how’s it this morning?” they replied that it was great, all the doors were opened, and they moved the avocado up the shelves.
38. But later in the day, hedgy and blackie got a message from the rabbit & ghosts, saying that it has gone bad again! “She didn't know how to do something at work, she got anxious and started dumping toxin into herself, all the doors are stuck now“
39. “She probably is thinking that all her friends thought she is really useless and repetitive again, and felt that we are no longer useful helpers anymore” said little ghost and little rabbit worriedly – “But she forgot that we are here?” questioned hedgy, in a little angry voice. "We are always HERE" Little ghost texted back “it's most likely she won’t’ be able to feel that you are there for her, if you don’t tell her!!”
40. That night they all met again, while working hard and moving things around, little rabbit and little ghost told hedgy in amusement how all the doors of the rooms reopened again after hedgy sent her a message telling her she deserve 3000 gifts because she has already done 3000 needle injections in the past 1.5 years. They all patted hedgy’s head and gave him stars for being a little magician! "More like a little angel" said Blackie.
41. Now little rabbits and little ghost remember some other magical times, once when somebody said something very bad to mao, and every little route inside mao's factory became crunchy and difficult to even walk on, they thought it would be the end. mao cried very hard, and soon there was almost no water left inside the mao's factory. but her little antelope friend got off work early, brought her back her home, and made her herbal tea like how animals in picturebooks would do, and soon the doors inside her body opened again.
42. And another time, when she was very scared, her little tiger friend who never leave her cave braved the world that happened to be raining heavily too, just to give her some company. And her very pale body re-lit again.
43. Yes, and her athlete fishy friend who is VERY smart would go swimming and drawing with her, she never gave up on her when things were really bad.
44. (In front of bakery cries) (hedgy: that time she bought one for her friends and grandma and it made them very happy, also made her happy again.)
45. And the magic worked every time when the very scary whitopus stopped to be scary and gave her a hug, you might think that a hug is totally useless, but it's as magical as medicine. (yes if you see her glow from greyish blue back to yellow, you will start to believe that power plants can be powered by hugs)
45. They all exclaimed that Hedgy is very smart indeed. "Detective of 21st century!" Hedgy had never been the smart one, now he felt like floating in the air.
46. To little hedgy’s surprise, mao who’s also been to university like Blackie did, has an unexpectedly small brain, sometimes when she feels very sick, she forgot absolutely everything and gets scared and anxious again, luckily Hedgy and Blackie are patient like Mao herself, they already know they will always be there to remind her not to be scared. "But if you think about it, she needs to do 5 injections, 6 blood tests, take 3 pills, do sick logs, exercise and cook all the food + go to work each day, right? there must be something she can't remember" explained Blackie
47. From then on, Little hedgy and blackie would sit by Mao’s side when she does her blood check, if it is within green shade, it means rabbits and little ghosts are doing their jobs great, but if it's not, something is wrong, and maybe Hedgy need to give mao a reminder. “Hey but can you also measure if I am doing my job great, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10?” Hedgy protested…
48. Now that they figured out why, things became a bit better. Actually most of the time Mao is a good girl and loves her junior patient life, she always run regardless of the weather, always smile when there's yummy coffee and treasure all her happy moments. she always make sure that she shares her happiness with her friends too. But sometimes, there are still very bad days, it’s not little ghosts, rabbits nor ms. Mao’s fault, sometimes the doors are just a little broken, it happens that doors have their broken days, and nothing would work. On those days, mao would look all broken again, and sometimes even painful, all the excessive toxic accumulated no matter how hard little rabbit and little ghosts tried. (Speech bubble: Because you know what, there are still many other little helpers living in the body, and sometimes they get a little crazy and lock up the doors.) At least at those times, hedgy and blackie would remember to give mao a hug, so she could feel better instead of even worse, remember that she is not alone, and start afresh again tomorrow.
49. (Backcover: mao wrote le petit doctor, hedgy, blackie, antelope, fish, whitopus, little tiger each a note saying they are priceless, not quantifiable. But only Hedgy rushed to blackie (who’s been to university before) and asked, “does it mean, I worth NOTHING? Priceless? Or super expensive?” To his relieve, blackie explained that it means we have done so well, it can’t be measured by the metre – infinity. “Wait but what is infinity” – Hedgy got all worried again.)
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