I'll Show You How It's Done

[Patch]

(ooc: yeah, it's fine ^^)

Patch winced just a little as the ladder crashed to the ground and glanced around them, certain that the noise would draw unwanted attention. Libraries were supposed to be quite places, after all; he had a nasty feeling that they could get in trouble if anyone pinned the source of the crash on them. For the immediate moment, however, they seemed safe; however the dalmatian didn't need prompting twice when Angel suggested they move the ladder before anyone else stumbled upon them. He padded hurridly to Angel's side, where he took the opposite side of the ladder's top in his own maw. It was a bit of an uncomfortable shape to hold, but Patch figured he could manage it well enough.

"I'f goddit," he managed to say around his metal mouthful; though it came out a fair bit muffled, Patch thought he had got his point across. Assuming she was as ready to get started as he was, the dalmatian began to shuffle backwards, the ladder making a faint scrapping sound against the tiled floor as it moved. He spared a quick look in Angel's direction to make sure she was managing her side of it okay, before returning his attention to the task.

At least when he were moving backwards, he noticed, there was no chance of his tie getting caught under his paws because it was dragging along the ground in front of him instead of beneath him. Not a very practical observation really; still, given the trouble the tie had been giving him, Patch couldn't help but feel it was worth noting, if nothing else.

[Angel]

Angel latched on to the spot next to the portion Patch had grabbed with his mouth and began to shuffle back with him. The process was a bit slow, the two of them holding on to the ladder with their mouths and being unable to converse because of it, but it seemed like they were making progress toward their ultimate goal. Angel was proud of that much, at any rate. Working with who she assumed was a pet was something Buster never would have done in his wildest dreams, and Patch didn't seem so bad. He'd been willing to help her, after all. That had to mean something.

She tried to get out a bit of encouragement, something along the lines of 'Getting there', but her mouth being full of metal ladder didn't exactly make it easy for her to be understood. It looked like they were getting closer to their starting point, though. Angel swore she saw her pile of books from the corner of her eye as they continued to shuffle along, anyway.

[Patch]

Patch sneaked a quick glance at Angel as they continued to work their way backwards. It wasn't even an exaggeration to call her the prettiest dog he'd ever met - though he hadn't met many dog outside of his family at all - but beyond that, he couldn't help but feel that there was something... something really special about the girl. It could just have been that he was still a bit awestruck from the fact that she was actually giving him the time of day at all, but... well, at any rate, Patch hoped that he could get to know her a bit better in the future, despite their being in opposing circles. He hastily turned his attention back to the task at hand before the pomeranian could notice his looking at her.

It was a little while more before Angel spoke again. Muffled as it came out, the dal wasn't entirely certain what his companion had been trying to say; but rather than stop and ask her to repeat it, Patch simply nodded as best he currently could. It had to be something along the lines of the fact that it was working, that they were slowly but surely getting the ladder where they wanted it to go, so there was little chance he was agreeing to anything totally outrageous. It was as they rounded a corner, Patch found, almost to his surprise, that they had reached the pile of books where he had first encounctered Angel. He looked over at her, unashamedly this time, his tail wagging enthusiastically.

"Well, we did it!" the male pointed out proudly, releasing his grip on their burden as he did so. Of course, there was still the question of how they would open the ladder up again; but Patch figured that after they had dragged it all the way here, that couldn't be too hard, could it? Levering it upright to start with would be more difficult than opening it up once they had reached that point.

[Angel]

As soon as they reached their destination, that much being confirmed by Patch with a cry of jubilation, Angel released her own hold on the ladder and her tail started to wag back and forth with happiness. Oh, she knew the other junkyard dogs would despise her for working with a house pet, but by that point she didn't care. Patch was kind, good, and decent. He was different from the dogs she had grown accustomed to, and she was glad to have gotten his help in getting the ladder where it needed to go. He hadn't even questioned whether or not she had a family back home. That in and of itself was a victory on her end, because she wouldn't have to spill her sob story to him. Some small part of the pom mix thought it would just put Patch off if he knew her whole story.

Now, the tricky part. Getting the ladder open again so she could make use of it and get the history book she needed for Daring Do's class. Her tail's wagging slowed a bit and she let her claws gently tap against the floor in thought. What could they do?

Her eyes trailed back to the book pile she'd started, then to the ladder, and to Patch. Could that work? She knew it probably was crazy, but without any humans around to help them they had little choice but to rely on her street smarts and whatever smarts Patch had.

"Okay... Now we're going to have some fun. I need you to try and push the ladder upright, and I'll stand here on the book tower," Angel said. She started to pad to the little book tower and prepared to jump up onto it again, but tossed her tie over her shoulder before doing so to keep from tripping up on it somehow.

"If this works, we should have it upright and I'll be able to hold onto it... Wait..."

The book pile probably wasn't the most sturdy thing to be standing on for this plan, she realized. Her brows creased in thought and she dropped into a sitting position once more. This may have been a bit trickier than she thought.

"Okay, scrub that. The books might just topple over when we start trying to pull it apart if we go about it this way..."

[Patch]

Frown crossed the spotted dog's face as Angel proposed her idea. Last time he'd seen her atop her book tower, she'd fallen off, and even if she had said she could take it okay, the dal didn't want to see that happen again. That, and... he really had no idea how to get the ladder upright on his own in the first place; so it actually came as a relief to him when Angel scratched that idea. As for how they'd handle it...

"It's not going to be that hard to get it open once it's upright," he observed, gesturing at the bottom end of the stepladder. "See that bar there, at the back? If I held the front, you could use it to drag the ladder open without having to stand on anything. It's just getting it upright that's the trouble," he pointed out. Even if one of them got underneath it to try and push the ladder upright, they were both small; the chances were that they wouldn't be able to keep it up long before it crashed down on them. They certainly wouldn't be able to get it high enough to come anywhere close to upright.

Or maybe if one of them held the base of the ladder, and the other tied a rope around the top rung, they could use that to pull it upright; he'd seen Thunderbolt do something similar once, albeit in a much more heroic context. But that would require a rope. The closest they had were their ties; but even if they both took theirs off and tied them together, Patch wasn't sure that would be at all workable. Even if they were even long enough, he had an idea the ties weren't that strong, and he didn't want to face the consequences if one of them ripped under the strain.

"I don't suppose you know where to find a rope?" he decided he might as well ask. "I have a way that might work if we had one." If not ideal, it was at least a workable idea, if only they could get their paws on a rope. But maybe Angel would have some better idea, he thought.