Very little surprised Claire McByrne, but the sight of two beady eyes amplified by thick spectacles blinking at her first thing in the morning was enough to make her shriek. All of the yelling she'd done at the pub last night came back to bite her in this moment, causing the shriek she had emitted to come out hoarse, making her sound like a canine. She felt like a dog, anyway, an old one.

The shiny orbs that were her boss' eyes did not disappear and that is when Claire realized she wasn't having a nightmare. Anomia Zonko, step-granddaughter of the esteemed jokeshop owner, was waiting for an explanation. She did her best to quickly recollect the decisions she'd made the night before, while at the same time coming up with the most plausible lie to cover up the fact that she occasionally lived here.

"I got here late" Claire stammered, "ahem- Early," she recovered. Anomia blinked at her, but Claire stared back at her, unwavering. She understood the basics of lying- she had been pranked one too many times to believe everyone on their first go. Despite her hangover, Claire made the extra effort of smiling (a little). Raising her eyebrow, Anomia reminded her that the Zonko family's patience for Claire's antics were wearing thin.

"Remember, Clarissa, this is the first Hogsmeade weekend for the school?" Anomia pointed out, her voice rather shaky for someone who had so recently woken Claire up by jabbing her in the forehead. "Try to stay awake long enough to make a few sales? They're here already?" These phrases were framed like sugar-sweet questions, but there was a clear cattiness behind them. And an obvious lack of faith in Claire.

It was true, lately she had been worse than ever -- and the Zonkos didn't even know the half of it. Anomia scoffed as politely as one could do such a thing and strode out of the door, allowing Claire relax and settle back into the comfy chair behind the counter. Thank Merlin Anomia hadn't seen the sleeping bag in the back. The Zonkos spent little enough time here that Claire was able to spend the occasional night or two snoozing on the office floor, which was oddly comfortable for something so wooden.

She was wearing the same clothes she'd come in with, down to the shoes. She pulled the tight dress she'd been wearing over her head, throwing on whatever smelled cleanest as it came out of her duffel bag. And although she was not normally the type to keep heels on if it she wasn't drunk (in fact, she wasn't sure if she could walk in them sober), she kept the shoes on, because the bloodshot eyes in the design matched her own. If she knew something about fashion, it was important to match.

The first shindig inside of prank store this wasn't for Dotty. She had once spent a series of months clabbering against the disappearing rabbit puppet off of the sign from WWW (Wheezy wheeze wheezes) in Diagon. The robbing, pilfering of goods and burglary of such establishments was become something of a signature for her. Perhaps in part because there were so many nooks for a ratty non-rat-actually a squirrel to hide about. But invariably...

Invariably

INVARIABLY

Someone needed to warn or otherwise help Dotty pick up on the fact that the cans in such stores that said they contained nuts NEVER contained nuts. Maybe it was from her always feeling more animalistic hungry as a rodent, yes even as a squirrel, or some long attributed instinct to store stuffs for the ever approaching winter.

(Given the eventual state of Dotty's hangouts this was an applicable inference)

And just like the other time, infiltration ended with Dotty stuck in a prank can. Again. A situation that had happened a surprising number of times up to the amount Dotty could probably count to as a squirrel without distractions.  So, from storeroom or shelf cam a rattle of an incorrectly stuffed can toddling about as if it had just gotten big kid jumper diapers. Up until it toppled over and then wherever it would start rolling.

Just as Claire was about to re-enter the work scene, she was alerted by SherLock (the tiny dog smoking a pipe who kept a sharp, monocled eye or two on the store for her. His pipe was smoking, informing Claire that there was a miscreant about. From the corner of the store she heard a fumbling about. It was in the canned goods section, which was a foolish area for a thief to muck about. It was filled with containers that would set off at the slightest touch.

"Tanks, Sherl," Claire nodded at her tiny assistant. She wandered over to the store and only saw one of the cans shaking. Raising a brow, Claire wandered over to it and plucked it open, letting out a gnarly looking squirrel. "'Ey, scuzzy," Claire said casually, as if this was an old friend of hers. Nothing really surprised Claire anymore.

And with the last bit of effort -POp- the can's cantainment was vanquished sooner than the last time such events happened. One dark gray severely battered grubby looking squirrel was cast out on the rest of the shelving, running around in circles a moment confused.

Up until she realized there was another witch standing above her. If there were pants in a squirrel size they would be getting crapped by now. With a chippy type noise that could be either shock or disgust or shockgust she was off zipping off along the merchandise. In a poorly agility-etic dash because things were being toppled off the shelf in her wake.

Instead of playing it cool the way that Claire had, the squirrel went bizerk and started tearing through the store. After a long (and well-deserved, Claire felt) groan, Claire shuffled through the store in the general direction that the creature had taken. The squirrel knocked a bunch of things off the shelves and Clare cursed loudly.

Claire kicked the things that had toppled off the shelves. What was up with this bloody animal? Claire stopped walking after it and crossed her arms. An idea suddenly occurred to her- she lazily took her wand and petrified the squirrel. “I’m too hungover for this shite” Claire said to the scuzz.

Spell identification did not come as smoothly to those of the fluffy tailed rodent variety, even though animagus'es generally had some of the brainpower from their human forms. Not that Dotty was such an example of the magically fluent when remaining a critter. Show she didn't know or couldn't fathom the some variety of a Body Bend hex/jinx, or similar target non-lethal freezer, that suddenly came over her as she bound from shelf to shelf.

So when she fell like a brick, all rigid, it took a moment for her thrice addled mind to realize that she was now non-moving on the floor, rather then the continued thought of anticipation to scramble over various goodie-bags. If Dotty had the actual facility to realize it was just a spell, no petrification as bad from back-angled murder vision seen in creatures like the basilisk, she would have been calmer but still on edge.

Not so. She was as freaked out squirrel fidgety panicky as could be with the motor function of a piece of un-animated taxidermy. Nary a means to continue the egg-less variety of scramble. And then there were footsteps...