Following her stomach had been a bad idea today.

Actually, it was a bad idea on most days. Really, if the street urchin could choose any other body part to follow, it would be her heart. Then she might simply strike out into the woods to find her family...somewhere. Charley still didn't know where they were, and none of her letters had ever reached them. So much for magical owl post, bloody useless thing. No, if she could follow anything it would be her heart, given a chance the wayward daughter just knew it would lead her back to her mum and dad.

She cursed her stupid stomach for growling again. It had been doing that all morning, and all last night too. A sensible organ would have known to shut its gob after a while. Then it wouldn't lead her into trouble, or even into almost-trouble. And almost-trouble was just as bad as trouble, Charley had the stinging burns on her hands to prove it.

It was just as well the market vendor threw sparks at her instead of something worse.

How Charley had wound up in front of the flower shop, she wasn't sure at this point. Her stomach was leading the way, and she couldn't believe it wasn't tired of it by now. This shop was a different sort than the other flower shop, which was named Potts for some reason. It wasn't like there was any cooking to do with flowers, at most they might be a salad or something unfulfilling like that. Still, even a salad was starting to sound good to the street urchin, nose pressed up against the glass that separated her from the colorful bouquets staring back at her from inside Montague's House of Flowers.

Charley decided to follow her nose for once instead, and slipped into the shop behind a departing customer. At least smells were free, right?

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