Amy grabbed a shiny circular metal tag with jagged orange and black stripes. Lina was trying to decide between a jingle bell and a gold plate in the shape of a dog bone.
"These kind of feel like pet tags and stuff," Lina said.
"That's what makes it more fun," Amy chimed. "The bone tag might be better, unless you want to hear jingling every time you move."
Lina agreed. She threw the bell back into the bin and held up the gold tag. With the other hand she held up the collar. She compared the small circular hole in the top of the bone to the unbroken ring around the collar. "How do you suppose we get these things on here?" she wondered.
"Dunno. Maybe there's a hidden latch under the leather," Amy said. She touched her tag to the silver ring and suddenly, with a metallic clink, it was fastened to her collar. She and Lina stared at the striped disc as it dangled from the ring.
"Woah," they both gasped.
Lina touched her bone tag to her collar's ring, and it too became magically attached.
"That's so weird," Amy said. "Is it magnetic?"
"Magnets can't pull metal through metal," Lina said, holding the collar up to Amy and showing how the silver ring was now looped through the hole in her tag. "This is impossible."
"Let's ask the guy at the counter when we pay for them," Amy suggested.
The girls found their way to the front of the store, where the old man was now writing in his large book. He glanced up at them as they approached.
"Found everything you were looking for?" he asked wearily, but pleasantly.
"Sure did," Amy said, showing him her collar with the orange and black striped tag. "Cool collars you've got here. How do you get the tags on and off?"
The old man smiled. "You get them on with magic, of course. Although getting them off is another story."
Amy peered at him, thinking he was being sarcastic. She decided not to press the matter. Both Amy and Lina paid for their collars and left the store without any more questions.
As they were walking down the street, Lina held her collar in her hands, twirling it around and watching the golden bone in the middle swing in the air.
"You think these really are magical?" Lina asked. She remembered the massive library of spell books in the store and how seriously they seemed to take magic.
"I dunno," Amy said, fiddling with her own collar. "I can't figure out how these tags got on here, and I can't seem to get mine off."
Lina hummed a tone of understanding. She continued twirling the collar.
"I'm gonna put mine on. Wanna join?" Amy asked.
"In public?" Lina said.
"Why not?" Amy began strapping the collar around her neck.