After they finished washing, Mary Lou and Evelyn waited in silence in the animal pen. Mary Lou slowly paced around the room, occasionally pausing to examine something on a shelf or in a cabinet, trying to determine its potential use or value. Evelyn lay on the floor, examining the label on the indigo shampoo bottle intently, hoping to gain some more information about how it worked. She had tried sitting down, but didn't know what to do with her tail, and she found it much more comfortable to lay prone on her belly. After an hour, Mary Lou was done waiting.
"Okay, sister, it looks like its not gonna work. You might as well accept your fate, and join me. If you help me escape, I promise I'll take good care of you, and teach you everything you need to know about how to survive. Actually I've been kind of lonely here, and I've always wanted a little sister. Let's get out of here, together, " she said, extending a clawed hand out to Evelyn.
Evelyn continued to stare at the shampoo bottle, ignoring Mary Lou. "No, we just have to give it a little longer. We don't know how long it takes to work." Suddenly, she looked around the room and pointed to the large heating lamp. "Maybe it has to dry to get started. Before I went to sleep under the heating lamp, I was normal. Maybe we just need to dry off."
Mary Lou angrily slapped the empty shampoo bottle out of Evelyn's hands, sending it clattering across the room. "Bah! Maybe it wasn't even caused by this 'shampoo' anyway. Stop wasting your time staring at that thing! It won't help!" Actually, Mary Lou would have liked to dry herself off, but she couldn't admit that to Evelyn. The cold water still clinging to her body was uncomfortable, but the fool was wasting valuable time, time they needed to escape.
Evelyn jumped up and chased after bottle. "It has to be! I've cleaned the animals here hundreds of times, and never had something like this happen. This was the only variable, the only thing that was different." she said, with desperation. She picked up the bottle tightly, and began to frantically read the label again. It still had the same simple label, with no directions of how to use it or list of ingredients. Just the indigo colored paper with the words "PET SHAMPOO" stamped in thick black ink.
Mary Lou sighed, and walked over to Evelyn. She stood in front of her, gripped her shoulders tightly, and looked straight into her eyes. "Sister, listen to me. Please, for you sake as well as my own. I know you're scared. I'm a little scared, too. I also know you don't like how you look now. Honestly, I really don't like how I look either. I liked how I looked before, and I would do anything I could to be like I was before. But I am a survivor - it's part of my nature. And as a survivor I know that when things change - anything including yourself - you must learn to adapt to these changes, and use them to your advantage. It's sure death to focus on the old ways, try to live to live by the old rules. I have survived a very long time, mostly because I listen to my survival instincts. And they are telling me - no screaming at me - that we must leave now, if we ever hope to be anything more than pets for humans at this place."
Evelyn's eyes slowly widened, then she began to softly cry and hug Mary Lou. Mary Lou didn't understand why the girl was crying - she only did that after a particularly good meal - but she understood the creature's need for the comfort of a warm body, and hugged her tightly, too.
And that was how Adam found them when he entered the animal holding area.