the animorphs

[instar]

Renée is gone in the morning, a pot of maple oatmeal for the girls and Trouble cooling on the stove and a note on the fridge, she's going to be gone all day on a day trip to Tucson with her friends.

Andi wakes up first. Bella's not far behind.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

"Okay," he says agreeably. "Guess I don't have one, then."

[pandion]

Andi adjusts her sprawl and yawns.

[instar]

Bella writes. Andi rests, and when prompted gives vague instructions on how to morph clothes and supplies Robin with permission to raid her half of the closet. (Bella doesn't usually go in for anything so form-fitting.)

Bella warms up frozen chicken soup for everybody for dinner. She sets up a little campfire in the backyard to burn the stalk eye, and supplies marshmallows and long skewers to justify it. She notes to Trouble when it's about an hour before sunset, and opens the garage door just enough to let a pigeon duck out.

[aeskhyne]

A pigeon ducks out of it.

[instar]

Bella comes up with a few other things she'd like Robin to research - in particular, she thinks it might be a good idea for them to know things about the zoo layout and schedule and security precautions, especially if there are cameras aimed at the bears.

[hold_infinity]

Robin concludes her experiments with morphing clothes and takes a look at the list.

[instar]

"The last thing we want," Bella says, handing over the plaintext-translated version, "is security footage of the five of us petting the bears."

[hold_infinity]

"Right," says Robin. "So, espionage. I'll get Ethan to help; he seems like the espionage type."

[instar]

"Agreed."

The rest of the list is finding out what else is at the zoo and whether it's likely to be useful; looking into similar parameters at an aquarium, which promises to be much harder to break into and pet the animals at; and also apparently Bella wants to know the legalities of homeschooling people their age.

[hold_infinity]

Robin glances over it.

"Looking to drop out?"

[instar]

"Barring the event that we repel the Yeerk invasion over this coming summer, yeah."

[hold_infinity]

"Makes sense," she says. "I'll look it up."

[instar]

"Thanks. I think Renée would be pretty relaxed about homeschooling us. We'd just have to read books every so often."

[hold_infinity]

"Sounds like fun. Count me out, though, I can't imagine Mother being keen on the idea."

[instar]

"I don't expect anyone else to follow suit."

[hold_infinity]

"I might just drop out," she snorts. "No, I'm kidding. Mostly kidding. Sixty percent kidding."

[instar]

"Would your mother be keener on that?"

[hold_infinity]

"At that point I'd hardly be her problem anymore."

[instar]

"...What, at all? Would you not still live at home?"

[hold_infinity]

"After dropping out of school? I'd better not!"

[instar]

"Where would you go?"

[hold_infinity]

She shrugs. "Well, that's why I'm not going to do it anytime soon."

[instar]

"May as well look into dropping out, anyway, I'm not sure we can do that before we're eighteen."

[hold_infinity]

"There are different levels of 'can'."

[instar]

"I feel like being hassled by or on the run from the police would be more of an impediment to our lives and projects than having to appear at school most days."