the circle

[instar]

Trouble and Charlie fly to Las Vegas to get their collections of drunks. Ax, newly empigeoned, and Ethan loosely follow Renée's car back to Phoenix, so that Ax will not be stranded in an unfamiliar city obliged to demorph into Andalite form with no garage to hide in.

Renée makes a very large grocery trip. Ax deems alfalfa hay intended for consumption by guinea pigs and rabbits to be the hoof-eating equivalent of palatable; it also turns out he can eat a few other things, like carrot tops and turnip greens. He still doesn't like living in the garage, even though it's a different one. Andi finds him a little planetarium gadget that throws star-patterns onto the ceiling.

Renée installs a cot in the basement for Charlie. (His generic human morph is a man about ten years younger than him, plausibly Latino but just as plausibly not, plain and unremarkable. He also picks up a Renée morph. He will be able to drive the girls places, publicly know their names. They can tell he appreciates the opportunity, however weird it is.) Trouble is allowed to sleep on the couch, when Renée learns that he would prefer not to share the basement with Charlie.

Bella sews weights onto all the curtain hems so they won't be easily nudged aside.

The twins also collect generic-human-morphs. Both of theirs are college-age women, samples collected from going on premature college tours and shaking a lot of hands - Bella's looks maybe half Asian when she's done tweaking it, Andi winds up with a complexion much like her usual one but a surprisingly Hawaiian set of features.

Renée never asks to be enabled to morph. Bella eventually offers, "for emergencies", and Renée aggregates a number of her co-workers into the most stereotypical teacher-lady it is possible to Frolis into without requiring vision correction.

Renée makes the arrangements well in advance to homeschool the twins.

Bella quizzes Ax about all sorts of things, for large parts of each day.

Comments

[megale]

"But they said for my birthday we can go to Disneyland, so that's good! I can't fly like you guys, see, so I have to settle for roller coasters."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble coos. Smugly.

[megale]

"I like Six Flags better actually, more intense coasters, but Disneyland's more a special occasion thing. They kind of put the theme in theme park awfully intensely. Mouse ears everywhere. Dad calls you guys flying mice. I wonder if you'd get along with mice if you met mice? You could be all enemy-of-my-enemy with cats, anyway."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble wonders what being a mouse is like. If he sees one, he can find out! Maybe he'll hunt one down as a kitty. That sounds like a good use of his time.

[megale]

"I'm so gripey with you guys sometimes, you'd think nothing neat went on in my life," Rhea sighs. "It's easier to find people to talk about the nice stuff with. But who wants to hear me whining that Dad doesn't let me talk on the phone or that I wish I had a little brother or that I took a paintball to the forehead yesterday and it kind of really hurt? You don't care as long as I show up with food, I can respect that kind of arrangement. Bagel bits for everybody."

[aeskhyne]

Speaking of which, nom nom.

[megale]

"I can't actually stay too long today," sighs Rhea, "I picked today to go to the library and get my summer reading books, the only reason I'm here in the first place was because here's on the way to the library. When you guys finish the bagels that's it for today, maybe tomorrow too."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble coos.

[megale]

Rhea is quiet while she shreds the rest of the bagel, and then says, "Hmm," and then lunges from the bench, arms outstretched for an attempt at pigeon-catching.

[aeskhyne]

The pigeons scatter in every direction.

One of them scatters a little too slowly.

[megale]

She scoops him up, and laughs, and pets him. "Gotcha," she giggles. "Oooh, you are soft. I probably shouldn't hold onto you too long, you'll poop on me."

[aeskhyne]

Trouble coos when petted, and investigates her fingers with his beak, in case they are made of bread. They are not! But you never know.

[megale]

"Aww, you're not even scared of me. Unless you're trying to pull my fingers off, but you are really bad at it if you are. You will probably poop on me anyway, though." She pets him again and sets him down.

[aeskhyne]

He coos again, pecks her shoe (which is also not made of bread, but you can't blame him for trying) and flutters off.

[megale]

Rhea heads out of the park, skipping a little every few steps.

[aeskhyne]

Her new pigeon friend follows. Unobtrusively.

She is just too cute. He wants to say hi. And if he's going to say hi, he should find out if she's a Controller first. Which means following her until he either sees her visit the Yeerk pool, or... doesn't.

[megale]

Well, apparently she was telling the truth about the library. She goes into it and comes out of it with four books half an hour later.

[aeskhyne]

That's a start. Trouble keeps watching.

[megale]

Rhea walks back to the apartment complex, on the way attempting to open one of the books to read and dropping the other three. She collects them back up, smooths a blank page, and tries again with more success, and reads two chapters of The Scarlet Letter on her way back to her apartment.

[aeskhyne]

This time, he does try to locate her window.

[megale]

She doesn't have a very big window, but it's a window, on the third floor with a tree that offers a view in. She has a hammock in her room. She flops into it and reads, having obtained a banana on her way through the rest of the apartment.

[aeskhyne]

Okay.

He takes the opportunity to demorph and remorph on the roof; might as well.

Sadly, pigeon eyes are not good enough to read over her shoulder. But he can be patient.

[megale]

She gets bored of the book about halfway through. She turns on some music, which he can't really hear from the tree, and starts dancing.

[aeskhyne]

How is she so great.

[megale]

She pauses dancing to have a shouted conversation with, presumably, her mom, which is loud enough to be understood:

"Rhea, are you doing your reading?"

"I read like half a book!" Rhea yells back.

"Then you've only got half a book to go!"

"But Mom -"

"Rhea, I've gotta go to work, I don't want you only getting things done when I'm home to nag you, got to learn responsibility."

"I'll get it all done before school starts! That's in like a month!"

"Wouldn't you rather have it done in advance so you can have the rest of summer with no homework? Especially if you could read them all before Disneyland."

"Mo-o-om!"

"If you have your first book finished by the time my shift's over I won't say a word about it for a week, but you need to be on top of your school things," says Rhea's mom. "I'm going to work. See you tomorrow."

Rhea listens for sounds too faint for Trouble to hear. Then she flicks the music on and dances for a few more minutes before flumphing into her hammock again and picking up the book.