Doreen & Kyle, Doreen & Jean, Doreen & Professor Xavier

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Kyle tracks down Doreen and comes face to face with an Oversized Squirrel.

Doreen was moving through the trees with an ease that even at her best she didn't possess. There was nothing on her mind right now except how to move, and move fast. She didn't have anything on her mind. Not the day, not her little brother, not her Dad being a twit or her Mom and how much work she did just to keep afloat. She didn't even fathom the big scary word that loomed over her parents relationship like an anvil, already crashing down.

There was speed, the wind on her face and the chattering of others. There was the smell of wood, of leaves and the sounds of birds. Some of them were bad birds, but she didn't have to worry about them. She was too big for them to bother her. Already some smaller 'brothers' and 'sisters' were following her.

All she knew right now was she had to get away. Away from here and something. Something that she didn't want to think about. So she didn't think at all.

She just moved.

Kyle was fast. He knew that, he could outrun just about anyone except Garrison or Jean-Paul or Nori, if he went to all fours. But he was still limited by having to switch from all-fours to jumping to swinging from branch to branch to climbing straight up a trunk so he could get around twenty feet of bramble that dammit, he'd just had Yvette cut back two weeks ago.

That shit had to come out by the roots. But not now - not today.

He'd caught Dori's scent early, it's not like she wasn't distinctive. The fur, and that sort of perpetual smell of 'assorted snacks', and 'female' - to Kyle's nose, she stood out just as much as she did visually. If she hadn't, he'd have lost her.

Kyle was fast. Dori was so much faster.

Doreen paused she thought she heard something and now every part of her was trying to figure out if it was a threat or not. She didn't hunt the way the birds did, but that didn't mean if she was being hunted she wouldn't fight back. That and she was getting hungry. There was that tickle in her stomach that demanded food. She climbed high up, the smaller squirrels followed her. Some of them had even brought nuts. She could watch from here.

Besides, for some reason the scents she picked up didn't make her nervous. At least right now she could eat something. And see who was coming. She was also curious.

In hindsight, Kyle realized he really should've gotten some help with this. But it was a little too late now, if he turned back to get anyone, he'd probably just totally lose Dori entirely and who knew what'd happen then. Too much delay and she could get hurt or something, and he didn't want to be responsible for the next step being one of the telepaths having to try to find an injured and obviously freaked-the-hell-out feral in the middle of the woods. Best to keep looking before Dori got hurt or more upset or lost or who-knew-what.

He remembered chasing Marius down, and how very not fun that was, and how much trouble people had finding him on the few times he just plain didn't want to be found.

Branch to ground to standing-leap ten feet up to another branch to an even higher branch to a branch that would so not hold his weight but it didn't need to, since he'd only barely touched it long enough to get to a thicker branch on another tree. Somewhere in there, he'd gone shoulders-first into a pine tree and was stuck here and there with pine needles and leaves in his hair, and that didn't matter because he'd caught sight of Dori, finally, far higher than he'd gone in a tree he hadn't done much climbing in.

~Goddamn squirrels~. If he'd been a hundred pounds lighter and a foot shorter, he'd have been up there too, but branches that size didn't support two-hundred-twenty pounds of six-foot-five man.

Getting to a tree close enough to talk to Dori without spooking her was a matter of more patience than Kyle'd thought he'd possessed. Move, pause, wait, move again, all so painstakingly slowly that he was grinding his teeth. When he finally did get close enough, he was still ten feet below her, and then he just sat, both hands in plain view, claws in, and feet dangling off the branch.

It was a funny looking animal up there in the trees with her and her friends. They discussed it, squeaking and clicking back and forth and the littler runs running around the higher branches and looking down at whatever it was and decided to start throwing sticks and small leaves. Dori giggled at the suggestion, the giggle more of a squeaking noise itself and agreed.

The part of her that had something to say about knowing whatever animal it was - it smelled almost like people. But it wasn't quite. There were plenty of places to go if it decided to do something more than sitting there so she let the attack commence. Small sticks and acorns and pine cones were hurled by little squirrely hands.

The first few acorns Kyle could ignore. Sticks were also easily ignored. But after a pine cone bounced off his chest and into his lap, he got annoyed. Those things hurt, and he was already sticky from the damn pine tree!

But he was one guy, who couldn't just go attacking squirrels or screwed up sixteen year olds who were telling them what to do. So he lobbed the pine cone back, bouncing it off a branch just above Dori's head. Which was not where he'd aimed it, but 'in the vicinity' was good enough. It wasn't like this was pick-up basketball or something where his amazing ability to throw bricks no matter where he was on the court was a problem.

Doreen looked up as it the above branch. Either he couldn't throw or he wanted to play. She could play too. It was easy to catch. There was a game the local squirrels played they had told her about. They'd tick off the local dogs in the nearby town and then outrun them. Right now it sounded a like a lot of fun. She put the pinecone in-between her teeth. She could've split it in half easily, but she didn't.

Doreen didn't get off her branch but instead hung upside-down by her odd looking legs. She knew she didn't look like the other animals out here and it didn't bother her. Her legs could hold her weight easily and while the blood rushing to her head and her long, messed up hair obscured some of her vision she was still able to aim and fire, spitting the pinecone right back and then giggling, still hanging upside down. All the squirrels up there with her, and more and more were coming out of the woodwork, were jumping and making lots of their own noises, some even going so far as to taunt Kyle by jumping and making the 'come up here and get us' clicks.

"Doreen Green you did not just spit a goddamn pine cone at my head!" Kyle stood and his branch swayed under his weight. "I'm drawing the line at you spitting pinecones."

Jumping from his branch to one in her tree wasn't hard. Avoiding the flash mob of squirrels was. Kyle was very aware that to just about any average forest animal, he looked like a giant rodent-eating machine. That he'd eaten a few rabbits probably didn't help. By all rights, the squirrels should've scattered, and they didn't, and that was confusing. And annoying. "I swear to God, I am not playing Dodge Pinecone with a bunch of squirrels, dammit!"

The squirrels didn't scatter and one was looking like he was about ready to run up Kyle's leg. Doreen didn't talk but laughed, that same clicking laugh and dropped down to a lower branch, most of the squirrels following her. She wasn't that far off and one of the squirrels brought another pine cone. The trees had plenty to offer and she picked it up and looked at it and put it between her teeth and looked at him.

Like she was taunting him to come and take it.

It was like Callie had said, Dori wasn't responding to words like she didn't even know what was being said. He really didn't want to have to go back and get the Professor or Doc Grey or someone to get inside Dori's head. For all Kyle knew, they weren't because maybe she'd get stuck this way or something.

"You spit that thing at me and I'm gonna come up there, I swear!" He kicked at the closest squirrel - more like shaking his foot in its general direction. He was not about to punt Dori's friends. Not with her leg muscles. He'd been kicked by Toad, he figured pissing off Dori would end about the same way. Spitting teeth and broken jaw and days of eating nothing but soup and food through a straw.

He dug one hand's worth of claws into the trunk of the tree, and then the other, and pulled himself up steadily. Too fast, and it'd look like he was hunting. Too slow, and she wouldn't get the idea that he -was- coming after her. Just not for purposes of Hunting.

Doreen watched him, bright eyed and chipper. He was climbing up, not too fast not too slow. It was easy to aim and spit the pine cone at him. The squirrels with her sniggering along. She really wasn't worried about him getting to close, the trees were where she belonged. She could move faster than he could.

A couple squirrels climbed with Kyle, matching his speed. She sent the others off to get more things to throw. This was going to be fun!

The pine cone bounced off the middle of Kyle's forehead, and he bit back a expletive. Maybe Dori didn't understand English now, but that didn't mean she might not remember later, and he didn't want to have to explain why he thought "Fucking shit fuck damn" was something it was okay to say around the spazzing-out fifteen year old who thought she was a squirrel.

At least Catseye was an english-speaking cat when she thought she was just a cat.

Climbing this way was slower than going from branch to branch and hell on his hands, but let him go higher than he normally could. The main trunks of the trees could hold his weight longer than the branches could. After about ten feet, he dug the claws on his toes into the bark as well, giving him a little more stability - and letting him take some of the weight off his arms, so he could block the occasional acorn-bomb that came from the squirrels.

Doreen had a few acorns in her cheeks, having put them there while Kyle was climbing, legs dangling from her branch seat. She couldn't quite figure out what he was doing as he wasn't throwing anything back now. But he wasn't hurting her friends so he wasn't here for food either. At least not made out of the other squirrels. Which was a good thing. No one was allowed to eat her friends with her out here.

And she had a lot of them around. Slowly, she started to inch towards the trunk, just to get a closer look and a better smell. To try to figure this out.

What would Catseye do? There was a bracelet Kyle never even thought he'd ever want. When he and Catseye played chase, it was as equals. Two predators playing, like a big fanged-and-clawed game of Tag with some extra tackling and pouncing added on. She was faster, he was stronger, and both of them were equally aggressive.

Exactly zero of those things were appropriate here. Doreen was younger, not at all aggressive, at least not in any of the ways Kyle was, and while she was faster, and he had the advantage in predatory nature - she was fifteen and the seven-and-a-half ways Kyle could think of to take her down were just not going to happen.

You didn't take a fifteen year old student down like you did Toad, or War or like you tried to do to teammates in sparring, or like Garrison did to him in the gym over and over and over.

So with almost all his options totally inappropriate, Kyle resorted to what Sam, and Cain, and Garrison and damn near everyone had done to him more than once. Wear someone out, and they're too tired to run, too tired to jump people, too tired to do much else but stop and catch their breath. And hopefully too tired to think they were a fricking squirrel.

So he pounced. In a leap, he went up another ten feet, catching a branch and rearing up just under Doreen's nose. But where a lion or tiger would've snapped their fangs or roared, and a wolf would've howled, Kyle looked up, stuck out his tongue and made a Bronx cheer.

Doreen knew the rules to this game. She clicked and laughed and turned and ran and leapt to the next tree, followed by her squirrels and then paused and looked back at him, taunting him again. He had to come get her, after all. Otherwise it wouldn't be fun at all.

She was twitching with excitement for this. Somehow she felt she needed more attention like this, but didn't know how she got that idea. Instead she'd just focus on playing. Not worry about anything else.

Keeping up with Dori wasn't exactly easy, and Kyle had to cheat. He couldn't make leaps that took him up fifteen feet and over to another tree at the same time. But he could use gravity to help, and he had the benefit of having worked with Kurt in the Danger Room. When one of your teammates was The Amazing Nightcrawler, from the Munich Circus, you got to learn all kinds of cool trapezee stuff that turned out to be really damn useful when chasing people through trees.

He took a diving leap, and caught a low branch on the next tree with one arm . The momentum swung him up and over it and he landed hard on a branch only a bit below the one he'd started from. The impact left a already purpleing bruise on his forearm, but the healing factor would take care of that. But he was going to be so sore after this. And hungry.

He paused for a second, to calm himself and quiet the rush of blood in his ears. Ignore the rush of adrenaline that told him to just chase her - or to pick something easier, like one of the deer that he could smell or one of the squirrels that were still following them. If he hadn't been worried, if Dori had acted like she'd understood anything he'd said, this would've been fun. Even with the bruises. But this was not really a game of Chase.

Yay! The human who wasn't was playing! This was great! The night air, the feeling of the wind against her skin as she moved and so many other things just made her... happy. She laughed and jumped for the next branch, not knowing or caring enough to have looked it over first. She grabbed on with her claws and it wasn't until she heard the ominous crack that she knew the branch was a bad one.

Hanging on by her claws she frantically tried to pull herself up to the branch above it, but she didn't have the time or the speed.

Doreen fell, landing two branches below where she was, her head hitting the thick trunk of the tree. Around her, the squirrels all panicked.

"Aw, fuck." The stop-and-move rhythm of the chase meant that Kyle had time to hit the emergency button on his phone before jumping down towards Doreen. He got out a "Dori just fell and cracked her head." as he made his way down towards her, moving much more carefully than he had before. "She's breathing, yeah. One sec."

She was draped on the branch limply, and it was holding her - but if the branch broke because the tree itself was rotting, Kyle didn't want both of them crashing down to the ground because of his weight. But the branch held as he lowered himself down onto it. She was still breathing, and he couldn't' smell blood, thank God, and he could see her fingers and toes and tail twitching, which meant she probably hadn't hurt her back. "Dori?" Unlike a few seconds before, Kyle was moving slowly and carefully, with the claws on his hands pulled all the way in.

Doreen groaned and opened her eyes slowly. Her head hurt. Her mouth tasted like pine-scented air freshener. Kyle was right there. Why was he in her room? The room was awfully cold and smelled like tree and then her eyes opened widely, "Oh no!"

"Oh, thank fucking god." Kyle muttered, relieved. "Hey, kiddo. You gave me a pretty good run before a tree decided to mug you. It's okay though, I didn't let him take your wallet or anything. I'll get Garrison to arrest him later and send him to tree jail." He grinned, a little uneasily, and relaxed his hands, letting the claws come back out and sink into the wood.

Doreen sat up, balance easy to come by even with a splitting headache thanks to her tail. Her distress over the entire situation was written all over her face, "It happened again, didn't it?" she asked, not cluing in on the tree humor at the moment.

"Yep. You're still a couple behind me though." The joking wasn't really working, he'd hoped it would've distracted her but apparently not. Not that he blamed her. Kyle's sense of humor hadn't really worked after his numerous freakouts either. "Hold on one sec, okay?"

He pulled the buzzing phone back out of his pocket, and answered it. "Yeah, up and talking and moving around." He paused to listen to the person on the other end and answered with a "Sure can. Thanks." before hanging up. "I'm supposed to bring you down to the infirmary to make sure you didn't crack your head like an egg, but you can take your time getting there since you're up and talking."

Doreen wasn't in the state where it was funny, she was holding back tears again, "Crack my head?" she asked, well, it would explain why her head hurt. "Are you okay?" she asked, wanting to make sure. As she tried to put the pieces together of what had happened. The last thing she really remembered was calling her Dad.

He hung up on her. And then... she was drawing a blank.

"Branch broke about ten feet up when you landed on it." Kyle explained, pointing upwards towards the broken-off end of the branch. "You hit pretty hard, looks like it snapped you out of whatever was going on in your head. And I'm fine. You just wanted to play Chase. And spit pine cones at me." He jerked a thumb towards the now mostly-calm squirrels. "You and your army here."

Doreen looked up at the branch, nothing she would've touched has she taken the time to look at it, it even smelled rotten. And then to her army, all the squirrels were relieved, she could tell that much. She didn't remember calling them out, but it wasn't the first time that had happened either.

"I spit pine cones?" Doreen asked, it explained the taste in her mouth. Her shoulders drooped, "I'm sorry, I really am. I... the last thing I remember was trying to call Dad..."

"Callie mentioned you were pretty upset. It's okay, you'll get it figured out." It sounded like Dori's dad was a Class A Douchebag, from what Kyle had caught here and there. He unfolded his legs and dangled them off the branch. "Lets get you inside and your head checked out and then maybe see what the Prof or Doc Grey can do for you for the... " He tapped his forehead and made a 'grr' face. "You know, the feral thing. Maybe they can help before Doc Samson gets back from the whatever, sabbatical thing he's on."

Doreen nodded, right now that sounded like a pretty good game plan. Maybe, in the end, that was what was bothering her Dad. "Yeah. I'd like that. I don't like it when I get like that."

"Yeah, it's not fun." Kyle agreed. "You think you can get yourself down out of this tree okay?" He hoped so, because he wasn't sure how the hell they were gonna get down otherwise. Maybe he could have her hang on while he went down the hard way.

Doreen looked down, "Yeah. It shouldn't be too hard," she said. "It's really not that far," Doreen said, standing up slowly. Her head still hurt, and likely would for awhile.

"Good. Lets get you inside and looked at then." The faster he got her inside, the faster someone could get a good look at her head, and maybe figure out how to keep the poor kid from flipping out. And then Kyle could have his -third- shower of the day, because there was definitely pine sap in his hair.

Kyle drops Doreen in the medlab (not literally) and Jean checks her over.

"Hey there, kiddo." Jean's voice was very definitely relieved as Kyle showed Dori into the medlab and her posture relaxed a bit as she stood up from the stool she'd been more perching than sitting on. "Come on in and let's get you looked at. Kyle, thank you. I've got her from here." She smiled at the young man, who caught the hint and slipped back out of the medlab. "How's the head feeling?"

“It hurts,” Doreen said honestly, walking in, claws on the feet clicking on the floor. It wasn’t the first time she had knocked her head, it didn’t suddenly start being pleasant. She looked a lot worse than she felt, she was sure. Sticks were in her hair, she was scrapped up a bit and her mouth still tasted like pinecones. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

"Nah," Jean said, holding open the door to one of the private exam rooms and letting Dori go first. "This isn't trouble. We've had trouble before, and this isn't it. However, I don't imagine it's terribly enjoyable on your end. Let me just get a quick look at your head and then you can clean up."

“It’s not bleeding,” Doreen said simply, looking back at the doctor. “I mean, it’s later and stuff and it really shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t mean to go running off like that.”

"From what Kyle said, it sounded like you got a bit of a whack. Indulge my tendency to worry?" Jean's smile was gentle as she gestured towards the exam table.

Doreen walked over and climbed up on the table and sat cross-legged on the table. “I have a really hard head. At least that’s what my brother always says.”

"Well then, that'll help." Once Doreen was settled Jean pulled out her light, switching it on. "Follow my hand with your eyes, okay?"

Doreen flinched, her eyes shined back a dim red as she did what the doctor asked, even though it hurt. “Why is that light always so bright?”

"Sorry about that, but it is actually necessary. In addition to checking how well you're tracking visually, I need to be able to judge pupil dilation. Fortunately," Jean added, snapping the light off, "on both those counts you seem to be doing ok. Can you show me where your head hurts?"

“The back, where I hit the tree,” Doreen said putting her head over the area where she had hit. There wasn’t any sign to her that she was bleeding, she could normally smell it when she did so she felt pretty sure she wasn’t. “I’m kinda glad I did.”

Jean's eyebrows lifted slightly at that, but for the moment she let it be, needing to focus on Dori's physical health before they could get into anything else. "Ok. This may hurt a bit, but I need to feel around the area. Let me know if anything hurts too much."

“Okay,” Doreen said, trying not to squeak at the poking. She had enough of squeaking to last her for quite some time. She got something to focus on that wasn’t being poked at when she caught sight of Monkey Joe in the doorway. She would’ve shooed him away except for how… upset he looked.

Jean was as quick as she could be without causing any extra pain, so it wasn't that long before she stepped back. "I think your brother's right about the hardness of your head, which is definitely a good thing here. I don't see any signs of concussion. You can take some aspirin or ibuprofen for the pain, but nothing stronger." That said, Jean let some of the official doctorly sternness slip out of her voice as she added, "So, do you want to talk about it?"

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Doreen offered, her tail drooping down, “It just kind did.”

"You would possibly be amazed at the number of people here who can empathize; it's okay. At least, it's okay with us. Only you can really say if you're okay with what happened or not."

Doreen shook her head, “I don’t like it when it happens.”

"No, I can imagine not." Jean leaned back against the counter, giving Dori some space. "It's alarming when our minds start doing things we didn't tell them to do..."

Doreen was looking down at exam table, “I really didn’t mean to do it. I hope Callie isn’t mad, I don’t know what I did to the room. At least I got outside, I guess.”

"Mad is not something Callie does often that I've seen," Jean said. "What set it off? Something to do with your dad?"

“I wanted to talk to him,” Doreen said simply, not her usual chipper self. “He hung up on me.”

Jean considered Doreen carefully, then sighed. "Parents... parents are hard. They want to protect their children from all the scary things in the world, up until they find out that their child is one of the scary things, at least to them. Some of the kids here got lucky - their parents understood, or didn't but were willing to learn. Others... My mother was terrified of me when I manifested."

Doreen looked up, “Really? Why?” at least, she thought, her Mom was still treating her like the person she always was.

"Telepathy... alarms some people." Which was about the biggest understatement ever. "And a young, uncontrolled telepath... is just going to stumble over every hot spot someone has without any idea what they're doing."

At least Doreen didn’t have to worry about that, she thought. She didn’t have any interest in what people really thought all the time. “Oh. …When I started to grow my tail, Dad… started acting weird,” that covered the sudden change in attitude and the drinking, she figured. “I just thought because it was my birthday… I dunno.”

"I can't make you any promises, Doreen," Jean said, sounding sad. "I wish I could. Sometimes parents, siblings, friends... whomever. Sometimes they do begin to understand, but sometimes they don't. I can promise that we'll be here for you, regardless, but I know it's not the same."

Doreen shrugged, she really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Could I get some ice for my head?” Doreen asked, “Or like a pack or something?”
Jean nodded. "Of course. Come on; I'll snag one from our fridge and then you're good to go."

At the end of the day, all it takes is someone telling you everything will be okay.

Ice and pain killers in hand, Doreen picked up Monkey Joe and started, slowly, back towards her room. She pulled twigs out of her hair in-between steps. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing the room that she knew somehow she had torn apart. And while Dr. Grey had been nice, the talk hadn’t helped as much at all. Doreen always tried to see things in a good light. That way, no matter what happened she thought things wouldn’t shake her.

But this did shake her. It always did. Whenever she managed to snap back she had to wonder why it happened. When it would happen again? And what would happen if she didn’t snap back?

What was the difference between a human and an animal? Doreen worried that for her, it wasn’t very much at all.

Monkey Joe nuzzled her cheek to show support, but even that wasn’t quite the comfort she needed.

There was the sound of a door opening behind her, and then the Professor's voice, calling to her softly: "Doreen? Would you mind very much coming into my office for a moment? I won't keep you long.”

Doreen’s first thought was that she was in trouble. Staring at her feet she followed him in, “I’m sorry for all the trouble,” was the first thing she said. Because she was.

"Doreen, you're not in any kind of trouble," he replied - it wasn't exactly mind reading to know what the girl was thinking. He wheeled his chair over to the fireplace in his office, indicating an armchair to Doreen. "Please, sit. Would you like something to drink?"

Doreen sat down, adjusting herself for her tail and keeping her claws off the furniture. She knew what they did to expensive anything so she always took pains to be careful. “I’m not?” she asked, “And um… lemonade I guess?” she said. That sounded good right now and might wash out the taste of pinecones.

"A very good choice for such a warm day." Charles busied himself with getting two glasses of lemonade ready from the small fridge in his office (tastefully hidden by a wood panel) before returning to the nervous girl and handing her one. "I hope you aren't too badly hurt?" he asked, concern evident.

“…Not really,” Doreen said, taking the drink, “My head hurts but I’m okay,” she said. “And my mouth tastes like pinecones,” she grumbled. Not something she normally spent time eating.

"Not the most appetising thing I can imagine," he replied with just a hint of humour - it wouldn't do to have the girl thinking he was laughing at her. "It must be very disorienting, experiencing something like you did today."

Doreen took a sip of the lemonade and put then nodded, “It’s… I don’t know. It’s like I start out someplace and wake up some place else. And you don’t know what happened, you’re just there…”

Charles nodded. "And when you can't control when or if it happens, I can imagine it's extremely distressing." He gave her a small smile. "I want you to know, Doreen, that we'll do everything we can to help you with this particular facet of your mutation. And you won't be blamed for what you can't control."

“Really? I mean, it feels like it’s my fault… I shouldn’t let things set me off, I guess,” Doreen said, Monkey Joe trying to comfort her again. The one thing she really wanted for her birthday, and she only got it in part.

"Sometimes there are things we cannot help but react to. And when you have a mutation such as yours, that reaction can take unexpected forms. You wouldn't be the first whose emotional turmoil is reflected by their powers. I remember when Miss Munroe was a student here, she spent a lot of time learning about her powers so that her emotional state wasn't overtly reflected in the weather around us." Charles' voice was soothing and matter-of-fact at the same time. "I understand it can be difficult, Doreen, but you can find some measure of help here. And you shouldn't feel ashamed."

She nodded. Doreen was still wrapping her head around not being in trouble. But at least they weren’t going to blame her for it. That was comforting. Mom had been like that too, even when Ryan never got it. “Thank you,” she said simply, “I mean, for not being mad at me, I guess. And for the lemonade,” because she couldn’t remember if she had said thank you or not.

"You're welcome, Doreen. Any time you feel like you need to talk, there are plenty of people available, including myself. And I'll make sure there's plenty of lemonade on hand."

“As long as I’m not bothering you,” Doreen said. That was always her main concern. Is that somehow she’d be bothering someone.

"My students are never a bother, Doreen, and I'll always make time for them." He nodded at the painkillers. "Although it might be preferable to continue this conversation at a later time when you haven't just fallen on your head."

She had to smile at that, “Yeah. I have a pretty bad headache. But it’s okay; I have a very hard head. That’s what my brother always tells me.”

"Sometimes I think a hard head must be a common second mutation, the number of people we have who tend to use them to land on without any apparent effects." The headmaster returned the smile. "Go and rest for the rest of the afternoon. I'll make sure one of the RAs looks in on you from time to time."

“Thank you,” Doreen said, finishing off the lemonade both to try to finish washing the taste of pine out of her mouth and because it was good. She wondered idly if that was what pinesol tasted like. At least everything would taste better tomorrow, after she had a chance to brush her teeth.

She handed the glass back and Monkey Joe chirped at her, “Yeah, we’re going,” she said to her squirrel. “Thank you again,” she said, as she started for the door and smiled.

"You're very welcome, Doreen."