It wasn't long before math class let out and it was time for lunch. Jon took off, eager to talk with Karyn, but quickly found that she was being surpassed by the normal, walking students. What the heck? she wondered. Come to think of it, this had happened earlier as well, but the visit to the nurse's office and early exit from P.E. had thrown off her timing so that she'd missed most of the hall traffic. In the rush to the cafeteria, however, it was clear that she was moving much slower than she ought to have been, and what was more, she was occasionally losing altitude as well.
Jon supposed she could go back to the gym and ask Ms. Tennenbaum about it, but she really just wanted to get to the cafeteria, eat, talk with Karyn, and most of all, sit down; she was quite tired. Was flying always going to be this exhausting? Ah well, after this afternoon, it wouldn't be an issue. Finally reaching the cafeteria, she got in line. They didn't have dishes small enough for her, so she unscrewed the lid from one of the large, restaurant-style salt shakers and used it as a makeshift tray. She loaded it down about as full as she could with tiny portions of various foods; she was a lot hungrier than normal. Finally, she flitted slowly over to where Karyn was sitting.
They didn't say much at first, Karyn sadly picking at what the cafeteria called fish (it was pollock, already mostly flavorless, and not very good pollock at that,) and Jon cramming down bites of fruit and lunchmeat as she quickly realized just how famished she really was. Eventually, the cat-girl pushed away her plate, leaned back in her chair, and regarded Jon curiously. "So," she said, "how's it going?"
Jon shrugged. "Could be worse, I guess," she said, in between mouthfuls, "but I'll still be glad to get this fixed. Geez, flying is exhausting!"
Karyn nodded contemplatively. "I wonder if that has to do with your flying standing up?"
Jon looked up from her meal. "Come again?"
"You were angled almost upright when you were flying, but you're built a lot like a dragonfly, and they move around the other way, like if you were angled like you were lying on your belly."
"Oh," Jon mumbled around a mouthful of strawberry. "I didn't think of that. Would it really make that much difference?"
Karyn shrugged. "Probably. I'm no aerospace engineer, but you're taking wings designed for flight at one angle and using them almost ninety degrees out of whack. I think they can angle themselves somewhat to correct for that, but you're still probably losing a lot of efficiency in the process."
Jon nodded. "Huh. Thanks for the insight, although I'm not going to have these for long. Still, at least I won't have to be worn-out and hungry while we try to think of a wish to fix this."
"Yeah, about that," Karyn said, "I was going over some thoughts during class, and I wanted to see if you could spot any flaws." She pulled out one of her many battered, spiral-bound notebooks, and Jon flitted around to Karyn's side of the table, finding that she did indeed fly better in a prone position.
Meanwhile, Mikey was in the car on the way to the doctor, dressed in a shirt, which had been ripped down the sides to accomodate her wings, and a skirt, which her mother had made her wear because none of the pants in the house would fit around Mikey's tailfeathers and she wasn't having her daughter go out bottomless. She hoped that Mikey's sobbing references to a "magic rock" weren't indicative of some kind of psychological trauma brought on by the change.
