"What are you doing?"
Jon turned to look over her shoulder. It was Mikey who had spoke; Jon was still unused to her new sister's voice. The young harpy was standing in the doorway of her room, looking towards the computer screen, on which Jon had been checking her various auctions.
"Selling my stuff," she replied. "At least, the stuff I'm not too attached to."
"Not the game consoles!" Mikey sharply protested. Jon laughed. "Are you kidding? After all the effort I put into building that collection?"
Mikey sighed, relieved. "Good. Do you mind if I use them?"
Jon nodded, then frowned. "Um...can you?"
Mikey sat herself down on the floor and began fumbling with the lid of the Nintendo. "I dunno," she said. "I'm trying to find out."
"Huh. Okay, best of luck," Jon said, returning to her computing. Mikey continued her efforts; she'd managed to get the cartridge properly seated, and was struggling to get the hang of using her rear toes in place of thumbs. It was hard, but maybe doing this could help her reflexes and coordination with her talons; if she was going to have to use them for everything, she'd at least like to be able to use them well.
Jon, meanwhile, had had a brief discussion with Karyn over IRC before returning to Quake II. They had discussed the events of the day and plans for tomorrow. Karyn had offered to spend the night again, but Jon felt that she could handle things herself, for the moment, at least.
Sarah huddled up in the blankets on his bed, shuddering. It was bad enough that a large majority of the school now probably had it in for him, but being this small made him realize just how vulnerable he was.
Sarah had never run from a confrontation in her life, even when facing girls two grades above her. It was part of how she'd made it to the top in the first place; the kids around her had learned early on that you did not mess with Sarah McMillan. Conflicts in the high-school social scene rarely came to blows, but when they did, it was always Sarah who emerged victorious.
But as a tiny little sprite-thing, what could he do? He couldn't possibly hope to beat anyone into submission like this, especially since, now that he was a guy, it was kosher for the other guys to start going after him. The only things he had going for him were size and speed, perfect for the running away that Sarah didn't want to do.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when the door opened. But, of course, it was only his mom. She walked over to the bed and knelt down as Sarah laid down, his head buried in his arms. Neither of them said anything, but Mrs. McMillan gently rubbed the back of her daughter-turned-son, carefully working her fingers around the roots of his wings. Sarah sobbed into the blankets until he finally cried himself to sleep.
