Silently, Mikey got up, hugged both of his parents, left the room, and walked downstairs. Ken and Tina watched him go, and when they heard the front door open and shut, they collapsed, crying, in each other's arms. As much as he deserved his punishment, neither of them wanted to see their son stuck whatever changes this would bring upon him. But the notes had to be taken down, and Mikey was the one to do it.
After crying themselves dry, the two women calmed down as best as they could and went downstairs to check on Jon and Zoe. Both were doing about as well as could be expected, but after seeing their brother leave the to go to who knew what kind of fate, neither was in a particularily good mood. Ken made some coffee, and the family just sat in the living room, waiting.
It was nearly seven o'clock, and he still wasn't back. Ken was in the kitchen, half-heartedly preparing a pan of Hamburger Helper as Tina sat in the living room with the kids. None of them really felt like eating, but they'd finally gotten too hungry to delay any longer. Time passed, and the clock was just striking the hour when the front door opened.
Tina shot straight to her feet, and the kids followed as Ken rushed into the living room from the kitchen. They watched as someone came through the entryway. It was a teenage girl with long, flaming red hair that hung down to the small of her back. As they watched, she moved smoothly into full view, and they could see that where her legs ought to be was an emerald-green snake's tail. She slithered into the middle of the living room and hung her head.
"M-mike?" Ken asked softly. The girl nodded. "I guess it could've gone worse," she said. "After the first few, enough was established that the later ones didn't work because they would've contradicted. Fortunately, everything but the obvious was pretty minor; I'm fifteen now instead of seventeen, and I have the personality of someone of the opposite sex, which means I'm a boy mtenally, which I was all along. Little things like that, and I guess I have no right to complain about the rest."
"And the notes?" Tina asked. Mikey shrugged. "I looked all over the neighborhood," she said. "I got most of 'em, but I think there were maybe three or four that were found by other people. But some of the things I wrote...oh God, what was I thinking?" She buried her face in her hands, sobs wracking her shapely frame. Ken put an arm around her shoulder. "You weren't," she said. "You admitted as much yourself. But there's nothing to be gained by beating yourself upabout it, and in the endyou faced up to what you did and did what you could to make it right. And for that, Mike, your mother and I are proud of you."
