Breakfast the next morning was much quieter than usual. Nobody was quite sure what to say to anybody else, and everybody was a little tired from staying up late, taking care of the other unlucky transformees.
Not that there wasn't conversation; Jon and Ken had had a brief argument when Ken had limited her new daughter to half a cup of coffee. Jon objected to what she saw as being treated like a child, but after Ken had taken a moment to reassure her that it was only Jon's change in body mass she was taking into account, the little girl grudgingly agreed to cut back on her caffeine intake. And there had also been a discussion of the day's gameplan. Tina would call the children in sick, since hers was the only recognizable voice now, and then go to work as usual; they'd discuss ways of dealing with their changes when Tina got home that afternoon.
But for the most part, they just ate. Jon had a little difficulty with eating at her new height, since her reach was reduced and table sat higher relative to her than it normally did. She also surprised herself by getting full after a bowl and a half of cereal; it looked like that body-mass thing applied to her appetite as well as her caffeine tolerance.
Mikey could attest to that; she was famished. Curiously enough, though, none of her internal organs seemed to extend down into her tail, and so her stomach capacity wasn't much larger than an average teenager's; she was just hungrier. She hoped she wasn't going to be eating like this all the time; hopefully, it was just that her changes, being the most extensive, had taken the most energy.
After they'd finished eating, Tina called into the schools, telling them that her children had all come down with stomach flu. That taken care of, she hugged her family good-bye and headed off to work. "Well," Ken said, after a minute, "I don't expect you three are going to be able to concentrate on homework. I'll suggest that you kids take the morning to get acquainted with your new bodies, but I'm not going to make you. Enjoy your sick day, kids."
