"Maybe my mom'll pay for that, too," he jokes.

Aegis giggles. "Do you even write to her? Half the kids I know don't bother to write to their parents anymore. I still write to mine - and I get lots of letters, especially from Renée - but I could see the appeal of quitting."

"No, why would I?"

"So you could go on having grounded expectations like that she might buy presents for your school friend? I don't think I'd expect that from anyone I hadn't talked to in years."

"No way she wouldn't throw some spare change at me if it made her look good. Especially to herself."

Aegis blinks. "Uh, okay then."

He cocks his head. "What?"

"I dunno, that's an awfully confident character condemnation for someone you last talked to five years ago?"

Sue shrugs. "It's true."

"How do you know she isn't different now or only acts like that around small children or something, though?"

"Just do," he says.

"You weren't even manifested then, you can't say you read her mind or anything."

"Wonder if I could push her right now," he muses. "See how she's doing."

"Have you tested your range?" asks Aegis curiously.

"Not really." He grins. "Should I?"

"I can't believe you didn't! You've had the powers for years! Yeah, try to push somebody on Earth," laughs Aegis.

"Did you try a few different places? Or don't you know enough people? It's a big planet and we don't know what part of it we're looming over."

"I know my mom and my dad, and I'm not touching my dad."

"You didn't have neighbors or any classmates in kiddie school or anything?"

"Not that I know them," he says. "It's been a while. I wouldn't even know how to look."

"Huh. Okay. I had some friends in school, but I guess I only really know my parents, likewise."

Sue shrugs. "Yeah, see?"

"But how well do you have to know them? You barely looked at Qiaochu before you pushed him that one time."

"I have to know how to find them," he says. "Which means I have to be looking at them, or know them really well, or remember them from looking at them before."