"I could probably convince my parents if I had to but Charlie's definitely not moving if I remember him as well as I think. And Renée might move but not to here or anything. So that's still a gap every year, but we can live with that, I guess."

"Yeah."

"We have accents. I'm not sure I can even affect an American accent on purpose now, it's been so long." She coughs. "I have definitely spent the last ten years in the United States," she attempts. It's not too terrible.

"I don't think I can do it now but I can probably get used to it again after I spend some time around people who have spent the last ten years in the United States..."

"I don't remember if I wrote it down." Isabella flips through her notebook. "No, I just have speculation about what would happen when we we were found missing, not when or how."

"It hasn't been weeks but it might have been days... we should probably go wait in front of the house," says James. "And maybe try to go back from there, but I'm not sure I remember the way."

"I don't remember either and never drew myself a map," sighs Isabella. "Yeah. We'll have to say we lost the stuff we brought, I guess."

"Yeah. 'Lost it where?' 'Well, we're not sure, that's what happens when you lose things.'" Sigh.

"Do I have a list..." Isabella does have a list. "Okay, I don't remember any of this being horribly expensive, they probably won't refuse to let it just be lost."

"I'm not sure how we could've managed to lose it in the first place but I guess we're ten and eleven and not expected to be that responsible about what we do with borrowed things."

"I guess. I don't want to have to lean on that too much but we can't produce the backpacks, so." Pause. "We have to go to school. With other ten-and-eleven-year-olds. We're going to have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. And I could probably convince Renée to homeschool me but I legitimately need the re-acculturation."

"...I might convince Chris to homeschool me... I won't if you'd rather have me there as an ally against the genuine Earth schoolchildren," says James.

"Maybe there's some less humiliating way to re-acculturate? We could... watch a lot of movies."

"We could do... activities... of some kind... I'll ask Chris," says James.

"Are you going to ask her what it is that Earth schoolchildren do, or just say you're bored...?"

"At this point I think I'm going to have to explain the whole thing and then ask how to be a minimally inconvenienced Earth schoolchild."

"So - I'll go with you and prove and corroborate things for that and decide from there, I suppose."

"Yeah."

To the front of the house to sit and wait.

"Yeah. We were careful."

"It still happened near it, so maybe it's just that whole area, but Winter tried and didn't get anywhere..."