"How repellently immature is Ethan going to be when he learns this information, do you suppose?"

Trouble laughs. "I'm sure it'll give him the giggles."

"Right. Do you want to inform everybody or shall I?"

"If you don't want Ethan having his giggles in front of you, I can tell him."

"I would appreciate that."

"All right. But can you tell your family? ...And Ax? I don't feel like being there when you tell Ax."

"Yeah, I don't feel like you being there when I tell Ax either. I got it."

He snorts.

"Okay." Bella gets up and heads for the garage.

And Trouble looks for Ethan and Robin.

As predicted, there is a certain amount of snickering.

Trouble is untroubled.

Bella takes a while about telling Ax, but emerges without any blood on her clothes or other troubling signs, and then tells her father and sister, and then finds Trouble again.

"How'd they take it? Anything I should worry about?"

"Andi is grossed out but has no substantive objections, Charlie apologized for not having more to tell me and then got all quiet, Ax I walked through my reasoning really slowly and carefully and I think he's okay."

He shrugs. "All right. Ethan had his giggle; Robin just wanted to know I'd be okay."

"I'll abort if you want me to, at any time," Bella adds, "in case that wasn't clear."

"I thought so. But yeah, it's still nice to hear it."

"Okay. Where do you want to do this? How uncomfortable am I going to be if I go straight from air to ear with no liquid in between?"

"...Slightly uncomfortable," he says, "but not any worse than just feeling really dry and icky until you're all snuggled up."

"Enough that I should get another casserole dish to fill with water and stand in when I morph, or not?"

"Well, I don't know how you feel about being uncomfortable," he says. "I wouldn't bother, but that's me."

Bella looks at him, then she looks for a casserole dish, can't find one, and settles for a cake pan, which she fills with water. "Where to?" she inquires.

He looks at the cake pan, looks at Bella, and says, "...Some room with a door that closes, that we can kick everybody out of until we're done?"

"Okay. My and Andi's was empty when I was upstairs telling her and Dad." She grabs her notebook and pen with her free hand.