She nods, and then has to swallow a lump in her throat, because, well, she's hardly going to sit around and do nothing if another witch attacks the school.

She stands up abruptly.  "Thanks for talking.  I've - got homework."

" - all right," her dad says.

She does; she hides in her room and works, and thinks.

Friday passes; in trying to avoid talking to her other acquaintances about why she cut class, she ends up being pretty withdrawn from everyone, even Lianne.

Saturday arrives.  She meets Lianne at the scouting group.

"Hey Kaylee," she says when they meet. "Got grounded. For three whole weeks, I've never seen mom that mad. I won't be able to hang out on Fridays for a while. Luckily mom's letting me keep clubs and scouting, since they look good to colleges... How'd your parents take things?"

"My dad was - actually really nice about it, considering.  But.  He knows something's up with me, and I don't know how long I can keep him in the dark about what."

"It's good he was nice about it, but it does kinda stink that he's getting suspicious. At least my mom doesn't pay too much attention to what I'm doing... I don't know about my sister, though, I might have to come up with a reasonable-sounding excuse eventually."

"...Do you think Kyubey was right, that we should keep it a secret?"

"I honestly don't know. If it's true that witches target people who know... But if everyone knew, I don't think that'd change attack patterns? Though it might cause a panic. But people have the right to know when they're in danger."

She nods.  "I guess I just... I hate lying to my parents about something this big.  If there's some way to - safely clue in just a couple of people... I don't know."

"We can talk to Mallory about that?"

"Yeah.  Speaking of which - " she gestures toward the door.  "Shall we?"

"Let's."

In they go.

Everyone's there. Mal smiles at the two girls when they walk in.

"Hi everyone!" Kaylee says.  She's perked up already, being around a group of people she doesn't have to keep so many secrets from.  She glances around, but it looks like Tobi hasn't shown up yet.  "Are we late?"

"No, we're all just early. How was your week?"

"Well, a witch showed up near the school on Thursday..."

"Yikes. Is everyone okay?"

"No one got hurt, we managed to take it down in time.  We were lucky, though, another girl showed up and helped us out."

"That's good!" There's nodding all around. "I didn't know there were any other girls in the area, though."

"I think she was from out of town, actually.  She said she'd been tracking that witch for a while."

"It's good she was friendly. And tracking witches can be hard, it's good she was able to. And that no one got hurt."

She nods.  "She said she might show up to the meeting, actually, Lianne gave her the address."

As if on cue, someone knocks on and then opens the door.  "Hey, uh."  She glances around and her eyes fall on the adult in the room.  "You Mallory?  Is this the - "

She waggles the fingers on one hand meaningfully, showing off a ring that, to magical girl eyes, is very distinctly a soul gem.

"Hi! Yes, I'm Mallory, and I think you're in the right place. Come on in!"