Yup, as always. Thanks.

She has an incantation basically done by Sunday morning, but doesn't have time to recheck her diagram and test it before her date with Colin, so she leaves it for afterward. She's at the Mexican place about five minutes early.

Colin, who she met in midform with electric yellow feathers in strategic location, is present in human form another two minutes later. "Hi Margaret!"

"Hi Colin! How's your weekend going?"

"Getting better! What have you been up to?"

"More research, looking into selling the results, that sort of thing. What have you got going on?"

"Summer reading and lacrosse and movies and stuff." In the restaurant, it isn't crowded; they're seated right away.

She checks out the decor on the way to their table. "Cool. Read anything particularly good lately?"

There are sombreros on the walls and colorful doily-flag-things in strings across the ceiling.

"No, it's all assigned stuff, not anything good."

"Your school has bad taste, huh? I actually just moved here last month, so I don't know much of anything about my new school yet, just that it's Grover Cleveland and it's STEM focused."

"Is that a private school?"

"No, just a public school with a slightly pretentious name."

"Where'd you move from?"

"Framingham, Massachusetts! It's a tiny place near Boston."

"Did your dad's job move?"

"Nah, we moved to be closer to my grandma. I'm liking it here so far. How about you, did you grow up here?"

"Nah, we used to live in Ohio, just, my dad's job."

"What's he do?"

"He's told me but I don't really understand it. At least we're closer to - the place we met, here."

"Yeah. The bus system here is pretty convenient." 

(Now she's wondering if Colin's dad actually does something obscure or if that's cover for it being something magic-related and awesome. Possibly she has been keeping too many sets of secrets for too long.)

"I miss my friends in Ohio though. We don't really keep in touch, it's harder from farther away."

Nod. "I miss some people from Massachusetts too. Sounds like you've probably met a bunch of new ones, though, doing lacrosse and whatnot."

"Yeah, sports help. Not the same as knowing somebody since you were five though."

"No, it isn't, is it. Do you play other sports, or just lacrosse?"

The waiter comes to take their order; Margaret gets loaded nachos.

"Just lacrosse - fajitas, please."

"Darn, here I was hoping you played something I knew the rules to so I could say something vaguely intelligent about it. Want to explain lacrosse to me instead?"