She giggles and scritches Lucy's hair.

"Definitely not! You'd bring it to light for sure."

"I dragged him into soooooo much nonsense as a kid. He didn't learn extroversion but he did learn the patience of a saint."

"What kinda nonsense?"

"Digging in the backyard for weird bugs, going to friends' houses, finding the steepest hill in the area and not asking permission before sledding on it, joining clubs, doing weird science experiments instead of just reading about them..."

Cara's eyes are shining. (Ohhh, she wishes she'd known Lucy growing up...)

"What was your favorite weird science experiment?"

"Hmm...I hadn't really thought to rate them against each other, before...the balloons and pencils one was fun but I'm sure I'll think of one that's better given a little while to think."

Ohhhh she really likes Lucy...

"Honestly any of the ones that are memorable would be fun to hear about. How did pencils and balloons go?"

"Oh, that's the one where you put a piece of duct tape over a balloon and then you stab a pencil through the balloon through the duct tape! And it doesn't pop! I was very small when I discovered this experiment and the idea that 'balloons pop when stabbed' wasn't a basal law was mind-boggling at the time."

Cara makes an O: face as she thinks through the logistics of this.

"The pencil just stays in?" 

"Yeah! --Well, you have to put the duct tape on both sides, and push the pencil all the way through. Otherwise the air pressure would push it out. But then yes!"

"Huh! Neat." 

Then she giggles. "Balloon kebab..." 

"That would require multiple balloons per stabby implement, which is the opposite of the ratio that actually happened."

"Balloon... spear hunting?" That's... kind of nothing, but actually it's fine to just say nonsense sometimes. 

"Oh, no no no, what we did was put, like, three or so, colored pencils, in each balloon, and then Mum hung them up for us as decoration. Until they, you know, collapsed on their own, as balloons are wont to do."

Cute???

"Oh, that's delightful. Did the skewered ones deflate faster than usual?" 

"I'm not sure! We didn't have any non-skewered ones around at the same time to compare."

"Seems like a gap in Basic Research!" (She clearly enunciates the capital letters, somehow.) "Perhaps not as blogworthy as portal dimensions, though."

"Hey, we weren't studying how long balloons take to deflate. We were studying balloon-popping not being a fundamental law of nature."

"And you proved that conclusively!" She smiles.

"Did you want to read more Basic Research? I know I got us off track, but I was really enjoying that." (Petpetpet.)

"Oh. Right. Yes." She'll get right back on that.