'And tiny ten-year-old Lianne punching him?  Lianne, I can't believe you would punch such an important man.'

She's having to fight really hard not to break into giggles in the middle of class. Luckily it's art, she can have her head down to hide the smile. 'I totally would. Rage against the machine and all that.'

'Uh oh, my teacher's giving me a Look.  I should probably start paying attention.  See you in Bio?'

'Yeah, I should focus, too. See you!'

'Bye!'

Unfortunately they won't really have time to chat again until lunch, or even until gym if they want to talk telepathically without anyone noticing they're distracted.

During lunch Kaylee chats with everyone about school and extracurriculars and anime; she doesn't bother trying to keep up a second secret conversation at the same time, she's no good at that.

Once gym starts she pings Lianne again.  'Hi Lianne!  How's raging against the machine going?'

'Hey! Well, I've got some major rage going against the pointless machine that is busywork and homework. How about you?'

'I'm pretty good!  I wish I could send telepathic laughter, though, it always seems to sound like I'm just not reacting at all whenever you say something funny.'

'And using text speak would sound weird. Anyways, got any plans for after school?'

'Yearbook meets today, I'm gonna stop by and ask about joining up late.  Nothing other than that, though.  You've got sci-fi fantasy club, right?'

'Yup! We're watching some Christmas special or another, I think for Doctor Who? Well, anyways, good luck with yearbook.'

'Thanks!  Enjoy your Christmas special.  ...Do you celebrate Christmas?  Is that rude?'

'Yeah, though not, like, as majorly as some people around here. Asking doesn't seem super rude to me, but I'm comfortably in the majority on this.'

'Yeah, I see what you mean.  My parents celebrate Christmas and Easter but other than that they're sort of... vaguely secular.'

'My mom's religion is pretty much entirely appearances. We go to parties, she drags us to church, but there's not, like, sincere intent in there. It's more of That's What You Do. 'Vaguely secular' sounds like a better balance, really.'

'I think I know what you mean.  I guess the... community, is important to people, but.'

'I was never... I don't think I believe in God.'

'I don't, not really. Haven't since I was a kid.'

'...you don't sound happy about it.'

'I'm not really unhappy about it? Religion's just not a major part of my life, except as something that makes my mom's insistence on attending church even more annoying.'

'Could be I was misreading you.  But yeah, I can imagine that would be unpleasant.'

'For me, I guess... my parents never really talked about it, so I never really thought about it.  But... the world's in pretty bad shape.  I'm not sure it would look like this if a nice all-powerful god designed it.'

'Yeah, there's some interesting theological debates about that. It's called the 'question of evil,' I think. For me, it was pretty much that I kept being told I had to be Christian, and that meant believing certain things, and I was super contrary as a kid. And once I stopped believing, I didn't start up again.'

'That sounds awful.  I'm sorry, Lianne.'

'I mean, it was kinda funny to me in retrospect? Like, I was more annoyed than anything, and it didn't exactly impact my life outside of Sunday school. It's even one of the few things me and my sister agree on. We get a lot of good bonding time in, discretely rolling our eyes during services.'

'Well that's a plus, at least.  Do you not get along with your sister usually?  ...stop me any time if I'm prying too much.'