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Zuki doubled his hoping pace. He had now hopped passed his airheaded 'mother' and was dashing past the next seat past her. "Ha! You can't get me, slow poke!" he yelled over his....shoulder (If you could call it that. He was, after all, a giant blob of green).

"Maybe I can help?" Berry said. "I mean...I probably can't give you answers you're looking for, but I'm a good listener?" And nosy, apparently, since she was mostly just asking because she wanted to know why the woman was so insistent on seeing a worker. The little pink koala girl looked up at Maggie. "What? Oh, no, she's..." her face cracked into a smile this time. "She's fine. She just think she's um....she's in Wonderland. We have a book called Alice in Wonderland in our house, and she says before she came here, she stepped through a mirror, so it must be Wonderland. But she's read me some of the book, and...and, it doesn't really seem like it to me." Berry shrugged. "She only gets like this sometimes. She's usually quite..quite..." What was the word Maggie's friend Imbri had used. "L-lucid?"

"Haaaa!" Zuki said as he looked behind him and saw Koala try to swipe at him and tag him. "I knew you couldn't do it!" He turned, to try to go just a little faster, and as he did, he realized something.

He had just run out of counter. He smacked full force into the wall at the end of the counter, and while he didn't fall over backwards, as Koala had, he just sort of...smooshed against the wall and stuck.


Berry tilted her head. "Oh, you mean like...to babysit?" she asked.

"Mmffmmm" Zuki answered. He sort of...oozed back from the wall and wiggled in place until he had reformed his oval shape. "Naw, man, I'm cool" he said finally. "Happens all the time," oh wait, maybe he shouldn't have told Koala that...

"F-forever?" Berry squeaked. She glanced over at Koala, who was currently busy talking to her brother. "But...he seems nice, and...um..." well, she wasn't sure what else. She remembered that Maggie had said that she had come here and been given these strange foods that she wasn't allowed to eat, and that Berry had come from one of them, so it's not like Maggie had *asked* for them. She wondered if the other person was in the same situation. Berry guessed she was just glad that Maggie had just rolled with it, rather than try to find them a new home. "Why don't you th-think you can handle taking care of him?" she asked curiously. "Is it cuz he's small?" Her sister back home, Cindy, had said that parents liked to be able to hug their children, so what good were Berry and Zuki to Maggie (Cindy wasn't very nice...).

"He-ooofff!" Zuki said as he was pushed back into the wall. As he repeated the process, oozing off and wiggling so his shape reformed, he huffed. "Hey, not cool, Dude," he said, making a face. "Just cuz I'm squishy..." He nodded his 'head' at Berry. "Why don't you go smoosh her into the wall?"

"O-oh...I see," she said. Berry wasn't quite sure what 'financially stable' meant really, but if she didn't know what it meant, it must be bad, right? "Well, um...I guess I hope they can help you then." She hoped that if Hailie did give up Koala, she could still see him. It was nice to be free from Zuki for this whole time. Really peaceful.

"No, she doesn't squish at all," Zuki said, sounding disappointed. Life would be so much more fun if she squished too. Then he could roughhouse more with her. Maybe she wouldn't mind it so much if she could squish."You should try it though," he said, grinning myscheviously. It'd be funny to see him try to squish her. Maybe if someone else tried to play with her, she'd see that normal people ran around and it wasn't just her 'crazy' brother.

"Sure!" Berry said, taking a small piece of the offered food in her tiny hands and munching on it quietly. She watched the two boys curiously. What were they talking about?

Maggie stood up abruptly. "We need to be getting home," she said, laying her hand flat on the counter. Berry shrugged, but waved at Hailie and then climbed up onto her hand. Zuki hopped across the counter and joined his sister on Maggie's hand. The redhead lifted her hand and let the two climb onto her shoulder.

"It was nice to meet you!" Berry called at Hailie. "I'm sure everything will be fine!"

Zuki waved his little blobby arm-hand at Koala. "See ya later, man!"

Maggie started to walk towards the exit, and stopped just behind where Hailie sat. She leaned over a little, taking care not to let her adopted children fall. Her bright green eyes danced, and seemed clearer than they had the entire time she had been sitting.

"Don't worry too much," she said, smiling. "Life throws you crazy things, and all we can do is try to catch it as best we can." She crossed the room and waved. "If you need anything, or if Koala wants to play again, come visit me at my costume shop!"