Eddie:
When the unknown girl assured everyone she was ok, Alice sidled up to my wheelchair and took one of my hands in hers;
"I know your name, Eddie, because I kind-of like you." She told me in a near-silent whisper.
I still hadn't recovered from the discovery that she had BEEN the older woman from earlier. In fact, it was only when my mobile phone began to ring, that I snapped out of my strange funk.
Alice:
As I whispered to Eddie, I heard a conversation strike up between Reece and Brit about whether all this was actually happening in their heads. I decided not to interrupt them. I did nod a polite response to Brit introducing himself to me though.
Damien started trying to get everyone to switch off their phones so the GPS chips couldn't be tracked by the Yeerks. - That was a good ides, but I let everyone make up their own minds if they wanted to do that or not. As for mine, well I'd disabled its GPS chip ages ago.
I'd already spoken on the issue of Sandra, so when Reece brought that back up I decided not to respond myself.
Damien tried to break up the argument between Reece and Brit with some good, logical reasoning. - Good for him.
I nod confirmation to Kasey as she talks about the Yeerks - She's grasped the concept well, but I was starting to worry about how she was coping with that...
When she mentions the sign-in sheet, I raise one of my eyebrows in thought: Yes, that piece of paper could prove troublesome... Perhaps I'd need to retrieve it before we could leave here... Of course, I hadn't signed it myself, so at least the Chee should be safe from being tracked down from that list.
Brit was interested in the girl's ear, which was perfectly understandable. As was her reaction to this, considering the ordeal she'd gone through.
As Damien talked through the stuff I'd been saying about Yeerks, I nodded at each relevant point to show him he'd understood correctly.
I shrugged in response to wet-hair girl's question of when I had said things I had not said, but again said nothing myself. They would work it out for themselves, I didn't want to overly-influence what they wanted to do. I would correct any wrong assumption I heard though.
I smiled gratefully at Autumn when she decided she wanted in on the whole morphing-technology thing. So that was one person in the group already convinced then; Two if Brit was included from what he'd said earlier. Now to see how many more would join in...
Reece asked me directly if my parents would let this ramshackle group invade our family-home. I nervously thought how the other Chee might react to this idea - It might constitute a security risk, after all... I had no immediate answer, but tried to make it look like I was thinking over my answer.
Just then, the cell-phones all started ringing. I knew exactly who was calling, of course, because the Chee had already tried to contact me directly over Chee-net and I hadn't responded yet because I was explaining everything to this group of people I hardly knew. I sighed as I lifted my cell and answered the call.
"Hi Jenny." I said, making up a name on the spot. Establishing a direct Chee-net connection simulataneously, I quickly related everything that had happened to us inside the building and after we'd broken out of it. I also tried to assure them our secret identity was still intact and that to do this I was pretending to have Andalite morphing ability. Hopefully they would play-along...
"Your call is pretty-good timing, actually... Me and my new friends were wondering if we could perhaps borrow the Blue-Box?? - I'll put you on speakerphone so you can talk directly with them if you like?" I offered via the phonecall. My simultaneous, private, Chee-net communication channel was still open so they could make any private comments or questions without being overheard by the Humans. Over this channel I added to my vocal request: {Someone please pretend to be a girl about my age with the name of Jenny? I made up the name to protect established Chee identities - She will represent the 'friend' who has been trusted with the secure whereabouts of the Escafil device, if you decide to play-along.}
All this being said; As I pressed the loudspeaker button on my cell, I called out to Damien:
"If that's my dad on the phone, tell him I'm safe and I'll be home for dinner. Oh and tell him to get off my computer? He knows he's not allowed near computers since.... Well, without going into too much detail, suffice to say he got into a bit of trouble for hacking, a while back..." I lied, easily. I figured that way if our new little group ever needed a computer-genius, my 'father' would be high on the list. "Oh, and before you hang up, see if he knows how to disable Cell-GPS chips remotely. If so, he can disable ours for us and we won't have to worry about keeping them switched off." I added as an afterthought.
