"Books?"

"Ack! Books!"

"Homework?"

"I think that's in the book."

"Oh. Well, I suppose you should be off, then."

Blip was making a pretty lame attempt at helping Katherine get ready for school. She didn't really need any, but he liked to feel wanted.

"Right. See you this afternoon, Blip," Katherine called as she headed out the door. Blip floated to a window and watched Katherine for a minute, then hovered off, up to Katherine's room, and onto her bed. He set himself to sleep and turned off his visual. Hey, what else was he going to do?

Everything was quiet for every bit of two seconds. You see, we would not have a story at all if there wasn't the typical norn intervention. There was a whir from Katherine's laptop, and a flash of light from under Katherine's bed.

"OW!"

"Geez, why did she put the HoloDeck under here?"

"Easy storage?"

The usual suspects shinnied out from under the bed.

"Where's Katherine?" Lydia asked, rubbing her head from an apparent bump.

Boggles climbed on the bed. "Here's Blip, but he's kinda dead." He gave Blip a thump or two, just to prove his point. As he was thumping, something out the window caught his eye. "Hey -- it's Katherine!"

One by one, each norn climbed on the bed and peeked out the window. Outside, Katherine could be seen walking to school.

After talking it over, the norns then decided how to spend the day. And if I have to tell you what they decided, you obviously have not read this series long enough.

-----

The band of creatures hid in the bushes, watching kids go in. They'd never imagined so many types of humans. It had sort of occurred to them that different hair and eye colors were possible. But before them were all sorts of skin colors and shapes they'd never seen before. Voices varied greatly, from cracks and squeaks to low pitched sounds. It was a lesson and a half on racial diversity.

Finally, Kass suggested, "Let's go in."

Everyone gently tiptoed out of the bushes and into the school. When they got in, the first thing they saw was a door, with a sign reading 'sign in here'.

"Can anyone read that?" asked Ben.

Jenna stepped close to the door and squinted. "Si-gin ... in ... here. I guess we go in here." She pried the door open with her stick and let everyone in.

In the room was a blond haired lady at a desk, reading a magazine.

"Visitors?" She never looked up.

"Uhm, I guess."

She handed them a small notebook, still not looking.

"Sign this."

The group glanced at each other, and made their best attempt at writing their own names. Granted, Boggles forgot a g and Kass wrote s backwards (twice), but it was a pretty valiant effort. Having the feeling that they had been dismissed, they left to reap havoc on the school.