Oh. Uh. 

"I think they are? But I'm not actually sure? There was a lot of shouting happening at the time, right? And I was with this mean woman, who looks a lot like Hsien, but with more tails? I've seen her on the wanted posters. I think she's her mom? And then I kinda fell through a portal, and Mr. Chan found me!

"They'd look like me! And one of them would have a ball! Unless…"

She can think of a lot of small things she can turn into, right? Like mice, or squirrels, or if you wanna be gross about it, something like a flea? Could she manage a flea?

And then once she's small, it's like. You can always go smaller, but you need space if you wanna go bigger, so if you're small and someone's fast, they could just, like, toss a cup over the top of you, slip some paper over the bottom, and you're stuck in there until you can lift the cup! Which is not an easy thing when the cup is bigger than you!

And that's not even thinking about like, what if they turned into trees? She could walk past them in the park, and she wouldn't notice!

Well, she. She'd probably notice, because then they'd turn back into lions, and she'd get cuddles. Unless she got scolding! Or maybe, cuddles and then scolding and cuddles again? That doesn't sound too bad, but it'd be nicer to just get cuddles and then more cuddles.

"They'd be animals," she decides. "And probably the mean lady would wanna put collars on them, since that keeps them from transforming because I don't know why. And there'd be two of them, probably, and she wouldn't wanna let them get too far out of her sight.

"I think. I know it's not a lot but…"

Wow, it really [i]isn't[/i] a lot. Not in a city this size. They could be in the next apartment over--you know, the one over the place that makes all the nice-smelling dumplings?--and she wouldn't even know it.

"Do you think… I'm realizing now it's gonna be super hard to find them. D'you think, maybe, if we showed me off, it'd trick the mean lady into coming to try and find me? So we can chase her back and find my parents?"