Bir wiped the snot off her face with the sleeve of her dress. It was disgusting, but Tom made sure he didn’t react as such. It wasn’t about keeping up his cover, either; it was about her. She had always been fragile around others, and Tom’s heart bled for her. She was the worst person this could have happened to.

The girl sniffed repeatedly. New tears began to form.

“He ate poop,” Pa reminded her.

Tom doubted that Pa, who was almost five, had noticed the same signs he had, but the interjection got through to her.

“Yuck!” She half smiled and wiped the other half of her face. Tom really wanted to push her into a cleaning loop, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen until lunch. “So yuck.”

They all chuckled and then slowly headed back toward the orphanage while pointedly staying on the correct side of the road. Tom realised he didn’t resent the decision to head back to safety. For now, he had no desire to explore further. He didn’t care how big the town was anymore. What he had seen had told him enough. The town’s population was in the thousands, probably tens of thousands, but not higher, but it no longer mattered. What was important was that he was safe. Powerful defences had been set up, and there was more than enough security to let him develop to his full potential without feeling like his life was continually in danger.

He had been expecting to grow up as a kid in a small tribe perpetually running from monsters. Basically, to live in a continual struggle to survive. This outcome was infinitely better.

As they descended from the hill, Tom realised after about ten metres that he was moving far too lightly on his feet, given the discipline he had received. Bir tottered significantly more gingerly, and in response he tapered down his own range of motion and pretended to be just as crippled. Relative to what he had experienced as an adult, the slight discomfort he was in was not enough to slow him down, but little kids had different pain thresholds, so he didn’t blame her for her weakness. She was young, and he knew that his younger self would have been similarly affected. They reached the park and played in the safe spaces outside the orphanage, where they had full rights to be – and, as a bonus, there were no adults in sight to harass them.

Collectively, they were drawn to the cartoon space laser and managed to scramble up to the eighth disk. That left them two stories high, and the fall was onto the hard moulded metal supports of the weapon. The setup combined with the height they had climbed was clearly unsafe, but, unlike on the hill, no one came to tell them off. They were allowed here, and Tom was sure there was some sort of indirect monitoring to make certain they didn’t fall or spells that would save them if they did. Despite his certainty, he was not willing to throw himself off from this elevation to prove that point.

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The day had warmed up, and Pa, being slightly larger, had reached the eleventh disk while he and Bir had got to the tenth.

A bell went off, telling them it was lunchtime, so they retreated inside.

Lunch was fun. It was not a dedicated health day, and there were no adults to direct what they ate, so the full range of exciting unhealthy options were available. Tom gleefully chose pancakes combined with a thick dose of maple syrup and vanilla ice cream. It was a perfect meal, because it agreed with both his and little Ta’s palates.

Having eaten their lunch, they immediately disappeared into the child fortress to hide. They ascended deep into its internals, so that, rather than being positioned to look over the rest of the gymnasium, they were on the far wall instead. It left them as far away from the teachers as possible. From Little Ta’s memories, he knew it was a futile effort, but for appearance’s sake he went along with it anyway. Plus, the poor attempt suited him, since he wanted to get into the isolation room.

While they attempted to be quiet, they played heroes against terrors, whispering the spells each of their figurines used, such as pasta blast, isolation walls and big bird poop.

Croak.

All three of them jumped at the unexpected noise.

They spun as one.

A green frog, larger than his head, was staring at them. Instinctively, because of the presence of a monster, they all tensed up. The figurines were of the hard variety, and Tom held them out like weapons. They were trapped in a dead end. There was no flight here - only fight. Luckily for them, the monster was small.

“Froggy.” Bir said after a moment.

Little Ta’s memories filled in the blanks, and he lowered the figurines. He recognised that it was not a monster, but a familiar. Dimitri’s familiar, to be precise.

Pa was less forgiving. He shoved Cam toward it:

“Pow, pow.”

The frog blinked and then waited.

“Pow, pow,” Pa’s voice became softer, and then trailed into silence and he brought Cam down from the attacking position and into his lap.

It blinked again:

“Follow,” the frog ordered in Dimitri’s voice. “It’s time for your daily isolation room.”

They could have split up and run. If they all went in different directions, one or two of them would have escaped, but they instinctively knew such defiance was pointless. Dimitri finding them like this was a mercy. As usual, he had scheduled for them to all go in at the same time, which for them was the best situation possible, and, if they ran, even if they managed to evade long enough to skip today’s session, it would only mean they would get a double tomorrow. Four hours in the isolation room was more terrible than two sessions on separate days. Not only was it extra boring - they all knew from experience you would spend the last couple of hours with hunger cramps.

The frog hopped ahead of them, and they trailed behind. The route it took was surprisingly direct, and Tom would have to check Little Ta’s memories, but he suspected Dimitri had used magic to speed up the trip by opening up routes that weren’t usually available.

At the bottom of the exit slide, the large man waited.

His eyes still went nowhere near them. There were none of his usual kind words. Instead, he turned and walked away. They watched him.

Croak.

As one, they glanced at the frog.

“Follow.”