The changes had baffled most of the researchers who were trying to study him until one of them, a female, had pointed out that Tuffy now looked, “well, cool.” When Tuffy had first appeared, and for many years thereafter, Mimi had needed comfort. She was a child and needed a teddy bear, or spider in this case, to hug and keep away the nightmares.

Puberty had changed that. Mimi had suffered few of the extreme mood swings of that period in life, but she had changed, nonetheless. She had “put away childish things” and in keeping with that, perhaps, Tuffy had morphed to be more of what a young teenager, recently a child but now exploring the world of adulthood, needed, somebody cool and Tuff looking.

Or he might just be aging. Nobody really knew. Except Tuffy and, maybe, Mimi, and they weren’t talking.

“Okay, okay,” Mimi said with an exasperated sigh.

She got up and walked into the living room where Mrs. Wilson was vacuuming with the TV on in the background.

“Aunt Vera,” Mimi said over the sound of the vacuum.

“Mimi,” Vera said, shutting off the machine. Vera Wilson was a heavyset woman in her forties, currently wearing a muumuu since the Wilsons kept the thermostat high to save energy. “You’re dressed nice for school.”

“I’m not going,” Mimi said. “Tuffy has told me I have to go visit someone. Today.”

“You’re… what?” Vera Wilson asked, confused. Since taking Mimi in she had found her to be a very biddable and charming young lady, the daughter she’d never had. Mimi had never asked to skip school and had certainly never back talked or said anything this… strange. “What do you mean you’re not going to school?”

“Tuffy has something that I need to do,” Mimi said, calmly but definitely. “I need to go visit someone and then… well, I’ll probably be gone for a while. But there will be adults who will talk to you about it. But I have to leave now, this morning; we have a transfer from the gateport at ten. And there’s a taxi on the way.”