“I said they should venn into amphibious forms and swim out to see the Outer Banks, but Mom just smiled and said maybe.”

The Monday after that first Venn trip, Carmen and I left early in the morning and went to Burlington. I venned them into two copies of their usual body, while they venned me into my Kayla form; then we dropped one of their bodies off back on campus to go to class and met up with Guadalupe’s group to carpool to Raleigh for the wetlands bill protest. Adam and one of Ty’s bodies (a tall guy with otter features, not like any of the three bodies I’d seen that weekend) joined us in Carmen’s car, and we had a lot of fun conversation on the way there and back again. The protest was the first thing of its kind I’d ever participated in, and it was super invigorating, but kind of terrifying at first, to join the big crowd outside the capital building holding a sign saying “Protect Our Pocosins.” (Someone mentioned that one of the older, retired protesters had venned into a big stack of blank protest signs, which some of their friends had lettered and decorated with markers and paint on Sunday afternoon. When the venn wore off, the signs would disappear — perfect recycling.)

Several speakers from different environmental organizations, both political activists and scientists, gave short speeches, and the whole thing lasted about three or four hours. The police stood around looking variously suspicious, benevolent, condescending or menacing, but never started any trouble. Several of us from UNCG ate a late lunch at the State Farmer’s Market Restaurant before carpooling back to campus.

March progressed and got a little warmer, not that it mattered to me except on Wednesdays when I sometimes ate breakfast with Carmen in human form, or Saturdays when I sometimes joined the Venn trips as “Kayla.” I made a lot of progress in my high school studies, finishing up most of the courses I’d been working on before the end of the month and starting in on another set of self-study courses. After meeting Bailey a couple more times, I trusted my identity to them as well as Serena, and got to know both of them better. I got to know some of the other regular venners like Adam, Ty and Drew better, but didn’t trust them with my real name and history, continuing to interact with them only as “Kayla;” I felt conflicted about that, but Carmen advised me to be extremely cautious about who I trusted.

Then April arrived, and my seventeenth birthday approached. It would fall on a Saturday, and I tentatively suggested celebrating it with the Venn group in Burlington, but Carmen nixed the idea.

“You can’t say Kayla has the same birthday as you,” they said. “And I can’t go on the Venn trips for the next couple of Saturdays anyway, because I’ve got term papers to finish. We’ll do something nice, though, I promise.”

So my birthday arrived. Carmen spent the morning working on their Human Rights in History term paper, and I studied world history for my GED. Carmen went to the caf for lunch a little after noon. About one o’clock, I heard the key in the lock, and though I figured Carmen was probably returning alone, it wasn’t unlikely they had a friend other than Bailey or Serena with them, so I climbed off my book and froze into my usual position. Then the door swung open and not just Carmen but four other people quickly walked (or flew) in. At first glance, I only recognized one of them, Sophia.

Carmen closed the door behind them and I looked closer at the others. “Surprise!” they all called out, and “Happy birthday, Lauren!”

When I took a closer look, the foot-high porcelain doll was obviously Meredith. She had the same color hair and a very similar face, though her porcelain skin was much paler than Meredith’s usual skin tone. She wore an old-fashioned ball gown in some dark red fabric.

The other two were venned into unusual enough forms that I wasn’t sure who was who, but I figured one must be Serena and the other Bailey — the only other people who knew who I was. One was a pixie about as tall as my dragon-statue body, with wings as wide as she was high, bat-like in structure but with brightly colored patterns like a butterfly’s, barefoot and wearing an artfully tattered blue dress. She fluttered into the room and alighted right next to me on the desk. The other was as tall as a toddler, but not with childlike proportions; more like an adult woman scaled down to toddler size, with three breasts showcased in a low-cut dress, and three arms — a normally proportioned one on the right and two smaller ones on the left.

Sophia, now that I thought about it, seemed to be shorter than when I’d last seen her. It was hard to be sure, since I’d never seen her and Carmen together to compare them before.

“This is so awesome!” I squeed, standing up on my hind legs and waving at them. “I recognize Meredith and Sophia, but which of you are which?”

“I’m Bailey,” the bat-pixie said, and the scaled-down woman added, “I’m Serena.”

“It’s so great to see you all at once! I guess Carmen invited you?”

“Yeah, I sent Meredith a letter about it,” Carmen said.

“We met up with Serena and Bailey in the common room so we could all knock on the door at once,” Sophia added. “And Carmen said their room was tiny — you weren’t kidding, were you? — so I venned Meredith into something small and she made me about as short as I could be and still drive safely.”

“And we venned into little bodies too,” Bailey added, “so there should be room for all six of us to sit on the bed.”

“Good thinking,” I said.

“And I brought games,” Sophia said, hefting the big shopping bag she was carrying.

“Set that on the desk and let’s see what you brought,” Carmen said, so Sophia set down the bag next to me and Bailey and started going through the bag. She’d brought a deck of regular playing cards, Escalation, Fluxx, Chrononauts, Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, Alhambra, and a set of double twelve dominoes.

We wound up playing about three different games, and then just chatted about various things until Meredith and Sophia had to leave. Serena and Bailey stayed a while longer, and we watched a couple of short indie movies. Finally, late in the evening, they said goodbye as well, and Carmen and I were alone.

“That was a great birthday party,” I said, hugging them. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” they said. “I hoped it would at least be okay. I talked with Serena about maybe having it at a restaurant or a park in High Point or Burlington, but we decided we could talk more freely about your situation, if that topic came up, if we were here in my dorm room rather than in a public place. She convinced me I could host it if I had all the guests venn down into smaller bodies.”

“That was neat,” I said. “One of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.”

“And hopefully next year will be even better,” they said.

* * *

The end of the semester approached and Carmen was busier than ever finishing their term papers and studying for finals. I think we only went on one of the Venn trips in those last few weeks, and some Wednesdays, they didn’t get going early enough to take me to High Point and venn me into a necklace, because they’d stayed up late studying on Tuesday. Then May arrived, and final exams, and after Carmen’s last exam, they packed everything up to go home.

I spent the first day or so after they returned home reading in their bedroom. They’d had to return most of the books I was studying to the university library at the end of the semester, but I was comfortably ahead of schedule in every subject, so I kicked back and read short stories and novels while Carmen hung out with their sister and caught up with her (and did several loads of laundry).

Then, Sunday evening, Carmen and I went to the Fisherman’s Cove in Brocksboro for supper. Meredith was Carmen’s waitress, and when she clocked out, she served herself an employee meal and joined us at our booth. Carmen’s messenger bag was on the table, situated where I could look out of the un-zipped gap, and when Meredith sat down, she strategically placed her purse where I could crawl out of Carmen’s bag and into it without anybody seeing me, which I proceeded to do.

“Here’s the books I borrowed from you,” Carmen said. She was actually giving Meredith a small grocery sack with the books I’d bought on our outings to Burlington or High Point or that I’d gotten for my birthday, plus a couple of notebooks I’d filled with tiny print while studying, my wallet, phone and SIM card.

“Thanks,” Meredith said. “It’s not much over a month since I saw you, but it seems longer. How were your finals?”

“I think I did okay; I’ll find out soon enough. Anything new going on here?”

“Not really. Sophia and I have been busy with term papers and studying for finals, too, but we’ve got a few more weeks till they’re due. Mom and Dad are going off for their anniversary in a few weeks and if you ask me, I think they’re going to do a lot of venning. I looked up the bed and breakfast in Elizabeth City they’re staying at and it’s like five minutes’ walk from the Venn machine on the wharf.”

“Good for them.”

“I said they should venn into amphibious forms and swim out to see the Outer Banks, but Mom just smiled and said maybe.”

“Have you got any plans for while your parents are out of town?”

“Not really. I’ll be working my usual hours and studying the rest of the time — that’s only a week before finals. Mom and Dad made us promise not to go on dates that weekend or have our boyfriends over.”

They talked for a while longer about their plans for the summer, never directly alluding to me, but occasionally glancing my way. Finally, they hugged and Meredith went out to her car, after peeking into her purse to make sure I was there.

“Welcome back, Lauren,” she said as she cranked the engine of her car.

“You haven’t had any more trouble with the police?” I asked, climbing out of the purse onto the passenger seat.

“No, they never talked to us again after that time they interviewed us after school. How’s life at UNCG been treating you?”

“It’s been pretty neat, even with all the restrictions involved in keeping my presence and identity secret from most people. It’s given me a taste for college life.”

She smiled. “You’ll get to gratify that taste again in about a year.”

“One way or another, sooner or later.”

I still hadn’t figured out exactly what I was going to do once I turned eighteen. The time between my eighteenth birthday and the beginning of various schools’ fall semesters would barely be enough time to take my GED, file college applications, and take entrance exams in the best-case scenario. And then there was the matter of applying for grants and loans. More likely, I’d have to put off starting college for a year — which would give me a year to work full-time and save money for college. Assuming I had a place to stay.

We returned to Meredith’s house and I crawled back into her purse.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mr. Ramsey said as she came in. His voice was younger than it used to be, too. “How was your visit with Carmen?”

“It was nice to see them again.”

“I expect you filled up already, but if you want some dessert, your mom and I made brownies.”

“Oooh, yum!” I heard Meredith rummaging around in the kitchen some for a minute or two before she went to her bedroom, set her purse down, and opened it.

“Is it okay if I eat this in front of you?” she asked. She was holding a little plate with a brownie on it.

“Sure,” I said, crawling out of the purse onto her desk. “I don’t get hungry in this form, so I don’t really miss eating that much.”

“Okay,” she said, and chowed down.

My new 22k-word novella, “Smart House AI in Another World”, is available now as an epub and pdf from itch.io. It will appear on Scribblehub, BigCloset etc. in a few months.

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