Evy & Stella #214 (Alix Corinani)

Even though Kitty used Dinosaur Escape Vehicle as a threat to send me to, we ended up playing that first, the three of us taking turns with one in the driver's seat and the others in the shotgun and back seat of the van arcade game. I went first, and somehow achieved a negative point total.

"I'll go next," Zeta said. "I'm close to getting my license, so I bet this'll be good practice."

"It's not really close to actual driving," Kitty said. "Not that I ever need to drive anywhere, I am always escorted wherever I go."

Kitty paused, waiting for us to have a big reaction.

"Uh huh," Zeta said.

"You're supposed to sound more impressed than that," Kitty said.

"Why? Aren't you like all not famous anymore?" Zeta said.

"Fame or not, I'm getting driven around," Kitty said.

I already knew she got taxis or share rides everywhere, and was also one of her drivers. Sometimes she'd get tired of the apps and such and just demand I come get her, and sometimes I wanted to make some extra cash on the weekends and fate would have it that I picked up Kitty when she wanted to go to a club or a movie or something. I did make attempts to join in on whatever she was doing, but was rejected on those.

Maybe things would be different now?

I thought about what I wanted from all this again while Zeta started the game, attempting to dodge raging dinosaurs, zombies, and zombie-dinosaurs.

I guess the main thing would be obviously not messing anything up with Pippi. As long as we're good, I'm good. Greedily it'd be cool to have Kitty in this too, and whoever else. I think a polycule would be fun. But I gotta be careful right? I tend to...not do that. And then things go bad.

As if accentuating my point, Zeta promptly lost the game, crashing into a zombie cyborg dinosaur that exploded, big text reading GAME OVER flashing on the screen in front of us.

"Wow, you suck at this," Kitty snort laughed.

"It's way too tough, come on!" Zeta said.

"OK, you're better than Corinani at least," Kitty said.

"How am I supposed to dodge all of the jumping ones?" Zeta asked.

"Here, my turn, I'll show you two how it's done," Kitty said.

We switched places, starting another round with Kitty driving. I wasn't sure how long Pippi and Stella were gonna take.

"Do you think we should've told your siblings we were splitting up?" I asked.

"Why?" Kitty asked.

"Just feels like kind of a shame to end up hanging out with the Kilanders and then we all split up," I said.

"OK, but we went over us splitting up at the start, right?" Kitty said. "This is just how we do things. We get here, then we do our own thing. It's seriously not a big deal."

"Wait, I should've asked, if all the Kilanders are here, is Oka here too?" Zeta asked.

"No, just me, Berin, Caya, Penteldtam...uh, Reit I think?" Kitty said. "

"You should remember your own family better," I said.

"Whatever, I wasn't even here for them, this was supposed to just be me, you, and Pippi," Kitty said.

Kitty somehow got a high score on the game in her first try, like genuinely the number one spot on the game. We went to go play something else when someone called over.

"Oh, did you run off?"

Zeta pouted, crossing her arms as Evy approached frantically.

"Hey! I didn't this time..." Zeta said. "Just getting babysat over here playing a stupid dinosaur game."

"Ah, sorry," Evy said. "And thanks for...huh?"

Evy only seemed to notice us once she checked that Zeta was OK/hadn't run off.

"How many more people are gonna show up?" Kitty asked. "I'm kidding, as a famous and well connected person, I'm used to meeting all sorts of people at any given outing."

She winked at me, clearly expecting me to have some kind of response. I wasn't sure what to say, so I held my hand out for a high five. After a very lengthy pause, Kitty high-fived me back, I think more just to end the silent stares from Zeta and Evy than actually wanting to high five me.