Renewed Hope for Operation Strix!

Chapter 2: Are We Friends or Not?

Thankfully, when papa woke her up for dinner last night, he had managed to fix mama's mistakes in the kitchen. Whilst it wasn't the best stew she had ever had, it was at least edible. Last night neither mama nor papa brought up her sudden outburst, opting to leave it be for now. They had seemed to want to give her some space, although they were rather confused as to why she was so upset. However it's not like she can exactly tell them, they can't know about her mind-reading abilities, and if they find out then she runs the risk of losing them.

She looks up at her papa who is making one of her favourite breakfasts, bacon and egg rolls. Though nothing will ever beat peanuts, if it were up to her she would have peanuts for breakfast every day! However, papa says that only having peanuts for breakfast is not healthy enough. She was tempted to peer into papa's thoughts to know more about this meeting that he was going to have with her teacher today, but she was a little afraid to know at the same time...so she opts to leave papa be for now. Suddenly, she jolts when papa finally speaks up and places her breakfast in front of her.

"There you go Anya, the bacon extra crispy just the way you like it," Papa says with a smile, a smile she has gotten to know well. Papa was up to something, she didn't need her mind reading to figure that out. Papa has many different smiles, this one was the smile he makes when he wants information out of someone...or has something to say.

"So Anya" Papa says as he takes his usual seat at the table for breakfast, this morning it was just her and papa, mama had to go to work early today "are you feeling better this morning? is there anything on your mind?" he asks with a concerned smile. So papa finally has decided to bring it up.

"Anya is fine papa, why do you ask?" she says with her usual smile, playing dumb.

Papa just sighs "Anya, you know you can tell me anything don't you? I'm here to support you and so is Yor" he tries to persuade her, but she isn't that stupid, papa's spy tricks don't always work on her! Unlike mama, she is practically immune to his spy charms, especially after last night!

"I know papa! But Anya is fine, Anya was just a little frustrated from studying is all! Homework is hard..." she pouts, opting for a half-truth. She has learnt many things about lying from her papa's mind. A good liar mixes some truth with a lie or doesn't tell the whole truth.

"I see...speaking of homework, who would you say is the smartest classmate in your class?" Papa asks, but after she probes his mind a little she gets confused as to why he would ask her that when he already knew the answer to it. She answers anyway.

"Hmmm I would say Sy-on boy, though Becky is surprisingly very smart as well, they are the class rivals. Becky says she can't wait until she wipes Sy-on boy's smug smirk off of his face when she finally beats him" she answers in innocent honesty.

Papa looks at her in surprise and then sweat drops "Oh I see, that's quite the surprising remark from miss Blackbell" he responds a bit awkwardly.

"Narr not really, I'm her only friend in school, apparently she's considered an un-like-able person in the class, which is silly because Sy-on boy's monkeys should be the most un-like-able" she explains having a little trouble with her pronunciation.

"Anya, that isn't a nice thing to say, you should be kinder to your peers, I know that sometimes bullies can be hard to deal with, but try to take what people say with a grain of salt, okay?" he advises her, a soft yet serious look on his face.

"What is a grain of salt going to do?" She pouts, her head tilting in confusion as she finishes up the last of her breakfast, trying to make sure the sauce doesn't spill onto her Eden uniform.

Papa suddenly looks tired again and sighs only to look toward the clock on the wall. He then gets up having already finished his breakfast, a smile replacing the tiredness "let's finish up here, you don't want to miss the bus now do you?" he says as he takes their plates to put them in the sink. As her papa does that she makes her way to her school shoes to put them on, as she does this she opens her mind to papa's thoughts.