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"You are... growing crystals!"

"Nope, not that either."

Emeral huffed as she and Ket arrived at his door. "It can't be Egyptian-related, that's too easy."

He pulled out his key. "It is," he replied.

"What!?" She raised her hands up in animated surprise. "You said it was something unusual!"

"Unusual for other people, maybe," he clarified, twisting the knob to open the door. "Not unusual for me," he smiled, letting her pass first.

"Hey guys," Momma R. said, coming to the kitchen after hearing the door open. "Gonna show her your hieroglyphics?" She watched as the white tiger's face lit up.

"Moooom," Ket groaned. "I was tryin' to make her guess."

The mother tigress held up her hands by her shoulders innocently. "Oopsie," she said. "Well, hey, since I caught you guys, you want me to make you anything to eat before I head to the hobby store?"

The tiger looked to his friend. "Um... I'm not hungry, you?"

Emeral shrugged. "We can scrounge if we get rumbly-tumblys," she said, patting her belly.

"Okay. Did the wood I get you work okay, kiddo?" She asked her son.

He nodded. "It works great. Does it cost a lot?"

"It's twenty-percent off, so not as much as it would," she told him. "Emmy? Do you need me to get anything for you while I'm there?"

"Um... I haven't decided what I'm gonna make, yet," she admitted. "I wanted to make first-aid kits, but mom says that's not really appropriate..."

"It's a nice idea, but the point is to be crafty," Momma R. responded. "Well, maybe Ket can help you think of something," she went to get her keys from the drawer by the door. "I'll see you guys later. Lock the door behind me?"

Her son nodded as she passed through, twisting the bolt to lock the door. "Well," he said, motioning to the stairs. "You wanna see?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded, letting him lead. She followed, excited to see his Market Day project in-the-works. She wasn't too keen on the day itself, as arts and crafts wasn't something her family really did. Selling wasn't, either, but she didn't want to make any remarks about that since Momma R. worked as a checker on the weekends.

Though the surprise of his project was ruined, there was still a shock awaiting her within the den. As they surmounted the stairs, Ket obstructed her view, but as he stepped out of the way, she met the plush gaze of the cartoonish, stuffed Sphinx.

She gasped with a grin. "Tutty!" She squealed, dropping her backpack and skipping over to the kid-height-tall stuffed animal. "Oh my gosh! Where'd you find another one?"

Ket set his backpack down, and made his way over to the couch, where he had a stack of newspapers sitting on the cushions that he moved to the floor. "It's not another one," he replied.

Emeral touched the fuzzy fabric of the Sphinx's chin, and looked around its nose. There, just to the side, she made out a mark that was just slightly tinged darker, in the shape of a pair of lips.

The kiss she had given it on Valentine's day, when she had worn lipstick.

Tutty, the very same.

She touched along the fabric, recalling how she had seen the poor thing with its neck and body sliced open, stuffing spewed out like blood. Her fingertips traced over a very thin seam, barely-felt. She tilted her head, and gazed at it, using her thumb and forefinger to gently pull astride the seam she felt. It was there, but as thin as could possibly be.

"You got him repaired," she said, more like a half-question. She looked and touched about him more, guided by vague memories of where she had seen him gutted like a murder-victim from a movie she glimpsed her mom and dad watching a few nights ago.

"Yeah," the tiger replied, sitting up and joining his girlfriend at the Sphinx. "Mom knows someone who's pretty good at sewing."

"Pretty good," the tigress scoffed, as if the use of the word was an insult. "My aunt is pretty good at sewing. This is crazy, I wouldn't have known this was a repair if I hadn't seen him torn up with my own eyes."

"So you don't think Lyza would notice?" Ket asked. "I don't want her to know that happened... I kinda feel like it would make her really sad."

"She won't notice," the tigress reassured, tracing over another seam that she realized was square patch that had been sewn to make up for a part that must have been too frayed to repair on its own. The swatch of fabric was nearly identical, right down to the direction of the grain. He was smiling when she looked to him, and she smiled back. "So... I came to see your project," she reminded.

He stood up, and went over to the table beside the couch. "It's not really anything special," he said.

She made her way to the couch, sitting upon the cushions. "Well, I still wanna see." She watched him pick up a thin square piece of wood from off the table, and straightened up as he sat next to her.

The square piece was about as big as two index cards. When he handed it to her, it was light and frail, given how thin it was. On its face were the hieroglyphs.

At the bottom of the symbols was what looked like a man. He sat facing to the right, with one hand at his chin while the other was slack behind him. One knee was raised.

Above the man were four other symbols, from top-right to bottom-left: there was a long line with an upside-down w on top of it; then, a very narrow circle with pinched edges, that looked like the start of a drawing of an eye; followed by a bird with skinny legs, facing the same direction as the man beneath it; and, finally, a half-circle, that looked like a little hill.

Each of the symbols was carved into the wood, presumably by his whittling knife. She could see the imperfect contour of his cuts, as wood-colored spots peeked through the dark-brown paint he had traced over the symbols to make them stand out.

It was simple, elegant, and, as far as she knew, easy to do.

"Like I said, nothing special," he repeated.

"But... Is it a word?" She asked.

"Um... Yeah." He made to hold the wood. "So my idea is to do single-word plates with different shapes of wood. This is just a prototype, to see if the wood and paint would work," he explained.

"This is merouet," he said, the ou more like a slurred w; "the word for love; or, as close as I can guess that's how it's said."

She tilted her head. "What do you mean by 'as close as you can get?'" She asked.

He pointed to the four symbols. "Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics didn't record vowels. This," he pointed to the top-right symbol, "is the baker's tool, which is an m," he explained. "This is actually a vertical word," he told her, tracing his finger from top to bottom of the slate. "If this was horizontal," he traced across the symbols, "then this first one would be a plinth... Kinda looks like a fallen-over letter A. Um, and the more common hieroglyph is an owl, but that one's hard to draw, so..."

She blinked, a meek smile on her face.

"Then, um, this one," he pointed to narrow circle, "is the mouth, and is the letter r. Then," he pointed to the bird, "this is the quail chick, probably the easiest bird to do. This is kind of the letter w, but not really--it's hard to explain, it's like between that and ou sound in could.

"And then this one is the loaf--like, of bread--which is a t." He moved his finger to the symbol at the bottom. "And last, is the thinking man pointing at his head," he tapped it. "Not all hieroglyphs stand for a letter. There are a ton, like this one, that add extra meaning to the word. In this case, the thinking man shows that this is a word of feeling, or expression.

"So," he concluded, "Egyptologists have sort of come up with guesses as to how the words were actually pronounced, based on other languages and stuff like that. Oh, also," he pointed at the symbols in order again. "I made all these face to the right, which means you read them from right to left, and since it's vertical you go from top to bottom, right to left."

When he finally took a breath, and looked up to her, he saw the half-smile on her face. She was staring at the wood, but he got the feeling she wasn't looking at it. He winced. "Did... did that answer your question?"

Her eyes flitted to him, and she let out a breathy chuckle. Before he could react, her lips pecked his cheek. "Meryoit," she said, trying to mimic his pronunciation of the word as best she could.

* * *

"Hey sisseroo," Kval bid, as Lyza passed into the kitchen, her gown and silent feet making her as a baby-blue ghost drifting through the halls.

She shuffled to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of chocolate milk. "More colleges?" She asked, noting the book he had open on the kitchen table. "Oh, wait, it's finals isn't it?"

He nodded, as she popped the top off her bottle. "Why're you up? Ms. Hupp making you study for finals too?" He joked.

She gulped the milk down in one fell swoop, sucking in a breath when she finished. "It's really humid, and there's a cricket outside my window that won't be quiet." She went to the sink to rinse out the bottle for recycling.

"Have you tried asking it politely to stop?"

"I'm about to send him a note or two to scare him off."

He chuckled. "Yeah, guess that'd work, too."

"So..." His sister approached, looking at the book he had open, and the notes he was taking. "When are the finals for the classes around your off-period?"

"Um... Let's see," he pulled his binder over, flipping through a few sheets until he found his calendar. "Looks like on Monday I have a final the class before. Thursday is the one after. Why?" He asked, setting his calendar back down.

"I was... thinking of asking Rini if her mom could take me home those days, so you don't have to rush, or whatever."

He looked at her for a few seconds, and then smiled. "Well, that's very thoughtful of you," he extended his arm out. When she shuffled closer to him, he gave her a hug. "I'll be happy to pick you up, though. You're more important to me than my finals," he added.

She looked away at his words out of nervousness. "Well, I still have to ask her, so... We'll see." She replied, noncommittally.

"You lemme know," he said with a nod.

She started to drift away, but paused at the plate that divided wood from tile. "Hey, um..." Her brother looked up from his book again. "I know you probly wanna study this weekend, but... Maybe we could go to the zoo?"

His ears twitched, and he tapped his pen in thought. "Yeah, sure," he smiled. "That sounds fun. We still need to do something with Ket and Emmy, so maybe they can come along." He set his pen down, leaning back to stretch a little. "Heck, maybe we should invite Rini, too, as a thanks for taking you home--if she does," he winked.

At that, the little rabbit looked reluctant. "Um... I kinda... just want it to be a me-and-you thing," she said. "Like... I can ask you questions about the animals, and you can answer them?"

He looked up at the lights.

"Besides," she added, "wouldn't that cost a lot of money, to take all of us?"

He frowned. "Nah, don't worry about stuff like that. But, if you want it to be just a you-and-me, it can be just a you-and-me. But, you haven't hung out with anyone in a while," he thought. "Can't remember the last time Emmy was over."

"I hang out during school," she told him, in a way that almost managed to convince herself it was true. "Summer is coming up, anyway."

"Ultimate hang-out time," he remarked, sitting back up. "Well, scare off that cricket and get to bed, okay?"

"You too. Don't stay up too late studying," she said with a wave.

He nodded, and turned the page in his book. "Said the pot to the kettle," he murmured to himself.