Building 3 was the center of life on the Martian colony. Or at least, it had been ever since the death of all of the adult population, over 10 Martian years (18 Earth years) ago. The surviving children, from Liam and Olivia (the oldest) on down to Harper and Alexander (the youngest), had lived there nearly all the time for the first few months, as they helped each other figure out how to grow food, keep the machinery of the Colony operating, and communicate with Earth to find out everything they needed to know to survive. Unlike most of the other buildings, which were concrete boxes with few if any windows, Building 3 was a long series of geodesic domes, mostly transparent. Each triangular section of the domes was a sandwich of several layers of glass and thin polymer, that let in sunlight but kept out most of the harmful radiation. All of these domes, except one on each end, were filled with plants. Dorothy's father, Liam, was the second oldest Martian, and he was the one most responsible for keeping the plants growing (although he got a lot of help with that at planting and harvest times). Those plants, were what had kept them alive for most of the last 18 (Earth) years. The plants in Building 3 served another purpose, though, and that was to improve the atmosphere, both literally and metaphorically. The green plants created some of the oxygen that they depended on to breathe (the rest coming from an algae-based CO2 scrubber in Building 18), but it also lifted their spirits. It was the place where they all gathered together, because it had the most light and the plants gave it a feeling of life and growth, more than any other place in the Colony. However, the orphans, as they grew up (and coupled up), had moved back out into the residential buildings of the Colony to sleep, instead of sleeping all in one group in Building 3 as they had before. Some had moved back into the apartment they had lived in (or that their partner had lived in) when their parents were still there. Some, like Olivia and Liam, stayed away from the site of so many memories, and moved into an apartment that had belonged to one of the many adults who evacuated back to Earth because they had no children on Mars to keep them there. No one had yet broached the subject of whether or not it was allowed to move into an apartment that somebody else had been in as a child, if they didn't want it for themselves; there were enough options to avoid that question. The Colony population had been well over 150 at one time. Now, there were only the 20 Orphans (as the now-adult oldest generation of Martians were called, even though a very few of them still had parents, on Earth), and the ten children who had been born since then. The largest building besides 3, and last one built, was 29, and it had been the crowning achievement of the Martian colony in the last ten years, that they had repaired and restructured it. They even retrofitted it with a "water roof", with some design help from Earth. This was essentially a fish farm on top of the roof, tanks able to hold over a meter of water. Eventually, it would be used to raise fish, providing a new food source. Not that there were any fish, yet. But, a new spaceship was on its way from Earth, the first one in many years, and among many other things, it would be bringing fish eggs. And also, new people. "Ok, let's start Circle now," said Olivia, as soon as most of the adults had arrived in Building 3. Circle, as it was called, was a daily meeting where the business of the Colony was discussed. When it was only the Orphans, it was a literal circle of people sitting down, talking over what had happened that day and what to do tomorrow. As things progressed, and there was less of a sense of imminent crisis, there had been discussion of whether or not to discontinue it. They had not, or at least most of them had not. The compromise that had been arrived at, was that everyone would be present at the beginning of Circle. Those who did not wish to stay for long, would help Charlotte prepare food for the evening meal, or the very young would leave to play. "Agenda?" asked Oliver, who was one of those who always stayed until the end. He stood next to their prized possession, a chalkboard and chalk (made from ground eggshells, wheat flour, and beet juice). There had been objections to the idea of using some of their precious flour on something other than food, but Oliver had convinced them all that having an easy way to write something temporary (like a meeting's agenda) would be worth it. The others had not really been convinced (couldn't they just use a shared file that they viewed on their tablets?), but Oliver was generally well liked, so they gave way. "Water harvest for the Building 29 roof," said Olivia. "All-hands work session for the semiconductor fab," said Lucas. "Reception for the newcomers," said Emma. Everyone looked at her, and they were all silent for a long moment. Everyone knew that there was a new ship coming, and that it would have new people on it (and even a few former residents returning), but the idea of planning how they should be received had not occurred to most of them as a question that needed to be answered. They had, it should be noted, never received guests before. "Well, I think it's something we need to talk about ahead of time, and they'll be here soon," she said. Then, looking at Olivia, she added, "We can talk about it after everything else, if you want." Dorothy had only recently realized that when Emma said Olivia could do something, "if you want", it actually meant, "I really think you should". Olivia was, by general consensus, the leader and ultimate decision maker, not only because she was oldest but also because she was both technically savvy and also a good listener. She was also calm enough to wait until everyone had their say, before pronouncing her opinion, so that sort of naturally caused her to have the final word. Neither Oliver nor Elijah nor Ava, for example, could ever have waited that long to chime in. But Emma, who rarely spoke up in Circle at all, did seem (Dorothy had realized) to be able to convince Olivia of just about anything, if she wanted to. Perhaps it was because she so rarely gave her opinion? Or, Dorothy remembered, perhaps it was because Olivia and Emma had been each other's first and best friends since early childhood. "Ok then," said Oliver, having written all three topics on his precious chalkboard, "anything else?" Already, some of the teenagers were starting to slide away. Dorothy wondered if Emma had wanted to talk about how to receive the newcomers from the arriving spaceship as the last topic, in order to make it likely that fewer people would stick around for it. The thought of it almost made her curious enough to stay, but just the thought of talking about the water harvest (yet again) drained all energy from her, and she slipped away to join the other adolescents. Well, not all of them; her brother Raymond was staying. He seemed to be drawn to boring topics, she thought. And, her mother would probably approve of him being "responsible" and staying to listen to the Circle discussion. Dorothy winced a bit, and almost turned back, but then she saw her best friend Mildred, who smirked and rolled her eyes as she slipped away from Circle into the greenery of Building 3. Dorothy grinned to herself and hurried to follow. The last dome in Building 3, furthest away from where Circle happened, was where "new soil" was made. That was the term for when it was halfway between actual soil and what it was before, which was excrement, vegetable scraps, and a bit of Martian dust. It didn't exactly smell like sewage any more, but it didn't exactly not smell like sewage, either. Once it didn't smell like sewage at all, it was no longer "new soil", and was instead just soil, and it was used for growing crops in the domes in between where Circle happened (at one end), and where "new soil" happened (at the other). More recently, there were a few potted plants, mostly herbs like basil and sage and rosemary and mint, that were now grown in other buildings, near the very few (and rather small) windows that existed in some of them. But, when the new soil wasn't yet ready for any of that, no one particularly wanted to spend any more time close to it than was necessary. Unless, of course, you were looking for a place where you could talk to your friends, without any of your parents likely to come by, nor any of your younger siblings. Then, it was perfect, and the slight bad smell was an advantage because it kept most people away. Occasionally, Dorothy or Mildred or Eugene or Stanley would refer to their little group as the "new soil crew". The many ways you could interpret that, were not lost on them. On the way there, Dorothy passed by "play Circle", which was where the younger kids imitated what they saw the adults doing. Dorothy saw Melvin (age 9 in Earth years), Clarence (age 8), Lillian (age 7), her sister Ruth, and Josephine (age 2, and really too young to know what they were doing). It looked like Melvin was still directing "play Circle", but he did it by telling others what they should say, as if they were actors in a play. Which, Dorothy realized, they basically were. Play Circle was an old tradition, roughly as old as Circle. Dorothy remembered how proud she had been when Harper (the youngest of the Orphans generation) had moved on to real Circle, and told her she should lead Play Circle. Back then (only a couple years ago, but it felt like a long time to Dorothy), she had still imagined that she would grow up to be a leader like her mother. Now, she moved quickly past the youngsters, who were sitting on the ground with green plants on the tables all around them, and caught up to Mildred just as she reached the new soil room. Eugene was already there. Eugene was the same age as her younger brother Raymond, but he seemed both older in some ways, and younger in others. He was taller, stronger, more confident, and more assertive. He was also a lot more often in trouble, and a lot less often acting in a way that Olivia would have described as "mature". He was the son of Oliver and Charlotte, but neither of them had his rambunctious, unfocused, wild energy, which seemed to make it impossible for him to sit still. It occurred to Dorothy that she was not the only one who didn't feel like she was living up to her parents' example, until she realized quickly that this was not the kind of question that Eugene would ever bother thinking about. She envied him. "What do you think the Earthlings will be like?" asked Mildred, who had taken her seat on a crate. The "new soil" dome didn't have a lot of furniture, so they made do with the containers used to carry between Building 2 (the sewage treatment plant) and here. After, of course, cleaning them off more thoroughly than any other cleaning they ever did for their own rooms. "I don't know. I hope they like racing, and maybe wrestling!" said Eugene, who was climbing up on a stack of several crates and then leaping off, rolling onto the floor, and then getting up to do it again. "They won't, Eugene, they're all adults, who don't do stuff like that; they're not bringing any young ones," said Dorothy. "You don't know that!" said Eugene, without looking up as he clambered back up onto the stack of crates. What is he even trying to do, thought Dorothy. "Yes I do know that, they told us," said Dorothy. "Adults only." "Oh, oh well, maybe they'll be boring then," he said, and leaped into the air a second time, falling and rolling, then getting up, as if it were a move he were practicing. If Dorothy had said something so incorrect, she thought, it would have at least given her a moment's pause. More likely, she would have been embarrassed about it and tried to make excuses or argue, and then run over the conversation again and again in her head that night. Not Eugene, he just carried on, shrugging it off like he shrugged off the scrapes and bruises that he gave himself as he bashed his way through the Colony's buildings. "Why don't they bring their kids, anyway?" said Mildred, as Dorothy took a seat on the crate next to her. "Maybe we could ask Harper," said Dorothy. "How long before she leaves Circle, do you think?" "Not until Mom's done talking about the water harvest," said Dorothy regretfully. Harper had been Olivia's "younger", back when each of the older Orphans had to look after one of the younger kids. It was a bond somewhat like being siblings, somewhat like being parent and child. This made Harper somewhat like a young aunt, for Dorothy. "That water harvest, I'm so tired of hearing about it," said Mildred. "Ok, so when there's a water eruption, we go suck it up into the tank, and we bring it back here. Done." "But that's not what this one is going to be like," said Dorothy, who realized that Mildred had been listening even less than she had. "They're going to drive the tanker up to the polar ice cap, and get water ice, and bring it back. They're trying to fill up all the reservoirs before the spaceship arrives. They've made several new watertank trailers, to hold it all during one single trip." "Oh," said Mildred, who looked slightly embarrassed for a moment, then grinned at Dorothy and shrugged. "Whatever. Maybe you should lead Circle, you can get it done in like five minutes and then more of us would be willing to listen to it all." Dorothy felt a brief flush of pride at being able to explain something to somebody else, and quickly quashed it before it gave her ideas of being a success in life. That way lay only disappointment, she reminded herself, not so much in words as a general pattern that she had absorbed over the last year or two. Back in the actual Circle, most of the talking was done by Oliver, Noah, Ava, and Elijah. These were, roughly speaking, two optimists and two pessimists, who made a good mix for neither rejecting an idea too quickly nor embracing it too blithely. It did, however, take a while. Some of the adults, led by Charlotte, left almost immediately to begin cooking the evening meal that all of the Colony still shared together. The other adults mostly listened, occasionally asked questions, but let others do the talking. Emma was always in this group, and often Lucas, though he did speak up if the topic related to the servers or the semiconductor fab. Liam stayed, but rarely spoke much, although Olivia and he often exchanged looks, as if they were communicating without speech. Which, in a sense, they were, although it was usually just a message like "ooh, did you hear that part? that part was important". Then, at some point, Olivia would decide that the conversation had gone as far as it needed to and people were just beginning to repeat themselves or bicker, and she would say something like, "Well, I guess it sounds like we should...", and announce what would happen. It was rare that her decisions were disputed. If they were, Liam would almost inevitably back her. When they had all been younger, the fact that Olivia and Liam were the two oldest (and thus biggest) had been decisive. As they all became adults, Olivia retained her position, mostly because her decisions had almost always turned out to be good ones. She had no official title or position, she was the leader of the group because she had assumed that role when most of the rest of them were too young to do it, and Liam was too quiet and introverted. She kept it, because it had worked. "Ok, then," she said, "it sounds like we should do it after Oliver and Ava get the rover spare parts kit completed, which it sounds like will be the day after tomorrow. I wish there were time to make double backups for everything, but that would take way too long and we need to get this done before the new ship shows up, because they would like to get the fish eggs into the water roof as quickly as possible. We don't know if the eggs will be viable no matter what, but the smaller the delay before we can put them into the water the better. So we're going to have to go with just single spare parts for everything, not double backups." Elijah and Ava, who were worried about the rover breaking down in some way that could not be repaired on such a long trip, grimaced but appeared not to be overly upset at having "lost" the argument. Emma had the impression that sometimes they simply felt they needed to argue against whatever was being proposed, because it was their role to do so. Well, in the case of Elijah, since she had lived with him for 8 Martian (14 Earth) years, and was currently pregnant with their fourth child, she knew him well enough to know this for certain. He hated being the one to say "let's do this", and felt far more at ease when he could point out all possible problems, safe in the knowledge that if his arguments were not sufficiently convincing, the optimists (and the ones like Olivia and Liam who were in between) would not give up on a good idea. Ava, thought Emma, mostly just likes to say snarky things, and that works a lot better when you're poking holes in a plan than when you're proposing it. She had occasionally wondered what arguments between her and Noah, back at their apartment, were like. Some day she would find the right time and place to ask Mildred or Clarence about it. The Circle discussion moved on to Lucas' plan for an "all hands" work session in the semiconductor fab, Building 28. Most of the time, Lucas could keep it running on his own, or with just Amelia to help, but once a year or so it needed many hands, for a round of deep-cleaning-and-preventive-maintenance. It had been a major step forward when Lucas had gotten the fab running again, about 5 Earth years ago, and produced replacement chips for several of the servers which had stopped working, as well as other electronics in the Colony that were starting to show their age. No one else but Lucas was as obsessive-compulsive and willing to check and double-check every detail, to not only keep the fab running successfully but also to keep from killing himself (there were a lot of potential dangers in the semiconductor fab). But for a single day, most of them could bear down and follow every rule, complete every step in every checklist, and triple-check everything that needed checking, before going back to their previous, in some ways more forgiving life, doing whatever their self-appointed task was. Plants could be finicky, but Liam naturally took to growing them, and there was usually more than one way to get things done. Noah kept the sewage treatment plant and water recycling of Building 2 going, which also provided the soil that their food grew in. As he often pointed out though, the real work was done by the microbes, and they had needs but often if you forgot one step there was a way to rescue the situation; it was really a lot like Liam growing plants. Charlotte needed to cook food that was safe, nutritious, and tasty enough that they would eat it, but a good cook could respond nimbly to something going wrong, with a countermeasure that could make it turn out to be soup after all. But Lucas was the one best suited for silicon, which unlike the organic world, tolerated no mistakes and had generally only one way things could work. The work required for the "all hands" was not, in itself, all that difficult. Wear this cleanroom gear, follow these procedures in this very-well-specified way. The problem was taking instructions from Lucas for an entire day. Everyone knew that he was the most knowledgeable about the topic, that they needed the work to be done, and that in the end they were all better off for it. It was the only way to replace the electronics as the original Earth-made chips one by one died out, subject to too much radiation during solar flares, overheating leading to corrosion in the leads resulting in more overheating, and so forth. It was just that Lucas was such a stickler, and a day of him in charge was like going to the dentist (who was Olivia, by the way). Necessary occasionally, but no fun. For this reason, the discussion of the "all-hands" was brief. No one wanted to do it, but no one thought it would be any better if it were put off. Emma made the point that it might be better to get it done before the newcomers arrived, which nearly everyone agreed to. "Why is that?" asked Lucas. No one answered right away. The outsiders, soon after their arrival, being exposed to Lucas at his nitpicking, obsessive, intolerant-of-any-variation-from-the-plan worst, struck everyone as a bad idea. Lucas was about to ask for clarification, when Amelia put her hand on his arm. "Let's just do it sooner rather than later," she said. Emma nodded vigorous agreement. Lucas, pleased that everyone seemed to appreciate the importance of the annual deep-cleaning and maintenance of the fab, was satisfied, so no one had to explain to him that the rest of the Colony was a little worried about his diplomatic skills with the newcomers. "Ok, it sounds like we should do that immediately after the water harvest then," said Olivia, and conversation moved quickly on. Back at the other end of Building 3, Harper had just joined the "new soil crew", along with her partner Alexander. She had stayed through the first topic, because she thought that the outcome was somewhat in doubt. Then, when Lucas began to drone on (as she thought of it) about the "all-hands", she slipped away, and Alexander followed. She stopped briefly to see how the play Circle was going; it looked like Melvin had given up trying to get little Lillian to play the role of Olivia, and was doing that himself. He was, she thought, a little too good at it. He bugged his eyes out a bit (Olivia's eyes were a little too prominent), and made his voice a bit quavery, like hers was. However, he talked way too much; Olivia was mostly quietly listening during Circle. Well, being quiet was not Melvin's strong suit. She walked on towards the back. "Does Olivia know he does that?" asked Alexander quietly as they walked. Besides Liam and Emma, Harper was probably the one who had spent the most time with Olivia, longer even than Olivia's own children. Harper had been 3 Earth years old when the Evacuation happened, and had spent most of her childhood with Olivia as her de facto parent; she barely recalled anything of her biological parents. She had only moved out of Olivia and Liam's home a few years ago. Harper knew that Olivia was well aware that she was not particularly good-looking, and as long as Liam didn't care, Olivia didn't. "Yeah," said Harper, who was actually the one who told her about Melvin's imitation of her. "She doesn't seem to mind. She thought it sounded funny, and wanted to find a way to watch him doing it, but I don't think he would do it, if he knew she was around to see it." Dorothy looked up and smiled as Harper and Alexander walked into the "new soil" dome at the end of Building 3. "Had enough?" she asked. "It wasn't so bad," said Harper. "But it wasn't so good, or you'd still be there," said Mildred with a smirk. "I have come for the pleasure of your company," said Harper with an expansive sweep of her arms, "and the pleasant aroma of new soil." "No, that's actually just Eugene," said Mildred, "who not only stinks, he broke my tablet." She held up her tablet, which had gone dark, and had a long crack across the front screen. "Eugene, those are hard to fix!" said Alexander. "You should be careful!" "I didn't mean to!" said Eugene. "Can I get another one from Building 20 tonight, do you think?" Mildred asked Harper. By this, she meant to ask if Harper would go with her, since Building 20 was not one of the most-visited buildings, and Mildred would never admit it but she found it spooky to go to the buildings that were usually empty of people. Which was most of them. Building 20 was for long-term storage of most ordinary items, such as spares of the electronic tablets that most of the Martians liked to carry with them as they went about their day. "We're out," said Harper, with a sympathetic grimace. "Until Lucas makes another batch of the chips for them, we don't have any more, and I think he's going to be making parts for the servers first. And that's after the all-hands in the fab. I'm afraid it'll be a while before we can get another tablet for you." "Eugene, you do stink!" said Mildred angrily, losing her ironic composure. "I should break your tablet!" "Maybe Eugene could just loan you his tablet until more get made," said Alexander, looking over at Eugene, who had stopped running around for the moment. "Sure, but mine's broken too," said Eugene. "Augh!!" Mildred screamed in frustration, balled up her fists, and slammed down on the crate she and Dorothy were sitting on. Dorothy eyes went wide, and she gently put a hand on Mildred's shoulder in an attempt to calm her. "What's wrong?" asked Raymond, who was just showing up. Dorothy looked over at her younger brother's entrance, and her face lit up. "Raymond, Mildred's tablet got broken..." "Eugene broke it," interrupted Mildred angrily, "it didn't just become broken on its own." "I didn't mean to!" said Eugene. "I don't see how that helps!" said Mildred, still angry. "Anyway, Raymond," Dorothy continued hurriedly, "do you think you could take it to Lucas and see if he could fix it?" Raymond got on well with Lucas, they were both interested in electronics and how things worked. "Sure," said Raymond, and Mildred handed it to him while glaring at Eugene, who tried to ignore Mildred while huddling on the floor with Raymond, their heads looking down at the tablet as Raymond fished in his bag for a small toolset. "Are you going to show it to Lucas?" asked Mildred, trying not to sound too annoyed (and failing). "If I need to," said Raymond, without looking up from the tablet. "What else did they talk about at Circle, Harper?" asked Dorothy, trying to change the subject, and maybe buy some time for her younger brother to concentrate. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him disassembling his own tablet, and wondered if he was going to break his tablet instead of fixing Mildred's. "You heard the agenda, they're talking now about the reception for the new spaceship." "I don't really understand what that means," said Mildred, which made Dorothy feel better for two reasons. One, it meant she had succeeded in taking Mildred's attention away from her broken tablet. Two, Dorothy didn't know what that meant either, but didn't want to say so. One of the things she liked about Mildred, was that she didn't mind saying (sometimes loudly) when she didn't know what a word meant. "'Reception', like, how you receive someone. Basically, how do we go say hi when they show up." "That's something that needs to be planned out?" asked Mildred. "Why not just say, 'hello, welcome to Mars'. There, reception planned." "I'm sure it's more complicated than that." said Harper. "Will they need help, from being in low gravity for months? Will we start working on things like the fish farm right away, or give them a few days to get adjusted? Stuff like that." Over at Circle, the conversation was rather different than Harper was imagining. "Wait, we're attacking them?" asked Ava. "That's insane." "No, we're not attacking them," said Elijah. "But we should have a plan ready for what to do if they attack us." "Why would they do that?" asked Noah. "How do we know?" said Elijah. "There's over 50 of them," said Noah. "I think if they decide to attack we're pretty much doomed. But I don't think they would have bothered sending us all of the data on vaccines to make, what fish eggs they were bringing for the farms, and so on, if all they were going to do was kill us anyway." "You ever heard of deception, Noah? Sneaking up on the enemy, lull them into a false sense of security?" said Elijah. There was a long silence. Noah's facial expression, in particular, made no attempt at hiding his scorn for Elijah's suggestion. "You ever heard of paranoid delusion, Elijah?" asked Noah. "You sound like a nutcase." At that point, things might have gotten ugly, but Emma rose to her feet (not as easy as it sounds, even in Martian gravity, given that she was five months pregnant) and simultaneously put a hand on Elijah's shoulder, and spoke up before he could. "Hey, Noah, that's not cool! Elijah is just thinking about all the possibilities, that's all." Elijah, who had been about to shout an angry response, was calmed down a bit by three things: 1) someone (Emma) had already spoken up for him 2) Emma's hand on him was gentle, and her presence right next to him (bearing his child, no less) immediately brought out a more protective, less fractious side of his personality 3) she had subtly shifted his position back away from 'they are going to attack', which he might have taken up just due to his argumentative nature, to 'we should just consider that as one possible outcome and prepare for it', and him hearing her say that was his position, made him more likely to remember that it was "Ok, Noah," said Olivia, "I don't think it helps Circle to have that kind of namecalling, alright? But anyway, it sounds like that is not a very likely scenario, and even if it does happen there's not a lot we could do about it, since they could have all the weapons Earth could give them, and we have none. So I think we should just focus on how to get along with them. Anyway, my mom and dad are supposed to be on it, and so it will probably not be that bad. If we act too defensive it could just get things off on the wrong foot. If we look like we're preparing for attack, it might seem pretty strange to them." Emma silently appreciated the fact that Olivia managed to simultaneously criticize Noah's behavior even though she was taking his side in the argument, which meant that Elijah would feel in some sense vindicated or at least not totally rejected. It would make him less grumpy that evening after Circle was over, and they had eaten their evening meal together and gone back to their separate homes. There followed a few minutes of denouement, after which the adults began wandering off to the dinner which Charlotte and company had prepared. The only exception was Olivia, who went to the far end of Building 3 to tell the "new soil crew" that they could eat now (the younger play Circle had already been called on their tablets by Charlotte, and were first to the table). She arrived to find that Raymond had fixed Mildred's tablet, having used the screen from Eugene's (already broken) tablet to do so. Mildred was checking that everything worked again, and Raymond was explaining various ways in which he had made small improvements. Harper quietly brought Olivia up to speed on what had happened. "Great job, Raymond," said Olivia. "That's really nice of you to do that for Mildred." Olivia, looking down at her son (who was shyly looking away and down), did not notice her daughter frown slightly and look away. "It was Eugene's tablet that I took the parts from," said Raymond. "Thanks for contributing, Eugene. We'll be able to make you a new one after Lucas starts the fab up again after the all-hands." Mildred made a face at Dorothy, silently communicating 'your mom essentially just thanked Eugene for breaking my tablet', which Dorothy understood perfectly, and she smirked back and shrugged as if to say, 'sorry, whadda you gonna do? Moms.' They all headed back for soup, which was excellent as usual, before heading to their various apartments to sleep. Eating their evening meal together as a group after Circle, they had realized, was a great way to bury any lingering resentment that discussion had stirred up. Noah and Elijah were on good terms again, laughing at good-natured jokes at each other's expense. Mildred forgave Eugene, and was laughing with Dorothy at his antics. Dorothy, for her part, tried very hard not to resent her brother, and mostly succeeded.