The other new kid had a limp. In fact, he had a whole leg missing and an expression on his face like he fully expected to be attacked at any moment. With the hood of his yellow raincoat pulled up over his head, he walked like he was being sent to be executed. He’d arrived last night just as Hemlock was going to bed after a ridiculously uneventful day, so none of the kids had really gotten a good look at the newcomer, but they knew his name was Georgie, and even with bad weather brewing on today’s horizon, Josephine was still trying to get him to join the rest of the group.

He’d agreed to follow them to the same hideout Hemlock had been brought to, but stayed completely silent the whole time, straggling behind the rest. He had the same exhausted eyes as Siren, Hemlock noticed, but considerably more paranoid-looking. Something had happened to him before he came here, according to Ficus and Roxanne, but Hemlock didn’t know what. Probably something to do with his missing arm.

Siren was in a foul mood that day, despite how well she and Hemlock had been getting along previously. She’d pushed him away that morning, albeit gently, insisting that she was fine despite the fact that she obviously wasn’t. Hemlock opted not to fight her on it. She looked like she might either cry or bite someone at any moment, though he could see her fighting to keep it together.

Best not to get involved.

“… Is she always this bubbly?”

Hemlock nearly jumped out of his fur when Georgie spoke beside him, the other boy’s voice soft and raspy. “She’s… loud. What’s she getting at?”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Don’t see anyone else listening to me,” the limping feline replied, ears pinned back against his head, “So yeah.”

Well, at least he was honest. Hemlock could appreciate that. Shrugging, he shook his head. “I don’t know, sorry. I just got here a few days ago.”

“Huh. So you’re the other newcomer everyone’s been on my ass about meeting. You’re a lot different than I expected. More nerdy. No offense. Who’re your folks?”

Hemlock ran his tongue along his teeth in thought, scrunching his nose for a moment. He chose to ignore his new companion’s bluntness for now. “Ficus and Roxanne Abrahams. Why?”

“Just curious,” Georgie shrugged, mostly moving the shoulder that wasn’t attached to a limb. “I don’t really have any parents of my own. Just a legal guardian,” he spoke in a casual yet exhausted tone. “Only known ‘em for about a week, so I can’t really vouch for any kind of close bond yet. They just feed me.”

Hemlock processed this information with quiet consideration, turning the words over in his mind. Just a legal guardian, so… “You’re adopted, I take it?” he asked, quickly amending with “If you’re okay answering, of course,” when he realized how insensitive it might’ve sounded. Fortunately for him, Georgie only chuckled dryly.

“It’s fine,” the brown-furred feline replied, moving to glance out across the grass instead of at anyone else. “And it’s not like you’re wrong. I was in the foster system for a few years, but someone finally decided they wanted me, so here I am. Crazy how you can go from bouncing homes to having a consistent home where you just bounce locations instead.”

“I imagine it is, yeah,” Hemlock sympathized with a nod. “Before I got here I just lived in one place my whole life. Now my aunts have custody of me and I guess I’m part of one of those RV families. It’s… different.”

“Different in a bad way?”

“No, just different.”

The world-weary kid in the raincoat cracked the smallest of smiles. “Different,” he scoffed softly, though the tone wasn’t malicious. “Noted.”

He picked up the pace bit by bit, eventually breaking into a sort of haggard trot as he sped up. Though he was missing a leg, Georgie was surprisingly quick on his feet, Hemlock discovered. In response, he geared his body into a jog, doing what he could to keep up with the other teenager. The tall grass brushed past his legs, tickling against the fur and creating a unique whooshing sound as it rustled around him. Suddenly, even with clouds covering every square inch of the sky above the little group, Hemlock felt some kind of warmth. It was nice, and even nicer when he and Georgie caught up to the rest of the group, where they slowed down and listened to Josephine’s excited yapping.

“Looks like rain,” she said with a smile. “Think there’ll be mud puddles?”

Julian made a very disgusted face, grimacing and sticking his tongue out with a very exaggerated “Eugh,” picking up his paws like he’d just stepped in putrid slime. “I sure hope not! My mom is gonna kill me if I come back to camp dirty. Do you have any idea how much laundry detergent she scrubbed all my fabric parts with last time? I smelled like an overflowing washing machine for a week!”

“I thought the laundry detergent smell was nice,” Rosie tried to assure him in a soft voice, sidling closer to her cousin. “But we should head back immediately if it starts raining. The rocks aren’t safe when they’re-”

“Shut it.”

Every head swiveled to Siren, who had ceased moving to dig her claws into the soil beneath her, eyes full of barely-contained primal terror. She looked absolutely nothing like the typically deadpan person Hemlock had gotten to know so far. “We’re not going anywhere near those rocks. We can sit and hang out right here.”

“Siren…” Josephine’s tone was near uncharacteristically soft as she hurried to the other girl’s side. The aquatic feline found herself wrapped in a gentle embrace by the tabby, subject to the occasional comforting squeeze.

“We don’t have to go anywhere, darling,” Julian swiftly assured, sitting down in the grass beneath him instantly. “I’m sitting, see? Nobody is gonna go to the rocks if you don’t want them to.”

Georgie cast Hemlock a confused glance, dark eyes flickering back and forth between his fellow new kid and the trembling Siren. He didn’t even need to speak aloud for Hemlock to know what his question was, and likewise Georgie understood without words that Hemlock was equally as clueless. Slowly, he too slid to the floor, adjusting his yellow rain slicker around himself. Hemlock joined him, yellow flowers that grew from his back brushing against the grass as he made himself comfortable. “Hey, I promise we’re all gonna stay right here,” he did his best to chime in for Siren’s sake, adjusting his glasses on his face. The rest of the six nodded swiftly in response, save for Siren.

“Probably for the best,” Georgie whispered so quietly that only Hemlock could hear him. “I probably can’t climb all those boulders very well with only three legs. I’d have to get a prosthetic or something.”

One by one, the others slid into their respective places, Siren between Hemlock and Josephine and Rosie between Georgie and Julian. The patchwork cat took out his sketchbook and a pencil, leaning past Rosie to squint at Georgie, who squinted back. The sound of pencil scratching against paper filled the air. “You have very pretty eyes.”

“Uhh… Thank you?”

Georgie’s response came across like a strange question, tail twitching nervously across the grass. Hemlock, in his usual silent observation, watched as a sense of paranoia started to cross over the raincoat-wearing cat’s face. Nervous claws kneaded at the ground. It had clearly been awhile since the brown tabby had interacted with anyone, much less been complimented. It looked like he thought everyone around him might suddenly jump him at any moment.

As Julian carefully crafted his latest portrait, Josephine stretched herself and gave an exaggerated yawn, flopping over onto her side. “So… what do we wanna do?”

“If we had some little twigs, we could build a tiny house out of them,” Rosie posited. “Like a house for bugs.”

Hemlock raised a paw. “If we can find flowers, I could try to make a flower crown out of them. I used to make them all the time in church school.”

“Can we use the ones on your back?” Julian asked, only to be elbowed sharply by Rosie. “Ow! Hey, I’m just asking!”

“Uhh… If they fall out naturally, yeah,” was the best reply Hemlock could think of, awkwardly rubbing the side of his neck with a paw. “If they’re plucked, it hurts. I don’t pick them very often.”

The white cat hurriedly nodded, waving his paws in the air to indicate stopping. “Yeah, okay, scratch that then. Let’s not rip you apart, yeah hon?”

“We’re in a field,” spoke Georgie, sounding rather unamused. “We could probably just use grass.”

Josephine whined her fairly loud protest at that. “But grass is boring!” she countered, scowling slightly. Georgie just shrugged his shoulders and offered up a small eye roll.

“Suit yourself,” he told her, moving to dig through the grass for particularly interesting blades. Hemlock watched as he carefully used his claws like a scythe to pluck strands with tufted tips or especially vibrant colors, then placed them in a small pile between the two of them.

There was a very, very long pause in conversation, spanning the course of maybe ten or so minutes. Julian sketched, Josephine fidgeted like she might explode at any moment, Rosie turned her head to stare up at the sky, and Hemlock accepted grass from Georgie, which he began to carefully weave into a little wreath like he’d been taught to as a younger child. Siren, with her sharp eyes, watched him in her peripherals.

The grass wreath was certainly very different compared to the flower crowns and daisy chains of Hemlock’s early youth. It was harder to work with, not to mention considerably less interesting to look at, but he supposed it worked well as a substitute. Eventually, Georgie leaned over his shoulder to look at what he was doing, apparently done with picking grass. Something about how attentive he was being made Hemlock smile just a little – and he could’ve sworn he saw the other boy smile back.

“What’s it like to live in a family that travels all the time?” Hemlock inquired, breaking the silence with the soft sound of his voice. He prayed silently that it wasn’t a rude thing to ask.

Josephine perked up noticeably in reply, beaming. “Oh! It’s super fun, trust me,” she said, shooting to her feet. “You get to go to all kinds of places and visit all kinds of things, all while staying at your house basically the entire time. Your bedroom and living room and kitchen are all on wheels, and who knows what the view out the window will be?”

“It’s not all perfect, though,” Siren noted dryly after briefly clearing her throat. “Hard to make new friends, lots and lots of homeschool, and you don’t really get to have a lot of stuff because you have to travel light. All of your reading material is on a Kindle and half the time you can’t even go on your phone because there’s no cell service.”

“Like living in a bubble away from society?” Georgie added dryly, tearing his gaze away from Hemlock’s careful crafting to make eye contact with Siren.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Oof. Been there.”

“I like it,” Julian interjected. “I mean, sure, it’s got its restrictions, but at least it’s not boring. There’s always something new going on.”

“And the food is good,” added Josephine.

“Can’t forget the regular smores!” Rosie half-sang as she returned to looking at the rest of the group. “We have campfires and roast marshmallows pretty much every night, so if you’re big on that kind of camping tradition this is probably kind of like heaven.”

Georgie blinked at her, expression flatter than a pancake. “I’ve never had a smore.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Then, from Josephine; “YOU WHAT?!?!”

“I’ve never had a smore,” Georgie repeated with a shrug. The expression on his face was flat, but his eyes betrayed a sense of bewilderment. He yelped when Josephine grabbed him by the hood of his rain slicker and began dragging him back to camp.

“WE ARE FIXING THAT RIGHT NOW!” the brown tabby called over her shoulder as she spirited their newest companion away. Georgie looked as confused as a child left alone in the grocery store as she dragged him back in the direction of the campsite.

“IT’S NOT EVEN DINNER TIME YET!” Siren shouted after the pair, but everyone else was already sprinting after them. Hemlock paused to wait for her, then dashed side-by-side with her to catch up with everyone else.

He could’ve sworn he heard her chuckle.