"What do you mean, 'leaving'?" hissed Peridot.

"I really do have to go, Peridot," said Julia. "I told you I can't be home all the time, remember?"

"No you didn't." Peridot sat on the couch and crossed her arms.

Julia sighed. "Well, I have school today, and tomorrow I need to go to work… I'll only be out for a few hours. I promise I'll be back soon. Hey, can you pass me my laptop?"

Peridot followed Julia's gaze, and her eyes fastened on the laptop beside her. She grabbed it and hid it under her hoodie, glaring.

"Seriously?" cried Julia. "Give me that!"

"No!"

Julia took her phone from her pocket and checked the time. She took a deep breath.

"Peridot. I need my laptop today. Would you please give it to me?"

"NO!"

Julia lunged forward and tackled Peridot, trying to wrestle the laptop from her hands.

"Hey!" yelled Peridot. "Let! Go! Let go of me!"

"Peridot – I really have – to – go! I'm going – to be late!" She yanked the laptop away from her and staggered backwards, panting. "You're, like, two thousand years old, not… twelve! You can't just keep my stuff away from me to make me do what you want."

"Why not?" grumbled Peridot. "Why do you even need to go? What about me?"

Julia felt guilty in spite of herself. She sat back down on the couch next to Peridot.

"Look, Peri. I really wish I could stay here all the time, but this is an important time for me, and I can't afford to miss any classes. Just read or watch TV while I'm gone, okay? I'll be back soon."

Peridot regarded her suspiciously. "Promise?"

"I promise," said Julia with a smile. "But I really do need to go now, or I'll be late. I'll see you in a few hours." She stood and walked towards the door, but dithered for a moment before turning around. "Will you be okay?" she asked anxiously.

"Go!" said Peridot commandingly. You'll be late!"

Julia disappeared out the door with an indignant huff.

Then the apartment was empty, and terribly quiet. Peridot sat awkwardly for a moment, wondering what to do. She rubbed her gem, and fiddled with the loose shard. She'd been doing that less and less lately, since it always distressed Julia, but…

She had still been checking her gem often enough. Aside from infrequent pains, it really did seem to have stopped troubling her.

Maybe she'd be able to live like forever? Here, with Julia?

She enjoyed the rare optimism for a moment before standing with a stretch. She was already bored.

"Julia's not here," she said loudly. "That means I can do whatever I want."

The idea wasn't as exciting as she tried to make it sound.

She stood and made her way to the kitchen – cautiously, as though she expected Julia to come in at any moment and reprimand her. She had never made tea herself, but she had seen Julia do it often enough, hadn't she? It didn't look so difficult.

Her mind went blank. She wiggled her fingers at the kitchen counter in frustration.

Tea bags! She thought. Julia always starts with the tea bags!

Chuckling in triumph, Peridot found the box she was looking for. She tried to pick up a tea bag by the string. Her fingers were too broad to get a proper grip, and it slipped onto the floor.

That was unlucky. She frowned, and tried to pick up another.

It really was harder than it looked. Another tea bag fell through her fingers. This time, she tried to catch it, but only knocked it away. She hissed.

I'm getting that tea.

As hard as she tried, the box was soon empty, and tea bags were scattered all around her feet. Lying flat, she couldn't even grasp them to pick them up, her hands only scrabbling uselessly at the floor. She had never felt as clumsy as she did now, and burned in embarrassment, thanking the stars no one was watching.

Only a human would invent something so annoying, she fumed. Her enhancements were excellent for manipulating state of the art gem technology, but apparently, not commonplace human appliances.

She decided to leave them on the floor. It wasn't as though it was her fault, right? Julia would pick them up for her. She wanted to keep exploring the kitchen.

Peridot had eaten a few meals with Julia. She figured that made her something of an expert on human food. There was quite a bit on the shelves that she didn't recognise, and she was feeling curious. She still didn't exactly like eating, but the dismal failure of her tea had left her unsatisfied.

That, and she was bored out of her mind. Julia had told her she sometimes ate when she was bored. Maybe she was picking up a few habits.

She ate a few mouthfuls of some white granules she hadn't seen Julia use yet, spilling it everywhere in the process. It didn't taste like much to Peridot, but it was fun to crunch on. It didn't take long for her to finish it, though. Maybe she'd make Julia get some more.

She went through the shelves, trying a little of everything, but nothing interested her very much. Maybe there'd be something for her in the fridge?

The first thing she found was a glass bottle filled with clear orange liquid. It looked a little bit like tea, which was promising. She took it to the table, feeling pleased when she remembered to close the fridge door when she was done. Julia would be proud.

Her good mood quickly evaporated after foolishly taking a swig of the bottle before learning what it smelt like. Not only did it taste disgusting, but it burned her mouth and throat. She spat it out immediately, spraying the foul-smelling liquid everywhere. Why did Julia keep something so gross in the same place she kept food?

She decided the fridge was dangerous. Her food adventure came to an end.

Still, that had entertained her for a good half hour, and once again she found herself at a loss. Julia had taken the laptop with her, which was the most interesting thing in the house.

The next best thing was the television, so she plonked herself back onto the couch, infuriatingly fiddly remote control in hand. Julia had shown her how to change to other channels and even put a different movie into the player, but she went for the less complicated option of re-watching the movie from the other night. She liked the name – Fantasia. And although she rarely understood what was going on, she liked the rest of the movie, too.

She hadn't cared much for music on Homeworld, but from what she'd heard of Earth music, she found it mesmerising. She sat close to the screen, listening intently. When the film finished, she watched it again, and this time she hummed along.

Peridot remembered what Julia had told her about other channels. If humans had made something as good as this movie, maybe there'd be more like it? She fiddled with the remote until the screen changed. She spent a moment trying to figure out what she was seeing. She was watching hordes of humans gathered in a circle, who in turn seemed to be watching a group of grown humans chasing a ball around a field. Was it some kind of sport? But where were the weapons? Nobody was fighting.

"Humans…" mumbled Peridot.

She continued to flick through the channels for a while, but nothing seemed any more exciting. She was just about ready for a fourth viewing of Fantasia when she was struck by a realisation.

I haven't seen Julia's room, she thought.

It wasn't because Julia hadn't let her, she reasoned. Julia had never said anything about going into her room. Peridot just hadn't had a reason to stray from the living room yet. That meant it was okay to look into her room when she wasn't home.

She wasn't exactly surprised to discover it was amazingly messy. While the rest of the house seemed quite neat, Julia's own bedroom was full of clutter – clothes seemed to paper the floor, and books were stacked everywhere but on the bookshelves. Peridot looked around in fascination as she carefully made her way inside, almost treading on an empty cup.

She frowned. This was no way to maintain a living space. She thought about how carefully she had kept her ship clean, and sat on the unmade bed.

Springy.

She gave it a few experimental bounces, and grinned. This was nice. Why wasn't her couch bouncy?

That was something else to bring up with Julia later.

She considered the clothes on the floor. It really was absurd to her that Julia – and probably all humans – had individual sets of clothes for different occasions. Not having your clothes fused to your body seemed so inefficient. Peridot liked her new hoodie, but liked keeping things tidy even more.

She had a mischievous idea.

Julia hurried home, a little jittery from nerves. She knew it had been her, who had been adamant about leaving Peridot at home alone, but that didn't stop her from feeling anxious about the whole thing. What if she had become bored, and wandered out of the apartment? What if she had been seen? She might have forgotten their rules, and opened the door to someone…

I'm being silly, she thought. Peridot's smart. She wouldn't do something like that.

Her hands shook slightly as she unlocked the door.

"I'm home," she said, thanking god that she hadn't run into Mrs. Desmond on the way.

She closed the door behind her, turned around, and absorbed the scene in the kitchen. Everything was taken out of its place, tea bags littered the floor, Peridot was nowhere to be seen, and the bench was covered in… salt? Why salt?

Then she saw the bread.

The bag that had been full – the one she had bought only the day before – had been completely emptied, its contents scattered around the kitchen. Every slice had a single bite taken out of it.

"Oh god," said Julia. "Oh, god."

It was far too much to take in. She needed to find Peridot.

Julia made her way to the hallway with trepidation. She heard a rhythmic thumping, and muffled, geeky laughter.

"Uh, Peridot? What's going on?"

The door to her bedroom was ajar. She pushed it open.

Peridot was facing away from her, jumping up and down on her bed and laughing giddily. That was the noise. And she was wearing…

Julia screamed. Peridot spun around in mid-air and shrieked back at her, toppling off the bed when she landed.

"PERIDOT! Why – WHAT are you doing?"

"What! What?" Peridot scrambled to her feet, trying to maintain her composure. "Your appearance modifiers were just lying around, so I tried them on. And I think I look good!"

"That's my underwear," shrieked Julia. "It doesn't go on your HEAD!"

She covered her mouth. Peridot stared in angry confusion. She had a pair of underwear over her head, like a mask, and a scarf wrapped around her from shoulder to hip like a sash.

The absolute last straw was the socks on Peridot's fingers. Julia spluttered with laughter as her legs gave out from beneath her.

"Why are you laughing?" said Peridot, her cheeks a dark green. "Don't they fit?"

"Peridot," choked Julia. "I can't – I can't believe you."

"Get up! Stop laughing at me!"

Julia staggered to her feet, gave Peridot one look, and started to cackle again.

"Take those off," she said. "This is too much."

"I don't understand why this is so funny to you," said Peridot sullenly as she pulled off Julia's mismatched clothes. "You wear these, too."

"Oh, man," said Julia, wheezing. "And you were jumping on the bed, too. I should have filmed you."

"I hate you," growled Peridot.

Julia wiped her eyes. "I don't know how clothes, uh, work for you. But you definitely do not put, uh, any of that where you have."

"How was I meant to know that?"

"Let's just, um, put this behind us." Julia suddenly sniffed the air. "Wait – what's that smell? Is that – tequila?"

"Tequila?" Peridot frowned. "Is that what that gross stuff in the bottle was?"

"Really?" Julia started to laugh again. "Why did you try to drink the tequila? You got it all over you!"

"I was thirsty," said Peridot defensively. "I was trying to find something."

"Oh, yeah. That. Peridot, we need to talk about the kitchen situation."

Julia wiped down the table and bench while she made Peridot pick up the bread slices.

"Why the bread? Why did you need to try every single one?"

"You had so many," said Peridot as she reached an arm under the couch. "I thought 'bread' had to be your favourite. But it tasted boring, so I thought one of them had to be different."

Julia's chest hurt from laughing so much, so she gave a chuckle that sounded like a cough. "I can't believe you," she said for what had to be the hundredth time. "You don't like bread, but you can just eat salt by itself?"

Peridot's eyes lit up. "That's right! You need to get more of that. It was good."

"Yeah," sighed Julia. "I need to go shopping today, anyway. We're all out of bread."

Julia stood on a crowded bus. She didn't really mind needing to head out to buy food right after coming home. It had been a fun day, albeit an incredibly surreal one, too. When it came to her stop, she edged off the bus, apologising to everyone she bumped into. Evidently, it was a busy day, today.

What do I need? She thought as she walked around the supermarket with a basket. Bread, teabags… and salt. She rolled her eyes and wondered if she should indulge in Peridot's strange eating habits. It wasn't as though she could get sick from eating stuff like handfuls of plain salt, but still, it was pretty weird. Instilling some wholesome principles wouldn't hurt.

At least Peridot had cheap tastes. Julia would have been considerably more annoyed if she had drunk all the tequila.

When she stepped back onto the street, she saw a rather pretty woman looking anxiously about. It didn't look like she knew where she was. Julia sidled up to her, holding her bags of groceries.

"Excuse me," she said. "Um, are you lost?"

The lady jumped in surprise, then turned to smile at her. She was quite a bit taller than Julia, and wearing a heavy looking hat on her head.

"Why, hello there," she said. "I am quite alright, thank you for asking. I'm just waiting for some friends to meet me here."

"Oh," said Julia. She looked around. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Not long, no," said the woman. She laughed, somewhat awkwardly. "I'm afraid they may be lost. We're not from around here."

"You don't live here?"

"No, we're only visiting. For a short while."

"Is that so."

The woman bit her lip. It looked like she was debating whether to speak. Julia decided to be a bit brave.

"Was there anything you wanted to ask?" she said, smiling. The woman sighed.

"To tell you the truth, we're looking for someone," she admitted. "A friend of ours."

"What does she look like? I might have seen her."

The woman laughed. "I doubt it. This, ah, looks like a busy city."

"Well, you never know. Try me."

"I suppose not," said the woman. She paused for a while. "Our friend dresses in green. She has rather unusual hands. You'd know her if you saw her."

Julia's mind went white. Her stomach plunged.

She forced herself to look up at the woman, and realised how hard her smile looked.

"Oh," she said. "No, I haven't seen anyone like that."

"I expected so," replied the woman. Her voice was still light and friendly, but her smile looked frozen to her pale face. "But we do know she's here."

Julia took a step back, trying hard not to shake. "I need to go," she said. "I have to study."

"Of course. Good luck. Education is important, after all." The woman gave another cold smile.

Julia swallowed and turned away, walking past her bus stop. The bus wouldn't come for another twenty minutes. She'd walk home.

At the street corner, she turned around. The woman hadn't moved an inch. She was still watching her. Julia couldn't see her eyes under her hat.

The moment she was out of sight, Julia broke into a run.