Author's Note: I wrote this a few months ago, but only looked up today and realized that I still hadn't posted it. Enjoy!

"Mom?" Jazz yelled, trying to shout over the vacuum-cleaner's roar. "Could you help me with something for a minute?"

"What's that, Jazz? Oh," Maddie said, turning the machine off and smiling at her. "I'm sorry, sweetie, what did you say?"

"I said 'could you help me with an assignment for school?'" Jazz repeated. She lifted her college-bound notebook and pen. "We're studying the cognitive processes involved in sensory perception, and I volunteered to do an extra credit essay over 'Processing misinterpretations.'"

"That sounds like a very broad topic, Jazz," said Maddie, tapping her chin and tilting her head back in thought. "Have you got a thesis statement yet, or are you still working on that?"

"I have several statements, but I'm hoping I can narrow it down before I set myself up for a fifteen paged essay instead of five," Jazz admitted. "There are far too many instances in every day life where people see things and think they're seeing something else. Like if you glance at a sign in a library, you might think it says 'books' instead of 'bucks' no matter what it really says at second glance. I start writing about something simple like that, though, I'll need to be thorough and write all about extra stuff like speed reading, sight recognition, current technological advances in visual analysis that are related to this…"

"Yes, that is a problem," agreed Maddie. Jazz sighed and stared unhappily at her paper, giving her mother time to think. It didn't take her long, and when she was done the woman snapped her gloved fingers and said, "Aha! I know what you can do!"

"What is it?" Jazz asked immediately.

"Name recognition!" said Maddie excitedly, the ceiling lighting glaring off her goggles, "That's a narrow enough topic, and still has plenty of material to fill up as much space as you like and still have scholarly merit for your work!"

"That's great!" said Jazz, before she thought about it and paused. "Uh… Actually, that's a little too narrow. I could probably pad it with a couple more biology paragraphs than I actually need, but I was hoping to focus more on the psychological aspect than the physiological…"

"So the question of how people react to certain words that have nothing whatsoever to do with their personal names wouldn't be complicated enough?" Maddie asked, looking a little surprised.

"Well," said Jazz, "that would be basically the same as what I was going to write about sight, wouldn't it? You see an unusual word that looks similar to one you'd expect to be there instead, so you see the expected word instead of what it really is."

Maddie looked at her blankly (and because of her hood and goggles, the look was very blank) before she smiled a little uncertainly. "Ah, sweetie, that's not entirely what I meant."

Jazz looked up, her pencil-hand absently scratching something out on paper without her eyes' guidance. "What is it, then?"

Maddie left the vacuum appliance standing where it was, turning towards the lab's door with a growing smile. "I think this is something you need to see again for yourself."

The Fenton Lab's counters were completely covered in clutter and tools, which were all illuminated by only a faint glow given off by lights around the Ghost Portal. Jack Fenton was standing at one of the tables with his back to the room, his giant form obscuring whatever project he was working on. He didn't look up when his wife and daughter entered the room, and seemed to be concentrating so hard that Jazz wondered if she should tiptoe to keep from disturbing him.

Maddie had no such reservations, and in fact headed straight for him. "Jack, sweetie, do you have a minute?"

"Hn? Oh, oh yeah, just a second, lemme finish these last few…" Jack mumbled distractedly, eyes never leaving the metal contraption before him. His hands were busy with a set of shiny metal washer-disks, which he was attentively placing somewhere deep inside the invention.

Maddie leaned against the worktable beside him, peering up at his face. "Actually Jack, I was wondering if we could talk now. It's about groceries, and also chores…"

"Yes, yes… Uh, what? Of course, I'll get right on it," Jack replied, lifting his head a little but never moving his focus from his project.

Maddie continued staring up at him for a few seconds, then turned to Jazz, looking somewhere between exasperated and amused. "I'll be upstairs Jack," she said absently, pushing off the table and walking back towards her daughter.

"Yes, right—just a few more minutes, I'll be there…" Jack said, clearly on autopilot.

Jazz gave her dad a slightly odd look, but wasn't surprised by his inattention. She was a Fenton, after all, and after living with him her entire life this behavior was only to be expected. What she didn't know was why her mom had brought her down to show her this when she already knew about it.

As though sensing her unspoken question, Maddie smiled back at her as she started up the stairs. "As you can see, Jazz, I've just spoken to your father a total of three times without any response whatsoever. However, now that I'm going to say the word 'fudge'—"

Jack turned around, tools in each hand and eyes taking a moment to focus on the girls in the room "What? Was someone talking to me?"

"—and he looks up," Maddie concluded, looking even more amused and shaking her head a little.

Jazz's eyes grew very wide. "So you're saying that in this case a name doesn't necessarily have to be a form of address but can be any specific term or tone or inflection that somehow calls attention to such a degree that—"

"I take it neither of you were talking to me?" asked Jack inquisitively, half-turning as though being drawn magnetically back to the table.

Maddie smiled fondly at him. "I was saying that I made some more fudge, dear. It's in the fridge."

Jack looked directly at her and smiled warmly back. "Thanks, Maddie—you're a life saver!"

"I know, dear," Maddie replied, her smile widening adoringly. She and Jack shared a look for a long moment, before Jack turned back to the table and Maddie turned to Jazz.

Jazz, meanwhile, had hunched over the notebook in her arms and was scribbling furiously. She muttered quietly to herself, "Granted, the concept of these general-attention-attracting-audio-cues is probably just as horribly a broad topic as sight recognition, but if I narrow it down to talking about specific elements that can call a person's attention from a state of complete isolation, perhaps even including mental states such as shock or…"

Maddie smiled as her daughter, who turned and hurried back up the stairs, being far too absorbed by her muttering to even say goodbye. The mother followed her up and closed the door to the basement behind her, and by the time she had reached the livingroom Jazz was already in full-study mode on the couch.

Maddie continued her routine cleaning, letting the sound of the vacuum fill the room and cover her daughter's mumbling. This vacuum had been specially modified into a Fenton Extractor a long time ago, but it still worked just as well to clean carpets as it had before then.

She watched Jazz work in her peripheral vision, noting how her daughter rocked back and forth when she looked from reference book to notebook paper. It occurred to Maddie that Jack wasn't the only one with unusual cues, and on a whim she turned to the staircase and called up, "Danny!"

The movement to her right stilled almost immediately. "Yeah?" came a muffled voice from upstairs, barely audible over the vacuum's roar.

Maddie smiled. "Don't forget your chores, sweetie! The lab really needs cleaning today—ah, it's getting a bit desperate, actually!"

"Okay, Mom!" Danny called back.

"Thanks, Danny—just be sure to remember to do it before dinner!" Maddie replied cheerfully, turning back to her own chore at hand. Still watching out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jazz discreetly look back down at her papers and return to her research.

All was right in the world.