The night came too early. I'd been out hunting already; three large hares and an old badger came back with me to be chopped up for the night's feed. Half of the badger would go to Khan, as she didn't yet know how to hunt for herself, but the rest would go to me. I'd have to teach Khan to hunt soon, since I wasn't planning on feeding her forever, but for now I gave her the space she wanted; she still seemed a little skittish around me sometimes.

The boys had been a little different lately, and in part I was glad for that; Phineas hadn't asked so much as once if I would be his friend, and although he still visited often it seemed slightly more distant than he'd been before. Perhaps he'd finally known enough to give me the space I needed.

Even though I never said so, I did appreciate that.

It wasn't long before he came by again, as usual, with his brother in tow. Behind them I could see their pet, although I knew it wouldn't be much trouble, and I held the door for them without a word.

"Hi, Moon!" Phineas greeted happily, taking a seat on the bare wooden floor, "How have things been going with you?"

"I'm alive," I told him, "That's good enough."

Phineas grinned. "And how's Zhalgo?"

"Fine," was all I said. I knew I still owed them for that, even after he'd insisted he didn't need payment; I had finally agreed to become his "friend" and that seemed to make him happy. Now that I would be staying here, perhaps I could find some use for him. I wasn't yet used to sleeping in the same place night after night, but I knew from experience that I adapted quickly, and given enough time it wouldn't be any different than before. It had certainly made my hunting easier; I was coming to be familiar with the terrain and the patterns of life around the house, and I'd found that my catch rate had risen significantly because of that.

I'd learned, too, that the food places in town were always the best to forage. Since they deep-fried the majority of the food, the Dumpster in the back was always full of good things for me and it was easy to take what I needed in the night when no one would catch me. Sure, it was a little old, sometimes "unsanitary" (a new word Phineas had taught me, meaning that something had been dropped on the floor and that that somehow made it inedible), but I was glad for any energy it would give me.

"Hey, Moon, I was kind of wondering something," Phineas reached into the pocket of his shorts, pulling out something small and green and handing it to me. "Ferb found this in the backyard. You know a lot about wild plants and animals and stuff and we were curious whether it's the edible kind or not."

Glancing down at what Phineas had given me, I cocked an eyebrow. It looked like a tiny mushroom - although it was a little bit squashed - and I had to admit I hadn't come across any of those before. Regular mushrooms, sure, but nothing like this. Handing it back to Phineas, I shrugged. "Beats me," I told him, "Haven't seen that kind before."

"Oh, well," Phineas stuffed the mushroom back into his pocket, turning back to me. "We just thought we'd ask. Hey, Ferb, I wonder if the guys at that biology expo in town would know?"

Ferb just blinked.

"Come on, let's go ask them," Phineas got to his feet, and a moment later he and Ferb headed quickly out the door.

I watched them go in silence. They seemed to come at the most random times; Phineas had admitted to me once that the two of them had waited on the front step for two hours while they waited for me to come back from the hunt. I wasn't quite sure why they had wanted to wait for so long, especially since they knew I wouldn't be feeding them, but I hadn't had a word against them for it. I knew that those boys were both very strange, but until they turned against me I couldn't say I had a problem with it.

But I was still wary of them. Past experience told me that "friends" were the ones that needed watching the most.