"Lilo?"

A tanned young woman turned around at the sound of her name and instantly looked down. The speaker was a very short blue…well, whatever you wanted to call him. Nowadays, Lilo generally told people that he was a rare breed of dog to avoid awkward explanations. She could remember a time when she took pride in the truth, that he was an alien from a far away planet. It had been cute back then—a little girl with an overactive imagination, right? At the tender age of sixteen, however, it was slightly frightening.

"What is it, Stitch?" Lilo hissed back at him. "And please be quiet." She glanced pointedly up at the house, barely discernible in the dark of the cloudy night.

"Nani told you to stay here," Stitch replied crossing his two visible arms over his chest and tapping his right foot in a reprimanding way.

The teenager sighed. "Yes, I know what Nani told me to do," she whispered, "But I can't put up with all of this forever. I need to get a break every now and then, or I'll go insane."

A warily suspicious expression appeared on the alien's face. "What does that mean?"

"You know what it means. Pleakley. Jumba. Yo—" Her last word was cut off, but they both knew what she had almost said. Her tone softened when she saw the hurt expression on her little friend's face. "I didn't mean it like that," she insisted. "It's just…I get a lot of grief from the other kids at school for all of this alien business. They think I'm a freak. I have to be normal every now and then. Don't you understand?"

"No." The word was simple, yet emphatic. "Nani told you to stay here. You should listen to her."

"Stitch, stop it! You aren't my mother! And neither is Nani! I'm sixteen now, I can do whatever I want, and I don't need your permission, or anybody else's, for that matter."

"Why are you always leaving me?"

The question stopped Lilo in her tracks. "I'm not leaving you," she replied automatically, but in her mind, she knew that wasn't true. As the years had passed, she seemed to have grown apart from her best friend—in this world, or any other. She got older and taller, leaving him far behind as far as height was concerned. Then she began to hang out with her friends from school more, now that she actually had them, and she focused more and more on her hula lessons. She spent less time at home and, as a result, less time with Stitch. The thought had never really hit her until now.

"Can I come?" Stitch asked.

"Of course not. You scare them." The meaningful expression on Stitch's face made Lilo look away in shame as she realized that she had just proved his point.

"Ohana means family," Stitch said quietly. "Family means nobody—"

"—means nobody gets left behind, I know, Stitch!" Lilo hissed, suddenly fed up with all of this. There was a silence as the two of them glared at each other, and was only broken when a new voice chimed through the darkness.

"Come on, Lilo!" The voice half-whispered, half-yelled. "The longer you take to get in the car, the less time we'll have before we have to come back!"

Lilo sighed. "I'm sorry, Stitch, but I have to go. I'll see you in the morning, okay? Don't tell Nani." And with those words, she left Stitch standing alone on the porch as she got in the passenger seat of the waiting car. "Sorry it took so long, guys," she said breezily as she fastened her seatbelt.

The redhead in the driver's seat shrugged. "That was actually a record for you."

"Yeah, it was," the three girls in the back seat agreed.

"Well, I'm here now, so let's go, okay?"

"Sure thing," the driver said. She adjusted her glasses and then turned the car on. Then she cursed a few times. "The car won't go anywhere!" She hissed.

"Won't go anywhere?" One of the girls in the back seat echoed.

"What are we going to do?" Another one cried dramatically.

Lilo looked up at her house again nervously. She would be dead if Nani, David, Pleakley, or Jumba caught her sneaking out again. "I'll check to see what's wrong," she said quickly. She unfastened her seatbelt and opened the door. As soon as she stepped out of the car, she saw the problem. All four tires had neat, claw-like slashes in them.

Furious, she looked up at the house again, and this time, she saw Stitch in one of the windows. He waved to her, and then disappeared out of sight. He had his revenge.