"Yeah, Sharon here teaches our younger ones," Jeb explained.

"But, I was just telling him you didn't need to go because of your tutoring." Doc added clearly continuing the debate they had been having before Jeb spaced out.

"Wait, that's not fair!" Jamie suddenly exclaimed spraying his mouthful of food over everyone.

"Say it, don't spray it, Jamie." Ian laughed wiping food off himself and Wanda. The others laughed too. I didn't want to cause any arguments so I just conceded without been asked.

"It's okay, I'll go. You learn something new every day, right Doc?" I asked him rhetorically, something he used to say every time I saw him when I was younger.

"You won't though, Ava," Sharon backed Doc up (apparently to everyone's surprise). "If you have a photographic memory, nothing I can tell you will be new, you'd be a lot more use doing chores with everyone else."

"Eidetic memory," I corrected quietly. I tried to smile to show I wasn't being rude; it was just one of the tiny things I couldn't, not correct; like the difference between affect and effect.

"Well then I'm not going to school either! She's younger than me, it's not fair otherwise." Jamie declared.

"She's a cat's mother; use your manners you weren't dragged up." Mel reprimanded him.

"Okay, Jamie, you can quit school if you can tell me the square route of 144, the capital of Mali, the elements in water and the 19th monarch of England?" Sharon listed off in a challenging tone.

Jamie scowled.

"Ava?" Sharon raised her eyebrow at me.

I didn't know what to say, I knew all the answers but I didn't want to be hated the moment I set foot in the caves so I just told the truth. "I really don't mind going to school."

Doc shook his head "That's not what she asked Ava." Why was everyone telling me that like I didn't already know?

"Do you actually know?" Jamie asked surprised. I looked at my shoe laces. "Just tell them," he said in a rueful voice.

I took a deep breath, I was going to have to be stronger than this, "12, Timbuktu, Hydrogen, oxygen and, depending on how you're counting, Henry the eighth." I said quietly still analysing my shoelaces, I felt myself grow warm around my ears.

"Correct," Sharon said in satisfied voice.

"Okay, problem solved," Jeb said clapping his hands together. "When you've finished eating come over and we'll get started on your tour." And with that he wandered off to the group of three men whistling an indistinguishable tune that couldn't really be heard very well over the chatter rising around us.

I looked around to find the kitchen had now filled up as more people woke. Jared was right, there were loads of them! Thirty-eight humans and two, from what I'd heard harmless aliens all under one sort-of roof. I felt like skipping.

"So how'd you sleep?" Ian asked me in a half-nervous, half-awkward voice. Wanda squeezed his hand.

"Very well, thank you Ian." I replied in a similar tone smiling an awkward smile, Wanda smiled a sweet smile like she'd never felt happier.

I ate my breakfast quietly, just listening to the group to learn bits about them. They didn't ask many questions about Kyle and Ian so maybe they'd told everybody everything. This was fine with me; I didn't want to tell them about it anyway. Wanda and Sunny did ask me a few questions about Rose, and Jamie seemed to forgive me after I promised to tell him some stories about my travels, he was practically begging for me to tell him the Seeker story but Sharon told him it was time to get to class. Slowly in ones and twos they all departed for their chores until it was only Melanie, Wanda, Ian and I; they had already asked Jeb if they could come on the tour too.

We walked over to him and his dwindling group of people, Mel and Wanda talking about a story I didn't understand (probably some kind of inside joke), by the time we got to him there was only one person with Jeb at first I didn't recognise him until he spoke.

"I just wanted to apologize again for last night," for the millionth time I added in my head. It was true Gale had sorry a lot last night before I'd eventually been discharged.

"She's already accepted, against many of our better judgement, so stop badgering her." Mel voiced my thoughts for me only a bit harsher than I'd thought them.

"It's okay," I assured him quietly with a small smile for what felt like the thousandth time. I didn't know why I said anything though because anything I did say just made him look guiltier. If I had been a soul and they'd performed a separation would he of been this compassionate toward the host? I doubted it. It really hurt me how double standards worked on this planet. Even though I'd had to use violence before, I didn't enjoy it and I always tried to look for a way of avoiding it. That made me sound very Soul-y.

"Come on then, days wastin'" Jeb said and motioned for us to follow him on his tour.

The circuit of the caves with Jeb was fascinating, they were all littered with people irrigating gardens, making things for life in the caves, and cleaning and making the place suitable for inhabitation. It was amazing how they all lived in total harmony, if only the souls could see us now! Everyone contributed and everyone got their own bit back, that's how people earned a place there and I was keen to get started. It was very much like how the souls lived too. Everyone had a role, Sharon and Wanda taught (Sharon the human topics and Wanda taught an informal class about the universe), farmers, irrigators, cooks (mainly Lucina, Trudy and other women but the chore schedule changed) and Doc and Candy healed everyone they said I could help too as Doc was only learning Alien Medicine and Candy had only specialised in certain areas and the more of her real memory that came back it started to replace Summer Song's memory.

The more I saw the cleverer I thought Jeb was: the mirrors for light, the storage, the latrine and washroom. Hands down my favourite room was the river room. The light danced restlessly dappling the walls with white light and the babbling voices of the streams were possibly the most peaceful things I'd ever heard.

Jeb said this was often the case and I wasn't remotely surprised. After the tour, we helped clean the mirrors. We took it in turns to scale the ill balanced, home-made ladder and clean the dusty mirrors with a group of others and by the time we were finished Jeb congratulated everyone and told them it was time for lunch.

I had only been sitting in the kitchen for little over 5 minutes when Jamie bounded in at straight up to me with a huge grin on his face.#

"Okay, now tell me about the seekers!" he demanded a little too loudly and a few heads turned toward us but even after they returned to their previous occupation I could tell we were being eavesdropped on and I didn't want to sound brag-y.

"Um, maybe some other time Jamie," I said evasively in barely more than a whisper.

"Aw come on… you promised," he whined with surprising convincingness for someone who seemed to be constantly told what to do.

"I can tell you about my travels if you like?" I offered half-heartedly, I really didn't feel like talking about myself at all really.

"Okay then," he conceded disappointed but immediately perked up. "Have you been to Africa?"

"Where exactly do you mean, in Africa?" I questioned wanting him to talk more.

"Ghana?"

"Yes,"

"Madagascar?"

"Yes, it's beautiful there." by far one of my favourite travel destinations.

"South Africa?"

"Yes,"

"Zimbabwe?" this time it wasn't Jamie, it was Sharon.

"Um, yes." If I could of I would have blushed, I knotted my hands in my lap self-consciously.

"Egypt?" Trudy.

I nodded.

"What did you do there? I remember giving you the vaccinations but I never got to ask you about the trip." Doc chimed in.

"We visited Cairo, and the tombs and the pyramid of Giza, it was really hot, and dusty even more so than here." A few people chuckled at my unintended pun. "We rode camels and met some of the locals, there was this one woman Ami-Amen-Amnes, I can't pronounce it very well, I never tried to learn Arabic, but she was been driven out of her home with her 12 children and grandmother because of Bob's companies industrialisation on her village – we denied we even knew them we were so ashamed." It was true I had not been the proudest person on that evening.

"Is that we, you and Brenda?" Jeb asked.

"Yes, she loved to travel."

Jeb nodded knowingly. Brenda had loved to travel that's why when Bob and Maureen departed for business we would go off and explore the culture of the place.

"Where's the best place you've been?" Lily asked leaning forward with her head in her hands.

"That really depend what you mean by best, um, Australia was amazing for wildlife, the safari were just mind blowing, I loved the food in Venice and Paris and the people there are lovely too and I knew the languages so I felt more comfortable, I did like Jordan a lot until the end, Madagascar was incredible, especially at night it was like magic with the music and festivals and fireflies. But, my favourite place I've visited was Alaska, I know it's in America but it had the most beautiful landscape and some of the histories and things you can do are just … unbelievable. The main reason I love it though is because this one place we visited there for a political speech thing of Maureen's, Juneau –"

"Hey I grew up there," Gale toned in. I looked at him, I hadn't known that, but this was good he might know the story.

"Were you in the town square for the announcement when Reagan Fletcher and some protesters threw buckets of water and fish over Maureen?" that truly was one of my favourite days. Brenda and I didn't stop laughing for days it led to a private joke in our house when Mrs Kennedy was being particularly annoying.

Gale must have found it as funny as I had, other people were laughing too but not as hard as him.

"You were then?" I presumed giggling.

"Yes, that was my mom, my brothers and I helped!" he howled making me and everyone else laugh harder, Gale's attitude was nothing short of contagious; he was truly one of the easiest people to get on with.

It wasn't until then I realised that everyone was listening, but this was a one off, Wanda was the real teacher not me. Jeb wasn't going to add me in as the new geography teacher, I hated talking about myself.