Max was in his room, looking at pictures of Liz. Liz was downstairs in the kitchen talking to Maria about girl stuff. Michael and Alex were watching spanish soap operas. Elsie was feeling each individual thread of the carpet on the doormat.

Keys in the door.

Somehow, everyone heard it and turned towards the sound. In a few seconds they were all in the kitchen staring at the doorknob.

Mrs. Evans came in, followed by Mr. Evans and Isabel.

"Hey, guys! What's up? What are you all doing in the kitchen?"

"We were about to get something to eat," Michael said.

"And you were about to ask us about Michael's apartment," said Elsie. Everyone just now realized that she hadn't come running with the rest of them.

"That's right, we were," Mr. Evans said authoritatively, "You care to explain?" Everyone jumped to say something, but Elsie got in the first word.

"I think Isabel wants to tell you."

Isabel fell away at the chance. She wanted to tell them, but now that all this attention was on her, she couldn't do it. It would have been so much easier if they were sitting in the living room watching TV...

Isabel started to cry.

"We're aliens, Mom!" she sobbed into her hands, moving towards her mother for comfort.

Mrs. Evans stepped to the side.

"What?" she asked as if she had just said, 'Oh, I just spent the night in Alex's bed.'

Isabel looked up in shock as she realized her mother's arms were not there for her.

Elsie stepped up, looking angry.

"We are leaving."

"What?" still with that same voice.

Elsie put out her hand indignantly and Mr. Evans said,

"Now, wait a minute, you haven't explained anything!"

Still holding her hand in the air, Elsie responded.

"Isabel explained everything and her mother rejected her. Have you rejected her too?"

"No, of course not!"

With a wave of her hand Elsie seemed to do nothing. Mr. Evans looked around confused. He had expected something terrible would happen.

Everyone stared at eachother for a bit and then Mr. Evans noticed that something terrible HAD happened. His wife was looking around as if none of them were there.

"What did you do to her?" he asked.

"I made us invisible to her. Are you going to abandone your daughter, Mr. Evans?"

"No. Never."

Elsie shook her head.

"I don't know what to do about your mother," she said.

"Just--let us go, Elsie. Let's go somewhere away from here."

Elsie let go and they were in a strange cave. The atmosphere felt different. They had no trouble breathing, but they felt a different texture in the air.

"Where are we?" Maira asked, amazed.

We're in the Understanding Cave. Ray knew about, so I do, too. It's great. It's kind of a tradition among...our people. They come here to calm down and get along.

Michael jumped forward.

"So we're--home?"

"If you want to call it that," Elsie said, looking away. She caught sight of Alex shivering. She thought for a moment.

"Alex doesn't like it here. We need to hurry. Shall I bring your mother, Isabel?"

"No! I don't think she could handle it."

"Ok. Mr. Evans, you said you won't abandon your daughter, but we've got a lot of issues here."

Mr. Evans was holding himself. Hesitantly, he said,

"Ok."