Flopping back into bed, Cassie closed her eyes and waited to fall back to sleep. She didn't have to wait very long.
In the morning when Cassie woke up, she at first had some trouble remembering what she had figured out in the early morning. Oh, that's it, Visser Three is going to try to capture and infest the crew of Area 51 when they come to The Gardens at nineteen-hundred hours tonight. Cassie frowned. When is nineteen-hundred hours? I can't very well plan to save those people if I don't even know when they're going to be in danger.
Cassie sat back against the wall of her room, trying to figure out what that time would translate to the way normal people measured it. I really hate military time. Why can't those guys just use a standard clock like the rest of us? Deciding that she wasn't going to get anything done by just sitting in bed like she was doing now, Cassie got up and started shucking out of her pajamas.
Her bedside clock read 8:03 when she checked it. A little later than Cassie usually started her day, but not so late that her parents would be up and about. Glad that she was the only real early-riser in the house, Cassie hurried to start her day.
Tossing the nightclothes onto her semi-clean floor, Cassie went to the bathroom to wash up. Once she was done with that, Cassie came back up to her room to dress in something more appropriate to going outside and doing light chores. Picking new clothes out of her closet, Cassie made a mental note to take her dirty clothes down to the laundry room sometime soon.
Stopping in the kitchen, Cassie poured herself a bowl of cereal. Once she had finished eating, Cassie started to make some warm oatmeal for Slade. Glad again for the fact that her parents liked to sleep late on Sundays, Cassie collected a spoon, poured some maple syrup into the container full of oatmeal, stirred it until they were both thoroughly mixed, wiped the spoon clean on a napkin, closed up the container and threw the napkin in the trash.
Walking out to the barn, Cassie took a little time to enjoy the bright and sunny day. This kind of weather was getting more and more rare as early fall progressed into late. As if to remind Cassie of the changing seasons, the wind suddenly picked up, Cassie hurried into the shelter of the barn.
Once inside, Cassie waited for Slade's usual greeting before proceeding farther. She didn't have to wait for very long.
(Good morning, Cassie.)
Cassie smiled, walking up to the ladder and climbing up to the hayloft. Slade was nowhere in sight, but Cassie could still see the small fort of hay bales he had made for himself to hide behind. Carrying the container full of oatmeal over to where Slade had set up his bed/fort combination. Cassie could just make out the tip of one of Slade's feet.
Slade was very good about hiding if he knew that there was someone in the barn that he wasn't familiar with. But, if he knew and trusted the person who had come inside, Slade wouldn't hide himself with the same care that he would take in the other instance. Cassie walked around to the other side of the two stacks of hay-bales that Slade had made for himself to hide behind.
"How are you doing this morning, Slade?" she asked.
"Nothing to complain about but the hard floor," Slade said easily, grinning slightly with his usual good humor.
Cassie laughed quietly, and it wasn't that long before Slade had joined her. Cassie didn't want to make too much noise, since her parents would probably come to investigate any strange sounds in the barn, and two voices laughing when there was supposedly only one person inside would definitely qualify as strange. Leaving Slade to his breakfast, Cassie went out and climbed back down the ladder to the main floor of the barn.
Once she was back on level ground, Cassie started toward the sacks of animal feed that were always stored off to the side of the main floor area. Filling up the bucket that hung on a hook beside the feed bags, Cassie took it down and started walking along between the lines of cages, feeding the animals that had run low on food. When she had finished with that chore, Cassie went back over to the feedbags and hung up the bucket.
Taking down a structurally identical bucket, Cassie went outside to fill it with water from the pump that Walter had reinstalled when Cassie and her family had moved into the house next to their family's barn. Pumping out the requisite water was hard work, but Cassie was long used to it by now.
After she had finished watering the animals, Cassie went back into the house. Doing her chores was hungry work, and what Cassie wanted to do right now was have a nice big lunch. It was about the right time for that particular meal right now; Cassie had confirmed that both by the empty feeling in her stomach and a quick look at the watch she usually wore.
Back inside the kitchen, Cassie could see the recent evidence that her father had just been in to fix himself a sandwich. Cassie sighed; her father wasn't a sloppy man – no one who was sloppy or clumsy could have ever been as good a surgeon as he was – but he did have kind of a tendency to be absent-minded when the situation wasn't one of life or death. Quickly cleaning up the scattered detritus that her father had left behind, Cassie dumped it all in the trash. Washing her hands, Cassie then went to the refrigerator and dried them on the towel that hung on the handle.
Opening the fridge once her hand were all dry, Cassie looked at what she had to choose from. Picking out a mostly-full bowl of fruit salad, Cassie served herself some, then pulled out another clean Tupperware dish and filled it almost to the top. Sticking Slade's lunch and the remaining fruit salad back in the fridge so they wouldn't get hot, Cassie took a fork from the dish drainer and sat down to eat her own lunch.
Licking the last taste of pineapple off of her lips, Cassie went back to the refrigerator and took out the food she'd prepared for Slade. Heading back outside, Cassie took a moment to check and make sure that neither of her parents was outside where they could see what she was about to do. It would definitely seem weird to them that she was going into the barn with what was obviously a container of food. Especially since she had never been known to want to eat in there.
