Mob didn't mind being called Mob and she didn't know what everyone got so worked up about.

Mom said that if people were calling her something as mean as Mob then they weren't her friends to begin with. Mob didn't understand what was so bad about being called Mob. That was what she was called, Mob, and she liked it better than Shigeko. It was easier to write, for one thing, and her friends had started calling her that. They were her friends, they let her play with them, and didn't run away when she got close or call her weird like the other kids did.

Besides, Dad always said, anyway, that an ant had no quarrel with a boot.

That meant that they were never supposed to fight with normal people. Normal people were weak, dad said, and they weren't worth their time. Mob could life a person with her powers, she could life her little brother anyway, and if she could lift someone then she could drop them. If she could drop them then she could throw them. If she could throw them then she could hurt them and she didn't much like the idea of hurting people.

Mom said that hurting people was wrong.

Dad said that an ant had no quarrel with a boot.

So Mob didn't understand what was up with Sho.

"Leave my sister alone!" shouted Sho as he swung his fists out wildly. They were doing it again, calling her by that stupid name! They shouldn't have been mean to her like that! He was supposed to keep her safe! He was four, more than big enough to keep his big sister safe!

People were so mean to her. She was weird, everyone was always telling him that she was weird, and then they would say other things too. Things that made him want to hit them. Things that made him hit them. Things that got him kicked out of the library and recess at school and a bunch of other places. Things that made mom upset with him. Things that made dad proud of him.

Dad always said that an ant had no quarrel with a boot.

That meant that it was stupid to fight with someone who was so much stronger than you. For as long as he could remember big sis had been able to do the things that dad could. She could move things without touching them and make the house shake and the lights flicker and she could even pick him up. He couldn't do anything like that yet. Maybe because he was so little. Dad said that it was probably something to do with how little he was. Big sis agreed. Dad didn't like it, that he couldn't do any of those things, but that didn't make him weak.

Dad liked it when he defended big sis so that was what he would do!

"Come on! You want to go? Let's go!" said Sho

"Mom's going to be mad at you." Said Mob as the kids she had been playing with went to the other side of the park without her. She loved her little brother, she really did, but she didn't love it when he got like this.

"No she's not….not if she knew what they were calling you. You shouldn't let people call you that, it's mean. You're Shigeko, not Mob. Mob isn't a name for a person and you shouldn't let people treat you like that. You should fight them! But not with your powers! But you shouldn't let people be mean to you like that!" said Sho. Brothers were supposed to protect sisters. That was because boys were supposed to keep girls safe. Dad said so, that was why the wall around the castle was so high, so that bad people wouldn't even think about coming in and hurting mom while he was too far away to protect her. Sho was too small to keep mom safe but he could still keep his big sis safe and sound!

"Sho, stop it. Mom's going to take us home if you fight." Said Mob as she put her hand on his arm and shook her head. They were at the park now, the one with the big blue slide that she used to be kind of scared of when she was little but not now. Now she was five and she was more than big enough to get to the top of that slide…with Sho's help. He was brave, the bravest little brother that someone could ask for.

He was so brave to go down the big slide with her.

But he was not brave to go around picking fights with the other kids for her. These kids were kind of her friends. They went to the same park and played together sometimes. Well they had let Mob play with them, sometimes, when there weren't a lot of other people around or Mob brought some of her dolls. She had a lot of them from a lot of different places. Dad usually brought her back dolls of the places he'd been. He was always going places that were far away but he always came back so it was ok then.

Besides, they had mom, and she never went anywhere without them.

Even now she was sitting on a bench and talking to another lady, probably someone's mom, and she wouldn't just up and leave them one day. Dad never told them when he was going on his trips, they always just woke up and he was gone, but it was ok. They were used to it. They hardly ever cried. Dad said that crying was for the weaklings of the world and that they were not weak at all. They were his children and they were strong, they had to be he said, because they were his. Mob didn't always feel strong, not even with her powers, but dad said that she was. He said that she was stronger than Sho, to, because Sho cried all the time. Well he used to cry a lot more but dad said that even a little crying was way too much crying.

Mob didn't understand that.

Mob didn't understand a lot of things.

"I don't care! People shouldn't talk to you like that and you shouldn't let them." Said Sho crossing his arms and stomping his feet. He didn't care if mom took them home, it wasn't like she ever punished them. Not for real, anyway, not like how dad would punish them. Him. Sister was a girl so she didn't get punished. She was way too soft. Girls were soft like that, not like boys, and that was why they needed to be protected. It was like with the animals at mom's job. They were small and needed people to keep them safe. Sho liked that, being the person strong enough to keep other people safe. It felt nice being able to keep other people safe.

"I don't mind and I don't know why you mind. Lots of people have nicknames." Said Mob

"But it's not a nickname, it's them calling you names. I have to keep you safe." Said Sho

"It is a nickname. It's a nickname because they aren't hurting my feelings at all. I'm sorry if you feel upset but there nothing to be upset about and nothing to keep me safe from. Even if they were being mean to me they're normal people and dad says that I'm supposed to be nice to normal people." Said Mob

"No, dad says that normal people are supposed to be nice to us. That's why he's always saying that an ant has no quarrel with a boot. Boots are people like us, ants are normal people, and quarrel means fight. Normal people aren't supposed to fight against people like us because it's not a fair fight. It's like how you never get punished because you're a girl and you're not ever supposed to hit girls because it's not a fair fight." Said Sho

"You're not supposed to hit anyone Sho, mom said so, because it's not a nice thing to do. Dad says that people like me aren't supposed to fight with people like them because it's not nice. I could hurt them if I wanted to. It's different when you have powers. You'll understand when you get powers." Said Mob

"That's not what dad meant." Said Sho with a huff. He knew what dad meant, thank you very much. He knew his own dad. Sister didn't get it because she never got what people said. She never understood what people meant and said and stuff like that. She could be so clueless sometimes.

"Is too." Said Mob. She knew what dad meant. He had been telling her that for as long as she could remember. One of the first things she could remember was him telling her that while she was upset and then her feeling all better after that. She didn't know what was upsetting her or where she was, it wasn't the castle and they had always lived in the castle, but she did remember how nice it felt when he told her that. Like everything was going to be ok. Besides, she knew dad better than Sho did. Dad only spent time with just Sho when he needed to be punished. Dad spent time with her to help her with her powers. It must have been a lot nicer than getting punished, though dad had never done more than yell at her, and even that was a long time ago.

"Is not!" said Sho. How could she think that she knew dad like that? She didn't. All she knew was how to use her powers. She didn't know about talking to people or making friends or anything like that. She couldn't even tell when the other kids didn't want her around. Not that Sho liked hanging out with kids that didn't want his sister around but she did make it hard to be friends with her. Her eyes were always bored looking and people didn't like that but when he told her she just said that she couldn't understand. She said that a lot. If she couldn't understand the other kids then how was she supposed to be able to understand dad?

"Is too!" said Mob. She stomped her foot, then, even though she knew that she wasn't supposed to. It wasn't ladylike, mom had said, and it made her lose control, dad had said. She didn't lose control that badly…ok, a little badly. She thought that she only made the ground shake a little bit but they weren't in their castle, now, but instead were at the park and normal people weren't used to her powers. What seemed like a little shaking to her was actually enough to get people worried, it seemed, because they were taking their kids and going. Maybe she and Sho should have stopped this. Mom was looking at them…and she would get mad if they fought…she didn't like fighting one bit.

"Is not!" said Sho. She couldn't scare him just because she had powers! When he got his powers the he could be the one to make the ground shake whenever he wanted to win a fight! When he had powers then they wouldn't even fight because then there would be no more reason to fight!

"Is too!" said Mob stomping her foot again. Why couldn't he just drop it!? She didn't want to fight with him but she didn't want to tell him that he was right even when he wasn't. She knew what dad meant and she was not going to back down just because Sho could yell louder than her and probably everyone else in the whole world.

"IS NOT! NOT! NOT!" said Sho shouting as loudly as he could. Lots of people were leaving now, probably because of big sis, and he felt kind of bad about that. People were leaving this really fun park just because he and his sister were having a fight….ugh! Why couldn't she just drop it already! She was clueless when it came to people and talking so of course she would have had no idea at all what dad had meant!

"Is too! Too! Too!" said Mob. She was about to stomp her foot again when someone grabbed her arm, hard. She didn't think, she just put up a bubble like dad had shown her, and the person behind her said bad words.

Oh. That was mom.

And like that the bubble of her argument with Sho burst like the bubbles in the bubble bath they probably weren't getting that night because they had been fighting and they weren't allowed to fight. Fighting wasn't nice. Mom didn't like fighting at all.

"Both of you! Enough! We are going home!" said Masami. She knew that it was wrong to shout at her children but she couldn't help it. She had told them over and over and over again until she was practically blue in the face not to fight one another like that. The two of them, just Shigeko for now, could do some real damage. Shigeko had almost lost control. This was not their house. If Shigeko lost control and broke something out here…there would be consequences for the whole family. That was why Touichirou had a playground built in the backyard. Maybe it would have been better not to bring them around the other children…

No.

They needed to learn to socialize with people outside of the family, it was just good for them. They would grow up to be maladjusted adults if they didn't learn how to make friends and be social at this critical period in their development.

Yes, she needed to bring them around other people….but she also needed to enforce stable discipline. So she took them home. She didn't care who started it, she didn't care who was right, she just cared about removing them from the situation before someone noticed the five year old girl who could cause earthquakes by stomping her feet. They did not need that kind of attention. This was why her husband was out there making a better world for people like him and their daughter. So that way people could understand.

Masami hadn't been the one to make the world the way it was.

She knew how people were. They didn't trust what they could not explain. There was no explanation for Shigeko's powers, she just had them. That was another part of Touichirou's work, he had said, researching what made them tick. What made one person develop esp but not another. What made one person have the abilities of a God, he had said, and the other one the abilities of an ant. Masami hoped that he came to an answer soon. She hoped that she had something to tell the children, soon, about what they were, what they could become…

And why they had to be careful.

They had to be careful, Shigeko especially, because their powers would only scare people. Not everyone was as open minded as she was…and she had been a little bit freaked out the first time she has seen her husband use his powers all those years ago…and she loved him. She was loathe to make the children, mostly Shigeko, hide who they were but the world was not an open and understanding place.

So she punished them even though she hated to.

She didn't punish them the way her husband would have. She had never struck the children, she had never been punished like that in her childhood and she didn't quite agree with her husband's discipline methods, but she did enforce some discipline. Taking away toys and privileges, bed without desert, and timeouts were in her discipline arsenal and she wielded them with care.

Even this time out.

The children had been moaning and groaning about it, being sat down on their beds and told not to move, but it hadn't been for very long. Five minutes plus an extra minute for every year they had been alive. That was what the book said, anyway, because they were very small and anything longer would have been far too much.

"Mom, why does Sho get to be done first because he's younger?" asked Mob as she sat down on her bed just like mom had said. This was torture. It was bad enough having to sit on her bed while her toys were right there just waiting to be played with but it got even worse when Sho had been allowed to get up a whole minute before her and then she had to watch him sit on the ground and play with his animals. She could have played too, she had animals too, and they could have played menagerie together or circus or something like that.

But instead she was stuck on her bed like she was in jail or something.

"You can come out now too, Shigeko, and you can play with Sho but first I want to know why you were using you powers back at the park." Said Masami sitting down next to her daughter. Something began to play music. She sat up and pushed away a stuffed, light up, unicorn cat. How Shigeko managed to sleep on a bed so covered in stuffed toys was beyond her.

"…because Sho was being mean…" said Mob softly

"No I wasn't! They were being mean to you and I was going to stop them but then you wouldn't let me! And you were wrong, too, about what dad said!" said Sho. He felt like throwing the toy in his hand, it was a plastic hippo and it went with the hippo family with his safari animals, but he didn't throw it. First of all you were not supposed to throw things at girls, second of all you weren't supposed to throw things at moms who were also girls, and third of all his toys had done nothing to deserve that.

"What did your dad say?" asked Masami keeping her voice level. Touichirou often forgot just how small the children were. They took things so literally at their age. Like that story he told them about when they would inherit the world. She knew that it was just him explaining his work in a way that was easy for them to understand but they had come away from that story believing that they were a prince and a princess and that she and her husband were going to be king and queen of the world. She had, mostly, managed to set them straight but she knew that as soon as her husband came back he'd tell them that story again and then it would be back to square one.

"Dad says that an ant has no quarrel with a boot. He meant that we weren't supposed to fight with normal people because we could squish them like boots but Sho thinks that it meant that we were supposed to squish them like boots because they were fighting with us…and they weren't even fighting with us. They were just calling me Mob again." said Mob

"You…Shigeko, you shouldn't let them call you that. It's mean." Said Masami

"I don't think that it's mean at all. If they wanted to call me a mean name then they could have, Mob is not a mean name, it's a nickname. I don't mind it and even if I did it wouldn't be something worth fighting over." Said Mob

"You just think that it's not worth fighting over because you're a girl and girl's hate fighting." Said Sho

"I don't hate fighting because I'm a girl, I hate fighting because it's not nice." Said Mob

"Both of you…just…your father meant that…that fighting is wrong because you have powers and could hurt them…but that doesn't mean to never fight." Said Masami trying to find some words for what Touichirou must have meant. He could be so abstract sometimes that even she had trouble understanding him…and she was thirty years older than they were.

"I don't understand." Said Mob

"Me neither." Said Sho

"Ok…listen, don't pick fights and don't use your powers against others…unless you have to. Name calling is not a situation in which you can use your powers and neither is disagreeing with each other. Only use your powers against others if they…if they hit you first or threaten to." Said Masami

"But mom! They shouldn't think that they can hit us or threaten us or be mean to us in the first place. Dad said that because we have powers-" said Sho

"Your father meant…he meant that powers are like….knives." said Masami, her eyes dancing across the room until she came to their play kitchen set.

"We aren't supposed to put them in the dishwasher?" asked Mob because that was the first thing that came to mind when mom mentioned knives. She had no idea what mom was getting at. Why couldn't mom and dad ever just be direct about things?

"I like to put things in the dishwasher." Said Sho. Well now none of this made any sense…but he would like to load the dishwasher again now that they were talking about it…

"We'll load the dishwasher later but first…just listen. Your powers are like knives in the sense that they're tools. You can use a knife to cut food or you can use a knife to stab someone. But we don't go around stabbing people because that's not a nice thing to do at all." Said Masami

"Because then you'll go to jail and never see your family again." Said Mob. That made sense, when you hurt people you got punished and when you did something really bad you went to jail, which was like a timeout but worse. Also you never saw your family again. She could be annoyed by Sho sometimes but she still loved her little brother…and she loved mom even though she punished them sometimes…and she loved dad, too, even if she didn't see him that often.

"Yes." said Masami

"And they beat you with bags of frozen oranges and feed you dog food make you shower in a room full of strangers and beat you with soap on a rope." Said Sho. He had seen jail on TV and he didn't want to go there. If that was where you went if you hurt people with your powers then he knew that when he got his he was never going to hurt anyone ever again.

"Frozen…oranges…?" asked Masami. She looked between the children a few times before her eyes settled on the TV. Good for nothing child blocks…

"Yes. We saw it on TV. They beat you up really bad. We saw it on the movie channel." Said Mob

"Well! No more prison movies for you two!" said Masami with a forced chuckle. Right, time to reset the child locks before they saw something that would warp them for the rest of their lives. She got up quickly and closed the TV cabinet. She would have locked it but Shigeko knew how to undo locks with her powers. She knew that later on she'd have to have a series of talks with the children, mostly Shigeko, about misusing their powers but that felt like it had been enough for one day. She still had to do so much. Dinner, laundry, workbooks with the children, bath time, bed time, and then the million and one other things that she had to do to keep the household from imploding.

It was a lot.

But it would get easier once her husband came back…and stayed. He could be the one to have these talks with the children, then, but on their level. No more abstraction. They were children and could only understand so much…and she herself could only understand so much…and there was still so much to understand…

A tug at her skirt.

"Mom, can we load the dishwasher now?" asked Sho. Mom got that far off look, that meant that she was thinking, and he didn't much like it. Especially because she was giving the TV that look. Last time she had done that she had locked it up in the TV cabinet and it took him and big sis a while to get the lock opened and figure out how to undo the child blocker.

"Huh? Oh, after we eat but first, let's see what's up with the menagerie today." Said Masami sliding down from Shigeko's bed and onto the floor. The children followed her over to where the plastic animals roamed and soon they had a good game of menagerie neighborhood and also dolls going.

And everyone got along for the rest of the afternoon.