The apartment my parents found was small, but clean. They'd gotten some furniture from a thrift store nearby, and a few air mattresses. Mom joked that it was nice to get back to her college days.

I was going back to school in a couple of days. There was a decent public school nearby, and they'd gotten all the paperwork done. I think they might have been grateful for a 'normal' problem to solve, something that wasn't so overwhelming.

I didn't really know what to do with myself. All through the war, we'd talked about what we'd do when it was over. How great it'd be to go to the mall and just hang out. How fun it'd be when the biggest thing we had to worry about was whether the cute boy or girl in our class liked us.

Of course, we'd also always imagined doing it as a group.

For lack of anything better to do, I was trying to catch up on my reading for school. My English class was apparently working on Romeo and Juliet. I was trying to focus, but I kept getting a little impatient. Their entire city was on the brink of dissolving into war, and all they could think about was getting together, instead of doing something to help. I knew from the Wishbone version that their deaths ended up bringing their families together, but that was just because the play had to have some sort of ending.

I tossed the book aside just as the door was opening. My mom smiled a little. "Shakespeare. The bane of all high school students."

I smiled back at her. It felt good to do that, smiling about something that was actually funny, not gallows-humor funny. "Maybe the people in Fahrenheit 451 had it right after all."

My mom chuckled. "Don't they all end up memorizing books at the end of that, or something?"

I groaned theatrically, and part of me noticed I sounded a little like Marco when I did it. "The kids in this are just so…dumb."

"The kids in that are your age," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't be all mushy like that over—" I broke off, the laugh draining out of me. I'd been about to say Jake, but that was over now. And maybe I was the same age as Romeo and Juliet, but I wasn't a kid. None of us were anymore.

I think my mom sensed it, but she kept going anyway, trying not to let things get too serious. "So, we all do need to get some clothes. Your father and I thought we'd all hit the mall, get a few sets for each of us. Maybe get dinner at the food court."

I smiled again, more genuinely. "Yeah. That'd be fun."

Half an hour later, we were all walking into the food court together, and I was wondering if this was really a good idea. It was crowded, and it was making me jumpy. Ever since the Yeerks got morphing technology, we'd had to be suspicious of every bird, every single bug. Have an itch on your forehead? It might be a Controller in morph as a flea.

I knew it was stupid to be paranoid. But being paranoid had kept us alive for the last three years, and it wasn't an easy habit to break.

I found my shoulders tensing, trying to keep my parents in my line of sight at all times, while also keeping an eye on all the exits if we had to get out quickly. Stop it, Cassie. You're acting nutso, I tried to tell myself. It's just a mall. Nothing dangerous here except the possibility of food poisoning.

"Cassie, did you hear me?" I tried to focus, blinking a little and looking at my dad.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked.

He looked worried. "I said, do you want to get pizza or something else? We don't have to do this if you don't want, you know."

I shook my head, forcing myself to smile. "No, it's fine. Yeah, pizza sounds great."

"Okay. Just, let us know if you want to leave, and we'll go. You've been through a lot and—"

I knew he meant well, but I didn't want to talk about it, especially not when it'd spoil the evening. "It's fine. Pizza is great, really."

He nodded, although he didn't look convinced. Still, we headed up to the Sbarro counter to order our pizza. The clerk stared at me while we put in our order, in a way that made me badly want to find the nearest place I could morph. "Are you Cassie?" he blurted out finally. "Can you do an autograph?"

I just stared back, looking a bit blank. An autograph? Like we were celebrities? I could feel something welling up in me, something I wasn't sure I could control, but then my mom stepped in front of me.

I'd grown in the last few years, and I was taller than my mom by a couple of inches now. But I swear, when she gets mad, she does her own special brand of morphing where she grows at least two feet. And she did it now, standing between me and the acne-faced clerk. "Young man, I'm certain your manger wouldn't approve of you harassing your customers, would she?" she demanded.

The boy stammered and shook his head. I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"Then, I think you can ring us up for our pizza promptly and we won't have to discuss it with her, will we?"

The boy nodded, dished up our order, and rang it up as quickly as he could. My father paid for it quietly and led us back to a table.

I found myself grinning a little at that, and I burst into laughter as we sat down. "That poor kid."

My dad laughed too, but my mom wasn't done being indignant. "His parents should have raised him to have better manners."

I nodded, and reached out to squeeze my mom's hand. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt a little better. Like Cassie Price, not just Cassie the Animorph. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, baby." She smiled a bit and motioned to the pizza. "And you've gotten much too skinny the last few months, so eat up."

The pizza wasn't very good—it was mall pizza, after all, but it was also some of the best pizza I'd ever had. We sat and told jokes, stupid family jokes that had happened years ago, things that were just us. Stories from when I was a little kid.

I found myself relaxing and enjoying myself, not watching the exits quite so much too. It was fun. A fly even landed on our table, and I just waved it away instead of freaking out. For the first time in a really long time, I thought maybe I knew what normal was. And that maybe I could find it again.