A Helping Hand for the Younger Generation Private

"Are you sure this is a good idea...?" Jake asked George again, hesitantly, as he walked beside him in the hall. He didn't know the people he was being brought to meet, and like always when strangers were involved, Jake was feeling nervous. He wasn't even sure whether there WERE people they were going to meet. George dragged him off a lot - sometimes to places that he wasn't sure he should go - and he didn't always tell him why, and when he did, it sometimes wasn't the real reason. But there was one thing that was for sure, really, truly...Jake did need help on his homework.

Jake had never been good at magic, ever since arriving at school. It was like his wand just didn't want to listen to him. He had so many questions, but was too shy to ask them in class, and too intimidated by his professors to ask them after. It was George who kept his head above water in Charms, because he could ask George for help, and it was George who had led him to his first successful lumos - one of Jake's most proudest days. He did better with George...when nobody else was watching and he didn't have to think about what all the other kids were going to think. But transfiguration was proving hard for the both of them.

It was a lot harder than Jake ever would have imagined - much harder than Charms, and the Professor used a whole lot more giant words too, so that sometimes Jake didn't even understand what she was even talking about. She had also drilled into their heads the things that could go wrong on a transfiguration and usually when Jake tried to cast he thought of that more than anything else. And then there were the equations and formulas which made his head hurt.

And then there was the other thing...

The thing that had never been spoken about. The thing he couldn't even tell George, though he could tell George almost everything (and most other things he couldn't George had already found out on his own). It was that other thing...that had really made his grades begin to suffer.

Jake touched his face absent-mindedly, though he hadn't really touched his face in months. The invisible 'thing' that rested there he had grown used to - as if it was an extension of his own body...but the voices...he could never grow used to the voices. Sometimes they were mercifully silent - other times he filtered them out and ignored them as if they weren't there. But sometimes he couldn't ignore them. Sometimes they got louder...more demanding. And the things they tried to make him do...Maybe he WAS crazy...he didn't know. But some of the things it wanted from him were things that he could never do...yet sometimes he wanted to...just to make it stop yelling at him.

Jake yawned again, his pace beginning to slow...the small Puff hadn't been sleeping. And his nightmares, always a present threat, had grown darker and more vivid than they ever had been before. He was scared of the night...scared to close his eyes...when the castle would go quiet and the voice would seem louder than ever before, no more din to lose it in. He would be haunted if he dared drift off to sleep. He had grown quieter than ever. More distant than ever before. He felt ready to cry at any moment. He just wanted it all to stop.

LaLa Lagueux Plans to Marry Into Rosier Family... The article that had been published in in the Daily Prophet, and found its way into Witch Weekly- which was of no surprise at all. Xailah had her own copy of the subscription magazine wedged in between the pages of her Transfiguration Today. It was the oldest trick in the book- pun intended. Xailah wasn't exactly engrossed in the celebrity gossip, found throughout the magazine. She mostly just liked to look at the pretty people. Very rarely did she come across an article worth reading in Witch Weekly.

The soft fluttering of paper, and the occasional trill from Schrödinger, could be heard, as Xailah flipped between the two magazines. She was waiting with Meenauh for two other students. Meenauh had said that the other students needed help on homework or something. Xailah didn't know why she had agreed to help tutor- considering she wasn't really the type to sit down and help people- and on homework, of all things. Xailah wasn't the most scholarly kid, but she did fairly well in her classes- well enough to keep under the professors radar.

A cats pupil, inset curious yellow irises, scanned the page for something interesting to read. Placing a slender, gloved finger on a paragraph, she would mumble something. "...Paleontologist up near Peru, discovered a fossil, which they think could be a extinct species of dragon." Xailah looked at Meenauh in disbelief. "Probably found one of those muggle things- what do they call them? Teeroaddacthills?" No that didn't sound right. "Peemoreractmills?" Her dark, chocolate, locks writhed with frustration.

"You know- the flying lizards." Xailah had been referring to Pterodactyls. The prefect had a strange interest in dinosaurs, fossils, and the like. The interest in the subject had resulted in some strange hobbies, mostly the collection and restoration of small animal bones- the kid was a fledgling taxidermist. She saw a certain beauty in bones, that many others did not see. "When will those other students be arriving?" Xailah asked as she pulled a worn pocketwatch from her robe pocket.

It was evident that George had been through the wringer since he had seen Meenauh last. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his usual mischievous smile was worn down into a razor straight line, his lips holding tight to conceal a grimace. When Jake began to slow down and yawn, George jolted him awake with a tug on the arm and beckoned him to keep the pace up - though he paused for a moment after, frowning and rubbing his own eyes as well. Jake had always been sensitive to the dark, but nowadays George couldn't even sneak down to turn the light out in the night time without hearing the younger boy whimpering down there like a wounded animal. So he left it on, and he came down to check on him on occasion, worried that the trend might stick if he didn't keep the kid comfortable at least until the time came to see his mum and dad again.

"I can't figure out transfiguration," he murmurs, his voice clipped with impatience. "There's no other choice, unless you'd rather the both of us just took the troll grade."

On a normal day, he might have been more concerned about the appearance of himself and Jake. The two boys looked positively haunted. But he had given up on the idea that this might be a good opportunity to make a friend on the Headliner staff, or at least to impress her, so that she might pay more attention to him and perhaps offer him some pointers. His writings, to him, lacked in substance and were too flowery to matter. Meenauh wrote like a scientist. When he read her work, he knew she was an authority on the subject, or that she at least gave the impression of being one, which was worth just as much when it came to making a newspaper.

"Ready?" George asked Jake, entering the study room before he could answer. He tried to sweep up the both of them into the conversation as they came to the table with Meenauh and Xailah waiting. His thin-pressed lips gave way to a more characteristic smile as he heard someone mention a 'flying lizard' - a perfect ticket for the boys to enter. Jake knew all about those. "I think those are called dragons."

There was a quizzical look on his face as he observed Xailah, trying to call to mind where he might have seen her before. He resigned with a shrug and stuck his hand out to her for a proper introduction. "I'm George Henry, that's my friend Jake Morris. Thanks for agreeing to help! We could really use it..."

He pulled out a chair for his smaller companion, and then one for himself, after the other badger was nestled in comfortably. He kept his gaze on Jake for a good few seconds before finally addressing Meenauh. "Hi again Meenauh. Sorry, we didn't sleep very good... someone in our room was being noisy.

That should explain away the fact they looked like zombies. A moment passes and he recalls something - the books tucked under his other arm. They are hefted up in a graceful arc, slamming into the table surface with a thunk that displaces the magazines and books that the girls had been browsing before the boys arrived.

Evenings were actually the most productive. She couldn't call herself, what muggles call, an owl, as owls meant something special for wizards. She just considered (and felt) evening and nights as the most productive, but they never influenced her sleeping cycle, which almost always had to start before midnight. If she planned to live forever, even tiny details in her day-by-day routine had to make sense and be rational. Less sleep — less life. And noticing details was the activity that only blossomed during the evening time.

The duo that entered the study room couldn't be compared to the size of details, so they were much easier to spot. Even easier when you actually expect. Both of them looked like sleep wasn't yet invented by humanity and it wasn't a need one would have to satisfy daily. She was watching the two badgers from the top border of her magazine.

The watch was interrupted by her friend voicing the lines from her copy of Transfiguration Today. Meenauh let her magazine down and full-turned to Xailah as she was trying to pronounce the name of some flying lizard, but none of those were familiar to Meenauh. Meenauh was more interested in where she found that article, as no such article was in the Meenauh's copy of the magazine. She quickly ran through the pages to make sure she hadn't missed it and then she tried to reach for the Xailah's copy to see which page it was on. Just at the moment, when Xailah asked her about the ones they've been waiting for. Meenauh looked at Xailah to absorb the question and failed to reach for the magazine (and it will be kept a mystery forever). She inclined her head to the side without looking at the boys, but notifying Xailah they were arriving.

The boys arrived with an answer a bit out of the context, which Meenauh didn't know how to properly react at.

"Yes... they are," she said instead of a greeting and looked at Xailah, subtly shaking her head to let Xailah know that there was no urgent need to proceed with that topic. George was introducing himself and his friend and then stuck out a hand above the table, trying to reach Xailah for a handshake, possibly. The whole scene seemed pretty awkward as Meenauh couldn't imagine Xailah suddenly putting away her magazine and jumping up to accept the handshake. The whole scene was too funny to imagine, but it was played live.

Meenauh wondered why George was introducing themselves by full names as if she and Xailah, or practically anyone, would remember them. But at least he was overly polite, which Meenauh could only note down as a strong positive trait. She awkwardly smiled at the introduction:

"This is my friend, Xailah," she said to both boys, "I am Meenauh, like 'me' and 'now'," she said to Jake Morris (still giving space to Xailah if she'd want to get up and shake that hand).

She actually couldn't take her eyes off Jake. She sincerely wondered inside whether he was some kind of a wonder child, who had been accepted to Hogwarts before turning eleven. She had never seen such young kids in Hogwarts. George was seeing after him as if Jake was his younger brother. As George started to talk to Meenauh directly, she finally switched her attention to her Headliner colleague.

"Well, the night is in a few hours, so make sure you get some nice sleep," she answered, and after George created a mess on their table, she frowned at him stressing out his clumsiness, "How are you supposed to learn something and, what's more important, remember something in such condition?"

When George brought up getting a troll, Jake dutifully shut his mouth. George was kinda right...Jake really didn't want to fail, and when he tried to transfigure things he hadn't been able to make his match even a little bit pointy. Most of his Charms success (little as it was) had come from George's tutoring. If George couldn't figure this one out, there was no hope for Jake.

"Ready?" the bigger boy asked him, and Jake braced himself, because he wasn't...but when George asked if you were ready that meant it was nearly go-time. As George entered the room, Jake followed...hanging a little further back and looking a bit like he was on his way to the doctor's office for a shot. He gave a shy wave in the direction of the two older girls, as George introduced the both of them and stuck out a hand. George was a lot better at talking to other kids than Jake was, and sometimes Jake let him do the talking for both of them. He usually worded things a lot better than Jake was going to anyway, and he didn't stutter or stammer while he did it. When Meenauh introduced herself to Jake directly though he gave another wave. "H-hi..." he said shyly, feeling his heart beat a little quicker from nerves, though the mention of dragons certainly piqued his interest.

George pulled out a chair, and Jake climbed up into it, nestled himself in, and sat as attentively as he could, even though he looked like he had barely outgrown needing a pillow to sit on. He didn't look very attentive...Even with the tenseness of a new social situation, Jake couldn't stop his eyes from drooping. The two boys looked a sorry sight, though Jake hadn't realized just how much...and George started to explain it. He said it was 'cause somebody was noisy.

Jake blushed and lowered his eyes guiltily, having a pretty good idea who that was. He hadn't meant to keep George awake...he hadn't been able to help it. He had had the dreams...and he'd woken up crying. He had maybe shouted...he didn't really remember that part, but he thought that maybe he had. He hadn't been able to fall back asleep, and that meant George hadn't been able to either. He had tried to be quiet...it wasn't like he wanted anybody to hear...but it'd be a lie to say that he hadn't been relieved that George was there...Hearing the shuffling of the sheets above him, and then seeing his friend's face and hearing his voice had been a comfort to Jake in the frightening night...it had made him feel calmer and safe once more. Now though, he wished he'd been able to be braver, like the voices were always telling him to do. He wanted to tell George that he was sorry, and he almost mumbled it, but he realized quickly that if he did, then the other girls would know he was the noisy child that George was talking about. And then they might find out why...

But Meenauh was right. Jake didn't feel like he could keep two thoughts straight, and could barely stay awake in his classes. George at least had the energy to slam the book on the table...Jake felt ready to lay his head down upon the table and take a nap, though he knew if he did George would nudge him awake. Still...he did kind of want to. To lie his head down and rest his eyes in the well-lit room surrounded by other students, and with George so close nearby...

A yawn was coming upon him now, as if on cue, and Jake struggled to stifle it (he didn't want to embarrass George) but was unable. He had to try to stay awake and focus and pay attention. It was what George wanted him to do anyway, and he wouldn't learn if he didn't. He raised his head and rather than answering Meenaugh's question directly, turned uncertainly to Georgie. The boy flashed George a small look he would know well, as it appeared often in these situations where Jake didn't know what to say and thought that George would say it better. New and uncertain situations had a tendency to turn Jake back into the quiet boy that had once met George while holding his stuffed dog, and not the boy who would eagerly tell George about magical creatures over breakfast.

The young metamorph, had always been a nocturnal creature- a child of the Mother Moon. She had always carried the telltale signs of exhaustion on her face, though they weren't nearly as noticeable as one would think- they usually became obvious during the times her brain went into auto pilot. The times she went completely still. The times when her reality came to a pause. Luckily her little trips into the twilight zone, were rare happenings.

So, when the Hufflepuff duo, entered, the prefect already knew that their exhaustion was the result of a lack of sleep. Little explanation was needed. The zombie-like fashion, in which the badgers shuffled, made the prefect to look up from the rusted watch, and snap it shut, where it would later return to the pocket from which it was produced. Were they the students, that they were going to tutor? The lioness turned to her friend for confirmation. A look a disbelief, was plastered upon the pale face of the prefect. You're kidding right?

For some strange reason, the lioness couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed, upon seeing the two badgers. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but whatever it was, it must have been better than what she was currently looking at. "No. I was talking about the other, flying lizards. The muggle ones." She said, rolling her yellow eyes, in response to the brunette badgers comment. She rose from her seat, to give the boy a handshake. It was the proper thing to do at that moment, regardless of the retorts.

The lioness didn't usually turn handshakes away. "Its a pleasure to meet you George, and..." She did of course, have her moments where she forgot to return the gesture; due to her slight detachment, and her corroding memories of what was and what wasn't proper, for a young lady to say or do. But, that being said, there where a couple times where she didn't shake a hand, due to disliking a person, or detecting that something was off. The prefects feline gaze fell on the freakishly shorter of the two boys. He didn't offer a hand shake- nor would she reach to shake his hand.

Something was not quite right with that boy. She couldn't put her finger on it. Her eyes narrowed into two golden crescent moons. Why, that must be it. She stared at him like a cat watching a mouse. He looks far too young to be a student here. She thought, laughing to herself. "Jake." She gave the boy a lazy smile, before returning to her seat. The prefect turned to her fellow lioness once again, her golden eyes meeting those of an ocean blue. He's like five. He must have been smuggled into Hogwarts or something. She didn't verbalize her thoughts, but she was desperately trying to telepathically communicate what she was thinking, to Meenauh. Unfortunately the metamorph had not been born with that gift.

A hard thump would cause the lioness to draw back into her chair, with a irritated grimace. "Maybe you ssshould do sssomething about your noisy dorm mate- or get sssomeone else to resolve the issue." She sneered, as she scooped up the magazines, she and Meenauh had been reading, unaware of Jakes guilty expressions. "Because, they are clearly not beneficial to either of you." Her tone was a matter-of factly one. She tapped the reading material, on the table until they fell into a neat pile. "Looks like we have our work cut out for us, yes?" She murmured in a humored whisper. She leaned towards her fellow lioness, eyeing the two Hufflepuffs, as she did so. Well, this was going to be interesting.

George was surprised to be admonished for his disruptive behaviour, glancing back to Jake for support and finding that the younger Hufflepuff was already looking his way. He swung his gaze back to Meenauh, a penitent smile on his face.

"Sorry," he mumbled, reaching out to sort the stack of books into an array of organized chaos. The thick textbook was pushed from the top of the pile, resting open between the two Hufflepuffs. He laid a notebook out for Jake and took one for himself, opening them both to the first unmarked page. A few others remain in the stack - reference materials for the assignment at hand, which was placed pertinently on the top of a tome. "There - all in order. It's hard to carry around all this stuff..."

He'd brought quills and ink for himself and his companion, too, and he laid them out like he was setting a table for dinner. Jake barely had to do anything to help prepare. While it likely would have done well to keep him awake, George didn't even consider the option of making Jake move. It was as if he'd been struck by some horrible curse of sleeplessness. George had never seen someone so tired still upright and walking, and it seemed like every night Jake got just enough to prop himself upright the next morning to walk to class together. After a few hours spent scouring the library for clues on the nature of his affliction, George had given up. Nothing seemed to help. All he could do was make it easier for his poor, sleepy-eyed friend.

His chest puffed up with renewed pride when Xailah returned his handshake - though something about her caught his eye upon closer inspection. Those eyes! So unnatural and bizarre! He couldn't help but stare into them, drawing away from his handshake and continuing to peer at her in confusion.

"Your eyes! Jake- look," he said, reaching out to tap the young badger on the shoulder, hard enough to rouse him awake if he had drifted. "That's brilliant, look at that! Your eyes are spectacular."

Still awed by the physical anomaly of her eyes, George found his seat, letting out an amazed chuckle as he looked to gauge the reaction of his Hufflepuff peer. Xailah's comfort with the attention hadn't occurred to him. If you had eyes like that, wouldn't you want everybody to see them? He secretly hoped for an explanation, but at the moment, there was something closer and hand to investigate.

"It's the match-needle one. We can't, ah... make it... work." He shrugged. That was the gist of it. The first few classes of transfiguration had been so heavy in theory that George had stopped paying attention, instead writing crude notes using the patterns of ancient runes and passing them along to Jack Warren. When it came time to cast the spell they'd been shown, he had nothing to show for it. The written portion of the assignment paper was also blank, save for a small doodle of a badger on the corner, poorly concealed by a scribble mark.

"Don't worry about the noisy boy in our dorm. He was just having bad dreams..."

Xailah got the style to surprise Meenauh with unconventional behaviour. One moment you think there was no way in the world she'd accept the handshake in full stance, but then she recalled Xailah was a prefect and she basically had politeness as her responsibility. Meenauh shrugged and smiled in deep pleasure, especially after George complimented her friend's eyes. And she knew Xai could really wake them up if she'd do her thing. Even after twenty years together, Xai could still get her surprised with everyday things. Unpredictability is strength.

Meenauh didn't notice that Xailah was also scanning the Jake boy, because she was scanning him herself. Undoubtedly, he had magic in him, otherwise, he wouldn't have come to Hogwarts and moreover to get help with Transfiguration. But he was an intriguing person and Meenauh wanted to ask him a few questions. She had wanted, because once the boy yawned, the questions were yawned away. It seemed he did his best at trying to hold it off, but the yawn was much stronger.

Returning her attention back to George, she missed how the stack of books unfolded into a prepared set for theorising. There were books, there were notebooks ready to take notes, there were reference materials she hadn't seen before. She took one of the sheets and studied it quickly at both sides (just checking, though it was quite obvious that one of the sides was empty). She then returned a freezing neutral glance at George, completely immobile with only her eyes moving on to him when he made his explanation of their issue while Meenauh was basically looking at it. She returned her eyes back to the sheet and ran through it:

"Hmm. Did Ress change it for the first-years? I don't remember these in the previous year. She must have updated some materials. Which is... brilliant, because I didn't know that level of Transfiguration could be detailed further. But you should get the basics much faster with these," she threw the sheet back to the top of the tome and it rested there peacefully. Not that she intended to be mean, but somehow those words could be accepted differently from what she meant.

Xailah's cat was wandering around and was probably interested in the newcomers that the couple was conversing with. No one could predict the animal's movement or intentions, but as it always happens, the feline's instincts couldn't be predicted even by a seer. At least that was what Meenauh thought. George asked them to not worry about their sleep offender, but Meenauh for whatever reason flinched at the words 'bad dreams', quickly shooting a glance at Ms. Alptraum. The smaller boy also seemed like his dreams were not that nice as well.

"So, how would you like to approach it? I don't see much sense in reading and theorising about the spell — you can do it later in your dorms," she froze for a while grasping the sudden idea, turned around, approached her bag and pulled out a small matchbox, full of matchsticks. Well, sticks, yes, because their phosphorous heads were scrapped off. For safety reasons, of course. But they were still sufficient to practise. She opened the box and randomly pulled out around six or seven matches, dividing them between George and Jake equally and keeping one for herself. Then she tore out two sheets of paper (apologising for that afterwards), quickly drew a symbol on each, put one match on the symbol and put the rest of the piles on the table near the sheets.

"I'm sure you've already heard about the Efficiency Postulate right?" she eyed the boys as she was sorting out the papers and the piles, "It doesn't matter, though. I mean, it won't stop working just because you don't know about it," she drew her wand and made a step back.

A swift crooked staff gesture and a clear incantation turned the short matchstick in front of her into a shimmering needle, sharp and metal. And then she sat down in front of them.

"That's it. You won't get it from the first try, especially in your state. I drew the gesture on the sheets so that you could point your wand at it and follow the symbol with it. And visualise what you've just seen. And then pronounce the incantation properly," she smiled and really hoped they paid attention. The spell was best to be repeated after one would see it live first, "So, just concentrate. And if you're worried that we're casting spells here and not in the classroom — well, no one would notice if you won't critically fail."

Maybe the last bits would help to scratch that sleepy look off their faces.

Jake blinked as he saw George's arm coming in from his peripheral, setting up a notebook, a quill, some ink. Had he nodded off again...? The younger boy nodded his appreciation, but his face was so worn out he seemed half sleep-walking already. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

George tapped his shoulder, getting his attention quickly and urging him to look at the older girl's eyes. Jake did, looking up at Xailah, his eyes widening a little. George was right. Her eyes were unusual for sure. Fascinating, even. They almost seemed to glow, their golden color striking. But still...

"Y-yeah..." he mumbled, his mouth slightly agape. He knew with certainty that he was seeing something that Georgie didn't. There was something about the other girl that frightened him, though he wasn't sure what. Maybe it was because her eyes had already fallen upon him. Why was she looking at him like that...? Those large eyes were fixed on him, and Jake felt lost inside of them...almost hypnotized by the glow. They're like cat's eyes, he thought, certain as he thought it that that was right. Except why did he feel like a little mouse...?

It was the kind of look that made Jake wonder what she meant about 'resolving the issue' of the noisy boy, and Jake suddenly felt a pit in his stomach. He sunk down a little more in his chair. Though Jake couldn't help but flinch at George's mention of bad dreams (he really didn't want to talk about it), he was grateful when his bunkmate told them not to worry, and very grateful when her eyes moved away.

There was a guilty blankness on the little Hufflepuff's face when Meenauh mentioned the Efficiency Posselate(?). Maybe their professor had taught them about it, but he couldn't remember. He had stared blankly at the board through so many classes, or laid his head down on his desk. The words had gone in one ear and out the other, and he couldn't recall what he had heard or hadn't. It was confusing, and didn't make a whole lot of sense even when he wasn't tired. He looked at George quietly to see if his friend's face showed any more clarity, and then back to Meenauh with the same blank stare, his lack of answer answering well enough. He looked on with admiration as the older girl deftly transformed her matchstick with grace and ease. If only he could do that...She had said they had to visualize, and Jake's imagination had always been strong. She also said that they had to concentrate though, and he already knew that that was going to be very hard.

He looked at his wand, feeling foolish with so many eyes upon him. He knew that he was going to mess it up. He always seemed to. Sometimes he thought that the magic inside of him must be as small as he himself was. He was always looking up at all of the other kids, and that's how he felt when he watched them casting too. The thought had never occurred to him that his fear of failure might be holding him back, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had. He hated messing things up when people were watching. Meenauh's mention of the attention drawn from critical failure made him wonder if they were supposed to be casting here. Were they going to get in trouble...? He didn't have to worry very much that the matchstick would explode or anything like that...He had seen that happen to another kid with a feather in their Charms class, but Jake's failed casting usually made nothing happen at all. "M-maybe you should go first..." he said to George hopefully.

Jake thought about the spell, and tried to keep the incantation straight in his head for when it would be his turn. What was it again...? Comnuvocas? Communacotus? She had just said it...why couldn't he remember? He sighed, frustrated...then he looked down at his hand, and the patterns it was tracing on the paper. He supposed his hand had been tracing with the quill for a while, idly drawing, though he hadn't really noticed himself doing it. It wasn't unusual for Jake to find himself drawing on impulse - he often did that while lost in thought. What was unusual was what was being traced onto the page. Circles inside circles, lines and patterns...so unlike his usual doodles. His drawings were almost always based in the natural world...animals, flowers, his friends, a forest...it was only lately that they had taken on such an abstract turn. He looked down at his wandering hand, unsettled by what he was looking at. Perhaps it was sleepiness, yet the hand just seemed to continue all on its own, like whatever part of his brain was telling it to do so was far away and he was too tired to connect with that area at all. He hadn't heard the voice...or had he...? Had he spent so many months trying to block it out that it had receded back into the parts of his mind where he didn't even realize he was listening...?

Jake quickly turned the page to a fresh one and laid down his quill, heart beating a little more quickly. He looked away to the side, and there caught a glimpse of something that brought a new light to his eyes.

"Um...i-is that your cat...?" he asked the other girls with curiosity. The change that came over the boy's face when he spotted it was remarkable, and it was at times like these when Jake finally looked like himself again.