Julie and Isabel
Isabel spotted Julie as she stepped out of the car.
"Hey, girl," she said. "How'd the check up go?"
Julie sighed and rolled her eyes.
"It was basically a complete waste again. Bubby showed up on the sonogram for a grand total of two seconds and that was it."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. For some reason sonograms do not like me. Half the time they just don't work."
"Huh. Weird."
"Yeah," Julie shook her head.
"Julie!"
Julie winced.
"And so Dad calls again. Ugh, I swear he's going out of his way to make my life miserable."
Isabel gave Julie a sympathetic smile as she followed her father inside. Isabel turned around and started towards her own house.
"Sonograms don't..." she repeated to herself suddenly, something clicking.
Her casual walk turned into a quick trot as she made her way to her room. She pulled out a box and started rummaging through it urgently.
Max and Isabel
Max walked past Isabel's room to hear her muttering "Where is it? Where is it?"
"Where is what?" he asked.
"There's an article I read... in the YIRAAS stuff... oh dang where is it?"
"About what?"
"About sonograms not working."
"That's helpful."
"That's all I can remember."
"Why you looking for it?"
"Julie was complaining sonograms didn't like her."
"Oh. But she isn't alien. Why are you looking in your YIRAAS box?"
"Because that's where I remember reading the article."
Max raised his eyebrows, but knelt down beside her and helped her look through. Isabel gave him a grateful smile. They searched through in silence for a couple of minutes.
"Say, is this what you're looking for?" Max asked, showing Isabel a double page in the YIRAAS newsletter.
The article was entitled "Sound Powers" and was all about different sound related powers. Max's finger was on a paragraph under the "Stealth" section. Isabel began to read aloud:
"Stealth is the rarest of all sound powers. People with this power are incapable of emiting sounds unless they choose to. They are also undetectable by radar and sonar and other such related technologies, unless they choose to. Naturally this can make raising a child with this power difficult. An early warning sign that a child has this power, however, is in the womb," Isabel caught her breath. "Steath often prevents sonograms from detecting the baby, regularily flickering between seeing and not as the baby (and subsequencely, the power) developes."
Isabel felt no need to read on.
"This would mean..."
"That the father is an alien," Isabel finished, rapping her fingers on the table. "She came from Tulsa right? How many male aliens her age could there be in Tulsa?"
"It could have just been a fling... maybe he doesn't come from Tulsa - was just passing through. Or maybe he was much older than her?"
"Are you trying to make this difficult for me?"
"Umm... sorry. Why don't you check the YIRAAS website?"
"Good idea," and Isabel got on the computer, into the internet and did a search on aliens in Tulsa.
"There's a few teenage guys huh?" Max observed.
"Oh darn it," Isabel grumbled. "The only way to find out who the daddy is is to ask Julie."
"she doesn't know. I asked her the night we went over for dinner."
"Dang!" She thought hard. "Say... what if I went into her dreams? Maybe I can learn something that way."
Max nodded.
"Sounds like a plan."