“Of course,” Jack replied, with a small nod. “Take as long as you need.” Once Ulric had moved away from the screen, he turned his attention to baby Joey, waving back at the little boy with a playful smile. “Hello, little guy. Nice to meet you too.”
Then, as if remembering, he straightened himself up, looking slightly embarrassed. “Ah, so, Mira … Ulric says you work with motorcycles?” He would normally have asked about her family, but that line she’d said, “I wish I had parents like you”, made him feel that maybe now wasn’t the best time. Jack did want to learn more, but it could wait until a later meeting, once he’d gotten to know Mira better.
“We will, wont we?” Mira’s smile widened at Ulric, then at Jack, chuckling again as he waved back to Joey. Letting the little guy hold onto her finger as Ulric left to fetch Joey’s fish friend, Mira leaned against the back of the couch. When Jack asked about her and motorcycles, she practically gleamed a wide grin.
“Ulric’s been talking about my bike and I, huh?” She kept grinning, blushing at the thought of him talking about her. “Yeah, I do. I own one, actually…had it since I was sixteen.” She rubbed at the back of her neck with her free hand. “Work on it almost everyday.” Shrugging, Mira glanced down to Joey. “Kinda would like to open a shop someday…” That, and to start making better profit with her paintings.
“Actually, I–- -” About to mention her paintings, knowing that Jack was a painter, Mira’s phone started buzzing in her back pocket. “Uh…sorry, I…” Her expression fell, wondering who it could even be. Reaching back to grab it, Mira flipped her old phone open reading the message. That’s when her face went pale.
[TXT MSG: M!A For the next week you’re a baby. Papoose and everything. Enjoy yourself~]
Wide eyed, Mira stared at the message on her screen, quickly looking up at Jack with a worried look. “Uh-!” It wasn’t long before the magic set in, leaving Mira sitting there next to Joey…as a small baby with big blue eyes. Blinking a few times, she started to cry.
Finally having found Minion where he figured he would be, the sound of unfamiliar crying alerts Ulric to something having gone wrong. Fish tucked under one arm in his little globe, he turns toward the living room and hurries back.
Finding two babies on the couch, though, with Mira’s open cell, wasn’t what he expected to find. Eyes wide, he sets Joey’s Minion down next to the little boy and leans over to where Jack can see him from the computer screen. “… Guess I missed something.”
“Oh, sure.” Jack had sat back to wait as Mira checked her phone … and then all he could do was stare in wide-eyed, gaping shock as she transformed in front of him. He’d never seen a magical anon at the moment the spell took effect (not on someone else, anyway), but it wasn’t hard for him to guess what had happened.
“Mira-!” But the little dark-haired girl was already crying. Jack gritted his teeth miserably – a crying baby was one of the worst sounds in the world, and it awakened the father in him, making him instinctively want to reach through the screen and comfort the little one.
When his son finally came back, it took Jack a moment to process what he’d said. “Ulric, she’s been hit by a magic anon. Check the phone, quick – there may be a clue there about how to reverse it!” Anons weren’t nearly as common in the future, but Jack had told his children stories about them, and he hoped Ulric would remember.
Jack Maple 