“Phin? You okay?”
He glanced up from his writing and nodded.
“Yeah. Fine.” He looked down again.
The girl sighed. “Phin…”
“What?” His glasses fell off of his nose.
“The ceremony’s about to start.”
“Taking in more little kids interests me… How, exactly?”
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t…”
“So let me keep working on my theorem.”
He glared at his paper, as if it was withholding whatever secret he wanted to uncover.
She sighed again. “Phin…”
“What?”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Um…”
“Phineas! You can’t remember, can you?”
He scowled at her, muttering and puttering about with his tools. “Io, I remember. Of course I remember…”
Io raised her eyebrows. “When was it?”
He gave her a pleading look. “Yesterday?”
She tapped her foot. “Mmhm.”
“I think.”
She took his arm and started to drag him out of the hut.
“Io, Io, OW!”
She let go and he lept back to his studies.
“Phineas Jordan.”
“Hm.”
“If you do not get out of here within the next ten seconds, I will personally come to set fire to all of your work on your bloody theory.”
“Theorem!”
“Ten…”
“Io…” he whined.
