"Maybe... maybe not. They're not friendly with the sharks, which I consider a slighty good sign," he muses, all but thinking aloud.

Even if they are a bunch of house-invading, echo-inspiring nuisances. They've never poured onto his head through the shower-head, which is not something he ever expected to be grateful for, but now that they've stopped swarming around him it's easier to remember those little things.

"You know," he says, this time to Kitty. "'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'?" That's an ancient proverb that all the kids are talking about, right?