Alien in the House by Gini Koch Page B

or else they’d decided all of American Centaurion and our military and research side, Centaurion Division, were part of the Royal Family, because we had Poofs up the wazoo.
    Not that anyone minded, me least of all. Poofs for everyone and more Poofs for me was my motto.
    The Poofs and Peregrines had some rivalry issues, but our flock of a dozen mated Peregrine pairs and our massive pack of Poofs had chosen to listen to me and get along with each other.
    Yes, they listened to me, literally, and I could understand them, at least somewhat. Because the A-C “talent” I’d gotten by benefit of the Surcenthumain Boost was the ability to talk to the A-C animals. Dr. Doolittle had nothing on me. I hadn’t told my parents, Jeff, Chuckie, or Reader yet, but I was getting pretty good with our Earth dogs and cats, too. I wanted to save it for when I was sure someone had a camera handy, so I could preserve their expressions forever.
    Of course, the Peregrines were the reason we had a Zoo to go to tonight. Because Pierre wasn’t going to shuttle all our guests to the Washington Zoo. He meant the five-story building next to ours, which had taken severe water damage several months ago. It had been my idea to buy it, fix it up, and turn it into a zoo to house the Peregrines and anything else that might show up from the Alpha Centauri system.
    This idea, originally scoffed at by most if not all of my nearest and dearest, had turned into a goodwill gesture and publicity stunt that was working really well. The Peregrines were, like the rest of us, “out” as being aliens, and they went on display a couple of times a week. We kept said times random for security reasons.
    The Poofs had been spotted during the invasion, too, so some of them did Zoo duty as well. We had every toy manufacturer in the world in a bidding war over who was going to get the Poof licensing rights. Chuckie, by dint of his business acumen and ability to multitask like no other, was handling all of that “fun.”
    We’d also built an enclosed walkway from our second floor to the Zoo’s second floor, as well as kept the top three floors of the Zoo for regular people use. Which, apparently, included tonight’s dinner party. The idea made sense, so I wasn’t surprised that Pierre had come up with it.
    Thusly escorted by my exotic feathered and fluffy friends, I entered the daycare center. Before we’d taken over the Embassy it had been an exercise room, and much of that, the pads on the floors in particular, were still around. But Pierre and Denise Lewis had really done it up nicely and it was now totally safe for children, Poofs, and Peregrines. Dogs and cats, too, since my parents’ pets were still housing with us and, per Jamie, were lonely without her.
    Speaking of my favorite bundle of cuteness, she saw me, and ran to me, squealing, “Mommy!”
    I picked her up and gave her a big kiss and hug. “Good job, Jamie-Kat!” She was working on moving at human speeds, and doing well with it. Jamie was, in point of fact, doing far better moving between human and A-C speeds than I was, but I chose to look at it as her being gifted and super-special.
    She was just days under a year, but Jamie was moving fast in terms of development. All A-C babies did some things faster than humans, but Jamie was beating the normal A-Cs. She’d said her first word at the end of Operation Destruction, and in the months since then, had moved from baby talk to little kid talk. She’d started standing on her own at the end of our last fracas, too, and wasn’t toddling so much as being kind to the adults and human kids and not really going for it in terms of all-out running and such unless the circumstances were dire.
    No sooner than Jamie was in my arms, than the tide of canines hit us. “You sure having them here isn’t a problem?” I asked Denise.
    â€œOh no, they’re very well behaved and the