because she never checked. Who could possibly use up 2,500 peak-time minutes per month even if they tried? Brandy decided to make the most of it. She was going to call everyone she knew – all her 775 cousins. And all her aunts and uncles. And all her distant relatives whom she hadn't spoken to in years. She was even going to call relatives she had never met or spoke to ever in her life! She called Marianne. “ Are you busy?” Marianne was at work. “ I'll come pick you up,” Brandy told her. “Then we're going to the health club. We'll go for a swim, then grab an early dinner.” Brandy jumped in her car and headed over to Marianne's Gator Rescue site. Marianne tried to keep her facilities as natural and peaceful as possible. Brandy walked through the front gate, past the main building, toward the pond in the back. High security fences kept predators at bay. Gator hatchlings were easy prey for common animals such as skunks and even small snakes. They were very, very vulnerable. The squeaking of the hatchlings was incredibly endearing. To Brandy and Marianne, the hatchlings were cuter than puppies, although they were a bunch of little troublemakers and neither woman wanted a batch of her own. The littlest youngsters floated around on lily pads in the pond. A shifter hatchling could be identified by the fact that all of them had deep blue eyes, no matter what color eyes they would have as a human. A normal alligator has olive green eyes. Marianne told Brandy she had to finish up some paperwork in the office, but that Brandy could stay and play with the kids. The gators that were hitting almost three years were kept inside, because any one of them could shift at any moment. That could not be seen in public at any cost. While Brandy was splashing around with the hatchlings, Susan Quackenbush showed up. Susan was an unwed shifter mother who had gotten herself in trouble. Her roots were showing – a bad dye job growing out – and her eye makeup was smeared. The woman had been crying. “ I've gotta see my babies!” she gasped. “Please, you've got to let me see them!” She was desperate. Brandy had to hold her back and take control of the situation. Shifter moms were as protective as they were stressed-out, and new mothers had real trouble leaving their brood in another woman's care. At first they would want to show up day after day, but Marianne insisted that they must stop. The shifter community did not want to arouse suspicions. Any distraught woman showing up at a Gator Rescue site day after day would at least cause local residents to question her sanity (gossip spread fast in this county). “ You know you can't come back until they shift for the first time,” Brandy said. “ It's not right!” Susan shouted. “It's not fair! You don't know what it's like to have to go through this!” “ No I don't,” Brandy said. “You're right. What you're going through is awful, I can't even begin to imagine. But we have rules, and the rules protect all of us. What do you think would happen to your children if anyone outside the community found out what was really going on here?” Susan started bawling like crazy, and now she was past the point of being able to talk. Brandy walked her to the main building, and they sat outside at a picnic bench until Susan finally calmed down. “ This is going the be the longest three years of my life,” she