After much consideration and a bit of help from her Psychology teacher, Mrs. Nelson, Grace finally made the decision to go to the Mansion. Grace had been miserable every since telling her parents about her mutation. How could her mom treat her this way? She was still the same person she’d always been. Living with the Nelsons a few doors down wasn’t helping her to avoid thinking about it. So she’d packed what little she had brought with her after leaving home and let Mrs. Nelson drive her five and a half hours to the Mansion.

She felt a bit anxious the whole drive and had chewed her bottom lip raw, but she was with her teacher – her friend – so she was all right. It wasn’t until they arrived at the gates that Grace began to feel worried. She was a very shy person and had a hard time talking to people she knew about personal things so she wondered how much of a train wreck meeting a bunch of new people would be.

Mrs. Nelson helped Grace to get her trunk out of the back seat of the car.

“Are you sure about this, Grace?” Mrs. Nelson asked. “You know you’re welcome to stay at my house for as long as you want.”

Grace nodded and hugged her teacher. “Yeah, I’m sure,” she said quietly. She didn’t sound so sure. “I’ll be fine.” A bit louder this time. “This’ll be good. I’ll be fine.” Maybe if she kept saying it, she really would feel fine. For now though, she felt a bit sick with worry.

A few minutes later and Mrs. Nelson was on her way back home and Grace stood at the gates to the Mansion, unsure of how to proceed. She felt alone. Was it too late to call her teacher to come back and pick her up? If she did, Grace knew she would feel guilty for making her drive all this way and back for nothing. She would stay. Give this place a chance.

Streak was wandering around the mansion grounds. It was a nice day out and he basically had the day off. There were many days when he was off but this was one of them. As he wandered and enjoyed the day he noticed that a car had pulled up in front of the mansion. It'd been a while since he'd given anyone a tour so why not go for it.

As he made his way down to the gate he saw the two saying their goodbyes. He couldn't tell how old either of them were from the distance but it sure looked like it might have been the girls mother that was dropping her off. He didn't end up arriving at the gate until the lady had gone, leaving the girl to be alone outside the gates. Let's see if I still got this whole touring thing down. he thought as he smiled and mentally prepared himself for the tour.

"Hi there." He opened the gate as he said this. "My names Shawn, and I'm here to give you a tour of the mansion. What's your name?" Right now he couldn't help but mentally kick himself for how much he sounded like he was reading or memorized a bunch of cue cards and was reciting them for her. Well he was out of practice, maybe he just needed to knock the rust off.