“What the hell is this meant to be?”

Mat glanced up, taking a moment to realise he was being addressed. A middle-aged woman hovered over him, one of his statues clutched in her bony mitts. Her thin lips were pressed together in thought, her beady little eyes staring down her beakish nose at the stone creation she held. Too much make-up covered her face, and despite the obvious expense of her clothing, fuchsia and mustard-yellow were not the woman's friend. Sniffing dryly, Mat rubbed at his eye and looked to see what sculpture she was holding.

"It's a hippo-man.”

The woman's distasteful stare moved from the piece of art to the man who made it. “A what?” She put far too much emphasis on the 'wh-'.

“Hippo-man.” At the woman's blank stare, Mat gave a long, and clearly impatient sigh. “A man,” he patronised, “that looks like a hippo. A hippo-man.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? 'Hippo-man'...” The woman turned the statue around in her hand once more, for the sole purpose of glaring at it.

Mat gaped at the woman, bewildered by the anger his statue seemed to be creating in this woman. “Are you going to buy something, or not? 'Cause if not, piss off. You're annoying me.”

The woman stared at Mat for a silent moment, and he could see the puzzlement on her face. Did he really just say that to -me- Finally, the insult clicked, and the woman's face darkened. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of whatever indignant response she was obviously intending to spout out, all that escaped her lips was an awkward croak.

“Wh-- Y--- Buh-- THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS HIPPO-MEN!”

Pulling his coat tightly around himself, Mat spat just short of the woman's feet. Pushing himself off the cold cement of the pavement, Mat snatched the hippo-man statue from her hands. “Lady, you're as stupid as you are ugly. Go away.” Lips curled into a satisfied grin as the woman huffed, puffed, and stormed away. Glancing down at the statue, Effigy let out another long, drawn out sigh. Setting himself back onto the ground, he sat the sculpture on his small, cluttered trestle. Despite himself, Mat chuckled.

Steve, the hippo-man who Mat had met months ago, would have pissed himself laughing if he'd heard that woman carrying on...

“Bloody customers...”

Just down the sidewalk from the man, the statues, and loud mean lady stood a chameleon girl. Her scaly skin was a bright red today and there were no cheery greetings for the people on the street. She walked stiffly with her eyes pointed downward. Just a block ago she'd been openly mocked for her chameleonic appearance by a fellow mutant. He'd been just as obvious as her. He had feathers for hair! But she got mocked and laughed at and Dahlia was still fighting off the embarrassment. Not like she'd chosen to be a giant lizard! The red slowly shifted to a pair of blues, one light and one dark, so that by the time she stood in view of the mean lady and the statue salesman she was light blue streaked with dark blue and bright red in swirling patterns.

Dahlia watched the mean lady and decided then and there that the lady probably had a few dollars too many in her purse! Surely she could afford to contribute to lunch for a clearly starving artist and an equally hungry chameleon! The girl in question, whose colors now included violet in a very bright shade, chased after the woman until she stopped at the next street corner and in the confusion of the crowd grabbed the lady's purse and relieved it of it's wallet! Happy with her score she trotted back to the artist/merchant with a wide lizardy smiled on her face that she quickly settled into a serious frown.

"What you said to that lady was mean! But I think the statue is cool!"

She waved the wallet in her awkward two fingered grip. Well she still had all five fingers but they were two fingers for all intents and purposes.

"You hungry? Mean lady's treat!"

The red and blue were gone from her skin and instead replaced with a bright melange of orange, yellow, and violet.

Another voice addressed Mat, and he felt an inward pang of annoyance. As her turned his head to face the one that was chastising him, he couldn't help but blink and stare, transfixed. Instead of another pompous, pain in the arse patron, Mat found himself looking at a small, walking lizard-person. Swivelling eyes, horns, tail. Bright colours. Judging by the timbre of it's voice, Mat was being addressed by a girl.

A chameleon girl, waving a wallet around in her strange hand.

He couldn't help it. He chuckled. This was the last thing he had been expecting today.

“Some people need to be reminded that they're not as special as they like to think they are. Trust me, if she wasn't gonna have a go at me, she was going to walk into some other shop and hassle on of the workers there. At least I can't get fired for telling her to shove it.

As it turned out, Lil' Miss Chameleon had stolen the woman's wallet.

He grinned dryly at the girl, shaking his head and clucking his tongue sarcastically. “Now what's a colourful little thing like you doing stealing people's money, hmm?” He nodded towards the statue. She had said that she thought it was cool. That was good enough for Mat.

"You want it?”

He looked at her. Stared more like. It made Dahlia uncomfortable but she didn't show it. When she acted like that she got picked on more by mean people. So Dahlia had learned to act proud of what she was even though she wasn't proud at all. The mean artist man even chuckled at her. Did she look that funny? Would he not have laughed if she was still a normal girl? She kept right on looking as happy as she could without freaking people out. Some bright red and deep blue did leak into the orange, yellow, and violet but they were barely noticeable. Still, he disparaged the women again and Dahlia pouted.

"That's mean! She's a mean lady though so I guess she deserves it."

The follow up question about why she stole the lady's wallet made her turn bright red all over at being put on the spot like that. She adopted a sheepish stance and swiveled her eyes at him.

"I sorta have to if I wanna eat?"

She only stayed sheepish for a moment longer before she was babbling at the mean artist man.

"I mean I don't have anyplace to live and my parents didn't react so good to me turning into a lizard so I thought anywhere was better than there and I'll drop the wallet at a police station after I've had something to eat so that she'll get the stuff back!"

It was all one sentence and could have been taken as one word almost. Still, he offered her the hippoman and Dahlia managed an even brighter red!

"Oh goodness I wouldn't have anywhere to put him and he'd get broken or left behind when I move!"

She turned bright red.

Mat stopped himself from laughing, despite how adorable this lizard girl was. One minute, she's scolding him for being mean, the next she turns around and tells him she stole the woman's wallet. The sheepish posture she adopted when he called her out on her thieving was enough to make Mat grin.

The words that followed were enough to wipe it off his face.

It was like a floodgate. One simple confession lead her to rush everything out in one breath. The poor girl. It was a story he had heard countless times, both in America and Australia. And one that still resonated deep within his bones every time he heard it.

He looked the girl over closer now, trying to see any of the familiar signs of homelessness, but her lack of clothes and general lizard-ness made it difficult to gauge anything. Forcing a reassuring smile back onto his face, he let out a tiny chuckle.

“That's alright, it's hard to hold onto things when you're on the move, eh?” Reaching into his pocket, Mat felt the bundle of cash sitting there. “You know what, I am hungry! You wanna join me? My treat. Mean lady can pay for your meal tomorrow.” He smiled once more at the girl, trying not to come on too strong.

Good intentions or not, he was still a stranger to this girl. She wasn't Bloom, or Trip, or Downpour. Wasn't even Agnes. The last thing he wanted was to drive this girl further into the streets.

Dahlia nodded and let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Mean artist man understood! That was good because it meant she didn't have to lie. And even better, mean artist man was going to pay for today's meal! That meant she could take some of the mean lady's money and save it for tomorrow's meal! Dahlia wouldn't have to steal tomorrow! That made her very happy and her skin switched from embarrassed bright red to a bright yellow. Maybe he wasn't such a mean artist man after all?

"Yeah, I don't have much right now. Gotta move every few days or so so the cops don't find me. They'd take me back to my parents and I don't think they want to see me."

She smiled at artist man before remembering that that expression had creeped out a lot of people so she stopped smiling abruptly.

"That would be really nice. Maybe you aren't so mean after all!"

She didn't know artist man's name. Talking would get funny if she didn't know it. Or maybe just thinking. She shook her head and looked back at the artist man.

"So my name's Dahlia! What's yours?"

Nice and chirpy. It wasn't too hard to pull off right now. The prospect of not having to steal tomorrow was a very very nice one.