Fift caught up with zirself and came doublebodied into the anteroom. “Father Miskisk,” ze said, “do you want to zoom? We could zoom.”

Miskisk wailed, and Father Squell hurried across the room, picked up one of Fift’s bodies, and held out vir hand to the other. “No more zooming, cubblehedge. Come with me.”

Fift didn’t budge.

Squell picked up Fift in the little atrium, too, and said, “A little help, please, Frill?”

In the little atrium, Frill sighed. In the main anteroom, ve sighed again, crossed the floor, and scooped up Fift’s third body.

Father Smistria, dressed in an explosion of bladelike crimson and orange feathers, pushed past vem, going in.

“Smi, tell them!” Miskisk sobbed. “You agree with me! It’s too early for this—Pip can’t just—Fift deserves a little more time at home, to run and play and wear more colors than white, before—”

Smistria crossed vir arms. “Do I agree that Pip is bossy?” ve said. “And that everyone here is all too eager to postpone any argument, especially in the matter of Sibling Number Two? Certainly I do! But do I think you should be allowed to keep Fift here as a baby—dressed up in bangles and ‘zooming about’—to satisfy your selfish wish for a vailchild . . . ?”

Fift’s Fathers bustled zir up the stairs, doubly cuddled up against Squell’s soft soap-smelling skin and squashed into Frill’s bells, which tinkled around zir.

“Why is Father Miskisk upset?” Fift asked.

“Don’t worry about that, Fiftling,” Frill said. “You focus on what you need to do today.”

“Today of all days!” Squell said. “I can’t believe vem!”

“Am I going to be an Older Sibling?” Older Siblings were poor and pushed aside. Younger Siblings nestled in. But having a Younger Sibling also meant not being alone, having someone to protect and support, someone to share a childhood with. Fift had only ever been an Only Child. But there was something wrong, somehow, with being an Only Child.

Frill and Squell looked at each other over the tops of Fift’s heads and Fift could feel their bodies tighten.

“That’s enough of that topic, cubblehedge,” Squell said. “There are far too many thoughts jumping around in those heads of yours. We’re all just going to focus on what you have to do today, all right?”

{Why is it bad to be an Only Child?} Fift asked zir agents.

{That is not the polite term.} sent Fift’s social nuance agent. {You should say “an individual with an abundant-concentration-of-familial-resources childhood.”}

{What about sisterless?} Fift sent. Ze knew that word was bad, and ze shouldn’t say it, or even send it. But ze also knew it described zir. You’d rather ze end up sisterless . . .

{That is not a word we say.} sent the social nuance agent primly.

{Sister is an archaic word for sibling.} added the context advisory agent.