The girl made no attempt to shake Sunny off, but stopped in her tracks and turned to regard the woman.<br/><br/>"I'm not a cat.  It's just a hairband."<br/><br/>Stopping meant that Sunny was in the right place to see what the girl had painted on the wall beside the dumpster as the streetlamp behind her flickered to life again:<br/><br/><strong>It's chessboards all the way down.</strong><br/><br/>"And quit perving on my butt."  The girl punctuated that last with a soft laugh, hastily stifled.  She probably didn't mean it.  Probably.  Instead she turned back and led the way forward, even when the lamps flickered back to darkness with a splutter like dying moths diving into a bunsen burner.  Her footsteps were strangely quiet and she moved with the fluid grace of someone used to stepping around a cluttered room in the dark.<br/><br/>"I'm taking you as far as the first juncture and then you're on your own," she warned.  "We're way too close to the High School here, and it's been a week for field trips.  Hey, you ever see Wizard of Oz?  The version with Julie Garland?"<br/><br/><br/>