Heiji put away the perishables, moving aside a sandwich on the shelf that looked slightly moldy. "Hey! You guys behave, don't take all the -- that's way too much candy, you drop those right now!"

Suddenly instead of four little girls, there were four little red fox kits clustered around Apollo. The candies dropped to the floor in a little rain of sweets. Soon they were wandering around everywhere; one walked up onto Apollo's comforter and nosed curiously at him.

This was a disaster. But at least they weren't pestering Apollo with questions? So Heiji removed a cup of soup from his bag, and a spoon, and held both out for Apollo to take. "Here ya go. You like chicken noodle, right?"