While Animalia's ambassadors were touring the new colony in the Amazon and providing updates on the progress that had been made there, young Polly still had school. In many ways, she liked WSA. Everyone seemed rather nice and had been friendly to her, though there were a lot of questions on why she was so big. Some of this made sense, as many of the students at WSA's Elementary building were either real young when they were uplifted from mundane animal to Animalian, or had been a young human and was caught in the initial outbreak. Some might have been converted after their parents who wanted to "complete the family" as it were, but Polly didn't know for sure. The fact remained that they were all young and much smaller than her, which of course lead to them wondering why she was so big.
A lot of that related to the fact that when Jeremy provided his experimental procedure to cure her of her genetic deficiency, he hadn't been fully aware of what counted as a single dose of the Animalia Virus and what constituted a double dose. He may have tried to engineer it so that Polly would be able to overcome her deficiency without transforming, which was something that Horizon did want to accomplish in the long run, but hadn't had the full clearance for adequate testing. That only lead to Polly's transformation and Jeremy's lack of knowledge on what would be a single dose and what would be a double dose had resulted that instead of becoming the size of a seven year old Polar Bear Animalian, she'd physically gained the body of a Polar Bear Animalian who was in her mid teens.
However, Polly's attempts at answering these questions rarely were able to explain her situation adequately and often didn't satisfy the curiosity of the other students in the elementary class she was in.
"But that's how it happened!" Polly protested with a stamp of her foot after a young White Tail Deer Animalian said she didn't believe her. "Jeremy was saving me. That's how it happened."
"Miss Polly..." came the teacher's voice as he came from where he'd been helping a couple of other students after hearing the protest, "You should be reading right now..." The teacher then looked to the Deer Animalian that had been talking to Polly, "BOTH of you should be reading."
"She said Jeremy wasn't helping me!" Polly said, her voice carrying some irritation and on the verge of tears.
The teacher, a Basset Hound Animalian gave a small frown as he looked between the two. The Elementary Principal and the High School Principal had both briefed him on Polly's situation and what Horizon had provided with regards to Polly's conversion. Her older brother was one of Horizon's scientists, but was presently under probation and being held on staff for Horizon's Dinotopia project after being revealed to be the one that had smuggled the Animalia Virus to Heather Wilcox prior to her attack at Lyre High to start the school year. Testing had shown that Polly best fit in at the Elementary School, and he was more than eager to show her that she was welcome in Animalia. He'd found that Polly did like that and was presently staying one of the Polar Bear families in Lyre.
"I just wanted to know why she's so big... I didn't mean to be mean," the White Tail Deer Animalian said weakly and looked down, "I only got one dose and I didn't get big."
"Polly's situation with her conversion is a bit different from most others," the teacher spoke, "many of the details even go over my head. But I'm sure her brother had her best interests at heart. The best that BOTH of you can do is try and get along. After all... that is what Animalia is all about. All races getting along."
The young fawn nodded, as did Polly when the teacher turned to her.
"And now Polly... you must understand that your classmates will be curious," the teacher said to her, "and they may not understand the details of what your brother did to help you anymore than you or I do. There is no reason to stamp your foot."
"Yes, sir," Polly said politely and looking down at her lap for a moment.
"So... while I'm here... how about you show me where you are in your book," the teacher gave her a smile, "I can help you pronounce words you may have trouble with and you can show what a good reader you are."
"Okay," Polly answered.
And with that, the "argument" with her classmate was forgotten and Polly turned to read from the book that she had for reading time. She felt she was doing quite well, and the teacher only had to correct her one or two times, but he was friendly, as she found that all Animalians seemed to be, and he even gave her encouragement where she did things right. It was one of those things that Polly liked about school, in that she got praise for doing well.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The end of the school day of course then meant the walk back to Marcy and Chilly's house with them as her escorts. She liked Marcy as she offered Polly the opportunity for a big sister and her parents Greg and Mari had been nice as well. She'd also picked up on how similar Marcy's name was to her mother's, which Mari had explained had been deliberate when Marcy was born. In many ways, that whole interaction had been very fun.
The real issue that Polly had was seeing Jeremy again. Marcy had taken her on one weekend to Horizon in the hopes of visiting him, and found that not only was Jeremy not there but that he wasn't even in the holding cell that he'd been in when she first tried to get them to let Jeremy go. That had to meant that Jeremy's "time out" was over, which to Polly seemed like good news. Jeremy was out of trouble and could meet with her and she could introduce him to Marcy and her family, who'd been nice to her and tell him about all the neat things that she'd seen at WSA Elementary and then they'd all be friends.
So, on the same weekend, Marcy and Polly then walked to the apartment that Polly and Jeremy had been in. No one answered the door and Polly didn't have any keys to it, so when they found the door locked, they were forced to move on. Mari and Greg periodically tried calling Jeremy, both at home and at work, but while Horizon confirmed that Jeremy was still working on Project Mesozoic with Doctor Stein, he never seemed to take their calls. This ultimately concerned Marcy, as the lack of contact with Jeremy and no explanation as to WHY there hadn't been any contact was starting to wear on Polly.
And as the three returned "home," Polly began with what had become the routine, approaching Mari to find out about whether or not she'd had any word from Jeremy.
"Did you hear from him?" Polly asked hopefully looking to Mari with large hopeful eyes.
Her hope seemed to rapidly fade as she watched Mari frown.
"I'm sorry, dear," Mari spoke, "but all I got was voice mail. I can't say why your brother isn't answering..."
"IT'S NOT FAIR!" Polly gave a scream and then rushed into Mari's arms, seeking comfort anywhere, "Jeremy was a good person! He helped me! But Horizon put him there and wouldn't accept he's sorry!"
Mari wrapped her arms around Polly and slowly patted her back. While Mari physically looked like she was in her teens, moments like this were enough of a reminder that Mari was only seven years old. From what Mari had found out with the calls to Horizon, was that Jeremy had been involved in some illegal activity that had smuggled the Animalia Virus out of Horizon and to Heather Wilcox while she was in Costa Rica. To Mari, it made sense that Jeremy would be facing punishment for that, but from what Horizon had told her, Jeremy's period of "confinement" was over, and while he was under probation for the foreseeable future.
However, Mari figured that that wouldn't mean they'd lose all contact with Jeremy. What irked her was that according to Horizon, Jeremy was under no restrictions regarding Polly now that he was released on probation. In this, Jeremy had full legal right to claim custody of Polly, which Mari had NO problem with. She'd only agreed to look after Polly while Jeremy was in "jail" as it were. The contact she'd tried to make with Jeremy was due more to Polly's seeing her daughter, Marcy, as a "big sister," and thus wanting to make some arrangement so that Polly would be free to visit Marcy and Chilly and that he would be more than welcome as well. But it appeared that Jeremy seemed to be avoiding contact for some reason, which irritated her.
"I'm sure he is sorry for what he's done," Mari said to Polly, patting her back, "and I can't figure out why he hasn't been answering the attempts to get in contact with him..."
"WSA has just gone on Fall Break," Chilly spoke up from behind Polly, where he was standing with Marcy, "perhaps we could go to Horizon... talk with them directly?"
"He wasn't there last time," Polly cried into Mari's shoulder.
"He might have only gone to lunch," Marcy commented, "and we just happened to miss him."
"You think so?" Polly looked back to Marcy.
"That'd be the thing that makes sense," Marcy gave a small shrug, "so... we try again... We go in, try to be more during working hours and wait for him to return to work if he's not there."
"Yes... we'll do that," Mari nodded and continued to hold Polly to her, "as... I don't know WHY he isn't answering his phone and it's getting to a point where he's really hurting someone he SHOULD care about."
Mari had seen in how Polly talked about Jeremy and how she responded when she got news that wasn't to her liking regarding getting contact with him that Polly loved her brother. And the mother in Mari couldn't stand to see Polly become so sad when the news that no contact with Jeremy had been achieved. Especially if Polly's story that Jeremy had converted her to save her life was true, it should mean that he loved her as well. It thus made no sense as to why Jeremy wouldn't answer her calls to try and arrange for both Polly being returned to him and for Polly to be allowed to keep her friendship with Marcy and Chilly. And that drove Mari on to figure that out, for Polly's sake if nothing else.