Maria had breakfast almost ready. Ty set the table, and Lisa carried the food to the table. They all sat down to eat. Maria and Diego spoke between bites about things going on at their jobs, and asked Lisa and Ty about their classes. As they were wrapping up, Ty said, "I've decided to give in to Diego's request, and reveal how I perform my illusions, though you'll have to keep it secret. I'll show you in the living room after we clean up."
Maria said, "You can reveal it to Diego, but I don't even want to know."
Lisa looked at her and said, "Please, Mom. It's actually important to me that you know."
"Oh, if you insist," Maria replied. "I was entertained at the talent show, but I'm actually not all that inteested."
"I guarantee that you'll be interested in what I reveal," Ty told her.
Lisa and Ty cleared the table and washed the dishes, and then joined Maria and Diego, who were seated in the living room. Lisa sat with them, and Ty remained standing. "When Diego examined the Lisa this morning, while she was split up, he couldn't find any of the trickery behind the illusion, and declared it impossible. Diego was absolutely right. It is impossible. The secret of my act is that I actually do most of the things you see. They aren't actually illusions."
Diego scoffed. "Are you trying to tell me that you're doing actual magic? That's absurd."
"Call it magic if you like," Lisa said, "but somehow Ty actually does these things. When Ty had me perform the zig-zag 'illusiom' this morning with him as the subject, he was the one that actually made it work."
Ty said to Maria, "Pick any kind of animal, as long as it's not too large."
Maria said, "Anteater."
Ty said to Lisa, reaching out an arm, "If you would, please."
Lisa stood up, and moved next to Ty. As Maria and Diego watched, Lisa shrank, and transformed into an anteater. "Go ahead and touch her," Ty suggested. Diego cautiously did so. Maria politely declined.
"I've never touched an anteater before," he said, "but it seems real. But Lisa probably told you that Maria likes anteaters, so you were prepared somehow to swap Lisa for an anteater."
"She didn't," Ty said. "I had no idea." He transformed Lisa back to her human form.
"Why don't you choose something, Dad," Lisa suggested. "Something Ty and I have no way to anticipate."
Diego looked thoughtful. After a moment, he said, "Three toed sloth."
Ty said, "We should have a tree for that. I'll get us a fake one with a suitable branch." A fake tree in a large pot appeared. It was small enough to fit in the room, and had short branches, but there was one long branch a sloth could cling to. He asked Lisa, "Ready?"
"Ready," she confirmed. She shrank and transformed into a sloth, and climbed up onto the branch.
"Now I know you think I've somehow just made Lisa disappear, and a tree and sloth appear, though that would be amazing enough. But that's really Lisa," Ty said. "Diego, why don't you whisper something to her."
Diego cautiously approached the sloth, who showed no fear of him. He cupped his hand, and very quietly whispered something to the sloth. Then he backed off, and sat down again.
Ty looked directly at the sloth, and said, "Ready?"
The sloth climbed down to the floor. The tree and pot disappeared, and the sloth transformed back into Lisa. She looked at Diego, and stated, "You whispered to me the word 'borogroves'."
Diego said, "That's quite impressive, and it will be a good addition to your act, but I still can't accept that it is real."
Lisa looked to Ty. "Maybe Diego would like to try being transformed."
Ty looked to Diego. "Are you willing? What would you like to be?"
Diego said, "I've always thought that if I were to be an animal, I'd want to be a domestic cat. But you've already done that illusion with Lisa, so let me think... How about a chinchilla?"
Ty said, "Sure. Let me get a dust bath ready." A shallow tub of very fine sand appeared. "Ready?"
"Yes," confirmed Diego. He started shrinking, and had a startled expression on his face before transforming. Sure enough, where he had been, there ws now a chinchilla. The chinchilla was motionless.
"I think he's a bit dazed from the transformation," Ty said. Lisa gingerly picked him up, stroked his fur, and set him in the sand. He remained motionless for a few more seconds, then started dust bathing.
Ty looked to Maria, who looked incredulous. "Could you please whisper something to him?"
Maria shook her head. She was not enjoying this. "Please, Mom," Lisa said.
Maria stood, and cautiously approached the chinchilla, which stopped its dust bath, and looked up to her. She got down on her knees, bent over, and whispered something. She stood, and backed away.
Ty looked at Diego. "Had enough?" The Chinchilla nodded its head. The tub of sand disappeared, and the chinchilla grew and transformed back.
Diego looked to Maria, and said, "Cabbage." Maria looked stunned.
"Would you like a try?" Lisa asked her mother.
"No," answered Maria. She looked at Ty. "No thank you." Lookimg toward Lisa, she said, "If you and Diego say this is real, that's good enough for me. I just want to stay myself."
Diego still had doubts. "I can't explain that. I really thought I was a chinchilla. Hypnosis?"
Lisa suggested, "I think a different kind of demonstration will be necessary, Ty."
"OK," said Ty. "If you don't mind, why don't you all sit for a moment, while I call my mother and set something up."
He pulled out his cell phone, and called June. "Hi, Mom! ... No, everything is fine. Lisa and I are explaining my abilities to her parents. ... Where are you? ... No, what room? ... Is Dad with you? ... Are you sitting down? ... OK, I'm going to make a change to both our house, and Lisa's house. ... Great, see you soon." He hung up.
Ty explained to Maria and Diego, "I'm going to do something I did once previously, creating a doorway between your house and my house. Before, I did it between Lisa's and my bedroom. This time I'll create a doorway between our living rooms."
Maria and Diego looked surprised. Not half as surprised as they're going to be, thought Ty. As he concentrated, the living room. grew, and then a closed doorway appeared on a new stretch of wall. "Lisa, why don't you knock on the door?"
Lisa went to the door and knocked. After a moment, June opened the door from the other side, and said, "Hi, Lisa! Come on in! The rest of you, too!" Lisa walked in. Maria and Diego were looking through the doorway at June, and her living room.
"Go ahead," Ty said. "June just invited you to visit. You can come back home any time." Lisa walked back through the door to demonstrate.
"Come on, please," she said to her parents. A bit shakily, they stood, and everyone walked through the open door.
"Please have a seat," Mark said with a smile. "We're happy to have you over, without the tedious driving!"
"I'm glad Ty has revealed his abilities to you," June said. "It will be nice not having to keep things secret from you."
"This is all a bit much," said Diego, and Maria nodded. "Thank you for your hospitality. I guess we have to accept that whatever one wants to call it, Ty does have some ability to do things that should be impossible."
"Yes," said June. "He gained these abilities a few weeks ago, and our introduction to them was a bit... rough. When he said that he wanted to reveal his abilities to you, we asked him to please try to do it in a gentle way, which undoubtedly is still a shock."
"I must be dreaming," Maria said.
"None of us could believe it at first," said Mark. "It took us a while to get used to it."
Dustin walked into the room. If he was surprised, he didn't show it. "Oh, hi, Maria and Diego. Nice to see you again!"
"Nice to see you, too," replied Maria.
Ty said, "The whole talent show act was actually an idea Lisa had, as a first step toward letting you know about my abilities. She and Dustin had to convince me. Though in retrospect it was also rather fun."
"So you made our house bigger?" Diego asked.
"It's bigger inside, to make room for the door, but the outside is unchanged," Ty explained. "The same with our house."
"Ty actually can teleport himself and others," Lisa said, "but I think he chose the doorway as a demonstration because it's not quite as shocking."
"Just so," Ty confirmed. "As I said, I did this once between Lisa's bedroom and mine, as an experiment, but we've teleported without it a few times. But after the initial experiments, we've mostly been travelling the normal way and using the front door, because we didn't want to sneak around behind your back."
"Thank you for that," Maria said.
"Yes, we appreciate that," Diego said. "I don't blame you for experimenting, but I'm glad you didn't want to sneak around."
"Assuming that this is not a dream," said Maria, "I'll need some time to get used to this. If you'll excuse us, I'd like to go home now."
Diego said, "If you don't mind?"
"Certainly," Mark said. "Thank you coming over."
"I'd like to stay," Lisa said, "if that's OK." Both her parents and Ty's said yes.
Maria and Diego stood and walked toward the doorway.
"Thank you for having me over," Ty said. "I apologize if this is a bit much, but I think you'll get used to it. After you go home, I'll remove the door, and return your living room to normal."
"Thank you, Ty," Maria said. They stepped through the door, and closed it. After a moment, Ty removed the door, and both living rooms readjusted.
"That went about as well as could be expected," said Lisa.
Ty said, "I hope they don't have too much trouble coming to terms with it."
June said, "We're proud of both of you for making the revelation as non-traumatic as possible for Maria and Diego." Mark nodded.