Page 166 of Dancing for the Minotaur

The tiny blooms scattered around her wrist were glowing yellow, violet and blue.

Taurex bent down to examine them.

“Interesting,” he said, nodding.

“What does it mean?” Lisa asked.

“That you are excited, affectionate and attempting to remain calm,” he said, after studying the bracelet some more.

“But I’m not calm,” Lisa protested, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Not at all!”

“I had noticed,” he said dryly.

Cody disappeared and returned carrying the living puzzle Taurex had bought for him on the Mother Ship. The silver geometric shape floated above his palms, rotating slowly.

“I got to level fourteen,” he said proudly.

Taurex’s ears lifted.

“Fourteen?”

“Yeah.”

The big Monstrum nodded his head.

“That is considerably farther than I expected. Quite an achievement.”

Cody looked pleased.

“I figured out you have to rotate the middle ring before you separate the outside pieces.”

Taurex immediately sat beside him on the floor.

“Show me.”

Terra watched from the doorway to the kitchen while she helped Lucy put together drinks and snacks. Taurex folded his enormous legs beneath him and somehow managed to make himself look comfortable on the old area rug despite the fact that his knees nearly came up to his chest. Cody leaned close, explaining the puzzle with animated gestures while Taurex listened with complete attention.

Then Lisa crawled onto his thigh as though it were a chair and began telling him a completely unrelated story about something that happened at school.

Somehow, he managed to listen to both of them—not in the distracted way adults sometimes pretended to listen to children. He actually listened.

He asked Cody questions about the puzzle. He asked Lisa why her friend Madison had gotten angry at recess. He remembered the names of children they had mentioned during his first visit. When Cody corrected him about some detail of the puzzle, Taurex didn’t dismiss him. He simply nodded and said,

“You are correct. I had not considered that.”

Terra leaned against the kitchen counter, watching and Lucy looked over at her.

“You’re doing it again.”

Terra frowned.

“Doing what, Mom?”

“Staring.”

“I am not staring.”

“You most certainly are.”