Alien in the House

wrapping little girl gifts was definitely on the delicate side of the hyperspeed house.
    Jeff finished up and we hid the presents in a closet in one of the many rooms of our penthouse that we didn’t actually use. “You don’t mind that I finished the wrapping?” he asked as we headed for the door.
    “No. I wrapped half, you wrapped half. I’m glad you got to do some of that, even if it was quick.”
    He hugged me. “Me, too.”
    Since the Embassy went up seven floors and down several, ignoring the underground Secret Lab Level that led into the recently discovered Tunnels of Doom, most of us chose to save the energy and used the elevators to get up and down. Well, the human members of the Embassy staff did. For the A-Cs, all of whom had hyperspeed, stairs were almost always the faster option.
    Because it had been some time since we’d told Walter we’d be right down to the Ballroom, we didn’t use the elevator. Instead, we zipped down the stairs from the 7th floor to the 2nd.
    We reached the Ballroom. And stopped dead in our tracks. I couldn’t speak for Jeff, but I was stunned. Frankly, I couldn’t speak at all for a few long seconds.
    “Um . . . wow.”
    “Yeah.” Jeff cleared his throat. “What’s the proper thing to say at this moment?”
    “You’re asking me?”
    “You’re human.”
    “As if that matters for the current situation?” We were standing at one of the two entrances to the room. I took a quick look around. “Okay, Pierre’s not here. So, we tell each other, really fast, what we actually think, and then we come up with the right way to tell
him
what we really think.”
    “I really think there’s too much pink in here.”
    Couldn’t argue with Jeff’s sentiments. The ballroom of the American Centaurion Embassy was adorned in pink. And sparkles. And balloons. And that was just the ceiling. “Maybe Pierre thinks we’re hosting an off-site visit from the folks from
Dancing with the Stars
.”
    “Maybe he’s lost his mind.” Jeff didn’t sound like he was kidding.
    “It’s pretty,” I said lamely. It was, if you were so into the color pink that you wanted all other colors banished from the face of the Earth. No one I knew was
that
into the color pink. Well, Pierre was, apparently, but this was news to me.
    “Wow. Girlfriend . . . what’s going on?” Reader joined us. “I mean, I thought I knew what was going on. Now I’m not so sure.”
    “See?” Jeff said to me, as if I’d been the one who coordinated the ballroom’s decorations.
    “See what? I see a hell of a lot of pink.”
    “Me too,” Reader said. “What’s the occasion? I ask because the occasion can’t be the reason I’m here. I wasn’t invited to Pink Fest.”
    “It’s for our little princess’ first birthday party,” Pierre said as he zipped into the room. “I realize you’re all in shock from the sheer overwhelming feeling of being in a cotton candy factory, which is why I wanted you to see it now, but, trust me, it’s necessary.”
    “It is? Why?”
    “Jamie loves it,” Pierre said. “And she
needs
to love it. Her party is going to be televised, I’d like us all to recall.”
    “I’m still unhappy about that,” Jeff growled.
    Reader sighed. “Who isn’t? But, let’s be honest. If the way we keep everyone else in the world calm about the fact that there are a whole lot of aliens from the Alpha Centauri system living on Earth is to show how much like regular folks our Embassy personnel are, then we do it.”
    Jeff ran his hand through his hair. “I know, James. We had this argument months ago, and it made sense then, too. It’s just . . .” He looked around. “It’s just so damn
pink
.”
    “I have a bigger concern.” The three male heads all swiveled toward me. “We’re hosting a dinner party. Tonight. And, call me crazy, I thought we were hosting it in this room.”
    “You’re crazy,” Pierre said nicely. “We don’t host dignitaries in the ballroom unless we are dancing, Kitty darling. We host them in the formal dining room and attached parlors for appetizers, and then we’re all going to the Zoo for the actual dinner.”
    “Oh. Well. Then that’s alright. I guess.” I cleared my throat. “You know, Jamie’s birthday is on Christmas. And since we’re having her party on Christmas Day, I kind of thought, therefore, that the party would have a Christmas-y theme.”
    “Did you?” Pierre asked, as he fussed with some fake pink flowers that were