KATY HELD ON TO MAMA WITH ONE HAND and clutched a chocolate ice cream cone with the other. Mama and Daddy talked and laughed and Katy smiled, feeling their laughter tickling her inside, with none of the ache she felt when they were unhappy. And around the laughter-tickle was the warm glow of love—lots and lots of love. That she could always feel.
Behind her waddled a fat little synthibear, piping, “Wait for me, Katy!”, and Katy kept turning around and saying, “Hurry up, bear!”, and laughing as its chubby stuffed legs churned away, though it never got any closer. Katy had won it at the fair, in a shooting gallery. Even though she hadn’t hit a single hologram the woman had called her a winner and given it to her, and that had made the whole day perfect, because the one thing she had really,
