Adam collected his thoughts, had a shower and ate some breakfast. He had not spoken to Josh after Thursday's lesson, and he had not seen the man since then, but this morning Josh would be bringing some students over to his house for a private lesson. He hoped that Josh would arrive before any of the students. He really got to thinking about the last few days.

*          *          *          *

There was a knock on the door.

"Oh I hope that's Josh."

He opened the door and it was.

"Hey don't worry. I won't do anything to you, but you must have a look in my garage, and in my billiard room."

Adam showed both rooms to Josh, who gave nothing away of Ann's earlier comments. The car was in the billiard room, where Butler One had reassembled it at robotic speed, and the billiard table was in the garage, where Ann's exolimb strength and her tools had enabled her to reassemble it.

"It must have been completely disassembled and switched with the car taken apart. Then both could have been put back together, but how? I'm sure I locked all the doors, and nothing's broken. The switcheroo of those things is the only evidence that anyone could have been here. How am I going to get it back the way it was?"
"I guess you'll have to call someone in to fix the table back in its spot and have someone stripping the car down to its nuts and bolts at the same time. You'll have to arrange a time for both of them."

"But what if one says yes, and then the other can't make it?"

"You'd have to cancel the first yes."

"I know. I could have someone reassemble the car on the driveway, and then worry about the person I'll need to move the table from the garage to the billiard room. You know, when I got home, I thought I must have been drunk, but this morning, I saw the garage and the billiard room in that sort of state, and I nearly fainted. We had better spar outside. This just must not be seen by anyone. First Thursday and now this."

"Can I say something else, which you might not like to hear?"

"Yes, and I'll say that I'm glad you came today. When I calmed down, I thought that I might have ruined a friendship on Thursday."

"No, but I do think that all of this is an inspiration for us to start acting like humans, instead of bullies just because we're black belts. I mean, it's awful to have our only friends afraid of us too, just like all the students. I think we should only use our karate in important rescuing situations, not just to get away with murder all the time at parties and so on."

"I was thinking maybe you're right. Those kids must think I am the most idiotic show-off of all time, but they kept coming to classes, because they wanted to learn. I wonder if they still do."

"Let's find out."

"Alright. Let's make a deal that we both try to behave ourselves, but you'll have to help me. It's not natural for me to step down, when I can easily win a fight."

*          *          *          *

"Well Butler One," said Ann, "I think our little switch was a good idea. I had no trouble carrying the table, once I had dismantled it into sections, and you did a marvelous job on that car. I should think that Adam has just mildly got the spooks by now."

*          *          *          *

The following Friday, Ann and Mary were talking at school.

"Ann, you should have come to karate yesterday. Adam and Josh were like different people. They must have been expecting you to come back and take them apart."

"Well that's alright," said Ann, "because when I take things apart, I always put them back together again afterwards."

1996….

“So you went in and out of that house, and I’ll be going into your tummy,” said Martin, “It sounds like you were such a heroine, Ann. If I was in danger of being eaten by anyone else, I’d hope you saved me for yourself.”

“And I surely would,” said Ann.

It looks like things were different with Wendell. He had all those adventures with you instead of being eaten,” said Martin.

“I’ll tell you more about Wendell’s adventures then,” said Ann.