Page 42 of Partridge in a Bear Tree

"If you say so," Penny muttered just before she sipped the beer. "Dang, that's really good. Is that the Thunder Blunder?"

"Laurie's speciality." Ashley nodded. "He was trying to hurry something along and reinvented a crystal malt. What are theydoing?" The answer to that was obviously 'getting hot wings ready to eat,' but she ignored her own question, going on with, "How many others can you identify?"

Penny snorted. "Your mom and dad. Bill's mom and dad. Cassidy over there, but only because there aren't nearly as many girls as there are boys. I know most of the rugged older men must be your dad's brothers, but besides Bill's dad, I don't know which is which. There are likeseventyof you, Ashley! And you all look alike!"

The partridge popped an image of a bunch of partridges in a row into Penny's mind. The birds all looked more less identical.We look alike too!We're cute!

Despite herself, Penny laughed.Bears are pretty cute, too.

Bears aredangerous, the bird informed her.

If not friend, why friend-shaped?

That was too much for the partridge. It stared at her, then tucked his head under its wing and ignored her.

"It'll be fine," Ashley promised. "Nobody expects you to remember everybody tonight."

"But they all know who I am!"

Ashley gazed down at her with sympathetic amusement. "You do stand out, Pen."

"Because I'm five two and you're all eleven feet tall! I don't stand out, I'm a small herbivore who can be easily squished by the rampaging ungulates!"

There was a long pause as Ashley visibly tried not to laugh, and clearly struggled not to correct everything Penny had just said.We'll be squished,the partridge said sadly.

"Bears aren't ungulates," Ashley finally managed.

"And they don't rampage and partridges aren't herbivores." Penny stuck her lip out. "You know what I mean, though."

Ashley bent to kiss that pouty lip and bumped her nose against Penny's. "I do. I also want you to remember you can shift into a partridge fourteen feet high at the shoulder and gut any bear in this room."

Penny brightened. "You think?"

"Yes. You can start with my idiot cousins," Ashley said as Jon and Laurie put effort into waving them down. "Do you want to see what they want, or should we pretend we didn't see them?"

"Since they're two of the ten people in this room I can identify, let's see what they want." Beer in hand, Penny dragged Ashley through the crowd to a table, where her cousins had laid out a generous spread of hot wings. Ashley took a deep breath and her eyes started watering as Penny leaned over the table and examined the wings appreciatively. "I love hot wings. You guys make these?"

"Yep." Jon slid into the booth and gestured for Ashley and Penny to sit in the other side. "This is it. We're gonna settle the question of who screamed too much once and for all."

Penny, already sliding into the booth, laughed. "The question of what?"

Ashley froze and stepped back. "I told you I'mdonewith that argument."

Laurie tied his hair back with a dramatic action and sat next to his brother. "So when we were kids," he said to Penny, "we went to Disneyland."

Penny brightened. "Oh my God. Is this the Disneyland Incident Ashley mentioned? I must hear this!"

Ashley, with a groan, said, "No.Dudes, we settled this at Disneyland, it wasn't a big deal."

"It was totally a big deal," Jon said. "So we went on one of the roller coasters," he said to Penny. "And we're all, like, nine, right? So prime screaming ages."

"OnlyAshley," Laurie said in critical tones, "screamed and screamed andscreamed. So much that me and Jon didn't get a chance to."

Penny burst out laughing, saw they were serious, and laughed again, even more loudly. "You don't have to take turns screaming on a roller coaster!"

"That's what I said!" Ashley half-shouted. "We had to go on it again so they could scream!"

"But she didn't let us." Jon narrowed his eyes dramatically at his cousin, who still hadn't sat down.

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