Xenia beams. "Have you had the cuttlefish kind?" She points definitively (and expectantly) to a bowl, waiting for Eddy to sample one if he hasn't.

She wrinkles her nose playfully at the compliment, then shrugs. "I think it's good Mickey is such a go-getter. She's confident enough to try new things and go for what she really wants. That's good pet parenting."

Is there a little twinge of sarcasm in any of this? Possibly. But it's buried pretty deep.

"Meanwhile," Xen continues more seriously, lowering her voice into a deeper, spookier timbre, "my rat daughter Jellybean isn't allowed at these kinds of events."