Beta Margo and her husband, Beta Charles, join me and my parents for dinner. Roddy and his wife aren't present, which is fine because they barely ever talk at dinner anyway. While, normally, fewer people would make for a more intimate setting for us it makes it colder. The table is large and can't be made smaller, so we are sitting far enough apart that I need to raise my voice to speak.
For most of the dinner I don't bother taking part in the conversation. They mostly speak about people in the pack that I don't yet know and it's always negative gossip, so I wouldn't want to join them even if I did. Every dinner that I'm required to come to, I'm asked about my progress, but that is all that's required of me.
Today, my father has a new topic for the table. "So have you had a chance to loo
