Werther lay in a deck chair, at a loss for words as he looked at the little girl before him, her cheeks puffed out like two buns.
"Anita, didn't I give you a training assignment? Why aren't you doing it?"
Anita scrunched up her cute face in misery, then tugged at her golden hair with both hands.
"Ahh, training is so tiring! And I'm starving. When can we eat?"
Werther had just taken a sip of juice. Anita's words nearly made him spray it all over her face.
"You've got to be kidding. We ate lunch only an hour ago. How can you be hungry?"
Anita looked just as puzzled.
"I don't know. But I trained for a little while, and then I got really hungry."
She rubbed her flat stomach.
From the look on her face, Werther didn't think she was pretending.
"Really? Is something wrong with you? You shouldn't be digesting food this quickly."
Anita grew nervous at his words. She could tell something was off too.
"Tuski, come check on Anita. This little troublemaker's got a problem."
At Werther's call, Tuski hurried out of the Laboratory. He cared a great deal about Anita.
"You're the troublemaker! I'm not a child anymore."
Werther patted Anita on the head, plainly unconvinced.
"Right, right. You're not a child. You just haven't grown up yet."
Tuski ran up to them and looked Anita over anxiously.
"Don't worry, Tuski. Something seems off with Anita's body. She just ate lunch, but after exercising for a bit, she got hungry again.
"It's only been an hour. Even when I trained as hard as I could, I never got hungry that quickly."
Tuski relaxed at Werther's explanation, though a mass of transparent hairs still sprouted from his hands and spread over Anita.
Anita already knew