Bell idly scratched behind his ear with his smallest finger. The dry station atmosphere irritated his skin. It wasn't their fault they needed a dry atmosphere - at least his matte black pelt protected him somewhat.
He twitched his tail under his seat as a classmate walked past behind him. "Jeff."
"Hey Bell, finished your observations already?" Jeff sounded surprised.
"No. 'ponics is a subject I absorbed through my skin when I was just a tad. Hard not to when you grow up on a spaceship."
"Yeah, but this isn't Rion hydroponics - or are the plants identical?" Jeff slid onto the stool beside Bell, his long legs reaching all the way to the lowest footrest.
Bell looked sideways at Jeff. He knew very well the plants weren't identical, but it was so hard to tell when a human was joking.
"They grow the same way." Bell dipped his head, a jerky move that in his native environment would have tossed a small splash at the person he was talking to. Here it looked like the human nod.
He turned back to his observation book and drink, and added to his last entry. Jeff looked like he was about to say something, but closed his mouth again when Bell closed his ears.
That ought to do. Bell skimmed over the entries. About half of them were real, and the others followed the pattern.
