"I have tentatively concluded that the benefits of telling Renée outweigh the risks. We already use her house as a base of operations, and not having to work around her would be much easier, especially now that we have three people who don't officially exist to hide. She exists - and her official existence is an adult; she can drive us places and so on. She can excuse me and Andi from school, if Charlie morphs her he can be out in public as long as they coordinate and not have to pretend he's not our parent, she can make sure we have enough food in the house - and I guess for Ax we experiment with commercially available forms of hay, there aren't going to be grass clippings in Phoenix so readily available - to sustain extra people. She's flighty but not terrible with secrets. I do think we might want to avoid teaching her specialized vocabulary like 'Yeerk' or 'Escafil' or whatever, because that seems like the easier slip for her to make, but I think we should tell her what's going on. Charlie will be able to convince her that we can't just turn over the issue to the authorities."
"Trouble had an alien possessor too but we cut a deal with her and he ran away from home to avoid detection," Bella adds, "and he's here, as is Ethan, they both helped with un-possessing Charlie."
But Andi is already changing, and she stops before describing the consequences of pranking.
"You can also meet the alien in the garage if you would like. Charlie and Trouble and Ethan will corroborate us if Robin doesn't suffice."
"Evil aliens! Less evil aliens! Owls!" exclaims Renée, throwing her hands into the air. "Faked deaths and faked running-away -"
"They told me something - look, did you know they called me and told me you were dead - that you can all turn into animals -"
"Didn't have much choice. Aliens in the NSA, aliens in the phone companies, don't want to say too much over the phone. I am sorry," he adds. "Just - didn't have a better idea."
"Aliens've been on Earth in numbers for 'bout ten years. I only got sucked in last August myself."
Robin nods corroboratively. (She has her thinking-about-Hork-Bajir face on, but since Ethan is not present, no one is likely to notice.)