For a moment, Alex's dark eyes just open exceptionally wide behind the rim of her cheap glasses, and her brows are almost entirely in her hairline as she looks from the woman and then to Paul and then back to her. None of the other adults in her life (or kids honestly) had been able to see Tall Paul. Paul knows it too, and his extended and tall body compacts itself behind Alex more closely, almost as if it was preparing to wrap itself around Alex's tiny body like some sort of shield. There's a little low hissing from the demon in Alex's ear, but Alex just shakes her head quickly.

"You can see him too?" Her voice is low, and confused but not frightened, and Alex just watches the woman who she now knows as Azem, the Traveler. She's different than the other adults that Alex has ever met. "No one else has been able to see him." It's almost as if once she'd broken the seal on her words, Alex can't stop letting them fall from her lips. "All the other adults they say that he's a figment of my imagination but he's really not! He's there and when he does stuff they blame me. Mrs. Fisher thought I stole the strawberries, but I didn't! It was Paul because I was hungry!"

Paul makes another noise, and then Alex just looks to the woman again. "They're my favorite. Can I have some? We never get them! Cause they're so expensive. But they're so good. The real ones and not the fake ones. I don't like the fake ones, they just taste like candy and I want like it to be real!"

Then more softly: "that's why Paul stole them. It was my birthday! She didn't even care. She was mean!"