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The badger chewed her pencil and stared at the page.  Her feet continued to trace a trail in the floor of the sett as she considered the review problem for the upcoming educator qualifying exam.  

Her uncle watched her for a moment, then returned to reading his newspaper and waiting for his great nephew, her son, to come back with breakfast from Culvert's.  It was a fancy new place that had opened up in, appropriately enough, a culvert nearby.  

The old badger turned up his nose at most take-out, but he supposed that anything prepared underground had to be at least passable.  "Katie, I hope your kid gets back before too much longer. Which one is it?  James?  John?"

"It's Johnny, Uncle Bruce," said the younger badger.  She sighed and set the pencil down, giving it a nudge.  It rolled across the table.  "I hope there aren't any questions like this on the qualifier."

"You'll be fine," said Bruce.  "If that birdbrain Hauke passed it, you can too.  If it's a hard question, he'll be able to help you.  He'll be up soon; he likes to sit in his bunker for an hour or so every morning--which is why I hope John hurries up with that breakfast.  I don't feel up to dealing with Hauke if he's not getting fed right on the dot."

A clock in the next room attempted to chime the time but it was stopped due to a dishtowel jammed up between its hammer and bell.  Its muffled action still served as a double herald:  a door deeper in the sett opened and closed, and the main door creaked open and shut again.  

"Breakfast is here," said a fresh-faced juvenile badger.

"Excellent timing," said a slow-moving basilisk as he dragged his tail past the two seated badgers and slumped into a chair.  "What'd they have as far as invertebrate specials, Johnny?"

Three paper bags were set onto the table while the youngest and the oldest individuals there, young Johnny and his great uncle Hauke, sorted through the bounty.  Johnny took four breakfast sandwiches for himself, leaving two for the basilisk and seven more for Bruce, Katie, and Katie's two other cubs to divide up later.

"Uncle Hauke," began Katie as she observed the basilisk had gotten what he wanted and might be open to counseling her.  "I had a question on this prep exam, I was wondering how likely that was to show up on the real deal."

"Let's hear it," said Hauke as he rubbed his hands together, then leaned over the table to peck Bruce on the cheek.  "Good morning, hon!"

"Mmmhmm," said Bruce.

"The question is 'What is the number of acceptable runes in the style of the Holy Quinto ASC Eyes?'  It seems like a trick question.  I know they use binary and hold five as sacred but thirty-two isn't the answer.  Shouldn't it be two to the fifth power?  Thirty-two?"

"The answer key says thirty, I'll wager."  The basilisk picked up one of the breakfast sandwiches; something legless dangled from the edge of it.  He carefully nudged the escaping filling back inside.  "It's tricky, all right.  Remember they're hung up on religious implications:  there are indeed thirty-two codes of zeros and ones with length five.  But they will never accept all ones, as that is perfect and reserved for their deity; they will never accept all zeros, as that is abyssal and the absence of all that is good.  So, they always disqualify those two options."  He nodded over his empty plate.  "Two to the fifth but take back two; thirty-two minus two is thirty."

"Thirty seconds is the answer to how long it takes you to gobble up breakfast.  You must have been hungry," said Bruce as he noted the vacant place setting.  "Wait, you were talking that whole time...how did you eat them that fast?  As long as we've been together, I've never been able to figure that out."

Hauke sat up straighter and gently tapped his chest.  "Crop.  It's all in the crop, most of the action's happening right down there.  It's why I always finish popcorn bowls while you're only on your second or third handful.  Just dump it back, swallow, and then let the old gizzard get a crack at it."  He belched at his mate.

"You always did say the sweetest things," Bruce said as he returned to reading the paper while carefully taking another bite from his breakfast sandwich.