Gary Brandt delivers the inevitable confrontation in his tale from The Dimension Of Mind Dot Com, where the girls' supernatural secret crashes headfirst into adult authority.
After weeks of interdimensional adventures, the girls finally seek guidance from Eileen's prosecutor father about 'saving the world,' but their carefully planned conversation implodes when Eileen nervously jokes about 'abducting one of them'—causing Ella and Roxana to nearly panic.
Things spiral when the parents reveal they've been monitoring the girls, including traffic cam footage of their dangerous Jackson Street reconnaissance mission.
What starts as a request for advice becomes a full interrogation when Eileen's dad connects the dots about their mysterious 'friend' and demands answers.
The revelation that they've been harboring an interdimensional runaway named Helana transforms a normal family dinner into the most bizarre parent-child conference imaginable, complete with Eileen's mother nearly fainting and the girls facing complete grounding from all their parents working in coordination.
But then something beautiful happens: Eileen's dad steps up in the most unexpected way, claiming *in loco parentis* (legal guardianship) over Helana and officially adopting her into their chaotic family dynamic.
His prosecutorial skills kick in as he interviews the interdimensional fugitive with surprising compassion, learning she's essentially a consciousness being whose love made her visible, and who faces punishment for breaking temporal laws.
The chapter's most touching moment comes when he calls her 'little girl' and grounds her along with the others—Eileen whispers 'He's adopting her' because she knows her dad's heart.
The crisis ends with a hilariously awkward twist: Eileen's dad has apparently been seeing Helana naked this whole time and demands she wear clothes, suggesting they all imagine Tinkerbell outfits as gifts.
Ella's diary entry captures the emotional whiplash perfectly—terrified that her interdimensional best friend will become a UFO conference show-and-tell exhibit, but also grudgingly grateful that adult supervision might keep them all alive.
Brandt masterfully balances cosmic concepts with very human family dynamics, as these girls discover that having supernatural abilities means dealing with very real parental concerns about their safety.