"Henryyyyyy" my best friend /cousin Donna whines "Whaaaaaat?" I mock, not looking up from my textbook She scowls and throws her empty bottle of water at me. Thankfully, I saw it coming and easily dodge it.
"Im going to tell aunt Gogo" she says and sticks her tongue out at me.
I let out a quick laugh. "What are you? 6 years old? Besides, mom always tells me to defend myself, so go ahead, tell her." I reply, turning to the Blondie. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.
"Last time I checked, Im 17" she says I chuckle. "Then act like it, Donnie"
I know she hated that nickname.
"Whatever you say, hen" she says with a smirk.
You see, she likes to break my name down in order to call me a female bird.
"When are your parents coming to pick you up, anyways?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.
She fakes a hurt expression.
"You don't want me here anymore?" she asks
I roll my eyes. She can be so annoying. I sometimes wonder how we're related, but then I remember: Oh yea, our dads just had to be brothers. Don't get me wrong, I love uncle Tadashi and my dad, but I wonder how we're so different. She certainly couldn't have gotten it from aunt Honey.
"Nah, not really" I say with a smirk, turning back to my textbook
"Oh please, Henry, we both know you wouldn't live without me. Besides, mom and dad are coming over to help with Christmas dinner. You know that" she replies.
"I brought a snack for you guys. I figures you'd be hungry after so much studying and can't wait till tonight" says a voice from the doorway.
My mom stands there with two plates of cookies and two juice boxes. "Thanks, aunt Gogo" Donna says as she hands us the snacks.
"Yea, thanks mom" I say, taking a bite out of a cookie
Aunt Cass loves to visit and bring all sorts of goodies. Man, is she a good baker!
"Aunt Gogo, I've heard my parents' love story thousands of times, but I've never heard yours and uncle Hiro's'" Donna says, directing her gaze to my mom.
I gag, stuffing the rest of the cookie into my mouth before mom or Donna could say anything, requiring me to answer.
The two gave me a questioning look. I shrug and keep chewing.
Mom rolled her eyes and chuckled. Donna raised an eyebrow and shook her head, as if she couldn't believe what I just did but expecting something like that.
"Your just like your father at your age, you know?" mom says, crossing her arms.
Now, before we can go any further, you might ask why Donna and I are in the same grade despite the three years apart. Well, let me tell ya something: Apparently, I was born with my father's brain.
"Was he that awesome? "I say, finally closing my textbook
The two girls laugh
"Wasabi and Abigail are coming over, too, along with Mitchell and Milo. We need you two to entertain them while we adults get everything ready, all right? Also, please try to keep them out of trouble" Mom says, standing up from her place on the bed and heading for the doorway
Mitchell and Milo were uncle Wasabi's and Abigail's two kids. They were a bit of a troublemakers. Mitchell's was 6 and Milo's 4. They did the randomest, craziest, and most dangerous things you could imagine. Milo once tied a cape around his neck and tried to jump from a 5-story building to see if he could fly. Yea, don't ask
Once we made sure mom was out of sight, we groaned.
"Their a pain in the butt" I say
"Tell me about it" Donna says, sighing
I bury my head on my hands. Man, the textbook did wear me out.
"Hey, what's that?" I head Donna asks
I lift my head up. I see her holding a small book, observing it closely. I didn't seem to recognize it, though.
"Let me see" I say, extending my arm.
Donna hands it to me, a huge smile on her face
"I think it's your dad's journal"
The title was 'Hiro's Journal". It had pictures of dad and Baymax, as well as the crew. Dad seemed so young in these pictures, though
"I dare you to look through it" Donna says
"Where did you find it anyways?" I ask, flipping through the pages
"In this box" she says, pulling out a box form under one of my drawers. I recognized it. Dad keeps his old stuff in that box. For example, his microbots he built when he was younger.
I turn to the first page of the small book. It read 'October 26, 2014'
"Should I read it?" I ask Donna.
She shrugs, but you could see that mischievous glint in her eyes.
"It says: I thought this was a stupid idea and to be honest, I don't even know why im sitting here doing this, but Aunt Cass and Baymax insisted on starting one of these. Heck, even Tadashi agreed. They said it would help me with my emotional states and whatnot. It would help me keep track of my thoughts and…puberty"
Both Donna and I wrinkle our noses in disgust. I continued reading
"I told them I was fine and didn't need such thing-"
"Ok, I think that's the introduction" Donna says.
She grabs the book and flips to a different page, her brown eyes stuck on the pages. She hands me the book, in a completely different page
"Read this page. This is when he just got through meeting the rest of the crew" she says
"November 7, 2014. Tadashi took me to his nerd school today, ALTHOUGH HE TOLD ME HE WAS JUST GIVING ME A RIDE TO THE BOT FIGHT ACROSS TOWN! Anyways, I got to meet his nerd friends to. Some of his friends had some quit strange names. For example: Honey Lemon? Wasabi? Gogo Tomango?...ah man. That Gogo girl…she really is something-"
I hear Donna squeal in delight. I raise an eyebrow, glancing at her. She clears her throat and motions me to go on.
I turn back to the page
"Sadly, she's like, four years older than me-"
Donna interrupts…again
"So? Female celebrities date guys who're 6 or 8 years apart. Maybe even older"
I sigh
"Can I finish now, Donnie?"
She frowns but nods. Turning back to the text once again, I read…
"Not for long, though, She only like, a few inches taller than me-"
"Does that mean she didn't grow much taller? Because your dad likes to call her shorty someti-"
"Donna! Are you going to let me finish or not?"
"Finish what, kids?" A voice asked
Donna and I direct our gazes in which the voice came from. It was uncle Tadashi, leaning on the doorframe.
"Dad!" Donna shouts, jumping up and wrapping her arms around him
"Hey, princess" he replies, hugging his daughter back.
Uncle Tadashi spots what I had in my hand
"What's that, Henry?"
"Its uncle Hiro's journal" Donna says
He looks a bit confused but soon was replaces with an evil grin.
"Is it? May I take a look?" he says, heading towards me
I hand him the book
"Oh, daddy! You should've seen the sweetest things he said about aunt Gogo" Donna says dreamily
"Oh, this is so revenge, little brother" he mutters
"For what, uncle Tadashi?" I ask curiously.
He looks up with a smile
"He embarrassed me once. Now it's my turn…during Christmas dinner. Can you kids promise me one thing?"
Donna and I nod. He smirks
"Don't tell him you found this. I have a great idea. Whatever you do, act like nothing's wrong"
"Wait…can you tell us the plan?" I ask
He motions us to come closer. He whispered the whole thing
I had to admit, that wasn't a bad idea
~Linebreak~
"Milo! Get down from there. I already told you: you're not going to catch up to that squirrel!" I shout, getting ready to climb this tree and get him down myself
It was freezing, due to the snow and I was ready to head back in without him.
Donna got the easiest job: watching over Mitchell. You know, since they're girls and all, they have their own definition of 'fun'
Milo simply sticks his tongue out and continues to crawl slowly towards the hole in the tree
I had enough. Time for things to get a bit more serious.
Something he's completely scared about.
Someone they've always obeyed without a problem.
Someone who brings out his or her little angel side.
Someone who made fear itself unable to handle these kids.
Who was, of course…
"I'll tell your dad," I shout, crossing my arms and leaning on my right leg
He immediately froze. He looked down at me. His face clearly showed fear
"Are you going to come down now?" I ask
He nods and carefully starts to make his way down
"That's what I thought" I mutter with a smirk
"Henry! Bring Milo back inside. Its too cold for you to be out here" mom says
"Give me a piggyback rise, Henry!" Milo says, jumping up and down with joy..
"No, Milo. You can walk"
But he gave me the puppy dog eyes.
He knew darn well I could resist them
I sigh
"Fine"
I kneel on the floor. He makes his way behind me and I help him place each leg on one of my shoulders. When he's in a comfortable enough position, I grab a hold of his hands and carefully stand up
He laughs with glee as I walk inside
Thankfully, Donna was there to open the door for me.
"Dinner's about to start. You should get dressed" she says
I frown
"Whats up with what Im wearing now?"
"Really, Henry? You're wearing a winter outfit. You should wear something traditional. Like Mitchell and I"
Donna was wearing a red dress with white snowflakes and Christmas trees. Her hair was put up like her mother's: a half ponytail decorated with a red bow. She was also wearing green flats.
Mitchel wore a red fuzzy dress and black ballerina flats with red bows. She had her black hair down
I groan
"Alright"
"You should shower first" she says
"Anything else I should do for you, mam?" I say sarcastically
I climb up to my room and walk toward my clost
It didn't take my long to pick out my outfit.
I picked out a green dressing shirt and a black vest with dressing pants and, obviously, dressing shoes.
"Alright. Now time for a shower" I say to absolutely no one
I grab a towel and walk towards my bathroom
~Linebreak~
"Alrighty then. Who volunteers to say the prayer?" Aunt Cass says
"I will, Ms. Hamada" aunt Honey says
She chuckles and shakes her head
"Now, Honey. I've told you a couple of times to call me Cass or Cassandra. After all you and Gogo are now Hamada's, too"
Aunt Honey giggles.
"Oh, right. Sorry, Cass"
"No need to apologize, dear. Now you may do the honors"
We all held hands and hung our head low as aunt Honey prayed
After the Amen, we started passing platters here and there to one another.
After everyone was served, we dug in while small conversation were starting to form
Mostly, though, the conversations were about how everyone had changed since the past and even the future.
We got to hear a lot about the 'Saving San Fransokyo from a crazy lunatic in a kabuki mask using dad's microbots' story
"Wait wait wait wait wait…Dad did what?" I exclaim, not believing what I'd just heard
"I created suits for the team to fight off Yokai, the villain" Dad says
"Do you guys still have them?" Milo asks, standing on his chair
Aunt Abigail had to pull him down
"Can we see them?" Donna asks
"Maybe later, ok kids?" Dad replies
"How do they look like?" I ask
"They're all different colors, shapes, an powers" uncle Wasabi says
"Kind of like the Avengers!" uncle Fred exclaimed
After a small chuckle, everything then went silent for a few seconds.
I caught a glimpse of uncle Tadashi. He seemed to be glancing under the table every now and then, small smiles forming on his face. I immediately knew just what he was reading. He looks up and caught me staring at him. He silently laughed and I could tell he tried to hide it
"What's so funny, Tada?" aunt Honey asked
He shakes his head, looking down at his plate and glancing at my dad. It was a good thing he had the journal under the table.
"Its nothing. I just never would've guessed what sort of things my younger brother would write in such a book. This is more like a diary" he says, holding up the book for everyone to see
Dad's eyes went wide. The table was silent
"Where'd you find that?" Dad asked, starting to panic
Uncle Tadashi shrugged
"Eh, just somewhere. Are you actually afraid of rabbits?"
Dad blushed and hesitated
"They have pointy teeth. Im afraid they might bite! You don't know what could happen. They're dangerous!"
Uncle Tadashi busted out laughing. Better yet, everyone was trying to hold in laughs of their own. Uncle Tadashi lowered the book again to read it a bit better
"Alright, ok. Did you actually-"
Dad couldn't take it anymore. He slid form his chair and crawled under the table to grab his precious full-of-private-business booklet.
However, he bumped his head on the table constantly, spilling drinks and foods
Uncle Tadashi jumped up and made his way upstairs, possibly trying to lock himself in the bathroom.
Dad had just made it out from under the table (It's a long table for all our friends and family members so what do you expect?) and ran after his brothers
Mom was about to go get them but aunt Cass stopped her by placing a hand on her arm.
"I'll go get them. I've dealt with this plenty of times before in the past" she says calmly with a chuckle
Although she's a sweet woman, like everyone else, she had a dark side
"Boys! Get back here" Aunt Cass yelled, standing form her seat and stomping upstairs
"They'll never grow up" mom says, crossing her arms
"You can say that again" aunt Honey replies
Suddenly there was more yelling and shouting coming from upstairs. I hope they weren't in my room or I'd have to clean it again this week. It takes me forever to straighten that room. Could be because I find really cool stuff and try to build something out of them but that's not the point
Whining, painful groans, and including some 'ow's' woke me form my thoughts.
Aunt Cass came down with both of her nephews, pulling their ears. I tried hard not to laugh at the way dad clutched his journal, pouting like a young boy who didn't get what he wanted for Christmas
"Now you two will clean up the mess you made and apologize for all the trouble you caused" Aunt Cass says strictly
They opened their mouth to protest but aunt Cass silence them
~Linebreak~
"Are you ready, Mitchel?" uncle Wasabi asked his daughter
The young girl nodded enthusiastically, holding the golden star
Uncle Wasabi picked her up. Mitchel carefully placed the star on the tree.
There were cheers and clapping.
"Christmas song, anyone?" aunt Cass asked, smiling widely
"Yea! How 'bout 'Shake Santa Shake' by Zendaya?" uncle Fred perked
"No, Freddie. Something more traditional" aunt Honey said with a laugh
"Oh Holy Night?" Donna asked suggestively
Everyone agreed and grabbed hands, singing along to the holiday song
I hope you enjoyed it and Merry Christmas!