OK, this is for Grass-Berry09, in the Easter gift exchange. This was kinda hard, because I know you don't like Amian, and you said no ships, but I hope you like it!
It's going to be family-oriented, and a oneshot, because I think that there isn't enough of these in the archive. Happy (belated) Easter, and yes, i KNOW THAT i SHOULD BE UPDATiNG MY READ THE BOOKS FiC! Now… without further ado… -
Dan: Geez, lady, you forgetting something?
Huh?
Dan: 'Cause you totally own the 39 Clues, right?
Oh, yeah! Oops.
Disclaimer: Holle does not own the 39 Clues.
ONE MORE THiNG (why do you assume you're the smartest in the room, why do you assume you're the smartest in the room, why do you assume you're the smartest in the room, soon that attitude may be your doom) THiS iS iMPORTANT!
Today is the 20th Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, to all you Potterheads. Remember Fred.
Grace Cahill loved her grandchildren.
Of course she did. After all, they were her grandkids. But that wasn't the only reason. She thought that maybe, just maybe, they were the only Cahills in the entire world- except those insufferable, typical family members, the ones who live normal lives, and nobody knows what branch they are- who didn't know about the thirty-nine Clues.
Because they led completely normal live- excluding the fact that they lived with Grace's horrid sister, Beatrice- they were her sanctuary.
She cherished those moments with them, Dan and his silly ninja obsession, Amy and her bookish, stuttering tendencies. They were a welcome breath of fresh air from the pressure of being a Madrigal leader.
And it was because of this that she found herself hiding eggs around her property, in the library and between books, or outside in a little abandoned hollow, and in the birdhouse, anywhere she could fit them.
It was a tradition of sorts, for them to come for a three-day weekend, (she'd let them miss the Friday before) and have a three-day long treasure hunt for eggs. Grace still could find the chocolates in obscure places months after she hid them, and it was then that she'd be reminded of happier days.
She lifted her head as she heard a car pulling into the drive. Speeding up her work, she continued to hide the eggs.
One in the hanging basket from Tanna Island, a Madrigal base almost no one had ever heard of.
Another in between two cushions on her deck chairs, and yet another two hidden inside her jewelry box up in her bedroom.
Grace opened the door to her grandchildren's bedrooms, six eggs remaining. One under Amy's desk, one in the bookshelf, (she saw that Fiske had added another book in- Les Misérables this time.) two under their pillows, and the last two she hid inside Dan's collection of ninja action figures, positioning them as if they were about to break the eggs.
Dashing down the stairs as fast as her legs could take her, she opened the door to the mansion. Grace was immediately accosted by two children, eight and five.
Amy, the girl, shook her short bob-cut auburn hair out of her eyes as she grinned up at her, a gap between her teeth from a recently fallen tooth.
She held up her book excitedly, displaying her newest conquest: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Grace smiled. "That's a big book, dear! Are you sure you're going to be able to finish it?" She was just teasing, of course. Amy could finish this any day.
And she knew it, too. "Of course I can! It's one of my favorite books already!"
Oh, the irony.
"Grace, Grace! Guess what!" she turned her attention over to the younger one, Dan. "Grace, guess what?"
"What?"
"No, guess!"
Grace smiled. That was Dan. Insistent, persistent, and inconsistent. Though the first two were somewhat redundant, she felt it was necessary. After all, he almost never backed down from anything. "Hmm… did you get something?"
He looked at her, incredulous. "How did you know?!" Grace just smiled.
Dan quickly recovered from his shock, though, and launched into a story about how he and his friend Alex had played a trick on the substitute.
They had gotten the entire class to switch their chairs, and answer to the name on the desk when the substitute called it out. It had caused quite a stir when one of their classmates, Eliza, accidentally slipped up.
And there was his inconsistency. Running this way and that, Dan slowed for few and stopped for none.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons that her ghastly sister, Beatrice, hated the two. Although, the fact that she hated children might have been a part of it.
A tugging on her sleeve snapped her out of her reverie.
"Grace, Grace, Dan's t-tryna go hunting w-without me!" Grace looked down to see Amy frantically pointing towards the stairs, a distraught expression on her face.
The aforementioned boy could now be seen climbing the stairs two at a time, obviously hoping to avoid a confrontation of the big-sister type.
"D-DAN! D-DAN!" Amy started running towards the steps, in a hurry to catch up. Grace smiled at the sight, Dan teasing his sister about her failed attempts to climb the stairs while running as Amy tried to ignore him.
However, it was as Amy slipped and her hand struck a small lump in the stair runner that Amy was the one to be gloating.
She had found the first egg, and therefore got to eat it in full view of Dan as his punishment. Amy was, of course, allowed to savor the egg as slowly and leisurely as possible, but it had to take less than one hour.
Such was the way that Grace Cahill and her grandchildren kicked off Easter.
It was the morning of the second day of their extended Easter- Saturday. Grace was awakened by Dan jumping on her bed, with Amy clutching a book to her chest with an ecstatic grin on her face. "Les Mis!" she exclaimed. "Thank you, Grace!"
Dan grunted.
"Who cares about stupid old books, anyways? I WANNA GO GET SOME CHOCOLATE!"
So Dan had found the room's eggs already. Grace smiled.
"Alright, Dan. Just let me get dressed."
Fifteen minutes later, she was downstairs in the kitchen with Amy and Dan hot on her heels.
Thirty minutes later, after a breakfast of pancakes with whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberries, Grace unleashed the terrors into the backyard.
Two hours and exactly sixteen minutes later, Amy and Dan came running back to her, swinging their buckets full of chocolates.
That evening, the three sat in the library after dinner. Amy was finishing the last few chapters of Crime and Punishment, with Les Mis on the table beside her. Grace relayed her experience in rural China to Dan, his eyes widening with every word.
"Grace, did all of this really happen?" Amy's enquiring gaze caught Grace's as she shut her book and placed it on the side table.
Their grandmother smiled. "Absolutely, my dear. Every word."
"Even the part about the rampaging animals?"
"Even the part about the rampaging animals."
"Grace, can we stay with you instead of Aunt Beatrice?"
"No, Dan, darling. I'm sorry."
Resigned to this fact, Dan climbed up onto her lap, and curled himself into a ball. Amy left her seat on the armchair, opting to cuddle up with Grace's arm around her.
The sugar-hype from the chocolate finally taking its toll, Amy and Dan fell fast asleep.
Grace smiled as she looked down at the two. Hope and Arthur would have been so proud.
And… done! I'm so sorry this was so late. I hope this wasn't too short.