"What kind of cake would you two like?" Luella asked as she brought the local bakery's catalogue to the kitchen table where Gene and Noll were sitting. She flipped to the section where a wide array of cakes for all occasions in various shapes, sizes, styles, and flavors were displayed. "You two can pick out whatever you would like and we'll order it for your birthday party next week!"
Gene, the much more energetic of the two soon-to-be nine year old boys, immediately began to pour over the magazine. His eyes darted from design to design in an attempt to take in all of the dazzling colors.
"Noll!" The boy said enthusiastically as his eyes lit upon a particularly interesting item, "Look at this! There's one in the shape of a rocket ship!" Noll, the much more reserved twin, simply looked up from the large book that he had recently started to thumb through with an annoyed glare. He had made it his mission to attempt to read every book that he could get his hands on in the house, and he did not like being interrupted. He took one glance at the catalog to appease his brother before returning to the book.
"Noll!" Gene put a hand over the page that his brother was attempting to read. "This is important! I can't choose this by myself!" Noll arched an eyebrow at his brother.
"You are perfectly capable of making decisions by yourself. I don't see why you need my opinion on something like this."
"But this is for our Birthday! It wouldn't be right if I chose all by myself!" Noll rolled his eyes as he attempted to pull the book out from under his brother's hand with a huff. Gene put more of his weight onto the book eliciting an annoyed grunt.
"It's just a birthday," Noll huffed, "I don't see what's so spe—" He abruptly cut off for no discernible reason. Silence fell as Luella watched as he concentrated on his brother's face before glancing briefly up at her and then back again to Gene.
The twins had been with the Davis' for almost half of a year now and, ever since that fateful spring day, Luella had noticed that the two brothers had a way of speaking to each other without saying a word. Martin was beyond fascinated with it and often talked of taking the two to the lab to be studied. Luella, for her part, could not imagine doing such an intrusive thing to their newly adopted sons and had immediately her foot down. Though she had made it perfectly clear that she would not allow such a thing to occur, he continued to insist that the two boys were gifted beyond their intelligence and that they, most likely, had psychic powers of some sort. He had even gone so far as to take the two on a 'tour' of his workplace.
That little stunt led to Martin spending a week on the couch.
As Luella observed her sons in the following weeks, she found that she could not deny that she had her suspicions as well. But, as their mother, she felt the need to protect them. They had already been through so much in the short amount of time that they had been on the Earth. She couldn't imagine putting even more stress on them, even if their peculiar way of communicating with each other was potentially a 'noteworthy scientific discovery'.
After about a minute of silence, Luella watched Noll's furrowed brows smooth before he let out a resigned sigh and closed the book in favor of looking at the catalog over his brother's shoulder. Gene, in the same instant, let out a loud whoop as he made a show of pointing out all of the designs that the glossy pages had to offer. A moment later Gene looked up from the magazine that his brother was now studying intently to give his mother an inquisitive look. Luella laughed at his sudden change of attention.
"Yes, Gene?"
"Have you ever baked a cake, Luella?" Said woman did her best to not be phased by the use of her first name. She had attempted, in vain, to work with the boys on calling her mother or mum. She knew that it would take time for them to do as such, but it still saddened her when they did not. She made a point to smile kindly at the young boy before answering.
"Yes, many times."
"Really?" Gene's eyes grew in surprise before lighting up, "Do you think you could make a rocket ship cake?"
Luella let out a laugh. "I don't know if I could do something like that. It would probably be a bit too difficult for me."
"Oh," he said in consideration as he looked down at the booklet again. The three fell into a comfortable silence as the birthday boys looked over every possible cake that the bakery had to offer. Luella decided to take advantage of the lull to begin preparing water for tea. A beat after she had put the kettle on the stove she looked back to find Gene looking at her again.
Once he saw that he had her attention again he asked, "have you ever decorated a cake before?"
"I have. Though I can't speak as to whether any of those cakes were very beautiful." Gene seemed to consider this for a moment before he looked at her with round pleading eyes.
"Can we bake the cake instead of ordering it?" Gene brought his hands together. "Please?"
Luella paused as she considered the amount of people that she had already invited. There were quite a few people. If they wanted to have enough cake for everyone, they would need to bake quite a bit. There wouldn't be a whole lot of time left over to decorate and make other arrangements. She was about to say no when she looked back at Gene's large eyes.
With a sigh, her resolve crumbled and Luella made a note to work on her ability to say no in the future.
"We could make a small one together, but we'll need to order the rest from the bakery. I don't think that we'll have enough time to bake that much. You two decide what flavor of cake and icing you would prefer for the smaller cake and I'll take care of the cake for the guests."
"Actually…" Gene trailed off as he looked at his brother who had closed the catalogue in favor of returning to his book. Noll did not look up from his book, but there were a few beats of silence before he shrugged and turned the page. The next moment Gene was looking at Luella tentatively. "Can… Can the party be just the four of us?"
"Honey, there are lots of people who want to celebr—" The kettle chose that moment to announce to the whole house that it was finished. Luella made quick work of removing it from the heat in order to silence it. Once it had calmed, she turned around to find Gene nervously fiddling with the corner of the catalogue. A moment later Noll spared him a reproachful look. Gene immediately stilled his hand, but Luella could already tell that the normally social twin was nervous at the prospect of the oncoming parting.
Luella pursed her lips. Originally both twins had readily agreed to the party. Granted they had not been overly enthusiastic about the prospect of being around so many people, but neither had said that they did not want such a large crowd to attend.
It appeared that, in her excitement, she had overlooked the smaller clues that had spoken of their discomfort at the idea.
"It will take a bit of time to contact everyone," Luella let out a sigh, "but I imagine that everyone will understand."
Because you all deserve a bit of non-bitter sweetness once in awhile. I decided to write this for the twin's birthday celebration! This is part one of two. I got a bit too tired to finish the second part so you guy's get that, technically, a little late. Hope you enjoy!
PS: This group called GhostHuntHQ over on Tumblr is posting/sharing a bunch of stuff in celebration today. You should totally check them out!