Hi Again!
"Now, hurry up and finish breakfast, and then we can start. Oh, and I'm going to have to leave right after lunch to go to work, so Maura's coming over right at lunch to take care of you guys. Any questions?"
"None, but will you read something to us other than princess stories today?" Nellas asked quietly, raising her eyebrows hopefully at Laurel as she rose and put her empty bowl and spoon in the sink.
"We only read one princess story, but yes, it will be something different today."
"What will it be about, then?" asked Celegorm with interest, who enjoyed being read aloud to more than he let on.
"It will be about a little boy and his best friend, a tree."
"Ooh! I think I shall like this one!" Nellas squealed quietly from where she was now standing behind Maedhros, hands resting on the back of his chair as he hurriedly finished breakfast. The odd thing about Nellas was, she was given the same amount of food as everyone else, ate slower than everyone else, but was always done first, although she ate everything she was given. It was a mystery Laurel would never be able to solve, and just had to accept as reality.
"Now, is everyone done? I would like to have time for our craft, reading, and some writing before Maura gets here. I have a feeling she'll spoil you guys rotten and take you to the zoo or something, she crumbles around children, so I want to get as much done as possible."
"What is the zoo?" Fingon asked excitedly as they cleared the dishes, rinsing them before placing them in Laurel's miniature dishwasher, which was running at least twice a day now that it was serving six people.
"The zoo is a place where they keep in cages lots of different kind of animals that don't live here for people to come and look at."
"How cruel!" Maedhros cried in shock, eyes widening at the idea.
"Well, it isn't, actually. There are many people there, called zookeepers, and they spend their time taking care of the animals to keep them happy. Also, they build complex habitats for them to live in, and make them feel at home and content. Interestingly enough, most animals live longer and have a happier life in a zoo than in the wild."
"Still, if I were kept in a cage like that, no matter how much they tried to make it look like a forest, I should certainly die." murmured Nellas as they all settled down in the living room while Laurel searched her old bookshelf for the crafts supplies she had gotten yesterday.
She froze at Nellas' words, a terrifying thought entering her mind. Was she doing that to Nellas here? They hadn't been in any woods since they had arrived. Was she killing Nellas?
"Change of plans, kids. Maura isn't going to take you to the zoo. After lunch today, she is taking you all on a nice, long hike on some of the trails we have around here. Is that ok with you?"
Nellas' face lit up, and the others said that would be quite alright.
"Great. Then let's start our craft project now, so that we'll be ready when she gets here."
"What is the craft?" Glorfindel asked with interest as Laurel produced from a white plastic Michael's bag a spool of clear elasticy thread, a big bag of plastic pony beads in assorted colors, and two smaller bags, one full of plastic flower, butterfly, heart, and star beads, and another full of plastic letter beads.
"Stringing beads to make necklaces. I'm afraid that these cheap plastic beads won't be much after your great jewels from Aman and Doriath, but we're kinda short on money right now." Laurel explained as she cut lengths of the clear stretchy string for them to make necklaces from.
On the contrary, they found the beads very engrossing, as plastic was a new concept to them, and enjoyed the craft very much.
"See, you string the beads you want onto the thread like this, until you have filled it, then you tie it off, and you have a necklace." Laurel explained, but the kids had already gotten to work, and they beaded in concentrated silence together on Laurel's living room rug.
When they were finished, Laurel bade them all get together and hold up their necklaces so that she could snap a picture with her camera, to keep as a record for their arts and crafts requirements when it came time to present to a government official to prove that she was homeschooling them well.
She laughed when she looked at the group selfie, it was rather funny. Celegorm's eyes were shut because of the flash, and Fingon had squished Maedhros in a hug so tight that she did not know how the red-headed elfling had survived with all his ribs intact. Nellas was covering her face with her hands, Glorfindel was smiling brilliantly at the camera with his arm around Laurel's shoulder and his face up against hers, the flash reflecting off his teeth and hair causing a rather blinding effect, and Maglor was trying to look normal in the midst of the scene, which was equally hilarious.
"Alright, now it's reading time." Laurel giggled, pocketing the camera and settling down on the couch amidst the enthusiastic children to begin reading.
"This book is called 'The Giving Tree', by Shel Silverstein."
As she read, she looked at all the children's necklaces to see more properly what they had made. Nellas' was comprised of tastefully arranged green and brown pony beads and the occasional dark purple flower. Fingon's was a whole rainbow of colors, including some hearts, butterflies, and stars thrown in, with his name, 'Findekano'(Laurel had shown them which letters meant their name when they had asked, they had not yet learned our alphabet), placed in the center with the letter beads. Celegorm's was white, orange, green, and blue, with a 'C' placed in between two purple butterflies in the center. Maglor's was completely blue, rotating butterflies, hearts, 'M's, and normal beads. Maedhros' was divided into thirds, one third pink, one third red, and one third orange, with a blue heart in between each section. Glorfindel's rotated two yellow and two light blue, with an 'L' for 'Laurefindil' in the center, flanked on each side by a yellow heart.
Laurel smiled at the many necklaces, unique to each child as she finished the story.
"That was so sweet." Nellas murmured, tears in her eyes.
"Stupid tree, if he was smart he would have realized that the boy was taking advantage of him!" Celegorm exclaimed in frustration, shaking his head at the tree's blind loyalty.
"It was a beautiful story of loyal friendship, Turko." Maedhros explained, ruffling his little brother's hair fondly as Laurel prepared the writing lesson, tearing six pieces of paper from a spiral-bound notebook and gathering six sharpened pencils.
"Alright. So, welcome to writing. You are each going to write a short story about a person, place, animal, or thing you love very much. It can be about a memory, or just a description. You must fill the page, and write neatly. For now you boys may use the the alphabet of Feanor, and Nellas may use the alphabet of Daeron, but you must write in English, the language we are speaking, although how you know it, I don't know. Soon I will begin teaching you the alphabet we use here, but not today. Alright, you may begin." Laurel said, handing them each a paper and pencil, and they all sat around the coffee table and began to write, some thinking about it a bit before beginning, and some diving right in.
While they wrote, Laurel checked her email, just in case there was anything important. The only messages of note were one from Maura and one from her parents.
She opened up the one from Maura first.
Hey, I'll be home at lunch. That still works, right? I can take care of them while you go do an afternoon shift, and we'll have dinner ready for you when you get back. :)))
Maura
Laurel checked to make sure the children were still studiously writing before responding:
Yep. See you at lunch. Also, I was wondering if you could take them for a nice, long, exhausting hike this afternoon, I'm worrying about Nellas a little.
Thanks so much!
Laurel
Then she opened up the one from her parents.
Laurel, how are you? Are you up to anything right now?
xoxoxo, Mom 3
Laurel sighed in relief. She had been afraid they would ask if they could visit.
I'm doing fine, just, you know, boring old life and all, nothing really happening over here, ;))
How about you?
love, Laurel xoxo
"How's it coming?" she asked, closing her laptop and peering over at the busily working children. Fingon's tongue was sticking out in concentration, and Celegorm's hand appeared to be having a little writing seizure as it labored across the page he was studiously filling.
"Almost done." Maedhros informed her, signing his name, 'Maitimo', with a flourish.
"Very good. Let's see them."
One by one the children handed them all in and she took them, putting them in her 'to be graded' neon blue plastic folder before glancing up at the clock, sighing.
"It looks like we have some time to kill, guys. Who's ready to go fold some clothes?"
"I am!" Fingon cried excitedly, grabbing Maedhros' hand and dragging him after a chuckling Laurel. Everyone else followed except for Celegorm, who stood, unmoved, arms crossed contrarily.
"What if I have no wish to fold laundry?"
Laurel turned, smiling sweetly as she replied:
"Then you get to scrub the toilet."
Celegorm's eyes widened at this, and he hurried after them, arms quickly uncrossing as he did so.
A few minutes later they were all in Laurel's room, folding laundry on her bed.
"This is mine! And so is this!" Fingon cried excitedly, showing an appreciative Laurel a blue sweater and a pair of dark grey sweat pants. "And this underwear is Nelyo's! And these pants are Kano's!" he exclaimed, handing Maedhros a pair of dull orange underwear, and Maglor a pair of tight black pants.
"Can we fold in silence, or is that not an option?" Celegorm asked sarcastically, glaring at his half-cousin as he threw a pair of loose, light blue jeans right into the face of a surprised Glorfindel before continuing on, soon throwing Nellas' swamp-green ruffly skirt at her head, to which she promptly boxed his ears in return, much to his surprise and the others' amusement.
"Hey mom, what are these?" Maglor asked curiously, holding up Laurel's Taekwando robes with interest.
"Oh, that's just my-Oh crap, I forgot!" Laurel cried, suddenly remembering.
"What?" Glorfindel asked nervously as he comforted poor Nellas, who had been quite taken off guard by the surprising outburst.
"Taekwando is tonight...I must have forgotten with all this commotion...I'm so glad I remembered...tonight is the expert staff-fighting black-belt special."
The children all cast her quizzical looks, confused.
"Well, Taekwondo is a form of martial arts, it's about kicking and punching and defending yourself, but their is rolling and tumbling and weapons involved too. I've been doing it ever since I was twelve, and am a black belt-that is, a master, I guess."
"Oooooh..." Fingon murmured, though they all still looked confused.
"Let me show you." Laurel decided, pulling out her ancient laptop from under her bed and going onto YouTube, soon pulling up a rather blurry and slightly shaky video centered on two young women, in full Taekwando uniform, engaged in an impressive stunt fighting routine. "That one on the left, with the short blonde hair in a little ponytail, that's me, and that one on the right, with the long black hair in the braid, that's Marcia. We're both black-belts, and Sensei set this routine up for us so that we could have some fun. Don't worry, we aren't actually hurting each other." Laurel assured as Maglor winced in sympathy for the two figures, both twisting, tumbling, kicking, and punching each other at top speed.
"Does that not hurt just a little bit?" Nellas asked in interest, eyes widening as both girls drew their wooden stunt katana blades.
"Well, a little, when you keep on tumbling, you know? I always have bruises on my legs and stuff, but I already would anyway, I bang into so many things all the time." Laurel laughed, drawing up her pant leg's to show the children the superficial bruises speckling the fronts of her calves. "Anyway, I have to go tonight after work, so it looks like I won't be home for dinner, I'll just eat something there, at Mario's, before I leave for the Dojo. I might get back before you're asleep, though."
"Good, then we shall wait up for goodnight kisses." Nellas decided quietly, a little embarrassed as she avoided Laurel's gaze.
"You all can wait up for goodnight kisses, but I will certainly not." Celegorm announced, glaring at Laurel rebelliously as he threw her her pair of tie-died leggings, which she somehow managed to catch despite the Taekwando outfit in her arms.
"Suit yourself, my dear. Now, shall we start with lunch for Maura? I have some nice pizza pockets in the freezer that are just begging to be heated up."
"Hooray for pizza pockets!" Fingon cried, leading the way for the other children into the kitchen/dining room, beaming all the way despite the fact that he hadn't the faintest idea as to what a pizza pocket was.
Laurel chuckled, folding the last of the clothes before following them. Once she reached the kitchen/dining room she preheated the oven, washing a cookie pan, covering it with frozen pizza pockets and leaving it on the counter to wait for the oven to be ready, trying to decide what to do next, before getting up to go get her list.
She hummed to herself, looking it over before slipping it in her back pocket and gathering the children around her.
"Ok, so, while lunch cooks we're going to learn about different occupations, or jobs, people commonly hold in this world. We're going to look at photographs and then draw pictures. Nelyo, would you go get my computer? Turko, would you please go get the colored pencils and paper?"
"No."
"Alright then. Laure, would you mind doing Turko's job-"
Fine, I will do it." Celegorm grumbled, getting up and getting the jar of colored pencils and stack of drawing paper from Laurel's second hand shelf grudgingly, shooting a glare at Glorfindel while doing so.
"Ok, first is firefighter." Laurel began, googling 'firefighter' and putting a nice image of a friendly looking firefighter smiling at the camera on her new and previously blank Pages document, typing underneath it, 'Firefighter'. "A firefighter is a person who puts out fires in houses and restaurants and wherever there may be one, before it gets out of control. They are very brave and wear this big suit to protect them from the fire, and they use big hoses to spray water on the burning building. They ride in these big red trucks, called 'fire engines'" here Laurel pulled up a picture of a fire truck, "and they blast really loud sirens whenever they're rushing to an emergency to tell the other cars to get out of the way. My dad was a firefighter, but he's retired now."
The children nodded in understanding, so she let them draw pictures of a firefighter and firetruck while she changed into her waitress uniform before moving on to policeman, then doctor and nurse, and so on, covering all the common jobs she could think of that children first learn in school before Maura arrived, letting herself in and hanging her magenta coat on the wall before entering the kitchen.
"Hey guys, lunch smells good. Learning about occupations I see?"
"Yes. Oh, Maura, change of plans. I forgot about Taekwando tonight, I won't be back until at least an hour and a half after dinner. Is that alright?"
"Yeah, I was planning on staying awhile anyway. Alright, kiddos, it sounds like lunch is ready." Maura said as the oven beeped, pulling on Laurel's cat-speckled oven mitts and removing the pizza pockets from the oven, now dripping with leaking cheese.
"Maura, Maura, look what we made today!" Fingon cried, body-slamming her with one of his classic hugs once she had(thankfully)put down the very hot baking sheet, proudly showing her his necklace.
"How nice! Did you all make them?"
"Yes, look at mine." Celegorm replied rather shyly, offering up his for inspection.
"Beautiful, Turko, very good job! I like your use of color! Will you get out some glasses and fill them with milk for everyone, please?" she asked him gently, and he nodded without a second thought, quickly obeying.
"You certainly do have a way with Turko, I do believe I'm jealous." Laurel whispered as she stuffed a few pizza pockets in her mouth and hands, before bidding them all goodbye and giving the nearest elfling, who happened to be Nellas, a quick kiss on the forehead before hurrying out, clothes for Taekwando under one arm, putting on Maura's coat by accident as she flew out the door, leaving the young elf-maid blushing furiously at the unexpected attention in her wake.
Haha, someone totally needs to make some fanart for the art selfie...*chuckles*...
I know, I haven't updated for awhile...forgive me?
Review replies:
Peregrin Took the Falcon- Hey, no problem!(you were the first reviewer for that chappie, actually XD) Yeah, poor Laurel, she really doesn't know what she's getting herself into...(her mom didn't have to homeschool that many kids, but you'll find more out about that later...*intrigue* XDXD)Yeah, that would be super awkward. : / So glad Nelyo saved the day there...XD Thanks so much for your devoted and awesome reviews! :D
NirCele- Yup, second. ;D You're totally gonna kill your CapLock, though, XDXD(the caps are great though, I don't mind a bit) Heehee lot's more Celegorm in this chappie, hope you enjoyed! Yeah, I got whacked in the face with a frisbee too...it hurt...my face didn't stop hurting for, like, a long time. 2+ weeks. I was surprised, actually, how long it took. : / Anyway, THANKS SO MUCH YOUR REVIEWS ARE AWESOME!
Quantumphysica- hah yeah, he totally is XD Thanks so much for your reviews!
Elf from Downunder- *laughs* 'devious brat' is the perfect way to describe him! :D Yeah, Laurel really has her hands full... *feels slightly guilty for a moment at what I'm doing to my poor Laurel* *only for a moment* Thanks so much!
Anyway, thanks all who read and reviewed(and hopefully, enjoyed), and I hope to hear from you all again soon! :D:D:D
Have a fabulous day,
~Thurin