Snowed In
And
Howling
disclaimer:
I do not own anything in this fan fiction! It is my interpretation of Stephine Meyer's characters, and nothing more. All characters, places, etc belong to their respective owners.
A/N: Have you ever wondered what babies are saying when they talk jibberish? All will be releaved, although I doubt all babies are asking for a mutant blue flying monkey like these three. They might be, though? LOL Love, Peace and Chocolate! Elle
Seven: Tree house, Musicals
And the wonders of the internet
"What I wonder," Chira began, "Is what Tom Tom's motives are. Why does he do what he does?"
"No no no." Conan bickered from my lap, removing his thumb from his mouth to speak. "The real question is what his actions will cause."
"Brother, you're wrong." Chira said.
"No, I'm not."
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"For god's sake it's a flying monkey that you're arguing about!" I said. It had been like this for a week. The triplets were now physically a year, and out of desperation I had put on TreeHouse and had let them watch. This kiddie channel on TV had saved my life, literally. Conan was always going around touching things, learning from them, but he hadn't learned how strong he was just yet. He would break a table leg and not even realize he'd done it. Chira was always dominating them, sometimes butting heads with me or Jake or Conan. And Lubetha, who didn't talk at all aside from 'mama' 'dadda' and ironically 'wolf', 'bat' and 'witch' was always getting into something. I hadn't taken Ani's words seriously up until Betha had 'accidentally' bought over a thousand dollars worth of stickers from the conveince store using my credit card. Trouble should have been Lubetha's middle name, not 'Andren'. Although Andren did suit her.
And, come to think of it, there were a lot of double meanings to these shows. 'Into The Night Garden' was just weird, might I say.
"True. And furthermore, how did they get the monkey to fly?" Chira asked, cocking her head to the side and looking at the screen.
"They didn't." Conan said.
"Clever boy!" I said, thinking how smart he was for realizing it was animated.
"The monkey could already fly before filming." spoke too soon.
"Did they dye it blue?"
"No, I don't think so sister. I believe he was born that way."
"But monkeys are brown."
"He's a mutant then."
"I see. Huh." Chira toddled up to me and thew herself at my legs. "Can we get a mutant blue flying monkey mamma?"
I burst into laughter.
"What?" Chira said, frowning. I picked her up and cuddled her to me.
"Sweetheart," I said. "Mutant blue flying monkeys are very rare."
"Like me?"
"What?"
"Ani says we're rare." Conan said, his dark eyes looking at me with greater understanding then his week alive should have given him. "She says that we're one of a kind."
"Are we mama?" Chira said, biting her lip in excitement. Already taking after grandma, are we? "Are we one of a kind?"
before I could answer Daddy came in the door, followed shortly by Carlisle.
"Dracie!" Chira and Conan said, charging at Daddy. Lubetha toddled to Carlisle, peering up at him.
"Bat." She said, and jumped up at him.
"Not always." Carlisle said, picking her up like she wanted.
"Carrie," Chira said, reaching for Carlisle.
"Yes dearest?"
"Mama says we can have mutant blue flying monkey. Can you find me one? Please?"
Carlisle, god bless him, kept at totally straight face.
"Well, I'll try. But I warn you," he set Betha down and knelt so he was face to face with Chira. "I haven't seen a mutant blue flying monkey in at least half a century."
"That's quite alright, Carrie," Conan said as he rested his little head on Daddy's shoulder. "If it's a mutant like us, it will have lived forever."
"Well, I hope you're right about that." Carlisle said.
"Where are our ancients?" I asked cautiously.
"Hunting." Daddy said.
"What?" Jake asked, bordering on furious.
"Not in the hotel, but outside."
"You mean to tell me that you vamps could have had us out of here by now?"
"No, they couldn't." Ani said, coming in the room with lap top perilously balanced on her open palm. Alec followed with the extention cord and mouse, clicking it with glee.
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, firstly don't you think that the hockey team and dancers would have noticed that a few guests could shovel faster then all of them combined?" Ani asked, setting the laptop down on the coffee table. She tried to take the mouse from Alec, but he dodged her and she gave up. "Also, where would we take over a thousand people in this weather? It's still a blizzard out there on and off."
"I suppose." I agreed with her slightly. Still, I was getting a bit annoyed of only being able to be in two rooms- those being the ball room/ camp site and our suite. "what's the laptop for?"
"Oh. Your family wants to skype. And..." Ani trailed off, looking excited, "I have found a way around our Christmas shopping problems!"
" Thank god." Daddy said. "Alice would have killed me if she hadn't gotten something, and Rose would have helped."
"Don't worry, Esme would have stopped them, if only to get her own gift from you." Carlisle said supportively, scooping up the triplets and bouncing them to keep 'em occupied.
" Anyways, Amazon and eBay are our saviors." Ani finished. "We can order gifts and send them home, with strict orders for them not to be opened before Christmas."
"Will that work?" I asked.
"It better." Alec answered. "I've already promised Anilise far to much to go back on my word."
"What?" Ani said as all eyes turned to her. "We just browsed through eBay a few times."
"A few?" Alec said, slightly outraged. "You searched for things over a million times!"
Ani looked slightly angry and very put out. "what was that, darling?" her eye brows raised.
Alec looked cautiously scared. "I mean I love you dear."
"That's right."
"So who gets to shop first?" I asked
"Carlisle." Ani said, and he walked to the couch, Lubetha still in his arms. I was so glad my kids were close to their family. So, so so glad. It made babysitting a breeze.
"Witchie!" Betha said, grabbing at Ani;s curls.
"That's right!" Ani took Lubetha in her arms.
"Ms. Ani witch," Conan asked, totally serious and being his most polite.
"Yes sweetheart?" Ani said, beaming at my kid.
"Maybe you can help us." He said. "We are attempting to find a mutant blue flying monkey. Can you make us a mutant blue flying monkey please?"
"Don't you think the normies will notice?" Ani asked. 'Normies' was Chira's word for humans, and it'd kinda stuck with us all. 'Normies'- hey, it suited!
"Yeah, we forgot about them..." Conan said thoughtfully. "Still, can you get us a stuffed mutant blue flying monkey?"
"Sure baby, sure." Ani snapped, and three mutant blue flying monkeys materialized in my children's hands.
"Yay!" Chira cried out.
"Mutant monkeys!" said Lubetha. God. She could now say 'Mama' 'Dadda', 'Carrie', 'Dracie', 'wolf', 'bat' 'witch' and 'mutant monkeys'. Can you tell she's special?
All the adults giggled.
"Ani, what do I do with this thing?" Carlisle asked, flipping over the laptop to examine it further. "I can't figure it out." that got some blank stares. "What?" Carlisle asked innocently. "I've never used these things. Too confusing. Letters were much easier."
"They were tedious, they took months, and as I remember your handwriting was an absolute mess- barely readable."
"Well, it worked for the last three centuries." he mumbled.
"Welcome to the digital age, baby." Ani added.
The computer made a beeping noise, and in an instant Carlisle had one of the couch's pillows between him and the screen. He peered over the floral piece of furniture like a man would look cautiously out a trench, ducking down quickly.
"Will it hurt me?" He asked, totally honest and scared.
Ani took up her own pillow and hit him over the head.
"No you dope!" She said, laughing slightly as Carlisle picked the feathers out of his hair. "It wont hurt you! What, the big bad vampire scared of the internet?"
Carlisle looked as menacing as he could, and Ani burst into laughter.
"Laughing!" Carlisle pretended to be outraged. "Laughing at me? Well, I'll have to teach you a lesson."
"Pray tell, what can you teach me that I do not already know?" Ani sputtered trough her peals of giggles.
"That you shouldn't mess with someone who can tickle as well as I can." he launched at her, tickling her to the point where she couldn't breath she was laughing so hard. They were like kids together, honestly. It was like Carlisle and Ani were back to being normal (well, relatively normal) children, playing and giggling at jokes only they got. Chira and Lubetha started to tickle Ani too, and Conan insisted on being let in on the fun.
"Well?" Ani shrieked at Alec. "Aren't you gonna save me?"
"Nope." Alec started tickling her too, adding to the mayhem.
All in all, it was a pretty good enviornment to raise my mutant babies.
"So why are we doing this?" Daddy asked as he stood perilously on top of the tallest ladder I have ever seen, hanging a disco ball.
"You of all people should be excited." Ani shouted up at him, as she held the ladder firm.
"Oh no, I have no objections. It' just it strikes me as odd."
"It'll give us something to do tonight." I answered. "And the kids love to dance."
"Everyone loves to dance!" Alec said, ever excited. It was almost as if he and his sister were free since two of the ancients had died. He grabbed Ani, and pulled her into an extremely fast waltz. "Even miss Picia adores it."
I looked in shock at Picia, who now was the controlling ancient of the world. She stared right back at me.
"It's true, I do love it."
"And we haven't danced in ages!" Dora added. She was always cheery, but whether that was an act or her real personality was hard to say. God she was tiny. She had to have been fourteen when turned, and even then she was far too small. She made Alice look like a giant. "Last time I danced was..."
"At that feast, wasn't it?" Marcus asked, his first words of the day.
"Oh, so you do remember things!" Dora looked at him with a smirk.
"I only remember because I had to choke down that boar- which might I add was terrible to bring back up again."
"Oh please," Dora waved him off. "You all knew there'd be human food. If you didn't want to play the part you shouldn't have come."
"Anyways..." Daddy said turning to see us from his bird's eye view. "It's going to be fu-" his words were cut short. Lubetha had picked up the leg of the ladder, toppling it off balance and sending Daddy flying. He landed with a crash on the dance floor.
Lubetha and Chira clapped.
"Again! Again!" Chira chanted. Conan just shook his head.
"Betha," I said sternly, and Lubetha looked ashamed. "You know better."
"No, I don't think she does." Conan answered.
"Wait wait wait." Said one of the dancers. It was one of the guys, and he was standing on top of a table to get everyone's attention. "If you're gonna dance, you've got to dance to something worth hearing. None of this poppy stuff."
"What do you mean?" Asked a hockey player. "Pop is the only music we have." it was true. From all the iPods we had collected together, all we had was pop music. Not even good pop music, but the corny stuff no one even likes.
"No we don't. Hailey, Brandon, get the rest and get up here." the dancer told a girl and a guy.
In a few minutes they came back, followed by about three others, each with some kind of instrument. Two had drums, two and fiddles, one had some kind of flutish thing an the last had a small pipe.
"Right then. Ya'll gather 'round." the dancer commanded as the musicians took their seats. "Girls," he pointed to a group dancers, who smiled and stepped forward. "Give us a jig, won't ya?"
"What steps?" One asked.
"Do the shuffling, bonnie brooks for third and heel click for the last."
"Turning breaks?" the other asked.
"Why not? Now," he said to us all. "We'll play a reel in a moment, and teach you all a few step dance moves. But for now, just watch us go." he glanced at the other musicians. "Ready?"
"As always!" one drummer, a girl said.
"And five six seven eight!"
the girls took off.
If you haven't seen a highland jig, go onto youtube and look it up. Make sure you get premiere dancers, because it's an amazing thing to watch. Buy the end of the dance everyone was clapping like crazy, amazed.
"Now then," one of the dancers said. "That's an Irish jig. But now we're gonna teach you a bit of step dancing. It's rather easy. Does anyone know any?"
"We do!" Jane said gleefully, and Ani, Alec and she got pulled up with the dancers.
"Fabulous!" the dancer said. "Jimmy, gimme a beat."
"Aw, baby can't I dance now?" one of the fiddler's asked.
"Fine then. James'll take your place." she answered.
"Great. Now, we'll teach you some reels and strathpeys. You don't have to do them in any order, but when we say switch to a reel you have to do it. Kay?"
They were good teachers. Within moments the entire crowd had it down.
"This is kinda fun!" I told Jake as we did a partner reel together.
"Yeah. Who knew, eh?"
"What's something like this even called?"
"Caeleigh." Ani told me, "It's a party with plain good music and a damn good beat."
"I haven't danced like this since I was eight!" Jane said excited, as one of the hockey players whirled her around.
"It's insane!" I shouted. The pounding feet, the music, it drowned out our voices and the howling winds outside. It was amazing. Have you ever seen Titanic? Remember the party in the basement? Times it by ten and you have our little dance. Seriously, it was amazing.
When everyone was exhausted, a few of the dancers got up for a song. A few sang in Gaelic, and I was amazing.
Ani got up and absolutely belted the song 'Out on the Mira', but picked us right up again into a big country dance with 'Marie's Wedding.'
And Lubetha and Chira and Conan were in the front row, picking up the steps and learning every song they could, while my crazy, ancient family jumped in strathpeys and took over on the instruments when the players were tired.
Yes, all in all, it's a fabulous place to raise your kids.
