Masen's POV:
Robby and Megan got approved to move in with Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rosalie about a month later. By Spring Break, it was like they were part of the family. The other kids at school even started asking them about us, because they seemed more approachable than the rest of us. In fact, it seemed that all they were doing today was answering questions about the mysterious Cullen Clan. The questions were particularly bad in history, thanks to our class project.
Scryan, Robby, and I were assigned to the same group along with another boy named Ethan. It was a really easy project, because all we had to do was make a poster about the corporation take-over of the school system in Canada, which was what we have been learning about all year. I could have done the whole thing in five minutes if I did not have the humans around. Working with the group was the hard part about this project.
Scryan, Robby, Ethan, and I all sat on the left side of the room, so we pushed our desks aside and made a spot to work on the floor. Robby and Ethan got the supplies we would need from the front of the room, while I moved Scryan from his position sitting at his desk, over to our work area. He stood up when I pulled his hand up and walked over, with me guiding him around the desks easily enough, but the hard part was getting him to sit on the floor like the rest of the kids. He has sat on the floor before, but not at school, so he was not expecting it; he was expecting to sit back down in a chair and so the first time I pulled down on his hand for him to sit, he attempted to sit in an imaginary chair. I pulled his hand back up right away and made him stand right back up, before any of the humans noticed that he had just sat in mid-air, balanced only on his feet. I probably would have fallen if it had been me trying to sit in a non-existent chair on autopilot with no sensory feedback, but all of the Whitlock kids were super agile like that.
The second time I tried to sit Scryan down, he would not go. I pushed and pulled on his hand, just like I always do, but he would not budge. He would put his hand out to feel for the desk, having realized while trapped in the future that he had missed, and so now he was attempting to feel for a desk every time I indicated for him to sit. I tried telepathing to him and telling him to sit on the ground, but he was responding very slowly to input from the real-world. Eventually I decided to do it the way Jackson does and jump up to tap down on his shoulder; I was a couple inches shorter than Jackson, so it was a higher jump for me, but I managed to do it quickly enough that the humans did not notice. This time my telepathed message about sitting cross-legged on the floor had made it through to his brain and he sat, thank Darwin.
"Is he out for the entire class then?" Robby asked, returning with our blank poster board and noticing my struggles with my cousin. He did not think anything was odd about the fact that Scryan was off in la-la land again, because of White Cloud's tampering with his brain and the seizure excuse we had already given him. He was, however, thinking that we would have to do the project without Scryan's help, which was not fair, because we were all supposed to be working on it as a group.
Scryan always spent the day in visions now, because he was so over school that he did not care if he got caught. He had gotten caught a lot lately; so much so that they stopped letting me go home with him when it happened. It was not even a major classroom interruption anymore, because the teacher would just have me walk him to the nurse's office and come back. The other kids were so used to it that they no longer cared or stared. His mom would pick him up from the office and he would get to spend the rest of the day at home with his dad. His parents were beginning to get suspicious that he might be inducing the visions, but with all the stuff his siblings have pulled this year, Scryan's stunts were the least of their worries.
Kair and Kare were still living with the Whitlocks and they have been trouble ever since they moved in. Not only did they start, and end, that whole thing with Robby, Megan, and White Cloud, but they also sneak off to other time periods all of the time. Uncle Jasper had forbidden them from going anywhen without his permission, but they would be gone and back before he even noticed. They would ditch school every couple of hours, just to hang out in their wormholes and talk to each other, and then come back the moment after they left, just because they thought the school day was too long and without sufficient breaks. They even left during class once, because one of them got frustrated and wanted some time to calm down and regroup. And that is not even counting all of the times they take off at home without anyone noticing and do not get caught. Uncle Jasper and Aunt Alice knew that they were doing it and were trying to watch them closely and punish them accordingly, but with six kids in the house, those twins got away with it ninety percent of the time. And then there were all the other pairs of twins of different ages that would show up just to say hi or play in the sand box; Robby and Megan dutifully thought it was normal for younger versions of them to be running around the place. At least they had not pulled anymore stunts like the White Cloud thing.
Then there were the other children to deal with. Ashley, who was always emotionally demanding, was still a prankster. Allison's experimental fusion powered rocket-cars kept exploding. Jackson kept getting sent home for visions of his own, because he too had grown tired with school and preferred to escape into the past. And Uncle Jasper was still in para with twins, so with all that going on, a few calls a month about Scryan seizing in class barely even registered. They did not even notice that he was spending his entire day in his visions and not getting caught, thanks to me.
'Yep,' I telepathed to Robby and nodded my head, in case anyone else was looking. Robby heard me, but he never realized that I was telepathing my words directly into his brain. The first time I did it we all told him that he must be understanding me, without my translator, because he had picked up sign language after all of these months of knowing me. And the fact that he was hearing the words in my voice, well that was just a figment of his imagination brought on by having heard me say a few words out loud when visiting me at my house. He never questioned it, again, thanks to White Cloud and his wonderful gift.
"Well, then the three of us better get to work," Robby replied just as Ethan returned with the box of markers, scissors, and glue.
"What do you mean the three of us? Isn't he gonna help too?" Ethan asked, setting down our supplies and pointing at Scryan.
'He already did: he helped me write out the blocks of text we need,' I telepathed to Robby and signed at no one in particular. I have been relying on him to translate for me in this class for the past month; ever since I started telepathing to him. I could turn my cell phone on and have it translate for me, for Ethan's benefit, but I did not want to. The other kids had started making fun of the computer simulated voice every time they heard it, which just made me even more of an outcast than I already was for being mute and the rest of our family was not exactly fitting in here either. But when I stuck to signing, they barely even noticed my existence.
Scryan had in fact not helped at all, but he did tell me yesterday what our project was going to be and who we were going to be grouped with. And since I was at home all night with just my parents, two sisters, two nephews, and one brother-in-law, I had nothing better to do than spend half an hour doing our assignment on my laptop, snuggled in against my mom's side, while letting her run her hands through my hair. She was going to make me lie there while she did it either way, so I figured that I might as well get the school work over with and just do it, so our group would not be expected to meet outside of school.
Ever since Eliza has been off grounding, there has been no real benefit for me to live at the Whitlock's. She was allowed over there after school and thanks to my speech therapy in the afternoons, she normally got there first. And she got to go on their weekend trips with them every weekend, while I had to go home and spend that time with my parents, because they missed me. It added up to a choice between spending twelve hours four days a week at the Whitlock's and sixty hours straight with my parents over the weekend, or sixty hours over the weekend and a few hours every weeknight with the Whitlock's and living with my parents. I choose moving back home. It meant calling a truce with Eliza and both of us agreeing to cohabitate peacefully with as little interacting as possible, but it was the only way Aunt Alice would let us both go with them every weekend. With her grounding over, my free-ride in Whitlock-land was over too.
"Alright!" Robby exclaimed excitedly before turning to Ethan. "Masen and Scr…ah Brandon already finished all of the writing at home. We just gotta get it printed and paste it on here and we're done." He almost called Scryan by his real name, which he does at home, but he caught himself and turned it into Brandon. He made little slips like that a lot, but with his being human, there was nothing much we could do about it.
I left Scryan sitting on the floor and took my cell over to the classroom printer to send the data over. I had to input my school id number to get the old printer going, but we were the first ones at the printing stage, so there was no line.
"Finished writing already Masen?" Mrs. Breadstick asked me.
'Robby, come translate for me,' I called, turning towards Robby as I did it, to see if I could catch his eye. Of course having my message in his mind helped, so he looked up and then ran right over. Ethan followed just to see what was happening. 'Tell her that you, me, and Scryan have been working on it together at home and we emailed back and forth with Ethan to include him.'
"Masen said that we finished already at home. Now that I live over there it was no problem to get together with Brandon and do it. We even emailed it back and forth with Ethan a few times," Robby lied.
"I just gave the assignment today. How did you all know what it was?" Mrs. Breadstick asked. She had meant for us to brainstorm ideas today and tomorrow and do most of the work over the weekend. She was giving us a week to do it and did not think any of us could possibly finish on the first day. But Scryan and I had no plans on spending the weekend with humans instead of on one of their family's trips and the easiest way to avoid working over the weekend was to have it done by Friday. It was only Thursday, so I could have put it off another day, but I had free time last night and plans tonight, because my parents were taking Eliza and me hunting. It was easier this way, because the project would be done and I would not have to worry about it.
"Brandon saw it in one of those seizures of his," Robby answered.
He should not have said that, even though it was kind of true, so while he was talking, I hissed in his brain, 'You shouldn't tell the teacher things like that. Tell her it was on our syllabus and my parents made us get a head start over the weekend.' I signed the last bit with my hands too, to show the humans I had said something.
"Oh and it was in our syllabus too. Masen's parents noticed and made us get a head start. And Ethan's like one of my best friends, so I called him up and asked if he wanted to help," Robby modified. Best friends was an exaggeration, but it sounded good.
"And the seizure? How does that fit in?" Mrs. Breadstick asked.
"Brandon sees things in his seizures and then gets obsessed about doing them. He saw the four of us working on this project, so he insisted we get started," Robby lied. He was getting better at that.
"And what is Brandon doing now?" Mrs. Breadstick asked looking over to where Scryan was zoned out on the floor.
'Meditating,' I telepathed and signed.
"He's meditating and waiting for us to come back with the pages we've worked all week on," Robby answered.
"Okay, get back to work boys. That's so nice that I have students that are so eager to learn," Mrs. Breadstick said, dismissing us.
We went back to our side of the room and I handed some of the papers to Robby and a few to Ethan, but I kept most of them and started cutting and pasting. Robby and Ethan started cutting and pasting too, but they were doing it very slowly and they started talking while they did it, which made them go even slower.
"Thanks for saying I helped," Ethan began.
"Welcome. She wouldn't've let us use all of Masen and Brandon's work if she knew we had nothing to do with it," Robby replied.
'You should read it, in case she asks or puts any of it on a test,' I told Robby, but my hands were busy, so I did not sign it.
"Yeah, we should read it before we turn it in," Robby replied.
"What?" Ethan asked confused.
"Masen said that we should read what he and Brandon wrote, in case Mrs. Breadstick questions us," Robby explained.
"No he didn't; his hands are full of paper and scissors. I didn't see him do any signs," Ethan replied.
"Well you must've missed it, because I did," Robby insisted. Good for him.
"Whatever," Ethan said dismissively. "Hey, what's it like living with them? Are they even weirder at home?"
"No, the Hales are really nice. Every morning my mom and dad hug me and kiss me and tell me they love me and are real happy to have me as part of their family," Robby replied. He started calling Aunt Rosalie his mom the day he moved in with them and he started calling Uncle Emmett his dad soon after. He had never had parents before, so he was a little over eager.
Robby left out the part about them smelling him while they were kissing his hair and that they were marking him with their scent, by cupping his cheeks in their hands, when they told him they love him, but then he did not realize they were doing it. He had not been implanted yet, but they wanted him and Megan to get used to being smelled and marked while they were still young. After Uncle Emmett freaked out about not being able to smell Violet's host, they were a little overly cautious.
With all of the vampires running around the area now that it was our capitol, our humans needed to be marked, so that everyone knows that they are off limits and not available to drink or implant. Plus, it helps with identification. The last time Robby and I went to the mall, he got separated from me, because I was looking at this cool hand-painted guitar and Robby wandered off to look at video games. And instead of luring him out to the parking lot to drink, Vladimir brought him back to us, because he had smelled us on him. He found someone else to drink and Robby was safe.
"They don't look normal and you look like 'em now with all your expensive clothes," Ethan retorted. He was jealous of all of Robby's new stuff.
"These are just the clothes they buy me," Robby insisted. "They had to buy me new ones, because I grew out of all my old ones from the home." And Aunt Rosalie shrunk them in the dryer, so that she would have an excuse to burn them. She had to, because Aunt Alice kept having murderous thoughts about stabbing the offensive pieces of cotton with various sharp objects; it was a safety hazard.
"They could've bought you normal clothes at Target like everyone else," Ethan argued, having never met either of my aunts.
"These are normal clothes and my new parents are normal too. Well they're filthy rich, but they're still normal," Robby said. He liked his name brand clothes and did not realize they were nicer than everyone else's. They were nicer than the ones the home provided, but everything is nicer than what the home provides.
"What's your house like then?" Ethan asked.
"Awesome. All four of us kids have our own giant rooms and my mom decorates the place with super expensive crystal and vases and model cars and stuff. And the rugs are imported antique Persian rugs or something, so I'm always worried about breaking things or spilling things. But they're really nice and don't seem to care when we do break things," Robby said. Of course no one minds when he breaks things, because Aunt Rosalie just buys new ones. It is typical host territory and if you did not want it broke you should not have left it where the human could get it.
"Okay, but Brandon here's weird. I bet his house is really weird," Ethan insisted, tilting his head in Scryan's direction and pointing at him.
"Brandon's house is really fun!" Robby exclaimed. "Like addictively fun: all the kids want to spend all of their time over there."
"What's so great about it?" Ethan asked suspiciously.
"Well they're always doing something. I don't get to hang out there much, but all I ever hear about are all the cool things that happened there while I wasn't there," Robby answered.
"Like what?" Ethan asked.
"Okay, so Jackson is like super athletic and he's always starting baseball games, or basketball games, or football games, or races. They even have a Quidditch set! And then Allison is super good at engineering robots and bombs and stuff and is always making these small super-fast racers and exploding stuff. Didn't she help you explode the toilet at your house?" Robby asked me.
I nodded, mimed a big explosion, and telepathed, 'She helped me and Scry build them to get back at Eliza for hitting me in math class that one time.'
"Oh and Scr-B-Brandon and Masen helped make them, but his parents made Eliza clean it up!" Robby exclaimed laughing. Ethan laughed too.
While we laughed, Robby started thinking about the first explosion he had witnessed on our compound, the day he had officially moved in with us. We threw a giant party to celebrate and Uncle Jasper let Allison and Jackson have fireworks. Only they had a lot of fireworks and accidentally-on-purpose lit them all off at once to make a giant explosive lightshow. It was awesome, the human police came to investigate, and Allison and Jackson got told not to do it again. Robby did not know all that; he just thought it was an accident.
'Don't mention that," I telepathed. Our parents thought it was bad enough that we exploded things around the humans and it would only make it worse if they blabbed to the other humans about it.
"Oh okay," Robby agreed.
"Okay what?" Ethan asked.
"Masen said not to tell anyone about the toilet thing, or he'll get in trouble," Robby replied. He sort of thought that too.
"No he didn't," Ethan insisted again.
"Dude, not this again. He really isn't that hard to understand," Robby retorted.
"Well I'm not seeing his hands move every time you say he said something," Ethan rebutted.
"Seriously, he's communicating none verbally. After knowing him for six months, I began to pick it up," Robby said shrugging.
"Okay, then how did you know he was saying that?" Ethan asked.
"The way he nodded his chin," Robby answered. "He does that when something's a secret and we're not supposed to tell the adults or we'll get in trouble."
"He nodded his chin?" Ethan asked skeptically.
"Yeah. Sometimes it's the way he shrugs his shoulders or the look on his face." Again, Robby legitimately thought that this was how he was figuring out what I was saying.
"Whatever, but I heard Brandon has a twin who's even weirder than him," Ethan said, changing the subject.
"Who Ashley?" Robby asked confused.
Ethan nodded and answered, "Yeah, that's why she doesn't have to go to school with the rest of us."
"Yeah they don't make her go to school, but she's not weird. She's the funnest one of all of 'em. Everyone wants to hang out wherever she is," Robby answered.
He had been wary of Ashley for a little while after the incident with White Cloud, but then Ashley planted a few suggestions and tampered with his emotional state and now he has a crush on her. She did not intend to have a human following her around like a lost puppy, but she was having trouble getting rid of him without dampening his mood. To her, the idea of having a broken hearted teenaged boy around was even worse and Robby was not that bad to have crushing on you, as far as humans go.
Robby was a bit slow to sexually mature compared to the other humans around here, so his sexually fantasies amounted to kissing and that was it. When he was attracted to someone, he would stare at their lips when they talked, like he was doing now to Ethan, but that was as far as it went with him, which was one of the reasons I liked him so much. If we had to have a human around, I was glad it was one with blander thoughts like Robby. I will not even go into what the other boys his age think, because that is just gross.
"What's she look like?" Ethan asked.
"She's super pretty. She looks like the twins, only prettier, but with hair like Jackson. She has this long straight gorgeous jet black hair; you just have to see it," Robby replied, clearly delusional. And he made the mistake of referring to Kair and Kare as the twins, like we do at home, but half of us are supposed to be twins at school, so we were not supposed to call them that.
"Sounds like you've got a crush. You gonna ask her out?" Ethan asked.
"No, she's dating Aiden," Robby replied dejectedly. 'He's so tall that I could never compete with him.' Robby was taller than me, but way shorter than Scryan and Aiden; all of the kids were.
"What about Megan? She's single right?" Ethan asked. There were rumors going around that Robby and Megan were together and he wanted to verify that they were not true. They absolutely were not the least bit true.
"Yeah," Robby replied, not following him. Megan was single, but every guy in the school has had their eye on her since she got adopted by the Hales. It was only the fact that they were all intimidated by our family that kept them away so far.
"Well she's pretty and you live with her. Do you ever sneak into her room at night?" Ethan asked. He wanted to sneak into a certain someone's room at night.
"No! Ew, she's gonna be my sister now," Robby replied, finally understanding what Ethan was getting at and feeling slightly grossed out that he would suggest it. Then he started thinking about sneaking into Ethan's room to kiss him, but he also thought that his new parents would never let him get away with sneaking into someone's room. My aunt and uncle were loving and generous with him, but they were strict disciplinarians when he broke the rules.
If I was trying to make a love match between the too, I would tell Robby that Ethan returns his crush and is asking all of these questions just to see if he has a chance. There are really only two trains of thought ever going on in Ethan's head, one of them being a perverted sex fantasy staring him and Robby. The other thought being hope that Robby returns his feelings and will just give him a sign already that he likes boys too. So I probably could play match maker and make Ethan very happy, but I was not going to.
The last thing I wanted was to have Ethan around more often. He was nosey, annoying, and perverted. Besides, Robby was still at the thinking about kissing stage and was definitely not ready for a relationship. And he was still quite confused about this relationship thing, because he seemed to have crushes on both Ashley and Ethan at the same time. From what my parents said about Stefan and his mate, I think you are supposed to pick just one sex to like. Robby probably only legitimately likes boys or girls, but is having trouble figuring it out, thanks to his brain practically turning to mush after the thing with White Cloud.
Robby has been very malleable and unable to make a decision since getting his mind tampered with. He was still very suggestive and I solved this problem by suggesting the choice I wanted him to pick. I just was not about to give him any suggestions that would put me in the uncomfortable situation of having to watch a new romance bloom. Besides, Robby was probably just responding to the vibes he was picking up from Ethan and being suggestive again. This was probably just another suggestive crush, like the one he had on Ashley. And since I did not want the human around, I kept my mouth shut and did not reveal the mutual attraction to either party involved.
"But she's really pretty, don't you like her?" Ethan asked. 'Just say no. Say she's not your type. Please?'
"Yeah she's pretty, but she's family," Robby replied.
"But don't all the kids in that family date each other?" Ethan asked.
"There're four separate families. They all date someone in a different family," Robby insisted.
"Okay then, you could date Allison. Steal her from Masen," Ethan said, thinking that I was such a weird dork that anyone could take my girlfriend from me. He was also jealous of me, because Robby spent all of his time with me and he wanted Robby to spend all of his time with him. He did not think it was fair that I had Allison and Robby. Plus he was still hoping that Robby would say that he likes boys.
'Do and I'll drink you dry,' I telepathed to Robby, giving him the death stare when he turned to look at me. I was serious.
"I would never do that," Robby replied to both of us. He was very scared for a moment, but then he shivered, brushed off his fear, and promptly forgot that I had just threatened his life. He did, however, make an unconscious association between making a move on Allison and his sudden, untimely demise.
"Whatever, I still think they're weird," Ethan replied, getting frustrated that Robby had not given him any indication of his feelings. Obviously Ethan could not read body language and had not noticed Robby drooling every time he looks at Ethan's lips. They did look plump and red and deliciously engorged with blood.
"They're not," Robby insisted.
"Fine, if they're not weird, tell me about all the secret things they do on that compound of theirs," Ethan requested. His thoughts were in the gutter again and I almost gagged just hearing them.
"The compound's not that secret," Robby replied.
"Uh-huh, yeah right. My dad works at the post office and he said that they don't deliver mail out to the Cullen place, because you guys insist on picking it up yourselves," Ethan argued.
"Okay, so they don't like postmen; Mom says they trample the flowers," Robby insisted, repeating a lie he had been told earlier. He had not asked about the postman, but he had wondered why they did not have their furniture delivered when he and Megan got their new bedroom sets. Aunt Rosalie had left Uncle Emmett holding a dresser to tell Robby that delivery men might trample the flowers.
"Well then what do you guys do when you get home from school?" Ethan asked.
"Yesterday I went to the Whitlock's when I got out of school, like I do every day," Robby answered.
"And what'd you do there?" Ethan persisted.
"Brandon's dad had a plate full of snacks ready for us and they told stories. It's not that big a deal, really," Robby answered. Uncle Jasper was getting better at cooking, but he mostly just cut up some fruit and put together some sandwiches. It was really weird to watch, but he said feeding your hosts was a very important skill to master.
"What kind of stories?" Ethan wondered, actually forgetting about his horny teenaged boy fantasy for once.
"Well Jackson's probably gonna be a comic book writer when he grows up or something, because he makes up all of these stories about ancient warriors and sketches the books to go along with 'em; he's got a whole series of 'em," Robby answered, not realizing that he was leaving out the part about the stories all being vampire stories and true. "And Brandon's dad tells us stories about when he was growing up. Like last night, he was telling us how annoying Masen's dad was and that to get revenge on him, he would tell Masen's mom's parents that his dad snuck in her window at night to make-out."
"Masen, did your dad really do that?" Ethan asked, turning to look at me. He was spending so much time talking that he did not even notice when I finished my stack of papers and started on his and Robby's papers.
I nodded and the boys continued their conversation, while I continued to work on our project at a rapid human pace.
"Okay, so what'd you do after that?" Ethan asked.
"Then Masen texted me that he was home from speech therapy, so I went over to his house," Robby answered, shrugging his shoulders like it was no big deal.
We all took turns entertaining the humans, while the other kids played. Robby and Megan probably would not notice anything out of the ordinary if they saw us playing, but it was dangerous for us to play together and our parents did not want us flaunting our abilities in front of them; it was one thing if the humans did not notice the little differences, but we were not supposed to shove it in their faces. So every day, Robby and Megan would go to the Whitlock house after school and do a non-contact activity, like painting, storytelling, or digging for fossils in the shale out back. Three times a week Eliza and I had to watch the humans at our house and we would do homework and stuff. Once a week Aiden and Adriel watched them at their house and Friday nights and all weekend it was Lily and Violet's responsibility to watch them.
"What'd you do over there?" Ethan questioned, jealous of me again.
"So when I got there, there was really loud music blaring from the house. It was ancient rock or something and it stopped when I knocked on the door," Robby said, drawing out the suspense.
"And?" Ethan asked.
"And Masen opened the door with his base guitar strapped around his neck; turns out the music was from their band. Eliza plays the guitar and their dad was on the drums and Alex sings," Robby replied.
"Who's Alex?" Ethan wondered.
"Masen's older cousin," Robby answered, retelling the lie we had told him. "He's living with them right now."
"Does he go to the high school?" Ethan persisted.
"No, I don't think so…" Robby trailed off, never having thought before about Alex or what he was doing living with our family. He also had never questioned what Nessie, Jake, and White Cloud were doing there either or why White Cloud grew so fast. And he certainly never thought that Alex was Nessie and Jake's son; he was much too old and they were much too young. They were all our cousins and that was it.
'He's eighteen; he graduated last year,' I telepathed and signed at the same time when both boys turned to me again.
"He said Alex already graduated last year," Robby translated.
"So did their band play all night?" Ethan asked, thinking it was a little strange that we had a band going, but also that it was kind of cool. Then the fantasies started again and he thought it would be really hot if Robby played the guitar.
"No, his dad made us do homework, but Megan and I got to listen to them for like an hour before that," Robby replied.
"Okay, so here's the big question: we all know that Eliza and Masen hate each other; what're they like at home? I bet they scratch each other's eyes out and stuff," Ethan said. At this point he was pretty well satisfied that there was nothing sexual going on between me and Robby, which gave him renewed hope that there was room for him.
"They don't ever talk to each other," Robby answered.
"Ever? What about when they're playing in that band together?" Ethan wondered.
"Not even then. They talk through their dad mostly, so it's always, 'Dad, tell Masen to play a B flat,' or 'Dad, tell Eliza that we're playing the other song," Robby repeated some of the things Eliza and I had said to each other last night.
"What about when their dad's not there?" Ethan asked.
"Well then they talk through whoever else is there," Robby supplied.
"And what about when no one's there? What do they do then?" Ethan persisted.
Robby turned to me to answer, so I telepathed, 'Then we don't communicate,' and signed the same.
"He says then they don't talk," Robby translated.
"They must have to talk sometimes," Ethan stated.
"Didn't you learn anything in speech therapy to tell Eliza?" Robby asked me.
I nodded and very slowly and deliberately said out loud, "Leave me alone. I hate you." I had been working on it all year in speech therapy, so I was really proud of myself. It was slower than regular speech, but it was understandable and my voice did not warble or crack, so I was fairly happy with myself for saying that many words in a row.
Everyone else in the class seemed to notice my clear words too, because suddenly the class was silent and everyone was turned towards me and wondering if they heard right.
"Masen, is there a problem?" Mrs. Breadstick asked. She was shocked that I had spoken, but she was also thinking that I was having problems with my group, because I had just told Ethan and Robby that I hate them.
I shook my head and allowed Robby to answer for me.
"No, Masen was just showing us what he learned in speech therapy," Robby supplied.
"Alright, then get back to work," Mrs. Breadstick said only slightly skeptically.
Robby and Ethan looked down at our poster then and realized that I had finished it while they were talking. "We're already done," Robby replied.
Ethan was still a little surprised that it was done and he had barely cut out one figure, so he was silent for once. He had not even pasted it on, so I had had to slip it out of his grasp and paste it on myself.
"Well then add some more decorations," Mrs. Breadstick said after glancing at said poster and seeing that it was indeed done, but a little plain.
The Whitlocks were the artistic ones in the family and right then a vision of our completed poster popped into Scryan's head, so I grabbed the markers and started drawing hearts and flowers along the edges.
"What're you doing?" Ethan asked me when I had only done a few hearts and one big purple daisy.
'Decorating,' I signed and telepathed to Robby, and went back to coloring.
"Why?" Robby asked me.
'Mrs. Breadstick said to,' I replied.
"But why hearts and flowers?" Robby asked.
And then Scryan came out of his visions for the first time all class and started laughing at me for listening to him and making our poster all girly. The rest of the class, including Robby and Ethan, looked over when they heard him and joined in the joviality. Whatever, my mom will like it.
