"Okay," Sam was saying, looking at his lap top, "This is in driving distance from the bunker. Kids look happy…"
"It could be staged." Hannah pointed out, leaning over him, "Plus, I'm not sure about that jungle gym. Doesn't look regulation."
"Babe, you've found something off with the last five we've looked at." Sam told her.
"You're the one who got nervous about the snacks they were serving." Hannah pointed out.
"Do you know how much refined sugar are in some of those graham crackers?" Sam responded.
With the boy's birthday a few weeks away Sam and Hannah were embarking on a journey that every parent dreaded: Picking out a preschool. They lived in a small town, so options were limited, unless they went the closest town over. And then they discovered the waiting lists…
"This could all be academic." Hannah pointed out, putting her fingers to her temple, "We can't send to school with—" She gestured over to where the boys were playing, speficly Cas' exposed wings.
"Well, we have to get them educated, it's the law." Sam reasoned, "Then again, since when have we ever really cared about that?" After a beat Sam added, "Of course now we all exist in some form or another on paper…"
"Well, we could hold them back a couple of years." Hannah reasoned, "See if Cas' wings become immaterial again. "
"They do have an awkwardly place birthday, school year wise." Sam mused, considering his wife's suggestion.
"There's waiting list?!" Reason balked as she handed Maudie off to Hannah that afternoon at the diner.
"Apparently." Hannah responded, "That you're apparently supposed to enroll your kids in at birth. I didn't know preschool was that important. I still don't understand why it's so important. It's just—colors and numbers. They know most of that now. "After a beat she added, "Plus, even if we can actually get them in somewhere, there's-well, you know."
Reason nodded her understanding.
Serena Joy walked by with a table's order. "Hey, have you considered home schooling?"
"Homeschooling?" Hannah repeated, unfamiliar with the term, but she thought he knew it from somewhere.
"Yeah, you know, teach the kids at home, put grades into a system on line so that the state has records." Serena Joy suggested, "I mean, I normally wouldn't suggest it, but you literally have a gigantic library and telescope in your home."
"But—most of the library is lore and languages." Hannah responded, unsure.
"Well, you have your mythology and foreign language lesson plans all laid out." Serena Joy shrugged.
After Sam got off work Hannah told him what Serena Joy had suggested.
"I don't know…" Sam began, rather ambivalent about the idea.
"I mean, we do have all this," Hannah gestured to the stacks, "Plus, with our work schedules at least one of us at is home at any given time. We could divide the subjects out to our strengths and switch off."
"It's a good idea and you've thought this out." Sam admitted, "But—their success or failure would be completely on us. If they crash and burn it'll be our fault. I mean, maybe I'm selfish, but that is a lot of pressure."
"You're not selfish, you have a point." Hannah assured him, having seconds thoughts herself due to that point.
Sam thought a minute. Suddenly he had an idea. "Hey, you remember that family of hunters, the Parkers?"
"The ones who had that storage unit your co-worker and her dad bought?" Hannah recapped.
"Yeah," Sam confirmed, "The older brother, Joel, homeschools his daughter. Maybe I call him up, try to get a picture of what we'd be getting into?"
"What if he asks why we're considered homeschooling?" Hannah questioned.
"I'll try to keep him off, make something up if I have to, and if worst come to worst—well, his kid can start fires with her mind." Sam answered, "Maybe, he'll understand."
Sam called Joel and explained the situation, dancing around the exact reason why they were considering homeschooling, thought he did get a notion, he just didn't press.
"I'll be straight with you," Joel began, "There can be a lot of benefits to homeschooling, more freedom schedule wise, you and your kids can experiment with different methods, for a while there Carrie-Anne liked to get the whole week's worth done in three days and give herself a five-day weekend, you can tailor your lessons to your kids specific learning styles and needs, and with less kids a school day is shorter, sometimes by several hours, tons of electives, better school life balance, they learn to socialize with all age groups, quite frankly they're not exposed to the craps public schoolers are. Plus, when you're on the road, there's always some museum or something somewhere that correlates with the curriculum. But if you're doing it right, it's a ton of work, especially during the early years, you often have to learn to be able to teach, which if you're like me and hopeless in math is quite frustrating, your kids aren't involved in sports of after-school actives, I mean, there's a lot you do on your own and with home school groups, and some states there's even paperwork you can fill out so your kid can be in the school's extra curriculars, but even with all that, sometimes options are limited, when you got things like tv or video games or even your favorite book in striking distance, it can get distracting, and while I've never experienced it with Carrie Anne, some kids do have a harder time finding a group of friends when they aren't in a peer group on a daily basis , speaking of Carrie Anne, when she was kid she was afraid to be out during normal school hour in case a cop saw her, and people are judgey. Like, really judgey. Seriously, I'm more or less immune to parent shaming at this point, but the minute the term 'homeschooling' comes after your mouth, people assume you're a dumb redneck ruining your kids' education and social skills. And honestly, there are some people that just shouldn't be teachers, which now that I think about is probably one of the reasons people are so judgey. Seriously, Carrie Anne met this kid in a Tuesday school in Akron whose mom taught her that frying food sanitizes it, and another group of kids whose parents are basically unschooling them. "
"Tuesday school?" Sam repeated.
"It's a way for homeschool kids to get socialization." Joel responded, "I'll send you screenshots of my directory. Also, you might want to look into co-ops."
"Ah, you've lost me again." Sam told him.
"They're were families meet once or twice a week and teach as group, one parent teaches one subject, another does another, so on, so forth." Joel explained, "That was the kids can also get group learning. I've honestly never does it myself, not really enough associates with kids."
Sam rubbed his forehead, not necessarily stressed, just absorbing all the information.
"Is any of this helping?" Joel asked, "I mean, I'd offer you my old curriculums, but I've already sold most of them."
"The information's really helpful, it's just a lot to take in." Sam responded, "Thanks Joel."
"No problem." Joel responded, "Tell you what, I got a lot of articles and resources and stuff from when I first started out with Carrie Anne. I'll email them to you with the directory."
"Thanks." Sam responded.
Sam continued his research on home schooling, adding co-ops to the list, and found the whole thing was rather involved.
"So, there are these co-ops called university model co-ops that meet twice or three times a week with a full slate of work to cover all typical academic credits." Sam was telling Hannah, who was sitting in a chair with her feet in another chair, "That and their homework usually make up the bulk of the kids' education."
"Isn't all work technically home work for homeschool kids?" Hannah questioned.
"There's also entrichment-orientaed co-ops that focus on extra curriculars or social interaction," Sam continued, "And there mini-versions called clubs. There's actually this blog I found with listing of co-ops in the aera."
"Weren't we doing this to avoid unnecessary exposure?" Hannah pointed out, "I'm not sure co-ops are for us."
"Well, if we decide to do this, we still need to get them socialized somehow." Sam declared.
"They can still socialize; they're socializing what now." Hannah reasoned, "They got Maudie." She gestured over to where the kids were consequentially playing school, in the floor a few feet away. Looking up and seeing they were watched, they waved, "And there are Elsbeth's girls."
The adults smiled as it was actually quite cute, then went back to their discussion. "Well, that only works until Reason geta Maudie in a pre-school." He sighed," Well, I guess they'll still have contact with each other. We can still do playdates-alright, maybe we table this part for now."
A few days later, Sam was at the Commune, doing maintenance on their showers. They had rigged some primitive ones, smalls room made of planks with a large tank that had to be refilled every few weeks. Some of the plants were rotting and he was replacing them, as usually with his little Entrange, who were very excited to see him again, as it had been some time since the Commune had work for him.
"There's a new girl in our sleeping quarters." Anything was telling him.
"Really?" Sam responded, glancing at the five-year-old briefly before going back to hammering the plank.
"Uh-huh." Anything continued, "Her name is Gwenie and she a little younger than George, you've never meant George, but she's a bigger girl, only Gwenie's not in the security forces like George is, she's been helping Sunflower teach us and she came with these really pretty dresses, and she gave me this one." She tugged at her dress, red embroidered with black, "And she gave Arura the one she's wearing too." She pointed her to her half-sister, who was about nine, dressed in a storm gray dress with white polka dots and two big pockets on the front.
Just the, Sunflower came over with a girl of about thirteen with brown braided pigtails holding up her hair, dressed in gray coveralls that covered a white long sleeve shirt, and black boots. Sunflower was holding some kind of book in her hands. "Okay guys, why don't we give Sam a break for a little bit?"
"Aw!" The girls protested.
"Five more minutes, please, Sunflower?" Little Olympia, at least Sam thought it was Olympia, it could've been Octavia, pleaded, her eyes managing to get bigger and bluer.
That was when Sunflower's newfound companion spoke up. "Hey, it's Samuel, right?"
"Uh, yeah, Sam," Sam answered, turning his head to look at her.
"What if we do our history here why we work?" She asked, "That way—everyone's happy."
"Yeah, sure if you can do that." Sam agreed.
"Prefect," Sunflower began, "Now, everyone gather round me, in the circle." Sunflower's assissent rounded up a few toddling stragglers as Sunflower sat down with the book, sitting it in her lap, "Now, where were we last time?"
"We were about to start chapter 5, the reformers." Her assistant reminded her.
"Right." Sunflower responded, turning to the page.
Sunflower spent the next half hour stopping to elaborate or answer the girl's question. Sam slowed down in his own work, fascinated by what he was watching. He had never really watch Sunflower teach before. Usually when she rounded up the kids, she took them too far away. He wasn't sure some of the content of what appeared to be some sort of history lesson was appropriate for the younger kids, but he had to admit, Sunflower and her newfound assistant did a good job.
Standing up Sunflower asked, "Watch these guys for a minute?"
The girl nodded and Sunflower stood up, walking away. The girl stood up as well as the kids all ran towards Sam.
As she walked closer, Sam turned to look at her. "Hey, Gwenie right?"
The girl, Gwenie apparently, nodded.
"Where'd Sunflower get that from?" Sam asked.
"The Commune Library." Gwenie answered, crossing her arms awkwardly.
"Ah—The Commune has a library?" Sam asked in reply.
"Yeah, in the house." Gwenie shrugged.
"W—Where'd the books come from?" Sam inquired.
"I think some of them came from women who brought them with them and then were done with them." Gwenie responded, "Also, a lot came from the Partona's personal collection."
Sam turned back to his work, the wheels spinning in his head. Wheels that were so distracting he didn't even notice how perilously close the nail was to his hand until he felt the pain of it going in. "Ah!"
That was how he wound up on the second floor of the house in room set up like a bed room, where a woman in her late 30s dressed in blue scrubs, her brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, was wrapping Sam's hand in gauze.
"Sorry about the homespun antiseptic." Tilly apologized, "But supplies are limited, you know?"
"It's okay." Sam responded, "I didn't even know you could do that with honey."
"Nature's anti-bodic ointment and nature's anti-allergy medicine." Tilly declared, "It's very versatile."
Just then a girl with coffee-dark skin and short hair that curled naturally at the bottom, stepped into the doorway and knocked on the door.
"Just a second." Tilly told her, turning around and taking a set of keys out of her pocket going over to a pale wood and glass cabinet with a large pad lock on it, putting the key. Unlocking the cabinet, she took a green bottle and handed the young woman and pale-yellow pill out of it. "Come back before dinner for your next dose."
Just then, another woman in white coveralls stumbled in. "Tilly, I, um, had an incident at the beehives."
"Again?" Tilly asked, handing the first girl some water to take the pills with, "One second."
As the Tilly turned her back, pulling a carton of cigarettes out of the cabinet and cutting off a butt, wheels started turning in Sam head. Sliding off the bed, he crept past Tilly and the others, who were distracted, and peaked out. He had come in with an escort that was on where to see, but he could hear her voice saying from somewhere, "And now's he got a bloody tent set up just outside the compound. Like, where did he even get a tent?"
His back to the wall, he carefully opened the nearest door. He crept to the next door. If there really was a library, it wasn't there.
I shouldn't be doing this. Sam thought, I get good money from this place. I am literally endangering my livelihood here. I should stop…
Then he saw what looked like book shelves. Opening the door, she stepped inside and his mouth dropped opened.
There were three large bookshelves, each lined with books. There had to be at least a hundred. Some random titles like Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, The Definitive Guide to Body Language, but there were also books by Hemingway, Faulkner, Jane Austin, Edith Wharton, Zora Neale Hurston. He even thought he had a couple of Norton Anthologies in there.
Just then he heard someone clearing their throat from behind him. He whirled around to see the Partona standing there, her arms folded, wearing a disapproving glare.
"Curiosity isn't a sin, Sam, but lack of self-control is, we've talked about roaming around unattended." The Partona told him.
"I'm sorry, but, uh, someone told me about it, and then I wound up in the infirmary and— "Sam began, awkwardly, "I, uh, "He sighed, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"We'll let it go this once." The Partona told him, "And I'll have to have a talk with Lacey about gossiping while on duty. Now, come on."
As they began to walk out, Sam asked, "Look, I know I'm pressing my luck, but, um, where did all these come from?"
"Like whoever told you probably told you said, a lot are my personal collections, thought the Little House on the Prairie series belonged to my mother, and others were given by the girls because they were done with them." The Partona explained.
"Partona, I have a proposal for you." Sam told her.
"Have you lost your mind?!" Sunflower exclaimed, upon being summoned to the library and hearing Sam's proposal.
"That's what I asked him." The Partona responded.
"Look, we're talking one, maybe two days with two, maybe three other kids." Sam reasoned, "And I'll take full responsibility for their safety."
"Sam, most of their mothers didn't drop out just and head up here for nothing." Sunflower told him, "And these kids have never been off of the Compound. Some of them don't even have birth certificates or SSI numbers."
That took Sam aback. "What?! "
"Some of the women take 'Off the Grid' further then others." The Partona explained, "I let them decide for themselves."
"I tell them it's a mistake." Sunflower added, "If they get sick enough to need an actual hospital, they can't prove they're their mother, they could even be accused of kidnapping. The girls can't get a driver's license, a job, bank account, legally married-they could be deported, but some of them—they just won't listen to me."
"That's insane." Sam declared. Even Charlie's misanthrope physic got her kid a birth certificate and social!
"Nevertheless, it's how it is." The Partona declared, with a sense of finally about the issue.
"Look, if Boss Lady here okays this little experiment, I'll talk to the Moms, see if I can get their okay." Sunflower told him, "Just don't expect a big a turnout, okay?"
"Thank you." Sam breathed.
At the bunker, a black car parallel parked next to the building and Tabbris got out, walking up to the door and knocking. "Hannah, it's me." Leaning back on his heels he wanted until the door was opened, by Hannah who seemed somewhat frustrated. "Are you okay? He asked.
"Yeah," Hannah assured him, "But while you're here, I could use your help with something."
In the stacks, Tabbris lifted a giant book off the shelf and but it onto a cart.
"Can we please not tell Sam about this?" Hannah requested, following him as he pushed the cart, "I'm not supposed to be doing any heavy lifting. Or leaning over for that matter."
"I'm not really sure-" Tabbris began, "You know what, you probably know better than me. What's Sam hunting anyway that he needs all—this?"
"He's not hunting anything." Hannah told him, "He's not really hunting much at all, he's taken more of an advisory role lately. I just wanted to—try something."
"Try what, being a Pretender?" Tabbris asked, peering at the eclectic collection Hannah a accrued.
"A what?" Hannah responded.
"It's not important right now." Tabbris responded.
And so, Hannah told Tabbris all about their education woes.
"I guess I just wanted to try to see what we here, see if we do it." Hannah finished. Turning her head to look at Tabbris she asked, "What did Abigail do? With Jane?"
"A lot of different things, actually." Tabbris responded, "She tried putting her public school, but halfway through Kindergarten these boys tried to hold her down to put mud in her dress, and learned not to do that again the hard way. But in the process, she accidently almost killed one of them. Kicked him in the ribs so hard she broke half of them and nearly punctured his lung. She didn't mean to; she didn't know her own strength. That was when we finally had to set her down and tell her the truth. About everything. "
"How old was she?" Hannah asked.
"Five." Tabbris answered, "You can imagine how that went. She didn't fully understand the implication of what we're telling her, but…." He trailed off just short of what it was about to say, that Jane had become scared of herself, what she could do, but he realized that was the last thing the pregnant angel needed to hear right now, so he pulled it back on topic, " They had to leave town after that. Um, after that Gail tried homeschooling from a while, and it wasn't that Gail wasn't a good teacher, she tried, but she—she was in over her head." Maybe if I had been there more, things would've been different. "Around second grade Oliva, Oliva, that's Gail's sister, paid for her to go to a small private school, she figured, smaller school, smaller chance of exposure and for a while it worked, Jane was able to control if for the most part, but there were still other -incidents, smaller ones. She switches schools, I think maybe five times total before you graduated, if you count the change from home to private schooling."
A bit began to form in Hannah stomach.
"Hey," Tabbris began, recognizing her fear, "It doesn't have to be that way your daughter. She's in the last place anyone, human or angel, can find her, and you have something Jane didn't."
"What?" Hannah asked.
"Well, for one thing you have a large, stronger-lined support group." Tabbris told her, "Also, you have Sam." As they walked through the stacks he added, "Although, I would recommend Hooked on Phonics, for well, Phonics." After a beat he added, "Speaking of Abigail, she called me earlier this week. She, um, wanted to know if maybe she could get in touch with you and Sam. She wants to apologize for the way she acted before."
In the months since Abigail's last visit to bunker, Sam had finally divulged what Abigail had told him. "I'll have to talk to Sam about it." She answered, unsure of how she felt about this development.
Two days later, Charlie carefully crept through the Kansas backwoods. Who even knew Kansas had backwoods? Thought she had only gone the way roughly twice, she managed to find her way. Soon she could hear…singing?
Jerod was rolling an old ridding toy, a large well-worn mohair-is bear on black metal wheels, while a less than a foot away, Adele was hanging up a bubble gum pink sheet on a clothesline, next to a pair of her overalls and a little tea colored shirt, singing to herself and to the boy, "Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles and they ran through the bushes where a rabbit wouldn't go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em, on down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico…" After a beat she called out, getting her son's attention. "Hey, Little Bear, time for a color lesson."
Jerod's head shot up.
"Can you tell me what color the sheet is?" Adele asked.
"Um, red?" Jerod answered tentively.
"Close Jerod, but not quite." Adele told him, "Now, think a minute. What do we get when mix white and red."?
Jerod thought a minute, then his eyes lit up, happily declaring, "Pink!"
"That's right." Adele beamed, leaning down, "Give me five, honey!" The pair high-fived then Adele rose up, "What about Mommy's overalls? What color are they?"
"Blue." Jerod answered.
"Good job." Adele told him encouringly.
"Good enough for a hot chocolate?" Jerod asked hopefully.
"If you can tell me what color hot chocolate is." Adele challenged.
"Brown! "Jerod declared happily.
Charlie just sat there a moment, watching and listening, not wanting to startle them. At least that was the plan until Jerod said, "Hey, Miss Charlie."
Adele whirled around and saw the fiery haired huntress, who gave her a way.
"Hi," Charlie began nervously, wondering if this had been a good idea, "I'm Cal's friend, Charlie. I was hopping, we could talk for a minute."
That was when Jerod asked, his eyes hopeful. "Can Miss Charlie have some hot chocolate too?"
Adele's hot chocolate require hot water, equal parts powdered milk and non-dairy cream, several heaping spoonfuls of coca powdered, spoonfuls of honey, liberal pours of vanilla extract, and equally liberal pinches of cinnamon. As she prepared it, Charlie pitched her idea.
"So, I, a complete stranger to him he doesn't know from Eve, and my son who he doesn't know from Cain, Able or Seth, was first one he thought of?" Adele asked skeptically, pouring the concoction into cups and put to slices of bread on the range to toast.
"Not really," Charlie began, admitting an awkward truth, "In fact, he doesn't even know I'm here. I may or may not be overstepping on several counts here, I'm not on sure."
"Mmm-hmm." Adele responded, raising an eyebrow, "Charlie, look, I'm greatly for what you did for me and Jerod New Year's Eve, and I know you mean well, but—I'm going to have to go give this a hard pass."
"Look, I get it, society produces evil people, something's wrong, but—you also said you wanted him to decide, but—how can he decide with no experience?" Charlie asked.
"I have 37 books." Adele responded, "Some of those books are condenses books that are actually like, three books in one, so really more like, 42 books. He can get experience through that. "
"Okay," Charlie responded, "Well, what about friends?"
"He has friends." Adele insisted, "He's on a first name basis with every cashier at Kroger. He's got the chickens; he got his bear…."
"Well, human friends that he sees somewhat regularly." Charlie argued, adding softly, "Well, mostly human, anyway." Then speaking up again, she added, "Look, just think about it okay?"
As Adele took the toast off the range and cut it into cubes, sprinkling it onto the chocolate with and pouring more honey on it, she said nothing.
Two days later, Hannah laid out a series of colored card on the ground, while the children were playing a few feet away.
"Boys, Maudie." Can you come here for a second, please?" Hannah requested.
The twins and their friend came over, looking at the cards, curiously. "What's those?" Dean asked.
"These are colors cards," Hannah explained, "I want to see, how many of these you know. Dean, why don't you go first." She pointed to the white card, "Can you tell me what this is?"
Dean pointed at the card. "A piece of paper?"
Okay, my mistake. Hannah thought, "I mean what color is the piece of paper?"
"White." Dean answered.
"Good, "Hannah smiled, "Now, what about this one?"
While this was going on, Sam stepped into the doorway watching.
The good news is, their kids were on schedule where it came to knowing their colors. Hannah had to cotch them through some of it, but they did pretty. After colors, she tried letters. They didn't recognize all of them, all three of them mixed up P with Q, but it wasn't a bad first run, Sam thought.
Of course, they weren't entirely ready yet.
Sam was waiting in the Impala in the Cul De Sac Hannah usually pedaled cosmetics in, looking around for the person she uses to meet when suddenly there was a knock on the window, startling him. He jumped a little only to find a woman who looked like a very stereotypical soccer mom. Sam rolled down the window, then asked in a low voice, "You Home School Mom 67?"
"You Please Help Me?" The Mom asked, "Weird screen by the way."
"Yeah." Sam responded, "Ah, why are we acting like this is a drug deal?"
"That's actually a good question." Home School Mom 67 replied, "Why don't you just—"
"Yeah," Sam agreed, getting out of the car. He pulled out his wallet and took out the money.
Home School Mom 67 pulled out a large manilla folder. "One home school curriculum, lightly used."
They exchanged the money from the curriculum. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you." Sam said, before getting back in the car.
"You too." Home School Mom 67 agreed before hurrying off.
While it was serval months before the boys were due to start school, they wanted to do a trail run, at least with the co-op. They were wary about using the bunker for them moment, so Reason said they use her trailer, so long as there were no major damages.
The day of, the family was waiting on the front steps when a land rover pulled up and Gwenie stepped out of the back with one of the triplets, followed by a teenage girl with thick blonde waves, holding the other two triplets.
"Sorry, this is all we could get." Gwenie apologized, "You remember Emily, apparently."
"Yeah, how's-everyone doing?" Sam asked.
"We're adjusted." The Amazon answered, sitting the girls down.
Just then, Charlie's VW pulled up. "Look, I know this is, uh, a bit of a surprise, but, um, I think I got you another member, if that's okay." She went to the other side of the car and opened the door from Adele who went to back of the car and began unstrapping Jerod. It had been a heartbreaking struggle to get him in, he was so use to just sitting in his Mom's lap whenever they got rides from the taxidermist into town. Once out, he hid his face into his mom's chest.
"It's okay, baby." Adele soothed, "Everyone here's safe." Walking closer, she said, looked at Sam and Hannah to introduce herself only to let out a scream of pain. "Eeah!" She covered her eyes, "Look, I'm not prejudiced or anything, but you really could've warned me."
"Warned you about what?" Sam asked, concerned, beginning to stand up.
"Your wife, her aura, her energy." Adele explained, "It's like, looking into a shaky, wavy version of the sun. "
"I'm sorry, "Charlie apologized, trying guide her back to the car, "If I had thought— "
"No, no, we're still doing this, I can block it out, I just—warn a girl next time." Adele requested.
"Okay," Charlie agreed, "In that spirits, remember what I said about human friends…"
Adele was able to better brace her son for the shock of seeing Castiel's aura for the first time, as he was introduced to him, Dean, Maudie and the triplets. He just stood there, clutching a little bear made with blue and green plaid cloth, yellow gogglie eyes, and a brown felt muzzle.
Dean's well-meaning reaction didn't help. "Hi!' He exclaimed, going in for a hug, that the little boy reared back from.
"It's alright." Charlie soothed, wondering if this was a good idea, "Dean was just being friendly."
"It's just a hug." Adele backed up her, regretting most of her recent life choices.
"Maybe wait a bit for that, little one." Hannah advised.
As the children got to know each other, the adults began to discuss how this would actually work.
"Okay," Sam began, laying out the details of the curriculum, "According to this stuff here, what we're supposed to cover during preschool basic literacy, knowledge and understanding of words and their meaning, communication, talking and listening, social skills—I guess we're already starting to work on that, teamwork, play, even some science. Basic bean and a cup stuff."
"I'm already teaching Jarod his letters now." Adele spoke up, "I could do that, stuff, words."
"Sam or I could cover science." Hannah offered.
"I guess that leaves diving up the rest of stuff," Charlie began, "But how?"
As Gwenie checked outside, she said, "Ah, we might want to table this for the moment, we have might have a problem outside."
All the adults turned to look at her, Sam beginning to get up.
"Good news is, they're all getting along, the good news is, they've all decided to use the bathroom in the front yard." Gwenie explained, "Sorry, one of the triplets probably taught them it."
"Wait, is it poop or pee?" Adele asked.
"What's difference does that make?" Sam asked.
That was how the kids, and everyone else, got a little imparu science lesson.
"Now here's the thing about pee," Adele was saying, standing in front of the little group, "Unless you're stick, it is completely sterile. And, it's so rich and certain nitrogen's it can actually be used as fertilizer in a pinch."
"Is that why you put it on vegetables?" Jerod pipped up.
"Yes, sweetie," Adele answered patiently, "Put when we're here, we raise our hand like," She demonstrated, "Before we ask a question. Okay?"
Jerod nodded his understanding.
"But poop," Adele began, "Poop is very different."
Maudie raised her hand.
"Yes, little girl?" Adele asked.
"Um, poop has bad germs." Maudie told her.
"That's right." Adele confirmed, "And that is why we have to be very careful with our poop we have to poop in the toilet or a trash bag and then we have to bury it in that trash bag. In fact, for now on, if we have a working toilet, we do that, okay?"
The children nodded their understanding.
"So, if we ever do a wilderness survival class, we have her teach it." Sam murmured over to Hannah.
"Agreed." Hannah nodded.
Later on that day, while the kids were playing, and not peeing in yard, Sam showed everything the curriculum he had brought.
"Where did you even get this stuff?" Gwenie asked, looking through the papers.
"Well, apparently since they're so pricey a lot homeschool families keep them in mint condition and sell them." Sam explained.
Gwenie grinned from ear to ear. "Sweet."
Sam blinked as something about that made Sam realize how young Gwenie was. She was what, twelve, thirteen, fourteen at the most.
Noticing he looking at her, Gwenie asked, "What?"
"Gwenie, how old are you?" Sam asked.
Gwenie narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
"It's just—you look like you should still be in school, not teaching it." Sam told her.
"I'll stay with the rest of the kids and Sunflower can come next time, if you want." Gwenie offered.
"That's not…"Sam began, then stopped. He highly doubted Gwenie would be cooperative. Women from the Commune didn't like a lot of question. But there was something, maybe he could do. "No, I want you to come, but speaking of Sunflower…." He handed a folded piece of paper to her, which she took with a questioning look. "It's something that could help Sunflower's unofficial children." He gave Charlie a grateful glance.
Gwenie smiled again. "Sweet," She declared, sticking it in her coveralls, "I'll be sure to get it to her."
The end of the day, they had everything hammered. They'd start in late August, which would give the kids time to mature a little more as well as time to get everything else together. Including a 7th Grade curriculum.
That evening when Reason came to pick up Maudie, she was let in and found the Winchester men in the floor, while Maudie was pointing at an imaginary board saying, "And that's why you always have to poop in the toilet, but you can pee on plants.
"Ah, what's going on here?" Reason asked.
"They wanted to play school." Hannah explained, "We, ah, sorta had an unexpected sinence lesson today. Your, ah, grass might have got watered. "
That was when Maudie saw her mother. "Mommy!" She called out, running to her.
"Hey, there, baby girl." Reason greeted her, catching her up and hugging her, "I just heard you had an eventful day."
"Uh, huh," Maudie nodded, "We met these three girls and they're twins like DeanandCas only there's three of them and they look like each other, and…"
As she watches Maudie tell everything that happened, Hannah nearly opened her mouth to offer to take her on premately, but it wasn't the time. So, she said nothing.
Besides, they still had roughly seven months to work it all out.