Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters except for the ones not
recognized as being in the Sonic universe.
A/N: Hi everyone! Quick note: I wish to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who has reviewed! Your words make me smile and feel great every time I read them. You guys alone inspire me to continue writing!
However having support services I have noticed that my hit count does not match my review count. Please, I ask everyone who reads this to please leave a comment. The only reason I even post my stories is the same reason as everyone else's I think, which is not only out of pride and pleasure, but to hear the opinions of you the readers. So please won't you spare a moment after you finish reading and leave a review? Believe me it makes a big difference in the encouragement department!...Sorry enough babbling...on with the story....
As The Years Go By....
Chapter Four: Live and learn
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Maya laid Knuckles gently on a bed as she helped put life jackets on the other children. If only one certain child would hold still....
Sonic bounced up and down excitedly as she tried to fasten the life jacket securely. "What's a pool anyway mama? Huh?"
"Just think of it as a giant bath."
"Eww....that doesn't sound like fun at all!" he immediately responded as he stopped bouncing.
"It will be, trust me."
None of the children seemed too sure either but they were willing to give it a try. "Okay." they chorused quietly.
About a half an hour later they arrived at the pool area all in swimming outfits and life jackets. Simone waved at them merrily from her spot on a lawn chair her own two children they had seen earlier already splashing around in the pool.
One was a young white female wolf with crystalline blue eyes. She appeared to be no older than eight years old and her adoptive brother, a slightly older looking brown bear with golden eyes seemed to be around nine or ten years old.
Maya waved to them both as they continued their game and her own children watched timidly from the side. The young kitsune woman gently placed a sleeping red echidna on a lawn chair before taking off her own long shirt and revealing a black one piece bathing suit. She quickly slipped into the pool and held her arms out to the others. "C'mon it's fun! I promise!"
Shadow quickly complied letting his curiosity guide him as Amy followed. Sonic however watched the water warily. "I bet this is just a trick to take a bath!" he called out cockily confident that he had solved some mystery.
His adoptive mother laughed and shook her head. "No silly, this is just for fun. Jump in! I'll catch you!"
The blue hedgehog stared at her for a moment longer before jumping into the clear warm water. As he did he let out a whoop of joy. This was fun!
After teaching them how to maneuver in the water with their life jackets on and giving them a long list of rules on what not to do, Maya left the pool to lay on one of the lawn chairs and chat with her friend while keeping an eye on them.
Shadow and Amy had quickly learned how to move easily through the water, but Sonic was struggling. He did not like feeling so restricted. As Shadow was trying to teach him how to "doggie paddle" the other two older children made their way over.
"Hi!" chirped the very friendly wolf girl. "I'm Azalie!"
"Geez, must you always be so hyper Azalie? You are going to scare people!" the young bear commented as he came up behind her.
"Oh hush Zack you are just a party pooper that's all."
Zack's eye twitched as he heard this but he chose to ignore her and turned to the others. "Yeah I'm Zack, who are you little guys?"
"Hey I'm a girl!" Amy immediately retorted.
"I'm Sonic, that's Shadow and the loud one is Amy." Sonic proudly introduced.
"Hey!" Amy objected once more.
"Cool."
"Hey what happened to your brother?" Azalie asked compassion in her eyes as they traveled over to where the young echidna was sleeping, his bandaged hand visible.
"We had an accident....." the younger three responded quietly while looking away still quite ashamed.
Zack gave his adoptive sister a knowing look and motioned for her to drop it. In a short moment of silence, Amy finally noticed what it was that bothered her about the older two. "Hey, how come you aren't wearing jackets like these?" she asked while pulling at her own jacket.
"I can swim!" the white wolf stated proudly as her brother nodded in agreement and motioned that the same was true for him.
"I wanna learn! I wanna learn!" the three hedgehogs shouted in excitement.
"Heheh all right, but you have to keep your jackets on okay?" Azalie stated giving them a sweet smile.
The younger children cocked their heads to the side in confusion but agreed and soon learned that they would only be taught the movements of swimming with their jackets on. After the hard and long lesson Azalie and Zack became bored. "You want to do something else?" Zack asked
"Let's race!" Shadow and Sonic shouted happily as Amy rolled her eyes. The two male hedgehogs were confident that now they could teach these newcomers something.....a little lesson in speed. Or so they thought.....
Maya looked up as she saw the five children lined up at one end of the pool apparently getting ready for a race. She watched intently as one of them shouted "Go!" and the wild splashing began. The splashing was so fierce that she had to shield her face and then she laughed as Simone had become completely soaked.
The race was well underway under all that splashing, but a certain little one was quickly becoming frustrated. Sonic found himself struggling to maneuver his body against the waves the others created, his legs felt restricted as the life jacket covered some of his thighs.
He hated feeling slow and hated the fact that the others were so far ahead of him. Just then a thought occurred to him, a thought that he would regret for the rest of his life...what if he took off the restricting life jacket? He knew his mother had told him not to under any circumstances but he was confident in the swimming lessons he had received only minutes ago and he was sure that his speed would get him across before anything could happen. Besides, she couldn't see him through all the wild splashing anyway.
Then with great swiftness he quickly unzipped the jacket and slipped out of it....only to immediately sink slightly deeper into the water. But he didn't panic; he quickly remembered what he had been taught and began kicking out with his hands and legs pushing against the strong waves as his forgotten life jacket hid itself under the railings of the pool.
Sonic was proud of himself as he swam out and he was doing just fine until....until he grew tired. He then realized that it took a lot more effort to move quickly through water, and decided to rest. What a big mistake. The young hedgehog had not realized that there was a level difference to the deepness of the pool and he had been only swimming in the shallow end, now he was in the deeper part that was a good six feet deep. Very deep especially for a being who was barely three feet tall.
He sunk quickly and at first he did not understand what was going on. He stared in confusion at the water surrounding him watching the air bubbles surrounding his face. He was unbelievably calm until the pain started in his chest. He gasped and swallowed more water resulting in only more pain and he began to fight to swim upwards only to remember that he had not been how to move under these situations, so he began to panic. He clawed desperately at the water as he felt himself sink deeper and saw the water get darker. He wanted to cry as the pain became unbearable and then became eerily calm as his vision started to black out.
"We win!" Azalie and Zack called out cheerfully as the touched the railing of the other end of the pool.
Shadow and Amy pouted as the struggled to reach it as well only having been a few feet behind the other two. They were very exhausted and breathed heavily until they caught their breath.
"You're very fast!" Shadow exclaimed with admiration in his eyes. "Right Sonic? Aren't they fast?......Sonic?" the black hedgehog questioned turning around confused as to why his brother had not responded, expecting him to have been right behind him if not in front.
"Where is Sonic?" Amy asked slightly worried as her eyes scanned the now calm water of the pool. There was no sign of her blue brother. "Do you think he gave up and went with mama?"
The black hedgehog frowned it did not sound like his brother to give up so easily, but he did not want to worry his sister farther and nodded. "Yeah..."
The two soggy hedgehogs, with the help of their new friends got out of the pool and quickly made their way over to their mother."Mama, mama! Where's Sonic mama?" They called out worry evident in their voices.
Maya's ears perked at this, she had been confident that her blue hedgehog child was with his adoptive siblings the entire time. The crazy splashing had only ended a few moments ago and when it stopped she had not seen him with the others but figured that he had already gotten out. "What do you mean where is he? Isn't he with you?"
Shadow and Amy exchanged a worried glance before shaking their heads wildly. "We didn't see him when the race finished."
It was then that Sonic's life jacket conveniently dislodged itself from underneath the pools railing and floated out alone into the middle of the pool. Upon seeing it, Maya's heart leapt into her throat for the second time that day. Panic entered her system fully and without a word she jumped into the shadowed depths of the pool searching frantically.
Simone noticed the problem quickly as well and with quick instructions to her own children to keep watch over the smaller ones, she dove in as well. Maya had to resurface multiple times for air as she continued her desperate search when finally.......a small body began to float up towards her. Eyes widening, she quickly clutched it and surfaced.
Simone who had recently surfaced for her own breath of air, gasped when she saw that the young child had been found. Tears flowed freely from Maya's eyes as she quickly took the small blue hedgehog to the side of the pool and began to perform CPR.
The sound of coughing was the most wonderful thing any of them could hear at the moment as the blue hedgehog forcefully coughed water out of his small body. The kitsune mother sobbed loudly as she clutched him tightly and refused to let him go for a long while.
Simone and the others merely stood by watching their faces grim and were unsure on what to do.
Slowly, the blue hedgehog's eyes opened as he looked groggily about. This only resulted in Maya hugging him tighter as fresh tears flowed down her face. "Thank goodness, thank goodness..." she repeated.
Sonic suddenly began to cry as well remembering the fear and pain he had gone through. Carefully picking him up, Maya asked Simone to take her children home and to keep an eye on them for her as she headed towards the hospital center once more.
Later in the night two hedgehogs and a still groggy echidna were once again sitting quietly watching television as they drank warm milk. They were bathed and already falling asleep but they had to wait for their last sibling who was putting up a good struggle in the bathroom.
Maya had locked the door knowing that the blue hedgehog would have bolted out as soon as she had put him down in this room but, now he was holding on to her tightly and was crying so much he was on the point of being hysterical.
He had totally lost it upon seeing the bathtub full of water and refused to go anywhere near it. Maya had been warned by the doctor that this might happen and luckily she was a very patient woman.
"C'mon sweetie, its okay. You've taken a bath in here a hundred times before, nothing like what happened in the pool is going to happen here, I promise."
"You pwomised the pool was going to be fun." he stated bluntly and she nearly bit her tongue, he had her there.
"Okay, but you know this! Nothing bad is going to happen, just in for a little bit and then out okay?"
"No! No no no no! Pwease No!" he immediately shouted starting to cry once again and climbing all over her, clutching her tightly as he begged.
That was all it took for her heart to melt. After the visit to the doctor, she had reprimanded him gently for doing such a foolish thing, but by now she felt that he had gone under enough stress for the day. Besides she knew that he had learned his lesson, the hard way. "All right, here I'm going to show you something...."
"What?" Sonic asked fearfully.
"This." She answered sweetly as if she was revealing some great magic as she let the tub drain and started the shower head.
Sonic's face brightened almost immediately. "Cool."
When the children had finally gone to bed Maya sat reading a book and sipping hot chocolate. Suddenly looking out the window at the starry sky she hoped that she would not make any more mistakes like the ones she had done today. She questioned her motherhood instincts and worried that she was not doing a good job at all.
'If I keep making mistakes like these, those poor children will never make it to kindergarten!' she thought to herself before flicking off the light and heading off to bed.
_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-
The young fox woman had proved herself wrong. Two years later she found herself packing lunches and snacks for her small children that were beginning kindergarten that day. During two years she had learned from her mistakes and had developed as a mother figure. Her children now five years old had grown and developed as well. Their personalities were beginning to shine through and she was happy for that. As always when she thought of them a smile bloomed on her face, she could never deny that she loved them all dearly despite their sometimes aggravating personalities.
Knuckles, she thought, confused her. He seemed to prefer to be alone and entertain himself, but then he would also join activities with his siblings randomly. He also had a quick temper that she often had to reprimand. Sonic had not changed much. His attention span was shorter than ever and that worried her especially when he was starting school today. However he seemed to have a heart of gold and always wanted to help his siblings and be there for them....even if they had been arguing only moments before. Shadow still tended to spend most of his time around Sonic, but he began to be like Knuckles and spend more and more time on his own. The black hedgehog could get moody, but he was just as sweet as the others. And Amy.....Amy was a typical little girl. She always wanted to boss the boys around and make them play her games. If she wasn't trying to boss them around, she often annoyed them by being overly clingy and always wanting their attention. Her brothers became used to this and could not help but love her and her sweet charm she turned on whenever she wanted to get her way.
"What is in there?" a voice suddenly asked snapping her out of her thoughts and she looked down into emerald eyes.
She was a bit amazed, she still couldn't get used to the somewhat deeper voices of her children. Their voices had lost some of the baby like quality it once held. Though still sounding very young, it sounded more clear and expressive. "It's your lunch Sonic." she finally responded noticing that she had not done so earlier.
"Oh cool. What is it?" he asked.
Another sign that they were growing up was the constant questioning they did everyday, at times it made Maya want to pluck her fur out.....with a band-aid.
"Peanut butter and jelly."
"Oh."
"Did you finish your breakfast young man?"
"Yep!" he chirped cheerfully. "Is it time for school yet?"
Maya laughed she remembered when she had been just as eager on her first day of school. "In a little while, we have to wait for your brothers and sis..." Looking up, Maya realized that Sonic had been the other children's scout as they were all looking up at her eagerly, their bowls empty. "I see that you are all ready huh?" The young children nodded with big grins, they were eager to see what school was all about. Maya handed them all their lunches and snacks before leading them out the door and to a house that had been designated just for teaching. Over the years the adults had built it and it was large enough to almost look like an official school.
Inside the "school" were different classrooms according to the grade level. The kindergarten classroom was on the bottom floor and was decorated brightly to seem more inviting. At the door a middle aged mongoose woman was waiting for the children with a bright smile on her face.
"Hello children" she called upon seeing Maya and the others. "I am Mrs. Spinoza."
"Good morning Mrs. Spinsosa.er.coza..stoza?" the children struggled making her laugh.
"You can just call me Mrs. S if you want."
This was a relief to the children and with bright smiles and new confidence they shouted, "Good morning Mrs. S!"
Maya shook her head and kissed them all goodbye as she left. The children however were not expecting that she would have to leave and were confused by her actions. They started following her once more.
"Where are you going?" they asked with worry and slight fear in their voices.
"Don't worry I'll be back later to pick you up." Maya assured them once again hugging and kissing them affectionately before turning to leave once more.
Mrs. Spinoza gently ushered them into the classroom where their eyes widened as they saw four other children and a room full on interesting things. They came to one conclusion as they looked at each other; this was going to be fun!
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A/N: *sniffles* My babies are growing up!!! .er, yeah. Hehe. I'm sooo sorry this took so long to post, but thank you to all my faithful reviewers who have been patiently waiting. And to Nick, I'm sorry I never answered your email, but I'm horrible with answering email, seriously.
Big announcement: Tails will make his debut in the next chapter! Thank you once again to the faithful reviewers who have been waiting for him so patiently.
A/N: Hi everyone! Quick note: I wish to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who has reviewed! Your words make me smile and feel great every time I read them. You guys alone inspire me to continue writing!
However having support services I have noticed that my hit count does not match my review count. Please, I ask everyone who reads this to please leave a comment. The only reason I even post my stories is the same reason as everyone else's I think, which is not only out of pride and pleasure, but to hear the opinions of you the readers. So please won't you spare a moment after you finish reading and leave a review? Believe me it makes a big difference in the encouragement department!...Sorry enough babbling...on with the story....
As The Years Go By....
Chapter Four: Live and learn
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Maya laid Knuckles gently on a bed as she helped put life jackets on the other children. If only one certain child would hold still....
Sonic bounced up and down excitedly as she tried to fasten the life jacket securely. "What's a pool anyway mama? Huh?"
"Just think of it as a giant bath."
"Eww....that doesn't sound like fun at all!" he immediately responded as he stopped bouncing.
"It will be, trust me."
None of the children seemed too sure either but they were willing to give it a try. "Okay." they chorused quietly.
About a half an hour later they arrived at the pool area all in swimming outfits and life jackets. Simone waved at them merrily from her spot on a lawn chair her own two children they had seen earlier already splashing around in the pool.
One was a young white female wolf with crystalline blue eyes. She appeared to be no older than eight years old and her adoptive brother, a slightly older looking brown bear with golden eyes seemed to be around nine or ten years old.
Maya waved to them both as they continued their game and her own children watched timidly from the side. The young kitsune woman gently placed a sleeping red echidna on a lawn chair before taking off her own long shirt and revealing a black one piece bathing suit. She quickly slipped into the pool and held her arms out to the others. "C'mon it's fun! I promise!"
Shadow quickly complied letting his curiosity guide him as Amy followed. Sonic however watched the water warily. "I bet this is just a trick to take a bath!" he called out cockily confident that he had solved some mystery.
His adoptive mother laughed and shook her head. "No silly, this is just for fun. Jump in! I'll catch you!"
The blue hedgehog stared at her for a moment longer before jumping into the clear warm water. As he did he let out a whoop of joy. This was fun!
After teaching them how to maneuver in the water with their life jackets on and giving them a long list of rules on what not to do, Maya left the pool to lay on one of the lawn chairs and chat with her friend while keeping an eye on them.
Shadow and Amy had quickly learned how to move easily through the water, but Sonic was struggling. He did not like feeling so restricted. As Shadow was trying to teach him how to "doggie paddle" the other two older children made their way over.
"Hi!" chirped the very friendly wolf girl. "I'm Azalie!"
"Geez, must you always be so hyper Azalie? You are going to scare people!" the young bear commented as he came up behind her.
"Oh hush Zack you are just a party pooper that's all."
Zack's eye twitched as he heard this but he chose to ignore her and turned to the others. "Yeah I'm Zack, who are you little guys?"
"Hey I'm a girl!" Amy immediately retorted.
"I'm Sonic, that's Shadow and the loud one is Amy." Sonic proudly introduced.
"Hey!" Amy objected once more.
"Cool."
"Hey what happened to your brother?" Azalie asked compassion in her eyes as they traveled over to where the young echidna was sleeping, his bandaged hand visible.
"We had an accident....." the younger three responded quietly while looking away still quite ashamed.
Zack gave his adoptive sister a knowing look and motioned for her to drop it. In a short moment of silence, Amy finally noticed what it was that bothered her about the older two. "Hey, how come you aren't wearing jackets like these?" she asked while pulling at her own jacket.
"I can swim!" the white wolf stated proudly as her brother nodded in agreement and motioned that the same was true for him.
"I wanna learn! I wanna learn!" the three hedgehogs shouted in excitement.
"Heheh all right, but you have to keep your jackets on okay?" Azalie stated giving them a sweet smile.
The younger children cocked their heads to the side in confusion but agreed and soon learned that they would only be taught the movements of swimming with their jackets on. After the hard and long lesson Azalie and Zack became bored. "You want to do something else?" Zack asked
"Let's race!" Shadow and Sonic shouted happily as Amy rolled her eyes. The two male hedgehogs were confident that now they could teach these newcomers something.....a little lesson in speed. Or so they thought.....
Maya looked up as she saw the five children lined up at one end of the pool apparently getting ready for a race. She watched intently as one of them shouted "Go!" and the wild splashing began. The splashing was so fierce that she had to shield her face and then she laughed as Simone had become completely soaked.
The race was well underway under all that splashing, but a certain little one was quickly becoming frustrated. Sonic found himself struggling to maneuver his body against the waves the others created, his legs felt restricted as the life jacket covered some of his thighs.
He hated feeling slow and hated the fact that the others were so far ahead of him. Just then a thought occurred to him, a thought that he would regret for the rest of his life...what if he took off the restricting life jacket? He knew his mother had told him not to under any circumstances but he was confident in the swimming lessons he had received only minutes ago and he was sure that his speed would get him across before anything could happen. Besides, she couldn't see him through all the wild splashing anyway.
Then with great swiftness he quickly unzipped the jacket and slipped out of it....only to immediately sink slightly deeper into the water. But he didn't panic; he quickly remembered what he had been taught and began kicking out with his hands and legs pushing against the strong waves as his forgotten life jacket hid itself under the railings of the pool.
Sonic was proud of himself as he swam out and he was doing just fine until....until he grew tired. He then realized that it took a lot more effort to move quickly through water, and decided to rest. What a big mistake. The young hedgehog had not realized that there was a level difference to the deepness of the pool and he had been only swimming in the shallow end, now he was in the deeper part that was a good six feet deep. Very deep especially for a being who was barely three feet tall.
He sunk quickly and at first he did not understand what was going on. He stared in confusion at the water surrounding him watching the air bubbles surrounding his face. He was unbelievably calm until the pain started in his chest. He gasped and swallowed more water resulting in only more pain and he began to fight to swim upwards only to remember that he had not been how to move under these situations, so he began to panic. He clawed desperately at the water as he felt himself sink deeper and saw the water get darker. He wanted to cry as the pain became unbearable and then became eerily calm as his vision started to black out.
"We win!" Azalie and Zack called out cheerfully as the touched the railing of the other end of the pool.
Shadow and Amy pouted as the struggled to reach it as well only having been a few feet behind the other two. They were very exhausted and breathed heavily until they caught their breath.
"You're very fast!" Shadow exclaimed with admiration in his eyes. "Right Sonic? Aren't they fast?......Sonic?" the black hedgehog questioned turning around confused as to why his brother had not responded, expecting him to have been right behind him if not in front.
"Where is Sonic?" Amy asked slightly worried as her eyes scanned the now calm water of the pool. There was no sign of her blue brother. "Do you think he gave up and went with mama?"
The black hedgehog frowned it did not sound like his brother to give up so easily, but he did not want to worry his sister farther and nodded. "Yeah..."
The two soggy hedgehogs, with the help of their new friends got out of the pool and quickly made their way over to their mother."Mama, mama! Where's Sonic mama?" They called out worry evident in their voices.
Maya's ears perked at this, she had been confident that her blue hedgehog child was with his adoptive siblings the entire time. The crazy splashing had only ended a few moments ago and when it stopped she had not seen him with the others but figured that he had already gotten out. "What do you mean where is he? Isn't he with you?"
Shadow and Amy exchanged a worried glance before shaking their heads wildly. "We didn't see him when the race finished."
It was then that Sonic's life jacket conveniently dislodged itself from underneath the pools railing and floated out alone into the middle of the pool. Upon seeing it, Maya's heart leapt into her throat for the second time that day. Panic entered her system fully and without a word she jumped into the shadowed depths of the pool searching frantically.
Simone noticed the problem quickly as well and with quick instructions to her own children to keep watch over the smaller ones, she dove in as well. Maya had to resurface multiple times for air as she continued her desperate search when finally.......a small body began to float up towards her. Eyes widening, she quickly clutched it and surfaced.
Simone who had recently surfaced for her own breath of air, gasped when she saw that the young child had been found. Tears flowed freely from Maya's eyes as she quickly took the small blue hedgehog to the side of the pool and began to perform CPR.
The sound of coughing was the most wonderful thing any of them could hear at the moment as the blue hedgehog forcefully coughed water out of his small body. The kitsune mother sobbed loudly as she clutched him tightly and refused to let him go for a long while.
Simone and the others merely stood by watching their faces grim and were unsure on what to do.
Slowly, the blue hedgehog's eyes opened as he looked groggily about. This only resulted in Maya hugging him tighter as fresh tears flowed down her face. "Thank goodness, thank goodness..." she repeated.
Sonic suddenly began to cry as well remembering the fear and pain he had gone through. Carefully picking him up, Maya asked Simone to take her children home and to keep an eye on them for her as she headed towards the hospital center once more.
Later in the night two hedgehogs and a still groggy echidna were once again sitting quietly watching television as they drank warm milk. They were bathed and already falling asleep but they had to wait for their last sibling who was putting up a good struggle in the bathroom.
Maya had locked the door knowing that the blue hedgehog would have bolted out as soon as she had put him down in this room but, now he was holding on to her tightly and was crying so much he was on the point of being hysterical.
He had totally lost it upon seeing the bathtub full of water and refused to go anywhere near it. Maya had been warned by the doctor that this might happen and luckily she was a very patient woman.
"C'mon sweetie, its okay. You've taken a bath in here a hundred times before, nothing like what happened in the pool is going to happen here, I promise."
"You pwomised the pool was going to be fun." he stated bluntly and she nearly bit her tongue, he had her there.
"Okay, but you know this! Nothing bad is going to happen, just in for a little bit and then out okay?"
"No! No no no no! Pwease No!" he immediately shouted starting to cry once again and climbing all over her, clutching her tightly as he begged.
That was all it took for her heart to melt. After the visit to the doctor, she had reprimanded him gently for doing such a foolish thing, but by now she felt that he had gone under enough stress for the day. Besides she knew that he had learned his lesson, the hard way. "All right, here I'm going to show you something...."
"What?" Sonic asked fearfully.
"This." She answered sweetly as if she was revealing some great magic as she let the tub drain and started the shower head.
Sonic's face brightened almost immediately. "Cool."
When the children had finally gone to bed Maya sat reading a book and sipping hot chocolate. Suddenly looking out the window at the starry sky she hoped that she would not make any more mistakes like the ones she had done today. She questioned her motherhood instincts and worried that she was not doing a good job at all.
'If I keep making mistakes like these, those poor children will never make it to kindergarten!' she thought to herself before flicking off the light and heading off to bed.
_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-_____-
The young fox woman had proved herself wrong. Two years later she found herself packing lunches and snacks for her small children that were beginning kindergarten that day. During two years she had learned from her mistakes and had developed as a mother figure. Her children now five years old had grown and developed as well. Their personalities were beginning to shine through and she was happy for that. As always when she thought of them a smile bloomed on her face, she could never deny that she loved them all dearly despite their sometimes aggravating personalities.
Knuckles, she thought, confused her. He seemed to prefer to be alone and entertain himself, but then he would also join activities with his siblings randomly. He also had a quick temper that she often had to reprimand. Sonic had not changed much. His attention span was shorter than ever and that worried her especially when he was starting school today. However he seemed to have a heart of gold and always wanted to help his siblings and be there for them....even if they had been arguing only moments before. Shadow still tended to spend most of his time around Sonic, but he began to be like Knuckles and spend more and more time on his own. The black hedgehog could get moody, but he was just as sweet as the others. And Amy.....Amy was a typical little girl. She always wanted to boss the boys around and make them play her games. If she wasn't trying to boss them around, she often annoyed them by being overly clingy and always wanting their attention. Her brothers became used to this and could not help but love her and her sweet charm she turned on whenever she wanted to get her way.
"What is in there?" a voice suddenly asked snapping her out of her thoughts and she looked down into emerald eyes.
She was a bit amazed, she still couldn't get used to the somewhat deeper voices of her children. Their voices had lost some of the baby like quality it once held. Though still sounding very young, it sounded more clear and expressive. "It's your lunch Sonic." she finally responded noticing that she had not done so earlier.
"Oh cool. What is it?" he asked.
Another sign that they were growing up was the constant questioning they did everyday, at times it made Maya want to pluck her fur out.....with a band-aid.
"Peanut butter and jelly."
"Oh."
"Did you finish your breakfast young man?"
"Yep!" he chirped cheerfully. "Is it time for school yet?"
Maya laughed she remembered when she had been just as eager on her first day of school. "In a little while, we have to wait for your brothers and sis..." Looking up, Maya realized that Sonic had been the other children's scout as they were all looking up at her eagerly, their bowls empty. "I see that you are all ready huh?" The young children nodded with big grins, they were eager to see what school was all about. Maya handed them all their lunches and snacks before leading them out the door and to a house that had been designated just for teaching. Over the years the adults had built it and it was large enough to almost look like an official school.
Inside the "school" were different classrooms according to the grade level. The kindergarten classroom was on the bottom floor and was decorated brightly to seem more inviting. At the door a middle aged mongoose woman was waiting for the children with a bright smile on her face.
"Hello children" she called upon seeing Maya and the others. "I am Mrs. Spinoza."
"Good morning Mrs. Spinsosa.er.coza..stoza?" the children struggled making her laugh.
"You can just call me Mrs. S if you want."
This was a relief to the children and with bright smiles and new confidence they shouted, "Good morning Mrs. S!"
Maya shook her head and kissed them all goodbye as she left. The children however were not expecting that she would have to leave and were confused by her actions. They started following her once more.
"Where are you going?" they asked with worry and slight fear in their voices.
"Don't worry I'll be back later to pick you up." Maya assured them once again hugging and kissing them affectionately before turning to leave once more.
Mrs. Spinoza gently ushered them into the classroom where their eyes widened as they saw four other children and a room full on interesting things. They came to one conclusion as they looked at each other; this was going to be fun!
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A/N: *sniffles* My babies are growing up!!! .er, yeah. Hehe. I'm sooo sorry this took so long to post, but thank you to all my faithful reviewers who have been patiently waiting. And to Nick, I'm sorry I never answered your email, but I'm horrible with answering email, seriously.
Big announcement: Tails will make his debut in the next chapter! Thank you once again to the faithful reviewers who have been waiting for him so patiently.