Well, this is the second to last chapter...It's gone so fast! Hope you enjoy the rest of the story! And thanks to all those who choose to leave reviews! Ireally enjoy reading them!

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Part Twelve

It was a sunny afternoon and Harm, Mac, Bud, Harriet and the children met up at the large park near to the Roberts's house. Little AJ had been allowed to invite along some of his little friends, so that he could introduce them to his new cousin Katya. But the little girl didn't seem to want to play today. Harm and Mac noticed that she seemed to be a little wary of non-Russian speakers who were outside of their immediate circle of family at JAG. They had reasoned that she would probably get more confident as her English improved, but today, she only wanted to stick close to her Mommy.

"What's wrong, baby-girl?" Mac bent down and asked her, "Don't you want to go and play?"

All of the other children were now over at the children's play equipment, playing a game of 'fort.'

Katya nuzzled her face into her Mommy's lap and shook her head. Mac lifted her onto her knee for a while, then tried persuading her gradually further and further away from her and toward the children playing at the play park in front of them. Katya would only go as far as the grass immediately in front of Harm and Mac's feet.

"Sasha," Bud spoke up from his place on the other side of the picnic table.

He didn't need to say any more to his daughter. The little girl looked up from her place in the sandpit, across to her Dad then towards Katya, as if noticing for the first time that her best friend wasn't beside her. She quickly stood and ran over to where Katya was sat on the grass and offered her a hand up. Katya just looked at her unsurely for a second then took it.

Over the ensuing minutes, the little girls played first at the edge of the sandpit, then, progressively further in, a little further from the adults each time. Finally, Sasha moved back to the group of children and motioned for Katya to do the same. Katya slowly edged towards the group, step by tiny step, her thumb comfortingly placed in her mouth. As she hesitated at the last step, little AJ reached out and took her hand, pulling her into a hug as he introduced her to his friends.

"This is my little cousin Katya. She and my sister are best friends. They lived together at the orphanage in Russia. My Aunty Mac and Uncle Harm went all the way there, just to get her. She's really good at gymnastics, just like Sasha."

After this, he turned to lean down to Katya and told her, "This is my friend Kenny."

He pointed to a red-haired little boy with freckles then continued, "And this is Freddy. His full name is Frederico Garcia Lobo, but we call him 'Froggy.'"

Katya just stared at him for a minute then smiled.

"Froggy?" she questioned, not sure that her translation of the English word had been correct.

"Uh-huh," AJ nodded.

She turned to Sasha for conformation.

"Layagushka?" she asked, giggling loudly.

Sasha just nodded and all of the children started laughing hysterically, unable to escape Katya's infectious giggle.

After that, Freddy's cool new nickname, 'Layagushka' stuck even better than his old one, something that would follow him for years to come.

Harm and Mac relaxed as they watched their daughter finally start to make some headway in mixing with other non-Russian speakers. However, they would soon regret that they had let their guard down, as the children moved on to play on some of the sets of bars in the sandpit. They were only meant to be children's versions of the one set up for the adults to do chin-ups and little AJ showed the two little girls how they were meant to be used. However, the girls soon showed him how such equipment was used at their orphanage in Russia. Even though they were not identical to the proper uneven bars apparatus, the similarity proved to be too tempting to the girls. Sasha went first, but lost her grip and fell into the sand on her bottom. AJ and his friends just froze, not knowing what to do, obviously expecting Sasha to start crying and to call for her Mother.

However, she simply got to her feet and dusted herself off, not really accustomed to the hysterics that most children employed when faced with such a stumble. They had never been comforted by any of their coaches or carers, there had been simply too many children for the orphanage staff to show any warmth or love. Katya stepped up next, copying what Sasha had tried to demonstrate.

Harm and Mac were over by the picnic bench with Harriet and Bud and were unloading the food and cutlery that they had brought with them.

Mac was talking to Harriet and Bud.

"I'm so glad that she's finally mixing with other children. Harm and I have been so worried about how shy she's been…"

Suddenly, Harm bolted from the picnic table, half-stumbling over the seat and taking everyone else by surprise. Harm had looked over to the children, where Katya had now employed all of her strength and swung harder from the bar and pulled herself up above it. She now rested on top of it, the bar under her ribcage, about to lean forward and swing over and down again, as she would normally do in her bars routine. Harm quickly rushed to her and lifted her down from her place on top of the bar. The other grown-ups followed him and he and Mac quickly set to admonishing the little girl for her dangerous antics. But half-way through, they both began to lose steam as they saw Katya's teary-eyed expression. They both realised that they had unintentionally startled her and that she did not understand why they were reprimanding her so. She had performed feats like this before, had even been encouraged to perform them, not always with her coach supervising, but sometimes just an older athlete spotting her. What was so wrong about this occasion?

Harm and Mac fumbled for the words to explain to her.

"I'm sorry Mommy, I do it better, this time…" Katya started, not understanding.

"No, sweetie, that's not it…" Harm tried to tell her, unsuccessfully.

"My legs bended, Daddy?"

"No, honey, that's not what we meant…" Mac tried again.

"Point my toes?" Katya asked.

"No, baby. Daddy and I just get frightened when you do things like that and we're not there to watch you. We don't want you to get hurt…We just want you to play safely and only do those tricks when Daddy's there to hold you, to make sure you don't fall."

Katya thought back to when she was nearly a whole year younger, when she was only just three and she had just joined the elite gymnastics program at the orphanage. She had slipped and fallen very heavily on the beam and badly bruised her leg and pelvis. She remembered crying for a whole night in the sanatorium and remembered how miserable she had been. This must be what her Mommy and Daddy meant.

"Okay, Momma," she told her Mother, "Play under bar only? And Daddy come watch?"

Mac gave a smile of satisfaction and nodded her head. Katya ran away back to the bars, where she and Sasha continued to play away, under the bar, with Harm and Bud supervising them closely.

"Whew," Mac exclaimed, when she and Harriet got back to the picnic table, "She's never done anything like that, before!"

"I know what you mean," Harriet agreed, "I think we're going to have to have a little discussion with the girls about playing safe."

OOOO

Harm, Mac, Bud and Harriet thought that they had covered all of their bases by the time that the girls settled into kindergarten, a few months later. When Mac and Harriet went to collect the girls one afternoon, they found quite a situation before them. While the assistants were reading the rest of the children a story over on the carpet, the class teacher, Miss Stone was over by the cushion area. As they got closer, they saw that the woman was trying to calm down Katya and Sasha, who were huddled up on the cushions. Katya had both of her arms around Sasha, who was sucking her thumb and crying. Katya wore a stern expression on her face.

"Everything's alright, sweethearts," Jenny Stone told them soothingly, "You just gave me a little bit of a fright…"

She jumped up when she saw Mac and Harriet approaching.

"Is everything alright?" Mac and Harriet asked, bending down to see the children.

They both wriggled out of their Mother's grasps, resisting any attempts to comfort them.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Roberts, Ms. MacKenzie, this is all my fault, I'm afraid…I'm afraid that we've all had a bit of a fright today…It was not my intention and I promise you, I never, ever shouted at the children…"

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't," Mac assured the young woman. Mac had yet to meet a more softly spoken person and she and Harm had nicknamed their daughter's teacher 'Miss Honey' after the character in Roald Dahl's 'Matilda'. The last thing she would ever expect would be for the woman to raise her voice, even moderately.

"I'm afraid that I've unintentionally upset the girls, despite trying to remain calm with them…I just don't understand it at all…"

"What exactly was it that started this off?" Harriet asked the woman, thinking objectively.

"Well, in class, after lunch, we were all playing an exercise called, "What I do best." It's meant to be a confidence boosting exercise, where the children show each other, one at a time, what things they can do well. Some children want to draw pictures, dance to music, play a musical instrument, blow bubbles…well, anyhow, Sasha wanted to take a turn and I said that she could and, well she climbed onto the table…"

"You said anything!" Katya quickly cut in, loudly, "Mommy, Miss Stone said 'anything.' 'We can do anything we want to.' "

"Yes," Miss Stone answered her soothingly, "Yes, that's exactly what I said, you're right, sweetheart."

Once Katya had quietened down again, Miss Stone continued her story.

"Perhaps I should have set more parameters to the exercise…but we just never expect anything like this…"

"What exactly was it that Sasha did, Miss Stone?" Mac asked the woman, feeling as if she might be able to guess what had so flustered the young teacher.

"Well, like I said," the woman continued, "Sasha climbed up onto the table and, umm…well, she stood on her head."

"Is that it, Sasha?" Harriet turned to her daughter, trying to remain serious, "You showed Miss Stone your head stand?"

The little girl nodded, still with her thumb comfortingly in her mouth.

"Well," Jenny Stone continued, "That took me quite by surprise, as you can well imagine, but then, well, Sasha really took the cake when she lifted her hands off the table and held them out in the air…"

Here, Mac and Harriet could restrain themselves no longer and broke into laughter. Both of their daughters had demonstrated their 'real headstands' when at home, with Harm and Bud carefully spotting them.

Jenny Stone just looked at them, not knowing what to think.

"I'm sorry, Miss Stone," Mac was the first to apologised to her and explain their behaviour, "I'm afraid that you've gotten off quite lightly, today. Both of our girls have done much worse at home. We certainly don't excuse it and both my fiancé and I and Mr and Mrs Roberts have tried to explain how dangerous this sort of thing is to our girls. As you know, both Katya and Sasha grew up in an orphanage in Russia. Since they were three years old, they were put into hothouse training in a gymnasium and were encouraged to do exercises that were extremely advanced and, a lot of the time, dangerous. They just came to know it as a way of life. They don't really know what fear and danger is, when it comes to their gymnastics. I thought we had managed to get the message through to them, but obviously we need to have some more talks with them. I'm sorry that the children took you by surprise today."

At this, Mac turned and bent down to her daughter, "This is just a misunderstanding, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy and Aunty Harriet and Uncle Bud didn't explain it to you properly. We'll talk to Daddy tonight and make sure that we're more careful in future, won't we?"

Katya just nodded her head and looked at her Mother unsurely.

"We're going home now, Mommy?" she asked.

"That's right, baby," Mac told her, "We'll go home and wait for Daddy to come home from work."

"I can still go, too?"

Mac just stared in puzzlement, "Of course, baby…Why wouldn't you?"

"You and Daddy still want me?"

Mac just looked at her daughter, feeling her heart clench in her chest.

"What do you mean? Daddy and I will always want you, baby. Always."

"You won't send Sasha and me away?"

"Is that why you were so upset?" Mac asked her daughter and niece and Harriet looked on in perturbed silence.

"Uh-huh," Katya replied, "Sasha said that Aunt Harriet wouldn't want her anymore, if she had been bad and I thought you wouldn't want me, too."

Mac just scooped her daughter into a hug and exclaimed,

"Oh sweetie! Daddy and I will always want you. We came all that way to find you and we knew you were our perfect baby-girl as soon as we saw you. We would never send you away, never. No matter how naughty you had been. We love you and we always will, I promise. Momma and Daddy love you so much."

Beside them, Harriet was expressing similar feelings to her daughter, enfolding the child tightly in her arms.

Once all of that had been settled, they both took the girls home and left the frazzled Miss Stone to tend to the rest of her class.

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