Chapter 7: Ten LEGOs

The LEGO Death Star project reached completion on New Year's Eve. After Ned placed the final piece, the two of them sat back and just stared at it in awe for a solid five minutes. "I want to play with it," Ned said shyly.

"I do too," Peter replied without looking away.

"Are we too old to play with it?"

"I don't know."

"Because building LEGO sets and playing with LEGOs are two very different activities."

"You're right. The question is: who cares?"

"Who cares about what?" Ned asked.

"Whether or not we're too old. Because I don't think I do."

"Me neither."

Almost an hour later, Michelle walked in on them. "You guys are losers."

"We know," Peter replied nonchalantly.

"Are you going to stay up until midnight?"

"We're allowed to?" Ned questioned, sounding genuinely shocked.

Michelle eyed him strangely. "Yeah, of course. It's a ridiculous tradition for a practically meaningless holiday, but it gives me an opportunity to read in good lighting for a few more hours than usual."

"Your favorite part about New Year's is getting to stay up late so you can read?" Peter clarified.

"Yeah. Problem?"

"No. Not at all."

"So what is it about these toys that has you two so excited?" she asked, walking fully into the room and sitting down beside them to look more closely at the massive LEGO creation.

"LEGOs are the superior toy," Ned proclaimed. "And this is the first time I've had more than, like, ten of them to build things with."

"Ten LEGOs?" Peter questioned. "That's practically nothing."

Ned shrank into himself, and Peter knew he'd accidentally poked at a sensitive topic. "The only LEGOs I ever had were ones I found."

"Where did you find LEGOs?" Michelle asked.

"I used to find them in kindergarten. They had a whole box of them and sometimes one would get lost during clean-up and stay on the floor. I never outright stole from the box, but I took the ones that didn't find their way back. Let's see…I sometimes found them on the sidewalk. Oh, and one time I found a minifigure at the bottom of the pool. That was crazy."

"What can you even build with ten LEGOs?" Peter questioned.

"You'd be surprised. There's actually an algorithm that calculated how many different ways you can put six LEGOs together, and it's over nine hundred million."

"Which kind of brick?"

"The classic eight-stud ones."

"Nine hundred million different ways?" Michelle repeated.

"Yep. I definitely didn't make nearly that many, but I did the best with what I had. It's actually a great exercise in creativity," Ned explained.

"Sounds like it," Peter said. He couldn't help but be saddened by Ned's story about how he obtained LEGOs. While his family could never afford any of the big, expensive sets, he grew up with a box of all different kinds of bricks for building things like houses and cars. He and Uncle Ben used to challenge each other to construction races, and then May would judge their creations and pick the winner. She almost always picked Peter.

"Hey Michelle, why do you like to read so much?" Ned asked, changing the subject. Peter also wondered about this. At school, she spent the entire lunch period with her nose buried in a book, she spent most of her free time at home reading, and she'd just informed them that extra reading time was her favorite part of New Year's.

She shrugged. "When people see you with a book open, they're less likely to try and talk to you."

"You don't want people to talk to you?" Peter said.

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"People are annoying."

"Are we annoying?" Ned asked.

"Especially you," she confirmed.

"You're going to be so smart by the time you get to high school with all the books you've read," Peter stated.

"That's another reason I like reading. It's one of the best ways to learn new things."

"So is talking to people," Peter informed her.

"Not people our age," she countered. "They're idiots."

Peter couldn't argue with that.

"You never answered my question about why LEGOs are so cool."

"You start with a messy pile of colored bricks and you finish with a recognizable structure," Peter explained. "Watching it come to life step by step as you build it is just magical. And designing your own creations is super fun too. It's like being an engineer, only without a college degree."

"Noted," she quipped.

"What toys did you play with when you were younger?" Ned asked.

"Books."

"You're not serious. At some point in your life you hadn't learned to read yet and you had to do something else."

"I played outside with my cousins when our families got together. Still do, actually."

"How old are your cousins?"

"The one I see the most often is two years older than me. He loves soccer, so I ended up playing that with him a lot."

"What about when you were by yourself? Or when you had friends over here for a playdate?" Peter asked.

"I did used to have some dolls," she admitted. "I named them after women in politics like Madeleine Albright, Angela Merkel, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg."

"I should have guessed that," Peter said. "Do you still have them?"

"I think my mom kept them when I outgrew them. They might be in the attic. Or she gave them away."

"That might be the cutest thing I've ever heard," Ned said brightly.

"Shut up," Michelle grumbled. "You're the ones playing with what is basically a space dollhouse."

"It's not a dollhouse! It's a spaceship that is also a deadly weapon capable of blowing up entire planets!"

"Can it blow me up so I don't have to participate in this conversation anymore?"

"No. I'm pretty sure being convicted of murder makes you really hard to place in the foster care system," Peter joked.

"We certainly don't take in killers," Michelle replied. "Just losers."

"Hey!" Peter knew she meant it as a term of endearment, but he still reflexively defended himself and Ned. The room fell silent for all of ten seconds before all three of them erupted into laughter.

~0~

Now that winter break was over, school started again. Peter was one of those kids that was glad to go back, partly because he loved school and partly because it made it easier to disguise his eating habits from Mr. and Mrs. Jones. They still didn't suspect a thing, much to Peter's relief. He prided himself on his ability to keep this hidden from them, almost as much as he feared what would happen if they found out. Months passed and Peter started to think that nobody would notice even if he let his guard down a little bit. But evidently, some people paid more attention to him than his foster parents did.

"Peter."

The tone of Ned's voice made him freeze where he stood in front of his open dresser drawer. He stopped searching for the t-shirt he wanted to wear to bed and listened while Ned sorted out what he was going to say next.

"Are you…okay?" Ned hesitantly asked.

"Yeah, of course," Peter insisted. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just…" Ned didn't seem to know what he wanted to say. Either that, or he did know and he was too afraid to say it.

"It's just what?" Peter turned around to face his brother and found him cowering worse than he had during his first days here.

"When was the last time you looked in a mirror?"

"What are you talking about? Is there something on my face?" Peter questioned.

"No! It's not that. You just don't look…healthy," he admitted, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beyond a cold or two, Peter hadn't gotten sick since the food poisoning incident.

"You're too skinny," Ned informed him. "And I've seen the way you eat; you barely touch your lunch or dinner. I'm worried about you."

Peter set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. He thought he'd gotten rather good at pretending to eat dinner. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Jones appeared at all suspicious, but evidently Ned was more observant than they were. Plus, he was the only one who ever saw Peter change clothes, so it made sense he noticed how slim Peter had become. None of his clothes were tight enough to reveal anything to observers unless they truly scrutinized him—which, of course, no one did, except for apparently Ned.

"I'm fine," Peter practically growled.

"No you're not," Ned insisted. "Tell me what's going on so I can help you."

"Nothing's going on," Peter assured.

"Don't lie to me!"

Peter startled at Ned's sudden outburst. He never got mad, at least not that Peter had ever seen. When confronted, he typically shrank into himself and surrendered. This was a completely new side of him that Peter immediately decided he hated. He didn't want Ned to be mad at him, but he also didn't want Ned to bring any attention to the fact that there was something wrong with Peter. If he told Mr. and Mrs. Jones, there was no telling how far down that rabbit hole Peter would tumble.

"Fine," Peter relented. "But you have to promise not to tell anybody."

"If you're hurting yourself, I can't just let that continue."

"I'm not, I promise. I promised that I'm okay, and you have to promise that you won't tell anyone about this." Ned paused, and for a moment Peter thought he would refuse, but he eventually gave in and promised to keep it a secret. "Okay, here goes." Peter swallowed, afraid to even gloss over what happened, but he had to tell Ned something to explain this or he wouldn't keep his promise. "I have a lot of…bad memories associated with food, okay? It's kinda part of why I ended up in foster care." Ned's face fell, but Peter refused to focus on that. "But I'm okay as long as I avoid the things that set me off, I swear. I can control it."

"You control what?"

"I used to get these weird episodes of, like, not being able to breathe right and feeling just as scared as when it happened in real life. They're terrible, so I try my best not to let them happen. That's why I need to be in control, okay?"

"Okay," Ned sighed, though he obviously didn't like it. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yes. I promised, didn't I? And you promised not to tell. You'd better not break that promise."

"I won't," Ned swore.

"Good. Now, I'm gonna go to bed." Peter found the shirt he'd been looking for, threw it on, and climbed up to his top bunk. After he laid down under the covers, he ran a hand over his ribcage and tried to remember if he'd always been able to count them that easily.

~0~

Ned didn't mention the conversation again, but Peter noticed he scrutinized him during meals with a distressed look on his face. Hopefully, he'd keep his promise. Towards the end of the school year, Mr. Harrington stopped by to check on him and give him the "unfortunate news" that he and Ned were no closer to being adopted. Peter made sure to wear clothes that adequately disguised his build so Mr. Harrington wouldn't notice any difference after not seeing him for so long. The news didn't even disappoint him much; he was content to stay with the Jones for as long as they would have him. Ned agreed.

"What if we got adopted together?" Ned asked, his voice drifting up from the bottom bunk just after the two had climbed into bed for the night.

"That would be pretty cool," Peter admitted.

"We could be brothers for real. Or at least, legally."

"Yeah." Peter doubted that would ever happen, but it was cool to think about.

"It would be weird to explain to people that we're not twins," he added.

"Really?" Peter chuckled. "You don't think people will figure out that much for themselves given we look nothing alike?"

"I don't know man, people are pretty stupid."

"Well compared to you, maybe."

"You're one to talk, Mr. Super Genius."

"I think we both know the real genius is Michelle."

"That's facts," Ned conceded. "Good night Peter."

"Good night Ned.

~0~

Summer vacation was unlike anything Peter had ever lived through before. In the heart of the city, the heat made going outside almost unbearable, but out here there was a lot more shade and a lot more space. Almost every day he, Ned, and Michelle played outside in the Jones' yard. He missed school, but getting to spend so much quality time with them completely made up for it. Mr. and Mrs. Jones sat Peter and Ned down and discussed the possibility of going on vacation for a week. Peter didn't want to deprive them, so he kept his mouth shut despite wanting nothing less, while Ned was brave enough to voice his discomfort: "I'd rather stay here. This is the longest I've ever felt safe, and I don't want to change anything about it."

"Okay," they said understandingly. Instead of going to the beach or to the mountains, they each pitched ideas for 'staycation' activities like movie nights, board games, and even a water balloon fight. Once again, Peter and Ned tag teamed it to play Catan, and they actually won one or two of the twenty times they played that summer. Mr. Jones took home a victory, and Michelle easily won the rest.

Before he knew it, they started eighth grade. Peter was elated that some of the coursework was difficult enough to hold his attention. He thought to himself that this would be the best year ever, but then the Leeds showed up. Mr. Harrington brought them to meet Ned one weekend in late October. They were warm and kind and everything a foster kid wanted in prospective adopted parents, but Peter couldn't help but resent them for wanting to take Ned out of their little family.

He didn't let Ned know how he felt, of course. The kid was over the moon, raving about how awesome they were. "Did I tell you they're going to watch Star Wars tonight so next time they see me we can talk about it?" he asked, practically breathless from happiness.

"No," Peter replied. He was glad he was on the top bunk so Ned couldn't easily pop up and see him nearly crying.

"Well they are. I can't believe how lucky I am."

"So lucky," Peter echoed.

"I'm sure you'll get adopted soon too," Ned assured. "Michelle's going to be an only child again before she knows it."

She was, but not quite in the way any of them expected.