May 9th 2020

Chapter 130
Their Cheers of Sisterhood

For having prided herself in being able to read her mother like her favorite book, Maya was mostly impressed with how Katy had gone and kept this whole thing a secret all this time. Well, 'all' this time… A couple days back, her mother had called and asked if she was busy over the days to come. When Maya had said that she had nothing coming up, which was more or less true, her mother had asked if she might look after the kids on one specific day, so that she and Shawn could go to the mall and play s-a-n-t-a. Maya had laughed, proclaiming herself up to the challenge, and just like that she was booked for this one day, which happened to be this day. She would soon call her mother, discovering that while her parents were actually going to shop, she would be put in charge of three out of four siblings, and this until the following morning. In the meantime, her last Hunter sibling would be joining the fraternal side once again, with Lucas, Sam, Teddy, and Wyatt.

"Are we going to see Mrs. Carlton again?" MJ asked, as Lucas was leading him back to the car, carrying the boy's small bag of clothes for the night.

"Actually, I'm not sure where we're going yet," Lucas admitted to the five-year-old. It wasn't like last time, when they had planned the whole thing out, and made arrangements with Sophie's mother for the house. There were no plans, at least none that Lucas was aware of, though it seemed now that there were plans, which Sam and Teddy had concocted together. They wouldn't tell Lucas until after they'd picked up the last of their small crew of brothers.

"Can Hunter come?" MJ asked as Lucas put his bag in the trunk with his own.

"Hunter Matthews?" Lucas asked, and the boy nodded. He might have said 'well, he's not one of your brothers, is he?' but then did that even matter? Technically, the title was passed between some of them in more of an honorific capacity than anything else. And over on the girls' side, where they had this whole contracted Sleepster situation going, they had invited both Cecilia and Dora to join in, so what did it matter if Hunter was what could generally amount to a cousin, with how close the Hunter and Matthews families were. They had gone so far as to name their sons after one another, hadn't they? "He's two."

"Haley is two and she's with the others," MJ pointed out. "And he's my friend," he nodded firmly.

"Hey," Lucas went to look in on the others in the car. "This place you won't tell me about yet, if we brought one more, would that be alright?" he asked, looking to MJ, who smiled. "A little one?"

Shortly thereafter, they were picking up the curly haired Matthews tot, who probably had little to no idea what he'd been recruited to, except that there was Lucas, and there was MJ, and he liked them very much, so he was on board. They'd tried to get August to join them, too, while they were at it, but the sixteen-year-old was working that day. According to Riley, he was saving up to buy himself a car.

"Alright, do I get to know where we're going now?" Lucas turned to Sam and Teddy, tapping the steering wheel to point out how he was the one driving. The boys shared a look. A minute later, Lucas had swapped seats with Sam, who drove them off from the Matthews house.

Sitting in the back with the three small boys, Lucas watched the pair in the front, brothers through and through, and he really did not mind following their lead.

Where they ended up was a hotel, the very one where the group out of Tucson had checked in. They had booked three rooms, one for Abigail and James, one for Luna and her mother, Elizabeth, and one for the boys, as they knew the girls would of course be spending the night with their big sister. The boys' room had three beds, to be shared now by the six of them, two by two. There would be plenty of time for them to decide who went where. For now, they were in a hotel, days before Christmas, and there was plenty for them to see as they left their room and wandered around.

As they went walking, Lucas kept Hunter in one arm and kept hold of MJ's hand with the other. Wyatt was in full exploration mode, a spaceship captain on an away mission. They may not have had a contract of their own, but going by how the girls' sleepover had so far resulted in the boys getting together to have one of their own, it left Lucas to wonder what this would mean in the years to come. For now, it almost went without saying, as Maya's siblings – and any others along for the ride – were young enough that they were still homebound for the most part, with very little in the way of individual lives, away from the others. What would happen once they weren't living at home anymore, once they were all off at school somewhere, or living on their own, maybe somewhere else than Austin or Tucson…

He liked to think that, in ten years' time, twenty, thirty… they would still have this, some form of this anyway. It was a great tradition to share among them, and as far as he was concerned he would do everything in his power, just as he knew Maya would, too, to keep it going, year after year, after year.

X

"Where are we going?" Emma asked, as the group of girls walked along the lane, following Maya's lead. She had Haley in her arms, the smallest Hunter looking around with clear, curious eyes.

"Far, far away… to another world…" Maya intoned dramatically, looking into her baby sister's face, which soon split into a smile and then a laugh.

"What does that mean?" Eliza asked, frowned, not catching on.

"Hey, I get to have my surprises, too," Maya turned to her, in her normal voice once again, getting another of her sisters to laugh.

This other world was soon revealed to be inside a massive looking structure, once upon a time part of another farm, further along from where the Sandersons lived. When the old family had moved away, the new owners had converted the building near the house into something of an attraction for the locals, every winter. Whether or not the weather gave them a snowy, chilled winter, there was one place they could count on for a bit of wintry fun.

"I know! I know where we're going!" Nellie declared at once, turning back to Maya, who gave her a look. Nellie pressed her lips together and played innocent at once.

"Woah…" Ginny Chen breathed as they walked in, a sentiment shared by all of those who weren't familiar with the 'In and Out Rink,' called as much for the wide doors pushed open on the days where the weather allowed, turning the place in a long tunnel where the skating rink had been built.

"I don't have skates… None of us have skates," Eliza pointed out.

"They have skates, we can borrow them, come on, I'll show you," Nellie led the way, soon followed by Gracie, Ginny, Sadie, Eliza, Emma, and Cara. Maya watched them go before looking to the other two at her side. Dora knew the place fairly well, having grown up in the area. And then…

"I'm sorry, it was short notice, first thing I could think of," she told Cecilia, knowing there would be no sound reason for her to get on skates and go out there with the rest of them.

"It's fine, I don't mind," Cecilia assured her. "Sam and I come here sometimes, we'll just sit and watch the others skate… I like it here," she smiled. "You can leave Haley with me if you want to go out there with them."

Maya stayed on the sidelines to watch for a while, amused at the sight of her sisters, trailing after one another around the ice. Some were more agile than others. The twins in particular, having gone with their father for about as long as they could stand up on skates, had earned the alliterative nicknames of Natural Nellie and Graceful Gracie. They could do circles around the slightly clumsier Eliza and Sadie, but instead they would go and try to help them, a couple of small instructors. Their methods… varied.

Eventually, Maya had been convinced to join them, once Haley had dozed off in Cecilia's arms. Gracie came gliding toward her as soon as she saw her step on the ice, taking hold of her hand and leading her along to join their group. By the time they all left and started back toward home, the sun was looking to start making its dip before long. The flushed and tired out girls were happy for a simple dinner of pizza, which Maya had called to order as they were leaving the rink, the better to cut on the wait by the time they made it home.

"The power's back," Dora remarked as they arrived. That had been part of the reason why Maya had taken them to skate. They could not have predicted that the outage would happen on the very day where her sisters came to surprise her, but that was what had happened, and rather than going out of their way to find some alternatives, Maya had set her mind to some easy solutions, knowing the power was set to be back in mid-afternoon, and so it was.

The pizza arrived and, for the speed with which it was consumed, was a thing of the past in no time. Between this and the afternoon's activities – and for some of them an early rise followed by a flight – it wasn't long that the little ones were nodding off, and falling asleep like stacked dominos toppling on to one another. They were carried up to the attic, some of them coaxed into sleepily going up of their own power. In the end, all that remained were Maya, Cara, Cecilia, and Dora, sat on the couch and the living room floor, under the lights of the Christmas tree, as they worked to wrap some last minute presents for what would be their 'pre-Christmas' morning. When the boys would be brought back, and as the girls would get up, they would get to have themselves a small gift exchange before the Tucson contingent flew off, some for home, others for Louisiana.

"So, if in like three years or whenever I have to look at colleges, do I get to come here like Sam did?" Cara inquired. Maya looked at her, surprised and unsurprised by this question. It wasn't the first time Cara would ask if she might move in with her sister, of course the first time around had been under much different circumstances.

"If that's what you want, absolutely," Maya told her without hesitation. It might have been something she should consult Lucas on before agreeing, seeing as there was no telling what their lives would be like by then. This was all still just speculation though, so she felt comfortable with answering the way she felt was the right way.

"Really?" Cara blinked, like she'd been certain her sister would say no.

"When the time comes, we will discuss it, alright? You've got my word," she reached out her hand to her sister, who smiled and clasped it with hers. Deal. Thinking about that moment, when Sam would be through with college, and Cara would be starting it… It brought up so many questions, so many curiosities, and none of them could really be answered, could they? Not yet…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners