Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: It's a subject that I haven't really thought about much before: the language all of the personifications are using. At first, I thought they all probably spoke their mother language while the other countries would, for some reason, still be able to understand them. But then I realized that not only "my" Lovi seems to get particularly turned on whenever he hears Spanish (which would mean he's constantly horny around Toni, although that also sounds about right), but also that all of the big, communication problems all the countries of the world have (had), wouldn't have happened if everybody really understood all the world's languages.
So here's my headcanon: every personification knows a language that's understandable for all of the countries, and when they're communicating with another country, they use that specific language. As for their own languages – the other countries don't get much of those.
And there you have it! I hope this explanation makes a bit sense. If not, sorry for my bad English. ^^;;;

A/n2: In this chapter, you'll find out there's a song that Alejo happens to like. It's 'Heads will Roll' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And by the title alone you can totally tell why Alejo likes it so much.

A/n3: There's a possibility that I'm taking a break from updating next week. It's because I'm feeling a little down lately because of, well, the fact that I still can't find a job as a, oh, say, a damn pedagogue. I've been disappointed a lot in the past few weeks and months. It's so sad.
Also, according to my parents, I gained weight. Great, it's like the icing on the cake.
So yeah. I hope you understand. ^^

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 34:

Your children are not "your"children.
Khalil Gibran
(Lebanese artist, poet and writer)

The next morning, the telephone all of a sudden started ringing.

Not my or Antonio's cell phone – no, it was one of Antonio's extremely ugly… how shall I call it… House-phones.

A strange happening, since nowadays those monsters hardly ever rung, unless it was a very important person. Like, well, our bosses or somebody that has got a very close connection to our bosses. For some weird reason they almost never called us on our cells, unless we weren't at home.

Antonio, the kids and I were still having breakfast when it started ringing, and both me and Antonio stared at the ringing freak of machinery (seriously, those House-phones were so damn artsy that even I found them ghastly and creepy) as if we had never seen a telephone before.

'It rings,' Antonio sharply observed, as he handed over a piece of sandwich to Luisa.

'No shit.' I rolled my eyes and wiped Alejo's mouth, since the little bastard had been playing with Nutella again and had his face (and fangs – my god, he had little shark-fangs, the hell) covered with the chocolaty paste. 'Well, what are you waiting for? Go answer it.'

Antonio pouted. 'Why won't you answer it? I don't feel like talking on the telephone…'

'It's probably your boss,' I said, pointing a spoon at him. 'And you're Spain, so yeah. He most-likely wants to speak to you.'

'Can't you tell him I'm sick or something?' Antonio groaned. 'Whenever he or another authority figure calls me, they usually yell at me.'

'Sorry – my Spanish sucks. You know that.'

'Alright, alright…'

Antonio sighed and got up from his chair. He deliberately shuffled towards the telephone like a turtle would shuffle away from incoming danger and just when I thought the phone would stop ringing before he had even touched it, he picked it up.

And…

And he started gibbering in Spanish.

…

O-oh.

I felt some of my muscles tightening in delight as I listened to the heavenly, sensual sounds that were coming out of his mouth. I… I really liked Antonio's mother language. It had such a nice… sound. It was passionate and fiery and it always seemed like Antonio was talking dirty when he was speaking Spanish. I swear, if he really wanted to, he could make me all riled up with his voice alone. While talking about something really not-sexy at all, like… like science or politics.

Thankfully, I was so damn controlled and poised – there was no way you could read from my face how much I was enjoying Antonio's extremely hot conversation on the phone.

'Papa, yah're drooling.'

'…h-huh?'

Matteo grinned a peanut-buttery, crooked smile at me and pointed to the piece of bread on my plate – covered with something that wasn't butter, or Nutella, or peanut-butter, for all that mattered.

'Eww,' Alejo and Luisa said, the latter instantly pushing her plate away from her.

'Hey!' I said, quickly wimping my mouth. 'You eat that piece of bread, young lady! It's not like I drooled on your bread!'

'But I can't eat if you're being all slimy over Papa Toni!'

'I'm not being… slimy over Papa Toni!'

'No, you're… you're poop!' Luisa's eyes started sparkling the freaking second she brought up her favorite subject again. 'Slimy poop!'

'AWESOME!' Alejo cried out, smearing Nutella all over his bread with his damn hands. 'Look look, Lulu, I have poop on my bread!'

'Gross!' Luisa enthusiastically cheered. 'I'll drink some of my pee while you eat your poop-bread!'

And she happily took a big gulp of apple juice while Alejo sunk his teeth into the bread.

Meanwhile, Matteo watched his siblings with a face that got greener by the passing second, and I watched Matteo with a face that got paler by the passing second.

Eventually, Matteo slowly turned his head to me. 'P-papa, I-I feel weird…'

Then he started gagging.

…

…

Oh brother.

This wasn't going to end well, was it?

\0o0/

Less than a minute later, I tried to calm down a bawling Matteo that was covered in puke and peanut-butter. I also sent both Luisa and Alejo into two separate corners of the dinner room, nagging they had it fucking coming, dammit, for talking about shit and piss during breakfast, and then Matteo yelped and barfed again.

Luckily, Antonio had left the room before the disgusting things happened, so he, hopefully, wasn't able to hear the kids cry – yep, after Matteo had vomited and I had snarled against Luisa and Alejo to cut it out, they all started crying, dammit, fucking loudly, too, and I couldn't even flee from it because… because…

…well, that wouldn't be very responsible, right?

So yeah. I sat there with Matteo and his barf-trash all over me, hoping Antonio would hurry the fuck up and help me out here before I would completely fucking lose it.

And yes, my prayers were answered when Antonio finally walked back into the dinner room, looking kind of confused at first – but then instantly changed his facial expression to disgust when he saw all the puke and bawling kids.

'Do… do I dare to ask what happened here?' he asked me with a nervous smile.

'Ask that those two lovely bundles of joy over there,' I darkly said, standing up with Matteo still dangling in my arms. 'Those scrawny miniature fuckers made Matteo puke all over us, goddammit.'

Luisa sneakily glanced over her shoulder. 'Sheesh, papa, you swear too fucking much.'

I gasped. 'Oh my— YEAH, LIKE YOU SHOULD TALK!'

'YELLING!' Alejo chirped in.

'YOU SHOULDN'T SWEAR, DAMMIT!'

'YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN, YOU LITTLE TWERP!'

'MORE YELLING!'

'ENOUGH ALREADY!' Antonio suddenly howled, louder than all of us together.

The kids and I instantly shut up, staring at the Spaniard bewilderedly.

'You two,' Antonio said to Alejo and Luisa, the dangerous tone still present in his voice, 'sit on your chairs again and prepare yourself for a major punishment!'

Alejo and Luisa's lower lips started quivering in fear, but they obeyed and hastily crawled back on their chairs again. In the meantime, Antonio turned to look at me and Matteo.

'And you should go clean yourself and Teo up, Lovi. You smell like… well, I don't even want to know. Okay?'

'O-okay,' I stammered, mesmerized by the way he could apparently calm down that quickly, and allowed him to push me out of the door.

'H-hey,' I still asked him before leaving worriedly, 'you're not really going to punish the kids, are you? Like… spanking them or something? Because I don't want you to do that.'

Antonio gave me a weird look. 'Of course not – I'm just going to hear them out and preach until they promise me to stop acting like the mean little demon children they can be. You should take care of our little man in the meantime.'

He patted Matteo's head, who sniffled and muttered he smelt like nightmare-rabbits.

…

Moving on.

'By the way,' Antonio said, who in spite of my filthy appearance still wrapped his arms around me for a moment, 'I have something nice to tell you, sweetie!~'

'What,' I wanted to ask him – but I couldn't, because he pressed a big kiss on my lips and let go of me immediately after, grinning excitedly.

'I'll tell you if you come back, okay? Have fun bathing, my stinky love!~'

I nodded absentmindedly. 'Yeah, I—HEY!'

Antonio chuckled and kissed me again. 'Just kidding – you smell like daisies, always. Covered in puke or not. Let's have sex tonight.'

My jaw hit the floor – I swear it fucking hit the floor.

'W-where did that come from!' I stuttered, blushing.

'Oh, you don't want to?'

'I-I... I AM HOLDING AN INNOCENT SOUL IN MY HANDS HERE, ANTONIO!'

'Yes! That's why he doesn't know what we're talking about here anyway. Do you, kiddo?'

'I wanna be a burd when I grows up,' Matteo secretively whispered.

'And a cute bird you will be.' Antonio kissed Matteo as well, gave me one last wink and then he finally closed the door.

…

…

What on earth…?

\0o0/

You'd think I had experienced more than enough weird shit by now, but nope – it actually got even stranger.

Because when Matteo and I got ourselves crispy clean again, Matteo asked me why I had started drooling when Papa Toni was talking. And that seems like a very normal and easy to understand question, but he had to repeat himself five times before I finally got what he was trying to tell me.

You see, his question went like this:

'Ya really lokked sully, Papa Lovi, yo're drooling and ewwww, and all over your braed twoo!'

…

That kid needed some speaking lessons, as soon as possible. He sounded like a fucking turkey-chick, with his silly little clokclokclok ewwwwwww twoooo babblings.

'Well,' I nevertheless said, while I pulled a shirt over his way too large kid-head, 'I looked silly because your Papa Toni spoke in a… very nice language.'

'Languaguganugane,' Matteo tried. 'Papa Toni spoke in a nece lasagna!'

'Yeah whatever.' I grinned and rolled my eyes. 'Anyway, Matteo, you probably didn't understand what Papa Toni was talking about, but I think it was—'

'He tokked about vacation!' Matteo cut me off.

I looked at him in surprise. 'You know what he talked about?'

'Yea!' Matteo gave me a very proud smile. 'Papa Toni tokked about vacation in Turkey and free and monny from piss and… and… SCHWIMMING POULLLS!'

Once again, my jaw dropped.

'Wit slides!' Matteo finished his answer, and then focused all his attention on a piece of soap.

I'm not entirely sure why, but somehow, the fact that Matteo apparently understood Spanish made my heart race in panic. Since Antonio and I and… well, I guess pretty much all the other countries talked in an unknown language we could all understand and speak, discovering that one of our kids knew one of his parents' languages as well was… kind of unsettling.

I mean, this probably was the very first time Antonio had talked in Spanish with the kids nearby. There was no way they could have instantly picked up the language like that…

…r-right?

…

I had to talk about this with Antonio.

\0o0/

You'd think I certainly had seen and heard more than enough strange things now BUT NO, you're wrong again, because yes – it got ever worse.

'Lovino!' Antonio gasped secretively as soon as Matteo and I returned from the bathroom, 'Alejo can speak Spanish!'

'What?' I stammered, putting Matteo down on the floor – who instantly ran to his brother and sister, who were watching television in the living room.

Meanwhile, Antonio and I went into the kitchen. I noticed Antonio's happiness and glee had made room for fear and concern, but I didn't say anything about it – he probably was going to tell me about his worries anyway and pointing these things out never made the situation better.

'He doesn't know what he's saying,' Antonio said, as soon as we sat down, 'but he speaks Spanish fluently. I know it when I hear a native speaker– and I swear, Lovi, Alejo sounded just like a full blood Spaniard. It even made me forget my anger, so I let him and Luisa off the hook for now. I hope you're okay with that.'

I wasn't – you have to be consequent with kids, dammit! – but I was too rattled by this second discovery to voice my thoughts and feelings about his lousy pedagogic insight. I did voice my thoughts and feelings about my own discovery, though.

'It's… it's the other way around with Matteo: he can't speak Spanish, but he understands it perfectly!'

Antonio frowned, skeptical. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes, dammit! He knew you were talking to someone about a vacation in Turkey – apparently for free, is that true? – and you were also talking about piss.'

'…piss?'

'That's what Matteo said!'

'But I don't remember talking about piss… oh, wait, maybe he meant… PPSS?'

Now it was my turn to give Antonio a weird look. 'PPSS? What's PPSS?'

Antonio shrugged. 'Beats me. An organization of some sorts, I think. They're apparently working for every single country, the well-being of each and every personification as their main goal. We don't know about them because they're very secret or something. I even called my boss to be sure I didn't have some kind of phony on the phone – oh, look at that pun – and he confirmed it himself.'

'And this organization wants to pay for our vacation in Turkey?' I asked.

'Yes!' Antonio spontaneously got excited again. 'I was talking to Miss Spain – the Spanish associate or something, it wasn't her real name – and she told me that Mr. Pita, the director of the PPSS, offers us and all the other European countries a vacation in a luxurious resort in Turkey!'

'Really?'

'As real as steel!'

'But… why?'

'Because we have had a very difficult time, thanks to England, and our bosses want to make it up to us like this. Hence they suggested we should go on a vacation – remember?'

I nodded slowly, but I still didn't fully understand.

'It was England's fault for bringing the kids into our lives, right? So why the hell should our bosses apologize?'

'Well… the kids are England's fault, yes – but we also had a very hard time before the kids came. You know, because of all the tests and the separation and weird investigations?'

'…oh, right. They said that in that letter as well, yes.'

'Exactly.' Antonio smiled. 'And I think it's very nice of our bosses and this Mr. Pita to send us all on a nice, free vacation to Turkey!'

'Us all?' I furrowed my brows. 'What do you mean, us all?'

'Well, of course they offered this vacation to more European countries, Lovino – and Miss Spain told me quite a few other personifications will go to Turkey as well!'

'Are you telling me you already decided we're going?'

Antonio smiled ever so brightly at me. 'As soon as I found out that this Miss Spain lady wasn't lying, I called her back and told her you, I and our lovely children would be glad to join the bus ride to Turkey. We're leaving tomorrow!~'

'What?' I felt myself getting agitated. 'Why the hell didn't you discuss this with me first!'

'But we have discussed this!' Antonio pouted. 'In the hotel, remember? You said you'd like to go to Turkey. The only thing left to do was all those annoying things, like searching for a nice resort and checking if we could even afford a vacation like that, and now everything's already done! The only thing left for us to do is pack our bags and prepare ourselves for a very fun vacation!'

I stared at Antonio, who looked very satisfied and happy with his – rather impulsive – decision, and wondered if I should stay mad at him or just accept the situation as it was. He meant well, after all, and a free vacation is a wonderful thing. Also, he checked if the vacation offer was real with his boss, first, so he did spend some time thinking it over.

…

…

Oh what the crap.

'Alright,' I finally said, sighing and running a hand through my hair, 'I guess it's okay.'

Antonio laughed, obviously relieved to see I wasn't angry with him anymore, and shove his chair closer to mine.

'And as for the boys and their broken knowledge of Spanish… it probably is a very good development, for I haven't ever seen a human kid (that heard Spanish for the first time) picking up the language that fast.'

I couldn't do much more than agree with him on that.

\0o0/

Well!

So Antonio, the kids and I got ourselves a nice vacation to Turkey, and we didn't have to pay shit for it. A very strange and unusual happening, since it's been a long time since my or Antonio's boss had offered us anything for free – as I already told you, our bosses most of the time think it's way more fun to call us and rant as us for not-being healthy enough – but hey, why the fuck not accept this vacation?

We have had a pretty tough time. We were certainly going to experience a lot more tough times, I just knew we were, so what personification wouldn't go on a holiday, sit back and relax, now that they were still able to?

A fucking stupid personification wouldn't, and I sure as cheeseballs didn't want to be a fucking stupid personification, so we were going on that damn vacation!

As soon as Antonio and I were done talking about this subject in the kitchen, we went back to the living room and informed the kids about what we were going to do for the upcoming few days. Namely, packing and making sure we wouldn't forget anything.

Good thing we also bought these cute kid-trolleys when we went shopping last week.

'Alright kids,' I started, while Antonio placed a green trolley with a flower, a red trolley with a racecar and yellow trolley with a creepy smiley-face on the little side table in front of the TV, 'tomorrow, we're going on vacation! Does anybody know what that means?'

The three kids stared blankly at me, frowning. They probably were a little annoyed at me because I had brutally turned the TV off like that, but I'd rather go to a sauna with both Russia and France than I'd give in to those unruly brats sitting on that couch. Cartoon Network could fucking wait.

'So nobody knows what a vacation is?' Antonio then asked, a bit disappointed.

Eventually, Matteo raised a little hand.

'Yes?' Antonio said.

'I havta pee.'

'No, that's not what a vacation is.'

'Aw man.' Matteo lowered his arm.

'Anybody else?'

Matteo hesitantly raised his hand again.

Antonio sighed. 'Yes, Teo?'

'I havta pee.'

'Okay, I'll bring you to the bathroom.' Antonio gently took Matteo's small hand is his own big one. 'After all, I don't feel like cleaning little-boy-pee. I've done that more than enough when I was younger, haven't I, Lovi?'

I glared at his grinning face. 'Right. For now, I'm going to pretend you didn't say those blatant lies. But I will think of a way to smite you later, you cheeky asshole.'

'I sure hope it involves squirrels.'

'Stop fucking mocking me, dammit.'

Antonio just laughed at me like the assfuck he was ('Ahahahahahahahaha I'm so funny OUCH why did you headbutt me') and then he excused himself for a bit, so he could bring Matteo to a toilet and make the waterworks go into… the right… directions.

…

With parents like us, it really is no wonder the demon children enjoyed their talks about piss and shit.

\0o0/

Enough time wasted, dammit!

'A vacation,' I started explaining right away as soon as Antonio and Matteo had returned from their way too lengthy visit to the toilet, 'is like a break you take from real life. And most European people go on a trip to another country during that break, so that they can chill and swim and hang out in a place they haven't ever been before and where people don't even speak their language. That is, apparently, considered as something typical… vacation-esk.'

Alejo, Matteo and Luisa looked at each other like judges of some sort of shitty talent show that didn't know how to bring a desperate singer the unfortunate news that his singing made people die.

'It sounds bad,' Alejo finally said. 'Is vacation even fun?'

'It is! It's totally fun!' Antonio defended our free vacation.

I nodded. 'Papa Toni's right, kids, going on a vacation is a lot of fun. You get to meet new friends, you have nice weather, you can eat the tastiest dishes every day and… your papa's will have all the time of the world to play with you!'

Now that sounded a lot better, I could tell from the kids cute, beaming faces. Except for Luisa's face, since she didn't want to smile and frowned at me like a wrinkly old lady.

'So on vacation, you and Papa Toni can play with us every day?' she – very nonchalantly of course – asked.

'Certainly,' Antonio answered in my place, sitting down next to her.

'You don't have to go away?' Luisa carried on – and tried to ignore Antonio, who was now teasingly poking her cheek and purring how cute and red she looked.

'No,' I said, making a stern face at Antonio, 'we'll be around you all the time and we can, I don't know, teach you how to swim in the ocean and shit. Stuff, I mean. Not shit. And – seriously, Luisa, if that bastard annoys you too much, feel free to punch him in the nose.'

But Luisa shook her head, mumbled something I didn't catch and smiled a bit, all without losing the firm fold in her forehead. She did eventually swat away Antonio's hand, but not as viciously as I had done when I was her age.

'And maybe,' Antonio said while rubbing his hand with a pained smile, 'Papa Lovi and I will have to kill some daring boys that try to flirt with you!~'

'Oh, oh! I'll join you!' Alejo instantly insisted.

I groaned. 'Antonio, she's fucking three years old. Don't move forward too fast, dammit. She's still safe from boys her age as long as she's a young kid. You act like she's a teenager already.'

Antonio snorted. 'She will be, one day.'

'Well, that will take a long time, especially if she turns out to be just like us.'

'Hm-hm,' Antonio said, sounding strangely monotone all of a sudden. He looked at Luisa and then he looked at his hands and then he looked at me. Right then, he had some sort of depressing insecurity in his eyes that I knew way too well to be confronted with it for too long, so I hastily forced myself to concentrate my attention on the kids.

'So anyway, twerps, let's get busy! We're going on a vacation tomorrow, and we still have to pack all kinds of things. But look!' I stiffly pointed to the three kid-friendly trolleys. 'These are for you! Pick one and start packing away.'

'Yay!' Matteo cheered, and immediately went for the green, girly, flowery trolley. I wasn't even surprised, because Matteo.

'Imma gonna pack all of my toys,' Alejo enthusiastically muttered, licking his lips in a way that made my blood feel kind of cold all of a sudden, and jumped on the red trolley with the racecar on it. I just knew Alejo was going for that one – not because of the cool car on the front, but because of the very nice shade of red.

Finally, Luisa was stuck with the yellow trolley, but like her brothers, she was very happy with it and observed the trolley on the side table with her hands in her sides, grinning a triumphant smile.

'And what are you going to pack?' Antonio asked her, crouching down next to her.

Luisa gasped and flung her tiny arms over the trolley, as if she wanted to hide it from her Spanish father.

'I'm not telling you I'm taking all of my books with me!'

'That's too bad.' Antonio sighed, not very convincingly. 'But let me and Papa Lovi at least help you out with packing everything. We'd feel bad if you forgot something important.'

'Hmmmmm,' Luisa mused, watching me and Antonio critically while stroking her chin like she was stroking an evil cat or something, 'welllllll… okay. Come.'

She (very casually, of course) grabbed his hand, hobbled over to me to grab mine as well, and started pulling on our hands. Her little nails scratched the palm of my hand and she did nag a lot at us when we didn't follow her quick enough to her liking, but my god, I think this was the very first time she instinctively took our hands, and that was just beautiful.

\0o0/

At first, I wanted to let the kids pack their shit all by themselves, because one: that would be a good exercise and a test to see if the kids were a bit responsible, and two: less work for me and Antonio, since I already knew packing my and his bag would be a fucking Tetris-game that wasn't going to end very well and I could totally picture us in Turkey, having forgotten all of the important stuff, like little wet throw-away towels and some decent trunks.

But while Antonio and I were paying attention to what Luisa and her brothers were packing, we found out that they probably were a wee bit too young to really understand what was important to take with them on vacation.

For example, I saw Matteo fill his trolley with wooden blocks ('I liek blocks!'), stuffed animals ('They get loley witouuuut me'), diapers ('Theese pants are cool!'), a bucket full of earth ('I wanna grow a tree in Turkie, ehehehehe!') and, yes, Mia.

'The fuck,' I commented when he dragged his half-empty and half-destroyed trolley over to me, beaming with joy.

'Nawww, no fick,' Matteo giggled, 'it's mah trolledy! I packed it!'

'Um,' I slowly said.

'Alllllll by mahselv!'

'Um,' I said again.

'Good of me, eh!'

Matteo stared at me, his hazel eyes sparkling behind his red glasses with pride, although I also saw a slight glimpse of anxiety, like he was scared I wouldn't like his packed material.

…

…

Well fuck me.

'L-let's look what your brother has packed, shall we!' I cowardly beat around the trolley-bush, and took Matteo with me to Alejo, who was also just finished packing his shit.

'Papa Lovi!' Alejo smiled brightly. 'Look what I'm taking with me!'

I took a big, deep breath, expecting the worst, and looked into the opened trolley like I would look into an opened coffin.

To my amazement, it wasn't that bad. Sure, he had packed his plastic axe with him and he even managed to put some corpses of dead insects in it, but other than that, his trolley was filled with pretty normal things. Like his Playstation 3, a CD-player, a mask of a vampire and a slightly unsettling track about a woman singing that heads will roll or something that Alejo loved listening to, at the moment.

'Okay,' I said, relieved, and gave Alejo an approving smile. 'Not too bad, kid!'

'I rule,' Alejo decided, and ran back to his bed to hysterically hop up and down on it. Matteo, who admired Alejo even more than he admired those flashy people in gay parades, chirped a loud 'YAAAA!' and climbed on his brother's bed as well, joining him in the jump-fest.

I watched them for a while, making sure Alejo wouldn't accidentally flatten Matteo, but then my attention was drawn to Luisa and Antonio, who were busy packing my sour-but-also-cute-looking daughter's trolley.

'How does it go?' I asked as I sat down next to them.

'GREAT!' Luisa excitedly exclaimed – which was the exact opposite opinion of Antonio, who mouthed 'awful' at me and nodded to the trolley.

Luisa hadn't lied when she had unwillingly let us know that she would take books with her, because that's what was inside her trolley – books. Lots of it.

I'm not only talking about her own books – comic books, fairytale books, silly carton books – but also commercial flyers, a thick, broad geographic book that didn't fit, some drawings she made, the picture album Antonio and I had bought and filled after we had accepted the children as our own and diverse extremely big books that she randomly had pulled out of Antonio's bookshelf because she found the pictures on the books pretty (like 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Lolita' – and my god, that girl had developed such a bizarre taste for art).

I gaped at the trolley and didn't know what to say, I just shrugged and gave Antonio a helpless "well what the hell can I say about this" -look.

'Um,' Antonio said, 'Lulu? Don't you think you're bringing too many books with you?'

'No!' Luisa reacted, fairly predictably.

'But… but these are… a lot of books, princess.'

'So?'

I scowled at her. Alright, enough with that bratty attitude.

'Watch your tongue, young lady, that's your dad you're dissing, dammit. Show some respect! And only take the books you're actually going to read with you!'

Luisa's face turned red, from anger, this time.

'But!' she snarled, stomping her feet, 'I'll read them all!'

'Oh really, now.'

'Yes!'

I sighed. Luisa could brag about her intelligence all that she wanted, but I knew she couldn't read yet. She only looked at the pictures of her kid-books, and sure, she did know a few words and she really couldn't wait to start reading, but come on – she had even packed that nightmare-bookstopper from Marcel Proust! Marcel fucking Proust!

However, I knew Luisa a bit by now – and I knew I had to come over as a very serious and well-read man when I snorted and gave her an intense look.

'Very well, in that case, I expect you to read during our vacation, each and every day.'

'I will!' Luisa said.

'Great! So that means you can't play, swim or do other kid-related stuff, because you'll be reading the entire time. I guess we'll leave your swimsuit and dolls here, then.'

'Wh-wha…?'

'I really thought you'd like this swimsuit,' I carried on, nonchalantly taking her brand-new, pink swimsuit with cute frills to the sides and heart-patrons plastered all over it out of the kids' closet, 'and these are the last nice summer days of this year, too, but oh well – you can always swim next year, right!'

Luisa gasped in shock (we'd all be shocked if we had to wait a whole year before we could swim with frilly things, after all) and indeed, victory was mine.

Yay.

So a few moments later, I contently helped Luisa with throwing out all the monstrously big books and replacing them with dolls, stuffed animals, and – of course – her swimsuit.

Great! Now all Antonio and I had left to pack, was…

…

Everything else.

…

It's a good thing I slept in this morning.