AN: Woah. Wow. I never thought I would ever get this much support, much less feedback, for any story I would ever write on this site...amazing. You guys are neat. Anyways, seeing as I'm on break for the holidays, here's a present: an actual chapter update. Amazing. xx

AN 7/21/15: This story sure is an adventure...three years in the making. Figured I'd post something to keep up with the update-once-a-year tradition. Plus I'm older now and I'm figuring stuff out. Anyways, enjoy the update.

Skye opened one squinty eye to the sun shining through her bedroom window. She felt unusually calm, until the events of the past night came rushing back to her. The guilt settled back down into her stomach again and Skye sighed, pushing the covers off of her bed and glancing at the clock. It was nearly time to go down for breakfast, and that meant facing Jane again.

Skye climbed out of bed and grabbed her calculus book off of the floor, as well as a pencil and a piece of paper. Rosalind had said writing out her feelings would be easier than speaking them, especially since Skye had a tendency to rant and rave during apologies.

Dear Jane,

Sorry about last night. I guess I just freaked out a little. Your book isn't full of dumb crap.

What else was there to say? Skye wasn't about to confess her pond revelation to Jane, knowing that Jane would take it and run with it to who knows what conclusion.

I acted wrongly and out of spite and jumped to a stupid conclusion. I won't let it happen again. I'm sorry.

Love, Skye

That would do. Skye's stomach began to growl, so she got dressed, stuck Jane's apology into her back pocket, and ran downstairs.

Everyone was puttering around, pulling out bowls and spoons and boxes. It seemed today's breakfast was cereal. Hound was nosing around, licking up spilled bits of Cheerios and Lucky Charms. Batty was showing Ben how to hold cereal in your hand so that Hound would lick it off. Ben squealed as a tongue as big as his hand lapped up the cereal.

Skye slid into her seat and trapped the note under Jane's empty cereal bowl. Jane was up, having decided after her cereal that she needed toast. As Jane wrestled with the toaster, Skye poured herself her cereal and began to munch away.

"Did you sleep well last night?" Iantha asked Skye from across the table.

Skye glanced up. "Oh, yeah, same as always, I suppose," she replied.

"Alright. I ask only because I thought I heard a door slam last night, and seeing as you are most often the culprit behind slamming doors…" Iantha said, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Oh! That! Well, uh, Jane and I had a bit of a disagreement last night, I guess." Jane, having just picked up her cereal bowl (and the note with it) to take it to the dishwasher, stiffened.

"Oh no, did you work it out?" Iantha asked. Skye glanced over Iantha's shoulder, where Jane stood at the dishwasher reading Skye's note. Jane sighed, looked up at Skye, and smiled.

"Yeah, we're all good now, Iantha," Jane answered, returning to the table with her toast. "It was over nothing, don't worry about it."

"Well, that's good," Iantha said, turning to pick up Ben and put him back in his high chair to finish breakfast. "I hate to see sisters so close arguing."

Skye and Jane stacked their fists silently under the table and quietly muttered the Penderwick Family Oath.

Jane, having retired to her secret garden cove after breakfast, read over Skye's apology letter again. This wasn't the first apology note she had received, and would probably not be the last. In fact, everyone in the house had at least a few of Skye's infamous apology notes. Skye hated speaking apologies, considering she was so bad at them, and relished in the fact that she could get away with writing notes to cover her faults. Jane sighed, stuck it in the back of her notebook with the last two notes she had received, and opened back up to where she had left off writing.

"Ok, where did I leave off," Jane said to herself, reading down the page. "Ah, yes. Sabrina Starr had just fallen down the rabbit hole. 'She tumbled down the seemingly endless tunnel as unusual object passed around her-a brass bedframe, a grandfather clock, a full serving set of tea'-what are those called? Anyways, 'Sabrina looked around wildly for something to grab onto, but it seemed no matter what she did she continued to slip downward and downward...'"

Downward and downward did Skye continue to spiral into her insane revelations. Breakfast had only been a small distraction, and as soon as she returned to her room her crazy thoughts hit her again. Did she love him? Did she like him at all? Was it love? Was she just losing her mind? Was Jane right? What would Jeffery think? Wait-would she even tell him? Maybe she was losing her mind.

Skye wrenched over her calculus book and began to try and do some problems to clear her mind.

"'Sabrina, having finally regained a sense of her surroundings, set off down the mushroom-covered path. She could see, out of the corners of her eyes, other sets of eyes watching her descent-' no, no, that doesn't sound right. What about 'Sabrina spied the glimmer of-'"

"Jane! Have you seen Skye?"

Jane jerked her head up. Who had dared to come and shock her out of her writing reverie?

Jeffery's head peered through the wooden trellises. Jane was torn. She had wanted to talk to Jeffery after her conversation with Skye, but she was also right in the middle of a sentence. Jane glanced down quickly. The scene was stuck, anyways. Jane closed her book and looked back up at Jeffery. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Well, I was on my way over when I spotted this sitting next to the pond," Jeffery replied, holding up a camouflage hat and twirling it around his finger. "I'm guessing it's Skye's, and I wanted to return it to her."

"She's in the house, but before you go running off come here. I wanted to ask you something," Jane said. Wait, that sounded weird. "I don't mean to sound weird, I just have a question. Seriously."

Jeffery shrugged and sat down at the bench across from Jane. Jane eyed him. How could she put this delicately? The big long secret proposal speech she had been piecing together in the back of her brain jumped to attention, but the moment didn't seem right.

"Jeffery, have you...I mean, are you...I mean, do you have any relationship experience? I'm trying to write this first love scene for Sabrina Starr but unfortunately I have nothing to draw from. Could you contribute anything?" Jane asked.

"Well, I did have a girlfriend for a short time at the conservatory, but she wasn't anything special. I don't know if I could be of much help here," Jeffery replied.

"Well then...I don't know, describe how you would want your perfect girlfriend to be. I'm trying to figure out Sabrina Starr's internal monologue when she first sees her love interest, try going for something like that."

"OK, I'll do my best. Anything to help the starving writer," Jeffery answered, chuckling. He stretched out his legs and slid down into the bench. "She would be funny, first of all. I would want someone I could joke around with. I'd like her to...hmm...well, I guess she would just be my best friend, she would know me better than I knew myself, and she would be willing to love me as much as I would hopefully love her. Did that make any sense?" Jeffery turned to Jane, who was scribbling fiercely in her notebook.

During Jeffery's monologue, Jane had noticed a few things. Jeffery's eyes had gone starry, and by the end he was clutching Skye's hat to his chest, his head lolling back to look up at the sky.

"Yes! Yes, thank you so much, Jeffery," Jane replied. It was certain. Jeffery must like Skye.

"No problem. See you around, I'm going to go give Skye her hat back," Jeffery said, standing up.

"See ya," Jane replied, waving. As Jeffery walked out, Jane slumped down on the bench. Now what? Her plan, though skewed, had worked somewhat, and she needed to act on it. But if she did anything, Skye would kill her. How would she go about this?

She turned back to her story. As helpful as Jeffery's monologue was, she also didn't have the heart to tell him that Sabrina Starr was likely to be written as aromantic.