That night after dinner, Yuzu and Ururu helped in the kitchen along with Emily. They told Tessai about their grape juice plan and he agreed to help. Meanwhile, Chad, Bobby and Karin persuaded Koga to take the kids cranberry-picking on Wednesday.
Tuesday's pageant practice did not go very well. Everyone kept messing up on The Twelve Days of Christmas song. In addition, Bess, Orihime, and Dan were badly off key.
"You're tone deaf, Bess," Nat chuckled.
"Not as bad as Orihime!"
"Well, it's Dan's fault, I'm singing in his key," Orihime complained.
"Don't look at me, I'm singing to Ichigo's bass," Dan defended.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my bass," Ichigo said proudly.
"Guys, we're never going to get anywhere if we keep fighting," Nat said.
"Then why memorize all these words?" Nan retorted.
"Yeah, why can't we sing Rudolf or Jingle Bells?" Bobby added.
"Because this is for the adults and those are kid songs," Nat sighed.
The grape juice didn't go well either. They didn't pick nearly enough for one cup and they had three empty baskets.
"They're not sweet enough," Jinta worried.
"We'll pick more tomorrow and add sugar," Yuzu said. Because of these extra activites, they also did not do so well in school. The kids had never seen Ikkaku so mad when he wasn't in a battle.
"I don't know what you kids are up to, but you all failed your book reports. Uryu and Ichigo, there is no reason why you two should get such low grades." Bess was about to protest when Ikkaku put his hand up.
"I'm not done yet. 'I don't know how my book ends because I'm too tired to read it'—Dan," He read with a disgusted look on his face. "Nat, Ichigo, and Uryu-'and then stuff happened'."
"And finally," he said, holding up a drawing, "This is how Nan described her book."
Slapping the papers on his desk, he said, "We are going to sit here until you all redo your book reports. Then we will remain till dinner so you can all finish the homework no one bothered to do."
After dinner at eight, the kids slunk to their beds. The weekend came slower then any of them ever could have imagined. They tried the grape juice twice more, and on their fourth try they finally got it right.
"Well now, I knew you guys could do it," Tessai said happily. "Now all you need to do is pick, I don't know, about a hundred baskets of grapes and then get someone to sell it," he finished. The kids were more then happy when Ikkaku went to train on Saturday. In the morning, they rehearsed the song.
"It's still pretty bad, Nat," Bobby said while patting him on the shoulder.
"Maybe I can help," Emily said with a smile as she walked in. They all looked at her as she thought for a minute.
"Why don't you each try singing a verse?" she suggested.
They did so and it worked like a charm. The kids' celebration was cut short when Kenpachi entered with an urgent message.
"Ichigo, Chad, Uryu, you all need to come immediately. The Espada are attacking the World of the Living!" The three boys ran out in a hurry as Emily and the kids looked on in surprise.