Hello again my fanfictioners. I am sorry for the slow updates, I will promise that they will begin to speed up soon. I have decided that I'm going to start jumping a few days at a time now otherwise this story will just drag along since it takes years to teach a child stuff but Jasper's going to be a fast-ish learner since he is already familiar with some of the child related things.
Disclaimer: I do not own twilight
Esme's POV- 3 days later
All of my children were currently studying or writing as part of their education. I was qualified to teach them but it was sometimes difficult to keep up with them. Although Emmett and Edward were the same age, Edward was a lot smarter as was Rosalie. Alice, too, was smart for her young age so the level of what she was working at was close to her older siblings.
If Jasper was going to become a part of our family like I hoped, then we should start treating him like we would with the others; therefore since I am not teaching the rest of my children as they were working on their own then I'll start teaching Jasper instead. I would have to do this on my own because Carlisle was working at the hospital today but I'm sure that I could manage. I just had to make sure that I don't scare him; especially because of what had happened when he had heard Emmett playing on his Xbox.
Over the past few days, Jasper had stayed close to Rose and Carlisle. He had taken those days off to help Jasper adjust but I reassured him that I could cope so he was back at work today. I had Jasper in a separate room because he gets easily distracted with Rosalie in the same room.
I had placed pieces of plain paper on the tiled carpet with coloring pencils which is where Jasper was crouching; scribbling with a yellow pencil. Today, I was going to attempt to teach him how to write letters of the alphabet. It's the first stage to get him writing and spelling.
"What are you drawing, Jasper?" I asked him, gently.
He looked up at me and then down at the paper again as if he was trying to figure the answer out himself. He then pushed the piece of paper away and grabbed a new one. I took out the pack of cards with the letters of the alphabet and sat down on the ground next to him. He watched me cautiously but didn't move away like I thought he would. I placed the letter 'A' in front of him which his eyes moved on to.
"Ah, Can you say that for me? Ah" I repeated.
He licked his lips which was a good sign because it was a gesture he did when he was preparing to say something.
"Ah" he replied quietly.
"Well done" I praised with a smile.
I then took one of the pieces of paper and started drawing the dotted outlines of the letter 'A'.
"Watch me, Jasper" I said as I filled in the outline of the first 'A'.
I looked back at him and noticed how he looked at the letters curiously. I then slowly, very slowly, moved my hand out to touch his which frightened him back a little bit and then he bared his teeth and hissed.
"It's okay, Jasper" I hushed and then tried again.
He let me this time but was watching me with extreme caution. I placed a normal pencil in his hand and brought it to the paper to guide him to draw through the dotted outline to form the letter 'A'. I repeated the action again before releasing his hand.
"Try it, Jasper" I coaxed.
He stared at the paper for a little while longer but then he leaned forward and tried to do it by himself. He was holding the pencil like a child would with clenched fists where his fingers had no control over the direction the pencil will go. I'll fix that soon enough but for now, I'll let him do things his way. Also, like a child, the pencil was digging deep into the paper. He started on the first dot and moved it onto the second and then the next until it was evidently an 'A'.
"Good boy, Jasper" I praised once again.
That encouraged him to try again, and then again until all the dots were filled in and the page was full of the letter 'A'.
"Now watch" I told him before drawing the letter again but with no dots for him to trace this time. This time, I wanted him to copy the letter and I had left him some space to do so. Again, Jasper leaned forward and very slowly tried to copy the 'A' that I had wrote. The lines he was drawing were very wobbly but you could still tell that it was the first letter of the alphabet.
"Good job. Now let's try the letter 'B'" I said as I showed him the second card.
Jasper eventually got the hang of it so I left him to draw through the dotted outlines of each letter as he made the sound of them, too. I have learnt that he has a difficulty pronouncing some letter's such as T, S and K but it's not as difficult if words begin with those letters. I checked on the rest of my children and as per usual, Edward had whizzed though his work with Alice not far behind.
"Alright kids, you deserve a break" I told them after hearing Emmett sigh in frustration.
"Thank god" he muttered as he closed the lid of his laptop.
"Is Jasper okay?" Rosalie asked me.
"Yeah, he's getting the hang of the alphabet" I informed her.
"Mind if I help him?" She questioned.
Jasper makes better progress with Rosalie because when he is with anybody else, all focus is lost but he enjoys Rosalie's attention like all kids love the attention from a member of their family. I nodded at her and she walked in the room that Jasper was in. Yesterday, Carlisle and I had rearranged the furniture so it left a room near empty so it could be the room we mainly used to teach Jasper. It only contained the equipment that Jasper can use, a sofa for when he learns the use of it and the coffee table that he seemed to like although he had avoided sitting on top of it for now which is good.
We had chosen the room that had the tiled carpet so that it was easier to clean up any mess as I am thinking ahead for when we start to introduce other things to him such as paint and play dough although he would need to be supervised at all times in case he decides to explore the taste of it. Jasper was still sitting on the floor but with Rosalie by his side this time. He had a smile on his face as Rose drew dotted lines to spell out the name of each person in the family. Jasper had already made a start on joining the dots but his eyes flickered to Rosalie every now and then.
"That's it, Jasper. Good job" she praised as he finished writing the first name which was hers. Jasper grinned at the tone of her voice, knowing that it meant he did a good thing. I was surprised that over the past few days, we still didn't need to use the mat in Carlisle's study to use as a punishment. Rosalie and Carlisle were able to keep his behaviour in control so we had no reason to punish him. Carlisle had planned to use it if he growled or showed any signs of some sort of animalistic noise or aggression but so far he only made those noises when he was so afraid that we couldn't find it in our hearts to stop him.
We definitely needed to find ways to reward him though. He was doing better than we had expected with improvement and at the moment, he thought that his only reward was food and shelter.
"What does that say, Jazz?" Rosalie asked him as she pointed to the second completed written now on the paper. He started to make shapes with his mouth but Rose knew that he needed help.
"Em-mett" Rose said slowly, encouraging Jasper to copy her.
"Em" he mumbled shyly.
"Emmett" Rosalie repeated.
"Emmy" Jasper tried again.
It was the 'T' in Emmett's name that Jasper was struggling with as well as the 'D' in Edward's name but for some strange reason, he found it easy to pronounce 'daddy' to Carlisle. Perhaps it was because he had used that word when he was younger. I knew how much it meant to Carlisle when Jasper had called him that and I had definitely noticed his change in behaviour. He had become more attached.
"Good" Rose complimented.
We both know that he'll eventually get the hang of it.
"Now try this name. Spell out each of the letters" Rosalie told him.
Jasper's eyes looked at the words the Rosalie was pointing at and the licked his lips again.
"Ah, la, i, ca, eh" Jasper tried slowly.
"The 'ca' makes a 'sss' sound. Can you say the word for me" Rosalie encouraged.
"Ah…li..ss" he spelled out in between pauses.
"Well done, Jasper. Alice" Rosalie said again.
Jasper turned his head towards the window which showed Alice out in the garden with a note book in her hand. She was probably sketching the trees since drawing is a hobby and she was good at it, too.
"Alice" Jasper whispered as he watched her.
It was clear that he was familiar with who she was and he took a liking to her more than he did with the boys but he still preferred Rosalie with no surprise.
"You said that as clear as you can say my name. Great job, Jazz" Rose exclaimed.
Jasper didn't seem to notice her voice this time as his focus still remained on Alice outside.
"Do you want to go in the garden?" I asked him.
Jasper's eyes quickly turned to look at me as if he had understood my question perfectly. It made sense. The garden is like the whole world to a child so he must have loved it before his childhood was taken from him. He nodded, warily as he grabbed Rosalie's sleeve and clenched his fist into the clothing.
"Come on, let's go, then" Rose told him as she stood him up and led him outside.
He smiled in excitement and as soon as she opened the door, he ran up to Alice and tilted his head at her work. Part of me feared that he would run away but I knew that he wouldn't go anywhere without Rosalie. Besides, after recognizing Carlisle as a father figure, surely that meant he understood that this was now his family.
"Hey, Jasper" Alice said warmly as she turned to him.
He rested his chin on her shoulder as he looked to the drawing and then the trees.
"Do you like it?" She asked him.
He replied with a small smile while continuing to look at the picture and the tree like he was playing spot the difference. Alice ripped a separate page out of her sketch book and gave it to Jasper as well as a green pencil.
"Try and draw the trees too" Alice encouraged.
Jasper listened and began to scribble on the page but he tried to focus on the shape of the tree although he found it rather difficult. Alice continued with her drawing, too. Both Rose and I just watched as Jasper was acting more and more human as well as doing so by bonding even if he didn't realise it. Alice even looked back at us and smiled; also noticing his improvement.
It was great to know that Jasper had been easily handled today without help from Carlisle and minimal from Rosalie. I had honestly thought that something would have happened or he would have got scared again but he has done well. I'm proud of him already.
When Jasper decided that he was finished with his picture, he left Alice's side and gave it to Rose and to my amazement, he had attempted to write her name. The letters were very wobbly and although the 'S' was written backwards as well as the 'E', it was a good attempt considering that he had tried all by himself.
"Thank you, Jasper" Rosalie smiled meaningfully.
Like I said, I was proud of him already.
Sorry again for taking a while to get this chapter up. I'll do my best to speed up. 'Secrets of pain' should be the next updated chapter which should be next week but I might also be able to write two chapters next week so it'll either be this story or 'to love the unloved'.