A/N: Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the previous chapter. I really appreciate it. I hope you like this next chapter just as much.
Disclaimer: I only own Miranda and her friend Tessa Grantham.
Tessa Grantham was a very dear friend of Miranda. They had been friends since they were in grade school. She was a tall and slightly curvy woman with tanned skin, dark green eyes and long spirally auburn hair. She was also a world famous artist. Dozens of her paintings were hanging in art museums in various parts of the world. When Miranda couldn't think of someplace to take her students for a field trip, Tessa offered to invite them to her home and allow them to paint pictures. At first, Miranda was reluctant to say yes because her students wasn't always on their best behavior, but Tessa wouldn't take no for an answer. She loved children, whether they were well behaved or not.
"Are you sure you're okay with having twenty children in your home at the same time," Miranda asked. She looked worried. "I mean like I said, they aren't the most well behaved group.
"I'm quite sure," Tessa answered with a laugh. "Now when should I be expecting you all?"
"How about two weeks from today? Around 10:00 in the morning?"
"Sounds perfect to me," said Tessa. "I'll be looking forward to seeing you and all the children."
Two weeks had gone by and it was Friday, the day of the children's field trip. Tessa had just taken a fourth batch of cookies out of the oven. Not only did she bake cookies, but also brownies and cupcakes. She had also ordered a three tiered ice cream cake and some pizzas. She spent a lot of money on all this, but it was all worth it. She wanted the children to enjoy their time in her home.
The door bell rang.
As quickly as she could, Tessa opened the door and was greeted by her friend Miranda and Miranda's class of first grade students. With a smile and friendly hello, she welcomed them all into her home. She then led them into her art room where they would be painting pictures.
Four long tables were set up in the room and there were five chairs to each table. Ashley, Emily, Derek, Aaron and JJ sat at one table. Spencer, Will, Beth, Clyde and Elle sat at the next table over. A table behind Ashley, Emily, Derek, Aaron and JJ, sat David, Alex, Grant, Penelope and Jordan. And next to that table was, Haley, Maeve, Jason, Kevin and Savannah. Each child was given a large white poster board, a paint brush and some were instructed to paint whatever they wished.
"Hey," Elle snapped as Emily was now at her side and brushed some green paint on her face.
"What," Emily asked innocently. "Miss Grantham said we could paint whatever we wanted."
"I don't think she meant me!"
"What's going on over there," Miranda questioned.
"Emily tried to paint my face green! Look," Elle cried, pointing to a green smear on the right side of her face.
"But Miss Grantham said we could paint whatever we wanted," Emily said defensively. "and I wanted to paint Elle."
Tessa held back a laugh.
"I'm sorry, I must have not been very clear on my instructions," She began. "I meant you could paint whatever you wanted on the poster board you were given."
"Emily never listens," Elle stuck her tongue out at Emily, who then tried to paint it. Quickly as she could, Elle retrieved her tongue back into her mouth.
"You're lucky I didn't get you that time," Emily threatened.
"That will be enough out of you two," Miranda intervened. "Emily, you get back to your seat. Elle, I'm sure Miss Grantham will allow you to clean yourself up in the bathroom."
Tessa gave her approval and told Elle where she could find the bathroom.
"These children are quite the entertainers," she whispered to Miranda with a smile.
"You don't know the half of it," Miranda said. She was clearly feeling uneasy about having her students in such a nice home. Tessa noticed this right away.
"It's just a house. Whatever damage these children may possibly cause to it, it can be fixed," said Tessa. "So stop worrying and enjoy your time here like the children are." She gave her friend a quick pat on the back.
Elle finally made it back to the room. All traces of green paint were now gone from her face. She glared at Emily before taking a seat. Emily just smirked at her and then continued on with her painting.
"Miss Norton, when is lunch? I'm hungry," Kevin said. His classmates agreed with him. An hour and thirty minutes had already gone by and the children usually ate lunch around that time.
"Do you children like pizza," asked Tessa.
"Yeah!" all the children said in unison.
Tessa and Miranda led the children into the dining room. They were instructed to sit at the large dining room table, while Tessa and Miranda brought the pizzas to them. Most of the children did as they were told, but Spencer, Clyde and Ashley had snuck into the kitchen where all the food was. Their eyes landed on all the desserts.
"Who are all those for," asked Ashley. She pointed at the desserts.
A bit startled, Tessa and Miranda turned to see the three children standing behind them. Tessa placed a hand over her chest to catch her breath.
"You scared us," said Tessa. She let out a laugh.
"We're sorry," the three children said in unison.
"That's alright. Now what did you just ask me,"
"Who are all those for," Ashley repeated her questions from a moment ago. She pointed at the desserts.
"Those are for you and all of your friends," said Tessa. "Help yourselves to as much as you like."
Clyde, Ashley and Spencer were each about to grab a cookie, but were stopped by their teacher.
"Let's wait until you've eaten your lunch first," said Miranda.
"But why can't we just have one," Clyde asked with a pleading look. Spencer and Ashley shared the same look.
"No. You eat lunch first, then you can have desserts." No matter how much the children pleaded with her, Miranda was not going to change her mind.
The children looked towards Tessa for her approval, but she had to agree with her friend.
"I'm sorry," said Tessa with a look of sympathy for the children. "but I promise, after you've eaten lunch, you can have as much of these desserts as you like."
All the children were now seated at the dining room table and were each served a slice of pizza and a cup of blue rasberry juice. After they finished their meals, Tessa surprised them with the ice cream cake along with various cookies, cup cakes and brownies. This was a very pleasant surprise for the children. In no time, they were up out of their seats and rushing towards the all the desserts. Tessa was happy to see the children this way, but Miranda had a feeling that this was a bad idea. Giving a group of first graders an unlimited amount of desserts was never a good idea.
Five minutes later, that feeling that Miranda had, well it was right. The children had ate so much desserts that they were now running and screaming all throughout the house. Tessa seemed to not have a problem with it, though. She just stood there, proudly smiling as the children were enjoying themselves. Miranda was desperately trying to calm them all down.
"Alright, let's all calm down," she tried to say, but was completely ignored.
"Get back here Princess Peanut Butter Head! I need to paint your face with the icing from the cake," shouted Emily. She was chasing Elle around the dining room table with a plate of icing from her slice of cake.
"Stop calling me that," Elle demanded. "and I don't want my face painted with cake icing!"
"But it'll make you look soooooooooo pretty!"
"No it won't!"
Will and Aaron had ran passed Miranda and Tessa with blue satin pillow slips attached to their shoulders. They were pretending to be superheroes. Afraid they were going to ruin the pillow slips, Miranda firmly, but gently grabbed both the boys' arms.
"Hey! What's the idea of this," Aaron demanded.
"Yeah! What are you doing," Will chimed in. "We're on a rescue mission here! You can't just stop us!" Both he and Aaron were struggling to break free from their teacher's grasps.
"How about you take those pillow slips off," Miranda suggested. "I don't want you ruining them for Miss Grantham. And I think she wouldn't want you ruining them either."
"I don't mind it at all. Those pillow slips can always be washed," said Tessa. "Now let these boys go and let them continue on with their rescue mission."
Reluctantly, Miranda released both the boys' arms. Will and Aaron rushed away, continuing on with their so called rescue mission. Miranda was a little upset with Tessa. She just didn't like the fact that she couldn't have control over everything.
"I wish you wouldn't let them run around your house like a bunch of crazy animals."
"Lighten up a bit, Miranda," said Tessa. She gave Miranda a friendly pat on the arm.
"Yeah. Lighten up a bit, Miranda," said David as he and Maeve ran passed the two of them. "Wait. Who's Miranda?" He questioned, stopping suddenly.
"I'm pretty sure that's Miss Norton's first name," said Maeve. She had also stopped.
"I thought her first name was Miss Norton."
"No. It's Miranda. Remember? She told us on the first day of school, but we can't call her it. We have to call her Miss Norton."
"Why?"
"I don't know," said Maeve. She shrugged her shoulders. "I guess it's just the school rules to call your teacher by their last name?"
"No. I mean why is her first name Miranda,"
"I don't know. Maybe her mommy and daddy just really liked that name."
David shrugged his shoulders and scrunched up his nose.
"Eh, seems too boring of a name to me. Maybe they should have went with a more exciting and adventurous name like," David seemed to be in a train of thought as he looked up as if expecting an answer to fall from the ceiling. "like Captain Empire Riddler," he brought his gaze back down on Maeve.
"That does sound like an exciting and adventurous name," Maeve happily exclaimed. "We should really talk to Miss Norton about it later, but first, let's play!" She ran from David, who then chased after her.
As much as Tessa had tried, she was unable to hold back a laugh. However, Miranda was not laughing. Tessa took notice of this, but had no intentions to stop laughing.
"How can you not laugh at that, Captain Empire Riddler," Tessa joked. She lightly nudged Miranda's side with her elbow.
"You're allowing these children to run around your house like a bunch of wild and crazy animals," said Miranda. She was starting to get frustrated. "How are you okay with any of this?"
"They're just a bunch of children having fun. I don't see a problem with that at all," said Tessa. "You seem to be forgetting that I grew up with twelve brothers and sisters. I'm used to all this chaos."
"I brought them here to paint," Miranda protested. "not to eat of bunch of sweets and run throughout the place."
"But they did paint. Now they just want to have a little fun and I'm okay with that," said Tessa. "It all brings back very fond memories of my childhood.
"I understand, but… Alex, Jason and Penelope, please get off the table," Miranda interrupted herself when she saw the three children walking across the table.
"But the floor is made of lava! We'll burn if we touch it," said Jason. There was a pretend look of fear on his face and Alex and Penelope's too.
"Well, you better be careful then," Tessa playfully said. "I just love how big of an imagination these children have," she smiled at Miranda.
"I just wish they would have stuck with painting pictures and not all of this," said Miranda. She motioned with her arms at all the chaos around them.
"Miranda, how many times am I going to have to tell you that I'm okay with all this?"
About an hour or so later, the children had calmed down. The house certainly did not look like it did when they first arrived. It looked like a tornado had gone through it. Miranda wanted the children to clean the place up, but Tessa was completely against that.
"It's my home and I'll do the cleaning."
"I know it's your home, but they did make the mess. So they really should be the ones to clean the place up," said Miranda.
Tessa looked towards the children.
"Okay show of hands, who thinks they should clean this place up," when no hands were raised, Tessa then turned her attention back to her friend. "It's settled then. The cleaning is to be left to me."
"You can't just let them have their way. You need to be more of an authority figure to them."
"What's an authority figure," Kevin whispered to Spencer.
"It's someone who makes the rules," Spencer whispered back.
"I'm sorry, but they all voted for no," Tessa apologized. "and I refuse to go against their vote."
Miranda sighed in defeat.
"Oh alright, but are you sure you don't want them to at least help you with the cleaning?"
"I'm sure," said Tessa. "I want these children to remember this day as a day of fun, not a day where they had to work."
It was soon time to leave. With all their finished and unfinished paintings in their hands, the children thanked Tessa for allowing them into her home.
"Thank you for Miss Grantham," they all said in unison.
"You're very welcome. I hope you all can come back again soon. I really enjoyed having you all here," Tessa smiled at the children.
"Okay let's all say goodbye to Miss Grantham," said Miranda. "It's time to get back on the bus."
"Goodbye Miss Grantham," the children said in unison.
"Goodbye. Come back whenever you all would like to," Tessa happily waved at the children.
End of chapter twenty six. Please leave me some reviews. I'd love to know what you all thought. Just don't be too cruel if you hated the chapter. I just have one more chapter left for this story and I'll have posted as soon as I can.