The rest of Christmas break seemed to pass by extremely quickly for the twins. Being grounded for the entire break was not exactly 'fun,' but Carmelita did not hold their punishment as long and harshly as she intended when she was angry. She understood where they were coming from, and it seemed to her that they learned their lesson.
"Go to bed, kids. You guys are going to have a busy day at school tomorrow."
Skylar groaned. She was not exactly a big fan of school, unlike her brother. She continued to play her game, ignoring her mother's commands to go to bed.
"Skylar, I am not kidding, turn off that game and go to bed." Carmelita started to get irritated. "You don't want that PlayStation taken away again, do you?"
Skylar groaned again. "It's saving, mom."
Silvester quickly turned off the tv show he was watching. He was quite excited school was starting back up. "Okay, mom. I'm going to get in the shower real quick." Silvester went into his room and grabbed a fresh set of pajamas, then disappeared into the restroom.
Carmelita only had one restroom in the whole apartment, so shower time normally took a while. Skylar usually took the longest showers, annoying everyone. Silvester usually tries to get in the shower before his mom and Skylar so he did not have to wait for an eternity and accidentally fall asleep.
Skylar sat back into the couch. "Mom, do you think our dad will ever come back?" She asked, clearly very bothered by the subject. She was hesitant to even bring this up, as nobody really discussed Sly all that much since Christmas.
Carmelita sat next to her. "I don't know, Sky."
Skylar sighed. "How come we can't go find him?"
Carmelita sat up. "Because Sky, we don't know where to even look. Believe me if we knew where he was he would've been back by now with us."
"Do you think he would even want to be with us?"
Carmelita frowned. She couldn't really blame Skylar for thinking this way, and Carmelita couldn't help but blame herself. "I…should've talked about Sly more, Sky. I'm sorry about that, but get those thoughts out of your head. If your dad was here, he would love you and your brother more than anything. I know that."
Silvester emerged out of the shower. "I'm going to bed, mom!" He yelled as he walked into his room.
Carmelita smiled and hugged her daughter. "Skylar, don't worry about this." She kissed her head. "I know for a fact your father would have fallen in love with you."
Skylar didn't respond to the statement. She just couldn't help but wonder, and worry, about where her and her brother's father even was. She couldn't help but dwell on it all Christmas break, and it did not help that she was grounded so she couldn't numb her mind with her games. She couldn't help but wonder if school was going to make it worse. She and her brother were always bothered by the other children who talked about their fathers. Even the children who were raised by only their mothers had things to say about their fathers, both good and bad. Skylar and Silvester had nothing to say. All they ever knew was that their father disappeared and nobody seemed to know why. Now that they know that he was a thief, it was going to be even harder to talk about him.
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow." Skylar managed to squeeze some words from her trembling lips. "I'm afraid someone is going to ask about our dad like they do every year."
Carmelita put her hand on Skylar's shoulders. "Skylar, you cannot worry about that. Just…don't tell anyone what he really was."
Skylar looked up at her mother. "I wasn't planning on it. I just hope nobody asks like they do every year."
The next morning…
Carmelita dropped her kids off at their school as she does every school morning. Skylar wore her favorite pink t-shirt, jeans, and white converse sneakers. She grabbed her blue backpack and stepped out of the car. Silvester wore his collared blue shirt with jeans and his white running shoes. He grabbed his red backpack and exited the car.
"Don't you two leave without giving me a hug!" Carmelita yelled from the car.
The twins ran back to the car and both gave their mom a hug. "Have a good day." Carmelita smiled.
The twins ran back up to their school to get ready for their class. The school was a small brick building, with three different small playgrounds surrounding it. There was a long sidewalk with a steel cover over it leading to the entrance to the building. They walked down the entrance together, quietly.
Skylar noticed a classmate walking in front of her with a pink fuzzy pen sticking out of her backpack. She smiled, as she had taken from this classmate before. Silvester looked back over to his sister and noticed her staring at the pink pen.
"Don't do it." He whispered.
Skylar giggled to herself. She did not really want the pen, she just wanted to make this classmate's day go badly. This classmate in particular was named Kennedy, and she was just a small wolf. She often bullied Skylar in class about her 'popularity' status with the other children. Kennedy was a very popular girl, while Skylar was nowhere near that level. Skylar normally was around her brother, who wasn't exactly a 'cool guy' himself. Their classmates often made fun of Silvester for being an awkward nerd and being a teacher's pet.
Skylar, ignoring her brother's commands, climbed up one of the steel poles holding the cover over the sidewalk up. She climbed up into the support beams under the cover, and followed Kennedy from above. Very swiftly, she hung down from one arm and quickly swiped the pen with her other arm. She put the pen sideways in her mouth, holding it in place while she climbed back onto the sidewalk. She swiftly climbed down the steel pole and continued walking next to her brother, putting the fuzzy pen in her backpack as if nothing happened.
Silvester furrowed his brow, but kept walking. "Was that necessary?"
Skylar laughed. "It was completely necessary. Now Kennedy won't have anything to write with in class."
"Skylar, she hasn't even said anything to you today." He growled. "Are we seriously starting the second half of the year like this?"
"Oh calm down." She patted her brother on the back. "She will never even find out it was me. I just wanted to make her squirm."
Skylar and Silvester continued walking and entered through two extremely large steel doors entering the school. The school was not any bigger on the inside, being shaped more like a plus sign. There were two long hallways north and south, with two smaller hallways east and west. The large hallways had several smaller hallways branching off to the side, leading to all the classrooms. The twins took the hallway leading north, and walked for what seemed like forever until they found the hallway branching off into their classroom. The twins were greeted by their teacher, a short blue mouse named Mrs. Hill.
"Hello Skylar. Hello Silvester." She greeted them, handing them a small packet.
"Hi Mrs. Hill!" Silvester smiled at her. Skylar looked away from her brother, being very embarrassed.
The twins took their seats at a very small desk. Kennedy soon followed, placing her fuzzy purple backpack on the floor. She opened her backpack, digging around in it, then appeared to look very worried. "My pink pen!" She cried. "It's missing!"
Skylar smirked to herself. Silvester hid his face behind his backpack on his desk.
10 years ago…
Carmelita was getting increasingly tired being pregnant. She drove in her patrol car for what seemed like forever, trying to find wanted criminals she was tasked to find.
"Inspector fox!" Her radio exclaimed. Carmelita quickly turned it up to hear what was being said on the other end. "We have a code 50 at the Petit Cafe!"
"Code 50?" She growled to herself. "Who in their right mind would rob a cafe?"
Carmelita stepped on the gas pedal and raced over to the cafe, dodging traffic with her sirens blaring through Paris' streets. Paris was extremely busy for a summer afternoon with the streets being flooded with innocent tourists. The Petit Cafe was a tourist spot, so Carmelita feared that whoever was robbing it was going to hurt a bunch of innocent foreigners.
She spotted the cafe and aggressively pulled her car into a parallel spot. She ran over to the cafe with her shock pistol, eager to stop whoever was doing this. As she was running, she felt sharp pains in her stomach, forcing her to slow down. "Baby, stop doing this, mommy has to go catch a criminal." She growled to herself. She pushed herself further to run up the stairs to hopefully catch the criminal. Her belly felt like something was bouncing aggressively inside of it, and it did not feel comfortable. "Stop right there!" She barged through the doors and held her shock pistol up, noticing the ferret who was trying to rob the store. "Drop your weapons!" She demanded.
The ferret's face turned pale as he quickly tried to escape. Carmelita tried everything to catch up with him, pushing through the pain she was feeling in her belly. The ferret eventually tripped, allowing Carmelita to catch up to him and arrest him.
"You are going to jail." She yelled. "Why would you ever think of robbing that sweet cafe? You could've killed a lot of innocent people!"
The thief refused to answer, allowing Carmelita to aggressively push him back to her car. She shoved him in the back seat, aggressively slamming the door behind him. The owner of the cafe ran out.
"Oh thank you officer!" The owner took Carmelita's hand and started to shake it. "That thief was trying to break into my family's vault!"
Carmelita smiled. "It's nothing, and you can just call me Inspector Fox."
The owner laughed. "Well, I apologize Insector Fox. I just want to thank you for saving my restaurant and my customers. If he would have gotten into the vault, this place would have been done."
Carmelita chose not to question the owner about this, even though it did sound odd to her. "It's not a big deal, really. I'm going to take this criminal to jail now, you take it easy and call us if anything else happens."
Carmelita walked back to her car, ignoring the criminal behind the glass cussing her out. She started to feel the baby kick quite hard against her belly, making her slouch in pain a bit. I'm going to have to go to the doctor here soon. She thought to herself. I'm not putting myself through that again.