December 19th, 1988

Emma-May didn't sleep. How could she when her life had become a freakin' soap opera overnight? Secret twins, secret doors, secret experiments, it all sounded more like someone's screenplay and even then she'd consider it far-fetched. Were it not for the corner of Fiddleford's Cubix cube digging into her hip, she would have thought the whole encounter a bizarre dream. But it wasn't, so here she was shin-deep in the heaps of clutter shoved into her attic.

"Spare banjo strings, glasses repair kit, 101 Songs for Road Trips? Good lord Fidds, did you leave everything but your blueprints?" She muttered as the door creaked open behind her.

"Mom? What are you doing?"

She turned to the doorway where Tate watched her with a puzzled expression.

"Lookin' for something of your Daddy's for Mr. Pines."

"You talked to him?"

"Why's that so hard to believe?"

"I thought you hated him."

She shrugged. "Seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding."

Tate's expression slowly transformed into a cautious grin. "So I can be friends with Nicola?"

She smiled back. "Course you can baby. I guess I just need to trust your judgment a bit more."

Tate picked his way across the clutter to wrap his arms around her waist. "Thanks Mom. Can I call Nic to tell him?"

Emma-May ruffled his hair. "Why don't you wait until we swing by this morning?"

"We're going to his house?"

She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Soon as I find those gosh darn blueprints, we are."

"You mean the blue paper Dad liked to draw on?"

"Yes sweetpea."

"He told me Leo was keeping an eye on 'em."

She raised her eyebrows. "And when'd he tell you that?"

Tate wouldn't meet her eyes. "After he chased you with the dinosaur robot. I told him not to come back. He ignored me."

Emma- May rubbed her temples. "Course he did. Least I know who Leo is."

She led Tate out of the attic and downstairs to the bookshelf in the living room. Reaching up to the top shelf she removed Volume One of The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinchi. Sure enough, wedged in between the pages were several sheets of folded blue paper.

She lifted the papers to show Tate. "Bingo."

Any doubts Stan had about trusting Em evaporated as he watched Nicola race to greet Tate. It was hard to read the older boy's expression with all that hair in his face, but he seemed just as pleased as the small polydactyl.

Em walked past the boys to join Stan on the porch. "Just about the cutest things, aren't they?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I've smuggled some adorable pugs before."

She rolled her eyes. "Right, pug smuggling, that's a good one."

Not gonna correct her on that.

Stan cleared his throat. "So… did you find anything?"

Em pulled several folded blue papers out of her coat. "Potentially. I haven't looked at them yet." She turned back to the boys and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Tater McGucket it is below freezing! You two can continue your conversation inside!"

"I made breakfast," Stan added.

Nicola grabbed Tate's hand and started dragging him to the door. "Come on Tate, you've gotta try Stancakes!"

Em looked at Stan with a raised eyebrow. "And what, pray tell, differentiates those from regular pancakes?"

"Dad makes 'em!" Nicola answered as he tugged Tate across the threshold.

"They potentially include my hair," Stan explained.

Em's eyebrows only jumped higher. "That's hardly sanitary."

"Hasn't killed us yet."

Em snorted. "Just let me grab something from the car first."

"Knock yourself out."

Stan supervised the boys as they removed their coats and headed to the kitchen. A minute later Em returned with a familiar shape covered in tinfoil.

"Is that a pie?" Stan asked.

Em smirked. "I did tell you I do some of the baking for Greasy's."

"I would've been friends with you a lot sooner if I knew free pie was involved."

She elbowed him on her way to the table. "Just for that, I'm letting the boys pick their slices first."

The remainder of breakfast continued on in much the same fashion. Nicola and Tate were practically joined at the hip with a comradery that definitely didn't make Stan tear up, Em was obviously more comfortable around him if her playful tone was any indication, and their guests were polite enough to just quietly pull the occasional hair from their food without comment. Altogether, it would have been perfect if not for the ever-present gloom of Ford's continued absence hanging over him.

Stan and Em waited until Nicola dragged Tate off to look at his room to pull out their true reason for meeting that morning, the blueprints.

"These were the only ones left in the house after our divorce. I don't know what happened to the others. So," She placed her hand over Stan's. "There's a chance we won't find anything useful."

Stan gently pulled his hand away. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it. For now, let's look at what you've got."

As Em suspected, many of the blueprints were for items totally unrelated to the portal, and when they finally reached the few that were promising…

"I'd swear if there weren't kids down the hall," Stan muttered as he lifted the last three blueprints. One detailed some kind of gun, but the other two bore the portal's distinct triangular shape. All three were scribbled over with red ink, frantic sentence fragments and drawings of eyes and X's concealing any piece of the documents that might have been useful.

Em patted his shoulder. "Fidds did the same thing in our kitchen, I had to completely repaint the walls."

Stan buried his face in his hands. "Don't suppose you can talk your ex into drawing up copies?"

She shook her head. "Even if Fidds wanted to see me right now, his mind's too undone to give you any sensible information. He tried to tear down our roof because it was 'too pointy' and 'the point demon was watching us'. That was before he mugged a scarecrow and started chasing people with mechanical monsters."

Stan sighed. "Back to finding the journals then."

"Journals?"

"Ford split his version of the blueprints between three journals. I have one, but haven't been able to find two and three."

"Well," Em pushed her chair back and stood. "I guess we'll just have to keep an eye out for these journals of yours. Show me the first one sometime?"

Stan forced a smile. "Only if there's pie."

April 10th, 1989

"Happy Birthday dear Nicola, Happy Birthday to you…" The entirety of Mrs. Durland's class sang with as much enthusiasm as they cared to muster for their youngest classmate, which is to say, none.

The birthday boy in question fidgeted awkwardly in his seat. They were all staring at him, and most of their eyes weren't on his face.

"What do you say, Nicola?" Mrs. Durland prompted.

Nicola pulled his hands behind his back. "Thank you very much for the singing."

Tate broke the awkward silence, as he had often come to do. "My mom made cupcakes to celebrate with the class." He turned to their teacher. "She said you'd be holding on to them?"

Immediately the expressions of disinterest morphed into delight as their fellow third-graders began to swarm Mrs. Durland.

Tate leaned back in his seat with a smirk. "Like my mom always says, sugar's the bait of children."

Nicola slumped onto his desk. "Nobody said I was supposed to bring a treat."

"That's cause it's not an official thing. You can thank Buddy for that. Moved here last year and brought a whole dang cake to school for his birthday, everybody else felt pressured to follow his lead and now anyone who doesn't participate is shamed."

"Oh. Is your mom gonna make something different for your birthday?"

Tate nodded. "Ever had caramel apple foldovers?"

"No."

"You're in for a treat then."

August 21st, 1989

The room and the teacher were different, but other than that, walking into the first day of fourth grade didn't feel all that different from walking into third grade the year before. Nicola spotted Tate waving from the back and decided to correct himself. He had a friend now, it was definitely better than last year.

He quickly arranged his things on the closest desk. "Has Yeller gotten any bigger?"

Tate shrugged. "It's kinda hard to tell. He keeps moving whenever I hold the ruler up to the tank."

Any further conversation was interrupted by the sudden hush that came over the room as a perky-looking woman entered, followed by an extraordinarily ugly man. (Nicola felt rude for describing him that way but there were no other words for his appearance.)

Tate leaned over. "He looks like a hairless cat and a troll had a baby."

On second thought, that works.

The perky woman smiled. "Good morning class! My name is Flora Determined." She gestured to her dress which was indeed floral patterned before grabbing the elbow of the troll/cat man. "And this is my husband, Rony. You'll be seeing quite a bit of him this year in your new unit, music! Isn't that exciting?"

Nicola was fairly certain he could hear the gnomes raiding the diner three blocks away it was so quiet.

August 23rd, 1989

Their first music class was that Wednesday and absolutely no one was excited about it. Unless you counted their teacher that is. Mrs. Determined had apparently been a cheerleader back in the day and it showed. Not only in her non-stop pep, but also her ability to easily hoist one of their heftier classmates over her head despite her slim build. (Tuesday had been wild.)

But while the class was quickly warming to their teacher, her husband still seemed… unappealing to say the least. The guy hadn't talked during the brief time he'd been in the classroom Monday, and class discussion had informed Nicola that music was a boring subject. Not fun like reading or drawing was.

But this was school. Something Nicola was slowly becoming convinced adults only told you was an adventure so they could get you out of their hair to do the real fun stuff. Fun stuff kids couldn't do because it was "dangerous". Tate believed his theory.

So they were lined up and marched off to another different-but-similar room with weird objects he hadn't seen and odd squiggles painted on the walls. Once the class had been seated on a circular rug, Mr. Determined cleared his throat.

"I want to ask you a question. What is music?"

Nicola felt somewhat taken aback at the man's soft tone. Looking at his face he had expected something harsher, grating, certainly loud enough to compete with his wife. But Mr. Determined's voice seemed more suited to reading bedtime stories.

It seemed the rest of the class shared Nicola's reaction because it took some time before anyone actually answered the teacher.

"Stuff you dance to?"

Mr. Determined nodded. "Yes, but what else?"

Another student raised their hand. "What they play on the radio."

"You're both somewhat right," he pulled out a cd player. "But you're more focused on how music's used than what it is." He pressed a button on the player. "Now close your eyes and listen, what do you hear?"

Nicola did as the teacher asked and listened to the song coming out of the player's tiny speakers. It wasn't anything like the music he heard over the radio in the car. It seemed layered, dramatic.

"There's no words!" A voice towards the back complained.

"There don't need to be." Mr. Determined replied. "Music is the world's universal language. Books, speeches, plays, all may fail to produce the same emotion as a single song. And that's what makes it so powerful. That's what makes it worth learning."

Nicola found himself humming the song for the rest of the day, but the complex melody of the real thing quickly faded from his memory. By the time the final bell rang, he could only recall the first few notes.

He tapped Tate's shoulder as they packed their bags. "Tell my dad I'll be out a little later than normal, I want to ask Mr. Determined what the name of that song was."

Tate paused midway through shoving his notebook in. "You could always wait until next week, when we have class again. Or ask Mrs. Determined to ask him."

Nicola looked down, his eyes catching on his hands. "There's something else I'd like to say to him as well."

Tate shrugged. "Alright. Guess I just don't get your taste in music."

Nicola smiled and quickly tossed his last few items in his backpack before frantically retracing the path their class had taken in single file earlier that day. He reached the door to the music room just as Mr. Determined was exiting it.

"Mr. Determined!" He shouted as he waved a hand to get the music teacher's attention.

The man's expression of surprise highlighted his more catlike attributes. "Aren't you one of Flora's students?"

Nicola nodded, panting a bit from his run to the classroom. "Yes sir, my name's Nicola Pines, and I had a couple of things I wanted to say to you."

Mr. Determined's eyebrows rose. "Say them then."

Nicola fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Well, first of all, I really liked the song you played earlier and I was hoping you could tell me the name?"

The music teacher smiled. "Ah, Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5, one of my personal favorites. Glad to hear someone else enjoyed it."

Nicola smiled slightly. "Yeah it was neat, but there's still one other thing I want to say. I want to say sorry."

Mr. Determined knelt down. "Whatever for?"

Nicola looked down. "For treating you like the other kids have treated me." He held up one of his hands with the fingers spread to emphasize the unusual number.

"When I first moved here, I used to think something was wrong with everybody else's hands, then eventually I realized I was the wrong one. Dad never acts like it matters, so I don't bring it up, but the other kids always stare and talk about me when they think I can't hear them. I always told myself I'd never do that to someone else, but then everyone was talking about how funny you look and I was just happy they weren't focused on me for once. But you're a person just like I'm a person and either way a person's getting hurt so…"

He had to pause and take a deep, stuttering breath. "I'm sorry."

When he looked up, Mr. Determined didn't look at all how he'd expected.

Pick up had become infinitely easier for Stan after he and Em had split the duty. Now he only had to drive up to Quentin Elementary Monday, Wednesday, and every other Friday. So of course it would be his kid who made things difficult.

"You're sure he said he was just asking this teacher a quick question?" He asked the Stanmobile's only other occupant.

Said occupant was currently laying across the backseat. "No, I lied, I like being this bored."

Stan glared into the rearview mirror. "Don't get snarky with me, I will tell your mother."

Tate turned his head, likely glaring back from underneath his bangs.

Their staring contest was interrupted by a knock on the window.

Stan sighed. "Please don't be a cop." He pasted on his showman smile and turned to the window. "Can I hel- Oh sweet Moses!"

Tate sat up. "What, what is it?"

"Some kind of gremlin man!"

Tate looked at the 'gremlin man'. "Oh, that's just Mr. Determined, he's the music teacher I was telling you about."

Stan rolled down the window. "You know, in my family 'gremlin' is a term of endearment."

Mr. Determined eyed him skeptically. "I'm sure. Now, if you wouldn't mind. I'd like to have a discussion with you and the principal regarding Nicola." He looked in the backseat. "Mr. McGucket's input would be valued as well."

Stan moved the Stanmobile to a proper parking spot, noting the sour expression on his passenger's face. "Something wrong kid?"

Tate looked away. "Mr. McGucket's what they call my dad."

Unable to think of a response, Stan simply gripped the boy's shoulder.

The two followed Mr. Determined into the Principal's office, and Stan felt his heart drop at the sight of Nicola's tear-stained face. He lowered himself and extended his arms, only to be nearly knocked over by the force of the seven-year-old barreling into the hug.

As he held the small brunette close he whispered in his ear. "If anyone asks, 'gremlin' is a term of endearment in our family."

He heard the boy snort. "Ok."

Withdrawing from the hug he looked into Nicola's eyes. "Now, mind telling me what this is about?"

The Principal cleared his throat. "We take bullying at this school very seriously Mr. Pines."

Stan kept his gaze fixed on Nicola. "Has someone been picking on you?"

This time, it was Tate that spoke up. "Not directly. Everybody knows they'll get in trouble if they're obviously mean. But they've got sneaky ways of makin' you feel awful."

Nicola nodded. "Tate's got it just as bad as I do, they just don't stare at him as much."

Tate slung an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders. "But we've got each other's backs, we get by."

"You shouldn't have to 'get by,'" Mr. Determined seethed. "Things should be better than when I was a student!"

"They are," The Principal insisted. "But just to be on the safe side, we'll have an assembly on behavior and add an additional staff member to…"

The rest of the conversation fell on deaf ears as Stan helped the boys ready themselves to get back in the car. Before they could leave, a hand caught Stan's shoulder.

"Wait," Mr. Determined handed Stan a slip of paper with a phone number on it. "I give piano lessons on the weekend, your son seems to have an interest in music. I'd be thrilled to have him as a pupil."

Stan tried to picture a young Ford at a piano. "Yeah, I'll get back to you on that."

As they opened the door to the office Nicola turned back and waved at the music teacher.

Guess I'm paying for piano lessons then.

This is the longest chapter I've ever typed... and it had the shortest outline. How does this happen?

Reviews are always appreciated!