How Green Becomes Wood

We have a car seat, it is not too difficult to remove it from Dark's car and put it into yours temporarily. We specifically found one that is easy to safely remove and reinstall because we knew we would have this issue at times. Thank you so much, you wouldn't believe how stressful it is trying to navigate these things. Daizi sighed and quickly sent a text off to Sally letting her know the twins' aunt would be helping to transport her, but thanked her for the offer. "There," she told Ivy, giving her a little kiss on the head, "Problem solved."
 
Daizi grinned and lifted Ivy up, "Did you hear that, Hummingbird? Khalaty Ciara called us family! Do you think she realized?" But all she texted in response was, Thank you so much. On the day, or the night before, just let me know when you expect to arrive here so I can have everything ready to go. I don't want to make you wait while I pack Ivy's bag.
 
Understood. I shall be coming from work, and I shall call or text before I leave. I look forward to seeing you in a few days. She didn't think about the fact that she'd referred to herself as family, which was quite a difference for her. It was almost entirely thanks to Alec and especially Daizi constantly including her and treating her as family.
 
"Oh, she's just like your Baba, isn't she, my sweet girl?" Daizi chuckled, giving Ivy a little forehead kiss, "Well now that's settled. You better not make a mess in her car."

~~

At lunch, Sloan joined the table, "The talent show lineup is looking really good this year. I'm glad we don't award winners."
 
"Oh, yeah? Who all is in the lineup this year?" Alec asked.

Xander scowled as he dug through his lunch bag. "What did you pack us for lunch? Soup and fifteen types of chips? All I'm finding is chip bags!"
 
"About what you'd expect. There's more dancing this year than last year, a stand-up comedian, a trio who are going to do impressions of teachers, some of the cheerleaders are going to do a routine." Sloan listed, trying to think of the good ones. "Oh, and we're trying to get Ms. McGann to-- Wait, hold on, yeah, what is that lunch?"
 
"That's lovely that there are more dancers this year," Alec said innocently as he rolled up his sleeves to keep them from dragging across the table. Then he opened his container of a leftover rice dish from a couple of nights ago. It reheated splendidly! "Aren't the impressionists worried about getting into trouble?"

Xander growled, "Wait a sec... these aren't even all chips!" He started taking the snack-sized bags out and laying them on the table. Three chip bags, two types of cookies, one small thing of trail mix, four gummy snacks, and a thing of mini meat sticks. At the very bottom of his bag there sat a tiny sealed container of rice. "What the hell?"

"The gummy snacks have real fruit, so it's nice and healthy," Alec told him.
 
"There’s one who is doing Irish dance, so we're trying to get Ms. McGann to play the fiddle for her, because she's really awesome at it. When I was a Freshman we did Fiddler on the Roof, and they had her be the fiddler. I guess nobody else had the skill set and the fiddler doesn't have lines or anything." Sloan explained, regarding the dancers, and then chuckled at Alec's concern for the Impressionists, "They're all seniors. What is the school going to do? They graduate in a month and a half."

Then she stared confused and amazed at the Russian nesting doll of a lunch Alec had packed his brother, "Is there a point to that or are you just deciding to max on pre-processed foods?"
 
"I thought it might be fun to mix things up a little!" Alec grinned.

Xander gave his brother a flat look. "This is because I ate your leftover spring roll for breakfast this morning, isn't it?"

Alec examined his nails. "I would never be so petty."

"Dude. Seriously?"

"You were saying about fiddling?" Alec prompted Sloan. "Is there really a difference between a fiddle and a violin, or is just how they are played?"
 
Sloan shook her head disapprovingly at Xander, although she fought hard not to smile when she did, "If you ate his leftovers, you deserve what you get." Then she looked at Alec, "I don't... think there's a difference, I think it's just a playstyle, but you'd have to ask Ms. McGann, she'd know for sure. I guess she was almost, like, first chair in a pretty major orchestra. That's the rumor, anyway."
 
Xander grumbled but tore open the mini meat sticks and started resignedly chomping away. They'd be better with cheese sticks.

"Wow! Teachers are so interesting! Especially when you realize they have lives outside of school. It's still weird running into one in the real world. And when you first start living with one," Alec commented.
 
"I'd think that of all people, you'd be the least surprised that teachers have complicated lives at home," Sloan teased lightly, "You've got the most familiarity with them, anyway. But also like... I've never asked. How weird was it when you first started living with Mr. Dark? Because like, I lived across the street from him and all, and that was weird enough."
 
"Super weird," Xander muttered around a meat stick as he started poking through the other bags to try to decide what to eat. He settled on his tiny amount of leftovers.

"Mostly it was weird to have really any adult that invested in us, so the teacher thing was just one more level of already existing weird," Alec told her.
 
"I bet the little things of like... seeing your teacher when they've just woken up or them without their hair styled is the weirdest." Sloan commented, imagining what would weird her out the most, it not even occurring to her the twins would likely have caught their former-teacher and his wife doing couple activities, "I didn't know he taught here until I was in eighth grade and we went on a trip to here. That was a different kind of weird, seeing your adult neighbor in school."
 
Alec and Xander exchanged quick glances, thinking about the weirdest things they'd witnessed. Unstyled hair didn't even come close.

"So," Alec said, changing the subject as Xander started on a bag of chips, "classes are going pretty well, speaking of teachers."
 
"Oh, good. I hate when teachers say stuff like this, but since you two are going to be upperclassmen in a few months, so you really have to, you know... put the work in. GPAs don't matter much after you leave high school, at least so I've been told my cooler-heads, but they matter a little bit, for a little while." Sloan replied, "I'm just hoping I'm able to help Becky with her class on Friday."
 
"That's really kind of you to try to help her," Alec told Sloan. "I bet just you being there will really help. I've helped her study for lines a couple of times, and she can be really easy to distract, but just someone sitting with her seems to help."

"Maybe she's got that one acronym with the As and the Hs," Xander commented. "Slo, want some chips?" He showed her his collection so she could pick a bag.
 
"ADHD?" Sloan asked, taking one of the bags of chips, "You know, I'm surprised Mr. Dark and Daizi even keep stuff like this in the house. But I do hope all she really needs is someone to help keep her on task. I'm good at that, but I don't want to steer her the wrong way with the information because I don't know about it either."
 
"They didn't use to, but now they keep a small stash to appease our whims," Xander said, tucking the unopened bags back into his lunch bag. If Milo had been there, he would have offered him some, but, as usual, he seemed to be tucked away. Xander sometimes thought about trying to find him over the lunch period, but he didn't want to either crowd Milo or abandon his usual lunch friends. Speaking of lunch friends, Peter was absent this morning. He was certain he'd seen him in the hallway, but he wasn't in the cafeteria. It wasn't too unusual for Peter to choose to sit with other people now and then. He was reasonably popular and didn't mind not always sitting in the same place.

"Don't worry, I'm sure it will be fine!" Alec assured Sloan.
 
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