How Green Becomes Wood

Milo nodded along, listening carefully but feeling like Xander didn't really understand. They were similar, he thought, but not the same, and he wanted to point out it was a rare person who preferred someone who couldn't help but trip over their tongue to someone who knew how to talk, but it didn't seem worthwhile. "Upbeat topics," he said instead, setting his empty glass aside so he could focus on taking pictures. "Are you excited for Spring break?"

"I'm on student council, so I'll have to lobby hard for something cool," Sloan said with a content sigh, "but with everything political, it comes down to funding."
 
Xander accepted the change in topic, already feeling uncomfortable and that he was approaching on "sappy" territory. "Yeah. I'm not sure what we're doing, if anything, but it'll be a nice change. You?"

"You should get someone on the design committee who actually knows how to do stuff for cheap rather than just buying stuff all the time," Rumy said.

Sherri frowned at her. "It's not always that easy when you're on a committee with a deadline."

Rumy shrugged. "I guess not, but if you can get a few people who know how to work with their hands and got some time, you can really cut costs instead of buying everything premade."

"Do you have a theme in mind?" Sherri asked Sloan curiously.
 
"Finishing up pictures, I guess." Milo said, rubbing the edge of his camera, "My mom discharges on the Monday after break is over. I want to have the best ones ready so I can show her. Are we still going to your mom's museum?"

"The seniors get the most say, but I'll keep in mind finding people to help who know how to do things well, for cheap, for next year." Sloan replied, "I have no interest in junior prom, it seems kinda pointless. But I know some of the committee are pushing really hard for 'A Night in Paris.' Angel Benson, if you know her, wants it to be dinosaur themed, which I think is kinda fun. It's original, if nothing else."
 
"Yep. I talked to her, and she's got it all sorted out. All you gotta do is show up," Xander assured him. He ignored the twist in his gut. He didn't want Milo to leave! He didn't want him to get disappointed again, but it wasn't his choice, and there was the chance that she would actually change. He just... didn't want to lose the friend he'd just made. He forced himself back to happy thoughts. "Want to get something to eat after the museum?"

"Paris is overdone and super crowded. Dinos are so cool! Even if they aren't real," Rumy grinned.

"I don't know about dinosaurs for a prom theme, but they are unique," Sherri agreed.
 
"Cool." Milo replied, completely missing any upset vibes that came off of Xander, because so many of his feelings about leaving were completely overwhelmed by his excitement about how he was going to get to see his mom for the first time in three months, and she would be clean, this time. For eight years, she was pretty much all he had. Despite all the hell, he loved her, and he wanted the one person who, in his mind, at least stuck by him, despite her faults. "It'd be cool to go out to eat, after. Is it going to be just us? Or is your mom going to be there too? I don't mind, I just want to prepare."

"Wait," Sloan paused, squinting at Rumy, "Are you joking about dinosaurs not being real? Or do you mean, like... oh, none are still alive, so we can't have actual dinosaurs."
 
"She'll be there for at least part of it," Xander told him. "She might join us for food, or she might have plans to meet one of her friends. I'm not fully certain. I know that when we're at the museum, one of her friends will show us around some and things like that. So, there will be others, but it's mostly us. I've only been there once, myself, and not like this, so it's going to be cool."

Sherri tried to signal for Sloan to not ask, but she was too slow, and the question was asked. She sighed resignedly and settled in.

"No, I mean..." She waved a hand around as she thought of her words. "Animals that we currently call dinosaurs were real, sure, but I don't think they looked anything at all like what the pictures show us. I mean, scientists are constantly changing their minds on what they looked like, acted like, ate, the whole thing, so I don't believe in dinosaurs as they're presented in media or science books today. Did you know the word 'dinosaur' is only like two hundred or so years old? Before that, people either called them 'dragons' or just saw them as another animal. It was no big deal to them. And evolution? I got some serious bones to pick there." She paused to grin at her joke before going on. "They use layers of stone to date the fossils, but then in other places, they use fossils to date the stone. That's some real circular thinking there, and while we're always taught that it's a fact, the truth is, its real name is 'the Theory of Evolution.' And, obviously, it's going to stay a theory because, really? The beginning of the world? It's not like you can have a fossil record of that. And have you seen what they do to math to come up with some of their numbers? Mathematics sobs every time they come up with a new number. Mind you, sometimes some branches of the science come up with some reasonable-sounding arguments, and I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to buying into a 'creator' theory, either, whether it's a singular or a plural creator, but mass-marketed macro evolution is so full of holes I could wear it like a fishnet stocking. If my mom let me wear fishnet stockings. I think she should because they'd be really handy if I ever got stranded somewhere and needed to go fishing or a net for anything. They're really strong, but she says that they give off the wrong idea. She did say I could get a tattoo if I want, but I have to let her draw it on my first and keep it for a month before committing to the real thing, but I've never made it past the first two weeks before I change my mind."

Sherri leaned around the table and murmured to Sloan, "She gets passionate and then forgets where to stop. She's just a bit passionate right now about this particular subject. She gets that way about some things.
 
"Oh, okay." Milo nodded, "I'm excited. I think it'll be fun. And I think your mom is... cool. Not in, like, a weird way, I haven't really... spoken, to her. But she looks cool. You know, the way she dresses. Presence, you know, like what we were saying before. And I like museums. And I like how museum gift shops have little postcards, you know? Because I like to keep those too, with my pictures, if there's a little card for a place, I like to keep that with the pictures from that place."

When Rumy went off on her long talk, at first Sloan's eyes widened slightly at the realization they were in for a long, long talk, but quickly she began nodding along, regardless of if she actually believed what she was being told. "You'd probably get along with Alec and Xander's mother, I've heard her talk about that sort of stuff at backyard parties. I mean, I haven't spoken about it with her, but we're neighbors so we've been to probably a thousand of the same block parties." She shrugged and leaned towards Sherri, "I don't mind when people say a lot about a subject they're passionate about, it's more interesting than people who have nothing to say about anything."
 
"Yeah, she's real cool, and she's real good at her job," Xander told him. "She misses it, too, so this was something she enjoyed helping me put together. The museum does have those postcards, I think, and those little science things."

Sherri's eyes widened at Sloan's easy acceptance, and she visibly relaxed with a little smile. "Agreed," she murmured.

"I've never been to a block party," Rumy said. "No, wait, I have been, but I was five and it was a daycare block-stacking competition." She grinned at Sloan and started asking questions about block parties, trying to slip in block-related puns when she could.
 
"I really like having them," Milo repeated himself, fidgeting with his camera, "It's all in my little shoebox, but it's more organized than you'd expect it would be, because I use paperclips and envelopes to keep things separate, so I remember when I did what."

Sloan laughed lightly at Rumy's complete change in direction and just sat back to let her talk as she sipped her drink, answering her questions as best as she could. "Do you take art classes with Mr. Major?" She asked, "You kind of remind me of him."
 
"Cool. I suck at organization, but at least I normally know where things are. Alec, on the other hand," Xander trailed off significantly. "Especially his phone. I once found it in the rice container. The worst I ever did was lose my homework." He cleared his throat. "I accidentally swapped it with my mum's work folder. The teacher wasn't impressed."

Rumy brightened and nodded. "Yeah! I love art class. It's the greatest. And Mr. Major is the best. I'm trying to be a painter, myself, but I sometimes struggle to find the right colors to express what I'm feeling. I wish I could just be like The Painter."
 
"How I organize doesn't always make sense to other people, but I don't know, to me, it is just. It is correct, it is how it is meant to be, and I hate when people try to fix it for me, because they always organize it wrong, and I just have to redo it." When he spoke, he held his hands slightly up and half-clenched them, although he didn't quite make full fists, "But at the same time, you know, I don't have a lot of stuff to organize."

"I guess that's why paints can be mixed," Sloan offered, licking the sugar from the rim, "to let you experience the whole rainbow, rather than just the colours we're provided. Who is The Painter?"
 
Xander frowned. "Why would anyone want to rearrange your stuff? Don't answer that, it's a ratoric... readtor... question you aren't supposed to answer. Organization is organization no matter how you do it as long as it works for you. I haven't figured out a good system yet, just a semi-functioning one."

"A song by Neil Young," Sherri told her.

Rumy nodded and quoted,
"The painter stood before her work
She looked around everywhere
She saw the pictures and she painted them
She picked the colors from the air

Green to green, red to red
Yellow to yellow in the light
Black to black when the evening comes
Blue to blue in the night."
 
"Rhetorical," Milo corrected, "Nobody typically does, but, you know, sometimes people will be nice and put away the dishes, but they put them away wrong, right? It's just those things."

"That's a beautiful quote," Sloan said, looking into the distance as she thought about it for a pace until she pulled herself back into her head, "It reminds me of Van Gogh."
 
"Our dad, he's got a thing about having things just so and really clean. Not quite OCD, but sometimes it looks close. I don't know how he's going to deal with a toddler. We teens were bad enough," Xander snickered.

"He's got some gorgeous colors," Rumy agreed. "I've been focusing a lot on color instead of subject matter lately. Like what colors make up a person instead of the person themselves. It's been wild!"
 
"You and Alec should hire a maid for him for Father's Day," Milo suggested, "I'm not really freaked out if things aren't perfectly clean, but I don't like when things aren't placed where they always go. That's how I lose things." He cracked a little grin, rocking forward in his seat, "A toddler might break him, or he'll just raise the world's neatest toddler."

"I really like those videos where artists mix skin tones from greens and blues and reds... It's neat how complicated we actually are."
 
"I think it's going to be both," Xander snickered. "It's going to be a weird time, that's for sure. She's already interested in everything, meaning nothing is going to be safe."

"I know! It's so cool! But, black and white is pretty cool, too," Rumy said with a nod toward Sherri.

"Thank you," Sherri said with a nod in return. To Sloan, she explained, "I'm into cubist art, and I'm trying all black and white."
 
"It sounds like she is going to be trouble." Milo said, laughing along with Xander, but then he paused, thought about it for a moment, and then asked, "Is it weird, having a baby that young around? They're your foster parents, right? And the baby, she's still really young."

"So you're both artists, then?" Sloan asked, resting her chin on her hand, "That's interesting. I'm not, really. I used to do little... fashion dolls, but I didn't bother much with... shading, or learning techniques. I just liked to design."
 
Xander didn't answer at first, shifting to watch Alec, who stood talking with some other friends. Alec had continued to mingle, but he'd never fully gone out of Xander's sight except for brief moments while dancing, and Alec occasionally glanced over, checking in on where Xander was. "It has been weird... and not easy. We actually only predate her as part of the family by like a month," he finally told Milo. "It was rough learning about her because... Well, we didn't trust them yet. We thought that now that they were going to have a kid of their own, they wouldn't want us. We were just extra drama they didn't need. We just waited for them to get rid of us, but... that never came. They may be our fosters officially, but they're family, too. Like, real family. Even the kid."

"I'm not really an artist, I just like messing around. Sherri's a real artist," Rumy told her.

Sherri made a face. "Don't let her fool you, she's really good! Like, amazingly good!"

"As if you aren't!" Rumy shot back. "You got that one picture in the competition!"

Sherri blushed. "Only third place."

Rumy rolled her eyes and told Sloan. "It was a big deal. Anyway, you do fashion?"
 
Milo nodded, watching Xander carefully as he thought through his answer, and didn't say anything until he had finished. "That's really special," he said eventually, and looked away immediately after, "It's good you all worked it out. I bet it was scary for all of you. Well, all of you except for the baby, 'cause she wouldn't have had any idea of what she was getting into. And that's one thing about babies--it's hard to blame them, because they didn't ask for it, you know? In one of the houses I lived, there was this year and a half year old, and that house was really shitty--the sort of place you see in really insensitive reels labeled 'trashy' when what they mean is, 'poor,'--but he didn't know a thing about it."

While the two girls talked each other up, Sloan looked between them, but shook her head at their question, "I used to do little sketches, but I don't sew or anything. I just liked paper dolls and Barbies."
 
"You can be trashy whether you're poor or rich, and just 'cause you're poor don't make you trashy, and being rich doesn't mean you got taste," Xander agreed. "Anyway, yeah, it was weird having her around and stuff, but I think we're all getting used to it. She likes hair and shiny things."

"I never liked Barbies. I liked cows. I'm hoping to one day have a small sustainable dairy farm," Rumy grinned.

"I think cows really stink, but I'd still come visit you to collect your paintings and sell them as my own so I could fund my big-city penthouse," Sherri teased. "What about you, Sloan?"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top