How Green Becomes Wood

"Yeah, they're aquatic snails. It's got an orange shell, my mom sent pictures. She's growing aquatic plants in the tank, too." Milo explained, taking out his phone to show the very dramatic fish and pretty standard looking snail.
 
The twins crowded close, and both expressed appreciation for how cool the fish, plants, and snail looked.

"A bit different from the birds," Alec remarked. "I bet a lot quieter!"
 
"I do like the birds. And they live a long time, so I'm hoping I'll inherit them. They're sweet." Milo replied, putting his phone away, "But, yeah, the fish is quiet, I bet. Except for the sound of the filter, but that's background noise."
 
"Bleak," Alec remarked, "already thinking about your grands passing."

"You'd converse very well with our parents," Xander smirked. "You want to get a bird of your own, or just those ones in specific?"
 
Milo shrugged, "I guess so. But you have to think about those things with pets that live a long time, otherwise they're dumped somewhere. I guess I'd be happy with my own birds, but those birds are kind of the best thing about living with my grandparents." He meant specifically living in his house, not living in the town, but he didn't think to specify.
 
Alec bit his lip and glanced at Xander. Xander did not react, only gave a slight nod. Alec took a breath. He hesitated. He needed to see things from Milo's perspective! But he also had to advocate for himself for how much that statement hurt, and not just hurt him. But was now the time to do that? ANd how could he when Milo always seemed to think they had no idea how he felt? And they probably didn't, Alec admitted, but... Oh, heck with it. Maybe he should try something else.

"I think it'll be really great when you get to see your mum again," Alec said, trying not to sound too deliberate. "And I hope you get to have birds and fish with her." There! That could be considered validation, right?

Xander gave Alec an odd look but moved on. "Smart thinking ahead. I thought those little birds - littler, anyway - only lived a few years. How long do those ones live?"
 
"It'd be cool if we could. It'd be loud if we had too many birds, and it's hard to take care of them because they're so sensitive, but they're sweet and chaotic." Milo told them, but then paused and looked with horror at Xander, "...do they? I thought all birds basically just live forever."
 
"Uh..." Xander said uncertainly, not sure if Milo was joking or truly horrified. "I'm not a bird person, but I thought only the parrots lived for, like, ever?"

Alec pulled out his phone and started looking it up as they walked into the classroom. "Finches live five to ten years as pets. That's a really big gap. What kind of birds are your grandparents? I know you said, but I've forgotten, sorry."
 
"They're parakeets," Milo replied, truly horrified. "I thought they were going to stick around for a really long time, and I wouldn't have to worry about them dying until I was like... 30 or something."
 
"They might! They might, lemme look," Alec hurried to assure him as he looked. "Um, the lifespan varies, but they seem to live an average of... ten years... But! But! It's possible they can live up to twenty years!"
 
For once, it was Xander who tried to cheer Milo up. "Hey, come on. They've still got a lot of years of chirping left in them."

"Yeah, you might still get a nice, long time to enjoy their company," Alec assured him.

"Sorry I brought it up," Xander apologized.
 
"I don't know how old they are," He confessed, "and I want to ask, but what if I ask and they're both nine? Or if they're already ten?" He squeezed, but didn't scratch at his arm, thinking about how much he liked the sound of their chirps and trills, especially when he was upset. It was nice holding them on is finger. "It's okay," he murmured back to Xander, "I should've looked it up when I met them. The dog I knew was old."
 
"Well, if they are already old, then you know to prepare," Alec said gently as they sat down at their desks. "You can give them all the love and caring while they are still here, but they both still look like they are in their prime, right? So that's good news."

"They're good birds," Xander said awkwardly.
 
Xander looked at Milo almost sternly. "They are not just birds," he stated. "The world might be full of birds, but those birds, those are your f***ing birds. They're sweet and bring you joy. Don't dis them and yourself by saying crap like that, okay?" He reached out and firmly plunked a squishable leather ball on Milo's desk. "When you get home, give the little tweets a treat and enjoy the life they got. Then have a good cry."

Alec stared at Xander in shock.
 
Milo raised his eyes and silently looked at Xander, visibly fighting back too many emotions for him to name himself, but he couldn't think of anything to really say back to his friend. He tried to think, but gave up, slouched down in his seat, picked up the stressball, and mumbled, "thanks." He did mean it, but he still didn't feel great.
 
Xander grunted and sat back. He figured Milo meant it, but he could also see his friend's struggle. It was enough that Milo took him seriously.

The history teacher was in a good mood today, and she had hung up all of the posters the kids had made all around the room. There were varying degrees of skill, talent, and care on display. Some people had done little more than put some words on colored craft paper while others had put in a lot of effort and research. There were a couple of posters missing from the group, but nearly everyone had passed the assignment. The teacher pointed out the ones with the most well-researched facts, Alec being one of those, and congratulated them on their research. One of the posters was not even particularly well made, but it did have a decent amount of research about the first war in Iraq that involved the modern USA. She praised the research but admitted the presentation was lacking. None of them did she say who they belonged to, though the names were on the back of all the posters except for a few that had put them on the front.

Austin was bright red and looked like he wanted to disappear. His poster showed... effort... but there was a dirty dog paw print on one edge and a tear in the corner, and some of the glue did not want to stick. Alec assured him it looked fine, but he was not consoled.

The teacher pointed to the posters relevant to what they would be studying that day and got started teaching. There was a lot she had to cover, and she did so very well, bringing a certain amount of liveliness to the class. She brought up some of the things mentioned on the posters but mostly followed her own lesson and fleshed everything out for the students. Their homework was basic "who did what when" history work answering questions from the book.

As they were leaving, Alec paused to frown at the Iraq war poster. Something looked wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
 
Milo had done fairly well on his poster. It was clearly a topic he liked, and although he didn't do great at making the text concise, it was well-researched, he cited everything, including images, and he clearly spent a good amount of time on it. All of his years as a photographer gave him a good eye for where to put images to make them stand out and how best to use them.

As he gathered up this things, a bit recovered from his earlier distress about his dear birds, Milo stood beside Alec, looking up at the poster, "What is it?"
 
Alec indicated the numbers on the poster. "I haven't looked into this recently, but some of these numbers seem... off." He hesitated, considering, and finally pulled out his phone to take a picture. "I think I'll either ask Ba about it or look it up later. I don't want to upset him with it, but war's messy. It's easy to be misinformed and spread that misinformation. If these numbers are wrong, I should let Mrs. Riggs know."

"I say let it be," Xander said. "It's just a class poster." But he lingered and even looked over to read it. The casualty numbers were suspiciously low for the civilians.
 
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