We found Dean in the kitchen, sitting awkwardly as if he were unsure if he was allowed to go anywhere else.
"Dean, I'm sorry, I'm not being a very good hostess today."
The teacher shook his head in denial. "Being a good hostess isn't as important as being a good mother, Susan. I understand that." He nodded to the covered bowls in front of our seats. "I'm afraid they might need to be reheated though."
"Well that's why we have a microwave." Mom took our bowls over to it. Once her hands were free again she pulled her cellphone out of her hip pocket. "Will texted me to let me know she's on her way home. I imagine she'll be a little while yet, but once she gets here I think I'm going to have to lay down the law a bit."
Professor Collins looked at her for a moment and then caught the hint. "Ah. Not the sort of conversation that would be helped by having someone she sees as an interloper around?"
"I feel rotten about this when I invited you over, but..."
"It's alright. Don't be too hard on her, Susan. After all, you have been talking about her needing to be responsible and I think it's hard to say she's taken too little responsibility by caring for Hope - more in the other direction," he finished with a nod in my direction.
I felt my cheeks colour slightly. "I can pull my own weight."
"I'm not saying you haven't," Professor Collins assured me. "I'm just pointing out that Will must have too."
The microwave dinged merrily and I - but not the two adults - heard it declare proudly: "All done!"
"Yeah, yeah," the stove grumbled. The pair of appliances seemed to have something of a rivalry.
Collins rose to his feet. "I'll see of I can talk to Mrs. Knickerbocker tonight about Hope's placement tests."
"On a Friday night?" asked Mom in surprise.
"If the last couple of years are any guide, she'll be getting an early start making sure that the school is ready for Monday morning," he advised us. "I think Sheffield Institute's more a home to her than her house is."
"I'm sorry," Mom said again to him.
"And I'm happy to help."
"Why don't you walk him downstairs, Mom?" I suggested. "I can take care of the soup."
She gave me a grateful look and once they had departed I put her bowl back in the microwave and dug into my own. I'm not saying it was the greatest soup ever made (it was from a tin, after all), but it was warm and filling, which was what I wanted right now. It also wasn't Mom's homemade soup, about which the less said the better. I might not have the widest range of experience when it came to food but I knew that Will and Taranee were competing in tales of culinary disasters by Mom and Mr Cook and that wasn't a good sign.
I'd finished the bowl and was running the tap to give it a quick soak before I put it in the dishwasher when the apartment door opened and Mom called: "Hello Hope, look who I found outside."
"Will?" I guessed. Wasn't Taranee going to give me a mental call when they were close?
"I'll give you partial credit for that."
"Hi Hope," Will grumbled as she was marched into the kitchen, along with the other four Guardians. "We got caught."
"No kidding. At least it wasn't Cedric or Frost," I pointed out. "Welcome home."
"Frost?" asked Mom. "Another of Phobos's people I take it?"
"I guess Hope explained about that," Cornelia sighed. "Yes. Nasty fellow who used to ride around on a rhinoceros-monster until Will left it locked in Van Dahl's painting.
"He was really nice once Frost wasn't on top of it," my sister reminisced.
There were a succession of eye rolls. I dreaded the possibility that Cedric one day thought to send a frog-monster after the Guardians - Will would probably be too busy cooing over it to do anything useful.
"The phone's in the lounge," Mom reminded the other girls pointedly. "Don't you have phone calls to make?"
"Yes, Mrs. Vandom," Irma, Taranee, Taranee and Hay Lin chorused, obediently. There was something odd about Irma's clothes and it took me a moment to realise that her sweater was definitely too tight for her.
"Irma, where did you get those clothes?" She hadn't had any except for her Guardian uniform, last time I'd seen her.
"I borrowed them from Elyon's wardrobe," she explained. "Why? I'll put them through the laundry before I put them back."
"Are you going to fix that seam too?" I asked her, pointing at one armpit, where the strain of containing someone noticeably more 'developed' than Elyon (or the rest of us) had evidently pulled something loose. (In fairness, I think Irma was just sturdily built as well. Elyon's kind of willowy).
"Er..."
Mom rolled her eyes. "Come with me Irma. Will's clothes won't fit you either but I guess I can lend you a T-shirt."
"So what are they making phone calls for?" I asked Will quietly once everyone else had left the kitchen.
"Mom told them they could call home and arrange to have dinner here while I explain about the Guardians or she could call their homes and explain she'd seen us run off with a shady looking guy. So why didn't you go to Miss Rudolph?"
"I was detained by the police before I even reached the street," I explained quickly. "They seemed to know you - Maria and Joel?"
"Oh, those Interpol people from yesterday! Do you think they suspect anything?"
"I'm sure they suspect something, but it's probably not the truth. Oh, they're probably going to ask some questions about how you found me down at that cave with no memories."
Will blinked. "What? They know about you!?"
"Yep. Mom's been very understanding."
"I knew she'd like you." Her face fell. "She must be furious."
"I think she's past that. Mind you, she still grounded me."
"That's so harsh!" Hay Lin exclaimed as she came back in. "How long for?"
"Pretty much until she says otherwise." I shrugged. "It's not a big deal: she's seeing about getting me into school too so I'll probably actually be getting out much more than I'm used to."
"But only to school. That's harsh," Will pointed out. "Do you think she's going to ground me too?"
We looked at each other. We both nodded.
"That's so cute!" Hay Lin declared. "Not being grounded," she added hastily, "But doing things together like that."
"I think you might want to focus on getting an exemption to your grounding for being a Guardian," I suggested hastily to Will. Who knew how long Mom would be with Irma?
Will looked surprised. "You think she'll agree to it?"
"I didn't say that it would be easy."
We were interrupted by an appalled shriek from Mom's bedroom: "No, you can't!"
The two of us were only a hair behind Hay Lin as we burst into the room. Irma - now wearing a Vance Michael Justin T-shirt that I hadn't even known that Mom had - was actually white-faced. "My dad's a cop!" she exclaimed. "He'll lock me away forever if he finds out about this."
"The fact that he's a police officer is precisely why you should have told him," Mom pointed out firmly. "Something like this should be dealt with by the police - or perhaps the army. Not young girls like you - or a single mother like me either." She made a shooing gesture. "Now, back into the lounge. Irma still has a phone call to make."
"Mom, you can't just tell everyone about this!"
"I most certainly can," she shot Will down firmly, but then raised her hand. "However, you'll get your chance to dissaude me in a few minutes. I admit I don't know everything, so I'm going to hear you all out first. But I'm warning you, you're going to have to have some pretty good reasons for me not to tell the authorities and I really can't think of anything you might say that wouldn't justify me telling your parents. What if one of you didn't come back from one of these... things that you do? Can you imagine how they would feel, never knowing what happened to their daughters?"
I'm not sure how much of that WIll actually listend to because her response was to stab an accusatory finger at the bed in Mom's room. "Is that my bed?"
"We don't have a third bed, Will, so you and Hope will be sharing for now."
"Sharing a bed!"
"No daughter of mine is sleeping in that pokey little hole."
"Okay..."
I caught Will's shoulder and pulled her out of the room. "Look at it this way," I whispered. "Now she has a single bed, she can't share it with anyone."
Will's eyes went wide. "Ew! I don't even want to think about that!"
"She gave me an extensive talking to about boys this morning." I put my hands on my hips. "I may be traumatised."
"Your Mom gave you The Talk!?" exclaimed Irma. She gave me a sympathetic hug. "Don't worry, we'll help you get over it. Hey, now that you're not a secret maybe I can set you up with Martin!"
"I wouldn't dream of spoiling your beautiful relationship," I told her sweetly.
"We're not in a relationship!"
"But you went on a date and everything."
"There was no everything! He took me to the Museum, as a friend! And only because my stupid Astral Drop agreed to it!"
"So you want to pawn him off on me?"
"Well it'd let you break into dating the easy way..."
Cornelia raised on eyebrow as we walked into the lounge. "Whatever she's trying to sell you, Hope, don't buy it."
"I wasn't planning to," I assured her. "So your parents are okay with you staying for dinner?"
She nodded. "Of course. So how did things work out here?"
"As far as anyone but Mom goes, you girls found me in that cave down on the beach and I don't remember anything before then."
"That should be easy to remember."
"Of course if she decideds to tell the police the truth, I guess that's not going to matter," I added.
"The truth? As in... all about us?" Cornelia's voice had a definite squeak to it. "But everyone would think we're freaks."
"Hey, we're like, superheroes!" protested Irma. "Are you done on the phone, Taranee?"
The other Guardian gave her weary look. "I promise, Mom, I won't be out late and you can call me here any time," she said into the phone. "Sure, I'll call you to pick me up when we're done. ... No later than eight, I promise. ... I love you too, Mom." Taranee handed the phone over to Irma. "Mom's going to kill me when she finds out about my being a Guardian."
I patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, trying to think of something to say. 'You can have my pokey little loft to hide in,' probably wouldn't have the right ring to it and besides, Mom knew about it now. Apparently a verbal response wasn't required because she leant against me and began to sniffle. I very cautiously put my arms around her shoulders and manuvered her towards the couch. Will perched on the corner so she could hug Taranee from the other side and Cornelia sat herself neatly beside me.
Mom waited until Irma had finished talking her mother into letting her stay for dinner and then waved the other to onto the other couch. "So, from what Hope tells me, your grandmother gave Will the Heart of Kandrakar and that's what gives you..." She looked lost for words for a moment. "Magic powers? And then this Phobos character started sending people after you?"
"It's not grandma's fault!" Hay Lin protested.
"Ah..." That wasn't what I'd said? Was it?
"Let them speak, Hope."
*That's not what I told her!* I thought, hoping that Taranee would be listening.
"We had powers before Mrs. Lin told us about the Guardians," Cornelia insisted quickly. "Taranee protected Irma and Will from the fireworks that went wild at the Halloween Party."
"Yeah!" Irma agreed. "And the minute Cedric had his claws into Elyon he had her help him set a trap for him. We'd never even heard of him, but he and Vathek would have captured me, Hay Lin and Will the next night if Will hadn't used the Heart to transform us!"
Mom's expression tightened. "Yes, that's more or less what Hope told me. I rather hoped that she was wrong."
She set me up!
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I had to be sure." She leant against the wall. "Dammit."
"Mom?" Will sounded about as shocked as I was. Mom swearing?
"So much for Plan A, which was to sling the two of you in the car and get as far away from Heatherfield as possible. And recommending to your parents," she looked at the others. "Do exactly the same, but in different directions."
"You can't!" at least three different protests arose.
"No, I can't. Because it seems fairly obvious that Phobos would keep trying to get at you so you wouldn't be any safer than you are now. And that's what matters here, girls. This magic kingdom or whatever it is got itself into a mess all by itself and that's very sad but there is no way on God's Earth that it's worth putting your lives at risk. Will's not even fourteen yet -"
There was a mumbled "Two more weeks," from my sister that everyone ignored.
"- and I don't recall any of you being much older - if any. You ought to be worrying about schoolwork and boys liking you, not something like this."
"I do worry about those things," Irma pointed out.
"You worry enough about school for both of us," Will added rather pointedly.
"Will, honestly how much of the trouble we've been having these past couple of months has been because you were doing all this on top of all this?"
"Mom, this is more important than that!"
"And other circumstances - where you weren't putting your life at risk and hiding it from me - I would be very impressed that you've taken responsibility for something important. In fact, I am impressed. But I still don't want you doing this. You're not a soldier! None of you are!"
"Elyon's my friend," pointed out Cornelia. "And she needs my help. Say you go to the government and say that they believe you... do you really think they'll care about one girl who isn't even from Earth in the first place? And incidentally? How are you going to convince them of anything without evidence? I won't give you any."
"Young lady..."
"Mom!" I spoke up quickly. Tempers were obviously getting high. "Can we have a moment?"
I don't know what she saw when she looked at me but it convinced her to nod. "Help me get some drinks then. What would you girls like?"
We took orders and withdrew into the kitchen.
"What is it, Hope?"
"Mom, I'm not sure how to put this, but..."
She opened the cupboard for glasses. "Start at the beginning?"
"It's sort of the other end. Look, if comes to the point that Will has to choose between you and the others, I don't see how it'll do anything but hurt all three of us."
The colour fled her face and one of the glasses hit the floor and shattered.
"Mom!?" Will called.
"Just a glass," I called back when Mom didn't answer.
"You think she'd leave?" Mom asked in a small voice. I wasn't sure if there should have been an 'us' or a 'me' at the end of that, but it didn't really matter in this case. Will had at least considered it earlier and while I'd decided to stay and try to work things out for her... if it became a permanent decision then I'd be going with Will.
Whether she wanted me to or not.
"I hope not. But if it comes to that, however she chooses... she will hold it against you forever."
"At least she'll be alive!"
"We don't know that either. She could be a Guardian for the rest of her life and never get so much as a scratch... or she could quit it and be hit by a car the next day. I know neither of those is the most likely but, we do know that if she has to make that choice then she'll be desperately unhappy."
"And would you?"
I looked away. "This isn't about me, Mom. It'd be her choice."
"What would you do?"
"In her shoes? Or yours?"
There was a long pause.
"I don't know, Mom. I don't want her hurt either, but it's her life. If she goes... I'll do my best to look after her."
Mom looked down at the broken glass. "I seem to be breaking everything today."
"You haven't broken anything important." There was a 'yet' that hung unspoken between us. I went to the store cupboard and found a dustpan and brush. "I'll get the glass cleaned up."
"Remember to bag the glass - we don't want it cutting through the bin-bags," Mom 'reminded' me and I got a paper bag to contain the shards against that possibility.
"Girls," I heard Mom say as she took a tray of drinks through into the lounge. "I've been looking at this from the wrong end. Why don't you just tell me about what you've been doing as Guardians. I shouldn't try to make decisions when I don't really know what's been going on."
I hid a smile as I rejoined them in the room and saw Irma giving an animated description of how she'd rescued Will from Elyon's water tentacle. (Literally animated, she was using water in her glass to show the way it had happened).
One crisis averted. Hopefully the next couple of dozen would be as 'easy'.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
"Dean, I'm sorry, I'm not being a very good hostess today."
The teacher shook his head in denial. "Being a good hostess isn't as important as being a good mother, Susan. I understand that." He nodded to the covered bowls in front of our seats. "I'm afraid they might need to be reheated though."
"Well that's why we have a microwave." Mom took our bowls over to it. Once her hands were free again she pulled her cellphone out of her hip pocket. "Will texted me to let me know she's on her way home. I imagine she'll be a little while yet, but once she gets here I think I'm going to have to lay down the law a bit."
Professor Collins looked at her for a moment and then caught the hint. "Ah. Not the sort of conversation that would be helped by having someone she sees as an interloper around?"
"I feel rotten about this when I invited you over, but..."
"It's alright. Don't be too hard on her, Susan. After all, you have been talking about her needing to be responsible and I think it's hard to say she's taken too little responsibility by caring for Hope - more in the other direction," he finished with a nod in my direction.
I felt my cheeks colour slightly. "I can pull my own weight."
"I'm not saying you haven't," Professor Collins assured me. "I'm just pointing out that Will must have too."
The microwave dinged merrily and I - but not the two adults - heard it declare proudly: "All done!"
"Yeah, yeah," the stove grumbled. The pair of appliances seemed to have something of a rivalry.
Collins rose to his feet. "I'll see of I can talk to Mrs. Knickerbocker tonight about Hope's placement tests."
"On a Friday night?" asked Mom in surprise.
"If the last couple of years are any guide, she'll be getting an early start making sure that the school is ready for Monday morning," he advised us. "I think Sheffield Institute's more a home to her than her house is."
"I'm sorry," Mom said again to him.
"And I'm happy to help."
"Why don't you walk him downstairs, Mom?" I suggested. "I can take care of the soup."
She gave me a grateful look and once they had departed I put her bowl back in the microwave and dug into my own. I'm not saying it was the greatest soup ever made (it was from a tin, after all), but it was warm and filling, which was what I wanted right now. It also wasn't Mom's homemade soup, about which the less said the better. I might not have the widest range of experience when it came to food but I knew that Will and Taranee were competing in tales of culinary disasters by Mom and Mr Cook and that wasn't a good sign.
I'd finished the bowl and was running the tap to give it a quick soak before I put it in the dishwasher when the apartment door opened and Mom called: "Hello Hope, look who I found outside."
"Will?" I guessed. Wasn't Taranee going to give me a mental call when they were close?
"I'll give you partial credit for that."
"Hi Hope," Will grumbled as she was marched into the kitchen, along with the other four Guardians. "We got caught."
"No kidding. At least it wasn't Cedric or Frost," I pointed out. "Welcome home."
"Frost?" asked Mom. "Another of Phobos's people I take it?"
"I guess Hope explained about that," Cornelia sighed. "Yes. Nasty fellow who used to ride around on a rhinoceros-monster until Will left it locked in Van Dahl's painting.
"He was really nice once Frost wasn't on top of it," my sister reminisced.
There were a succession of eye rolls. I dreaded the possibility that Cedric one day thought to send a frog-monster after the Guardians - Will would probably be too busy cooing over it to do anything useful.
"The phone's in the lounge," Mom reminded the other girls pointedly. "Don't you have phone calls to make?"
"Yes, Mrs. Vandom," Irma, Taranee, Taranee and Hay Lin chorused, obediently. There was something odd about Irma's clothes and it took me a moment to realise that her sweater was definitely too tight for her.
"Irma, where did you get those clothes?" She hadn't had any except for her Guardian uniform, last time I'd seen her.
"I borrowed them from Elyon's wardrobe," she explained. "Why? I'll put them through the laundry before I put them back."
"Are you going to fix that seam too?" I asked her, pointing at one armpit, where the strain of containing someone noticeably more 'developed' than Elyon (or the rest of us) had evidently pulled something loose. (In fairness, I think Irma was just sturdily built as well. Elyon's kind of willowy).
"Er..."
Mom rolled her eyes. "Come with me Irma. Will's clothes won't fit you either but I guess I can lend you a T-shirt."
"So what are they making phone calls for?" I asked Will quietly once everyone else had left the kitchen.
"Mom told them they could call home and arrange to have dinner here while I explain about the Guardians or she could call their homes and explain she'd seen us run off with a shady looking guy. So why didn't you go to Miss Rudolph?"
"I was detained by the police before I even reached the street," I explained quickly. "They seemed to know you - Maria and Joel?"
"Oh, those Interpol people from yesterday! Do you think they suspect anything?"
"I'm sure they suspect something, but it's probably not the truth. Oh, they're probably going to ask some questions about how you found me down at that cave with no memories."
Will blinked. "What? They know about you!?"
"Yep. Mom's been very understanding."
"I knew she'd like you." Her face fell. "She must be furious."
"I think she's past that. Mind you, she still grounded me."
"That's so harsh!" Hay Lin exclaimed as she came back in. "How long for?"
"Pretty much until she says otherwise." I shrugged. "It's not a big deal: she's seeing about getting me into school too so I'll probably actually be getting out much more than I'm used to."
"But only to school. That's harsh," Will pointed out. "Do you think she's going to ground me too?"
We looked at each other. We both nodded.
"That's so cute!" Hay Lin declared. "Not being grounded," she added hastily, "But doing things together like that."
"I think you might want to focus on getting an exemption to your grounding for being a Guardian," I suggested hastily to Will. Who knew how long Mom would be with Irma?
Will looked surprised. "You think she'll agree to it?"
"I didn't say that it would be easy."
We were interrupted by an appalled shriek from Mom's bedroom: "No, you can't!"
The two of us were only a hair behind Hay Lin as we burst into the room. Irma - now wearing a Vance Michael Justin T-shirt that I hadn't even known that Mom had - was actually white-faced. "My dad's a cop!" she exclaimed. "He'll lock me away forever if he finds out about this."
"The fact that he's a police officer is precisely why you should have told him," Mom pointed out firmly. "Something like this should be dealt with by the police - or perhaps the army. Not young girls like you - or a single mother like me either." She made a shooing gesture. "Now, back into the lounge. Irma still has a phone call to make."
"Mom, you can't just tell everyone about this!"
"I most certainly can," she shot Will down firmly, but then raised her hand. "However, you'll get your chance to dissaude me in a few minutes. I admit I don't know everything, so I'm going to hear you all out first. But I'm warning you, you're going to have to have some pretty good reasons for me not to tell the authorities and I really can't think of anything you might say that wouldn't justify me telling your parents. What if one of you didn't come back from one of these... things that you do? Can you imagine how they would feel, never knowing what happened to their daughters?"
I'm not sure how much of that WIll actually listend to because her response was to stab an accusatory finger at the bed in Mom's room. "Is that my bed?"
"We don't have a third bed, Will, so you and Hope will be sharing for now."
"Sharing a bed!"
"No daughter of mine is sleeping in that pokey little hole."
"Okay..."
I caught Will's shoulder and pulled her out of the room. "Look at it this way," I whispered. "Now she has a single bed, she can't share it with anyone."
Will's eyes went wide. "Ew! I don't even want to think about that!"
"She gave me an extensive talking to about boys this morning." I put my hands on my hips. "I may be traumatised."
"Your Mom gave you The Talk!?" exclaimed Irma. She gave me a sympathetic hug. "Don't worry, we'll help you get over it. Hey, now that you're not a secret maybe I can set you up with Martin!"
"I wouldn't dream of spoiling your beautiful relationship," I told her sweetly.
"We're not in a relationship!"
"But you went on a date and everything."
"There was no everything! He took me to the Museum, as a friend! And only because my stupid Astral Drop agreed to it!"
"So you want to pawn him off on me?"
"Well it'd let you break into dating the easy way..."
Cornelia raised on eyebrow as we walked into the lounge. "Whatever she's trying to sell you, Hope, don't buy it."
"I wasn't planning to," I assured her. "So your parents are okay with you staying for dinner?"
She nodded. "Of course. So how did things work out here?"
"As far as anyone but Mom goes, you girls found me in that cave down on the beach and I don't remember anything before then."
"That should be easy to remember."
"Of course if she decideds to tell the police the truth, I guess that's not going to matter," I added.
"The truth? As in... all about us?" Cornelia's voice had a definite squeak to it. "But everyone would think we're freaks."
"Hey, we're like, superheroes!" protested Irma. "Are you done on the phone, Taranee?"
The other Guardian gave her weary look. "I promise, Mom, I won't be out late and you can call me here any time," she said into the phone. "Sure, I'll call you to pick me up when we're done. ... No later than eight, I promise. ... I love you too, Mom." Taranee handed the phone over to Irma. "Mom's going to kill me when she finds out about my being a Guardian."
I patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, trying to think of something to say. 'You can have my pokey little loft to hide in,' probably wouldn't have the right ring to it and besides, Mom knew about it now. Apparently a verbal response wasn't required because she leant against me and began to sniffle. I very cautiously put my arms around her shoulders and manuvered her towards the couch. Will perched on the corner so she could hug Taranee from the other side and Cornelia sat herself neatly beside me.
Mom waited until Irma had finished talking her mother into letting her stay for dinner and then waved the other to onto the other couch. "So, from what Hope tells me, your grandmother gave Will the Heart of Kandrakar and that's what gives you..." She looked lost for words for a moment. "Magic powers? And then this Phobos character started sending people after you?"
"It's not grandma's fault!" Hay Lin protested.
"Ah..." That wasn't what I'd said? Was it?
"Let them speak, Hope."
*That's not what I told her!* I thought, hoping that Taranee would be listening.
"We had powers before Mrs. Lin told us about the Guardians," Cornelia insisted quickly. "Taranee protected Irma and Will from the fireworks that went wild at the Halloween Party."
"Yeah!" Irma agreed. "And the minute Cedric had his claws into Elyon he had her help him set a trap for him. We'd never even heard of him, but he and Vathek would have captured me, Hay Lin and Will the next night if Will hadn't used the Heart to transform us!"
Mom's expression tightened. "Yes, that's more or less what Hope told me. I rather hoped that she was wrong."
She set me up!
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I had to be sure." She leant against the wall. "Dammit."
"Mom?" Will sounded about as shocked as I was. Mom swearing?
"So much for Plan A, which was to sling the two of you in the car and get as far away from Heatherfield as possible. And recommending to your parents," she looked at the others. "Do exactly the same, but in different directions."
"You can't!" at least three different protests arose.
"No, I can't. Because it seems fairly obvious that Phobos would keep trying to get at you so you wouldn't be any safer than you are now. And that's what matters here, girls. This magic kingdom or whatever it is got itself into a mess all by itself and that's very sad but there is no way on God's Earth that it's worth putting your lives at risk. Will's not even fourteen yet -"
There was a mumbled "Two more weeks," from my sister that everyone ignored.
"- and I don't recall any of you being much older - if any. You ought to be worrying about schoolwork and boys liking you, not something like this."
"I do worry about those things," Irma pointed out.
"You worry enough about school for both of us," Will added rather pointedly.
"Will, honestly how much of the trouble we've been having these past couple of months has been because you were doing all this on top of all this?"
"Mom, this is more important than that!"
"And other circumstances - where you weren't putting your life at risk and hiding it from me - I would be very impressed that you've taken responsibility for something important. In fact, I am impressed. But I still don't want you doing this. You're not a soldier! None of you are!"
"Elyon's my friend," pointed out Cornelia. "And she needs my help. Say you go to the government and say that they believe you... do you really think they'll care about one girl who isn't even from Earth in the first place? And incidentally? How are you going to convince them of anything without evidence? I won't give you any."
"Young lady..."
"Mom!" I spoke up quickly. Tempers were obviously getting high. "Can we have a moment?"
I don't know what she saw when she looked at me but it convinced her to nod. "Help me get some drinks then. What would you girls like?"
We took orders and withdrew into the kitchen.
"What is it, Hope?"
"Mom, I'm not sure how to put this, but..."
She opened the cupboard for glasses. "Start at the beginning?"
"It's sort of the other end. Look, if comes to the point that Will has to choose between you and the others, I don't see how it'll do anything but hurt all three of us."
The colour fled her face and one of the glasses hit the floor and shattered.
"Mom!?" Will called.
"Just a glass," I called back when Mom didn't answer.
"You think she'd leave?" Mom asked in a small voice. I wasn't sure if there should have been an 'us' or a 'me' at the end of that, but it didn't really matter in this case. Will had at least considered it earlier and while I'd decided to stay and try to work things out for her... if it became a permanent decision then I'd be going with Will.
Whether she wanted me to or not.
"I hope not. But if it comes to that, however she chooses... she will hold it against you forever."
"At least she'll be alive!"
"We don't know that either. She could be a Guardian for the rest of her life and never get so much as a scratch... or she could quit it and be hit by a car the next day. I know neither of those is the most likely but, we do know that if she has to make that choice then she'll be desperately unhappy."
"And would you?"
I looked away. "This isn't about me, Mom. It'd be her choice."
"What would you do?"
"In her shoes? Or yours?"
There was a long pause.
"I don't know, Mom. I don't want her hurt either, but it's her life. If she goes... I'll do my best to look after her."
Mom looked down at the broken glass. "I seem to be breaking everything today."
"You haven't broken anything important." There was a 'yet' that hung unspoken between us. I went to the store cupboard and found a dustpan and brush. "I'll get the glass cleaned up."
"Remember to bag the glass - we don't want it cutting through the bin-bags," Mom 'reminded' me and I got a paper bag to contain the shards against that possibility.
"Girls," I heard Mom say as she took a tray of drinks through into the lounge. "I've been looking at this from the wrong end. Why don't you just tell me about what you've been doing as Guardians. I shouldn't try to make decisions when I don't really know what's been going on."
I hid a smile as I rejoined them in the room and saw Irma giving an animated description of how she'd rescued Will from Elyon's water tentacle. (Literally animated, she was using water in her glass to show the way it had happened).
One crisis averted. Hopefully the next couple of dozen would be as 'easy'.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.