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"Mo-om! Derek won't come out from under the blankets even though I told him Mrs. Rosa is the best kindergarten teacher."
"I changed my mind!" Derek cried. "I don't wanna go to school anymore!"
"I guess we'll have to give back your power ranger backpack," Laura replied smugly, arms crossed as she looked down at the lump under the blankets that was her little brother. She hoped they weren't going to have another one; he was enough trouble.
She looked up when her dad came in and squealed when she was swooped into his arms and carted off toward the bathroom.
"Somebody needs her hair braided," Mark sang, making Laura giggle as he sat her down on the closed toilet.
Talia ventured into Derek's bedroom and sat down on the bed beside where he was hiding, her hands folded in her lap as she sighed.
"I sure wish Derek was in here right now. If he was, I could tell him all about the ice cream we're going to get after his very first day of school. We might even be able to have gummy bears on this ice cream, but I guess he won't know that since I can't see him anywhere." She sighed again and, very slowly, Derek peeked out from under his blankets.
"Hot fudge too?" he asked softly.
Gasping, Talia held out her arms for Derek to crawl into. "There you are! I was worried your dad and Laura and I were going to have to eat ice cream all alone!"
A shy smile spread across Derek's face and he curled up in Talia's arms, shaking his head. "I want ice cream," he admitted.
"Me too. But first we have to get dressed and ready for school. Then, afterward, we can go and get ice cream."
Derek pursed his lips a little bit, brows furrowing as he nodded. "Yeah, okay. I guess if ice cream comes afterward, school can't be too bad, right?"
Talia smiled and rocked Derek gently in her arms. "That's right," she chuckled softly. "You just have to remember to be careful, okay? And to have a fun time."
Derek nodded and nuzzled into his mom's neck with a little sigh. "Be careful not to tell our secret, right?"
"That's right. Let’s get dressed now, okay?"
"Okay," Derek agreed, sliding out of Talia's arms and running to his chest of drawers.
"Didn't we pick out your outfit already?" Talia asked curiously, looking toward the chest at the end of Derek's bed where his first day of school outfit sat.
"Oh yeah!"
~*~
Derek bounced in his place in line behind Layla, one of the girls in his class. She had shiny blonde hair and she’d let him have her frog sticker when he offered his ladybug one in a trade.
It was time to go home now and Derek had decided that school probably wasn’t that bad, especially since they got to have story time and learned about the alphabet and the numbers all the way to fifty.
“Derek!” His head whipped around when he heard his name called and he beamed over at Laura. His teacher nodded to him and he took off across the grass, happy to take Laura’s hand and skip along beside her down the sidewalk.
“Laura, today was great! Mrs. Rosa really is the best, did she read you stories when you were in her class? We read about the Frog and the Toad today and she says that there’s a lot of stories like that and that when we get to be gooder readers we can read the books on the shelf all by ourselves!”
Derek was so excited he barely paused to take a breath before he was telling his sister more about his day. “I made a friend named Layla and she gave me her frog sticker because she says frogs are yucky. I told her they’re not but she said that she likes lizards better, so I guess that’s okay. And I gave her my ladybug sticker because that’s what you do, right, you share?”
“That’s absolutely right, Derek.” Talia’s voice came from behind him and him and Laura both gasped as they spun around and took off into their mom’s arms.
“Mommy!”
“Mom!”
“Babies!” Talia hugged them both and picked Derek up, kissing his cheek as she twirled one finger around Laura’s braid. “How was our first day?” she asked.
“It was great!” Derek exclaimed, as Laura huffed and looked up at their mother. “Derek’s already talked off my whole entire ear, mom. Where’s daddy?”
“He’s in the car, sweetpea. Are we still going for ice cream?”
Both kids nodded excitedly. “Yes!”
They joined Mark in the car, piling inside together while Derek blabbered on about stories and numbers and his teacher who was “the nicest in the world! Laura was right, she’s the best.”
When they got out of the car and headed into the ice cream parlor, Derek was still talking about the things Mrs. Rosa had told them they were going to learn about throughout the year. “I already know a lot about the forest because daddy taught me and when Uncle Peter comes over he tells me stuff too! He knows a lot about the trees and I told Mrs. Rosa that I think I want to be a guy who grows trees when I’m older.”
“That’s not a job, Derek, that’s like gardening,” Laura said, already looking into the case with the different flavors of ice cream. Derek frowned and crossed his arms.
“Mrs. Rosa said I could have that job. She says maybe I could be a lumberjack.”
“They cut down the trees.” Laura turned around to face him. “Like Paul Bunyan.” She smiled sweetly when Derek frowned at her and stomped away to look into the ice cream display.
“Laura,” Talia warned, making her daughter duck her head a little before she tiptoed over to Derek and helped lift him up so he could see. Talia smiled. “Thank you.”
Derek smacked his hands on the glass and smushed his nose against it as he pointed. “I want that blue one, Laura, what’s that say?” he asked, obviously not holding a grudge.
“That’s Berry Blast, Der. And you want gummy bears and hot fudge too, right?” Derek nodded eagerly and looked up at Mark and Talia.
“Alright, Derek, tell the man what you want.” Mark picked his son up and settled him on his hip as he turned to face the teenager behind the counter.
“Um.” Derek curled a little closer to his dad and said shyly, “Berry Blast and hot fudge and gummy bears and also rainbow sprinkles, please.”
“Good job,” Mark praised quietly, kissing Derek’s cheek as they moved out of the way so the girls could order. Once they all were the proud owners of cups of ice cream, they made their way over to a booth in the corner and settled in to eat.
For the first few minutes there was no sound but chewing and the pleased hums that came with cold ice cream on a warm day. Then, Talia asked, “How was your day, Laura?”
“It was good!” Ice cream was on Laura’s nose and already sticking a few strands of her dark hair together, but she was oblivious as she continued. “Ms. Weaver is my teacher and she’s great. She lets us read books on our own if we can. It’s called Silent Reading and we get to sit on beanbag chairs, mom, it’s so cool! Could I get a beanbag chair for my room?”
Derek’s head snapped up, blue all around his mouth as he mumbled around his ice cream. “I want one too!”
Mark and Talia exchanged a look and smiled. “We’ll see about that.”