Page 23 of Once Upon a Dance Club Wish

Then we began to dive. A lesson I couldn’t teach them properly in the trough.

Our eldest found it tough to get his body to submerge, unable to coordinate his front and back legs to overcome his buoyancy. But our youngest, who’d wanted to stay behind withNelson, excelled at the process. He kept diving to the bottom and surfacing to click at his brother who hadn’t yet made it down.

“Keep trying,” I squeaked to the oldest. “You can do it.” I knew he could.

Eventually he did. I decided to take them to my favorite spot to find shrimp and snails to eat. I didn’t want to spoil their dinner or keep them underwater for too long and worry Nelson, so we surfaced after a quick taste of the new cuisine and found a rock to sunbathe on.

When we returned to Nelson, he smiled with tears in his eyes. “Did you all have fun?”

Our little ones squeaked and clicked, sharing their favorite spot in the pond, as I shifted back to my human form.

I helped Nelson put our children back in their carrier before we all headed back to our hut. With my arm around my mate, I pulled him into my side. “Thank you for letting us go there today.”

He gave me a sad smile. “It hurts that there are things you get to do with our boys I will never be able to do. But I’m glad I was at least there to watch. I just worry about them going down to the pond on their own, and me not knowing where they are.”

I rubbed his back. “I will teach them the rules of the pond as my pops taught me.” I didn’t know if they would always obey the rules, but I would do my best to keep Nelson from worrying about them too much.

That night, with our little ones nestled in their nursery, and Nelson and I cuddling on a sleeping pod, we all slept soundly, exhausted from our first family outing.

Chapter Twenty-One

Nelson

Back in the outer-world, I’d always heard the adage: “Kids grow up too fast.” I’d never paid much attention to it, never planning to have children of my own. Yet, since the hatching of my three little ones, I related to the saying more every day.

Though they had yet to shift, my boys had grown to half the size of their father’s turtle form. Every day, it became routine to take them with me to the community garden, where I would gather the ingredients I needed to make the evening’s dinner. On the way home, I stopped by the pond, where Holden would meet us and take the boys for an afternoon swim.

Sometimes I stayed, especially in the beginning. But most of the time, I returned home on my own to prepare dinner.

We hadn’t named our boys yet, Holden telling me the tradition was to wait to have a naming ceremony after their first shift. So, while they kept me busy, no longer satisfied with remaining in their nursery during the day, I waited to see their human form just as I had for them to hatch. And though I did have names picked out for each of them, Holden refused to hear them as he believed I would change my mind once I saw them in their shifted human form.

For the evening meal, I prepared a salad of romaine, carrot tops, parsley, dandelion leaves, and clover for the boys, and a bean salad with vinaigrette dressing for Holden and me. No meat in the Enchanted Forest had been something to get used to. There were bugs and crustaceans available, but I passed on those.

I had just placed the food on the table when the door opened.

I turned around, expecting to see Holden with the carrier, but a little boy who seemed to be around three years of age with light-brown skin and a mop of brown, curly hair came rushing inside. I didn’t see the other kids in the Enchanted Forest as often as I used to before I’d laid my eggs, but I was sure the boy in front of me wasn’t any of them. Had a young outer-worlder gotten hold of a card and somehow wished his way to the Enchanted Forest?

The boy stood in the foyer and smiled at me. “Hi, Daddy.”

I gasped and my heart skipped a beat as the identity of this child hit me. “Um, hi.” I shuffled closer to get a better look at him, made him turn around and lift his arms. Was he really one of my boys? “You shifted.”

He nodded with exaggerated movements. “Poppa said to surprise you.”

I placed my hand on my chest. “Well, I am surprised.” In many ways. I hadn’t expected my young boys to be the size of preschoolers and already be talking. I mean, I talked to them all the time, and they responded with their clicks and squeaks, but I hadn’t expected them to resemble the boy in front of me. Though I did see the same nose and eyes as Holden.

“Where is your poppa?”

He shrugged and looked back at the door. “Coming,” he squeaked out.

All along, I thought I would be prepared to see my boys in their human form, but instead, I stood and stared at him. Had his brothers shifted, too, or was he the first? And which of my boys was he? I couldn’t tell.

“Well, come and sit down.” I gave him a long hug then helped him up onto a chair. We didn’t really have enough room at the table for all five of us, but I would make it work. I got my boy a plate full of salad and placed it in front of him. “Eat up. I am sure you need it after your first shift.”

He shook his head. “Poppa let us eat lots of snails and shrimp today.”

Strange. Usually, Holden didn’t let them spoil their dinner. Had he known they were ready to shift?

A few minutes later, Holden walked in with another of our sons in his arms and the other wrapped around his leg both shifted to their human forms as well. “It was an eventful afternoon at the pond.”

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