Page 84 of Broken Chorus

“Is everyone ready for tea time?” Ella asked.

“We sure are princess,” Aaron said, and all talk of travel and language faded as one by one, they passed their plates, and that of the bears, around the table for Ella to put the most adorable little heart, teddy bear, and circle shaped sandwiches on.

For the bears, Aaron had gotten her plastic sandwiches in similar shapes as the real ones she was serving and teacups that looked like they were filled with some kind of soft, squishy glittering plastic to simulate tea. Hawk was seriously impressed by the thoughtfulness that had gone into every detail of the tea party.

“So, for sandwiches we’ve got peanut butter and fluff, Nutella and raspberry, cucumber and garlic goat cheese, turkey and cranberry, and a maple honey ham with thinly sliced apples and smoked gouda,” Aaron announced. “They’ll be a sample of each on your plates.”

“Dude…who did you get to cater all of this,” Cade asked.

“We made it!” Ella said happily. “Me and Uncle Aaron.”

“I helped too,” Dani said, perking up.

She had the only non-teddy bear stuffed animal at the table as she was clutching her favorite toy, the little stuffed Narwhal Aaron had found along with a bunch of other cool stuff at some epically massive toy store.

Ella nodded at that. “Yup, Dani helped too. We had so much fun.”

“This is decadent,” Declan declared as he took a bite out of one of the sandwiches. “I’d never have thought to add smoked goudaand apple slices to a ham sandwich, but after this, I wouldn’t want them any other way.”

“Yey, you like them,” Ella said.

“Sure do.” Declan replied.

In an effort to make it look like the bears were eating too, all of them took their cue from Aaron and occasionally lifted one of the plastic sandwiches to the bears lips and made nom-nom sounds like they were chowing down or held a teacup to their lips, making slurping sounds like they were drinking.

Soft classical music played in the background, providing just the right ambiance for Ella to regale them with stories from her first-grade class.

“Mrs. Allen asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up,” Ella said in between nibbles of one of her sandwiches. “And you will never believe what Davy said.”

“What did Davy say,” Cade asked.

“He wants to be a superhero and turn all the villains into snowmen so the sun can melt them,” she declared.

“Pretty ingenious if you ask me,” Hawk remarked, chuckling.

“And Sara wants to be a librarian so she can spend all day with books and learn everything,” Ella declared. “She even got to sleep at the library once.”

“Really, and how did she manage that, ‘cause that sounds like it would be fun,” Declan asked.

“They have a lock in,” Ella explained. “Sara’s big sister went so Sara got to go too. She said they had all these big comfy pillows to sit and read on and they even played movies and had popcorn with fun flavors. She said there was story time with puppets and book themed snacks and even a librarian dressed up as the Cat in the Hat to read Dr. Seuss books.”

“Whoa, where was that when we were growing up?” Kelly asked. “I’d have loved to go.”

“Same.” Hawk replied.

Aaron nodded, but he had the same sad look on his face he always got when they talked about childhood and Hawk knew it was because he was thinking back to those days and wouldn’t have been allowed to join in.

“You’d have had to pry me out of a beanbag in the morning to get me to go home,” Cade admitted.

Declan laughed at that and shot his brother a look. “Heh, what do you mean, pry? You’d have dragged that beanbag chair out with you and dad would have had to buy a replacement for the library.”

“You’re not wrong,” Cade admitted, laughing.

“What about you, sweetheart, what did you tell them that you wanted to be?” Aaron asked her.

Ella beamed up at him, love and joy shining in her eyes. She’d never forget this day and Hawk would never forget the energy and effort Aaron had put in to make this something truly remarkable.

“I wanna travel all over like you and uncle Hawk,” she declared.

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