Page 220 of As The Shifter World Turns

“It means, have a great play.” His mouth formed a little O and he gave me a quick hug.

“I will. Be sure to sit up front so you can see me.”

The poor kid loved the idea of being in a play and had been so excited for his part, sure he would be a wolf because wolves had the best costumes. He was not a wolf. The kid was a tree and not even a cool one like a Christmas tree. No, he was a maple. Why? Because a particular bird lived there. He didn’t tell me which one. It was a surprise.

“We will.” I left him as he went into the room where his teacher was waiting and I found Neil and the guys from Sunshine Manor who were standing near the auditorium entrance.

“He told us to sit up front so we can see him,” I told them as Neil handed me a playbill.

“Maybe we should sit near the back,” Ivor said, Dyani nestled against him and sound asleep. “That way if she cries, I can slide out without anyone knowing.”

“We’re sitting upfront,” Archer noted. “And we’re more likely to cause a disruption with two children.” He wasn’t wrong.

“We’ll all be at the front because Toby wants us to be.” Neil put an end to that.

They opened the door and let us in and we managed to get seats front andcenter. The teacher came out onto the stage reminding us all not to use flash photography and basically not to be assholes. It sounded easy enough… until it wasn’t.

The show was “educational” and focused on the animals local to us. Only they were wrong about half the time leading to Daire mumbling about the errors, people behind him shhhing him, Dyani waking up and crying which led to Charlie freaking out and screaming. And that had Elune joining in. Baby Jasper was the only one who didn’t cry. More people started in on the shhhing and a woman behind us yelled that we ruined everything and demanded the lights go on. It was a train mess of everything that shouldn’t happen at a school production and in the end they did stop the play. Not because the woman told them to, but because someone screamed they were in danger of losing their patience and all the person in charge of the lights heard was, “Danger.”

We all slunk out, the kids on stage frozen and waiting except for the trees. Each and every last tree was giving us a thumbs up. It was like a tree mutiny and I was kind of proud.

Once outside the guys started apologizing.

“Didn’t you see the trees?” I asked them.

No one responded.

“They were giving us the thumbs up. We didn’t ruin anything. We just made it more… just more. So where are we going after this to celebrate the best tree ever?” They just stared at me.

I could get upset. It was a catastrophe and a half. But why bother? My son was happy and that was really all that mattered.

“Toby’s going to want ice cream,” Neil finally said. “But we can give him the chance to pick just in case he’s in a pizza mood.”

He wasn’t. He wanted pie and to the diner we all went, somehow turning the night into one to remember… in a good way.

“Are you sure you're not mad?” Ivor asked as we were leaving.

“Nope.” Toby popped the P. “But if you want to be extra sure I’m not, maybe we can go to Daire’s land and… you know.”

“Not get lost in the woods?” Neil gave him a stern look and Toby just rolled his eyes.

“I’ll stay with my dad,” he promised. “But this time I get to be like you so I’ll have my nose, too.”

Everyone was up for the shift though Neil was the babysitter. Luckily, the kids had all fallen asleep. There was something about shifting as a group, a makeshift pack, with my son for the first time. This was truly where we belonged. Itfelt amazing.

Daire

“Today is reveal day.” Archer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not gonna lie, I’m worried. There were some really shitty plans in the sneak peeks you let me see.”

He wasn’t wrong and he hadn’t seen the worst of them. Being the final judge Archer was the only one who hadn’t seen much of the work they were doing as they progressed. It was only round one and with that came ten contestants and ten rooms.

Our idea had been that if there were only ten, we could mediate any catastrophes, as well as having an additional ten rooms for the contestants to stay in.

But if we did them all at once, we would not only have only one season, but we could potentially have a complete overhaul of the rooms ahead of us. Now that we’d been doing this, I wondered if it was a mistake. Prolonging this process too long just might kill me.

“There’s no turning back. Are you ready?” I asked both he and Micah who was going to be leading him through the rooms with the contestants. Martin, Neil, and Toby had the kids for the day, so at least we weren’t juggling some shitty ideas with keeping the kids safe and happy.

“As we ever will be.”

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