Page 93 of Home: Posy 5

"Is that all?" Their eyes turned to Peri, who nodded as she popped a grape in her mouth. Then they turned to me. "Is that true, luna?"

"Yes. We crave that, along with love and kindness. That's all we really want." I had no idea why men didn't understand this. "Not money, not expensive gifts or cars or anything you can buy. Just you being with us and showing us love and kindness."

The twins stilled, then slouched back in their chairs with slightly stunned faces.

"Good for you to learn, too, Kon." Grace nudged him with her elbow. "For when you find your mate next year."

"Your lips to the Goddess' ear," Konstantin said, lifting his eyes to the heavens, and I smiled with both amusement and sympathy.

After lunch, Landry took me and Thoreau with him to photography class, which seemed like it was going to be a lot of fun. The teacher, Mrs. Saunders, was laid-back and what Landry called granola. She couldn't stop talking about saving the planet and encouraging us to shut down our phones and get to know Mother Nature. I didn't see any problems coming out of her class, unless it was preventing Thoreau from taking his camera apart to see how it worked.

Then we said goodbye to Landry, and Thoreau and Spring proudly escorted me to our academic writing class, which we had with Wayne and Archer. It only took me two minutes to realize I needed to sit on the other side of the room from them if I wanted to learn anything. They were constant and complete distractions, giggling and joking and planning their next set of pranks, and our teacher, Dr. Parks was a little strict with them. Not as much as Mrs. Gautier, but still, I didn't want to get on his bad side.

Finally, the boys walked me to the gym, which was on their way to auto mechanics with Mr. Hall. I wasn't too keen on gym, but at least I had it with Peri and Tyler. Peri and I met up in the locker room, where we met Ms. Achebe, a small, trim black human. She said we wouldn't need to dress out today, but we would tomorrow, so I immediately linked Wyatt to remind me to bring my gym clothes.

Sure thing, cutie. Can't wait to see you soon!

Me, too, fifth star. Being away from all of you is the only thing I don't like about school so far.

Ms. Achebe had us follow her out into the big gym, where we found the guys waiting for us with their teacher, a well-built man named Mr. Harris, and we all sat on the floor as the two teachers went over some rules and procedures for the class. They explained that there would be activities that we'd all do together, and other times we'd be separated into a boy group and a girl group.

It all sounded fairly reasonable to me until they directed us to line up with boys on one side and girls on the other for a game called dodgeball. Once I understood what it was, I lost all respect for both teachers.

What kind of barbarism were they encouraging?!

"They're just foam balls, Posy," Peri giggled as she grabbed one and showed me. "See? Even if you get hit with one, it won't hurt."

"Oh. Okay. I can do that." With a mischievous grin, I rubbed my hands together. "We're ganging up on Tyler, right?"

"Definitely!" she agreed with a matching grin.

When the teachers blew their whistles, Peri and I ran to gather up as many balls as we could carry. Then, we started whaling them at Tyler as hard and fast as we could, giggling like mad at his shocked face.

18: He’s a What?!

Jayden

Friday morning, we almost didn't get Posy out the door on time. She was worked up because, in her excitement to go to the bonfire on Sunday, she'd forgotten to get birthday presents for her three new friends.

"Cutie, we can go tomorrow—" Wyatt tried to calm her, but she shook her head fiercely.

"Stella's isn't open tomorrow!" she wailed. "Emmeline said she has to do something called inventory, and she's closing early today to get started!"

"This isn't a crisis, sweetness. One of us can swing by there today." I grabbed her book bag and Ash hustled her toward the front door. "What do you want us to get?"

She linked all of us three images: A dinosaur chess set, which was undoubtedly for Sophia as it played to her top two interests; a book of scientific illustrations by Ernst Haeckel, clearly meant for Bram; and a pair of giraffe slippers that I could only assume were for Yolanda.

"What's with the slippers?" Ash asked.

"Yola collects giraffes, and they're super cute!" our girl chirped.

"We'll get them today," Cole said with a nod, but she gave him a skeptical look. He smirked and tapped her nose with his forefinger. "Aw, come on, honey! We run a pack of thousands. I think we can handle this."

"Okay, I guess I can trust you to not mess up," she pouted.

We all rolled our eyes at each other; how could we mess up when we knew which store to go to and she showed us exactly what she wanted?

Then I glanced over at Ash and rethought that statement. Not that he would do it on purpose, but Stella's shop was nothing but distractions for a brain like his.

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