Forever Young

Chapter 40

The next couple of weeks passed by quickly. Carlisle required Koda and I to continue with our schooling until the middle of December, when our 'Christmas Break' officially started. While I was glad that I would get a break soon, it didn't take away from the frustration that came from my schoolwork. My ability to read had regressed some after I left the Cullens, and I had to relearn what I had once known before I could move on to something new.

And then when I did relearn all of the alphabet and sight words, the work got harder. It was a frustrating thing- no matter how hard I tried, no matter how well I did, it seemed that there was always something harder lined up. When I got done reviewing how to add and subtract by stacking, Carlisle added decimals. Then he made me learn to multiply and divide. And then he introduced something called fractions, which was baffling and impossible. After several days of trying to understand fractions, I finally started to make some progress.

And then Carlisle informed me that there were also negative numbers, which didn't even make sense. How could a number under 0 exist? It felt like a joke- once you hit zero, you couldn't get any lower. Everybody knew that! But rather than admitting that he was just kidding, Carlisle told me that we would start working with these silly, illogical, non-existent numbers as soon as we got back to school after Christmas.

Koda was ecstatic after we finished up our last day of schooling. He threw his backpack over the hook in our bedroom and dramatically collapsed on to his bed. I smiled and went to sit beside him. There was something exciting about getting a break from the constant schooling, but I still thought this awful holiday of Christmas didn't deserve it's own named break. If anything, we should be on a Winter break, or a 'you've done enough school for now' break. 

"We're done," Koda groaned, stretching his arm above his head. "Two whole weeks. What are we going to do?"

I shrugged. "Maybe we can go play at Uncle Sam and Aunty Emily's for a while."

Takoda made a face. "We can if you want."

I struggled to hold back a giggle at the put out expression he was wearing. It was very clear that visiting his Aunt, Uncle, sister, and large group of boys over at the other house was not on his list of priorities. 

He saw my attempts to hold back my laughter, and after a moment, we both burst into giggles. "Sorry," Koda said, still chuckling. "I just like it way better here. It's... quieter. And Ani and the little kids aren't always interrupting us. Maybe Mato can come here for a sleepover- he's been away forever. He hasn't even seen the treehouse yet."

"Oh, yeah! Mato! Now that we're on break, he is too, right?" Sam and Emily had decided to add an extension to their house- at Carlisle's suggestion and offer to fund it. They decided that they needed more bedrooms for all of the kids living there, and Emily was also insistent on Ani needing her own room in a few years, when her and the younger boys started hitting puberty. While construction and chaos was under way, Mato and Ani had gone for a couple of weeks to stay with Emily's cousin, Leah.

Koda shook his head. "No, not yet. He gets back when Aunty Leah comes to visit. I don't think she gets here until tomorrow. And she'll probably drop them off at Uncle Sam's first, so we would have to ask your parents to go and get them after the weekend."

My smile faded. I had forgotten that Takoda spent his weekends with Sam and Emily. That meant that part of my break would be spent without anyone to play with. Maybe I could convince Carlisle to just allow Koda to stay here full-time over the break.

But then Sam and Emily would miss him and be sad. And I didn't want that. So I would just find something else to do.

I stood and walked over to the far corner of the bedroom. It was where Renesmee's pile of stuffed animals were- the ones she never played with anymore. "Let's go to the treehouse," I said. "I've been meaning to take these over there. There's nothing cuddly in it yet!"