Babysitting the Countries

Saying Goodbye

        When the kids woke up they found notes in their rooms. Slowly, they dragged their feet and somehow managed to make it into the hallway. "What's this all about?" Allen yawned.
"I don't know," Alfred said. "But it looks like miss (y/n)'s handwriting." They all looked at their notes. "Wait," James said pointing to the bottom. "This one is for Allen and Alfred."
"Huh?" they said together. Allen snatched the paper that James had and Alfred handed the other one to his brother. "It does...." Allen said looking down at the paper. "Upstairs?" he said aloud. As Allen and Alfred discussed their note, Matthew and James looked at theirs. "Find the key? What key?" Matthew shrugged then turned to see that Alfred and Allen had disappeared. "Where did they go?"
Allen and Alfred walked down the hall, fighting over who got to hold the paper.
"I should get to hold it, I had it first."
"No, I did!" As the fought, they arrived at the stairs to the locked room. They knew for sure that it had been locked last time they came in here. There was another note on the door. On it was the word wait. Allen was already getting annoyed with it. "Wait for what?!"
Meanwhile, James and Matthew were searching for a key to something. They didn't have any clue where to look or what it looked like, but they still searched. The scoured the first and second luck, but they had no such luck. The key was nowhere to be seen. Oddly enough, neither were their bears.... "Do you think they have them?" James asked. The other boy nodded, knowing exactly what he was thinking. To find the key, they needed to find the bears.

After a rather lengthy search, they found Kumajiro one and two in one of the spare rooms. Kumajiro, Matthew's bear, had a small key around his neck. Matthew ran over and picked the bear up, hugging him tightly. He took the key from around the animal's neck. On James's bear was a note. It instructed them to go find Allen and Alfred. "Where are they?" Matthew said looking over his shoulder. With a shrug, James left the room; Kuma lumbered behind him. So they wandered around until they found the staircase. Alfred stood up from where he was sitting. "Did you guys find a key?" James held it up for him to see. Allen and Alfred exchanged a glance and a wide grin. James and Matthew ran up the stairs and unlocked the door to reveal the inside of the room.
There was a not in the middle of the room. "This is the third one isn't it?" Alfred said, picking up the yellow paper. With a nod from the others, he begin to read. "This only gives a page number and a color."
"That's it?" Allen said. James looked around the room. "What's the color?"
"Green," Allen replied. "Dark green." Matthew begin to look around too. "Maybe it meant the color of the book?" Allen and Alfred turned to the blond boy. He seemed a bit startled by it. They dropped the note and searched the shelves. Eventually they found it, and upon reciting the spell, they heard a click. All of them looked over to see another door. And it was unlocked. Now excited, they ran over to the door to explore the rest of the house.

You sat downstairs in a room in the house. It bright, but it wasn't very dark either. Somewhere off in the distance, you knew there were four young boys running about, trying to figure out what they were searching for. And after an hour of that, they arrived in the room. Now, the lights came on to reveal the room. It was the library you had mentioned before. But not only that, there was enough space for running around and playing (kind of like a gym I suppose). The boys looked around in awe, not knowing what to say. "This is the library I was talking about," you said to them. They walked closer, and you continued. "I sent you on that little scavenger hunt because you guys will be leaving today.... And I wanted to give you presents." You pulled out four bags. One pair contained baseball bats and baseballs along with some gloves. The other pair contained skates and hokey sticks and pucks. They looked in the bags, confused about why they had them. By the size of the items, they clearly couldn't use them now. "Don't worry, you'll be able to use them later." You said softly. "Now lets go back upstairs. You need to get ready to leave. You all walked upstairs at a slow, steady pace. There was no need to rush.

About an hour later Arthur and Oliver came to pick the kids up. You said your goodbyes to each one, and as you did you realized how much you would miss them. They wouldn't be back for a while. Not for a long while. They were growing up. They wouldn't need you to watch them. You felt as though you were having your own children taken away. They didn't belong to you of course, but it felt like they did. You watched as they walked down the hill and back to their respective homes. You felt yourself tearing up a bit, and not wanting them to see, you turned to walk back in the house. That night, you went through pictures of them. You watched them grow up, your were practically their mother. And now your children had been taken away, but it didn't worry them too much. They would be back someday.