Homeless (a Hetalia Fanfic, Book Three)

Chapter 14~!

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
'Which road do I take?' she asked.
'Where do you want to go?' was his response.
'I don't know' Alice answered.
'Then', said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.' "

After I led Sarah, Evan, Tatiana, Milo, Tael, and Dani to the "dorm" building and let them get settled in, I showed them around what I knew of the facility. That wasn't saying much, but the tour at least helped them get their bearings. I also showed them to where we'd had our meeting and told them not to go there if they could help it. 

"Yup! 'cause we're not supposed to go to meetings," Tatiana agreed. 

"Right. It's definitely no place for you guys," I said.

With that said and done, we ended up separating. Well, actually, Tael and Milo vacated as soon as they were allowed to. Dani and Sarah went off on their merry way, and Tatiana and Evan wanted to stay with me. I didn't mind it at all.

"What do you two want to do?" I asked them. "We can go grab a snack, or we can find a place to, uh, play around. Did you guys bring any toys or games with you?"

Tatiana rolled her eyes. "Mom, I'm thirteen, not six."

One corner of my mouth pulled up in a half-smile. "I know, I know. There's just not a whole lot to do here for kids your age. We can take a walk or... Er..."

"Can you read to me?" Evan blurted out suddenly, and I had to take a second to process the request.

'Wait...' 

"A... book?" I asked dumbly. Tatiana covered her mouth with one hand to stifle a giggle, and Evan looked sheepishly up at me. "Oh, oh, yeah! Of course I'll read to you, Evie. What, uh, what would you like to read?"

"I've got this one," he said, swinging his backpack off one shoulder so he could bring it around and reach inside. He pulled out an old-looking novel with a blank brown cover. The title was only on the spine, and in gold lettering. In the back of my mind, I flashed back to when Evan as a two-year-old had accidentally stolen one of Kadi's magical tomes.

Evan held it out to me, and I took it gently, turning it over so I could read the spine. "Alice In Wonderland?"

"Yeah, I really like it," he explained shyly. "I... I've read it a bunch of times already, but I wanna h-hear it from you."

'Is this going to stroke my ego since it's about a girl named Alice?' I had to wonder wryly. 'And one of my state nicknames is Pacific Wonderland...'

"Sure, Evie. I'll read this to you," I promised. "Do you want to wait until bedtime, or read it now?"

"Uhm..." he mumbled. "Now...?"

I smiled caringly at him. "Good point. It'll take a little while to get through all of it, after all. Tia, do you want to listen?"

My daughter shrugged her shoulders in response. "Sure, I guess."

That's how I ended up staying indoors for the rest of the afternoon and reading to two of my children. They were very avid listeners, though Tatiana ended up losing some interest after a little bit. Evan-- on the other hand-- was intently digesting every word of the beloved story.

To make the story that much more interesting, I assigned special voices to each character and spoke their dialogue differently from my own voice. If there was one practical use for my mimicry, then this was it: making storytime come alive for my kids. 

I tried not to make it obvious that I had noticed Milo hiding in the doorway of my designated room for a few minutes. Seems like he was listening in on the story. Curious...? I knew that if I said something, he'd jet like a startled fawn. Sometimes that boy was too easy to read.