A͚U͚T͚U͚M͚N͚

🄲🄷🄰🄿🅃🄴🅁 🄸🄸🄸: 🅀 🄰🄽🄳 🄰

"Cover your eyes!" Caren lilted, ready to show the surprise.

I covered my eyes and heard a bush rustling. Caren's footsteps got farther and farther as she probably chased an animal. After waiting for a while (probably an hour) for this surprise, her footsteps got louder as she approached me.

"You can look now!"

I placed my hands back to the pocket of my baggy sweater, little feathers popped out of the bushes. A probably shy little owl slowly approaches us.

"Cute isn't it?" She said looking at the little guy.

"Yep"

"We should put it on the new bird house the Green Thumbs Club made" She twirled her strawberry blonde hair for no reason at all.

"I don't think its big enough for the owl and besides, owls are pretty dangerous. It could scar or bite if we try to hold it"

We spent a few good minutes staring at the owl. Tempted, I touched it's head a bit and it nearly bit me.

"Hypocrite!" She exclaimed, trying to sound funny.

"Ok... ok... I know, owls are really tempting to-" I tried to go with the flow of this conversation. Suddenly, I heard another one's footsteps get louder. Loud huffing was also heard. Pretending that it wasn't Darlene, I looked curious too.

"Oliver! there you are!" Darlene broke the conversation and scared the owl. It flew away and nearly pooped on my best friend's head instead of me who nearly got bitten because of touching it's head.

She ran to us and took a deep breath. "I been looking for you!" She said, exhausted after stalking every single hallway at school even if I usually stay at the garden.

'Why does she keep unintentionally scaring animals? First Vixie, then the owl' I thought, looking at her. Maybe she looks scary to animals because she sounds like she swallowed a speaker and a microphone. She's scares off introverts too.

A few hours later...

I walked home with my siblings and noticed a silhouette of a cat. The silhouette got smaller as it approached us.  Suddenly, my cat gone for one day (thank goodness she returned !), Vixie ran to me with a dead rat on her mouth. Proud like she always is she presented it to me and gave me a proud face.

"Um..." Disgusted by the dead rat, Vixie hissed at me and approached Tristan instead.

"Can I carry her?" He asked, excited to carry her home.

"Sure."

He carried her home and saw Gemma talking to my mom by the window.

"Hey look new customers!"

I entered the bakery to be greeted by a couple. One tall and one a bit chubby and shorter.

"You must Oliver!" I tall lady exclaimed, she looked at me with a smile on her face.

"Yes, yes I am" I replied awkwardly, looking at the lady.

"I'm Gemma's aunt" She reached out her hand and I shake it.

I looked at the right side of the room and saw a man reading a newspaper, he waved at me and read his newspaper again.

"That's Gemma's uncle..." she looked at the man and gave him a stare.

"Hi..." The man said.

"Gemma told us a lot about you three!"

"That's nice.."

"Thank you for helping her make new friends. She's been having a hard time adjusting."

"May I ask something?"

"What is it dear?"

"Since she just moved here where is she from?"

"She's from the Philippines"

Tristan budged in and also asked a question. "What part of the Phil-"

"Tristan! Stop budging on other people's conversations!" My mom scolded him giving him a stare.

She looked at the cute cat clock hung on the wall, "I have a meeting to go to, can you watch over Gemma for awhile?" She asked.

"Yes, I can watch over her" My mom replied as they exchanged their number.

Before the couple left they talked to Gemma for awhile. After that, they started the car and waved goodbye from outside.

"So what do you guys wanna do?" Gemma asked, looking at us three.

"Can we ask more about you?" Tristan asks too, twirling his fingers waiting for an answer.

"Ummm.... ok" She replies and sits on the couch.

"Since your from the Philippines are you also Catholic?"

"No, I'm a Protestant"

"Ok umm..."

I looked at Tristan interviewing her, it seems normal for him to ask so many questions to new people but sometimes, I just want him to shut up and let us talk.

'If he loves asking questions so much why can't he just join the Journalism Club? I mean, he has the confidence to talk to other people...' I thought still looking at them two after 30 STRAIGHT MINUTES.

"Okay that's the end of the interview!" Darlene barges in and ends the Q and A.

Tristan looks at the time "Oh um... ok".

Gemma takes a deep breath of relief "Do you have any board games?" She asks, yearning for something to do.

"Ya, we do" Darlene replied and rushed upstairs.

After a long game of Snakes and Ladders our mom called us for dinner.

"Dinner's ready!" She exclaimed, holding the newly cooked dish.

We walked up the stairs to the veranda and set up the table. I looked at the sky and saw the stars twinkling brightly, it was surely a great night.

RING RING

My mom's phone rings and interrupts the mood.

"You can start eating now..." She runs downstairs.

'She's been getting a lot of phone calls, I wonder what's going on..." I thought looking at her rush downstairs.

"Let's eat!" Tristan excitingly opens the dish.