Was It Worth The Cost?

Everything Is Dandy

     The constant chirping of the song-birds outside could be heard easily, and clearly through the walls of the bedroom, perhaps because of the large window night next to the head of the child's bed, or perhaps it was due to the thin walls of his room provided between himself and the outside .. Both likely had something to do with it, but The Thirteen British Colonies .. Thirteen for short, didn't care too much for the reason .. All his groggy mind provided was that it was too early in the morning to wake up ..

     Hold on.

     School. School is a thing.

     With a startled yelp, the pre-teen lost all sense of sleep he'd previously had as he all but launched himself out of his bed and onto the thick white carpet of his floor. Racing over to his closet, the plain red flag with a British canton spared a single glance at the traditional clock hanging by his door, several profanities falling from his mouth even though he knew his fathers would have definitely scolded him for it if they had heard .

     "Oh god, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late." He wrestled on his own clothes for a moment until he had a decent outfit on, before racing out of his room and down the stairs, ignoring the startled yelp of a familiar white and red flag- wait.

     "Kiwi, what are you doing here?" He back-tracked and approached his brother, "Don't Scotland and Ireland normally drop you off at your school when they go to work?" The much smaller boy looked at him, puzzled.

     "..School?"

     Thirteen couldn't believe he was having this conversation, he sighed, exasperated, and eyed the seven-year-old as if he were dumb, "Yeah, that place we go to almost every day? You learn stuff?"

     "I know what school is!" The kid snapped, "But why do we gotta go today? It's Friday."

     "Exactly - !" It was then, that the older brother remembered they had a day off, it was a 'PT Day.'

     "Whatever, I'm going back to my room." It seemed the youngest was done dealing with his brothers shenanigans, and upon seeing the slow dawning of realization on Thirteens face, made his dismissal clear with a turn of his heel. "Have fun at school, I guess."

     The older colony face-palmed and sighed at his own stupidity, "Sorry Zee." He said, before turning to resume going back downstairs, at a much slower pace this time.

     When he finally reached the kitchen to grab a bite to eat, he was greeted by a sleepy New Ireland, who did not work this Monday, and was unofficially pronounced the babysitter of the day. "Oi, you're up early, did Aussie get hold of that blow-horn again?"

     Thirteen snorted at the memory that brought up, opening his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by his younger twin, The Northern British Colonies .. Dad hadn't been very considerate when he named them. "Australia's in the living room with his snakes."

     The other red flag looked rather tired, his eyes drooping, and he sat in his seat with worse posture than normal, poking at a pair of microwavable waffles drowned in syrup as if they'd taken away his birthday. Thirteen didn't bother hiding his observation either, "North, you look terrible, what's up?" Their uncle resumed his texting.

     "We ran out of pancakes." Was the simple answer.

     "Oh." The oldest paused, and opened the fridge to grab a half-empty carton of milk, "Well, you have waffles, aren't they basically the same thing ..?"

     This triggered an almost violent response from his brother, and Thirteen had to fight a flinch at the boom the fork made when it slammed into the table, " Fuck you -!"