by S. E. Smith
Bálint shook his head. “No… I just… It’s just—” He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling.
“You aren’t getting sick, are you?” Roam asked, wiggling his nose and taking a step away.
“Who’s getting sick?” Zohar asked.
“Do you have a tummy ache? Sometimes letting out the gas helps!” Jabir chimed in.
Bálint frowned as the group of boys surrounded him. “I don’t need to fart,” he scowled.
Jabir shrugged. “I’m just saying it helps sometimes. My dad says it is better out than in. Mom tells us to take it outside,” he replied with a serious expression.
Roam grinned and released a nice long fart. Bálint groaned and shook his head while Leo and James, the two youngest of the Dragonling gang, giggled and tried to release gas. Roam and Leo weren’t technically dragon-shifters, they were Sarafin cat-shifters, and Alice was a Curizan who could harness the surrounding energy, but the group had decided to call themselves the Dragonlings—and it had stuck. His mom said they were like a group of kids back home called The Little Rascals.
“You know we can hear you, right?” Spring called.
“Do you hear this?” Roam retorted, turning his back toward her. He released a long, loud fart and shook his butt at her.
Spring rose to her feet and marched over to him with her fists clenched. Roam’s eyes widened and he hid behind Bálint. He peered over Bálint’s shoulder at Spring.
“You are the most disgusting, stupid boy I have ever met! I hope you don’t expect a Valentine’s Day card from me because I’m not going to give you one,” she snapped, wiping an angry tear from her cheek before she turned on her heel and stalked away.
“What’s wrong with her?” Roam demanded in confusion.
“Maybe she doesn’t like boys who fart?” Jabir suggested.
Roam shook his head. “I don’t understand girls. That was a great fart, and it was just for her! Dad loves it when Sacha and Pearl do it,” he complained, staring in the direction where Spring had disappeared.
“If it helps, I don’t understand girls either,” Zohar confessed.
“Me neither,” Jabir added.
“Who cares about yucky girls? I wants to play ball,” Leo growled.
Bálint tossed the football to Leo, who jumped, shifted into his leopard form, and grabbed the ball in midair. In a flash, Leo was running across the field with the others chasing him.
Bálint stayed still, biting his lip and watching Alice for a few extra seconds. The colors he saw surrounding her were so pretty. He didn’t understand why he could see them when no one else could. For some reason, the idea that no one else could see her colors sent a warm, fuzzy feeling inside of him.
“Maybe I am getting sick. I’ll have to ask Bio to check me over,” he mused, thinking of his parents’ golden symbiot.
“Bálint! We need you to come track Leo. I think he found one of Spring’s holes!” Roam called out from the bushes.
He looked over his shoulder one last time to check on Alice. He frowned when he noticed all the girls were gone. Worry filled him when he saw they had left their dolls on the ground where they had been playing.
“Bálint! Now James has gone into the hole. We need you!” Zohar added.
“I’m coming,” he responded with a roll of his eyes.
“Spring, are you okay?” Phoenix asked.
Spring wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, sniffed, and nodded. “Yes. Sometimes Roam makes me so mad,” she replied with a loud sigh.
“Zohar makes me mad. He’s bossy,” Morah confided.
“If you want, Spring, Amber, and I can sic some of our demented symbiots on him,” Jade offered.
“Oh! We could hack into his home replicator and program so it only gives him vegetables!” Amber exclaimed with excitement.
“We’s could helps too, can’t we, Sacha? We’s likes picking on Roam. Mommy says that’s what little sisters are for,” Pearl giggled.
Sacha nodded. “I’s can puts all of his toys under his bed,” she added. “He don’t likes it when he has to climbs under it. He’s getting too bigs and sometimes he gets stuck.”
“All I can does is turn into a dragonling. Maybe I can ask my daddies. They gots good ideas,” Hope tentatively said.
Alice bit her lip and looked at the other girls. “Maybe if we did make Valentine’s Day cards for them, they would be nicer?” she suggested tentatively.
Spring scowled. “I’ll make ones for the other boys, but I’m not going to make one for Roam. He doesn’t deserve one from me!” she declared with a toss of her head.
“I thinks none of us should give Roam a Valentine’s Day card,” Morah announced with a wave of her hand. “I has spoken.”
Alice and Phoenix giggled at Morah while Jade and Amber mumbled under their breath about bossy babies and Spring nodded in agreement. Hope, Sacha, and Pearl, bored with the conversation, were chasing each other through the flowerbeds.
While Alice didn’t like the idea of leaving Roam out of their Valentine’s Day festivities, she also was relieved that the other girls hadn’t decided to ban all the boys. She was almost finished with the Valentine’s Day cards she was going to give out. She was making a special card for Bálint and her mom had promised they could make cookies. Bálint loved the ones that had sprinkles of colorful sugar on top.
“Why don’t we go back to the palace and work on our cards?” she suggested.
Amber and Jade looked at each other before turning to the group and eagerly nodding. Alice could tell from the mischievousness in their exchanged glance that the twins were up to something. She knew she was right when they each stepped up beside her and threaded their arms through hers.
“I think we should go to our apartment,” Jade said.
Amber nodded. “We have our lab there,” she added.
“Uh-oh,” Phoenix laughed, hugging her sister. “I think the boys are going to be in trouble.”
“As long as Roam is the one they focus on, I’ll help,” Spring replied with an indignant sniff.
Chapter Four
Emma looked up when Cara came back into the room. Cara grinned at her, and she responded with a raised eyebrow.
“They are up to something,” Cara cautioned.
Abby made a face. “Has anyone been telling the kids a story?” she wryly asked, looking around at the group.
Trisha Grove-Reykill raised her hands. “Not me!” she answered with a shake of her head.
Morian gave the group an apologetic look. “Paul has been telling Morah about a story called Alice in Wonderland. She has fallen in love with the Queen of Hearts because she wears a pretty gown and likes to boss people around,” she explained.
Carmen looked at Cara. “They aren’t building a guillotine, are they?” she inquired.
“Gawd, I hope not!” Ariel replied with a shudder.
Morian frowned. “What is that?”
Cara grimaced. “A medieval machine that was used to decapitate people during the French Revolution,” she explained.
Morian’s eyes widened. “The Queen of Hearts is always yelling ‘Off with their head!’ I better talk to Paul,” she murmured with growing alarm.
Cara shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that bad. They are making Valentine’s Day cards,” she reassured her mother-in-law.
“So what’s the problem?” Emma asked.
Cara grinned. “I heard the words ‘booby-trap’, ‘glitter bombs’, and ‘boys’ in the same sentence,” she chuckled.
All the women groaned. The last time they had to deal with booby-traps and glitter was when the Dragonlings thought the Queen of the Demented Symbiots was going to kidnap their younger cousins. The kids had booby-trapped the haunted castle and the men had ended up on the wrong end of Alice’s glitter balloons. It took months to get the glitter out of everything.
“Well, at least it isn’t our mates this time,” Emma said with a hesitant smile.
“Leo, you’ve bitt
en a hole in the ball,” Roam groaned, tugging on the ball his cousin was scrunched over.
Leo hissed and tucked the deflated ball up under his chin. A nudge behind him caused him to lift his head. Leo growled when bits of dirt rained down on him.
“Is James here?” Zohar asked behind him.
Roam spit out some dirt that had landed on his lip. “No. I don’t know why Spring likes dirt so much. My mom makes me take more baths when I’m dirty. Cats aren’t supposed to like baths,” he complained.
Leo looked up from where he was gnawing on the end of the leather ball. “I likes baths with bubbles. Maybe you needs to adds bubbles to your bath,” he said.
Roam rubbed at the dirt and sat back in the hole. “I wonder if that is why Spring likes to get dirty. Maybe she likes to take baths with bubbles in them,” he said, looking at Zohar.
Zohar gave him a wide-eye look and shook his head. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know what she does,” he replied with a look of distaste before he sheepishly admitted, “but, I agree with Leo. Bubbles do make bath time more fun.”
“Roam, Zohar, do you have Leo?” Jabir called down into the hole.
“Yeah,” the two boys answered.
“Oh, okay. Uh, Bálint found James in a tree—like way inside it. He thinks he might be eating bugs,” Jabir announced.
“That sounds like something Spring would do. Dirt and bugs—maybe she isn’t so yucky after all,” Roam mused with a wiggle of his nose.
Zohar shook his head. “Come on, Leo. Since we can’t play ball anymore, let’s go find some food. All this chasing has made me hungry,” he said, backing up.
Leo’s eyes lit up at the mention of food. He dropped the tattered ball and pushed past Roam, knocking him against the side of the tunnel where more dirt rained down on him. With a sigh, Roam grabbed the destroyed ball and wiggled his way out of the hole after the other boys.
Maybe I should tell Spring she isn’t yucky. But… what if she thinks I am? he suddenly thought with dismay.
“Dad will know what to do,” he said with a confident nod. “He knows everything!”
Chapter Five
“Spring, Phoenix, it’s time to go,” Carmen said from the bedroom doorway.
Spring looked up, nodded, and looked around in surprise. Her sister and she were the last two still here. She quickly gathered the cards she had made and put them in her tote bag.
“We’ll have that special thing ready for you by tomorrow,” Amber promised with a wink.
“Yeah, we just need to make a few more adjustments,” Jade added with a pleased gleam in her eyes.
Phoenix giggled and covered her mouth before she looked down and gathered her cards. “We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
“Bye,” Spring said.
Spring passed her mom and headed down the hallway. “Goodnight, Aunt Cara,” she called.
“Goodnight, Spring, goodnight, Phoenix. We’ll see you tomorrow at the party,” Cara called out.
“‘Night, Cara. Thanks again for letting us crash at your place this afternoon,” Carmen said.
Cara laughed and waved a hand toward the hallway. “Let’s just hope that Morah won’t get her wish,” she replied.
Carmen laughed and nodded. Spring stepped through the doorway after her sister and turned to watch for their mom. She clutched the bag of Valentine’s Day cards that she had decorated. There was one for everyone—except Roam. She had made cards for each of the palace workers, the warriors, her aunts, uncles, Grandpa Paul and Grandma Morian, and all the other dragonlings.
She quietly walked beside her mom as Phoenix skipped ahead, playing with their two smaller symbiots, Little Bit and Stardust. She fingered the bag she was holding against her chest and sighed.
“You know, if you want to talk I’m a pretty good listener,” her mom said.
Spring looked up at her mom with troubled eyes. “Why do boys have to be so… so… stupid sometimes?” she finally asked.
Her mom reached down and took her hand. “Does this have anything to do with a certain young boy named Roam?” her mom inquired.
Spring lowered her head and nodded. Her long blonde hair, barely contained in her ponytail, bounced at the movement. She bit her lip and focused on the patterns on the floor as she tried to keep from crying.
“He is so stupid,” she hotly declared.
“What did he do that upset you so much?” Carmen asked.
Spring sniffed, pulled her hand free, and wiped her nose. “He pulls my hair and he farts… and… and he shook his butt at me,” she began.
“And…,” her mom gently encouraged.
Spring stopped and looked up at her mom. Her bottom lip trembled and the tears she had tried so hard to prevent coursed down her cheek, leaving a small dirty track. Her mom reached into the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a tissue. Spring stood still as her mom wiped the dampness away. She couldn’t help but notice the dirt that came away with it.
“He makes fun of me because I like digging in the dirt,” she confessed on a strangled sob.
Her mom knelt in front of her. “There’s nothing wrong with liking to dig in the dirt. My mom loved it, and so did my dad. Look at Grandma Morian! She is always digging in the dirt and Grandpa Paul loves her very, very much,” her mom said.
Spring instinctively turned her cheek and pressed it against her mom’s palm. Her mom’s fingers were gentle as she brushed loose strands of hair back behind her ear. Spring noticed a slight smudge on her mom’s cheek. She lifted her hand and gently rubbed it.
“You do, too,” she said.
“Yes, I do, too. Look at how dirty your dad and the other dads—including Roam’s—get whenever they are here! They are always rolling around in the dirt,” her mom pointed out.
Spring’s eyes widened in surprise. It was true. Her dad and Roam’s were always wrestling and getting dirty. In fact, all the warriors did! Even her Aunt Ariel did. Especially when she was up at their mountain ranch taking care of all the animals they had. And then there was Aunt Trisha playing tag.
“So, playing in the dirt and getting dirty is cool?” Spring asked.
Her mom pulled her into her arms and hugged her. “Getting dirty is very, very cool. Never let anyone tell you it isn’t,” her mom murmured.
Spring wound her thin arms around her mom’s neck and held her. “Thank you,” she whispered before pressing a kiss to her mom’s cheek.
“I’ll always be there for you, sweetheart,” her mom murmured.
Chapter Six
“What are you doing, son?” Vox asked, peering at Roam from the bedroom doorway.
Roam looked up and scowled with frustration. “I’m trying to make a Valentine’s Day card. Zohar and Bálint didn’t tell me it would be this hard doing it by myself,” he replied.
Roam looked down at the mess of cut paper and sticky glue covering the desk in his room. He shook his hand, trying to dislodge the lopsided red heart stuck to his fingers. It was worse than the last three he had cut out. One side was huge while the other was too skinny.
“Valentine’s Day card? Is it that time again?” his dad asked with dismay.
Roam nodded. “I made Mommy, Sacha, and Pearl a card. I made one for you, too,” he said, pointing to a line of cards hanging on the wall. “They are still wet so you can’t touch them yet.”
“Who are you making that one for?” his dad inquired, stepping closer to see the card.
Roam sighed. “This one is for Spring. I was trying to make it pretty, but it’s not,” he said in a frustrated, tearful voice.
“I need to make one for your Mommy. Maybe we can make them together,” his dad suggested.
Roam looked up at his dad and blinked several times before he gave him a knowing look. “You forgot Valentine’s Day,” he said.
His dad gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, technically it isn’t Valentine’s Day, so that means I haven’t forgotten it—yet,” he reasoned.
Roam reached for the colorful paper he had t
aken from Sacha and Pearl and pushed several pieces toward his dad. Maybe he could ask his dad a few questions while they worked on their cards. After all, no one knew more about girls than his dad.
“Dad, how did you know that Mommy liked you?” he asked as his dad pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.
Vox’s eyes widened at his twelve-year-old son’s question. He studied Roam’s face. He could see the confusion, frustration, and slightly pleading expression in his son’s eyes.
A brief sense of panic filled him. This was one of those parenting moments he wished he could pull up a vidcom and research—or better yet, let Riley deal with it. Instead, he pulled up a chair and sat down.
“That’s a great question,” he said.
He stalled for time by focusing on choosing the colors of paper he wanted. It would be so much easier just to create a digital card. Making it from paper was a lot more complicated—and messy.
“She did like you, didn’t she?” Roam persisted.
Vox scowled. “Of course she liked me! It just took her a little while to realize it, that’s all,” he said.
Roam’s eyes widened. “You mean she didn’t like you at first?” he asked in wonder.
Vox shifted on the small chair and folded the paper in half. He picked up the pair of scissors, studied them for a second, before cutting the paper. Fortunately, he remembered what he had learned back on Earth when he, the kids, and the other men had made gifts and cards.
“Humans have a lot of holidays,” he mused, thinking about all the ones he’d learned about over the years.
“So, did Mom like you at first or not?” Roam asked again, not giving up.
Vox handed one of the hearts he’d made to Roam. “Well, maybe not at first. She wasn’t used to aliens,” he explained.
He watched as Roam glued the new heart onto a fresh piece of paper. It looked pretty good—and simple so he did the same thing on a piece of bright pink paper that reminded him of his mate. Riley loved pink… and purple.
