Teddy raced over to Emily’s chair, then rolled it over so that her mom could plop herself down on it. “There you go, uh . . .” Teddy turned to Emily. “Hey, Boss, what do we call the old lady?”

“Anything but ‘old lady,’ you dumb bear,” Athena said. She yanked Teddy back and stepped up to Emily’s mom to bow. “Hello, Grandmother.”

“Emily, you know how I always wanted to have grandkids one day?” Emily’s mom said. “I was expecting maybe one. Two at most. This is considerably more than that.”

“It’s okay,” Trinity said. “You can count all three of me as one.”

Emily rubbed her face. “So I should probably introduce everyone. Mom, this is Teddy. She can turn into a bear. She won’t demonstrate that here because it’s against the rules.”

“I’m real soft,” Teddy said. “Way more soft than any of the others when I’m a bear. I bet you’d like petting me just as much as the Boss does.”

“The Boss?”

“That’s Big Sister Emily’s Hero-slash-Villain name,” Athena said.

“Villain?”

“Don’t worry, Best Mom,” Trinity said. “We wouldn’t Villain you.”

“Emily?” Her mother looked at her. The smile she wore was a bit brittle at the edges, and she looked like Emily did when shoved into any sort of social situation.

Teddy, of course, noticed that too. “Hey, Boss, does your mom need to poop?”

“No, Teddy, my mom doesn’t need to poop,” Emily said. She patted Teddy’s head absently, if only to give her hands something to do. “Okay, Mom, where do you want me to start?”

“I think that maybe you should start from the top?”

Emily nodded. She could do that.

“So, it all began on my first day here . . .”

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About the Author

RavensDagger is a Canadian writer who wants to make people smile. The best way to do that, he has found, is by pecking away at the keyboard and hoping for the best.