1.12 What You Know

Ah, gardening pantsless. How Persis has missed this. 

She can't get out of her warm, blue clothes fast enough. She opts for a more stylish green jacket and comfortable, stretchy jeans. It's warm enough now for her to not care if her clothes are well insulated or not. 

Marko can't really decide on a spring outfit just yet, so he keeps his winter/fall outfit (translation: I was too lazy to make him an outfit right away. Spring is 2 weeks long in my game so he'll get an outfit...eventually). He still celebrates the start of warmer weather by spray-painting his lawn. There's no snow to stop him now! 

Xara and Tulip are done with scouts now, so when Paolo has to do his homework before he can have dinner while Xara is free to eat, she smirks at him and takes a huge bite out of her grilled cheese sandwich. Paolo pointedly ignores her. 

"Man that sucks, doing homework I mean," Xara tries (badly) to empathise with her brother. 

Paolo scowls, "Whatever Xara." 

She cringes. She meant for that to come out more nicely. "Do you need any help?" 

"No, I'm fine." 

Marko glances at Paolo. "Paolo, she's just trying to be nice, at least say thank you." 

Paolo looks up. "Thanks Xara." Then he goes right back to his math homework. Marko suppresses the urge to sigh. Hopefully Paolo's just a late bloomer socially...

Tulip comes out after everyone, even Paolo, has finished eating. She took an extra long shower. In this house, you never know how long you'll get the bathroom for. You need to cherish it while you can. 

"Jazlyn!" Marko wraps his old (boo, dad jokes) friend in a hug. Jazlyn has come to every single one of his parties even when she was going through rough times. That's true friendship in Marko's book. 

This party isn't for him, or for a holiday, though. The twins are going to be teens! 

Tulip doesn't hesitate before blowing out her candles. Her wish is simple- to be the best at everything. 

While Tulip scurries to the bathroom to fix the fashion disaster that she aged up into, Xara puts a bit more thought into her wish. She could wish for something she kind of wants, like a pony, orrr she could wish for... 

A little sister! 

She doesn't know I only rolled for 3 kids, poor thing. 

Tulip finally emerges when she's clothed in something decent. Her eye shape makes me think of Jessica Talon. 

Xara aged up a bit more gracefully, requiring no edits to her hair *or* clothes. What a rarity! 

As soon as he finishes his cake, Paolo scurries up to his bed. He can't wake up too late! 

Out like a light. 

The next morning, Xara runs into Tulip on her way to the bathroom. She tells her about her birthday wish. 

"Do you think it could happen?" she glances at her sleeping parents. It wouldn't be exactly like asking for a pet... 

"Yeah, go for it! But there is one tiiiiny problem. Where would another kid go?" 

Xara thinks about this for a moment. "Man you're right." She deflates a little. 

"We might not have a sister, but we have a perfectly good little brother, you know. You could always go talk to him," Tulip tries to cheer her sister up. 

"Great idea! Paoooolooo," she runs off. Tulip chuckles to herself. Her sister is so excitable. 

"Hi Paolo," Xara greets her younger brother cheerfully, "What're you up to?" 

"I have my badging ceremony in a few days. I was going to practice my speech for it," he says after a bit of hesitation, "...wanna see my badges?" 

"...and I got this one for being able to start a fire," Paolo finishes. 

Xara nods, remembering how many badges Tulip got. She, by contrast, only got the bare minimum. Paolo seems to have way more than she ever had, but not as many as Tulip. 

"Great job, Paolo, I'm proud of you."

He looks up at her, his eyes wide. "Really?" 

"Of course! You're my little brother after all." 

Paolo smiles, then stubbornly keeps his face straight. They're just badges... no big deal, he tells himself. "Thank you, Xara." 

"Anytime, squirt." 

Paolo scowls. Xara beams down at him. "What's the matter, squirt?" 

She laughs as Paolo silently stalks off and glares at her before running up the stairs to change his clothes. 

Tulip smirks as her sister and Paolo talk. Brothers. 

It's the weekend, which leaves the members of the household to pursue their various hobbies. Tulip wants to be prepared for those advanced Chem. labs awaiting her in high school and spends most of the day testing different chemical reactions. 

Xara isn't really interested in chess, but she's bored and there's nothing else to do in the house. She attempts a game against herself without knowing the rules. It goes predictably disastrously. 

She glances at Tulip as she fiddles with test tubes. "Hey, wanna play a round of chess with me?" 

Tulip doesn't even glance up from her experiment. "Maybe later, kinda busy." 

Xara pouts. Nothing is really fun when you're by yourself... 

....

No comment. 

Marko catches Paolo rehearsing his badge ceremony speech. He might not have the most badges, but his troop leader chose him to give the closing speech anyways. 

"Do you need any help? Maybe I could hear your speech and give you some feedback?" Marko offers. 

Paolo shakes his head, "It's ok, I think I'm good." 

Marko wracks his brain for something to talk about. "Read anything interesting lately?" he figures something like reading could be common ground between him and his academically inclined son. 

To his surprise, Paolo gives him quite a lengthy spiel about his favourite comic books. 

Oh plumbob, it finally happened, Marko realizes with growing horror as Paolo chatters on about comics he's never heard of, I've gotten... old. 

Tulip's experiment was... less than successful. She tries her hand at something she's much better at- Sim Gnubb. She knocks down the wooden rabbits with ease. Even without her vampire powers, Tulip has excellent hand-eye coordination. 

The soccer team will be sorry they never had her on their team now! 

Persis for the first-and last- time decides to work out. She's recently hit the adult stage and has been rolling wishes for all kinds of things. Doing a cardio workout was one of the few that didn't require her to move, change her hair style, spend lots of money, or divorce Marko. 

After about half an hour, she gives up.  There was a reason she hated high school PE, and it wasn't just because of the team sports. 

She comes home, exhausted and with skinned knees. Who knew a treadmill could be so dangerous?

"Home sweet home," she mutters to herself. 

She decides to stick to what she knows- gardening. After harvesting her spotlight mushrooms, she feels better. So what if she has scrawny arms and no stamina? She can grow almost anything now and has been recognized as the best gardener in Appaloosa Plains. 

What some call expert gardening, she calls a day's work.