Welcome to Gaia! ::

It did not surprise Wisp Darnell, who in any case had heard Chris singing so often that it was as familiar as her family's voice; she tripped across the parking lot, looked both ways to see if he was there, and followed his singing to its termination point. Her intent with her friend was what it always was: hugs, as her particular obsession was with love in all its forms (platonic, not platonic, Edward Cullen).

She peeked her head into classrooms, trying to find the source.

She mounted the stairs as the sound got louder, storey to storey, and opened the door leading to the rooftop -- peered out of the fire escape and saw that Chris was on the roof proper and scrambled up there, launching herself to the tiles and pulling herself up on the hot ceramic. She picked her way across to where her friend was singing and made her mouth a small o of surprise.

Wisp dropped down next to where Chris was and leant over to look at the cabbage. There was nobody like her for getting the wrong end of the stick: her blue eyes suddenly went wide and she said, "Oh my god is it yours?"

"Aaaagh," said Wisp, and she fell to her back and stuck her bare legs in the air as though this somehow proved her shock. Ever since Missy's talk, she had been doing her best to dress slightly more conservatively; but 'slightly more conservatively' in Wisp's world meant a denim overall that came down to her mid-thigh, wearing a crop top underneath and more stick-on star decals on her shoulders than anyone had the right to wear. "Oh my god. Oh my GOD. I'm going to be a godmother aunt. What will your grandma say? What will the priest say? What will your dad say?"

She looked woebegonely serious. "I'll support you, Chris!"

Wisp went bright pink. Then she stuck out her tongue and blew a huge loud raspberry at him, indignant. "Look you're a teen now," she said haplessly, "and I was like well Chris has always been kind of mature oh my God he has made a terrible mistake, and there I was being LOVING and SUPPORTIVE, and it turns out it's your -- "

Her smile sparkled. "Baby sister! Baby sister. Oh, wow! I have to go shopping for baby things! Is she going to look like you? That's your dad's office, right? Is she going to be there? Where's your dad going to work now? That's a great room, though, are you painting it something nursery-ish?"

At the end of this litany was, "Is Missy SO excited? What's her name?"

"You should paint it a colour that's safe if it's a boy or a girl," said Wisp judiciously, "like yellow, or pale blue or green, or -- I don't know, brown? Babies don't like brown; brown is nasty -- well, nasty for a baby wall, there's nothing wrong with brown otherwise, like, brown chocolate cake. I would not eat a non-brown chocolate cake. It's like, bizARRE, yo."

But attention back on the baby sister, she rapped on the hot tiles. "But is she going to be your species, Chris?"

"Red velvet cake always makes me feel a little vampiric," said Wisp, but she was taking deep breaths of the cabbage -- her little face was screwed up in quite a lot of amazement. "She really does smell like chocolate. Maybe somebody spilled something on the cabbage because, that is chocolate. That is definitely chocolate. Word up, it is chocolate."

It WAS weird when you were smelling a giant cabbage; you expected to smell -- cabbage.

"I'm glad there isn't anyone running around who looks like you," she said sincerely, and wrapped one arm around his arm. "Because you're my Chris. Aww."

Wisp's eyebrows shot up into her rainbow-dyed hairline. She looked like a mobile diorama circa 1982 that day; a Lisa Frank picture, just needing the unicorn. "What?" she said. "You mean like, there's a whole bunch of older guys out there like you?"