Welcome to Gaia! ::

Aaron, split between his rampant curiosity about the duo and his desire to escape the embarrassing situation, hesitates for a second, his dark blue eyes wide in indecision. As it always is with Aaron, though, he swallows his mistake in the name of science and, seeing that there are no other new customers, says,

"Okay."

and climbs into the chair facing the two. He's a tall boy for his age, so it is not as difficult to get into the tall chair as it might otherwise have been for a boy his age.

Aaron, not having realized that that's what she meant by "join us", began to politely decline the utensils, but a loud grumble from his stomach shut him down before he could even say a word. The shortcake did look amazing...usually tons of icing and toppings were too frilly for him, but he couldn't deny his occasional urges for the sugary creme. Therefore, he cut a small piece off of the main cake, feeling slightly guilty.

His head popping up at the lady's question, he replied, "Aaron Caraway. What's yours?"

Aaron took a lick of the icing off of his fork and a big smile crept across his face.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Gwendolyn. Uh, while my dad's at work at his office, I do stuff here after school and they give us some of the weird-looking baked things that they can't sell."

He was being generous with "us"; Aaron in actuality was the sole consumer of all of the treats. It wasn't that the boy wouldn't gladly share his earnings with his father (and that he hadn't tried, every day without fail), it was that David was a firm believer in people deserving all the fruits of their work. Besides, if David had time for more than one meal in a day, it was a good day. Aaron was old enough now to understand that David had to work as hard as he did because of him, and thus the boy constantly strove to make his dad's life as easy as possible, by being polite and always cleaning up after himself at home.

"My favourites are the scones. You should try them sometime! Have you ever been here before?"

Aaron, sensing a newcomer to what he thought of as his corner of town, lit up uncharacteristically. "Oh, wow! Have you ever been to the robotics museum? It's really awesome and they have stuff that's three stories tall in there! My dad and I go once a month to see the new exhibits!" He grinned, revealing a bit of strawberry stuck between his front teeth.

Aaron flushed, realizing what she was saying, and covered his mouth with both hands quickly, his sharp, blackened fingernails on one hand scratching his other hand slightly. After ensuring that the offending teeth were out of sight, he engaged in attempting to rid his teeth of the strawberry, without actually opening his mouth. The resulting faces made were unintentionally comical.

Recognizing the "cute little boy" laugh, Aaron scrunched up his pointy nose in frustration and finally just stuck a fingernail between his lips to get rid of the strawberry. In an attempt to redirect the focus from himself, he waved at David.

Aaron opened his mouth to say something else, but the boy behind the counter chose just then to yell, "OY, SQUIRT! CUSTOMERS!" Jerking straight up, Aaron ate the last big piece of his slice of shortcake in one big bite, giving him uncharacteristically chubby cheeks.

Hopping down from the tall chair with a fluff of his tail feathers, he gave a little bow and mumbled around his bite, "'Ank oo, m'm. Nus t'mee oo ohth!" Then, he ran inside and slid back into the space behind the counter.