Welcome to Gaia! ::

Easter in the kindergarten section of the Liberty Center didn't constitute a big deal -- there was an egg hunt, a lot of splotchy paintings that were meant to be bunnies (or meant to be whatever, it wasn't as though Xi and Evan minded if artistic license took the splotches elsewhere) and a lot of grated carrot. Xi-Wang Cheng believed wholeheartedly in grated carrot. He also believed wholeheartedly in M&Ms, chocolate, Reese's peanutbutter eggs and other foodstuffs, but Evan had forced him to believe wholeheartedly in carrot instead. It wasn't like the kids really minded, said Evan.

"Kid, if I was three again and you gave me carrot and I expected chocolate," he said, "I'd know the difference. You're tiny, not stupid."

But that Saturday was destined for -- as the smells from the kitchen heralded -- fresh, homemade playdough. It was for this reason that a sudden rainbow teenage blur came through the nursery (shedding sparkly scarf, shedding denim jacket, adjusting the suspenders on her shorts) and barrelled herself there as Xi took the homemade dough off the stove. "Is Iggy here," she panted.

The older man with the bandanna tied around his mouth sighed. "Honey," he said kindly, "one day you are going to have to live with the fact that you might, you know, run into Nacho and have to say hi -- "

"Please just tell me is he here, if he is unexpectedly I might die. I need WARNING, yo. I need. You know. Shoring up."

"No, but you know it's fresh playdough day," said Xi, "everyone comes for fresh play-dough day."

"Okay," said Wisp Darnell, a trifle dolefully, but swung one short bleached braid over her shoulder as she took a tub of the dough. "Can I have the red. Yes. Some of the blue, please. If I die please hold a nice funeral -- "

"Lord, he won't even be in, his dad's trying to save him from becoming me and Ev," said Xi, "save me from teenage girls. Go on. Shoo."

She bumped the door open with her hip as she brought the (still warm!) playdough over to the first kids she saw on the mat -- she dropped herself down, sighing pensively and transferring glop to the tarp. "Yay, dough time," she said (though not even slightly cheerfully).

It was true. Wisp was the only (non-nursery kid) there. Maybe it was time to drown her sorrows in, uh, dough.

"You want some red?" she said to the closest kid. "Or some blue? We have some green at the bottom. Yay, it's still warm." (She sighed again, earthshatteringly.)

Joshua had groaned when his mother informed him that she'd volunteered him to help with the nursery. "Go on, you'll have fun." She had said earnestly. "You might make a friend or two." The boy couldn't believe this. He knew his mother had a habit of forgetting he'd grown--but to send him to the nursery? Oh well.. Maybe Ginger and Zemel would be there.

He prepared himself--he put on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and tied his hair back. His experience with his younger sisters told him that hair wasn't a safe option. "Ready to go?" He heard his mother ask from the living room.

"Ready." He said.

And that was how the boy found himself in the midst of toddlers, all playing with playdough. He sat next to a small boy with white hair.

Jasper invaded his mouth with one hand and grabbed the proffered red dough with another, smiling toothily at Wisp. It took him a moment to notice that an older boy had taken to sitting beside him, too preoccupied with chewing on his fist and squeezing the still-warm dough in his hand. After a moment of drooling significantly copious amounts onto his hand, Jasper reached forward and placed his very wet hand against Joshua's face, smiling an open mouthed smile.

"Jasper," he said obnoxiously loud, looking over his shoulder at Wisp and wiggling his fingers against Joshua's face. "Grace wul' come back."

The small boy pulled his hand back and wiped it against his knee before beginning to roll his dough between his palms. He looked over at Wisp with a crooked, far-from-innocent smile, shuffling closer and kneading the dough faster in his hands. "She drink a lot."

It was crazy how a kid could actually look kind of disreputable. The grin on Jasper's face was a louche, toothy, very old grin. It was kind of depressing. Working in a daycare made you judgemental. If a tiny toddler was already going on about how his mother drank, it was just going to turn into a humungous Lifetime movie where he got put in jail for trading in pistols filled with crack cocaine.

Josh! The other boy was Josh. The name had been niggling at her until he said it.

"Why don't you cut out a shape!" she suggested, distracted by another kid attempting to put the dough in their mouth (at least it was non-toxic) as Josh handled Jasper. "Cut out something rad, the star cutter is really cool."

Josh took a good look at the teenage girl. She was pretty. He smiled at her, before turning to frown at Jasper. "That's not very nice." He said, sounding for all the world like his father. "You shouldn't call him Lucy." Lucy was a girl's name, and Lucien was very much a boy.

Josh gave the boy a hard look, before looking to see what was in Wisp's hair. "Um.." He lightly tapped her on the shoulder. "You should go wash out the playdough from your hair." He said. "I can handle Jasper for a few minutes, anyway."

Yeah. Right. Josh had never met a child like this. He was used to kind, polite toddlers, like Zemel, or playful ones like Ginger. This child.. he was neither. And the older boy didn't like it.

Jasper lowered his hand, surprised at Wisp's ballsiness; no one had ever had the gall to speak to him in such a way before, in fact the majority of people he had met in his short life seemed to simply tuck their metaphorical tail between their legs. This right here was new and frankly, he didn't like it. He returned to rolling his dough in righteous, bewildered silence, his fingers jabbing in and out of the mould; and then, as if the thought had just then struck him, yelled:

"Girl balls," with absolute finality, looking over to Josh with a nod.

It was then that Jasper opted to to blow a raspberry at Wisp; an oafish, drawn-out raspberry so long that he only stopped to take a breath and restock saliva -- and as if to exaggerate his point (as if it needed exaggeration at all), the boy blew quick and sharp on his tongue for one last grasping raspberry. If it wasn't obvious that he was to be the world's most difficult toddler before, it certainly was now. Shortly after his attempt at World's Longest and Most Obnoxious Display Of Sordid Retaliation, Jasper lifted his dough mold and, with an educated pause, slammed it forward into Joshua's face.