Chapter 2.31 Sandcastles and Fish

Video games were a very important thing

Tyler was helping Nathaniel play, but unfortunately, not much progress was made. "Okay, so if you just press the green button, no the other green one." Tyler tried to help him, but Nathaniel was much more interested in pressing random buttons over and over again,

"Do you really think he should be learning how to play violent video games?" Belle glanced up from her book to the two of them. 

"It's not violent, it's just a racing game. Besides, it's just something to do while your mom gets a birthday cake for Nathaniel" Tyler murmured, watching the TV screen closely. He furrowed his eyebrows seeing the car that Nathaniel picked out, "The purple one? Are you sure Nate? We could have the red one, or the blue one?" Tyler suggested.

"Purple car." Nathaniel decided,  pressing the green button on the controls.

Tyler helped Nathaniel blow out the candles while the family gathered around to celebrate, and he couldn't help but wonder why Alyssa didn't want to help Nathaniel blow out the candles. Whatever the reason, Tyler was more than happy to help Nathaniel blow out the candles.

"It's my birthday!" Nathaniel grinned, looking up at his mom. He figured seeing as though it was his birthday, he should get whatever he pleases.
"I've noticed, based on you were a toddler but now you're not." 'Alyssa' responded, starting to get a little bored of all this mundane family life style
He frowned, a little bit hurt. "Anyway... I was hoping we could go to the beach!" He grinned, managing to stay enthusiastic. He really wanted to go to the beach, he could build a sand castle and a sand car and a sand flat screen TV

"It's Autumn." 'Alyssa' grumbled, rolling her eyes. "It's too cold to go to the beach." She rolled her eyes.
Nathaniel frowned, wondering why his mom was being so mean. "Oh, okay." He frowned. 'Alyssa' got even more annoyed now he looked like he was about to get upset. The last thing she wanted was a sniveling little kid.
"Why don't you ask Belle to drive you down?" She suggested, sighing. At least he didn't look  like he was going to cry anymore. She couldn't help but wonder how kids could be such idiots sometimes.

"There's someone in the sandcastle bit." Nathaniel frowned, once him and Belle were at the beach. He didn't really like being around other people he didn't know.
"And? Just go over and play, you might end up being friends with her." Belle smiled at her little brother. "And she looks like she's quite good at building sand castles, just go play with her."

Nathaniel wasn't fully sure what to say to her, he wasn't used to talking to people he didn't know. "Y-You're sandcastle's pretty." He spoke quietly, looking at his shoes more than the pretty girl.
She smiled at him briefly, then her attention went back to her sandcastle. "Thanks. My aunt taught me how to make them." She then shuffled over slightly, looking up at him. "Want to watch me build a new one?" She asked, destroying the sand castle in front of her.

"Why did you destroy it?" He asked, frowning as he sat down on the sand. "It was good already."
"Good, but it wasn't perfect. I wanted it to be perfect and it wasn't perfect." She looked at him, holding sand in her hands. She smiled again, and introduced herself. "I'm Callie."
"I'm Nathaniel." He introduced himself in return. "And I thought it was pretty perfect."

"That's quite a long name." Callie noted, frowning slightly. "Don't you have a nickname or something?" She asked. "I want to call you something shorter if we're friends."
"My dad calls me Nate." He shrugged, then tilted his head. "You like things to be perfect, don't you?" He asked.

"Of course!" She grinned, lifting her hands up with sand following. "If things aren't perfect, then what are they?" She asked. "Anyway, I'll show you how to build a sandcastle." She smiled.
Nathaniel watched as Callie started to build the sand castle. She was a little bit weird sometimes, but he didn't really mind. She seemed nice.

The two of them skipped stones after getting tired of sand castle building. They wanted to see who could throw their stone further, and it was a fair game as neither of them were particularly sporty. It was just fun spending time with one another.
"Did you see which one went further?" Nathaniel asked, looking over at Callie who was grinning.
"I think we should just say I won. I'm a girl, and girls are always right, so I won."

Nathaniel spent most of the day with Callie, while Belle was probably somewhere else on the beach. He wanted to just watch the waves for a while and Callie happily agreed. After a long time of being quiet, she said "I'd like to be a fish." She smiled to herself, seeing the occasional fish jump out of the water.
"A fish?" Nathaniel shook his head. "I wouldn't want to be a fish. Someone would try and eat me." He shuddered, not liking that thought,

"Not all fish get ate." Callie pointed out, laughing a little. "I think it would be nice. You can swim wherever you want to, and there's such a huge area to swim around in. That, and if something goes wrong, you can just swim away from it. That, and you wouldn't have to ride everywhere on a bike, you could just make friends with a turtle and ride on your turtle friends" She smiled, then sighed. "It's not like that for us. We have school." She grumbled.

"Fish live in schools, so, y'know." Nathaniel laughed at his own joke, whereas Callie just shook her head.

"That wasn't what I meant, Nate." She looked at him, but he could see that she was trying not to grin.

"That, and if you were a fish, you wouldn't be able to tell the time. Like, you wouldn't know that it's about six." Nathaniel pointed out, smiling slightly.

Callie tensed, "It's six?" She asked, notably worried. She didn't realize it had gotten that late! She was going to be in so much trouble.

"Yeah, why? Do your parents want you home or something?" He asked, rather worried. She had seemed to have gone from being happy to seemingly terrified.

"My dad really doesn't like it when I'm late home." She frowned, and stood up. She was about to go before he stopped her to ask.

"Will I see you at school again tomorrow?" He really did want to. He didn't want to lose his first friend (family doesn't count in this case).

She smiled slightly at him, "Yeah, probably." She soon left the beach, needing to get home.

Once she and Nathaniel were home, Belle couldn't help but glance around at her younger brothers and sisters.

"Who dares disturb my village? I as Queen demand the intruder be gone!" Belle first saw Melody preside over her royal court. 

And she then saw her brothers playing some video game about some sport or another.

"No, no, no! I had the ball, you just took it off of me!" Nathaniel complained, rather annoyed by the fact Ashton was winning.

"Too bad, sucker." Ashton grinned. "Even Maya's on my side." He gloated, using the fact Maya was sat next to him as the dog being on his side.

Belle couldn't help but wonder why she was so different to her siblings.

She went into the study, trying to find a book she hasn't yet read. She really did need to go to the bookstore and get some more. She had already filled up her own bookshelf. 

She was about to choose one until she heard the phone behind her beep. Curious, she went over and saw there was a message still there.

She went over to the phone, and pressed the button to listen to the message. She wasn't all too interested in what it was on about, figuring it was probably just about her mom's work. She looked out of the window at the message started to play.

"Bonjour? Commet alez-vous, mon Belle? Je suis très bien et..." The message got Belle's attention when it said her name, and she began to think back to a conversation she and her mom had a while ago.

She remembered her mom was reading her a story about a princess with a similar name to her, and she asked "If I wasn't names after a princess, what was I named after?" And then she queried "Was I named Belle because you like bells?"

"I called you Belle because, uh... " Belle remembered her mom hesitated before answering her. "... I called you Belle because when I met your dad, he used to call me 'Mon Belle' which means my beautiful."

Belle wasn't fully sure of how exactly to react, and she replayed the message, at least up until the point where she needed it to be.

"Bonjour? Commet alez-vous, mon Belle?" Was that her dad? She wasn't fully sure, but what are the chances that someone else was French and called her that? "I'm sorry it took me a long time to answer, I was scared. I didn't know what to do with a baby. I'm not scared now though, and I know he or she likely isn't a baby anymore." And she stopped listening then. That was her dad. Who the hell else could it be?

No one else came to her mind, who else would her mom be talking to that was French and called her that? That must have been her dad. But that raised the question of why her mom hadn't yet told her about it. Then, a thought hit her.

Her mom purposely didn't let her know about her dad.

Her mom has kept her dad a secret from her, even when she did nothing but ask? Oh, that wasn't right. That was not fair. Belle had a right to know who her dad was, and her mom just kept that from her! Belle was not happy, at all.

She was furious.

Chapter 2.30 Queen of the Birdies

Chapter 2.32 Nasty

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AN: I was feeling almost negligent to dear Nathaniel, so I gave him a pretty girl and his own little story line.

I bet some of you were forgetting about that phone call from Belle's dad. I didn't forget though, at all. 

See, I had partially a story line if Belle took over, and seeing as though it's going to be quite a while before Juniper's ready to take over, I decided to focus a little bit on Belle (because she's my favourite (I didn't say that!)) And I came up with little ones for the other kids too, so still as interesting as ever!