Peter Oxenstierna picked at the pink eraser at the end of his pencil and tapped his fingers on the desk surface in growing frustration. Peter was only six-years-old and he's spent about four with his current family. He shifted restlessly in his seat and stared down at the half-filled out paper Mrs. Héderváry had one of his lucky classmates pass around the tables. Today she had the class write about their families and what they loved about them. Peter finished the first five questions with ease since they were simple. He was a little stuck on this last question. 'What do you love most about your family?' There were lots of things he loved about them. He couldn't just choose one. Peter was very tempted to plainly write the word everything, but it was too short of an answer.
He continued picking off little pieces of his eraser and making a teeny tiny pile by his paper. Maybe he should ask one of his classmates what they put? Peter peeked sideways at one of his friends, Sierra, that coincidentally sat next to him. She has a long last name that he forgets all the time, it's weird. He prodded her in the side and pulled on the sleeve of her pink jacket for extra measure. Sierra turned to look at him and stuck her tongue out before returning to her work. Peter tried again to get his friend's attention. She normally was totally focused on her classwork.
"What?!" She whisper-shouted. In the glimpse of her paper Peter got as she shifted to face him told him that she was already on the draw-your-family part. Sierra is really good at drawing and coloring.
"I need some help on this one." He replied back in a hushed tone that didn't sound very quiet to him at all. He pointed it out to her as she leaned over his paper. Sierra clicked her tongue. "That's easy. Just write something they do with you that you like." She showed off her answer. "I live with my brothers and I like it when they play football with me!" Peter raised his eyebrows.
"Football?" He repeated. Sierra nodded and went back to coloring. Well, at least that was an example. Peter turned to his own paper and started thinking. He did like when his uncles came over. Usually they all did something fun whenever Uncle Mathias, Uncle Lukas, and Uncle Emil visited. Sometimes they'd play cards with his parents and they would teach Peter. His dad and Uncle Mathias liked to tease each other a lot, but not as much as how Uncle Lukas and Uncle Mathias are. Once, he got to play Blackjack with them after they taught him and somehow Uncle Emil won. Peter was pretty sure he cheated or something.
Besides cards, whenever everyone was there they'd cook a ton of weird-sounding food and Uncle Mathias liked to bake pastries with filling. He even lets Peter secretly lick the spoon after he's done. Then, when all the food is done everybody sits at the big dining room table. It's really loud and fun, even though he has to go to bed before they leave.
Although, sometimes Uncle Mathias and Uncle Lukas go to tuck him in. Uncle Lukas has the very best stories with lots of trolls and fairies. Peter likes them very much and he would listen to them all day if he could. He really loves having his family over.
Peter imagined a light bulb pop up over his head like in the cartoons he watches before school as he wrote the answer. He murmured the words as he wrote them carefully and neatly since his penmanship wasn't very good. "I... love... it... when... my... whole... family... is... at... my... house." He ended up having to sloppily add the 'w' in whole because he accidentally wrote 'hole.' Now he moved onto the drawing. Peter opened his crayon box and started making the lines for the stick figures. He loved coloring and drawing. Peter did it at home all the time. His mama always hangs up his artwork in the fridge. In fact, they almost ran out of magnets.
He had drawn six stick figures in the space below the questions. He hastily drew a house in the background and colored in some green grass. Peter started to draw some details. He put the cross pin he saw Uncle Lukas always wear on his head and drew a blank expression. Next he colored Uncle Mathias's spikey hair and sketched a big smile on his face. With some thought, he added a viking helmet on Uncle Mathias because he remembered him saying he had great viking blood in his veins. Then he added color to Uncle Emil and drew a puffin on his shoulder when he remembered seeing pictures that Papa was showing him of his new family. Uncle Emil had rescued some puffins from muck and set them free again in Iceland a few years back. Now he just had to draw Mama and Papa. He drew Mama with a nice smile and a Santa Claus hat because Peter knows he gets really cheerful and excited when Christmas rolls around. Next he added a hammer in Papa's hand since he's very great at building a lot of things from lumber, then he gave him his glasses and a serious face.
He smiled at his artwork. Peter thinks he did a very nice job at drawing his family. All that was left to do was label it and take it home at the end of the day. He tried to remember what Papa told him the word that was like family in Swedish. Hu... Hushåll.
It was definitely that! The only problem now was that he wasn't exactly sure on how to spell it. He tried to sound out the syllables in his head. He could pronounce it but he couldn't spell it out. Peter just erased his mistakes (with what was left of the eraser) and decided to just write 'My Family' in fancy letters. He can't wait to show this to them! This was certainly going on the fridge!