"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."

~Stephen Colbert

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The PTA meeting on Monday morning is suffocating. Kristen is dripping with sweetness, probably to cover up for The Incident on Friday.

She completely ignores my existence, of course, but to everyone else, she's like Mother Theresa trapped inside a Barbie's body.

I haven't been this sickened since Costco was giving out free samples of every item in the frozen foods section and I ate all of them. The worst were the chimichanga chunks that had been cooked in a microwave. My stomach curls.

But I survive the meeting (the International Peacock Day party is coming up soon), and head to Finn's classroom, which is the other thing giving me chimichanga chunk flashbacks.

I haven't seen him since The Incident when he was talking to Eloise. Barb told me to go talk to him...and to apologize.

I've never apologized for anything. And it's not like I did anything wrong, exactly. Maybe I could just smooth things over and call it a day.

I walk in through the back door, and Finn is at his desk.

I look at the mural inching up the wall, and my heart skips a beat. He must've worked on it over the weekend because it's halfway done now...and more beautiful than I could've imagined.

The five-foot panel of the wall looks like Victorian wallpaper, with a faded teal background and old golden scrolls lacing around it. But the majority of the "wallpaper" is peeled back, revealing a window into another world. From where I'm standing, it's like the walls are open to a ballroom in the 1800s. There's so much depth, I feel like I could walk right through and be transported inside.

After staring at it for a long time, I turn distractedly to Finn. "This...I don't...it's amazing."

Finn looks up and follows my gaze to the mural, smiling fondly. "I think the children will quite like it."

"Da Vinci would swoon over it, man," I breathe.

I blink away the fog that the mural brought over me and inch towards his desk. "Hey..."

I struggle to find the words.

Finn turns his eyes up at me. "Is Eloise alright?"

I hadn't expected that. "Uh...yeah. Yeah, she's okay now. She didn't get suspended."

"Oh, I don't mean about what happened on the soccer field," he explains.

I knit my eyebrows together. "Then what was she upset about?"

Finn squints at me for a moment, before realizing that I have no idea what he's talking about. He gives me one of his half-second smiles and rubs the back of his neck. He stands up to sit next to me on his desk. "Ah, well, I don't—I didn't—mean to intrude. I just happened to be walking past..."

"It's okay," I say, surprised at the softness of my voice. Wasn't I supposed to be the one apologizing? "I'm glad she could talk to someone."

He flashed a nervous grin before averting his eyes again. "She was rather upset about her father. She said she wished he wanted to spend more time with her."

I blink. "Calvin? I mean, I get why she's sad, but...that didn't have anything to do with what happened on the soccer field."

Finn looks up at me again, like he expected me to know all of this. "I suppose everything came to a head for her." He meets my gaze for the longest time since I've met him. His eyes are filled with concern for my niece. It's actually kind of touching.

"She's being bullied here, Beverly," he says.

I sit back, my lips parting in shock. "Wait...what?"

"She's being made fun of, apparently. I don't know any details, of course, but she's having a difficult time. And I think it just makes her miss her father more...and she's afraid of losing him entirely."

I bite my lip. "I...I had no idea..."

Finn puts a hand on my shoulder and I flinch. "This is the start of rebuilding."

I exhale deeply. "Right. Yeah."

He awkwardly removes his hand and shrugs. "If you ever need anything..."

"I can handle it," I say. "Don't worry."

~~~~~~

"What do I do?!" I cry, pacing around the floor of Barb's house. Her strong cup of coffee has done nothing for me except make me more anxious. "This is worse than the time my mom forgot to get me a chickenpox vaccine before sending me to school while there was an epidemic going on! Or the time my dad signed me up for a boxcar race and didn't know it was for a biker gang!" I wrap my hair around my finger. "I almost got ran over twelve times."

Barb twists in her seat to look at me. "You have to ask Eloise what's going on."

"I don't know how! When I'm around those kids it's like my brain is a dictionary that's been eaten by a dog, then thrown up, then glued back together by a dyslexic garden gnome!" I press my palm against the table and point at Barb. "But I swear, if I find out who's bullying her, I will send a box of lice right to their house, and when they open it, the lice will take over everything."

Barb shrugs. "How are you gonna know who did it if you don't ask her?"

I pull on my lip. "Good point." I plop down into the chair and sigh. "But talking to teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. I don't know how to talk to people, period. Much less Eloise."

Barb chugged her coffee before taking the pot and filling it up again. "Try it on me."

"What?"

"Pretend I'm Eloise." Barb sags in her chair, crosses her arms, and avoids my gaze.

"Okay," I breathe, sitting up and clearing my throat. "So, honey, how's school?"

Barb shrugs.

"Getting good grades?"

"Yeah."

"I, um...I heard that you were getting bullied."

Barb shakes her head. "It's fine."

"Okay, but, like, I know people are bullying you—"

"It's FINE!" Barb shouts.

"Well, I'm just asking!" I cry, throwing up my hands. "Geez."

Barb sits up and rolls her eyes. "You're not supposed to yell."

"Well you—I mean, Eloise—was," I growl.

"Doesn't matter. Let's try it again..."

~~~~~

I hesitate outside of Eloise's door.

I'm letting Jemma and Dusty binge on old episodes of Drake and Josh, so I have plenty of time.

I take a deep breath.

This is my first test as Super Aunt Beverly. I glance down at my hand, where smudged Sharpie displays a list I've made for myself.

~No crude stories or jokes

~Don't mention your crappy parents

~Also don't mention the Bill Gates Incident

~Be nice. Like Finn. And Mister Rogers.

"Okay," I breathe. "I can do this."

I open the door a crack and peek my head inside. "Uh, howdy there, Eloise..."

Eloise is sitting at her vintage desk, her homework stacked in neat piles around her. Soft classical music is playing in the background and her mousy brown hair is slicked back into a ponytail.

She glances up at me and offers a small smile. "Hi."

"Can I...can I come in?"

"I guess so."

I cross over and sit on her bed, watching awkwardly as she turns back to do her homework. Why did she think I came in here? To take a nap?

"Can I talk to you?"

Her shoulders tighten. She knows what's coming.

I inwardly groan. I always do the same thing when someone's about to lecture me. And now here I am...the lecturer. Aimee can go stick her foot in an anthill for making me become this.

I close my eyes for a brief second as Eloise sits next to me on the white comforter.

Just like I practiced with Barb...what would Michelle Obama do?

"I was in Mr. Watson's classroom the other day," I start carefully, "and he mentioned some conversation you had with him after the whole soccer thing."

Eloise bites her lip and looks away. I nod to myself. This is the part where she says she doesn't want to talk about it, then I—

"I just...I'm angry at Mom."

"I know you don't want to talk—wait, what?" The words have a traffic jam in my mouth. A screen pops up in my brain that says, "Warning! Error!" and it takes a moment to reboot itself. This has nothing to do with the things that I talked about with Finn or Barb. This was unknown territory.

Eloise lets her shoulders sag and she glares daggers into the floor. "She should be here, you know? Our dad..." she draws in a trembling breath and shakes her head, "he doesn't care about us anymore. And Mom should be the one comforting us. But instead, she sticks us in another state, with an aunt we don't know, and a new school. Everyone said that change would be good for us, but we really need home."

I have no idea what to say at this point, so I'm glad she continues. "And, I mean, it's not fair to you, either."

My eyes widen. "Me?"

Eloise nods emphatically. "Yeah. Like, no offense, I'll admit you have a lot of character flaws, and if you were nicer, you would've made it easier for yourself."

"Point taken."

"But still; you've never been around kids, you don't know how to cook, clean, or do laundry, and now you have to go to the PTO meetings, feed us, and put up with all of us for six months. I mean, how can Mom just ask that of someone?"

I'm starting to feel very validated, but, to my surprise, I catch on to something Eloise is saying. "You're right about all those things," I say. "Does it...does it hurt you that your Mom was okay with letting you stay with someone like me for six months?"

Eloise turns her watery eyes up at me, opens her mouth, then hesitates.

I give a small smile. "It's okay, it doesn't hurt my feelings or anything."

Eloise gives a single nod, then says quickly, "But I know you're trying."

At least there's that.

"And the fact that you took us in at all..." Eloise shrugs. "Maybe you're not as heartless as you think."

As touching as the compliment is, I feel a nag of guilt in my stomach. They still don't know about the money. That I was bribed to take them in. But I'm not about to tell her that.

"But about the bullying," I say, trying to get back to the notes written on my hand.

"Oh, it's not a problem anymore." Eloise shrugs. "I found a new group of friends and we stay far away from them."

"I, uh...okay." I sigh. "And your dad?"

Eloise casts her eyes down again. "It's hard. And sometimes I feel like Mom is doing the same thing--leaving us. But all I have is today, and that's enough."

I open my mouth, then close it. "You're like a tiny female Socrates, aren't you?"

It's a relief when she actually laughs at that, but I feel like I should say more. But what? Eloise knows the right answers. And they're probably better than any I would've given her.

So, I go downstairs and try to cook a few carrots and bake some organic chicken nuggets.