Roar of Dragons

[Sig – 13 years]

The house is relatively quiet when I get home, the TV in the living room turned low while my parents watch it. Most of the lights are turned off for once with only a lamp in the living room on, my parents probably wanting some 'alone time' even though they get it fairly often. Dishes are piled up in the sink, so after removing my shoes I get started on those.

"Could you be a little quieter?" Mom asks as I put the bowl and spoon from the strainer into their appropriate storage places. "We're trying to watch something in here. Should have started on that earlier."

Started on it earlier? Judging by the state of the dishes, they only finished using them no more than an hour ago. In fact, I'm fairly certain some of them were in use half an hour ago.

"There were no dirty dishes in the sink when I left at seven-thirty this morning," I say. "And I just got home two minutes ago."

"Oh," she says. "Well, your dad and I are trying to watch something, please be quieter."

Ignoring her, I start moving the dishes out of the sink and onto the counter beside it. Then I clean out the sink before I get started on actually washing the dishes. This isn't really a 'quiet' task I can do so I just handle it the same way I normally do. It's not as if it's all that late in the first place and they would reprimand me if I tried doing this closer to bedtime when their 'alone time' has lasted for a few hours.

Upon finishing the dishes, I head to my room and grab some fresh clothes, then take a quick shower before returning to my room and booting up my computer. I pull on my headset and plug it in, then sign into my computer. Some blankets have been hung up on my walls to help dampen sound but I still have to be careful not to get too loud.

"Hey, guys," I say once I've logged into the game lobby and joined the voice chat for my usual group. "How's it going?"

My avatar waves to the group, which consists of a female elf archer, a male druid healer, a female half-giant martial artist, and now me, a male fairy wizard. Curiously, there's a human knight standing close by to us. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary if he was closer in level to us than he is as we sometimes do have other people join our party for quests and bosses.

Whoever this player is, they're definitely new and there's no voice chat icon above their head. With this game, everyone can talk in a private voice chat – such as what my party typically does – a guild voice chat, or the general voice chat. We can also switch between the three freely or temporarily talk in one while staying in another – such as us staying in the private chat but letting people in the general hear us. The general only works for those whose avatars are near yours, so it's not like it's broadcast to everyone. It's a local general chat, not a global one.

Since this new player – who is literally Level 1 still – doesn't have a voice chat icon, they're probably talking via text messages. Their username is [DemonMuffin], which is weird.

"Not bad," Sarah, the elf archer, responds to my question. "We're not sure what's going on with the new player, he's been standing there for awhile. We tried talking to him via voice and his character jolted a little. I think we startled the actual person."

"Happens sometimes," Grace, the half-giant martial artist, says. "He didn't respond to our messages."

The avatar for the new player starts moving, taking a few steps in random directions.

DemonMuffin: there we go damn keyboard

Then they walk off. All four of us start laughing. It was apparently just an issue they were having with their keyboard.

I'm willing to bet they were freaking out by the team of high-level players just hanging out where they were, wondering if we were planning on following them out and killing them or something. We don't do that sort of thing but I know there are some players that do – we dealt with that back when we were all new. Those players are now KoS (kill on sight) for us.

"How's your computer?" Jack, the druid, asks once we stop.

"Almost have enough to get the new graphics card," I answer. "Got paid a lot for helping a friend's dad build a new deck and was paid twice what I charge for taking a dog out and playing with it for a couple of days, so pretty decent progress. Am hoping for enough before this one goes kaput."

"Good luck," he says. "Going for a new model?"

"Nah," I say. "Those are too expensive. The one I'm looking at only costs five hundred as it's a little bit of an older model, but it's still pretty powerful. Could get it now, but I don't want to spend everything."

I'm putting aside half of everything I earn as general savings and I do also spend money on other things as well. If I didn't do that, I'd be able to afford upgrading my computer faster.

"How much you got left?" Jack asks.

"Sixty-three dollars," I answer. "So I should be able to get it by the end of the month, assuming everything goes well and money doesn't 'vanish' again."

"Didn't you ever find out what happened?" Grace asks.

"Nah," I say. "I probably accidentally dropped it out of my room and my parents just thought it was theirs."

They don't intentionally take my stuff so they wouldn't have taken it if it was in my room. The best I can think of really is that I must have accidentally brought it out of my room and dropped it without realizing.

"That sucks," she says.

"Really does," Jack says.

"Happier thoughts," I say. "We're taking on that beast today, right?"

"Heck yeah!"

We check our inventories and gear to make sure that we're ready to take it on, then leave the town we logged in at and make our way to a dungeon to battle a boss that gave us trouble last week. Most of our play time since then has been to improve our gear and Levels so that we can try and fight it again.

For the next couple of hours, we fight some monsters and complete a couple of quests, then Jack has to log for the night since his parents are telling him to go to bed. We all agree to meet up Monday night for some more fun here, then log off.

I head out to the kitchen and get myself a glass of water before I return to my room, then browse the net – headphones off since I'm not in a voice chat with three other people who get extremely loud. The music I put on won't disturb my parents since it's not too loud. At about eleven-thirty, I go out to refill my water and find that my parents have gone to bed. Since I'm nowhere near tired enough for that, I'll probably game a bit more.

[Xander – 12 years] → starts around the same time as Sig's PoV

Mr. Caldwell comes into view as he approaches me and I start worrying again. This probably isn't allowed, either.

"Xander?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"I-I'm sorry!"

"What are you doing?"

"I-I'll go do this in my room, I'm sorry!"

"You're not in trouble, Xander," Mr. Caldwell says. "I was just wondering why you were spread out in the living room."

I'm currently lying on the living room floor. The carpet in here is really soft and plush as well and even better, it's not on the second floor. A good spot to think with the light rain going on outside preventing me from sitting under a tree. Well, not literally preventing me from going out there, but I'd probably get yelled at and beaten if I tried sitting out there and then came in soaking wet and dripping water everywhere. That makes it less a literal prevention and more of a… a… some other kind of prevention. My stupid brain doesn't remember the word.

So the living room it is. Because of the rain, not my stupidity.

"I was thinking," I tell Mr. Caldwell.

"Would have expected you to be playing video games or watching TV."

"But I didn't get permission."

"If you're not grounded," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "And you don't have other stuff you're supposed to be doing, then you're allowed to play video games, watch TV, or whatever."

That doesn't sound right, and I really don't want to ask permission every time. A bad boy like me shouldn't be allowed to play video games whenever he wants. Asking every time I want to play will also probably just get me into trouble.

"Want to share what you were thinking about?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"Cinnamon rolls."

"What about them?" He sits down beside me. "I take it you're thinking about what we had for breakfast?"

"They weren't good," I say. "But they were better than what we normally have at the home. I know some of the other boys like cinnamon rolls. So I was thinking… maybe I could spend some of my money on getting the ingredients so Ms. Johnson can make them like that instead of using the stuff from a can or in the big bulk packages from the store. But there were a lot of recipes and it made my head all confused."

It's been awhile since I did anything with the money I've been saving up and I shouldn't be allowed to have good food if the other boys can't as well. I'm not worthy of good stuff.

"You wanted to spend your savings on something for the boys at the home?"

"They should have good stuff."

"How many boys does the home have?" Mr. Caldwell asks.

"It can have up to thirty," I answer. "But including me, it had twenty-two before you took me. There are also five staff members."

"The home receives money from the state each month per boy," Mr. Caldwell. "To help them run things. They also have private donors as well who help pay for things. One of the things about food is that it can take awhile to make, especially if you have a lot of people. They probably buy in bulk to help cut down on cooking times. Making cinnamon rolls actually takes a lot of effort and that's time the staff could spend doing other things to help run the place. It's not like throwing pasta into a pot and sauce into a pan and letting it cook. You have to measure mix, let the dough rise, knead and roll, mix the filling and spread it in, let it rise some more… then there are all the dishes it uses up."

"They have two dishwashers," I say. "And two ovens. And a huuuuuuge fridge. Two of them. Plus a huge freezer. They also have two deep freezers. I think that's what they're called? They open up from the top and you put things into them for longer storage and they're a lot colder. Don't hide in them, you might end up in the hospital. There's also a huge food closet. No entering allowed except when helping prepare meals."

Mr. Caldwell is quiet for a few moments. That makes me nervous. I spoke too much, didn't I? Apologizing is probably best but that would just be speaking more. What do I do?

"Unlike me," Mr. Caldwell says. "They can't afford a full-time chef, and unlike most normal homes, they don't really have too much time to devote to working on cooking. That's why they buy in bulk, as I said – it makes things easier. It's not that they're hurting for money, it's that they don't have the time needed to devote to cooking."

"They aren't?" I ask. "But Ms. Johnson always tries to buy my clothes from used clothes shops. Isn't that because they can't afford new clothes for us? I guess it's because I'm bad and don't deserve new things. I forgot about that."

"Well," Mr. Caldwell says. "Considering how difficult it was to get you to accept just the two sets of clothes I tried to buy you on Friday, she probably does it because it's easier to get you to accept them."

I don't know what that means.

"One of the donors," Mr. Caldwell says. "Sends them one hundred dollars per boy every three months to buy new clothes for them. That's enough to buy a few new pieces, which is typically good enough for a normal child. I'm also fairly certain they spend it that way – one hundred dollars per boy at maximum from each donation, with anything leftover set aside for future clothes purchases for that same boy."

"Ms. Johnson spends less than thirty."

"I think she only tells you that," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "Either that, or most of it gets saved up through the year and then goes into getting you some good-quality winter gear since you go outside so much."

I want to ask why he thinks that, but questioning other people is always bad and gets me a beating.

"We got a little bit off topic there," Mr. Caldwell says. "Back to the food subject. The home could probably afford to buy the ingredients to make more complex foods rather than bulk-buying easy-make foods, but the problem for them is time. They also likely wouldn't be able to do it for every meal even if they had the time since while they receive enough money to buy food, they don't receive too significant of sums and still want to buy treats for the boys, such as occasional pizza parties or celebrating a boy's birthday."

I guess that makes sense.

"They likely buy the bulk and canned cinnamon rolls because it's faster and easier," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "But you think the boys there should get to eat ones from scratch, too?"

"I got to. That means they should be able to."

"How often do they go grocery shopping?"

"Ms. Johnson and one of the other staff members usually go on Thursdays," I answer. "They usually take one or two of the better-behaved boys with them. For some reason, that almost always included me even though I'm always bad. The fridges and freezers are probably mostly empty right now."

Mr. Caldwell gets up and walks away, and I go back to thinking about what the cost might be for buying all of the ingredients. Now Mr. Caldwell has my head all confused as well and I'm not sure if the staff there would make them. If he's right and they don't have enough time, then they'd just have all of the ingredients sitting around for awhile.

A few minutes later, Mr. Caldwell comes back over to me.

"Xander," he says and I look at him. "What time does everyone have to be in bed?"

"Usually by ten," I answer. "Even in summer, though Ms. Johnson and the other staff members usually go to bed later, especially if at least one of the boys isn't home but will be returning that night, like me on Tuesdays."

"Alright," he says. "Then we should have enough time. Go get your shoes on."

He's taking me back? I know I'm scared a lot here, but I don't want to go back! The bed is comfier here and the food is tastier! He didn't tell me to get my clothes, either, which means he wants to send me back without them. At least there are still some at the home, Ms. Johnson told me not to pack them all because they wouldn't fit into the bag.

"C-Can I grab Trenton?"

"Go ahead," Mr. Caldwell answers. "If you want to grab your backpack, you can."

That's better. I go up to the room he was letting me stay in and pack my backpack as full of my old clothes as I can without removing any of the other stuff I normally keep inside apart from Trenton, who I carry with me. Then I locate my shoes and pull them on before following Mr. Caldwell to the SUV. Ms. Katie is waiting there for us, and she sits in the front passenger seat once Mr. Caldwell unlocks the car.

I do my best not to cry on the way there but I can feel tears forming in my eyes anyway. Then I get confused because I think I misremembered the route we took from the home to Mr. Caldwell's house. This doesn't match what I remember. Why's he pulling into a grocery store parking lot?

"This won't be a regular thing," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "But we'll prepare some cinnamon rolls for the boys at the home, okay? Katie says that we can prepare them now, bring them over to the home, and they can keep them in the fridge overnight and cook them in the morning."

Now I'm even more confused. Stupid piece of shit worthless fucking brain.

"This way," Mr. Caldwell continues. "They can have the cinnamon rolls, too. And don't worry about paying for it, Xander. I'll cover the cost. However, you have to agree to help Ms. Katie prepare them by following the directions she gives you, okay?"

I'm still really confused but I nod to agree. Why would they want me to help? I'll just mess everything up and ruin the whole batch.

"As I said," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "I won't do this too often, but we can call it a thanks for taking care of you these last few years. You can also do stuff like this on your own if Ms. Katie agrees to help you prepare it and you pay for it, okay?"

"Y-yes, sir."

It's better to just go with this situation because it's making my brain even more messed up and confused trying to think about what's going on.

Mr. Caldwell, Ms. Katie, and I get out of the car and go into the store. I leave my backpack behind since I'm not being sent back yet, but I do still take Trenton with me, holding him tightly against my chest. This situation is too confusing for me and I need some comfort and he can provide a little bit of it.

Inside the store, Ms. Katie leads the way and our first stop is the baking dishes supply aisle, but they each grabbed a cart when we entered for some reason. Ms. Katie selects eight baking pans that cinnamon rolls can be made in, all the same type. They have some at the home that they sometimes make casseroles in, and I think I understand about it taking awhile. Not just the baking part, but even preparing the casseroles always took them awhile on the occasions they made them themselves.

Then we go to the baking aisle in the food stuff and Ms. Katie lets Mr. Caldwell know the bigger stuff that's needed so he can grab it off the shelf for her. Rich people do heavy lifting at grocery stores? That's news to me. Mostly, Ms. Katie grabs the items off of the shelves. While picking out the ingredients, Ms. Katie tells me what part of the cinnamon roll they go to. The flour and sugar for the dough, sugar for the filling, cinnamon for the filling, vanilla extract for the dough, powdered sugar for the icing, and stuff like that. She seems to be grabbing a lot more than I expected.

The refrigerator section is next and a few more items are grabbed from there, then we go to the registers to pay. A lot of milk and orange juice was grabbed, as were some packages of sausage links and a lot of extra eggs. That confuses me because where does it all go into the rolls? I didn't know orange juice was an ingredient and I didn't taste it or any sausage links in them this morning. Or syrup, either. Nor the berries that were grabbed from the produce section on the way to the registers.

They seemed to grab a bunch of extra ingredients that I can't figure out how to go into the cinnamon rolls. When were nuts grabbed, and why are there different varieties? There seem to be more things here than I remember seeing get added to the carts.

Is Ms. Katie also doing a little extra shopping or stuff not related to the cinnamon rolls? That would make sense, since it would bundle up time. I'm fairly certain white chocolate isn't an ingredient for cinnamon rolls.

Mr. Caldwell pays for it all with one of his cards, then we return to the SUV and the purchases are loaded up into the trunk before we finally return to his house. After taking off my shoes once we've brought the groceries and pans inside, I put my backpack back in the room I'm staying in before joining Ms. Katie in the kitchen since I have to help her make it even though I'm just going to mess everything up.

When I enter the kitchen, I find a stool by the main preparation counter. I don't remember ever seeing that before. The stool, I mean. Where did it come from?

"Xander," Ms. Katie says. "Are you okay with standing on the stool to help?"

No, but I have to help and I'm too short to really do it without a stool. If I break my arm falling again, Mr. Caldwell will probably be really mad and send me back. I don't get why he doesn't just send my worthless ass back to the home already.

I step up onto the stool, then set Trenton down on the counter close by but not in the way.

"See all these glass bowls?" Ms. Katie asks. "When I have you measure something out, put it into one of those. I'll tell you what to measure."

Ms. Katie walks me through each measurement, including how to know which one is which. The first batch of dough takes us a little while to prepare, and then it has to rise for more than an hour, so we get started on the second batch. Each new batch, Ms. Katie explains to me which measuring spoon or cup to use including the shorter version of their name on the measuring spoons.

That makes it a lot easier for me to measure, though I still think I mess it up. I try to make things as level as possible like she tells me to but it doesn't always come out that way. At least she doesn't seem to notice since she doesn't comment when she grabs the bowl that I dumped it into.

Preparing all of the batches of dough takes awhile, then Ms. Katie has me measure out ingredients for the filling while she prepares the dough. Apparently, each batch was actually a double batch because she splits the dough into two halves and spreads each one out separately.

"Take this baster," Ms. Katie tells me. "And spread that butter on each, but leave about a one-inch border from the top edge without any butter, okay? Don't worry about being precise, it doesn't have to be exactly one inch and can be a little bit off. Do go all the way to the other three edges, though. It shouldn't be a thick coating, just enough of the butter to cover it. If you're not sure about one inch, think of it as the width of two fingers. Maybe three for you. Either one works, alright?"

I nod and do my best to follow her instructions, though I do have to move the stool for each one. Ms. Katie mixes the ingredients for the filling while I do that, then she splits the filling into two bowls and has me spread one of them onto the butter of one of the dough batches. After that, she shows me how to roll the dough with hers, then she takes a fancy-looking tool and starts chopping the rolls.

She calls it a dough scraper, but she uses it for cutting the rolled dough. That confuses me. Ms. Katie has me brush more butter into two of the baking dishes, and she puts the cut dough rolls into them. The rolls are only cut into eight pieces, and each dish receives only each. Another thing that confuses me is why she only does eight in each dish with plenty of space between instead of packing them all into the same one.

"The reason I'm putting eight into each dish," Ms. Katie tells me. "Is because the rolls will rise a little bit more. That's why we didn't roll them tightly – so that the middles will expand to the sides instead of upwards. If we rolled it too tightly, then the middles wouldn't find themselves able to move to the sides too easily and would instead rise up, creating a mountain-like peak instead, okay?"

"Okay."

The two dishes are covered in plastic wrap, then moved into the fridge and Ms. Katie pulls out another bowl of rising dough and we repeat the same process. They have a really big fridge here as well. Also really big bowls. Ms. Katie had to remove some of the shelves from the fridge to fit the bowls, but they were also large mixing bowls, too.

At some point while we're working, Mr. Caldwell comes to watch us for a few minutes, and that makes me nervous. Then he asks if I'm okay with him taking pictures and a video of me working on the phone he gave me so that I have them later. He also asks if I'm okay with him taking a picture and video on his phone.

Either one of those scares me but I don't know what he'll do if I say 'no'. Probably say that we can't take this stuff over to the home and I don't want that. It would be a waste of money and then he'd beat me for wasting money. So I agree and give him the phone he gave me, then return to working.

I don't see Mr. Caldwell taking pictures or recordings even though I keep looking over. He was probably lying and just wanting to go through the phone. I bet he's already figured out my password. I should have looked in his eyes when he asked me. I can't focus on that too much, though, because I don't want to mess up on this so I give up on trying to see what he's doing with the phone and focus on following Ms. Katie's directions.

Unlike the first two batches, the third and fourth batches have nuts put into their filling. Those four dishes are also covered with a plastic wrap that has a slight blue tint to it, which Ms. Katie says is so that it's easy to know which ones have the nuts in them and which ones don't, instead of needing to inspect the rolls more closely to try and see.

Washing dishes is dangerous for me, so I mostly just move the stuff from the counter over as best I can while Ms. Katie rinses them off and puts them into the dishwasher. Since we used the same dishes for the same things, Ms. Katie said it was okay to reuse them while doing this baking thing.

"There's a little bit more time," Ms. Katie tells me after checking her phone. "Trey said we should show up after the boys go to bed so that it's a surprise waiting for them in the morning. If we take them over now, the boys will probably still be awake. Do you want to learn how to bake something else?"

"Um… what?" I ask.

"Cookies!" She answers.

"Cookies?"

"Yep," she says. "I know you don't like chocolate-chip, but Trey said you liked the white chocolate macadamia nut ones so much that you ate the whole plate! Want to learn how to make those?"

"For the boys?"

Ms. Katie looks past me for a few moments, then looks at me.

"Sure, we can make some to bring over when we take the cinnamon rolls over," Katie tells me. "We have plenty of ingredients to make a batch of six dozen, too. Do you know how many are in six dozen?"

Math. I hate math! But I need to do my best so that I don't get into trouble.

"Um… six… dozen is twelve… sixty-two?"

"Want to tell me how you got that number?"

Not really.

"Six times ten plus two."

"Okay," she says. "It's six times ten plus six times two. You have to multiply both parts."

"Oh," I feel my face heat up. "Right. Sorry."

"It's okay," she smiles. "So this batch will make roughly seventy-two cookies. Might make a little bit more, might make a little bit less. It's really the same one I used for you, but tripled. This should let each of the boys get three if they want and there will even be extras. Come on, let's move the stool back over a little, then let's get started. You up for doing the measurements again?"

"I-I'll try."

Ms. Katie nods, then I move the stool over and stand on it while she brings out more items. She also starts the stove preheating so that it's ready for baking once we're ready to bake. The cookies seem a lot easier than the cinnamon rolls are and Ms. Katie even lets me try a piece of white chocolate that she breaks off so I can taste it by itself.

When we finish, Ms. Katie loads the dishwasher with the dishes as best she can, then starts it and has me clean the counter. Then I'm sent to get ready to leave while she does… something. No one tells me what so I don't know. The cookies are ready to pull out of the oven by the time I return to the kitchen and while I don't help pull the trays out of the oven, I do get to help move the cookies from the pans to the cooling racks that Ms. Katie set out. She holds the cookie sheets while I use the spatula to remove the cookies.

"It's okay," Ms. Katie says when I ruin one. "That can be one that you eat. The flavor's the same, it's just a little bent and broken."

I don't want to do this anymore but I don't want to get into trouble for quitting, so I keep going. I ruin a few more cookies but Ms. Katie just says that it's one I or she or Mr. Caldwell can eat each time that happens. Finally, all of the cookies are off of the trays and she sets the trays to the side to cool.

"Always let them cool before putting water on them," she tells me. "Otherwise, it might warp the metal. Something similar for glass – don't put cold glass into hot water or an oven that's on or it might shatter the glass. Okay?"

I nod. How that can happen, I don't know, but I'll remember this just in case I need the information later. I'll ask the dork next time I see him how that works. Or maybe I'll ask him by text. He's very smart, smarter than anyone else I know even if he's a massive dork. If it's true, then he'll tell me.

A security guard shows up carrying a fancy glass tray with a somewhat floral pattern to it, and he hands it to Ms. Katie, who then washes it as the guard leaves. Once she finishes washing the tray, she dries it off and sets it on the counter.

"Move the stool over here," Ms. Katie indicates the tray. "It's time to put the cookies on, they've cooled enough. I made the batch a little bit bigger than I initially said, so we have eighty-four cookies. If we account for each boy plus the staff at the home, that's twenty-six people. Do you know what twenty-six times three is?"

"Um… sixty… seventy… seventy-six?"

"Close," she says. "Seventy-eight. Twenty times three is sixty, and six times three is eighteen. Sixty plus eighteen is seventy-eight. Since we have eighty-four cookies, we'll keep six for us and take the rest to the home. There are four bent or broken cookies, so we'll keep those and two others. Let's arrange the cookies in a pattern, okay?"

Ms. Katie has me help her put the cookies on the platter, and once we're done, it's given a plastic wrap cover. I get to try one of the cookies that's left, and it's still warm. Warm and very soft and very delicious. At least, I think they are, but I probably don't have the best of tastes.

Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Katie both try a cookie, then they start taking the food out to the car. I'm given back the phone Mr. Caldwell is letting me use and the first thing I do is unlock it and send the dork a question about metal warping and glass breaking from temperature changes.

There's no response until we're on our way to the boys' home. Since there were so many dishes, Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Katie loaded them into the bed of the truck, and Ms. Katie is even coming with us. I still take Trenton with me because I'm still scared. What if no one likes the cookies and cinnamon rolls and hates them?

Once my phone bloops, though, I stop thinking about that so that I can check the message.

Fluffy Dog Master: Remember how wood grows when wet and shrinks when drying? And how it can split it if dries too fast?

Fluffy Dog Master: Similar principle.

Fluffy Dog Master: Going in simple terms, metal and glass both expand when hot and shrink when cold.

Fluffy Dog Master: When the transition between the two states is too fast, metal gets confused about its state and changes inconsistently. That causes warping because the metal is sturdy enough to not break. Usually. It can still break.

Fluffy Dog Master: For glass, it's not as 'together'. Same reason it breaks when dropped. So when the temperature shift causes the size shift too fast, think of it like it suddenly being struck. The glass can't keep up and it breaks.

That's probably not the full or proper explanation, but at least I can understand it. The dork wouldn't give me blatantly wrong information, he just gives it to me in terms that actually makes sense to me. There's definitely more involved, but at least I understand it now.

Just to see if Mr. Caldwell took any pictures, I decide to check the album and find… a lot of pictures and some videos. It looks like he waited until I stopped looking at him to start snapping shots and recording me. The pictures look good, even if I'm ugly. They feel… natural? Rather than posed. Maybe that's what he was going for, so that they didn't look as stupid. Any picture with me in it looks stupid.

I put the phone away and wait the rest of the ride to the home. It's about ten-fifteen when we arrive, and Mr. Caldwell has me knock on the door while he and Ms. Katie go to the back of the truck. Mr. Evanson, one of the staff members, answers the door after about thirty seconds.

"Hello, Xander," he says. "Ms. Johnson is on her way over."

On her way over? Did they know we were coming?

"Hey, Xander," Ms. Johnson comes out of the kitchen and approaches. "I was moving some stuff in the fridges so we could fit the rolls."

They did know. But the dork said that no one here had psychic powers?

"Mr. Caldwell called me earlier and asked," Ms. Johnson tells me. "He didn't want it to be a surprise to us adults just in case there would be an issue. We had to wait until most of the boys went to bed before we could rearrange the fridge, though."

I guess that makes sense. Why only most of the boys, though?

"Oh."

"Come on in," she says. "We'll help carry the rest of the stuff in. Nick, come on."

That's when I notice Nick, who was putting on his sneakers when I knocked on the door. I enter the home and move off to the side as Ms. Johnson, Nick, and the other staff members go to help Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Katie. It's better if I don't help bring the stuff in as I would probably just drop everything.

As it turns out, the extra milk and eggs, and the sausages, orange juice, berries, and syrup are to go with the cinnamon rolls tomorrow. They were also brought over with the casserole dishes of the rolls. Everything is organized into the fridge, then Ms. Katie talks to Ms. Johnson for a minute. Nick and Mr. Caldwell bring in some bags of additional things including some butter.

"These are the directions," Ms. Katie tells Mr. Johnson while handing her some laminated papers. "This one here is just for preheating the oven and cooking the rolls. This one is for the icing, and this one is for the glaze. Neither takes very long to make, but do be careful if you make the icing as mixing too fast immediately will just kick up the powdered sugar."

"We've had that happen before," Ms. Johnson tells her with a small laugh. "Pretty much every time we let the boys making icing or frosting and those ones haven't done it before."

"An easy mistake to make," Ms. Katie smiles. "The rolls with the blue wrap have nuts in them, Trey said you mentioned there weren't any allergies but we still felt it best to make them more identifiable just in case."

"Thanks," Mr. Johnson says as Nick waves to get my attention.

"Can I get a fist bump?" He holds out a fist, and I look down at Trenton, who I'm currently holding with both arms. "How 'bout from Trenton?"

I nod, then move closer so I can shift Trenton forward so that one of his paws taps Nick's fist.

"Come over here for a second," Nick beckons, and I follow him over to the couch in the living room, though we don't sit down. "How do you like it there? Is Mr. Caldwell really rich?"

"Yeah," I nod. "It's a huge house. Really big. And they have peach trees out back. Mr. Caldwell said I can eat a peach from the trees whenever I want. They're really good. They taste kind of like the ones we get from the food pantry."

A local food pantry, a place that lets people come in to get food if they have lower incomes or are homeless or something like that, also donates food to various places. Every month, they donate a crate of food to the home. Fresh produce for us to snack on or to make salads with or stuff. During peach season, it includes peaches.

"If it's from the pantry over on North Maple," Mr. Caldwell says, and we both jump as we realize we were speaking loud enough for him to hear from where he was talking with one of the staff members. "Then that's because they're possibly the same peaches. Those trees grow too many of them for me and my staff alone so I send some to local food pantries. That part of my property used to be part of an orchard that went out of business, which is why there are so many fruit trees there and why they're in rows."

"Oh."

Nick and I move a little bit further away.

"How are you sleeping?" Nick glances at Mr. Caldwell. "Are you still having bad dreams?"

"Yeah," I mumble. "I keep waking Mr. Caldwell up with the screams. I'm surprised he hasn't sent me back yet."

"Ms. Johnson probably warned him you'd scream at night," Nick tells me. "You had some really bad nightmares when you first moved in. Remember? None of us really got any sleep back then."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," he says. "You weren't the only one who sometimes woke people up with nightmares. I bet Mr. Caldwell would wear earplugs if it really bothered him. We all did, too."

Yeah, but my screams were loud enough they could still hear me. Though I guess Mr. Caldwell's room is a lot further away there than any of the rooms here are. He was probably hoping that I'd not wake him up without use of earplugs.

"I bet all the food there is really good, right?"

"Some of it," I say. "The cinnamon rolls weren't. But they were better than the stuff here. That's why I thought you all should get them."

"Thanks," Nick says. "I was surprised when Mr. Evanson told me that they needed me for an extra chore after everyone went to bed. Pretty unusual, then they sprung on me about you bringing over cinnamon rolls from scratch. Didn't mention cookies, though."

"We didn't plan on the cookies," I tell him. "Ms. Katie wanted to fill in the time before we could leave so that it would be a surprise. Ms. Johnson let you in on it?"

"I'm good at keeping secrets," he grins, then glances at Mr. Caldwell. "Does he hurt you?"

"Not yet."

"Does he let you play games?"

"There's a big theater room," I tell him. "And an extra gaming room. I took pictures on the phone he gave me."

I show Nick the pictures I took, though I admit I haven't played anything yet.

"Cool," he says. "Though it looks like the adults are done and ready to go. Have a good night, Xander."

"Bye."

"Bye!"

I join Mr. Caldwell and Ms. Katie, then we leave.

"Was that your roommate?" Mr. Caldwell asks as he drives us back to his house. "The one from here, I mean."

"Yeah."

"He seemed friendly."

"He is."

"If you want to hang out with him sometime, you can ask," Mr. Caldwell tells me.

"He was just my roommate," I say. "We weren't friends. He's a grade above me."

"Alright," he laughs a little. "Let's get back home, then you can go to bed. You're looking a bit sleepy."

"Okay."