Chapter 22
MITCHELL
Once we got back from our lunch, Darla checked to see if the work had been completed to her satisfaction, and looking satisfied, returned home with a promise to comm me later. I looked around Neal’s room. I had a half an hour at most to decorate it before I had to fetch him from school.
“Um, Xero?” I called out.
“Yes, Mitchell?”
“I’m ready for us to do that wall mural and stuff.”
“Tap the wall you wish the mural on,” Xero instructed. “And describe your idea.”
I did so. I watched, mouth agape, as the wall began to change colors before me, shapes appearing. Soon, I had a mural depicting surfers on a wave approaching a beach with a sea turtle sunning itself. One of the surfboards had Lilo with Stitch riding in front of her.
“Can we do that?” I asked. “Use Lilo and Stitch in the mural?”
“The appropriate license fee has been paid,” was Xero’s reply.
“Ah, okay.” I had no idea what that entailed but it sounded like everything was legal and aboveboard.
“Could you make a background on this wall,” I tapped the one behind Neal’s headboard, “so the beach wraps around from the mural. Make it visible even though his headboard is there, please.”
“Cross referencing bed dimensions from quartermaster purchase order.” Then, “Do you wish to continue with character representation?”
I had the stickers still and had planned to use them, but this was better, I decided. I could then add the stickers to the top and sides of his toybox.
“Yes,” I decided. “How about we have Lilo’s hula class there?”
To my amazement, the beach appeared and the children from Lilo’s hula class stood there, practicing with their teacher.
So it went across the rest of the room. Lilo’s house was on the wall with the door, and Xero had cleverly made it so that Neal’s door was the door to Lilo’s house. The other wall had Lilo’s alien friends enjoying shaved ice by a stand on the beach.
“Crap! Is that the time?” I asked, checking my watch once the walls were done. I’d set it to ship’s local time shortly after arrival. “I’m going to be late if I don’t run! Thanks, Xero, it looks perfect!”
I was eight minutes late despite my best efforts.
“I’m so sorry, Neal,” I apologized.
Neal’s teacher smiled. “It happens. We had a change of quarters notification come in for Neal, so I expected you might be delayed. It’s pretty usual on moving days, no matter how well planned in advance it might be.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “This one came out of the blue,” I admitted.
She nodded. “As long as this isn’t a regular thing, it’s fine. We do have an after school club if you find you need more time before picking him up.”
“Could I have the information on that?” I asked. “I’m starting nursing school and will be shadowing Dr. Proslo, and I’m not sure how that will affect my schedule.”
“Certainly!” She picked up a data pad and tapped the screen. “I’ve sent it to your pad. There’s a sign up link on the information page.” She gave Neal a huge smile. “Bye, Neal! Enjoy your new home!”
Neal stared at me, wide-eyed.
“We moveded?” His voice sounded small and scared.
“Yep, Daddy got made an officer so they sent this whole team of warriors and the fleet commander’s wife came and everything!
” I told him, making myself sound gleefully excited.
“And Xero decorated your room with even more Lilo and Stitch! It’s way cool.
It’s much bigger so now we’ll definitely have room for a dog or a cat. ”
He perked up. “We can get both!”
I laughed. “One pet at a time, buddy. We have to ease Daddy into these things.”
Neal nodded his head. “Yeah. He’s gots to see how cool having one is, so he wants another one.”
He reached to slip his hand in mine, and I breathed an inner sigh of relief.
The poor kid must have thought he’d been the one moved to another family, even though he’d been adopted.
I made the decision then and there that once Jolar was home, I’d talk to him about adding Neal to the wedding ceremony where we’d give him something to signify that he’d taken us both as his dads and we’d taken him as our son.
A bracelet maybe, with mine and Jolar’s birthstones on either side of his. Did Mylos even have birthstones?
“We need to finish putting your stuff where you want it,” I told him.
“Can you do that? All your furniture is where it needs to go.” I made a face.
“I’ve got to move a few things around in the rest of the house.
The warriors tried to put everything in sort of the same places as in our last place, but since the rooms are different, it doesn’t quite work.
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. I can help. I can finish my room by myself. I’m not a little kid anymore. I go to Kindergarten now.”
I smiled down at him. “Great! So let's have a snack first, then we can get started, yeah? Daddy is down on earth working, so he’s probably going to be late. How about after we finish the rooms, I make us some fried chicken?”
“With mashed ‘tatoes and gravy?”
“Of course!”
He bounced in excitement. “Then we can watch Lilo and Stitch!”
Oh boy. Still, it would help settle him into our new space.
“And then we can watch Lilo and Stitch,” I agreed.
And that gave me another idea. We’d talked about getting married on a cruise to Hawaii.
What if the town in the movie was based on a real place?
How cool would that be? Oh! And if it was, what if Neal adopted a pet from the shelter there? I simply had to find out.
“Here we are!” I said, stopping in front of our new door.
“Hooray!” Neal said, letting go of my hand to dash inside as soon as the door opened.
Yep, he was going to settle in just fine.