Lovely story. Will be following. Definitely looking forwards to the nooboos!
Thank you, I'm so pleased you like it. Nooboos coming soon
What a gorgeous snap of Nervous blowing out his candles, cute as a button! Great update as usual 
I love your use of patterns on the wallpaper and clothes etc. I normally go for very plain colours so it's nice to see something different.
That's lovely of you to say! It is pretty cute when they lean forward and huff and puff at the two little candles. I think some of the wallpapers were from the Store. I always used to go for default coloured outfits, but lately found it's pretty fun re-colouring to suit their tastes and styles.
1. The house looks awesome! Especially the exterior.
2. I love your use of adjectives.
3. Nervous is cute! I remember that he looked a little more odd in TS2. I hope Jadis is right about him fitting in with the other kids in Midnight Hollow.
Thank you! I'm slowly progressing from the box stage. Writing this is a bit of a change, and I'm glad people like it. And you're right about Nervous in Strangetown, it's great to see him grow up in TS3 with unique genes without looking too odd.
Chapter Six Hazy moonlight filtered through the window as Jadis lurched out of bed, fumbling for the light switch. It was only after the pads of both feet touched the cold lacquered floor that she felt it. A small, almost inconceivable movement in the slight swell of her belly, the type that could easily be mistaken for the flex of a swarm of insistent butterflies. They’d been rather persistent as of late as she held off telling Conrad, shying away slightly when he enfolded her in the night and hoping he’d put down the change to an increased laziness about exercise. She’d tried to get to the bathroom only when his chisel gnawed away at the daunting blocks of clay, but his worried concern later made her stomach churn again with guilt. It wasn’t that he’d be unhappy - quite the opposite, based on the hints he dropped - but it was all simply too soon, and for a moment, the sweetly decorated walls blurred into a haze.
A second, more forceful kick brought a glazed, slightly incredulous smile onto the girl’s face.
But when she finally drifted into a tangled web of bizarre dreams and Conrad rolled closer, her unconscious embraced the comfort, though complete oblivion was elusive.
Morning brought a pensive Nervous over his multigrain toast and thin spread of strawberry jam. He was quiet through a goodbye hug from Olive and slipped out the double doors to board the school bus with a furrowed look on his brows.
Jadis watched him go, surrounded by pungent herbs and waving with a hand encrusted with compost. She knelt back down feeling strange and wondering if it would be her child on those red vinyl seats in the next few years as the bus jerked into movement and rolled down the road. At least he had his own space now, the girl reassured herself. A bolthole, if you will.
They’d spent an afternoon working on the room, dripping wallpaper paste over the sheets thrown haphazardly over the floor. It had been worth it to see the look in Nervous’ eyes as he walked into the tiny den of his new room.
Olive had found some old pieces of furniture around town and even if the bed creaked whenever someone hauled themselves up the ladder or the odds and ends that filled the costume box were found at a garage sale, Nervous was happy pottering at the little oven or fussing with his mother’s paints at the easel.
“That is what you picked out the apron for, Nerv?” Olive had asked, that same furrow of the brow settling on her forehead.
“So I won’t get all covered in paint,” the boy had explained, and the furrow cleared.
By nightfall, they’d had four steaming little plates at the table and Nervous bashfully answering queries of flavors through a mouthful of warm vanilla muffin as Conrad swiped a snack with dusty hands or Jadis dropped down at the table smelling of tea tree soap and an underlying hint of fertilizer.
Olive had tucked him in that night.
“Mind your head.”
“S’allright, Mother. Nice and warm up here,” came his reply.
“That’s because heat rises.”
“Why?”
The woman had sighed internally.
“Well, the atoms of warmer particles… you might learn about it at school, who knows. I won’t spoil it for you.”
“Okay. Night, Mother.”
“Night, darling. Sweet dreams.” She had blown him a kiss and before ducking out of the tiny room, flicking off the wall light and leaving the door a little ajar, knowing that he worried and huddled down deep under his blankets when left in complete darkness.
Jadis jolted back to the present as her boot caught the sprinkler switch and doused her with a spray of grey water. Ducking under the next sweep, she flicked it back and knelt once more in the moistened earth.
Conrad had made no comment when she’d cast off her tight frilly skirt and stiff oriental top, instead finding a pair of stretchy leggings and a black polyester tunic. She’d kept the boots, comfort for slightly swollen feet, but the girl knew his eyes watched from beneath long lashes used to conceal worry.
He doggedly persisted with the sculpting, despite his knowledge drawn solely from tacky websites, and made a toy box for ‘Prince Nervous’.
Perhaps it had been a hint for her, the girl worried as she eased out a straggly weed. Or maybe that was excessive paranoia. It hadn’t stopped her from freaking out one night, though, when he’d left to grab a glass of water.
Her worries got relegated to the back of her mind when Jadis finally finished up and met Nervous as he called a goodbye to the driver and walked up the steps of their deck.
“So? How did it go?” Maybe she should have waited to ask, but a niggling feeling told her she’d get monosyllabic answers if a less direct method was used.
“It was okay.” The boy shrugged and dropped his gaze. “People were nice, especially Ms Stark. She does art.” He walked inside, leaving Jadis to bite her lip and follow. It didn’t sound like a total disaster, at least. Maybe she could get more out of him later. Or talk to Olive, who quietly followed him into the new room after an interval had passed.
Regardless of what may or may not have happened, he dressed up in odds and ends after homework was done to lord it over the table.
And Conrad took a break to swear fealty to the little neurotic ruler.
“I dub thee Sir Conrad,” the boy intoned, tapping him on each shoulder and once on the thick blond dreadlocks. “Serve honorably and well.”
“My life for yours, sire. Do you require an escort to your royal chamber?”
When he was answered with a gracious nod, the man stooped beside his wooden chair and settled Nervous on his shoulders. He trotted around the table and out of the room, ducking under the doorframe as the boy clung on and squealed to the clapping and laughing of the two women. Once they were gone, Jadis tiredly slumped onto a chair and copped a glance from her friend.
“You’ll have to tell him sometime.” Olive commented, not unkindly, as Jadis rested her forehead in white palms.
“I know. I know… I’m just not sure if I can handle it right now,” she replied. There was a silence, and she looked up to meet the older woman’s eyes.
“I never told Nervous’ daddy about him. I was always afraid of what might happen to my boy… so I said nothing.” Her voice was quiet. “It’s hard, though, because he doesn’t have a father. And he never will. But Nervous was the best thing that happened to me.”
Jadis nodded slowly, reached out to lay a hand on her friend’s arm. Olive clasped it and gave her a bitter smile.
“Tell him, Jadis. If there’s one thing I regret in life, it’s that Nervous might be missing something in his. Conrad will understand, I think.”
