Relena stood at the closed door of the nursery, her thumb in her mouth as she paused in deep concentration. With her knuckles she quietly rapped on the door, the one obstacle separating her from her beloved Heero. This gentle knock was a far cry from the pounding that had resulted in Melody telling her to cool off in her room for a while and come back out when she could behave more ladylike. The boys, mainly Heero, Duo, and Wufei, had run from her earlier, slamming the door in her face as they reached the sanctuary of the Nursery; they hadn’t realized how fast she could run. Having been released from her room, she stood waiting, not so patiently, for a reply to her knock. Even now as she reached a chubby little finger to touch her nose she winced at the pain, her crystalline blue eyes started to tear but she willed herself not to cry.

Pushing her honey colored hair back over her shoulder, she reached up once again and tapped her knuckles on the door, knowing the boys couldn’t ignore her forever. ‘Besides,’ she thought, ‘they’ve been in there a long time; maybe they’re getting bored.’

She knew a great deal about persistence, but sweet chibi Relena still had a lot to learn about the resolve of boys, and what she viewed as a long time was only fifteen minutes on the clock. Although she had been told by Melody and Tegan and Milliardo and many others it was rude and very unladylike, and in all things what she wanted was to be like a lady, she pressed her ear against the door.

“She’s not going away, sweetie,” Duo whispered, mimicking the way Relena called Heero ‘sweetie’.

“If we ’gnore her she’ll haf’ta stop sometime,” Heero supplied, ignoring what Duo said. “An’ ’sides, I don’t wanna talk to her an’ have her callin’ me pumkin an’ stuff, it’s bearasin’.”

“Answer her an’ then maybe she’ll leave.”

“Nope,” Wufei said in response to Duo. “Then she’ll know she’s buggin’ us an’ if she knows she’s buggin’ us Relena will never stop.”

“Shush,” Heero piped when Wufei’s voice became louder, “She might not think we’re in here.”

The sound of their voices became harder for Relena to hear as the muffled noise of someone coming up the carpeted steps became louder. She backed away from the door, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping. Relena was about to pretend that she was on her way to her own room when she realized the clomping had quieted, like whomever was making it had decided to go back down stairs. After waiting a few seconds she moved toward the door to the boys’ room again. As she raised her hand to knock once more the stomping sound hit her ears, then it went back down.

This reoccurrence of the clomping noise seemed curious to the blue-eyed girl and she decided to investigate, forgetting about her Heero problems. She slid along the hall, making her way toward the stairs with her back against the wall, acting just like a hero from a movie or a really cool spy. Relena slowed down as she reached the stairs, making sure that she made no sudden movements, not wanting to startle the strange creature that was walking up and down the steps. She ducked in a doorway as it reached the top, noticing that now it sounded like the thing was walking on all fours.

Relena waited, nodding her head with each clomp, mentally counting out how long it would take to for the noisemaker to turn around.

‘Here’s my chance,’ she thought, as the sound returned to walking on two feet in its decent. She took a deep breath and balled her little hands into small fists, summoning up her courage. A head of platinum blond hair was all that came into view as she peered around the corner and down into the stairwell.

“Hi, Relena,” Quatre said with his usual adorable smile. The cheeks on his cherubic face held a light rosy hue, making his eyes seem to be a deeper shade of blue. As he walked up the stairs, Relena realized what had made the clomping sound; he was wearing a pair of men’s shoes many, many sizes too big for his feet. When he had taken a few more steps up he leaned forward and began using his hands as well as his feet to climb.

“Hello,” Relena responded, placing her thumb in her mouth and tilting her head slightly to observe Quatre from a different angle. She followed the young boy down into the kitchen where he took a few steps to the left to let her by and then started back up.

Trowa was seated at the table in his silent unobtrusive manner, going unnoticed by the girl, an open library book lying in front of him and a pad of yellow paper just to the side. As the blond came into the kitchen again Trowa took his pencil and drew a little line on the paper, then went back to reading the book. He focused awhile on a word he wasn’t sure of, and, after staring intensely at it, decided to substitute another word that made sense in its place.

“What’cha doin’?” Relena questioned, blinking a few times.

“I’m walking.”

“I know that, Quatre,” she said, a little flustered at his response, “But why are you walkin’?”

“‘Cause yesterday I heard someone say, ‘You should try walking a mile in his shoes’.” Relena still looked a little puzzled, so Quatre took a deep breath and went on to explain further, “They were talking ‘bout John an’ I ‘cided to do it ‘cause it didn’t sound like sumfin’ hard. So I figger if I walk up an’ down nuff I’ll have walked a mile. Maybe sumfin’ cool will happen when I finish an’ sides I like the noise they make.”

Quatre emphasized his discovery about the sound that they made by marching around the table; he even saluted as he passed Trowa and Relena, making the girl giggle.

“Okay.” Relena nodded her head in agreement as if it all made sense, and upon close inspection she did clearly see that Quatre was indeed wearing John’s shoes. She smiled again; he did look a little funny wearing shoes that were so much longer than his own feet; then something came to her mind, “How will you know it’s been e’nuf to be a mile?”

“Trowa’s keeping count.”

At this Trowa held up the pad of paper for Relena to see. To her it seemed like a bunch of short lines with one occasionally crossing through the others and she thought that this was a very messy way to keep count and decided to enlighten the boys.

“How’s that goin’ to keep count?”

“Each line is one trip up an’ down the stairs,” Trowa quickly explained and then turned his attention back to his book.

“Well, it’s gonna be hard to count um if you keep crossin’ the lines out like that,” Relena said, tracing one of the diagonal lines with her finger.

“It’s called ‘tally in’ Quatre replied, ecstatic that he remembered what it was called, but unable to recall what it exactly was.

“What’s ‘tally in’?” She watched Quatre, momentarily waiting for an answer.

“When it looks like this,” Trowa answered, circling one group with the back of his pencil, “it means five. So when I’m done I can count each group by five’s.”

“Like this: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty.” Relena stopped, believing that she had shown sufficient evidence of her ability to count by fives.

“Uh huh, yeah, just like that.”

Quatre flashed a grin and was about to return to his task when Relena asked another question, “How many’s a mile?”

“We asked Treize an’ he said ‘a lot’ an’ ‘a lot’ must be somewhere around a thousant,” Quatre eagerly answered. “So if we fill up the paper that’s gotta be nuff.”

Relena glanced at the half-row of tallies; it was only one forth the size of a normal sheet of notebook paper, but by her judgment it would take all day to fill it up. “Won’t walkin’ ’round the block be faster?”

“I still haf’ta walk the same inside or out. An’ ‘sides I’d haf’ta ask Melody if I can walk round the block ‘n she’s busy an’ I’d haf’ta ask John if I can wear his shoes, cause outside they might get dirty, an’ he’s not home right now, an’ then I’d haf’ta fine someone big to walk with me.”

To Relena that did seem like a much greater amount of work than his original plan, so she decided to end the interrogation. The blond returned diligently to climbing the stairs and Trowa returned to his task of ‘tally in’ with Relena sitting across from him, gently swinging her dangling legs and humming a little tune.

If the vibrantly colored pictures in Trowa’s book were interesting right side up, they were twice as interesting upside-down. From across the table she could make out certain shapes and had a vague idea of what the picture might represent, but her interpretations were much more amusing. What looked to her like a black pig rolling in a white puddle was really a short-legged dog herding sheep. She had plenty of time to view each illustration because Trowa kept finding more words he had to focus on before discovering what they were or substituting others, and occasionally he lost his place while still trying to keep track of Quatre. In all, though, he was doing an excellent job.

“What are you doin’?” Relena asked of the boy sitting across form her.

“This.” Trowa opened his mouth, placed the tip of his tongue on the bottom of his front tooth and to Relena’s amazement when he moved his tongue the tooth moved with it. He wiggled it back and forth a few more times for her to see.

“Why’s it doin’ that?” Relena pointed an accusing finger at Trowa’s mouth. “I don’t think teeth are s‘posed to move.”

“I don’t know, but mine does an’ it feels kinda weird.”

“Then why you doin’ it if it feels weird?”

Trowa shrugged his shoulders and Relena figured an I-don’t-know shrug was better than no answer at all. She had other questions but chose not to ask them.

Quatre came down and glanced at the paper to check on his progress. He noticed Trowa doing the same thing that had made Relena question him, but Quatre didn’t have to voice what was on his mind. Trowa understood his friend without the use of words; he opened his mouth and displayed his wiggling tooth. He gave it one push with his tongue; the push must have been a little harder than the others because it made the tooth pop out. Before the other two chibis had realized what happened they heard it fall to the floor.

“Now I know it’s not s‘posed to do that,” Relena announced rather loudly as Quatre picked up the disobedient tooth and placed it in the center of the table.

“Ooooh, what’d ya do that your not a’possed’ta?” Duo piped as he jumped over the last steps, “I’m gonna tell.”

Heero and Wufei followed close behind, a glint of hope in their eyes that something had happened and they wouldn’t be the ones in trouble for it.

Relena placed her hands on her hips and stomped her foot, “I didn’t do nufin’ and you know it.”

Duo took some glasses from the cupboard; three of the small plastic cups reserved especially for the chibis because they didn’t break when they fell to the floor. Melody had them in all the colors: green, red, blue, yellow, orange, and even pink for Relena, but none of the boys ever used them. Duo had persistently asked for one in black but Melody said they didn’t have any and he still occasionally insisted they just hadn’t looked hard enough.

Heero poured juice into the three glasses, only spilling a couple drops. Duo sat on the chair next to him, his legs folded under his bottom; he leaned forward and grabbed the tooth.

“Wha’s this?” he questioned, pinching the object between his thumb and index finger and holding it up to the light, carefully examining it.

“It’s Trowa’s tooth,” Quatre supplied.

“Cool!” Duo exclaimed, placed it back on the table, then added, “But you really should keep it in your mouth. You might lose ’um if you keep taken ’um out.”

He thought this comment was funny but no one else seemed to think so.

“He didn’t take it out,” Relena explained, “it just fell.”

“An’ it wasn’t funny,” Wufei chided Duo.

“Grouch,” Duo retorted.

Wufei stuck his tongue out and Duo responded in the same manner.

“Stop it. We’re not ‘posed to fight,” Quatre pleaded.

Relena added, “You’re not s’posed ta call names eithur.”

“Let’s make it into a necklace,” Duo said as Heero prodded the tooth lying on the table.

“You can’t do that,” Quatre whined.

“How ya gonna eat if your tooth is on the table enstead’a your mouth?”

Trowa shrugged at Heero’s question, twisting his tongue and sticking it in the vacant space where the tooth once belonged.

Wufei folded his arms over his chest, “Yeh, so what? He can’t keep his tooth in his own mouth.”

Since Wufei hadn’t even tasted his drink Trowa lifted it to his lips and emptied it.

“We haf’ta fix it,” Relena blurted out. “What if he can’t never eat again without it?”

“Maybe all of ’um will fall out,” Duo said, picturing Trowa with no teeth. “An’ then he’ll haf’ta get d’chures an’ he’ll be able to pop ’um in an’ out an’ leave ’um in a cup overnight.”

“No, that can’t happen,” Quatre half yelled, half whimpered. “Teeth are ’portant, an’ he can’t lose ’um all an’ haf’ta get ’chures. He needs ’um for all sorts of stuff; that’s why Melody makes us brush ’um.”

“But if he loses all of ’um then he don’t haf’ta,” Heero added.

“Maybe there’s nuttin’ wrong with his teeth, maybe there’s sumfin’ wrong with Trowa,” Duo announced.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Quatre was on the verge of tears; his lips began to quiver as he spoke.

“Yeah Duo, if you’re gonna be like that, be like that somewheres else,” Relena admonished him in her best authoritative tone.

“You’re not the boss.”

“Duo, stop it or leave,” Heero told him, focusing his practiced stern gaze on the braided boy.

“Thank you, pum’kin.” Relena latched onto Heero’s arm, batting her eyelashes at him. Heero rolled his eyes but made no further actions to rid himself of her.

“We haf’ta tell Melody,” Wufei suggested.

“Tell Melody what?”

Six guilty faces, three of which were slightly smudged with dirt, turned to stare up at their webmommie’s face as she waited for her answer. Quatre slid his hand into hers as he began the explanation.

“Trowa was doin’ this,” Quatre mimicked Trowa’s earlier actions, knowing his tooth wouldn’t move, but just in case he didn’t push hard, “but when he did it his tooth moved. An’ then it fell out an’ landeded on the floor an’ I picked it up. Duo said we should make a necklace out of it. But you won’t let him do that, will you Melody? ‘Cause Trowa needs his teeth an’ we has’ta put it back. An’ he’s not gonna lose all his teeth is he? He won’t haf’ta get ‘chures an’ haf’ta leave ’um in a cup an’ never be able to eat ever again, will he Melody? Will he?”

“Of course he’s not, but whoever said anything like that would happen?” Melody pulled the blond chibi closer to her, wrapping her arm around him and smiling gently.

Heero, Wufei, Trowa and Relena waited to make sure Quatre was all right before simultaneously answering, “Duo.”

“I didn’t say it WOULD happen,” Duo quickly shot out in self-defense. “I only said maybe.”

“Is there any more?” Melody cautiously asked, because with chibis there is almost always something more.

“Duo said maybe there’s sumfin’ wrong with Trowa and nufin’ with his tooth,” Relena supplied, staring at Duo.

“Yeah,” Quatre agreed, then turning to Melody, asked, “There IS nuthin’ wrong with him IS there?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with any of you.” Melody eyed Duo as she asked her next question. “Is that all?”

Duo sheepishly answered, “No.”

“Duo called Wufei a grouch,” Trowa announced.

“Really?”

“Yup, an’ Wufei stuck his tongue out at him,” Heero added in his two cents, completing the tale for Melody.

“Duo, you know,” Melody prompted.

“We’re not a’posed’ta call names,” Duo finished her sentence and turned to Wufei. “Sorry I called you a grouch.”

“And Wufei?”

“Tongues is s’posed to stay in your mouth.” Wufei stopped there with no intent to continue but Melody was giving him ‘The Look’, the one only mothers can give when they want their children to admit to something. “I shouldn’t of done that, Duo. It wasn’t an 'pro-pri-at way to act.”

It wasn’t quite the apology she had hoped for and Wufei hadn’t even looked at Duo as he spoke, but he had tried and someday he would improve.

“Now, let me see the tooth.”

Trowa handed Melody the tooth as she had asked and opened his mouth to show her where it had come from. His webmommie smoothed his hair, running her fingers through his bangs, which always behaved in that same Trowa-like manner, then she winked at him with a smile on her lips.

“It’s just a baby tooth. They fall out to make room for permanent teeth. Eventually you will all lose teeth, but they don’t all fall out at the same time and a new one comes in to replace the one that fell out. You can still eat if you’re missing one and Trowa isn’t going to need dentures.”

“But I don’t wanna get new teeth,” Relena whined, “I like the ones I got now.”

Quatre simply asked, “Why do you need to get new ones?”

“When you grow so does your mouth, but teeth can’t grow so you get new ones.” She smoothed Quatre’s hair in the same manner she had done with Trowa, and with a grin showing her teeth she said, “I’d look funny if all my teeth were as small as yours.”

They looked at the baby tooth in her hand and all agreed that it was too small for a grownup person’s mouth.

“Cool! When do I get to have new teeth?” Duo enthusiastically questioned.

Reassured they wouldn’t lose all their teeth or never be able to eat again or have to get dentures any time soon, the chibis all left to go play some more before dinner.

“Come on, Quatre,” Trowa beckoned from the second step.

Quatre eagerly ran to join him, forgetting all too readily what had happened.

“Quatre,” Melody called, “Please put John’s shoes away.”

“’Kay, Melody.”

The End