News and Old Tales (Geronimo Stilton fanfiction)

5

New Mouse City, 1995

Thalia was laying on her bed, flipping through the pages of a teen magazine, while her younger sister Alice alternated between combing Thalia's hair and braiding extremely small sections of it.

"I just looove it," Alice stated enthusiastically. "It's all dark and shiny, and completely straight. Not like this unruly mess," she pointed at her own wavy, strawberry blond locks with the comb. "Why is our hair so different?"

Thalia tilted her head back to peer up at her.

"Yeah. Crazy, isn't it? It's almost like we aren't biologically related," she said, earning an eye roll from her sister.

"Oh, wow, you're so funny," Alice replied, unamused.

Just then, the distant hum of a car engine reached their ears, and soon, a blue Beetle pulled up to the drive.

"Seems like Grandma and Grandpa are back," Thalia stated the obvious before getting up and cracking her back loudly.

Grandma and Grandpa. That was what the girls called Bernadette and William Shortpaws, or rather, Bernadette and William Stilton. Mr. Shortpaws had become famouse for his novels by the former name, but in reality, he and his wife Bernadette bore the surname Stilton, as did the girls who were their adoptive children.

They had become a family a few years earlier. Alice and Thalia had already been inseparable back then, refusing to become a member of a family that would only have one of them. As the girls were not all too young at the time, and as the Stiltons were a couple in their late fifties, the four of them had soon found that Alice and Thalia calling their adoptive parents Grandma and Grandpa worked best and felt the most natural for all of them.

In the present, the two teenage mice hurriedly laid the table and started warming the ovenproof dish of carbonara that Grandma Shortpaws had prepared earlier. A few minutes later, as the Stilton couple entered the house, the family was ready to eat.

"Sho, how wash it?" Alice asked between mouthfuls of hot spaghetti.

"Alice dear, you may either close your mouth while chewing, or ask questions when you have swallowed one bite," Bernadette chided gently.

Alice mumbled an apology, but looked at Grandma and Grandpa expectantly, nonetheless.

"Well, we've got some things to discuss," Bernadette then let out a small sigh. "See, we met this charming little boy today. He's called G. Very polite and gentle, despite not having it easy, and incredibly bright for his age."

"But the trouble is that G has a sister, Theodora. It would be quite ill advised to separate them, so it is either both of them, or none," William took over.

"Déjà vu," Thalia replied with a wry smile, while spinning her fork to gather a generous helping of spaghetti.

"Now, we initially planned on extending our family by one little mouse, so we will have to think this over and make some arrangements, but we also wanted to ask you girls about what you think," Bernadette continued where her husband had left off.

"Fine by me," Alice held up a thumb with a smile. "How old are they?"

"Theodora is two, and G is six," Bernadette replied, causing Alice's eyes to widen in delight.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, please!" she all but yelled in excitement, "I'd love to have a brother, and a baby sister."

Thalia wiggled the pasta with her fork thoughtfully.

"I don't really like tiny toddlers, but I guess Theodora will grow eventually," she shrugged, "Plus, I don't see any issue with having not one more sibling, but two."