Tetra Pact

Chapter 7

Asbjørn pulled out his chair at the dining table and grabbed a bowl of zhou that his grandma had prepared for him. He sat down facing his grandparents, who were busy devouring their food. His grandpa glanced up at him when he arrived, but didn't say anything until he passed a youtiao to Asbjørn, swallowing his food. "Na, gei ni."

"Xie xie."

"If you didn't want me to fetch you because a girl was sending you home, you could've just told me," his grandpa said, out of the blue.

Asbjørn stopped chewing and stared at his grandfather with wide eyes. "Huh?"

His grandma cut in, "The girl who sent you home last night - who is she? Your new girlfriend?"

"What..." Asbjørn replied helplessly upon realising they were referring to Eden. She'd had the courtesy to walk Asbjørn to his gate and make sure he'd entered the right house before she left, which is probably why his grandparents knew of her. "She's just - uh - someone from the autism support centre."

"She's also a volunteer?" his grandma probed.

"Yeah? Sort of?" Asbjørn said. "Her brother is autistic, so he goes there."

His grandparents nodded, deep in thought. After a moment of silence and a few more bites of youtiao, his grandma continued, "How old is she?"

Asbjørn's brain paused again. He had no idea. "...Bu dong."

His grandma frowned at him. "How do you not know? She sent you home - which means she now knows your address - and you don't know her age?"

Asbjørn's jaw dropped.

His grandpa shook his head at him. "Youngsters these days..."

"It's only your grandson," his grandma corrected.

"Ah, ah, ah, I'll ask her next time, alright?" Asbjørn said, waving his hand to signal the end of this conversation.

~

Eden drummed her fingers on the kitchen table impatiently. All the nannies that she'd found and contacted said they needed at least a two-week notice to sort out the paperwork and everything before they began work. And Eden needed someone's help on Monday, which was two days away. Or else she'd have to rope in Mister Adams, who probably had his own plans in between chauffeuring, and she didn't want to ruin them. She hadn't gotten the chance to tell her father about the issue - she didn't want to, anyway. Her father's involvement in anything related to their lives was more of a hindrance than a help. In all honesty, he couldn't even be considered a "help" in that phrase, since he never was trying to help.

Erin and Evan were seated in front of her, the former doing some math exercises and the latter drawing. The table originally for eating was cluttered with paper, pencils and crayons - not an unusual sight in their household, despite the abundance of tables all around the house. It was just that Eden liked working in the kitchen and her brothers liked being wherever she was.

Erin peeked over at Evan's work. The younger boy loved arts and crafts: drawing and colouring in particular. Half of the empty wall space in the boys' room was decorated with his artworks - which, in Eden's opinion, were excellent. He always drew portraits of people carrying out activities, most of which were events that happened when he was in school, and captioned them with handwriting way neater than Eden's. Which she was ashamed of, of course. Kay never failed to point it out when she showed her Evan's drawings.

But that was also one of the many things her father didn't understand. When he saw Evan's writing perfectly good English, he'd commented, "He's not autistic. He's stubborn. He's clearly able to talk, but he doesn't want to."