One more interlude + an explanation

So, I've actually got another 7,000 words written beyond this, but I am NOT ready to share them yet. I'm not even 100% ready to share this interlude? I've written the last paragraph/final two chapters of book 5 and my alpha reader husband cried a little but I want to write more of the intervening interludes and massage it all heavily. I figured, though, that I ought to at least give my deserving readers something, even if it's short. Might be the same thing next week, but I hope not.

I've got the Engineer's Odyssey launch later this month, LitRPG Con right before it, and some family commitments at the end of the month, and I really really want to do my best work on finishing the story I've been working on for the past four years! Also, I should probably parent my children, who are around the house during the summer. They are good kids but this is a graph of my writing efficiency:

In other words, I do not weather distractions well at all. In my ideal writing world, the house would not only be empty, but everyone I know would have sworn a binding oath not to contact me or have emergencies during my writing hours, so I didn't even have to consider the possibility of distractions.

Anyway, that's obviously not an option. Looking forward to the kids going back to school in a month or so. Doing my best until then.

Interlude: Kids

“Do we really gotta go back to school?” Gavin asked.

“Are you kidding?” Micah asked, disgusted. “You don’t even know long division. You don’t even know regular division.”

“Yeah? Well you can’t even jump as high as your bedroom window!”

“I don’t need to! That’s-”

“Everyone needs to go to school,” Vince cut in. 

“But it’s the summer!” Gavin wailed. “I want to go swimming!”

“We missed an entire school year,” Vince said. “Everyone’s behind.”

“Am I behind?” Cassie asked, tugging his hand.

Vince looked back over his shoulder at the castle, where Meghan was once again talking with Fluffy, as she had been so frequently these past few months. “No. You’re not behind. But you are four now, so you get to start pre-K.”

“I’m not behind,” Cassie said smugly. 

“You’re a behind!” Gavin laughed. “You’re a butt!”

“I am not a butt!” Cassie shouted.

“Shoulda stayed in Colorado…” Vince muttered.

“What? Dad! No!” Micah said, shocked.

Vince sighed. “No. I didn’t mean that. But it’ll be good for all of us to get you kids out of the house for a few hours each day. It won’t be long, not at first. This new school won’t be quite like the ones you remember.”

Micah frowned. “Is that why we don’t have backpacks?”

“That’s one of the reasons. A lot of the stuff we’re used to isn’t being manufactured again yet, and enough of it got destroyed that it’s kind of scarce. On top of that, we’ve got kids with all kinds of powers - physical and mental - and teachers with powers too.”

“An Pointy is gonna be MISS Pointy, my teacher!” Cassie chirped.

“One of your teachers, yeah,” Vince said. “There will be a lot of human teachers - including Ms. Priya - and Ariel will be helping out a little. She’s got too many other projects going on to completely take over education, but she’ll be lending a hand by helping us keep track of what works and what doesn’t.”

“I love Ariel,” Cassie said, glaring at Gavin. “She never ever calls me a butt.”

Vince pointed ahead. “Can you kids please be nice to each other for five minutes? Look, we’re almost there.”

“I’ll be there first!” Gavin yelled, and took off running. Micah and Cassie sprinted after him, but couldn’t keep up with his speed.

“Five seconds?” Vince muttered plaintively. Then he took off after Gavin, scooping up Micah and Cassie and sprinting ahead of his middle child.

“No fair!” Gavin yelled.

“Sucks to suck, buddy!” Vince shouted back. “If you don’t like it when people with better speed augments leave you in the dust, maybe you shouldn’t do it to other people.”

“Sucks to suck?” 

Vince slowed to a stop right by an older woman. She was standing near the rear entrance to the old elementary school. He flashed her a grin. “Hey! I’m Vince Moretti. I’m here to drop off Pointy Turtle Moretti, one of the instructors, and Micah, Gavin, and Cassie Moretti, who are joining as students.”

The woman eyed Vince and made an unconvinced “Hrm” sound, letting him know she wouldn’t forget the crudeness she’d witnessed, but she let it go, turning toward the children. “I’m so happy to meet you all! I’m Ms. Pearl. Ms. Pointy, thank you so much for your assistance. We’ve taken down some of the walls between the gymnasium and the cafeteria to make one large room.”

“That will make monitoring everyone much easier,” Pointy said. “Do you have an elevated vantage point arranged for me?”

“No, not yet, but we have a metalshaper on hand. We weren’t sure exactly what you would need, and-”

The group followed Ms. Pearl into the building, the kids peering around curiously at the most-empty space. A few dozen adults stood clumped in a few groups, with maybe half that many kids. Chalkboards were set up at irregular intervals, and the ground was littered with pillows, rugs, and beanbags.

“Where is everyone?” asked Micah.

“We had to get here early so that Pointy could get set up. But I think your teachers are here.” Vince pointed to a small group of men and women.

“Mrs. Wright!” Micah yelled. “Are you going to be my teacher again?”

The woman saw him and waved. “Micah! Good to see you. I don’t think so - at least at first - but we’ll see how things turn out! To start with, I’m going to be helping with Orange-tier reading and writing.”

Micah wrinkled his face. “Orange-tier?”

“That’s what they’re trying instead of grades, for now, since a kindergartner with Analyze is going to master addition in a snap, but might struggle in other subjects. You’ll start out in Green-tier, since you missed fourth grade, but you might move up quickly if-”

“Actually, since I’ll be doing the assessments, that’s not necessary.” Pointy interjected. “Let’s start Cassie in Red for all subjects, although I anticipate shifting her quickly, Gavin in Orange for most subjects and Yellow for Math, and Micah for Blue in English, Violet in Math, and Green for other subjects. All of them will be in the Tier 16 gym class.”

“Wait… Is Violet harder than Green?” Micah asked.

Ms. Pearl smiled kindly at him. “Yes. You’ll be working with me on math. Don’t worry. If it’s too challenging, we can move you back down-”

“No! No, I don’t want that.” Micah turned and grinned at Vince. “Hey, Dad! School might not be totally boring!”

“Oh,” said Ms. Pearl. Her eyes glinted. “My math? Boring? No way.”

“Math is just usually super easy…”

“Hm… well, let’s see how you feel about using math to draw shapes?”

“Math can do drawings?”

“Want to find out?”

“I guess so,” Micah said. His words were noncommittal, but his mouth quirked in an undeniable smile.

Gavin was looking at the room, his face twisted in confusion. “Where are all the desks? Why are there pillows everywhere?”

Ms. Wright leaned over. “Well, most of our furniture doesn’t hold up well to our enhanced strength, so we’re going to be keeping things more fun and casual. You’ll be with me for a lot of the day, Gavin. As long as you’re paying attention, you can do whatever you want: sit, lay, stand. You can hang from the ceiling if you want to!”

“I can?” Gavin’s eyes were wide.

“Yes, these rooms have been reinforced heavily. They should hold up to you.”

“But… you’ll let me?”

“As long as you’re paying attention,” Mrs. Wright said, her eyes twinkling.

“I will!”

“Come on, let me show you the book I’m going to read to you guys this morning…”

A kindly looking older man crouched down next to Cassie. “You’re Cassie, right?”

“Mmhmm.” The usually-boisterous four-year-old stepped back a little, her hand tugging on her dad’s shorts.

“I heard you’re going to be in the Red group to start off with. That means you’ll be with me. My name is Mr. Gregory. There’s actually one other little girl here already who’ll be in Red group with both of us! Aurora, come meet Cassie. You’ll be classmates.”

As he beckoned, another woman walked forward, holding the hand of a tiny girl with fuzzy pigtails. She and Cassie stared at each other uncertainly.

“Aurora,” Pointy asked. “Do you like rainbows?”

“I love rainbows.”

Cassie’s face lit up. “Me too!”

“Let’s be friends!” Aurora said.

“Yeah!”

Vince grinned. “Bye, kids! See you in a few hours!”

The kids barely glanced up to say goodbye.