Milo - First day of school

“She tried to skip school.” I was trying my hardest to keep the accusation out of my voice but I had a feeling I was failing miserably at it.

“It’s the first day! Why would she want to even skip? On top of that, her class is all coloring and singing songs. There is literally no reason to skip.”

I glared at Milo, fury written all over my face. “Maybe it’s because you filled her head with stories of monsters attacking classrooms and ghost children inside the school’s bathroom.”

Milo glanced nervously at me out of the corner of his eyes. “But they were really cool stories.” I suppressed a groan. 

We both rushed towards the school, having only just dropped our daughter off three hours earlier. We got a pixie message saying that she had tried to escape the school not once, not twice, but three times already. The last time, they found her in the boiler room, nearly burned, because she thought she could hide within the iron pipes. She was small enough to do so, but it took quite some time to coax her out.

“They are going to kick her out,” I muttered. “The Night Market’s daughter kicked out of school on the first day.”

“Then we’ll homeschool her,” Milo shrugged.

I raised a brow to him. “You want to homeschool her? You? You can’t sit still for more than five minutes.”

“I can teach and walk,” he protested.

“If we choose to homeschool, Hazel and Malcolm would be in charge. You are on probation until you understand what is and is not appropriate to tell a small child.”

We arrived at the school, a little built in structure to a large wall that got higher and higher with each passing year. It had of course provoked stories of hauntings, all of which Milo leaned into just last night during bedtime.

Entering into the facility, we were greeted with our daughter sitting in a chair, a pout on her face. She glanced nervously up at us, however, shrinking into herself. 

“Aw, the Night family,” the instructor was saying. She was an elderly woman who had a very grandmotherly face. Milo said she was terrifying. “Thank you for coming on such a short notice. I am uncertain how we wish to proceed from here.”

Milo simply bypassed the woman, going to kneel in front of our daughter. “Want to get out of here?”

She nodded sullenly, reaching out to wrap her arms around Milo’s neck. He picked her up effortlessly and looked at the teacher. “Sorry, teach. We’re going to go now. I don’t know what kind of school you’re runnin’ but–”

“Milo,” I hissed. He stopped, taking a few steps back to simply rub our daughter's back. I looked at the teacher, who seemed more shocked than anything. “I am so sorry,” I said. “He has issues with school and gets a little defensive when it comes to mini mart.”

“Mini mart?” the woman asked.

I blushed. “Oh. A nickname we have for her. Um– could I maybe contact you tomorrow morning?”

The woman nodded, albeit a little confused. I was certain this was not how she thought this meeting would go. “Of course. Let me know if there is anything we can do to help this situation.”

I smiled, hurrying out after Milo.

“I tried to find the woman with no hands, daddy, but I don’t think they exist,” our daughter was saying. “You sure you actually saw her?”

Milo was looking a bit chagrined as our five-year-old clearly gave reasoning as to why she was wandering off. We had long suspected she had the fanciful flight of the fae in her, and this was only confirming our suspicions.

“Daddy may have exaggerated,” he told her. “Mini, you can’t just run off while in school.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause you worry people. And you’re supposed to be learning. Don’t you want to learn fun things with your classmates?”

She blinked at him. “No.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a problem.”

She giggled a little, snuggling closer. “I won’t go tomorrow. I’m gonna stay home with you.”

He looked at me then, a clear plea for help. When it came to her, he struggled to say no to anything. It was a problem.

“Honey,” I came up, taking her from Milo’s arms. Her body was warm and she snuggled right in. “You have to go to school. You have to learn. It’s how you grow up to be big and strong.”

She buzzed her lips. “No.”

“You can say no, but you actually have to do this. You need to give it a shot.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t like it. I can’t fo– fo– daddy, what’s that word?”

“Focus.”

“That. I can’t focus. There’s so many things going on around me and I want to look at those! And the school is so big that I want to explore! And there are so many cool kids and different adults there. How am I supposed to sit and listen?”

I didn’t really have an answer to that because I tended to agree with her. Life was big and beautiful and full of so many discoveries and she just wanted it all at once. It didn’t give her the right to just run off, however, and explore the school. They had found her in a janitorial closet, rearranging the bottles of cleaner.

“Maybe she’s too young for school?” Milo asked hopefully. “Maybe she should be with us for another year?”

I sighed. There wasn’t really an answer to this. Mini had to go to school. I wanted her to grow up with all the opportunities that her father and I didn’t have. But, she had a lot of Milo in her. I didn’t know if traditional school was not going to work well for the union of a fae and a cosmic entity.

Sighing, I closed my eyes, knowing that the two of them were wearing matching expressions. “We will talk about this during the weekend,” I said. “Hazel might have some suggestions. I know she homeschools the twins and there might be a way we can do some of your classes with them. A hybrid situation.”

“Really?” Mini began bouncing up and down in my arms.

“Maybe,” I told her. “But you have to be on your best behavior. You have to prove to us that you can at least try.”

“I will,” she cried out. “I really really will.” When she wiggled out of my arms and back to Milo’s I watched them dip their heads together in a conspiratorial grin. “It worked.”

I whipped my head towards them as Milo shushed her. “Did you two plan this?”

Milo just looked at me with a carefully blank expression. “We should go get lunch.”

“Milo! Did you two plan this?”

“Noodles?” he asked.

Mini clapped her hands. “Noodles!”

I watched as the two of them raced off towards the spice district with the sudden knowledge that I had utterly been played.