Mornelly Fan Stories: A Week With My Guardian- Part Six

To read the previous part, click HERE.

Part Six: Saturday

In which my guardian helps me with books and planning

Saturday mornings are the only mornings of the week that we get to really sleep in on, so I didn’t wake up until past eight. When the sun finally managed to find its way through the blinds and across my eyes, I woke up groggily.

I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the alarm clock said it was 10:47, but then I checked my phone and it told me the correct time (8:14) and figured out that the power must have gone out sometime during the night. I could have figured out when, but my brain didn’t want to work full time yet…and besides, I didn’t really care anyways. After my pulse returned to it’s normal tempo, I was very awake and ready for the day to begin.

Breakfast, thanks to a little preparation between my guardian and I, was blueberry coffee cake. After bringing out some freshly brewed coffee to the Mornelly boys, (Aileen didn’t get any this time, though she did her best to manipulate Aichear into letting her again…nothing worked) and we played another round of riggamarole.

Breandan kept pestering me to show him my stories, so at last, and with great reluctance and some embarrassment, I pulled up my stories on my computer and showed them to the siblings.

While the Mornelly’s were reading over my shoulders, I quickly gave my stories a once over; changing mistakes as I found them before the Mornelly’s discovered them. It became almost a game, but I won over all because Aichear was the only one who could find mistakes… and I didn’t expect to be able to edit faster than he could read.

After a few hours of this, we stopped and they began giving me advice, helpful in some cases, and not so helpful in others. I’ll let you guess which brothers were helpful and which ones weren’t. Aileen simply said that she loved them all.

“Which was your favorite story?” I asked them all. That was a mistake. They all started talking about different stories all at once. I stopped them all by holding out my hands in front of me. “Whoa guys!” I exclaimed. “One at a time, please. You go first Aileen.”

The youngest Mornelly sighed. “I really can’t choose a favorite. I love them all…but I do like the elf story. I love magical fairy tales.”

Damhán snorted and rolled his eyes at his sister’s answer. “I like the story with all the sword fighting in it… but I really think you should have more gore in it. So far it’s ok, but not nearly bloody enough to attract an audience.”

“Not your type of audience and any rate,” Bran remarked drily. “My favorite is also that one, but I didn’t think there was any need for more blood. You did a fine job. Maybe you could add a little more about the types of clothes they wore and describe more of the medieval styles. I think that would be interesting.”

Ciarán shook his head violently, causing his hair to fall over his eyes and hiding them completely from view until he pushed it behind his ears again. “Please don’t make her ruin perfectly good stories to satisfy your ridiculous love for style.”

“It’s not a ‘ridiculous love’!” Bran exclaimed hotly. “You’re just jealous that you can’t pull off a suit and tie look as flawlessly as I can.”

“I’m not jealous! I like wearing black. It’s cool.”

“No it’s not.”

“Is too.”

I rolled my eyes and stood between the arguing brothers. “Guys, stop this arguing or I’ll make you both go stand out in the rain.”

Their mouths snapped shut and they carefully ignored each other for an hour.

Breandan told me his favorite story was “Beyond the Galaxy” and Aichear said his favorite was “Alice & Alyssa”. As they told me their reasons, I closed the various story folders.

Suddenly, Breandan pointed to a folder on my desktop. “What’s that?”

I frowned and opened the folder. Recognition lit my face when it opened and revealed the document’s title. “Oh, this is graduation stuff. I forgot I had that on here.”

“Graduation stuff?” Breandan asked. “What are graduating from?”

“High school.”

“When?”

“Early this summer along with three other home school students.”

Aichear squinted at the small type through his glasses. “Who are all these people?” he asked.

I sighed. “They’re people I’m hoping to invite to my graduation…but I’m afraid to send out the invitations in case I accidentally forgot someone.”

“Try putting them in alphabetical order,” Breandan suggested. “It’ll be easier to see who you might be missing if they’re organized.”

I looked at my guardian in amazement. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Breandan grinned. “Probably because you’re not the most organized person in the world.”

“That’s true,” I agreed ruefully, beginning to switch names into the suggested order.

Breandan brightened suddenly. “Hey, I know that person!” he exclaimed. “ ‘Emily McConnell’. She’s our author!”

I grinned. “Yes she is!"

Damhán came over and looked over my shoulder again. He had been swishing an imaginary sword around and stabbing Aileen and Ciarán in turn, all the while making horrendous faces at them. This made Aileen squeal in terror and Ciarán’s face turn darker and darker as his glower settled deeper. I was glad to stop the torture, even if it was temporary and let him point things out as much as he wanted.

“Hang on a sec,” he said slowly; going over the list one more time in it’s completed form. “Where are we?”

I gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re your friends, right? Aren’t you going to invite us to your graduation?”

I thought a moment. “You’re welcome to come of course, but I thought it might be difficult since you can’t really control when you come into the third dimension.”

“We could come and be invisible,” the youngest Mornelly boy said.

“To all but the kids and those who still have active imaginations,” I pointed out.

“We’ll stick by Emily and not cause any trouble,” Damhán begged, turning to Aichear. “Please say that we can come and watch her graduate!”

“It’s not every day I can see one of my charges graduate from high school,” Breandan said, putting in his two cents.

“We could all dress up for the important occasion,” Bran added suddenly. This comment was greeted by a unanimous groan from his younger brothers.

I grinned. “Really the only people who need to dress up for a graduation ceremony is the graduate and the graduate’s family. You’re welcome to wear something nice if you want to, but it’s not required.”

Damhán gave an exaggerated sigh and wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead, which earned him a glower from Bran.

Breandan continued to read the stuff I had written off and on in preparation for the ceremony. “‘Remember to pick two or three favorite snacks for refreshments after the ceremony’,” he read out loud.

Bran perked up. “There’s going to be food?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yep. And good food too, if I do say so myself.”

“Which snacks are you going to have?”

I frowned thoughtfully. “I haven’t really decided yet…but they’ll be good,” I added with a grin.

Breandan suddenly pointed a little lower on the screen. “‘Choose a song for graduation slideshow’,” he read. “Have you done that?”

I shook my head. “I know which song I want, but I haven’t found a favorite version yet.”

“What’s the song?”

“The hymn Take My Life and Let It Be.” I smiled. “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?”

Breandan returned my grin. “Actually, I do.”

Bran groaned. “Don’t ask…please don’t ask.”

Aichear explained when I shot him a puzzled look, “It’s one of Breandan’s many country songs he plays over and over again to our great annoyance.”

“Oh,” I answered. “Well, I would like to hear it…if you guys don’t want to you could go out until it’s done.”

“I’m leaving,” Ciarán said with a scowl.

“Me too,” Damhán said. “I’ve heard that song waaaay to many times.”

“It’s a good song,” Breandan replied with an insulted air. “I think Rebekah is going to like it.”

“Dream on Breandan,” Damhán snorted.

“Let me hear it before you all come to any conclusions,” I said finally with a roll of the eyes. “Remember, I haven’t heard this song as much as you have, so it won’t be annoying to me.”

“Don’t say you like it after he’s played it even if you do,” Bran warned, “or he’ll play it continually.”

“Shh!” I ordered. “I want to hear it first, then decide whether I like it or not.”

Breandan grinned like a happy dog and lovingly pulled out his much-used MP-3 player. The rest of the Mornelly’s left the room with groans, lamentations, and loud snorts of disgust. (Except Aichear, he just left.)

At the first few guitar chords, I was hooked. When the touch of country twang was added, a pleased smile began to spread across my face. A young woman’s voice began to sing and I looked over at Breandan, who was watching my reaction. “I love it,” I said simply.

The song continued and Breandan smiled. “I thought you would,” he replied triumphantly.

After the last chords died away, I gave a satisfied sigh. “It’s perfect. Type down the name of the album and artist so I can look it up and have it for my slideshow.”

With an obliging nod, Breandan took my computer into his lap and typed out the information I had asked for. This done, he read the rest of my graduation planning.

“Have you designed your graduation invitations yet?” he asked curiously.

I nodded. “Yeah, but I have some touch-up to do before I send them out. It would be embarrassing to send out invitations that had typos in them.”

Breandan’s eyes twinkled appreciatively. “That would be embarrassing. Any way I can help with them?”

I brightened. “Actually, yes! I would love it if you could take some graduation pictures of me outside and then we could load them onto our computer and then I could put them into the slideshow album and the invitation and then we can work on checking the invitation over for mistakes and see if…” I trailed off when I saw the blank look on my guardian’s face. “Sorry, I was talking too fast, wasn’t I?”

Breandan shrugged. “I got about every third word.”

I groaned. “Never mind. Ignore everything I just said. I’ll repeat it one step at a time.”

“Good idea.”

“First, I need you to take some graduation pictures. Can you do that?”

My guardian smiled. “Sure!”

Just then, Damhán poked his head cautiously around the door. “Is it safe to come in now?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

I looked over at Breandan, who rolled his eyes. Smothering a grin, I nodded at the youngest Mornelly boy. “We’re not playing the song anymore if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh good,” he said, letting out his breath with a whoosh. “I’ll let everyone know.” Before he did however, he looked at me closely. “Don’t tell me you liked the song!”

I grinned. “You’ll just have to come to my graduation to find out!”

With a parting groan, Damhán returned with his message to the other Mornelly siblings.

I looked at Breandan. The knowing smirk on each other’s faces sent us both into gales of laughter.

“I’m going to miss seeing their reaction at the ceremony when they hear the song!” I exclaimed, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes. “I probably won’t be able to see their faces from where I’ll be sitting.”

“I’ll leave a note giving every detail,” my guardian promised.

I closed the computer with a smile of relief and looked outside. “Currently it’s raining…but tomorrow will probably be sunny enough to take pictures.”

“Probably. Until then?”

I shrugged. “Let’s go get some lunch. Bran’s undoubtedly famished.”

Breandan grinned. “Undoubtedly. What shall we make?”

I returned the grin and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Let’s surprise them.”

“I’m all for surprises,” my guardian answered.