Lyell told me all about his new friend Dylan and that watch of his, the Mach Richter Z10. And apparently he had two brothers, both of whom were already acquainted to my own kids. Lily met the third brother, Elliott, at preschool. I noticed Dylan and Lyell seemed to hit it off very well. Dylan was like a brother to Lyell at times. And he helped Lyell overcome his silence habit. I did notice that Lyell had a tendency to unnerve people when he looked at them and was quiet. I knew why. It felt like he was analyzing you, like he was calculating. I saw Dylan have him use that to his advantage. When people saw Lyell looking at them with that look they knew it meant trouble.
Of course though, it was Lyell who starting teasing Lily about Elliott, calling him her “boyfriend”. Lily was upset at first but the next time Lyell teased her about it, I cracked up because of Lily. Lyell had asked her “How’s your boyfriend Lily?” And she’d said. “My boyfwiend is fine.” Lily played with the brown-haired Elliott a lot, the two were good friends. Lily cold be a monster, but she was a funny one and hard to resist. Funny enough I thought Elliott was a perfect angel himself but around Lily he had another side of him to show. He delighted in making mischief with her and it was pretty darn funny.
“Lily got in trouble for what today?” I asked, on the phone. After ending the call I went to talk to her about it. She was playing with Elliott. “Hi daddy.” Lily said, carefully stacking a block on a structure of others they had built. “Lily did you push someone off the playground today?” I asked, suddenly becoming aware I had done the same thing in Kindergarten. “Yeah.” She said indifferently, as if she didn’t realize normally this is the sort of thing that gets one in trouble. Elliott looked up at me, brown eyes shining and said. “He was asking for it.” I stood there, aghast. “Yeah he was asking fow it huh?” Lily added, almost cheerfully. “Uh huh.” Elliott agreed wholeheartedly. “How was he…‘asking for it’?” I asked her. “Because he said I wasn’t a pwincess.” Lily said. Elliott nodded. “And that’s a lie because Lily is a princess.” He chirped happily. “Aw sank you Elliott.” She replied. Elliott nodded. “ If he says Elliott isn’t a prince then we have to push him again.” Lily added. I was still aghast. I wondered how was it that two little kids that looked like angels could be such monsters. Well Lily’s my little monster, I thought.
Dad asked why Lily got in trouble and when I told him, he laughed. Dad just loved hearing about Lily’s antics. He was such a doting grandpa and he definitely spoiled Lily. He was like one of those Grandpas you see on TV. I was still a bit shocked by how Lily could be but when I told Dad, he said “That’s what you were like at that age too Beckett…in fact I’d say you were a bigger monster.” I was surprised but Dad laughed. “I used to get tales of you doing outlandishly monstrous things when you were in preschool almost daily. Joshua used to make me tell him those stories before he went to sleep.” Dad said, a sad look now in his eyes.
Dad suddenly got tears in his eyes and I had to comfort him. He was still very sad about mom and Joshua. It did make me terribly sad to see him so upset but I’d been comforting him since I was about five years old so it wasn’t too new. By the end of Dad’s meltdown, we both went to see what Lyell was up to. We found him at the auto shop, fixing cars like an old pro. Dylan watched, impressed by this ability. We had some time to see around the school before we would go pick up Lily and Elliott. We had invited the Murdock brothers to stay at our house, as they were also from the future. For the time being Rudolph shared a room with Devon, Lyell shared with Dylan, and Lily shared with Elliott.
Some of the Greasers watched, impressed. “This kid gotta be one of us.” Peanut said. “He’s a natural. He definitely got Greaser blood in him.” Ricky agreed. Dad nodded. “ He is pretty good huh?” Lefty admitted. “Looks like you’ve made some new friends Lyell.” I remarked. He smiled. “But hey I’m his best friend no matter what.” Dylan added, putting his arm around Lyell’s shoulders. Lyell smirked even more, crossing his arms. He reminded me strangely of Joshua when he did that, he looked a lot like how Josh did in one picture. Dad smiled, I think he noticed that Lyell had a resemblance to Josh too. This kid is giving the Greasers a run for their money. But I could tell they all liked him already. And I now appreciated my kids have a certain ability to charm nearly everyone they meet.