A/N: I have added footnotes for dear Rosa's siblings in case everyone forgot who is who. Can't blame y'all, she's got five--

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Crash!

"No, the carrots!"

"Filian! Roly spilled the carrots!"

Roly¹Real name Rhea, 8, the red-haired twin gasped. "No I didn't! You did!"

I slowly brought my hand to my forehead, eyeing the freshly washed carrots rolling around on the dirty kitchen floor. "Poly²Real name Renna, 8, the dark brown-haired twin," I said, exasperated. "This is the third time."

"It was Roly! She knocked it over!"

I fixed her with a glare. "Both of you! What did I say about playing tag in the kitchen while we're cooking!"

"Filian, Filian," Ruth³youngest little piggy, six years old whispered in her signature squeal, tugging on my apron. She looked up at me with her adorable eyes wide open.

"You two better pick those up and wash them again," I warned. I gave the two of them one last glare and squatted down, facing Ruth fully. "What's up?"

"Becca's--"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roly pouncing on Poly again with a happy shriek. "Sto-op!" I belted out.

"Filian, Becca--"

"Help!" shrieked Poly, kicking out her feet. It connected with Roly's shin, and both of them yelled in pain.

"Becca is--"

"Girls! If you don't stop this instant, I'm letting Rosa know!"

Rosa was the magic word. Roly immediately got off of Poly, limping, and smiled at me sheepishly. "Sorry," she sang.

Ruth impatiently tugged at me again. I tore my narrowed eyes from the twins and bent down to Ruth again. "Ugh, I'm so sorry, little piggy. What were you saying?"

She huffed and leaned in closer, her eyes wide with urgency. "Becca! She's gonna pour water on--"

I saw Becca before she could finish her sentence. With a gasp, I lurched forward. "Becca no!"

"Becca yes!" Becca⁴Rebecca, 10. Has dark red hair shrieked back, throwing me a triumphant grin that was way too familiar, then dumped her bucket of water over Ryan's unsuspecting head.

I gasped. Ryan gasped. Ruth winced. The small knife Ryan⁵only and eldest son, 14 was using to cut potatoes clattered onto the wooden cutting board.

Seconds passed.

Even Roly Poly straightened themselves, their little fight completely forgotten. They stared somberly at the scene, where Becca was slowly withdrawing the bucket from over Ryan's head, the glee still evident in her face, and Ryan slowly, slowly turned to Becca.

"Uh oh," Roly whispered to Poly, shaking her unruly red hair out of her face. "Becca's dead."

An unholy howl erupted out of Ryan the very next moment, and I sighed when Becca squealed in response-- probably half in pure ecstasy and half in fear. She clambered down from the stool she was standing on for the sake of this very prank, and the two sprinted out of the kitchen in a burst of speed.

"Becca," I sighed weakly, feeling my head starting to hurt. "Not you, too."

It was hard enough taking care of all the little ones by myself, but today these kids were especially hyper. I mean, I couldn't blame them. This was some good meat we were expecting-- even I was excited. How long had it been since they'd had good meat? How long had it been since I had good meat?!

If I wasn't acting like a caretaker to them right now, I would probably be bouncing off the walls too. No wonder they were like this! They probably just didn't know how to deal with all this extra energy, and they were Rosa's siblings.

They shared blood with Rosa. This was probably nothing.

Suddenly feeling grateful, I looked around. Roly and Poly had gone back to bickering with each other, but they weren't fist-fighting anymore (thank goodness), washing the carrots as I had tasked them with. Ruth was shaking her small adorable head at the doorway the older two had disappeared through, a disapproving expression on her face that was so like Mother Lily's that I wanted to chuckle.

See? They were being so responsible and polite.

I clapped Ruth on the shoulder. "Well, kiddo, let's bring in the lettuce."

She nodded, still serious, and we went back to peeling leaves of lettuce off.

"Becca was being mean," Ruth complained, squatting down on her tiny knees next to the huge bowl of lettuce. "Ryan was just doing his job."

"You're right. Why would she do that?"

Ruth pursed her lips. "Maybe because she's in her puberty."

I burst out laughing, and Ruth looked up at me. "Why? What's so funny?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Mommy said so. Why're you laughing?"

Fighting back another laugh, I peered down at Ruth. "Mother Lily said Becca's in puberty?"

She shook her head. "She said, she said when you're in puberty you act differently."

"Ohh." She was probably talking about Ryan, not Becca. "I think Becca just wanted to have fun with Ryan? Becca's not old enough to be in puberty yet."

Ha! Wait 'til I told Mother Lily about this. She would probably laugh about it too.

I shifted my weight and continued to separate the lettuce. Mother Lily was upstairs with mom, keeping her company while I and the little ones helped with dinner. Cook was outside, grilling the meat. And Rosa...

Rosa was late. She was supposed to be helping me here! But noo, she left me alone with all her extra hyper siblings, and Becca had gone crazy because of it! And where was she and her fancy schmancy carriage while that happened, huh? Huh?

"I'm done!" Ruth announced, in her squealy voice. "We're done with the lettuce!"

I wiped away the strands of her brown hair sticking to her face and beamed at her. "Good job! You think you can go tell Becca to come back and mop up that mess?"

Ruth nodded resolutely, her eyebrows drawn down, then stood up with tiny fists and stomped out the back door, yelling "Becca!" in high pitch as she went.

I watched her go for a moment before gathering the lettuce. "Roly! Poly! Done with the carrots?"

"Yep!"

"Mkay, let's go see what Cook's cookin'!"

I took up the washed carrots and dumped them into my basket with the lettuce, then plopped all the potatoes into the boiling water on the stove. Then we pranced outside with our vegetables (or more like I lugged all the vegetables out and the twins pranced out), careful to avoid the giant puddle near the door where the incident had happened. Without another word, we drifted to a stop near the grill and inhaled altogether.

"Aaahh," I breathed out, feeling all worries and negativity melting off of me. I took another whiff, then sighed again. "Aah. Meat."

"Meat," Roly agreed, breathing in deeply next to me. She looked like she was close to transcending reality and reaching a new form of being. Same, Roly, same.

"Meat," squeaked Ruth on the other side. Wait, when did she get there?

"Meat," sighed Poly, a hand to her chest.

"Meat," rumbled Cook, acknowledging our needs. "And good meat, too."

"Yay for meat!" Becca said behind me. 

I took one more delicious whiff of the smell of good meat cooking on the grill, my eyes closed and a smile on my lips. "Becca go mop up that mess."

"Yes ma'am."

As Becca returned to the kitchen, I turned to Ryan, who had also sneaked up next to us and was staring at the meat like he was going to dive in and grab it all before we could move. For no real purposes but to check that he was fine (I was not trying to prevent him from diving in and grabbing all the meat before we could move), I put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay, Ryan?" I asked, concern dripping off my voice.

He nodded, but I kept my hand there. For no other purposes but to check that he was fine, of course. 

"Go get a towel and wipe yourself up, maybe. There should be clean rags in the back of the kitchen."

"Okay," he said, barely tearing his eyes from the grilling meat. I gently nudged him on, for no other purposes but to make sure that he was fine, of course.

I breathed a sigh of relief (over his comfort, of course) once he reluctantly turned back. Phew. We were safe.

"Meat's almost done," Cook told me, and I smiled up at him.

"Gotta say, that smells beautiful!" I said cheerfully. "The potatoes are boiling right now. We can have them after we have the meat!"

"Yum yum, mashed potatoes!" Roly piped up, enthusiastic. "Yum yum!"

Ruth giggled and rushed over to Roly and Poly. "Yum yum!" she chirped back.

The three of them began to dance as I laughed, delighted.

"Yum yum!"

"Yum yum!"

"Yum yum!"

Another voice from behind me piped up. "Yum yum!"

I frowned, turning around. "Becca, did you already mop up that-- Rosa!"

Rosa gave me an enthusiastic look that was exactly like Roly's. "Yum yum!"

"NO!"

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A/N: Look at the nerve of this author, you whisper, shaking your head. Slidin' right back into her updates like she hadn't disappeared for the past week and a half. The nerve! The audacity! The absolute abomination!

...there, I insulted myself before anyone else could. :D But really, sorry about the random pause, life became a tiny bit busier than usual for a hot second, and then I got hit by a wave of Ultra Laziness. D:

But that's not (as) important. What's more important is, was anyone going to tell me that I had two chapter 45's or was I supposed to do the math myself and find out about it while procrastinating on this chapter?⁶(Hint: I was supposed to do the math myself and find out about it while procrastinating on this chapter) (cue meme)

*cough cough* Anyhow, if anyone was keeping track of chapter numbers enough to remember (haha not me), I didn't suddenly skip to chapter 68-- it was just that chapter 67 was there all along. We just didn't know it. Haha.

I'll be back to regular updates starting this week. Whee!