Team8s and Counting Onwards

Saw and Gaty had just gotten home from work. Usually, Bladey would be the first to greet them at the door, but that day, Bladey was nowhere to be found.

"She's probably just in her room." Saw said, unworried. "She did tell me she had a lot of work to do for school these next few days!"

Gaty nodded in agreement. "Let's just head upstairs to be sure though."

Saw and Gaty went upstairs and approached the door of Bladey's room. Saw gave a quick knock. "Hey Bladey, it's Mom and I, can we come in!"

Bladey replied from the other end of the room. "You can come in!"

Saw and Gaty each went up to their daughter, who was hard at work at her desk, and gave her a hug and a kiss. "How was school today, Bladey?" Saw asked kindly.

Bladey grinned. "It was a lot of fun! In math class today, we learned about the little subtraction symbol with the little dot above and below it!"

Gaty tilted her head in confusion. "You mean division."

Bladey nodded. "That's right, division! It's like the "x" symbol but backwards, it's pretty cool!"

"That sounds like some fun stuff, Blades!" Gaty exclaimed.

Saw's eyes wandered across her desk, seeing what her little girl was up to. She noticed that sticking out of a pile of papers was what looked like a drawing. Saw grabbed the corner of the paper, curious of what Bladey was up to. "Mind if I take a look."

Bladey's eyes darted over to the drawing that her mom was trying to look at, and instantly panicked. No! I can't let her see that! she thought to herself. Bladey quickly swatted Saw's hand away from the drawing, flipped it over, and put her arms on top of it. "No, it's not done yet!"

Saw and Gaty were quite shocked at Bladey's reaction. It was unusual for Bladey to get this defensive over something like this. Gaty tried to nudge her to see if she would budge. "Can we at least see what you have so far."

Bladey frantically shook her head. "It looks terrible, trust me, you don't want to see it. It's something for school, okay?"

Saw gently approached Bladey. "For school? You know Mom and I love to know what you're doing at school! I promise, we won't judge if it's still rough around the edges-"

"I SAID NO!" Bladey insisted.

It was clear that this drawing wasn't just some random activity Bladey had to do; she was hiding something from her parents. Gaty shook her head, giving her daughter a stern look. "I'm not liking this attitude, Bladey."

Bladey slammed her fist on the desk. "What's even the problem, it's just a stupid drawing."

Gaty had had enough. "Bladey, show me and Mom that drawing right now or else you are going to be in trouble, is that clear young lady."

Bladey angrily flipped over the piece of paper. "Here's the stupid drawing."

Saw and Gaty looked over at the drawing that their daughter had made. It was a picture of Donut and Barf Bag, with Bladey standing in between them. Underneath them, it said My Family.

Saw shook her head. "Why were you trying to hide this from us, Bladey? It's just a family portrait for school!"

"Do you know where your going to put us." Gaty said with an innocent chuckle.

Bladey crossed her arms, tears forming in her eyes. "That's the thing...I wasn't planning to add you guys to the drawing."

Saw and Gaty were both stunned. In both of their recent memories, they hadn't remembered a time where they ever did anything mean to Bladey. In fact, they made sure that she always knew that they loved her very much.