"...Sure, why not. Am I a particularly rewarding recipient or something?"

"I like baking you things. It's fun."

"Yes, but why me in particular and not Ethan or Robin or someone I don't already know you to hang out with?"

Trouble shrugs. "Why not you? I made you pie and it was fun and now I wanna do it again. I make stuff for Ethan too sometimes, and I'll probably make stuff for Robin, but they're not you and I wanna bake things for you too."

"All right. What can you do besides pie?"

"Pretty much anything. If I don't know how to make it, I can always learn."

"How are you at layer cakes?"

"I am awesome at layer cakes!"

"Buttercream frosting?"

"You got it."

"Awesome. When should I expect delivery?"

"Whenever," he says. "Tomorrow?"

"Sure thing. Should we expect you to stick around for dinner then too?"

"Maybe. I might even eat a carrot," he jokes.

"I'm sure that would make dinnertime go a little smoother."

"I hope I didn't get you guys in any shit," he adds.

"Nah, you saw everything that happened," shrugs Bella. "Renée isn't strict to speak of."

"Good."

"If you'd really upset her we wouldn't be allowed to have you over anymore, but she didn't say anything like that."

"Good," he repeats. "That'd be sad."

"Yeah, we'd have to come up with some other way for you to bring baked goods."

Trouble giggles.

"Are you going to open a bakery or something when you grow up?"

"Who knows?"

"Apparently not you!"

"I believe the only obvious drawback, if you like baking, is that you have to get up early in the morning."

Trouble shrugs. "And that's a drawback?"

"Lots of people hate getting up early."

"Lots of people hate a bunch of things I don't."

"Then perhaps your calling in life is operating a cute little bakery. Perhaps with someone handling the business side, I suppose, I don't know if you go in for that part."

He shrugs. "Business? What business? I just wanna bake tasty things."

"Yes, exactly. So you'd need help, to run a bakery, or you'd wind up getting arrested for something like a health code violation or tax issues."

He laughs. "Won't that be fun."

"Do you even have preferences? About anything?"

"Sure," he says. "I like stuff. I like stuff all the time. I'm standing here 'cause I want to bake you a cake, that's a preference, right?"

"Would you be meaningfully disappointed if I told you you were not invited to make me cake, though?"

Trouble shrugs. "I'd be sad. I'd go do something else. I'd get over it. Is that 'meaningfully disappointed'?"

"I guess I'll count it."

"Between what and what?"

"I mean - what difference does it make, to you, whether I get disappointed by stuff or not?"

"I'm just curious."

Trouble laughs. "Okay."

"Knowing more about how people work is useful, anyway, for figuring out how I work - whether it's unusual, whether I should be suspicious that I'm assigning too much unusualness to myself, that sort of thing. Although information about you probably won't help with that in particular, I'm guessing."

"I am a pretty fucking unusual person," he agrees, grinning brightly. "Glad you noticed."

"It'd be hard to miss."

"Figuring out how I am, period."

"Is it fun?"

"It's... occupying, I prefer to do it than not. I don't think fun is exactly the right word. It's very important to me, but more in a breathing way than in the way hobbies are."

"Huh," says Trouble. "I think I get it." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "I don't know if I have anything like that, though."

"Nothing at all?"

"Not that I can think of. Why?" He grins. "Is that weird?"

"No, actually, I think that's pretty typical."

"Not having a thing you're attached to like I am to my introspection thing? Yeah. Andi's my benchmark for normalcy and she doesn't have one, for instance."

"Is she super normal or do you just not have anybody else that handy?" he wonders.

"She's both relatively normal and accessible."

"Makes sense," says Trouble. "I don't know if I know any normal people. Unless you guys count. Do you count?"

"I wouldn't count me, no."

Trouble grins. "I figured."

"But Andi works, if you want a sample normal person."

"If I can ever think of something to do with one, I'll ask her," he laughs.

"Nothing occurs to you?"

"Nope."

"She's often better than I am about predicting how our parents will react to things, since our parents are also pretty normal."

"Handy talent," says Trouble.

"It is!"

He giggles.

"Well, I'm off to meet Andi. See you later."

"See you!" he says agreeably.

And home go the twins.

Trouble doesn't show up to school at all the next day, but he does show up at Bella's house with cake.

"Where were you all day?" Bella inquires when she answers the door and waves him in.

"At home," he says, shrugging. "Didn't feel like school today."

"How do you get away with that?"

He shrugs. "Nobody cares?"

"Not even the school administration?"

"I was," he makes air quotes, "'sick'."

He shrugs. "I don't really have to fake it; if I wanna stay home, somebody'll cover me."

"That's... convenient?"

"Ain't it just?"

"Potentially, at least. Anyway, why don't you put that on the counter, dinner's not for a little while. It's going to be takeout Chinese followed by the cake, Renée had a long day. Want to add anything to the order?"

"Shrimp fried rice, dumplings, hot and sour soup, beef-and-broccoli, crab rangoon. And the obligatory fortune cookies."

"Sounds good to me."

"Okay. Renée will probably also throw in an order of eggrolls with four people to feed, she likes them but me and Andi don't."

"I'm fine with those," he says cheerfully, setting the cake down and stepping back to admire it. It is a good-looking cake.

"The cake is really pretty - did you just carry it here from your house? Where do you even live?"

"What else was I gonna do, levitate it?"

"I mean, walking as opposed to getting a ride or taking a bus somewhere."

"Oh. Nah, I took the bus," he laughs.

"Where from?" Bella asks again.

"Not that far."

"Is there some reason I'm not allowed to know where you live?"

"Yeah, nobody does."

"Why?"

"Skip it."

"Taking notes?" he inquires.

"It's a thing I do."

"Learning anything interesting?"

"Insufficient data."

Bella shrugs, glances at the clock. "I'm going to call in the Chinese food now so it'll be ready when Renée passes the place on her way home from the teachers' meeting." She picks up the phone, dials the number from the takeout menu, and orders all of the listed things, eggrolls included.

He opens his eyes. "Mm?"

"Did you have a violent disagreement with a staircase?"

"Oh." He grins. "Nope. I had sex. Really great sex."

"You could ask me if I'm sure I want to know."

"Okay."

"If Renée sees those bruises, she will not in fact want to know, but might feel obliged to ask."

He snorts. "I'll tell her I fell down the stairs."

"She'll probably believe you. When I was in the first grade she got some pointed questions from my teacher because I often have violent disagreements with staircases. It blew over, but she's at least aware that there are multiple reasons someone might appear injured."

Trouble laughs. "What was the teacher doing grilling her? If something was up she'd just lie about it, right?"

"Well, Renée teaches kindergarten - you can't really work with kids any more if there's an accusation like that out in public, even a false one. And the first grade teacher had met me - she hadn't seen me fall at the time she got suspicious, but she'd seen me use walls for balance, and stumble, and knock things off my desk. Renée told her to talk to my gym teacher, and to call Charlie if she still wasn't sure, and then there's the fact that Andi was always fine. No scandal, Renée keeps her job, I am generally known to be accident-prone."

"And nobody asked you what the deal was?"

"The gym teacher had already confirmed with me at the start of the year when Renée told him that I couldn't be playing soccer with the other kids, so I guess the first-grade teacher didn't feel the need to follow up," shrugs Bella.

"Lucky you," says Trouble. "That would've been awkward."

"My first-grade teacher taking me aside asking if Renée hits me? Yes. I was just barely six, I don't think I would even have understood why she was asking."

He chuckles and shakes his head.

"What?"

"Nothing. I have a weird sense of humour."

"Very weird, apparently."

"Yep."

The door opens and in walks Andi. "I haaaaaate history, I studied presidents for like all afternoon with Meg and I still turn half their names into Spoonerisms. Hi, Trouble."

"Hi, Andi!" he says, waving.

"Why do we have to have so many presidents, couldn't they have longer terms or something to be gentler on poor innocent high schoolers?" She flops onto the sofa next to Bella. "Whatcha talking about?"

"The time Mrs. Cornell was suspicious of my bruising patterns, oddly enough."

"Yeah, that was weird, Mrs. Cornell knows Mom."

"You okay, Trouble?"

He grins. "Who, me? Peachy."

"Also he made us a cake for after Chinese food," says Bella.

"I did!" he beams. "It's going to be awesome."

"Ooooh, what kinda cake?"

"Lemon. With buttercream frosting."

"Ooooooooh."

"So don't fill up on all of the dumplings and leave none for me, this time, or you won't have room for cake."

Trouble giggles.

Soon enough, Renée comes home, carrying bags of Chinese takeout containers. "Hello, girls! Hello, Trouble - ooh, a cake, did you bring us dessert again? I hope Bella isn't extorting you or anything."

He laughs. "Why, does she do that a lot?"

"No! Mom!"

"How else am I supposed to explain all the sugary presents?"

"Maybe he's sweet on her. So to speak."

"Andi."

...Trouble cracks up.

"All of you shut up. Let's eat, I'm starving."

"Food!" crows Andi. "I won't eat all the dumplings, promise, but I hope you got lots."

"Triple order."

"I am totally in favour of eating," says Trouble.

"Well then, let's," says Renée, and she directs the girls to set the table while she unpacks the takeout onto the counter.

Trouble... has nothing to do here, apparently. He goes and sits at the table.

Various containers are passed around.

Andi takes an entire order of dumplings for herself.

Trouble does not appear to be leaving very much room for cake.

Ah, but is he eating the available vegetables?

He is eating everything. Vegetables are some of everything.

In that case, when everyone is full of Chinese food, Renée says, "Who wants cake?"

"Me!"

"Also me!"

"Me three!"

"I know," Trouble says happily.