Chapter 3 - Telsa's House

Leo’s POV

I walk back home, feeling strangely smug. So Leanne didn’t actually apologize – I apologized for her, which is good enough.
Telsa is starting to grow on me. Sure, she’s really strange, but perky and happy. She brings up my emotions by just being in the same room as me. Leanne obviously doesn’t feel the same way, but that’s Leanne. She has a tendency to avoid people like Telsa.
I come back home and finish making breakfast, picking up the paper that Leanne left on the table when I pushed her out. She didn’t take it into her room with her when we got back, either, so it’s still here. The headline is something boring about school fundings; I skip it and flip to the comics page. I love the comics page.
Ding! The toaster goes off and I grab my toast from it, placing it on my plate and heading to the table.
I finish my breakfast, and halfway through putting away my dishes Mom gets home. Oh no.
“Leo!” she cries, dropping her shopping bags and running over to hug me.
“Hi Mom,” I say, trying to wiggle out of her grip.
“Did you make breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll start making lunch!”
I begin to reconsider eating with Telsa. Mom is not good at making lunch.
“Mom, I can make it –“
“Don’t be silly! I will make lunch, and you will eat it. It’s a normal situation, right?”
“Uh…” It’s normal enough if your Mom can actually make lunch and not something that tastes worse than the hot lunch at my old elementary school. Our Mom can’t do that.
“Now, do I fry the peanut butter and jelly or do I put it into the oven?”
“Actually, Mom, our new neighbors invited us over for lunch, can I eat there instead?” I’ll just have to tell Telsa that I’ve changed my mind. I hope she can cook.
“Well, okay, but take some money with you to pay the bills.”
“Uh, sure.” I pretend to grab some money off the table and bolt, not wanting to smell fried peanut butter and jelly ever again.
Before I know it I’m standing at their front porch for the fourth time in the past day. It’s already beginning to feel like a friend’s house.
“Hello?” Again, Telsa answers the door. I’m starting to think she just likes answering doors.
“Hey, it’s me, Leo,” I say, feeling slightly awkward.
“Oh, hi there! We were just finishing lunch – we do tend to eat early – but you are welcome to come and visit for a bit if you like!” she says with a smile, and I feel right at home.
“Yeah, that would be nice. My mom is trying to make lunch, and she can’t really cook very well, so…”
“Oh don’t worry, Rob is an excellent cook! Come on inside!” She ushers me in, and once again I’m lead into the living room. “Rob, Leo’s here!” she calls, then sits down on the couch with me. “So, Leo, how’s your day been?”
“Well, I’ve only been awake for about half an hour, but it’s been pretty good.”
“You’re a late sleeper, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Rob walks in, looming over us as always. That is, until he sits down; then he just looms over Telsa. “I used to be a late sleeper,” he says in that soft, calming tone of his.
“Yes, you did! And I was always a morning person,” Telsa says with a smile, one of her large ones.
“I’m sure Leo can tell, can’t you?” Rob says, clearly amused.
“Really?” Telsa says, her brow furrowing as if that’s somehow hard for her to figure out.
“Um, yeah, kind of,” I say, stifling a laugh at her confused expression.
“Oh,” she says, still in deep concentration. Rob and I share a look of amusement, then start up our own conversation.
“So, is your name, Rob, short for anything? Like Robert?”
“No.”
“No, it’s not short for anything, or no, it’s not short for Robert?”
“Both. It’s just Rob.”
“That’s cool. I’ve never net anyone with a name like that before.”
“Yes, it’s somewhat unique.”
“So sorry, what are we talking about?” Telsa asks, back in the real world again.
“We were taking about my name,” Rob says. Somehow throughout all of this he’s maintained the same tone – soft and calming. At some points it was also amused, but never loud, and it constantly had a strange soothing effect. It makes me wonder what could have caused him to yell at Telsa yesterday.
“Oh! Now that’s an interesting topic,” Telsa says, leaning in eagerly with a mischievous smile on her face.
“Telsa –“ Rob says, shooting her a warning glance.
“See, back at school everyone just assumed it was short for Robert, right? So the teachers would all call him Robert when they got mad and he’d be like, ‘It’s just Rob’ and then they’d say, ‘No, Robert, Rob is not your real name’ and so he’d say ‘Check my birth certificate! It says Rob on there, not Robert’. Then the teacher would be all like ‘Fine, I’ll check, and prove you wrong’ and so the next day Rob would bring in his birth certificate and prove them wrong and they’d be all like ‘You altered it’ and he’d say, ‘No I didn’t’ and then they’d try to get him in trouble for altering his birth certificate only it would never work because it really was just Rob! So the teachers got in trouble for making false accusations and Rob would be all like ‘Yes’!
“Telsa, that only happened once with that stupid biology teacher in my junior year of high school.”
“Well, that’s weird. I could have sworn it happened at least three times.”
“I don’t know how you got that, Telsa, but it’s incorrect.”
“Then what was your birth certificate doing in your binder those other two days?”
“Telsa, how did you get into my binder?”
“Heh heh heh…” Telsa laughs nervously. “Why don’t we talk about something else now?”
“You’re avoiding the quest – oh, never mind. We’ll talk about this later,” Rob says, his voice losing its calming air momentarily and just sounding annoyed.
“So, Leo, are you hungry?” Telsa asks, sounding just a tad too bright.
“Not really, since I just finished eating breakfast – or brunch, you could probably call it.”
“I would just call it a slightly early lunch,” says Rob, his voice right back to the way it was.
“Okay, let’s go with that,” I say, smiling happily at them. I suddenly feel very serene. Poor Leanne, I vaguely think as we head off into other topics. She has to put up with baked peanut butter and jelly.

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