While Tobi and Arne were away that year, their parents had decided to expand the house. Tobi had known that their parents had been arguing on and off late into the night about the size of their home and the number of kids that fit into it. His mom hadn’t wanted to move at all, she was settled and she liked the climate of the northwest, she thought that they had a good community going on with the local Chinook and if they did move, she wanted to go back east where her family was there to offer support with raising the kids. His dad wanted to expand, find a new place to live—“somewhere our metal charming hasn’t reached yet,” Tobi had over heard him saying one night. “Get a new clientele, expand the business.”
His mom seemed to have won out though, because when Tobi and Arne got back, there was an extra floor built onto their house and another room added to the back. It was difficult to make changes on the house when one lived in a mostly-Muggle community. The Chinooks lived near by and Tobi knew that a good portion of them were magical too, but having learned from their Muggle relatives the dangers of boarding school, they homeschooled their young witches and wizards. The Reinhardts were the only wizarding family who lived in Turner’s Point and even though they were on the edge of town, more in the woods than any other house, Tobi knew that the Muggles would notice if overnight the house suddenly grew.
He and Arne exchanged a surprised, yet happy look as they entered their house as if for the first time. Their dad had headed straight into the workshop to drop off some of the things that he’d taken from the store to look at after picking the boys up from the wagon stop, and so they were left alone to greet their mother. Hugo, nearly five now, ran giggling in from the other room to attack his big brothers with hugs and their mom was balancing a baby on her hip as she stirred dinner on the stove.
“Since when did we have another kid in the house?” Arne asked as he lightly pulled some of Hugo’s hair in a friendly greeting.
“The Floris kid,” Kaili said smiling, her dark hair slightly greyed with the stress of having five children falling loose from the messy braid that she had tied it into to keep the long style clear from the stove. “Your mom had a doctor’s appointment, didn’t she?” Kaili cooed to the young boy.
Arne rolled his eyes and Tobi grinned—signature trademarks of each boy though neither said more of their feelings than the other. Love for their mother was something the two boys shared, but their mannerisms and subsequent displays of affection varied greatly. Kaili turned to her boys and waved the spoon in her hand towards the new parts of the house. “We added some rooms, Matti and Lukas moved into the new rooms up top, but there’s still the second bedroom and we moved Hugo down stairs, so…” She smiled, trailing off, but Tobi and Arne were already pushing their way up the stairs, racing to see who would get the room they’d shared and who would get the smaller room that had held Hugo and the diaper changing table.
A door slammed downstairs, followed by stomping up the stairs. Tobi and Arne exchanged a look. Matti. Their younger sister was much more volatile than any of the rest of them, behavior that was balanced out much more by Lukas who was calmer in comparison. Arne stuck his head out into the hall way. “What’d you do now, Mat?”
Lukas, trailing up the stairs after her, carrying both his backpack and hers which she must have thrown to the kitchen floor in anger was grinning. “She got mad at someone in class for saying she was a freak. Melted their crayons into their lunch, couldn’t explain how but everyone knew she did it! Mama’s going to be so mad!”
“Shut up, Luka!” Door slam.
“She’s been like this all year,” Lukas complained, dropping both bags in the hallway and bouncing on to Tobi’s bed. Arne swung around the door frame and plopped himself down next to his younger brother. “She’s just mad ‘cause Dad won’t let her help him in the workshop and she’s older than me, but Dad says it’s ‘cause she’s too tempermental. Anyway, what was it like? Can I see your yearbooks?”
Tobi gestured to his suitcase and Lukas scrambled to open it and get to the treasured almanac. “Mama’s making salmon for dinner, the way you like it, Tobi, and pork chops for you, Arne. And she made a blackberry pie, ‘cause they kinda started early this year. And Dad’s got a surprise—” here, Lukas cut off, his eyes wide as he considered his older siblings. “But I wasn’t supposed to tell so you gotta forget that.”
“We will,” Tobi reassured him and Arne suppressed a laugh.
“You got most creative!” Lukas enthused, looking at at Tobi and then back at the yearbook. “And Arne’s most likely to cause trouble and an explosion?” He giggled, kind of in a delighted way. “Is that Laila Kennedy next to you as best couple?” He turned his gaze up towards Arne, waiting for the story as Tobi began to unpack his suitcase and put his clothes in the empty dresser.
Arne rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the bed. “It’s just some stupid award, it doesn’t mean anything. I gotta unpack.”
Lukas turned to look at Tobi who winked. “He’s just mad because he likes someone else and he thinks that award’s gonna mess things up for him.”