Sitting Outside (Jordan)

[Arlo Pecatti]

It was a fairly cool day - just the sort of day that Arlo preferred. When it was cool, he didn't have to worry about suddenly becoming heat resistant to the sun and passing out or anything equally ridiculous. Arlo glanced up at the sky and smiled faintly as he realised he couldn't even see the sun. He had almost learned to hate the sun just in case he passed out again but the fact that he couldn't even see it meant that he felt safe enough to study outside for a change. Well, it wasn't really studying, was it? He just wanted to sit and draw actually. He hadn't done a whole lot of drawing lately. Not since arriving in America anyway.

Arlo was wearing a green shirt and a pair of black trousers, along with black shoes. For once, he didn't have is leather jacket on. He wanted to make sure if anything he would be too cold because he hated passing out when his family was around and he knew it would be horrible to do that in a strange place with nobody to help him. He was clinging to a small sketch pad and a pencil as he walked alone, almost determined, towards one of the benches. He just wanted to sit down and melt into the background like he tended to do rather regularly. He was only a small kid after all so he tended to manage that fairly well.

Reaching the bench, he sat down on the edge of one side of it and opened his sketchbook to a new page, looking around for something he could draw. He usually just drew things right in front of him but he couldn't see the point in drawing a few planks of wood on the bench so he looked around for something else, eventually deciding he would draw a bird that was pecking at something on the floor. He didn't know what sort of bird it was, he just knew he was going to draw it.

Ten minutes later, there was a reasonable drawing of a bird on his page, not that it was anything special of course. He had only done it quickly. He decided that would be plenty enough detail for now and that he could finish it off later when he didn't dare to come outside because it was far too hot. Or at least it looked hot. How was he to know if it actually was or not? He couldn't feel it anyway. He closed the sketchbook and looked around at all the people who seemed to either be talking or playing some sort of game that he didn't understand and he frowned faintly. It was weird how many things he still had to learn about this new country. He was determined he would learn though. He just needed a few friends to help him along the way.

[Jordan Scholl]

It had occurred to Jordan briefly that it was not a good idea for his only friend to be a tiny teenage technopath. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't altogether skilled at trying to make his own friends outside of classes or school activities. Since the soccer team hadn't started up yet, he didn't have much of an opportunity to talk to other kids his age.

He had some time now, though, to try to meet new people and develop new friendships. He forced himself outside where he could see some other students milling about. He was prodded to go outside his comfort zone after a further request for more information from his family. They were getting a bit tired of his vague responses that yes, he did have friends, yes, he was happy, no, you don't really want to know what kind of things I've been getting involved with. Better to have a reputable source when questioned by the relatives.

Besides. It might actually be fun having someone else to talk to.

In order to not look completely obvious, he took his guitar outside to practice and hopefully find someone else who didn't mind his music. Glancing around, he spotted a bench with one kid who seemed to be about the same age as himself. Jordan wandered over to sit next to the redhead.

"Mind if I sit here?" Jordan asked quietly, fidgeting from foot to foot. He remembered some advice that he shouldn't look so gutless al the time and kept himself still.

"My name's Jordan," he said, taking a seat. "I play guitar." Wincing, he realized this last statement might have been a little unnecessary. Namely since he was carrying a large guitar. "Uh, do you like any particular music? I'm not that good, but I can always try..." he trailed off.

He spotted the notebook and caught a glimpse of a drawing. "Do you draw, then?" he asked. "That's really neat! I've never been very good at art, even when I tried. I think my grandparents were always kind of sad they never had anything good to hang on the fridge."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo heard footsteps approaching from behind and half expected them to go straight past him to the other table where there was loads of people. That didn't happen though. They stopped right beside him. That was something new for him as people generally just kept on walking past him. He looked up from his drawing and saw another male probably around his age, or slightly older. And he was alone. Much like Arlo. Did that mean they could be friends? He hoped so. He was getting somewhat lonely, even if he didn't wish to admit it.

When the male who soon introduced himself as Jordan asked if he could sit with him, Arlo nodded. "Of course," he said to reiterate what he had already said by nodding. "My name's Arlo," he added so that they both knew the name of their new friend. It was only polite to introduce himself as well, seeing as Jordan had done so already.

Guessing from the way he seemed to be moving from foot to foot, Arlo guessed he might have been nervous about making new friends. Arlo could be nervous as well sometimes because he knew his grasp of American wasn't brilliant. He mostly spoke basic sentences only if he could get away with it because he would have to concentrate a lot harder for more detailed conversation but he would try. This boy seemed to be looking for friends and so was Arlo so maybe he could put up with the poor English skills? He hoped so.

"Guitar?" Arlo repeated and glanced at it. He smiled to himself and nodded, "Guitar is a good... A good..." he frowned as he tried to remember the word. Then it came to him suddenly and he finished his sentence;"Guitar is a good instrument," and laughed a little. "I am sorry for my English. I only moved here since a few months," he explained, hoping he hadn't said anything too wrong yet. "I never learned to play an instrument. I like how saxophones look though," he explained with a small smile. He knew that was an odd instrument but he had always been somewhat fascinated by them. "I like most music," he smiled again at his new friend. He felt almost as though he was smiling too much but he didn't want to give Jordan the impression he wasn't wanted because he really wanted him to stay. He seemed nice.

When Jordan noticed his art, Arlo realized he had been finishing the drawing without even looking at it. He did that sometimes. It tended to look better if he concentrated on it but it still looked reasonable, he supposed. "I draw lots. And read," he said with a small smile. "My family not went home much so I used them to not be bored," he laughed a little. "And a spider I got then as well, actually," he mused, thinking that the idea of a spider was generally seen as odd in America from what he had seen with the people he had spoken to and wondering if Jordan liked them or not.

[Jordan Scholl]

Jordan quickly gathered that the kid wasn't very good with English, but he couldn't place the accent. "Yeah, I like the saxophone, too. I think it sounds cool, too. Guitar's easier when you're the only one playing, though." He played a chord.

"So you just moved here, huh? Where are you from? I'm from New York, so it wasn't very far to come." He tired to avoid mentioning his family ties to the school in most instances. It wasn't like it was very important information, and he didn't want people to think he was some sort of teacher's pet.

As he sat he started playing, though it wasn't anything in particular. He basically just strummed for a few minutes with some basic chords, stuff that he thought sounded good. "I never took lessons or anything, so I don't know that much. If you like music, maybe you could join the band here. I don't know if they have instruments, though, or if you have to get your own."

From the comments about reading and writing a lot, Jordan gathered that Arlo didn't have a lot of friends to hang out with. Well, that made two of them.

"What kind of stuff do you read? I mostly read science fiction stuff, especially since that's what Dad has around the house."

He was a little surprised at the spider remark. "Do you have a pet spider, then? Is it here?" Jordan wasn't scared of spiders, but he did have what he considered a healthy attitude toward them. Sort of a, 'Don't hurt me and I won't kill you' sort of thing. "Does it bite or anything? That's kind of a weird pet to have. I mean, most people get dogs or something."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo smiled when Jordan said he liked the saxophone too. That meant they had interests that they shared then. Maybe they really could be friends? Arlo felt almost desperate for hoping everyone that spoke to him might end up being a friend but he was quite lonely since he didn't even have his brother for company any more. "It looks like it easy to learn," Arlo agreed, watching him play the guitar as he was. "And you not had lessons? It sounds good," he stated as he watched Jordan playing it, being somewhat fascinated at the fact he had taught himself to play and that it sounded good. His sister had tried to teach herself to play the flute and had failed miserably. Maybe it depended on the person or something?

"Yes, I'm Italian," he replied, looking up from the guitar and back to Jordan again. "New York is big?" he asked, not knowing a whole lot about America in general, although Cat had shown him a book in the library where he could read about America. He wanted to learn. He was almost desperate to learn in fact.

Science fiction? Arlo wasn't entirely sure what that was but he imagined some sort of science-based story. It sounded good, anyway. "I like to read war books. I like the weapons," he laughed a little. That made him sound somewhat evil and like he was going to grow up to be a mass murderer or something. That wasn't the case though. They were just often very small, yet did so much damage. That fascinated him. "Or I read recipes. They use words that are good for learning English," he smiled. And there was the fact that he was heat resistant so cooking was something he could practice power control on.

Arlo nodded slightly, "She lives with my brother though. The school thought she could hurt people. She's harmless though," he smiled. He loved that spider. Everyone tended to be scared of it when it was perfectly harmless. As his brother was a vet, he had removed the poisonous parts and sterilised any venom-making cells. That meant she was now perfectly safe. He wasn't sure how he had done it but he didn't care much. She was still the same spider. "She doesn't hurt people. I got a spider because my brother is vet and someone not wanted her so he let me have her," he explained. "She would have been killed so she was saved," he smiled as he remembered seeing it for the first time. He had loved her instantly. He always had been somewhat odd like that though, getting annoyed with his sisters for killing spiders all the time. "You has pets?" he asked, given that he said most people had dogs. Did that mean he had one as well? He wasn't sure.

[Jordan Scholl]

"I didn't have real lessons from a teacher or anything. I learned from a book. There are a lot of books out there with guitar lessons." Jordan shrugged. "Plus, I think it helped that whenever I sounded bad my little brother would yell at me to shut up. But it's really not that hard. You want to try?"

He held the guitar out toward Arlo. "It's tuned and everything, so you can't really sound bad on it. You don't have to aim for any chord or anything, just strum." He drew his fingers across the strings to demonstrate.

"Italian, huh? Does that mean you're good at making food? What's your favorite recipe?"

He thought about his home state. "Yeah, I guess New York's pretty big. Not as big as some of the other states, but it's bigger than Vermont, anyway. I didn't live in New York City, but I did visit sometimes. My home was actually kind of close to here, just a few hours away. Maybe sometime you could come visit or something." It would be nice to be able to show his family that he was making friends.

"War books? Like, real wars, and all that? Did you ever read any westerns or anything, with the cowboys and Indians? But if you like the weapons and stuff, you should see some of the stuff in the science fiction books. They talk about guns the size of your pinky that could blow up a planet. It's really cool stuff. Star Wars is science fiction, and they even have some Star Wars books." He cocked his head at the recipe comment. "Is it still really hard for you to understand English? Or do you just not know some words?"

Jordan was a little relieved that the spider wasn't on campus, though he felt kind of bad. Arlo obviously liked his spider, and probably missed her. "Sorry you can't have her with you, but I don't think most pets are allowed here, or at any school. I don't have any pets here, though at home we have a few. Mom doesn't like it when they shed on the furniture, though, so they mostly stay outside. Old Roger, the dog, is supposed to be my pet, and he stays in my room at night."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo was quite interested in the idea of learning to play an instrument from a book. It would mean he didn't have to ask the meaning of words all the time and would probably speed up the process actually. He could certainly see the appeal of it. "Your brother sounds like he helped you to learn," he stated and smiled. When asked if he wanted to try playing it, Arlo was somewhat hesitant, "I not want to break it." He would hate to think he broke something that belonged to someone else after all.

Arlo nodded and smiled, "I like to cook. And eat, actually," he laughed a little. He was rather small and thin in appearance so people often found it odd he liked food so much. "Favourite?" he repeated, trying to mentally decide which one he liked the most. "I like to.. To..." he frowned slightly, thinking that you didn't really cook ice cream but he liked to make it. "Well, does ice cream count for a recipe?" he asked, grinning slightly. He liked the fact that it was cold so he wouldn't have to worry about his heat resistance suddenly kicking in and him passing out with something boiling hot on top of him to burn him. Ice cream was nice and cold.

Arlo listened to him speaking of New York and New York City and he found it interesting that Americans called their states after cities. It made things easier to find though, he supposed. "That sounds fun," he smiled. He liked the idea of having a friend and being able to show his brother he was doing okay by himself in this new place. It would show the rest of his family that he was capable of doing things for himself as well. They never seemed to believe him with that.

Arlo nodded at the question, "Real ones and stories," he said, then looked surprised at how small weapons could be in sci-fi books. "Really? Wow," he said, glancing at his hands and imagining how small those weapons would be before he looked up again as he realised Jordan was still talking. Star Wars. He had heard of that. "Star Wars... That has Darth Vader?" he asked. He remembered seeing a poster with a dark character named 'Darth Vader' on it but he wasn't entirely sure if that was the same sci-fi thing or not. It seemed similar though. "It mostly is some words. I know a lots of words but sometimes... Sometimes, I know words but not sentences to use them in," he said with a small laugh. It was weird to think you couldn't put basic words in sentences but that was how it felt sometimes.

Arlo nodded, knowing that was the case. It wasn't that he had expected her to be allowed there. He had just hoped she would be. But he was okay with her being with Silvestro because he knew he would look after her. "Outside pets? What pets you have outside?" he asked curiously. He quite liked animals after all. "Dogs are good pets," he added at the mention of him having one. It seemed they had a few things in common already!

[Jordan Scholl]

"Naw, you won't break it," Jordan said, still holding out the guitar. "It's pretty strong. Just don't drop it and it'll be fine. Here, hold it with your left hand on the neck," he pointed to the skinny part, "and hold it on your lap. There's even a neck strap, so you won't have to worry about it falling."

It was strange, listening to the broken English, but it wasn't like it was hard to understand, really. The guy just had kind of an accent, but then lots of people spoke with accents.

He smiled. "I like food, too. I just like my mom's food more than mine." He considered Arlo's ice cream comment for a moment. "Yeah, I guess ice cream can count. Do you make it yourself, or do you just buy it?" Jordan had made ice cream once for a school project. It had been tasty, but there was a ridiculously small amount in the end.

"Yeah? If you like the idea, then maybe you can come home with me for Easter or something. My family has kind of a big get-together with a barbecue and everything. First, though, you have to go to all the church stuff. But after you sit through that, it's really great." It wouldn't be hard to have his new friend visit--what was one more seat in a car? "If you have somewhere else to go, though, then don't worry about it. I go home enough it's easy to just hop a ride sometime."

He was a bit surprised to hear that Arlo didn't even know Star Wars very well. "You never saw Star Wars? With Luke Skywalker and everything? You're missing out. Those are some of the best movies in the world." Sure he might be exaggerating. But it was only by a little. "You have to watch them sometime. But yeah, that's Darth Vader. And I won't even give away the surprise." Though it was so tempting to quote breathlessly, 'Luke, I am your father.'

"I never learned another language, so I guess I wouldn't know about any of that stuff. But there are some really good teachers here, and you can ask them anything. I'm probably not very good to ask, since I get yelled at a lot for my English papers and stuff." Like grammar. Jordan wasn't top-notch at grammar. Or spelling.

"When I'm at school or something, then the dog stays outside. And things like that. Mom doesn't like them in the house a lot, since they get in the way." The animals, too, knew that the safest place to be was generally out of doors, especially when Mom got into a cleaning mood. "I like dogs a lot. They're really loyal and everything. You're supposed to be able to train them so they do tricks, but my dog never really did that. He mostly just laid around and was lazy."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo cautiously took the guitar and looked at it for a few seconds, thinking it was almost as big as he was (although that didn't mean much - he was short, after all). He remembered what Jordan had said to do with it so he tried to copy and it made a sound. He smiled a little, "Well it didn't break!" he laughed. He often expected things to break when he went near them.

Arlo smiled at the comment about preferring his mom's cooking. Arlo's mom never cooked. Or did anything much at all really, in fact. "She cooks a lot?" he asked, wondering whether mom's were meant to or not. His family had always been somewhat disfunctional when it came to parents looking after their children. His parents didn't seem to understand that much. "I make ice cream myself. But sometimes I buy it if I don't want to cook it," he laughed. He could be just as lazy as anyone else could be really.

"For Easter?" Arlo repeated. "What is Easter?" He knew there was a holiday soon but he had no idea what it was for or why it existed. He assumed it was an American thing. "Oh, I don't mind the church. One of my sisters, Carlotta, she likes church so I went sometimes in Italy," he smiled. He could tolerate going to church a few times. "No, my brother, he has exams. I would be stay here. To go with you sounds fun!" he smiled. Silvestro wouldn't care anyway. He was sure he was just trying to get rid of him at the moment.

Arlo shook his head a little, "I saw a little of it but I watched the Italian version. Subtitles didn't work well," he laughed a little. "Maybe I should see the American version," he said, half to himself, but wondering if maybe Jordan would show him it during this 'Easter' thing. "The surprise?" he asked, looking quite interested in that idea. "Okay, I shall have to watch it now," he grinned. Surprises made it all better.

Arlo laughed when Jordan said he got shouted at over his English papers. "I am tempted to write them in a mixture of languages to see what they would say. I can claim I was confused," he laughed again. "My family live everywhere so I learn to speak their languages," he smiled. He liked languages. They were fun to learn, although being thrown into a new school with a new language was complicated to say the least.

Arlo nodded, although he couldn't really understand keeping a dog outside. They always looked odd when they were wet after all. Maybe it didn't rain much where they lived? "Does he do some things? Like 'sit' or 'stay'?" he asked curiously. Those seemed to be things he had seen people saying to dogs in America anyway.

[Jordan Scholl]

"It won't break. Not that easy, anyway. If you ever want to learn, maybe I can let you borrow it sometime." Jordan wasn't up to teach guitar--he was just learning himself.

"Yeah, my mom cooks most of the meals. Dad can't cook at all, really. Just omelettes and stuff. So Mom does most of the cooking, though we all have to help with cleaning the house." He made a face. His mother could be ruthless when it came to bedroom cleaning.

"You've never heard of Easter?" he asked, surprised. "It's a pretty big holiday...it's about when Jesus died and came back to life, and every year we celebrate and then go home and have lots of candy. There's also an Easter bunny who goes around doing something, but I don't know what." Scaring children, he wanted to say, but that may have just been him.

"One of your sisters? How many do you have? And if you want to come home with me, that'll be fine, I'm sure. I'll just have to ask my parents, but I'm sure they won't mind, so long as it's okay with your family. And I'll have to ask Un--Doctor Campbell if there's any school rules we'll be breaking, but I don't think there will." He didn't think it was appropriate to refer to Dr. Campbell as "Uncle James" at school, but it was still a hard habit to break.

"You can watch Star Wars when you come to my house. We have all of them, and you can watch them all in a row. We'll have a movie night, and then at the end we'll have a lightsaber battle. It'll be awesome."

Jordan was surprised to realize that Arlo didn't just know Italian. "You speak lots of languages? I thought it was just like Italian and English. What all do you know? That's really cool, 'cause like I said, I just know English." And he wasn't doing so well in his Spanish class. Maybe Arlo could help him out, if he knew the language.

"Yeah, he can sit, but he's not good at 'stay' or anything. Mostly I tried to teach him how to bring me a snack from the kitchen, and it didn't work that well. But he can sit, and roll over and stuff, but only if you're holding a piece of food for him." He shrugged. "What about your spider? Can you teach her any tricks?"

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo smiled gratefully at his new friend, thinking it was nice of him to let him borrow the guitar if he wanted to. "Thanks. Maybe some time I will," he said, handing it back to him, half tempted to look for a different instrument to play so they could play together some time. But for now, he would just try to learn English better. He was getting there but he wanted to be better still.

Arlo laughed at the face Jordan pulled, "When I lived in Italy, we had a cleaner to do cleaning," he commented. His parents had money and were never there so they employed someone to clean up after their children. Arlo generally cleaned up after himself anyway though. He hated being too messy.

Arlo shrugged a little, "It has a different name in my country, I think," he said with a smile. "That sounds like the same holiday as 'Pasqua' in Italy. It probably the same one," he laughed a little. He hated how the words were different, although he knew they had to be given that they were in different countries.

"Uh.. I have three sisters. And two brothers," he responded. Of course there may have been more than that. He would never know, really. But there was 5 others that he knew of at that time. "If your family is okay with me being there, then that's fine. My parents probably don't even know I'm in America," he laughed. The last time he had seen them he had been about eight years old. And that was the third time he had seen his parents in his whole life. It was hardly surprising he wasn't that close to them.

Arlo smiled at the idea of a movie night. It sounded like a lot of fun to be able to watch movies and then have a lightsaber fight. He had seen those on posters too, although he couldn't say the word yet. It was too long.

Thinking of all the languages he spoke, he nodded a little, "Italian is the main language. And I learn English while I'm here. But my brother lives in France and my sister did live in Spain for a few years. And I know a little German and Polish from one of the cleaners that my parents employed for a while who decided I was stupid unless I spoke in their languages," he laughed a little. It had been funny to see an adult outsmarted by a seven year old. "I think to travel a lot helps to learn the language," he said with a small nod, although he wasn't entirely sure if that was the case.

He laughed at the idea of a dog eating the snack before it reached him, "Maybe he is always hungry?" he suggested. "Those are good words for starting to train him though," he added. He liked the sound of the dog though. He imagined him to be quite lazy. "My spider? She will play dead. But I think that's more a fear thing," he shrugged and laughed. She didn't do much really.

[Jordan Scholl]

Jordan took his guitar back and placed it on his lap, then played a few more chords while they sat and talked.

They had a cleaner, which probably means they were rich, Jordan thought. But he decided not to comment on it, since it didn't seem like that big a deal.

"Pasqua, huh?" he said, fumbling around the word. "If it's the same holiday that's coming up at the end of this month, then yup, that's the one. You should come home with me and tell my mom if there's any special traditions that you do in Italy that are different from here. Especially if it involves more food." He loved food.

"Five siblings? Geez. So did you get a lot of hand-me downs, or did you always get your own clothes? I don't know how I'd feel if there were that many people in my family--that's enough for a whole basketball team, almost enough for a baseball team." However, the last statement was the one that surprised him the most. "Wait, how could your parents not know you're here? Isn't that like, against the law or something? The school has to tell the parents where they're taking the kid." At least that was the way he understood it, though he did trust that Hammel was always doing something that was right for the kid.

"Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, and Polish?" Jordan asked incredulously. He counted off on his fingers. "That's like, six languages! Isn't that really hard to have to think about? And do you have a lot of trouble keeping them all straight so they don't run together?" The questions came out a bit fast, but he forgot to make sure that everything he was saying was understandable. "Traveling is really cool. I never went many places, and it was always with my parents, so I didn't have to learn the language or anything, I just did whatever they said."

He laughed when he thought of a spider playing dead. "I wonder if that looks the same as when a dog plays dead. I guess it wouldn't sprawl out with its tongue hanging out."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo nodded at his repetition of 'Pasqua' and smiled, "Yeah." He smiled at the idea of him telling Jordan's family about Italian traditions at Pasqua - Easter. Especially when it came to food as well? Arlo had a feeling he would like being with Jordan's family for Easter. It sounded a lot of fun, actually. "There is lots of food," he said, grinning a little. "Although I don't think all are common in America. You not have goat, right?" he asked, having never seen it served before there but knowing it was still more than possibly a dish.

Five siblings often seemed to surprise people but he didn't care much really. He liked having a big family, even if he didn't like all of the people in it at times. "Sometimes. But Alessandro, my oldest brother, he is nearly 20 years older than me. I don't know him well. And Carlotta, she is nearly 15 years older. I only really know Anna, Silvestro and Florentine. So my family feels less big," he said with a small shrug. The woman that looked after them all was more like family than his oldest siblings, after all. "I do get things from them but I'm shorter than they were at my age so I have to get some new things," he said with a small shrug. Most of them had been at least 5 feet tall by his age but he was just short. When Jordan asked if him being there without his parents knowing was against the law, he shook his head. "While in America, my brother is my legal guardian," he explained. That meant that it was Silvestro's choice if he went to Hammel or not, basically. "So they had to tell my brother, not my parents. I don't know my parents well," he frowned slightly. "I didn't meet them until I was four," he laughed. That just sounded weird, to have never met your own parents until you were four years old.

Arlo smiled but shook his head at the first question. "It's simple to separate them. English sounds different to the others. Italian, well, I know that one really well. Spanish is like Italian, just with more o's on the end of words. French is the one with lots of le's or la's or l' 's. German sounds harsher than the others and Polish has it's own alphabet," he laughed a little. He liked languages. Some people didn't and he understood that. But he liked to learn and languages was something fairly easy to pick up if you were sent to the countries to learn. "Do your parents speak other languages then?" he asked, given that he had said he didn't need to learn when they were there. "That sounds useful," he commented. He never had parents there to help him.

Arlo laughed and nodded. That was pretty much what she did. She would just collapse on her back. Then when she was tired of playing that game, she'd wriggle her legs around, realising she was stuck like that until someone helped her up.

[Jordan Scholl]

"No, we don't have goat. Usually we just have chicken, because that's mom's favorite meat and she likes making it, though we'll probably also have some other food. Lots of eggs. Some other spring food, like fruit and stuff." He shrugged. "But it's really hard to get goat here." He laughed a little. "Is that really common in Italy?"

"20 years older? Wow, and this is all with the same parents? They must be ancient, huh?" He wasn't completely up on how the ages would have to work out for this, but it did mean that his parents were probably at least kind of old, and that might also explain why he didn't know them as well. As was mentioned, he was a bit vague on all this.

"So you live with your brother the whole time you're here? And how long have you been in America? Is he even old enough to take care of you? Do you fight with him a lot?" It didn't all seem to work out to him. "I just have my one brother, and we fight a lot. I don't think I could take care of him if my parents weren't there. But how could you not meet your parents until you were four? Were you raised by a nanny, or your brother or something?"

He listened to Arlo's description of languages with skepticism. "Those don't sound all that different, but if you can understand them all, I guess that's all that matters, I guess." He shook his head, though, when he asked about his parents speaking languages. "No, but they got these little language books with important phrases, and that was enough for us to travel by, and most of the tours were offered in English, too, or had English pamphlets and stuff. My parents are cool, but not that cool."

[Arlo Pecatti]

Arlo smiled. Just as he had expected, goat wasn't common there. Well, that was okay. He didn't mind other meats. Goat was just the norm at Pasqua meals. "Chicken is good too," he said with a nod. "Goat is common in Italy, yeah. Goat and lamb or mutton are most common as there are mountains where they live," he explained with a slight shrug.

Arlo nodded and laughed, "Yeah. I think my mom was 19 when Alessandro was born. Or maybe 20. But I don't mind that my mom is now.. Er.. 52 I think. She started to have children when she was younger and stopped later," he laughed a little. It was strange thinking his mom had been having children for 20 years really.

Arlo nodded in answer to the first of the next stream of questions, "Yeah. He looks after me more than anyone else has. I've only been here for a few months. My brother is 19 now, I think. My parents found it easier for me to live with him. Then they didn't hire a person to look after me any more," he said. He paused as he tried to work out which questions he hadn't answered yet. "I don't fight with my brother. I have a sister to fight with," he laughed. He always fought with either Florentine or Anna. Florentine was only a few years older than him so they tended to have more things to fight over. "Is your brother younger than you then?" he asked. He had always wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling. He was the youngest of the Pecatti's but it didn't really make much difference to him. At least he had a family. "My parents don't work in Italy. They travel a lot. So I was raised by a child carer who was hired by my dad. She looked after us all from when we were babies until we were old enough to look after ourselves. I only met my parents because my immune system failed and I nearly died," he said with a small shrug. He didn't mind too much that he didn't know his parents well. He didn't even feel particularly close to them. His brother was his dad, in a way. He cared for him more than his real dad. And there was always the possibility that his dad wasn't his real dad anyway, which would account for a lot. He was the only one who didn't have black hair, black eyes and a darker skin colour, after all.

Arlo smiled, "I suppose they are easier to learn when you learn them from a young age," he shrugged a little. He wasn't all that sure. "Your parents are clever to take a book to help them though. Many tourists, at least where I lived, just expected everyone to know perfect English all the time," he said with a small frown. He didn't mind because it meant he had picked up a few words and it had helped him when he moved to America but sometimes they could get annoying. "So where have you travelled to?" he asked curiously.