Twist it! [Gwynie]

[Florence Bryant]

It was a balmy Saturday with no work, no papers and no outstanding housework to catch up on. The birds outside in the garden were singing, and the back door was propped open, letting the sweet smells of the flowers Gwynie had planted permeate the house. It was the sort of day that Flo would have normally told Gwynie to load up the car with picnic food and the like, but she was saving for her daughter's current request - a puppy - and though she was feigning nonchalance about the whole thing, she'd been in contact with a breeder of springer spaniels, and had put a deposit down on one of the puppies.

Instead, Flo had her hair tied up, pretty blouse sleeves rolled up, an apron over her skirt. There were cookbooks wide open, and she had one hand on her hip, head tilted as she flicked through the pages. She wasn't entirely sure what she and Gwyneth were going to bake today, but she'd promised they'd have a special girly day - and who could have a girly day without baked goods? Tapping her chin and nodding at a page with a lovely iced cake, she poked her head up the stairs.

"Gwynie, hon?" The woman called, grinning. "You ready to make a cake?" Saturday was always girly day, as long as Flo wasn't out recruiting - it was the day they baked, painted their nails, watched soppy movies and did the quizzes in their girls magazines. Sometimes they'd go shopping, sometimes they'd go out together to the city and have coffee like dignified ladies. Did Florence think she was weird for hanging out with her daughter? Hell no.

Moving to the radio, the woman flicked it on and put on one of Gwynie's CDs that Flo had taken a liking to. Turning the volume up, she began to strut around the kitchen, pulling out the flour, sugar and other ingredients. Of course, when it came to whipping her hair -yes, it was that song - she began to enthusiasticly sling her long hair around, powerpunching the air with a huge grin on her face.

Flo loved Saturdays.

[Gwynie Bryant]

Ahhh Saturdays. The time when you could stay up all night watching Disney movies with your mother and then sleep in until late morning. It was a perfect day for some mother-daughter bonding. Which was totally okay if you had as cool a mother as Gwynie did. At the moment, she was thinking of other ways to convince her totally cool mother to get her a puppy. The preteen had taken both the subtle and not so subtle routes with her mother. She’d taped pictures of puppies on the refrigerator, on her walls, left dog magazines pointedly on the coffee table, but to no avail. Flo had taken a surprisingly blasé attitude about the whole thing. Which only meant to Gwynie that her mother was planning something.

Gwynie tugged on her dark wash jeans and floaty white top as her mother called her name. A bright smile flashed across her face as she called back, “Coming!” That was the best thing about Saturdays: spending girly time with her mother. Last weekend, they went on a picnic. It was nice. Gwynie was happy the weather was lightening up, because that meant that they could eat outside more and go on little nature walks and stargazing.

She trotted into the kitchen to see her mom tossing her hair about in time to Whip My Hair. Gwynie beamed and proceeded to follow suit, twisting and jumping gracelessly into the kitchen. “Hi mom.” She greeted, her own curls bouncing in time with her hops. “What kind of cake are we makin’?”

[Florence Bryant]

Flo broke out into a bigger smile when her daughter came down the stairs, and flung her arms around her, pulling her in for her morning hug. That was Flo's one rule - every morning there had to be a hug, even if it was a simple text from overseas with "*hug*" in it. No one knew what was around the corner, and the young mum would have kicked herself if her daughter went without hugs. Pulling back and looking Gwynie up and down appraisingly, she laughed and kissed her forehead.

"Morning baby girl." She said brightly, flinging an apron over for the young girl to put on. "Well, I know the last cake we made was some serious fail, but this one looks SO scrummy." Flo lifted the book up and showed Gwyneth the picture of the strawberry and chocolate cake. Indeed, the last cake the pair of them had made, Flo had forgotten to set the oven to the right temperature, and it had singed. The pair of them had laughed as they'd picked off the burnt bits, eventually giving up and going to the bakery instead. "What do you think? Want to tackle this son of a biscuit?"

Setting the book back down on the table, she wrinkled her nose a minute. "Lets hit some breakfast first though." She added, grabbing two bowls from the cupboard and setting them down. "Mmkay, do you want Frosted Wheaties, these weird... bran things from nineteen fourty five... or..." She rustled through the cupboard. "Cheerios?" She held the two boxes, and shook her head. "I think your Mum needs to go shopping later. What the hell ARE these?" She raised her eyebrows and set the ancient bran flakes on the table, reading the back of the box.

"Sell by, April 13th 2008. Ew." And with that, Flo rather unceremoniously tossed the whole lot in the trash.

[Gwynie Bryant]

Gwynie squeaked with happiness when her mother wrapped her arms around her. “Eee, heya mom.” Gwynie giggled, returning the hug enthusiastically. She liked mom-hugs, it was like they were magic. If Gwynie was feeling sad, all she had to do was get a hug from her mother and she would feel so much better. If she felt hurt or angry or embarrassed, a mom-hug made everything feel like it was less of a big deal. Gwynie loved mom-hugs. She beamed at her mother as she laughed.

Gwynie caught the apron and hurriedly pulled it over her head. She giggled, “You sure about this, Ma? I mean, d’you think you can find the temperature directions this time?” She, of course, didn’t mean it. It was funny, trying to make heads or tails of baking instructions. And it always turned out well in the end. She tilted up on her toes and peeked up at the cookbook. “Oooh~” Gwynie’s eyes went wide as she looked at the layered cake. At Flo’s question, Gwynie nodded enthusiastically, slinging an arm around her mother’s waist, “Yeah, let’s do it!” She held out her hand for a high-five.

“Oh yeah. Breakfast.” Gwynie grinned, trailing after her mother to go get milk from the refrigerator. She turned and squinted in confusion as her mother listed off the inventory from the cupboards, “…Ew. Do we have waffles?” She tilted her head curiously, trying to remember if she and her mother had cleaned out the last of the waffles last Saturday morning.

[Florence Bryant]

"I blame the oven." Flo said cheekily, giving the oven a sidelong glance. "I swear I set it to 350." She shook her head, then turned back to the cereals. Shrugging her shoulders in agreement that the idea of cereal was pretty crap, she flicked through the cupboards and the fridge in search of waffles. "No such luck hon, looks like it's cheerios for me this morning." She sighed heavily and flopped into the chair, pouring herself out a bowl.

In a way she supposed it was better for them then waffles, since they'd be eating cake and generally pigging out for the day, but cheerios were Monday morning got to get to Hammel on time breakfast foods. Nudging the food round the bowl, she shrugged her shoulders and rested her cheek on her hand. "Looks like tonight we'll be going out shopping. Want to come with?" She asked warmly, pushing her half finished bowl across the table and glancing over to the packs of cooking ingredients on the kitchen counter.

"We can pick up some takeaway on the way back. I'm in the mood for Italian, what about you?" The Italian cravings were something Flo had never been able to escape since living in New York. Her parents lived only a block away from a fantastic family run restaurant and the food... oh god the food. Sitting up from the table and moving over to the counter, she began checking she had everything they needed, letting out a sigh of relief that they did - nothing ruined baking like running to the shops to grab something.

[Gwynie Bryant]

Gwynie laughed, “Suuure, Mom. Sure.” She peeked over the counter to watch her mother hunt for the elusive waffles. When Flo came back empty handed, Gwynie shrugged, “That’s ok. I’ll get orange juice!” She skipped past her mother and pulled out the orange juice from the refrigerator, then stood on her toes to get the cups from the cupboard. Handing her mom the now-filled cup, she nodded enthusiastically, “Heck yes! I want to get some sandals, because it’s gonna be summer soon. I saw some pink ones.” She gave her mother a pleading look. Gwynie was sure her mother would let her get the sandals, but she always felt it was good to at least halfway ask. After all, it was her mother’s money, so it was only fair. “What’re you gonna get?”

“Mmm.” Gwynie hummed appreciatively at the thought of Italian food, “That sounds tasty.” She hurriedly drained her own bowl of Cheerios and dumped it in the sink. She bounced around the table into the kitchen again, “I’ll get out the big bowl. You want me to get anything else?”

[Florence Bryant]

"Just groceries honey, we're looking a bit bare." Flo gestured to the woefully empty fridge and cupboards. "We'll go to the mall before, I have my eye on these adorable little high heels, they've got these little bows on and they're a fantastic shade of teal." She nodded in agreement, the pair of them could do with some new shoes now summer was coming in, but she still noted she couldn't go crazy. She had a dog basket and bowls and food and toys and pet insurance to get, and that wouldn't come cheap. She hoped Gwynie would spend her pocket money on other things for the dog, but that was STILL technically her money after all.

Sipping her orange juice, Flo beamed over at Gwyneth and chuckled. "Alright, then we can pick that up after shopping." She made a mental list, then beamed as another fun song came on the radio, shimming around the kitchen table. "No, I think we've got everything. Ready to get this cake on the go?" She peered down at the ingredients. "Cream a cup of butter with two cups of sugar." She read out, glancing at her daughter.

"Feel like creaming to Single Ladies?"

[Gwynie Bryant]

“Oh.” Gwynie giggled at the misunderstanding. She and her mother both shared a love of clothes shopping, so she knew Flo would understand. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption after all! In Gwynie’s mind, shopping always equaled clothes. “Oooh…” Gwynie cooed appreciatively at the description of her mother’s prospective shoes, “Those sound super cute.” Gwynie sipped her own orange juice, completely oblivious to her mother’s plans.

“Hooray!” She cheered, laughing at her own enthusiasm, scanning about the kitchen before spotting the large white bowl. Lugging it out, she set it on the counter triumphantly, already half-dancing to Single Ladies “Cup of butter with two cups of sugar. Got it!” She skipped and triple-stepped across the kitchen to grab everything she needed. Baking was so much fun.

“Heck yes.” Gwynie grinned at her mother, “I love this song. Whoa-oh-oh…” She hummed along as she measured out the sugar and cut the butter sticks. “So I forgot to ask yesterday, but did anything cool happen at your work this week?” Gwynie liked getting progress reports about her mother’s life. Nosy? Definitely. And proud of it, too.

[Florence Bryant]

"It's okay baby." The woman smiled at her daughter and ruffled her curls, before measuring out the dry stuff, sifting flour to the music, and pointing at her ring finger every now and then. "We'll do a bit of late night stuff, just grabbing those shoes, and a couple of other little items I need to get pretty soon." Like a dog basket. And dog food. She wasn't sure how she'd smuggle those into the car while Gwynie wasn't looking though.

"This cake is going to be so awesome." She tapped her lip a moment in thought, before grinning. "How about we save some for Alex?" She asked, giving a little shimmy as the song reached it's climax, standing away from the bowl and doing as much of the dance routine as she could remember. Flo pulled her daughter away from her job cutting the butter sticks to get her to join in, grinning. "This cake will rock, especially if we put some Beyonce love into it." She agreed, chuckling.

When the song finished, the woman leant against the fridge in thought. "Hmm, not much Gwynie." She wiggled the last of the flour, baking soda and salt into the bowl with a hum of pondering. "I probably shouldn't tell you, but there's been some bad people hitting round the school. There was a big fight between the Hammel teachers and these people. We won, but hon, they're still skulking around, so always keep your wits about you." Florence hesitated, chewing on her lower lip. "Other than that, got a posting to Alaska next week." She said brightly, shoving horrible MSAD related thoughts out of her head. "Want me to bring you back something?"

[Gwynie Bryant]

Gwynie grinned brightly at her mother as the older woman ruffled her hair. Still bobbing a bit to the music, she started the mixer, watching the butter get beat about until it was smooth. “That sounds good.” Gwynie nodded over the mixer. Shopping with her mom was fun, regardless of if they actually got anything. They just had similar tastes.

“It is~!” Gwynie sang out before giggling as her mother pulled her away from the counter to dance with her, which Gwynie readily obliged. After all, it wasn’t so much the cake as making it and being silly, which was much more fun. “Yeah, we should totally give some to Alex. He’s nice. He deserves some cake.” She wiggled about, lacking some of Flo’s grace inherent with not being twelve years old and still growing. But Gwynie didn’t mind.

Then things got a little serious. As her mother poured ingredients into a bowl, she talked about some bad people and a fight. All this happening right under her nose and she didn’t know it? That was terrible spy behavior. Nancy Drew would be disappointed in her. “A fight? Was anyone hurt? What were they fighting over?” She knew she couldn’t grill her mother for too much information, because it was clearly upsetting to Flo, but she figured how could she keep her wits about her if she didn’t know?

The question about Alaska caught her off guard, “Uhmmm… A surprise?” Gwynie giggled a little. She didn’t have anything particular in mind, but her mom always had good ideas.

[Florence Bryant]

Giving Gwynie a spin, the woman leant over and lifted her daughter in the air with a grunt, before giving her a tight hug. "You know, when you were five you were so tiny I could put you on my shoulders and not even notice you were there." Flo set her down and gave her a playful prod and poke at her sides. "Now look at you! It's all this cake, I reckon." She made a face and grinned, starting to shake the flour-salt-soda mix into the creamed sugar and butter.

"I can't really tell you much, hon." She admitted a little sadly in regards to the MSAD situation, pausing the mixer to give her daughter a serious look. "The bad people took James and Niko. Some of the nice people at work got a little ruffled up, but no one is hurt TOO bad except for Mr. Tonaya." She hesitated, opening the fridge to get the eggs out ready for Gwynie to crack into the bowl when she turned the mixer back on. "Basically, some bad people think metas deserve better rights, which of course they do." The lawyer in her swelled up with pride. "But they were hurting non meta people, like you! Like Mr. Weaver and even our Aikido instructor." She ran her hands through her hair, leaving smears of flour in it.

"Anyway, Gwynie, if anyone starts acting a little weird around you, run if you can, or remember what our sensei said and protect yourself." As a mother, Flo's fears would come alive at the thought of her daughter being taken away from her. "If you feel scared, go to someplace really public, like a cafe or to the mall. They can't possibly do bad stuff there."

Taking a deep breath and turning the mixer back on, Flo managed to return back to normal, and held out one of the eggs. "Gonna crack these eggs then?" She smiled, then arched an eyebrow. "Lets try and avoid getting shell in there this time." As for a surprise for Gwynie? Well, Flo decided that the puppy coming next weekend would be a big enough surprise for her, and maybe she'd just get her a cute little polar bear plushie. "Sunday, we're having a pajama day, okay? I feel like slobbing it." Which, in turn, meant the icecream was coming out - Flo's absolute favourite, cookie dough and brownie pieces. She'd bought a litre tub of the stuff a while back, but considering Monday she was flying off, she thought she could do with a chill out day with her little girl.

[Gwynie Bryant]

Gwynie shrieked with laughter as Flo swept her up in the air for a hug. “Mama~!” She laughed, “Well, maybe if I wasn’t so good at making cakes.” She poked her mother’s side as well, giggling and dancing away from her mother’s tickling fingers.

She listened carefully as Flo told her the situation. This was serious. She counted James and Chase and Niko as part of her family! She’d met Mr. Tonaya before. He was so nice, why would anyone wanna hurt him? She wiped some flour off the bridge of her nose, “But…they ended up just hurting more metas. James and Niko…are meta. Did they hurt non-metas at all?” This was so confusing to a twelve-year-old girl who had never experienced prejudice or hatred in the quiet little life she lived. “Why didn’t they just…do what Mr. Neville used to do and go to protests?” She was pretty sure Dr. Neville had never hurt anyone ever. So why couldn’t they just do that. She scratched the back of her head, “I don’t get how hurting people is going to make people like metas better.” She looked up at her mother, asking for some clarification and direction. She knew her mother didn’t know everything, but this seemed like something Gwynie ought to try to figure out.

Her eyes widened slightly when her mother more or less told her she could use her aikido on people if she felt afraid. "This was some big deal, huh? Why didn't we get the police?"

“Oooh yay!” She smiled, “Pajama day with ice cream?” She loved pajama day with ice cream. “We should watch an old movie. I don’t know which one though.” She was usually torn between Disney movies and old classic movies. They were both so romantic.

[Florence Bryant]

"Oh, planning on going solo in the baking business without your Ma? I see how it is!" Flo pretended to sob, dabbing away a fake tear. She couldn't keep the act up for long though, with Gwynie's prods causing her to squeal and wiggle away.

Sighing at her daughter's next questions, she pulled the kitchen chairs out and patted one. "They decided because we liked non-metas, we were just as bad as the non meta people." She said softly, cupping her daughter's face and frowning a little. "The leader was a nasty man who hurt James to try and get some special documents from the school to recruit more little kids to his cause. When Chase found out, he was upset and he accidentally hurt the leader very badly." She paused, giving her daughter's hand a squeeze. "That made the other members angry and they attacked our friends for revenge. I don't know why they think they will make things right by being violent." Flo shrugged gently.

"Sometimes people just get fed up going through the normal methods. There are extreme people out there, think of it like people who hate and really like different american football teams. Some fans are okay and they ignore the fans that like the rival team, other fans riot and get angry at each other." Flo tucked Gwynie's hair behind her ear. "The police didn't have enough on these people to arrest them." She added, taking a deep sigh and nodding.

"Lets get this cake going then, sweetheart. We can eat it and if you wanna talk more about it tonight we'll have a little pow wow on the living room floor and I'll see if I can give you some better answers." Florence turned to the recipe book. "Okay, after the eggs, we need vanilla essence and we need to melt some chocolate and pour it in." Setting up a water bath, the young mum broke up the chocolate and placed it in the top bowl, stirring it while it melted.

"Why don't we watch Breakfast at Tiffany's?" She offered, grinning. "I love Audrey Hepburn." She swooned, her style idol when she was much younger had helped her conduct herself like a lady - most of the time.

[Gwynie Bryant]

“Heee, yup!” Gwynie giggled, “I didn’t want to tell you like this. But I’m taking the cake business. All for myself.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically, before dissolving back into giggles as she tickled her mother.

Her giggles subsided as she took in this new information. “But…Hm…” She thought about this. Even in her sheltered life, she knew that people could be kind of stupid, and in her opinion, this leader guy seemed like he made some pretty stupid decisions. Suddenly, a thought struck her, “Wait, Chase hurt that guy? Is he gonna get in trouble?” she didn’t think trainers were supposed to go off and fight terrorists. She was pretty sure there were specialists for that. She furrowed her brow worriedly.

“Yeah well…” Gwynie muttered, suddenly annoyed that these terrorists had to go and be so inconsiderate, hurting James and Chase and turning everyone’s life upside down. “Is Nikki okay?”

“Sure!” Gwynie went to go fetch the vanilla as Flo started to melt the chocolate. The preteen smiled as the smell of chocolate filled the room and mingled with the regular smell of flowers and clean clothes. She loved her house and her quiet life with Flo. Even though it sometimes got a little too quiet.

“Oooh yes please!” Gwynie grinned, tossing her hair back to stay out of the way of the mix, “I love that movie. And I love her. She’s so classy.”

[Florence Bryant]

"Well, that's my heart broken into tiny pieces!" Flo moaned, clasping her hand over her chest and pretending to fall down and die dramatically. Of course, she popped her head up and grinned over at Gwynie after a few moments of lying still, and moved to stir the chocolate again.

When Gwynie asked further questions, Flo tilted her head and assessed the best answer to give her daughter. "No, he's not going to get into trouble." She assured her daughter, beginning to pour the chocolate into the mix with the other ingredients. "I'm just hoping it's over now." She added, scraping the bowl and then rinsing it under the sink, before popping it into the dishwasher.

"Nikki's fine. Just a little shaken up." Flo leant on the side then paused, before snapping her fingers. "Hey, why don't we get them some flowers later to cheer them up?" She said brightly, giving her daughter a hug. "We can pick them together and go deliver them to them in person. How about that?" She hoped that would stop Gwynie feeling so worried, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Checking she really had set the oven to the right temperature, Flo grabbed the two cake tins and then bounced on the balls of her feet. "Okay hon, we need two teaspoons of vanilla essence. Then we can pour this out into the two tins." She grinned over at her daughter and moved out of the way so she could pour the vanilla in.

"Then we'll have some time to waste while these bake and cool - wanna grab the nail polish and face masks?" Flo asked brightly. She loved Saturdays so much, especially when they were at home with her daughter.