All About Frost

A/N: This chapter is focussed more on Frost than anybody else in the household. I promise there will be more Mulberry in the next chapter!

“Happy birthday, Frost, my darling. Make a wish,” Linn murmured to her youngest boy, leaning towards the candles.

Frost, having been told in advance about the candles he had to blow out, clapped his hands with glee, and tried his best to extinguish the flames.

In the end, though, Linn had to help him, not that she let him realise that.

“Mama, sparkles?”

“Yes, darling, time for sparkles.” She placed him on the floor to watch and wait for the sparkles to do their thing. As they were waiting, Linn’s mind began to meander. Mulberry was supposed to be the one celebrating Frosts birthday, as she was supposed to be going to work. She was still in her pajamas, for goodness’ sake! Instead, she’d gotten a phone call last minute, with Mulberry hurriedly informing her that he was stuck at work as the person due for the next shift hadn’t shown up, so he had to cover for them. Well, at least he’s not over at Danica’s house, for once. Linn liked Danica Crowe, their babysitter and her eldest sons girlfriend, but Mulberry was with her a bit too much for her liking.

 

“Mama, SPARKLES!” Frost yelling excitedly at her drew her from her rambling thoughts, and she clapped, watching as the sparkles spun around her son, and then dissipated, revealing a child.

A child who immediately picked up his toy, Jelly Bean and ran off, yelling about a tea party. “You didn’t even have any cake, Frost!” She called into the living room, watching him as he placed Jelly Bean down, and ran back to get some cake for the both of them. “I was just putting JB down so that we could have some cake together, Mum!”

He rolled his eyes as he placed the cake and juice down on the floor. Linn shook her head at him, surprised. Every time Mulberry aged up, he’d raced off to the cupboard to change his clothes, and fix his hair up. Frost was too intent on playing.  Maybe I should try weaning him off of the toy…

—

Frost finished his cake, and Jelly Beans slice of cake as well, as she didn’t appear to be hungry. “It’s okay, JB, I know you don’t like cake.” He paused as if listening to it reply. “You can come to school with me! Mum won’t care!” Without waiting for her to reply, he stood up, “I need to pee. You stay there, okay?”

As he started towards the bathroom around the corner, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw … Was that JB getting bigger? What the-? Unfortunately, the need to empty his bladder took precedent over the crazy workings of his mind.

—

It turns out that it was Jelly Bean getting bigger. She wasn’t a doll anymore, much to Frosts delight. He’d always felt a little lonely, because his brother was so much older than him.

And now their mother was pregnant again, he felt even more lonely, realising that the new child would take away any attention he was getting from his parents at the moment.

As a birthday present, they’d emptied out the spare room and put in furniture and toys for him. They’d even given him a little toy oven so that he could make muffins for his and JB’s tea parties. Although his mum didn’t say it was for JB. In fact, the last time he’d even tried talking about Jelly Bean, she spazzed out, yelling at him, saying that Jelly Bean wasn’t real, and he needed to go out and play with real people, instead of an imaginary friend. Frost didn’t listen, because who needed them when JB was the best friend in the world?

He was playing in the sandpit one evening when he heard his parents talking in the living room. He shushed Jelly Bean to hear whether they were talking about anything interesting. It turned out that they were talking about him!

“River, what are we going to do? He doesn’t play with anybody else, or even try. It’s just jelly bean this and JB that. I’m worried that it’s unhealthy.”
“Linn, sweetie, I’m not sure what to do. I would suggest him going to a psychiatrist, but they might not work out too well. I don’t really want our son on drugs.”

Frost and JB were horrified, and they jumped up from the sandpit to run towards the house to get a better listen in.

“Well, what do we do, then?”
Frost heard his father sigh, and he knew it wouldn’t be good. “You won’t like this, but I signed him up for boarding school awhile, to see if he would get in. This way he would have a better start than Mulberry did, and maybe he’d be distracted from his toy.” There was a tense pause, “Frost got in, they want to send a shuttle over for him in the morning. I told them I’d talk to you and let them know tonight.”
“I wish you’d mentioned this to me earlier, River. I know you were doing it with his wellbeing in mind, but still. Ugh. I’m too sick and tired to even bother arguing with you over it. But I do think he should go. Which school was it?””
“Dribbledine Sports Academy. I thought the activity and the sport would distract him.”
“Okay.. Call the school and get the shuttle sent over.”

And.. Much to Frosts dismay, and despite his pleading and begging to be good and not talk to or about Jelly Bean anymore, he was sent off to his new boarding school.
Of course he’d be allowed phone calls, and visits every once in awhile, but the Sports academy were determined to drill out his unhealthy relationship with his imaginary friend.