Okay friends! I AM BACK! I just realized how much I love this story and need to start it up again! It now goes to when Thom is a young child and Aly and Alan will soon be born! YAY!

Alanna and George of Pirate's Swoop had just been woken up form a deep sleep by a scream. Right when Alanna put a hand to her sword, she remembered that it was normal for a toddler to scream. And Thom was now three years old. How she loved that little boy...

She was jolted out of her dreams by a second scream. She sighed and got up, remembering that it was George's birthday, and thinking that she should let him sleep in on his birthday.

Alanna put her feet on the ground before remembering that stone floors were usually cold, even in the middle of summer. She hopped up and down, making minimal contact with the floor. She hopped into the adjoining room, where she saw her young boy, Thom. He smiled.

"Mommy! I want a smack!"

Alanna smiled. "Are you sure you don't want a snack?"

"I said dat! Smack!"

Alanna smiled, picking him up and resting him on her hip. "Fine, let's go to the kitchen."

It was early morning, and the kitchen was up and alive by seven-thirty. Soon Thom was in a chair, happily munching away on a carrot. Alanna smiled before walking up to her room.

She was almost to her room when her stomach churned and she threw up, all over the floor. What could be wrong? She hadn't eaten anything strange, and there was no sickness going around the Swoop. But she had thrown up...

Oh no. Could it be? Alanna ran off to find Elaine Copper, who was visiting her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.

George was woken up by an awful screech. He thought at first that it was the baby Thom, but after listening a minute longer, realized that it was too high-pitched to be his baby boy. Frightened, George pulled his dagger from the secret pocket in his pajamas and went into the hall. He followed the sound to it's source, in his mother's rooms. He knocked on the door, and , after no response except for te scream that was still coming, quickly took a lock-pick fromanother secret pocket in his pajamas and picked the lock so that the door swung inward.

He crept inside, following the sound to what was called the Healer's room. Inside, he saw the source of the scream, his beloved Alanna, and his mother, grimacing as she held her hands over her ears.

Alanna abruptly stopped screaming when George entered the room, deciding apparently to hit him instead. She ran up to him, pounding her small hands on his chest and screaming, "How dare you, George! WHY! Why, why, why!"

George was, of course, completely unsure of why Alanna was hitting him and screaming at him, and so had a very confused look on his face. So he took her hands in his and asked, calmly, "Okay, love, what's the matter?"

Alanna sighed dramatically, mumbling under her breath. "Well, of course you wouldn't know. It's only me having to walk around with a huge stomach for another nine months, but that wouldn't concern you at all."

George looked a bit confused, but he finally understood what Alanna was saying. "You don't mean to say that...that you're having a baby! What's wrong with that?"

Alanna laughed hysterically. "No, I'm not having a baby, not with a Y. That would be nice. I'm having babies. As in IES. As in more than one. I'm having TWINS!" She stopped and began to pant, out of breath from her rant.

"Twins? We're having twins? Alanna, that's wonderful! No, that's GLORIOUS!" George began to do a happy little jig.

And, once again, Alanna screeched at the top of her lungs.