Diclaimer: I don't own FMA! Although, I do have a rather nice scarf. I call it Scarfy. Is that FMA? :3

Notes: Next chapter! Yaay! This one has been kicking along, bit by bit. I'm not sure what writing the next chapter is going to be like, but at least I already know what it's going to be. Huzzah for planning! Thank you for your patience, lovely readers o' mine.

Chapter Eleven: In Which Lions Are Not Jaguars

Most days of Addy Mustang's life could be separated into one of two categories – or several of hordes of categories, if you went for the finicky approach. They could be separated into weekends and weekdays, or into healthy days and sick days, or into school days and holidays, good days and naughty days, fussy days and couldn't-care-less days, fruit days and ice-cream days, friend days and family days, or even sunny days, cloudy days, windy days, rainy days and – on the rare occasion – hail days. This time, however, Addy was choosing to categorise her day by her 'boring or exciting' method.

Today was an exciting day.

It had started out like a boring day, because Georgia wasn't there, so Addy had to sit next to Finn for English. Finn was a fun enough friend in the playground, but during class, Addy and Georgia could sign to each other without the teacher noticing. Georgia was mute, too – she had been in an accident when she was six years old – but Finn was almost totally deaf. That meant that he could hear loud noises, but not soft ones. Sometimes when he signed he would mumble, and the teacher would hear and tell them off for talking. So they didn't talk much in class, and English was boring without Georgia.

At recess, though, things picked up. Not straight away. First, she fell over and dropped her apple onto the concrete. While she escaped injury, her poor apple got bruised and she didn't want to eat it anymore. But then, after that, Owen Churchill smiled at her. Addy knew he hadn't seen her fall over, because she had been outside on her way back from the toilets then, so she smiled back and sat down feeling not as annoyed as she had been a moment ago.

After recess she had Art class. Art was a lot more fun than English, even without Georgia at school. It was Addy's best subject. She didn't mind drawing – which was good, because it was what they usually had to do in Art classes – but Addy really liked painting best.

There was one Art class a while ago, when Mr. Horder had taken them to a sculpting class in Ferndale, and everyone had made their own cups. Addy had quite liked moulding the clay, and tracing light patterns into the cup with a pencil. She used a few colours to give it some personality, but had been displeased with the result when they were handed back their cups in normal Art class a week later, and the colours had all brightened in the kiln. She had painted it with the duller colours in mind – if she wanted bright colours she would have found some that went together better.

This week, they were painting. Mr. Horder directed everyone to take out their pencils, paints and brushes, and to choose an easel. There were small canvasses at each easel. Addy had been told that in normal schools classes were a lot bigger than the ones at her school, and she couldn't help but wonder at the impracticality of having so many students when it came to Art classes. Mr. Horder had said earlier in the year, when she asked, that the reason they did painting so infrequently was because the canvasses cost too much to buy new ones for each class, every month. Addy had mentioned it at home, and Daddy came into school a little later, and since then, they'd had painting once every three or so weeks, instead of twice a term.

"Jordy," Mr. Horder said sternly, to get the mute girl's attention. He then instructed the class in sign-language that today they were trying to paint a picture of an animal that would fit in with the rainforest theme they had going. They were studying all sorts of rainforest things in HSIE – Human Studies in the Environment – and this was their way of involving it in their other subjects as well.

They were supposed to use their pencils to lightly draw the rough shape of the animal onto their canvas, and then they'd use paint to go over it and do it properly. Addy didn't like doing it this way. She preferred to just use paints, because pencils were so tiny and fidgety, and all of her pictures were wobbly. She thought it wasn't as noticeable with her paintings, but that could also be because she was more confident with them, so her hand didn't wobble nearly as much.

So, instead of following the teacher's orders, she quietly squirted a little paint out onto her makeshift palette – an ice-cream container lid – and started dabbing at it with her brush.

When Mr. Horder announced that everyone should have finished their outlines by now, and needed to start painting, Addy had already finished her squiggly snake and had started on the grass around him.

"Wow," Finn said, with the usual slur to his voice, "that looks good."

Addy stepped back and gave him a grin, since her hands were full.

A last glance at her painting told her that it had enough grass, and she went off to start cleaning out her brush. When she came back, Finn was trying to make his lion look less squashed and in pain.

Addy tried to tell him that lions didn't live in rainforests.

Finn frowned at her, and said a little too loudly, "Yes they do. Those spotted ones. I can't do spotted lions, so I just drawed it normal."

She told him to be quiet, because he sounded like her little sister, and that spotted lions were jaguars, not lions.

This made Finn turn to his painting angrily, face flushed red. He swiped a big, tawny-brown streak of paint over his lion, thrusting the brush in hard so the bristles splayed out. Without looking at Addy again, he went and dropped his brushes loudly in the sink, then stormed out of the class.

Feeling a little guilty, Addy looked blankly at the door and then at Finn's canvas. If he hadn't made it a male lion it could almost have passed for a jaguar. It was ruined now, of course, and there wasn't really anything she could do about that, so Addy went over to Mr. Horder, where he was watching over Will's work, and told him that Finn had left the room.

Mr. Horder looked around to verify what she had just said, and then told Addy he'd be right back, before striding out the door.

Two minutes later, he returned with Finn walking sullenly in front of him. "Time to pack up," Mr. Horder announced, and the handful of mute students looked up. "Let the person beside you know, and make sure you wash your brushes properly."

While everyone started clearing away their things, Addy put her brushes back into her pencil case. Mr. Horder was talking with Finn in the corner, so Addy went and found where Finn had dropped his brushes and started washing them up for him.

When Mr. Horder had finished with him, Finn shuffled over to Addy and took his brushes from her with one hand, thanking her with the other. Addy bit her lip and let him know it was a good lion, just that they didn't live in the rainforest. There was a reluctant shrug, and Finn turned away to take care of his own things.

So in a way, Art hadn't been as fun as usual, but it was definitely not boring.

After Art was Maths. For Maths Addy sat with Hannah and Giselle. Hannah and Giselle were more of classroom friends than playground friends, but on days like this when Georgia was away, Addy found herself gravitating towards them. Especially since Finn still seemed to be in a taking.

When it was time for lunch, Addy munched away on her tomato sandwich (the bread and tomato had been packed separately in her lunchbox, so that the sandwich wasn't soggy by the time she ate it) and found herself enthralled by the way the other girls managed to hold their sandwiches with one hand and talk with the other. Whenever she tried to do that, slices of her tomato fell out from between the bread and dropped onto the floor. She tried twice, but gave up when she found that half of her sandwich didn't have any fillings anymore.

On her way out of the classroom, when the students had been informed that they were allowed to go out and play, Addy found Will tapping on her shoulder. He asked her if she wanted to come and play soccer with the boys. There was a moment in which she was about to say no, but then she saw that behind Will, Owen was getting a soccer ball out of his bag.

Addy gave a quick 'okay' and went to ask Hannah and Giselle if they wanted to join in. She found the girls outside, putting on their hats.

While Giselle seemed eager enough to play, Hannah shook her head quickly. Then, when Giselle tried to say maybe she wouldn't, after all, Hannah acquiesced and said that as long as she didn't have to do a lot of running around, she would join them.

By the end of lunch Addy was puffed, red-cheeked, and grinning widely.

Once, she had put out her hand to stop the ball as it flew past, and the boys had made a fuss about that, but it was just because she forgot the rules. She knew she wasn't supposed to touch it with her arms, because Mummy had told her that when they watched one of Daddy's games – she had just forgotten that little detail when she was playing.

In the middle of lunch time, Addy had got the ball and managed to take it almost all the way up to the other end of the field before one of the boys stole it off her. She was still quite proud of the distance she had managed to get past all of the other boys. She had even managed to run past Owen! And at the end of the game he told her that she played good, for a girl, but that was to be expected because of her dad.

The rest of the day passed quickly. Finn wasn't very talkative, but he didn't completely ignore her, and Giselle disclosed that she actually quite liked David – that made Addy wrinkle up her nose, because David could be horrid when he wished to be – but Giselle wasn't allowed to date yet, so she wasn't going to ask him out. When the school day was over and Addy went to find her grandparents, Owen actually said goodbye to her. Sadly, that part of the day went quickest of all.

At her grandparents' house, Grandma made Addy wash her hands before she was allowed to have afternoon tea. And then when Grandpa asked her how her day was, Grandma told Addy not to talk with food in her hands. She couldn't really help it – Xingian sweets were sticky, and even if you opened your hand and held it upside down, they'd stick to your fingers until you sucked them off.

Grandma and Grandpa knew a little bit of sign-language. Not as much as Mummy and Daddy, but they knew enough that Addy could tell them some things about her morning, and for any words they were unfamiliar with, she could spell them out or use her notepad. Grandpa liked her to use her notepad, because his eyes weren't as good as they used to be, and he couldn't keep up with the way her hands moved sometimes. She had to go really slow or write it down, so it was just easier to write, really.

At four o'clock Mummy arrived with Bianca. Normally, Daddy picked Addy up on his way back from training, but sometimes Mummy would come around, and she always brought the baby. Grandma and Grandpa fussed over Bianca for a little while, saying things about how much she was growing.

Addy used the time to go and give her mother a hug, which Mummy returned until she realised Addy still had sticky hands.

"Careful – don't touch anything, or it could get sticky too."

Addy assured her mother that she had been careful not to – she hugged Mummy with her arms, not with her fingers.

Mummy smiled, and stroked Addy's hair. "Good girl. If you're finished eating, wash your hands. You have lovely smooth hands when they're not sticky."

With a sigh, Addy went off to wash her hands. It seemed that all adults required that the first thing for a child to do in their presence was to wash their hands.

Later that afternoon, at home, when Daddy got back from training, Addy approached him curiously. Not about the washing-of-the-hands ritual adults required, but rather about much more important matters.

She asked him if he could teach her how to play soccer properly.

"Since when have you been interested in soccer?" he asked good-naturedly.

She replied with a simple 'since forever', after all, he'd always played soccer, and she did quite like her father. That counted.

They put together a set of goals in the backyard – a Frisbee and Addy's jacket on one side, and Daddy's drink bottle and a pool toy on the other, three big steps apart from each other on opposite ends of the lawn – and Daddy found a ball to play with, dropping it at his feet.

"Okay, these are the boundaries," Daddy told her, pointing out the pool gate, and a little ditch towards the back of the yard. "If the ball goes past those points, the person who didn't kick it out gets to take it from there. You're not allowed to touch the ball with your hands. Those are the only rules you need for two-player soccer. Ready?"

She was.

Fifteen minutes later she was sitting on the grass, breathing heavily and clutching at the stitch in her side. Addy had told him not to go easy on her when she scored for the third time, and now she regretted that choice of words. She could have just told him to make it a little bit harder.

Daddy laughed behind her, and a moment later he came into her line of vision, kicking the soccer ball so that it rolled lazily to her side. Addy grabbed it and put it on her lap.

He held out a hand. "Come on – up you get!"

Allowing herself to be heaved to her feet, Addy dropped the ball and brushed the grass off her back before nudging her father to get his attention. Then she asked him a very important question. How old did she have to be before she could have a boyfriend?

For a moment Addy kept walking when Daddy had stopped, but she halted and turned to face him. The shocked expression he wore didn't seem to bode well for her aspirations.

"Tha- that shouldn't be much of an issue now, right?" he asked, brows drawing together and eyes widening slightly. His hands twitched up from his sides, and he added – in sign-language – the lingering question that unless there was some boy she liked . . ?

Addy liked it when her parents spoke to her in sign-language. They never used sign-language for their arguments, so it was like a safe little fortress for her. Also, she knew they were definitely talking to her, this way. It was more personal, and intimate.

She chewed her lip, not knowing how much to reveal to her father, but eventually admitted that she didn't know if 'he' liked her, too.

Looking up in time to see her father's eyes bulge, Addy wondered if she should have asked Mummy instead. Mummy could be strict sometimes, but she was good at knowing what it was like to be a girl. Unlike Daddy. He was barely better than 'hopeless', and Mummy said that was because he had so many girlfriends before her. That just made Daddy say, "But I didn't marry any of them, did I?" and Mummy rolled her eyes at that, even though she was smiling.

Finally, Daddy's hands moved. He asked what the boy was like.

Addy grinned up at him. Yes, today was an exciting day.

Note: When Roy went in to Addy's school after Addy mentioned the short supply of canvasses, no, he didn't give them a stern talking-to. He was donating some money to the school to put towards art supplies. Addy doesn't know that because he didn't really mention it to her. He doesn't feel the need to advertise what he does with his money.

Ooh, and I almost forgot! I've drawn a picture of the SSSS!Mustang family all together. You can find it at this address, minus the spaces, but with all punctuation:

http: / /dailenna. deviantart. com/art/SSSS-Roy-Riza-Addy-Bianca-83847139