Chapter Four: Party Time

Welcome back!  If you don't mind, I'd like to know what you think of the length of the chapters.  Too long?  Too short?  I hope they aren't too short, I don't take enough pictures to make them much longer and have more than three chapters a generation...But it occurred to me that maybe they might be too long.  Anyways, let me know.

Also, if anyone is familiar with blogger, which I just started using, is there a way to shift the text and pictures further to the left?  Right now I just put a bunch of text up here at the top to push the pictures down so the right sidebar doesn't cover them up with text, but well, each post makes that sidebar longer...

Enjoy!

Alan couldn't believe that his oldest son was going to be a teenager.  As they waited for the guests of their popular son's party to arrive, Alan cuddled up with Bianca.  Had it really been so long since she moved in with him?  He found that hard to believe.

 Of course, the moment Marlin ran inside, declaring that it was time for cake and if they would just please hurry up and come outside so he could blow out his candles, they laughed and got up.  Most of Marlin's friends were a bit older than him, so most of the guests were already teenagers.

 There were a few children who were younger, but not by much.  Not everybody cheered Marlin on at the cake either.  There was some sort of clumsy cluster on the porch, and one of the guests had apparently broken the rules of his grounding to come to the party, to the dismay of his mother who had come to fetch him.  At least she took him off to the side to berate him, instead of ruining the party for everyone.

 Marlin grew into a handsome young man and was quick to move the party inside after feasting on cake, taking full advantage of Alan's love of music to present the biggest dance party the house had ever seen.  Probably.

 Alan made sure that the young man (who seemed to have influenced Marlin's choice of pants) had gotten permission to stay at the party when he saw him still there, even getting his mother's phone number to call and double check.  Alan was happy to let children and teens have fun, but he wasn't going to be party to one breaking the rules!

 Bianca for her part wandered around the party, making sure nobody wanted anything.  She was perfectly willing to make some drinks for everyone, though they would of course be legal for teens.  Before too long Alan and Bianca retreated to their bedroom, letting the party go on without them.  Marlin was perfectly trustworthy, and besides, Richard was out there as well and would no doubt come telling his parents if anything untoward started happening.

 After some consultation with Bianca, Alan had settled on a gift for Marlin that he gave him as the guests began to leave.  It was an ivory wand, much better than the basic one that all witches were able to obtain, free of cost.  Marlin was very happy with it, which made Alan happy.  Even if it did involve magic.

 Not all of the guests left right away.  Ladonna, in particular.  She seemed ready to stay all day, but Marlin didn't mind carrying the party one, and Richard was having fun "commanding the peasants to dance for his amusement", so Alan didn't say anything and just went about helping Bianca clean up after the party.

One rite of passage that a teen faced as learning to drive.  Bianca deferred the dubious honor of teaching their sons how to drive to Alan, based on the fact that she had never drove in her life, unless you counted bicycles and brooms.  So Alan had to spend far more time than he liked in a truck that kept jerking to a stop, terrified that his son would run it into a tree.  Thankfully, Marlin picked it up pretty quickly and by the time Alan declared him ready to drive on his own it wasn't terrifying to be in the same vehicle.

 Bianca continued to moonlight at Vargs' Tavern and then complain to Alan about how everyone was pregnant or underage.  Or dead, but really, even Alan had gotten used to seeing ghosts when he left the house.

 Marlin's new-found teenager-hood didn't trouble the relationship between him and his younger brother either.  Marlin would even consent to playing games he had otherwise outgrown, just to keep Richard happy.  Alan was happy about this, because his younger son didn't seem to be as popular as Marlin.  He still had a few friends, but nowhere near as many as Marlin, and he spent far more time at home.

 When a random drawing selected Alan and Bianca as the winners of a free vacation, they decided to go.  It could be the honeymoon they never got, and they both felt Marlin was responsible enough to watch the house and make sure Richard was okay for a few days.

 And Marlin was responsible enough.  He even paid the bills on time, cleaned up the newspapers out front, and made simple foods for himself and Richard.

 But Marlin was a teenager, and he did have a lot of friends, so it should have been obvious that a party would be occurring while they were gone.

 All of his friends were though, all of them now teenagers now too.  Marlin might have been unruly enough to throw a party in his parent's absence, after ensuring a promise from Richard that he wouldn't tell (especially after Marlin had promised to take him to see a movie), but he was well-behaved enough to keep it from getting too far out of hand, or too loud.

 A few of his friends didn't get along with one another, but for the most party everybody was having fun.  Marlin even asked Toni to go to the upcoming formal, considering she was the only girl out his group of friends that didn't have a date.  Marlin would have been fine going on his own, but he knew Toni was upset about being left out.

 With Royal Richard presiding over the party, pizza was ordered for everybody and the party began to wind down.  Mostly because it was the wee hours of the morning and everybody was exhausted.  Marlin had to remind Richard that they had school tomorrow, which was enough to get Richard (who loved excelling in school) to go to bed.

 After two of his friends transformed into werewolves and started fighting (perhaps a full moon wasn't the best night for the party), Marlin decided it was time for the party to end and started directing his friends home.  He didn't want to be caught after all.

 Richard would keep his promise not to tattle on Marlin, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to pull a little trick anyways.  After all, none of Richard's friends had been able to come to the party.

 Marlin was good natured about it, if he did chase Richard around with the dye for a few moments, before realizing none of the windows had curtains and he was still stark naked.

 After breakfast the morning their parents were due to return, the boys made the house spotless, just to make sure no remains of the party could be found.

 After their honeymoon, Alan and Bianca were pleased to find the house so clean.  Alan was happy that they could trust their boys to behave while gone, and began to consider letting them host their own birthday parties and slumber parties without such great supervision as they had previously been given.

 Bianca was finally finding her skill at making drinks useful, as Moonlight Falls suddenly seemed to become a popular tourist destination.  It turned out that Alan's music, while not terribly famous in Moonlight Falls, had made him a Pop Icon in foreign countries and his fans liked his music enough to travel all the way to Simland and Moonlight Falls to see him in person.

 The night of the formal finally arrived, and Alan laid out a few rules for Marlin before he left, after finishing his homework.  When he looked back on it, Alan realized he had been more nervous than Marlin.

 Outside, Bianca and Toni conspired to come up with something for Bianca to wear to the formal.  Marlin had confided a few days prior that Bianca lived in a group home, her parents having passed when she was young, and she didn't have many clothing options.

 She seemed happy enough with what they were able to come up with, though Alan secretly thought that her everyday outfit had been a better choice.  Then again, how would he know?  Teenagers dressed oddly whenever anybody who wasn't a teenager took a look at their fashion.

 Alan found himself staring out the window late into the night, waiting for Marlin to return.  He considered getting some curtains, after realizing that the foreign attention paid to him and started to make him something of a celebrity in Moonlight Falls and paparazzi were beginning to stake out his home.

 During the formal, Marlin and Toni began dating.  It turned out they had quite a bit in common.  Unsurprisingly to Alan, popular Marlin was also voted Prom King.

 After that night, Marlin spent a great deal more time with Toni.  They would stay out just until curfew before rushing back to their homes.  Alan trusted Marlin enough to believe him when he said they just watched the stars after swimming.

 Toni loved swimming, and Marlin was perfectly willing to do something that made Toni happy.  So they spent quite a bit of time at the pool.  Marlin sometimes worried that he would turn into a prune, or a fish, spending so much time in water.

 When he was at home, which was increasingly less often the older he got, he could often be found practicing magic.  Bianca was very happy, gushing to Alan about how Marlin was even better at magic than she was now.  After the first time he'd walked in on Marlin practicing in the main room, he'd asked him to please practice magic in his own room, or elsewhere.  It still made Alan nervous.

 If he was practicing magic in the main room, Alan and Bianca couldn't dance anyways.  It embarrassed their kids, but what parent doesn't enjoy embarrassing their children every now and then?  Besides, the two of them were really good at dancing.

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Bonus Pictures!

 

Seriously, this is Toni Redding.  Remember the slumber party from last chapter?  Yea, when Toni showed up for Marlin's birthday like this, I sat there staring at my screen.  "What?  No way!  Toni is a boy!"  Nope.  Toni is a girl.  Rather pretty too.

Ladonna Brown is really pretty too.  I thought about hooking her up with Marlin, but right after his birthday she went and hooked up with Grounded Guy (I can't remember his name....).  It would have been interesting to get some werewolf blood into this family...Oh well, plenty more chances.

After the second time he did his homework as a teen, Marlin started completing it the moment he sat down.  I'm playing it off as magic, but I'm not sure why he's doing that.  Does anybody else know?  I don't want it to spread to all the teens in my town.  I hate homework as much as the next simmer, but it kind of feels like cheating to have it done instantly....