News and Old Tales (Geronimo Stilton fanfiction)

14

As fate would have it, there was a knock at the front door of Thalia's house, and Thea walked in the next moment just when Thalia's tears had begun to abate.

"Hiya! Why the long snouts?" the youngest Stilton sibling asked as she spotted the tear streaks on both her brother's and Taimana's snouts.

"She's Thalia Stilton," Benjamin blurted out before anyone could say anything else.

He was still trying to process what had transpired between his uncle and Taimana. He had been so terrified that they had ended up in the home of some creep who had been stalking his uncle and aunt, and even his mother, who for a fact, wasn't alive anymore. And then, just like that, it had turned out that mouse was his second aunt, and the person that he had been named Benjamin Thales after, no less.

Upon hearing her nephew's statement, Thea looked over at Taimana, or rather, Thalia, with furrowed brows. "Yes, that would explain a few things," she murmured.

Then, she met Thalia's gaze with a tentative smile. "I don't remember much, to be honest. But- well, this might sound pathetic, but I still have a pink stuffed monkey in my bed after all these years. The one I got from you. I don't remember that day clearly. Just the feeling of waking up one morning with that stuffed toy beside me and one of my sisters gone. I missed you so."

Thalia nodded with wide, tear-glossy eyes. "I'm sorry," she said for what was not the first and certainly wouldn't be the last time that day.

However, Thea just shook her head. "Don't be. I'm sure you had your reasons. I just wanted to say that it was so hard losing you because you were important to me," she clarified in a soft voice.

Thalia drew in a long, shaky breath, then exhaled in the same manner, and some of the tension in her features seemed to melt away.

"I've got so much to explain," she then murmured.

"No. You don't owe us that," Thea shook her head with a kind smile.

"Perhaps not, but I would like to tell you, now that you are here, and the cat is out of the bag. What were the odds of you coming to Rarotonga on vacation anyway?" Thalia sighed with a pathetic half-laugh, half-sob.

Then, she cast an uneasy glance at Benjamin, and the youngest Stilton knew exactly what that meant; the adults wanted to talk in private.

"Yeah, I can go out for a walk or something. Serves me right for outing you," he sighed resignedly. Then, he turned to his uncle: "Can I take Rupes with me?"

"Just a moment," Geronimo answered, then stretched his paw out toward the pit bull. "Rupert, check."

Rupert took some moments to sniff his owner's paw, but he did not nudge it with his nose; he merely sat down in front of Geronimo, wagging his tail and looking up at him with the trademark pit bull-smile on his face.

"Good boy, good check," Geronimo praised him, whereafter he turned to Benjamin. "It seems that we're good for now, Ben. You can take him on a walk."

With that, Benjamin hopped down from the couch, signaling to Rupert to follow him, while Thalia was preparing to have what she assumed would be the hardest conversation of her entire life.

"Where do I even begin?" she muttered, carding one paw through her hair. She sighed deeply, then met Geronimo and Thea's gazes. "I have daughter," she stated without sugarcoating it. "She's twenty-four now".

Geronimo's eyes widened slightly as he quickly counted the years since Thalia's disappearance from the Stilton family in his mind. Thalia looked back at him, giving him a silent nod as a response to his unspoken question. "I was pregnant when I left," she confirmed verbally as well, her voice barely above a whisper.