Chapter 523

From arriving in a luxury van to marching around with an entourage of bodyguards and staff, Maria’s whole display was ostentatious and arrogant. At first, people were interested in getting a photo or an autograph because she was a celebrity, but after being shooed away by her people, the charm wore off.
Everyone had seen what just happened.
“We were all focused on the competition. We didn’t see a thing.”
“The teachers were right there at the end of the row. They must have seen it.”
“I don’t know, they’re all wearing glasses. Their eyesight probably isn’t very good.”
Hearing this, Maria was furious. When she looked at the teachers, they hemmed and hawed for a moment before finally saying they hadn’t seen anything either.
Maria gritted her teeth. “So you’re all blind, is that it? Fine, stay blind!”
With that, she rushed to Penelope’s basket, intending to give her a taste of her own medicine, but she couldn’t lift it because it was too heavy.
After several attempts, she yelled for a bodyguard.
As the bodyguard approached, Penelope blocked him and turned to the teachers. “If we get into a fight, I imagine that would have an impact on your kindergarten’s reputation, wouldn’t it?”
The three teachers rushed over and blocked the bodyguard together.
“This isn’t appropriate!”
Maria’s eyes widened. “She stole our tomatoes, and that’s appropriate?”
“But… but Queena stole from them first
“You’re lying!”
“We all saw it.”
Humiliated, Maria furiously kicked the basket of tomatoes, then grabbed Queena and stormed off.
“What a stupid game! There are no rules! We’re not playing anymore!”
After chasing off Maria and her daughter, Julian lost interest too. Without finishing the competition, he asked Penelope to go play somewhere else.
The farm was vast, with many different kinds of crops.
The two of them found a strawberry patch. After getting permission from the owner, they went in and picked a basketful. They paid for the strawberries and then went
small river nearby to wash and eat
them.

It was late spring, early summer, and the weather was perfectly mild. The grass was
lush and green. Sitting there, eating strawberries and basking in the sun, was incredibly pleasant.
“How old is your son?” Julian asked.
Penelope was caught off guard for a second. “About the same age as you.”
“Six?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Does he ever get sad about not having a dad?”
Penelope paused. “I don’t think so.”
Hubert was a happy-go-lucky kid, always cheerful. She had always assumed that as he got older, he would eventually ask the inevitable question: “Why do all the other kids have dads, but I don’t?”
But he was already six, in his last year of kindergarten, and still hadn’t asked.
Worried he might be bottling it up, afraid to ask, she had once brought it up intentionally.
Hubert had looked confused for a long time before saying, “Does everyone have to have a dad? Kristin doesn’t, Max doesn’t, and neither does Buster.”
Max was their dog, and Buster was a pig…
Penelope decided it was best to wait until Hubert was a bit older before telling him everything.
“But I have a lot of problems because I don’t have a mom.”
Hearing this, Penelope felt a pang of pain in her heart.
“What… what kind of problems?”
“Too many people want to be my mom. I don’t know which one to choose!”
“Huh?”
“They’re all crazy about my dad and want to marry him, so they try all sorts of ways to win me over. I have to choose a new mom from among all these women, so of course have to be careful And being careful involves investigating their backgrounds. The workload is
enormous. I’m exhausted.”
Penelope’s mouth twitched. If he conducted a formal investigation, compiled spreadsheets, and
assessed the suitability of
mel
potential aunt, she couldn’t imagine the process for choosing a new mother.