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 Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:39 am
It wasn't like he thought it was stupid to want to go to the stars. Just not possible with the technology they had on Earth at the moment. They could get to the moon, but manning a ship farther out into space was more or less suicide.
Peter looked at her curiously when she didn't say that she wanted to be an astronaut. Well, why would she say 'the stars' then...? Strange...
He glanced over the book when she pointed out the castles to him, nodding in agreement with her. His own answer took a little while for him to decide. Where did he want to go if he could see only one place? Maybe Venice with its waterways and beautiful buildings, or maybe see the Aurora Borealis, or even the Great Wall of China. But those seemed like obvious places that he could see just by paying for a plane ticket. No, he wanted to go somewhere difficult to reach, somewhere that would be a challenge to reach.
"Machu Picchu," he said after a little while. "In Peru," he added, just in case the name was a little out of her reach. He knew a lot of people much older than both of them who raised an eyebrow at the name. "If I was alive in the ancient world, I'd want to see the Pharos, though... The giant lighthouse in Egypt." That would have been awesome to see.
"But I really want to go to the moon." It wasn't to indulge her... he really did want to go to the moon.
He nodded to the castles, "Do you like all castles, then...? Palaces or fortresses or both?" She seemed like the kind of girl to like castles from fairytales, like the one at Disney World, but she might surprise him.
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Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:05 pm
Machu Picchu? Machu Picchu. It sounded familiar and almost immediately the child started looking through the book again, her fingers carefully slipping over the pages as she turned them. She was staring at the pictures intently. She paused on the Blue Hole of Belize, finger lingering on the blue deep blue dot that covered the crystal clear ocean picture, before she moved on. It took her a few moments but she pointed to a picture of an old city-like infrastructure into a mountain.
"This place right?" She probably wouldn't have known what he had meant if she hadn't already looked through this book several times before on various trips to the library. She was well accustomed to many of the wonders at this point, although mostly by appearance and name. She still couldn't remember where a lot of things were, or a lot of the details that followed them like Peter could.
"You want to go to the moon!" She exclaimed, repeating him. "That's great. The Earth looks wonderful from space," she let slip. Peter would probably just assume she'd seen some television show, or a picture from a book that showed it but neither of those would do what she had seen justice. It was just amazing. She really hoped Peter would be able to the moon someday.
"All castles are wonderful," she said with a smile and a nod, thinking about all the princes and princesses that must have lived in them. She did love Disney castles, and ones from Fairytales, but where would they be without the real life ones? Sleeping Beauty's castle had been based off Neuschwanstein Castle, and many others; the Aladdin movie palace had also been based off reality. How could she not love something real when she loved it as a movie, or story?
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Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:24 pm
Peter nodded when she flipped open the book to the pace with the old Incan city on the mountain. "They're pretty sure it was a place for observing space. I mean, it's in the mountains, so it's a good place to start. But there's also a rock there that kept track of the calendar because one day of the year it looked as though the sun was sitting on top of it since there wasn't any shadow," he rambled, before making himself stop again. Ah, she might have already read all that in her book.
He did stare at her curiously again when she mentioned space, wondering what her deal was. Did she want to go into space or what? She wanted to go to the stars, but didn't want to be an astronaut. She liked how the Earth looked from space and thought it would be great for him to go to the moon. So what was up with that...?
"Peter!" a voice called to him from a couple rows away and he grimaced at the thought of leaving to go shopping or whatever else his mom wanted to do.
"I think I have to go," he told the strange girl as he got up from where he'd been sitting with her. "Maybe you'll get to go to them one day. The stars, I mean," he added with a shrug. He didn't see anything wrong with dreaming big.
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Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:59 pm
Ainsley was delighted she had found the right place in the book, taking in the additional information Peter had to share with her about it. She was imagining having to tell what day it was by using a rock on the ground and the sun in the sky. It wasn't easy to imagine not having at least the simplest analog clock in such a modern era. It was an interesting fact though, and Ainsley hadn't remember reading it in the book. Perhaps she had forgotten? Either way, the child nodded her head to him with a smile.
She was really enjoying her time with Peter so when she heard someone call his name she looked between her tower of books to the direction she had heard his name and then at him curiously. She was curious but she was quick to turn a small frown when he said he thought he had to go. It was too soon! He had only just got here...
"Oh," she said.
There was a pause.
"You too," she smiled. "You should go too!"
She stood, putting her book back down on her tower, getting ready to send Peter on his way and out of her tower. Soon the princess would be alone again, staring longingly out of the gap in the book tower for her prince to come. She'd had a nice visitor with tales and stories of faraway lands, and soon it would be time for the book to be closed on this chapter.
"You'll come again I hope!"
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 10:07 pm
Peter flashed the girl a small smile as he turned to head out of the aisle. "Yeah, sure... Maybe one day," he agreed, deciding he probably shouldn't mention how it would take years and years of schooling and luck and talent and all these things before he'd get the chance to go to the stars.
Maybe the stars she was interested was more metaphorical than anything else...?
Either way, he gave her a thumbs up to let her know he would remember to stop by sometime. Well, if she still had her books there. He didn't think the library was all that thrilled about children rearranging their books and stacking them in nearly unaccessible stacks. Really, what happened if someone wanted one at the bottom of the pile?
Ah well. It didn't really matter. But now he was going to have to convince his parents to let him go to space camp.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 8:53 pm
Ainsley watched him go a bit solemnly until he was completely out of sight and then she seemed to slip back into her imaginary world where the books around her were the prison walls of her tall, tall tower. She would longingly look out through the window to watch the world but then she would smile and realize it was all around her, quite literally, and in the palms of her hands as she turned the pages of the Wonders of the World book. She would finish looking at the book several times before the day finished. Her own story would be ending and she would pack her tower away in her imagination, put all the books (mostly) back where they belonged before heading home herself.
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