|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 7:04 pm
A Call to Adventure!
Ranza was mystified with her luck. She had a treasure map! A real, mysterious, magic kind of treasure map that appeared in the middle of the night and showed her where to go and had a big red X marking the spot and EVERYTHING. This was the REAL DEAL. She absolutely had to show Nahuel! He’d know what to do with it!
But first, she had to get ready for an adventure! She knew her brother, and if he knew about this, he’d want to go RIGHT AWAY, regardless of whether she was still in her pajamas or not. Forehead furrowed in thought, Ranza tugged open the closet door and regarded the clothes hanging neatly on the racks. Half of them were Orli’s, and half of them were hers, and the styles couldn’t have been more different. Orli liked classic stuff, and stuff that fit, and that weird leather jacket. Ranza hated sleeves and liked clothes she could move in.
What did one wear on an adventure, anyway? She thought about the treasure hunters she had seen in the movies. Indy dressed a bit like Orli did when Orli got all dressed up in her favorite outfits – khaki pants and leather jackets and boots. Ranza owned neither khaki pants nor boots, hated jackets, and couldn’t just take Orli’s stuff, because Orli was smaller than her and none of her stuff fit Ranza. Marion was an equally poor example – she usually wound up in dresses and compromising positions, though Ranza didn’t deny she was pretty cool.
The only other solution was to think about how pirates dressed, which suited Ranza in much better fashion, because Pirates wore clothes kind of like the ones she had. If given the choice between being Marion and being Elizabeth, Ranza would have gladly been Elizabeth, because Elizabeth, at least, got to wear pants and have swordfights. (Even if, more often than not, she wound up in dresses, waiting to be saved.)
That in mind, Ranza decided to be a pirate. She found a tank top and a pair of brown pants and a vest that had apparently been Nahuel’s when he was little. She put on her sandals and tied her hair back with the elastic her mother had given her, the one with the little gold coins dangling from it. This, she decided, was pretty pirate-y. Satisfied, she grabbed the map off her bed and ran down the hallway to get her brother.
Nahuel was already in the kitchen eating a piece of toast with jelly (he couldn’t have cheese, unless it was the special soy pizzas Mom bought special. Mom said it was because his stomach didn’t work right, and Ranza felt sorry for him. She figured it must have been just awful to have a stomach that didn’t work right.) “Nah, Nah!” she cried, climbing onto a chair, “I have a map! It leads to treasure!”
Nahuel raised an eyebrow at her and swallowed. “Really?” he asked. “I want to see!”
Ranza spread the map out on the table.
“This is the real thing!” said Nahuel excitedly after looking at it for a moment. “This is a real treasure map! Where’d you get it, Ranza?”
“I woke up and it was next to my bed!” Ranza said, helping herself to his other piece of toast and smearing copious amounts of jelly on it. “It had my name on it. Someone left it for me.”
“Oooh,” breathed Nahuel, pouring himself a glass of juice. “Sounds mysterious.”
“It was,” replied Ranza, nodding astutely. “Can I have some juice, too?”
Nahuel poured her a glass. Ranza sipped it thoughtfully and looked at the map.
“It looks like the garden,” she observed. “See?” she asked, pointing. “There’s the hole in the wall, and the big tree with the cave in it.”
“I’ve never seen this part past the river before,” said Nahuel. “That’s where the path starts, see?” He traced his finger along the dashed red line that picked up on the far bank of the stream.
“Can we go already?” asked Ranza, excited to get started exploring.
“You bet!” agreed Nahuel, rolling the map up and handing it back to her. “I’m just gonna let Mom know we’re leaving.” He got up, put his glass on the counter, and darted down the hall and into their mother’s room. He returned a moment later, fixing his trusty fedora to his head. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go!”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 6:48 pm
The Math Monster!
When they got to the garden, Ranza ran ahead of her brother while he tied up his bike. She had the map, and set about orienting herself with her surroundings. There was the hole in the wall, and there was the tree with the cave in its basement, and there was the huuuuuge stump that was flat on top and made a nice stage. And there! There was the stream!
They never crossed the stream, though they swam in it sometimes, because the trees on the other side were different from the trees in the front part of the garden and Nahuel reckoned it wasn’t part of it. Today, however, was different. The creek was low and a rope bridge had been slung from one bank to the other. Ranza consulted the map. The dotted red line started on the far side of the bridge.
Nahuel caught up to her and she pointed to the map. “We gotta cross the river,” she said.
He apparently noticed the bridge for the first time. “That’s new,” he said. “I wonder if it’s stable.”
“I’ll go first!” volunteered Ranza, and dashed across. Nahuel followed her after seeing the bridge didn’t immediately collapse.
Now that they were on the other side of the river, they saw that the garden most definitely continued. Here the trees were maples, and syrup taps stuck out from some of them at odd angles. A broad path cut through them in front of the siblings, and looking at the map Ranza saw that the red line continued through it. They began to walk, and after a while the path began to narrow until they reached the tree line. In front of them, someone had painstakingly set up a labyrinth of old sailcloth. A piece of the same type of paper as the map sat in the middle of the path, held down by a rock.
Curious, Ranza picked it up and unfolded it.
“Labyrinths are easy,” claimed Nahuel. “You just have to keep turning left.”
The paper had a poem on it, in fairly simple words. Ranza read it out loud.
“In this maze, there is a beast, a… monster… known as math. Add the… numbers in the right way, and you’ll be on the right path.”
“It’s a puzzle,” said Nahuel.
“Let’s go!” said Ranza, charging into the maze. She quickly reached the first fork in the path. Written on the cloth in front of her was written
1+1=?
To the right was the option “2” and to the left was the option “11”. Ranza paused and counted on her fingers. It was two! She took the right path. Nahuel followed her. At the next junction, the wall read
2+3=?
The right option was “23”, and the left option was “5”.
“This is easy,” grumbled Nahuel as Ranza paused to count on her fingers. “The answer is—“
“Let me do it,” said Ranza stubbornly.
“But it’s so easy!”
“Let me do it!” she repeated, counting. The answer was five. She took the left path. The next junction was a bit tougher.
6+4=?
Loomed before her like a challenge, with the answers of “9” and “10” painted right and left respectively.. Ranza unfolded her fingers to count. Nahuel groaned.
“I can do this in like two seconds flat!” he complained.
“Let me do it!” shouted Ranza. “It’s my map! It’s my adventure! Nah, you’re always Indy and you always know what to do and now it’s my turn! I’m Indy this time!” She returned to consulting her fingers. “You can be Marion,” she added, trying to placate him. Nahuel groaned again.
“This is so stupid,” he muttered.
“Ten!” shouted Ranza, tearing off down the left path. Nahuel followed her, his ego a bit bruised but otherwise fine.
7+6=?
Ranza stared at the wall in front of her. She didn’t have that many fingers! This was a tough one. She looked to Nahuel, but he shrugged, and she remembered that this was her adventure. Heroes didn’t need to ask for help just because they were a little bit stumped, and she wasn’t stumped yet. She could do this!
She crouched down and lined her hands and toes up. Bingo! The answer was thirteen!
“Thirteen!” she exclaimed, letting the fact be known, and ran down the path with that number on it. After a few turns, the maze opened up and deposited her and Nahuel on a meadow. She’d done it! She’d defeated the monster! Ranza let up a happy little cheer and consulted the map again. If she was reading it right, the line wanted her to go towards the big tree in the middle of the field…
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 3:50 pm
Just Like Indy!
Someone had strung the tree up with all sorts of ladders, nets, and other climbing miscellany. Ranza stared at it, mystified with the complexity of it, and then noticed a second scrap of parchment folded at the base of it. She picked it up, unfolded it, and read it.
“The map has a…. missing… piece, and I know where it be. If you want me to share my… secret… you’ll have to… climb… the tree.”
“Looks like fun,” said Nahuel, looking up.
“It’s my adventure,” Ranza reminded him, pulling out the map and looking at it. How had she missed that before? Indeed, the red dotted line disappeared at the tree and picked up again a while later with nothing in between. She circled the tree curiously, looking for the leg up. She knew how to climb – Nahuel had taught her, and this looked pretty stable. Whoever had done it had rigged nets every few branches to catch her if she fell.
“This seems pretty elaborate just to give us an adventure,” said Nahuel.
“Come on!” called Ranza, finding a row of pegs nailed into the side of the tree and beginning to climb. Nahuel followed her at a slight distance and watched as she climbed out onto a branch and grabbed a rope ladder.
“Be careful,” he cringed, hating having to be the responsible one. But if Ranza got hurt, Mom would kill him!
“I am!” Ranza called back, pulling herself up the rope ladder. Nahuel mounted the branch and waited for her to finish before climbing before starting up it.
“I’m suspicious!” he called. Above him, Ranza started on another series of pegs nailed to the side of the tree.
“Why?” she called back.
“How do we know it’s not booby-trapped?” he asked. Ranza pulled herself onto the next branch and waited for him. She hadn’t thought of that, but she didn’t think it was. She had a feeling.
“It’s not,” she said plainly, and looked around for the next task. A net stretched between the limb she was on and one about four feet away. A rope with a few knots in it dangled from a higher branch. The end was draped over the one she was on.
“Nah!” she called down to her brother. “We hafta’ swing!”
“Like in Raiders?” he called back, scrambling up the pegs.
“Yeah,” said Ranza, picking up the rope as he climbed onto the branch. She gripped it tight, hopped off the branch, and swing, her legs kicking through space for the opposite branch…
…And they didn’t touch. She lost her grip on the rope and shrieked. Nahuel screamed. For a moment, she was falling, and then she hit the net, bounced, and giggled.
“If this was really like Raiders, you would’ve fallen in a bottomless pit,” said Nahuel, recovering his dignity.
“But I didn’t,” said Ranza happily, swinging the rope towards him and then crawling through the net to the other side. Nahuel swung and landed next to her with feline grace.
“And that’s how you do it,” he said.
“Show off,” said Ranza, pulling herself up a rope ladder. From there, it seemed she had reached the top of the tree, and they were awfully high up. The branches sort of came together in a big flat space, and she proceded to it, followed at a slight distance by her brother. There was a piece of parchment there. She picked it up and unfolded it.
It was made to overlap the map she had, showing the tree, and a beeline straight from it to the far end of the field and another lake that she could se in the distance, but no mention of how to get there.
“We made it,” said Nahuel, looking around. He looked back behind him. “Hey, I can see our house from here!” he observed with a laugh.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 7:04 pm
Jack Sparrow Never Chickens Out!
A bit of searching around revealed a zip line and another piece of parchment. Ranza eyed the zip-line warily and unfolded the clue. “…Climb-ing’s fun, but it’s a long way down, so here’s some time to save. …Keep your cool when you splash land, or it’s a …watery grave.”
“They can’t mean it,” said Nahuel. “They wouldn’t make us do it if it was dangerous.”
Ranza wholeheartedly agreed. That was just how maps went, written like that. She stared off into the distance… the zip line looked like it landed in the lake. Suddenly, she felt a sort of clammy fear build up inside her chest. Something about the lake, about the deep water, about the phrase “watery grave”, made her reluctant. Her chest felt tight, like she couldn’t breathe.
“I’ll go first,” said Nahuel, “Just to make sure it isn’t dangerous. I’ll wave to you from the bottom!” He hopped onto the zip-line’s swing, strapped himself in, and kicked off. Ranza watched him zoom away, and then she was alone. She could see Nahuel waving to her and calling from the bottom a moment later, and then the seat came back up to the top as if propelled by magic.
Ranza stared at it, and stared at the lake.
Watery grave.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t get on the zip line. It wasn’t the flight that scared her, no. She was a bird. That part was fine. That part was fun. But the water at the bottom… Ranza could take baths and swim in the pool and in the stream and in the fountain. She knew exactly how deep that water was. But she had never seen the lake before, had no idea what would happen to her.
Nahuel was calling for her. Nahuel was waiting. Nahuel had done it, and he was okay.
Watery grave.
Ranza slammed her eyes shut, trying to quell her fears. She had to do it. This was her adventure! Indy never chickened out! Elizabeth never chickened out! And by God, even if he was a coward, Jack Sparrow never chickened out! Doubling her resolve, Ranza steadied the swing, sat down on it, and buckled herself in.
There, she thought. That wasn’t so bad.
The lake was just a beeline away. She swallowed the lump in her throat and kicked off.
The reaction was immediate. Instantly, she was whizzing through the air at a downward incline, steadily gaining speed. This itself was not so bad. She screeched in laughter, trying to enjoy it—
And then there was the water, coming up too fast, so fast. In another second, she was in it, the cold water coming up to grab her like a vice. She flailed about, splashing wildly, feathers becoming heavy. This was supposed to be safe! This was supposed to be safe!
“Nah!” she screeched, not realizing that the swing wouldn’t let her sink beneath the surface. Still, she flailed. Her throat was closing up out of reaction to her fear of drowning. “Nah!”
And suddenly he was there, pulling her out of the straps and out of the water.
“Nah!” she gasped, sputtering up lake water. He slung her over his shoulder and carried her towards shore. Ranza tried to calm herself down a bit. She was safe now. She was safe now! No watery grave for Ranza Cooper! No sir!
Nahuel set her safely on the grassy bank of the lake, and Ranza stood up quickly.
“I wasn’t scared,” she said boldly. Nahuel laughed.
“You screamed like a little girl,” he said.
“I am one,” she retorted, pulling out the map. Somehow it was still dry. It should have been soaked. “X marks the spot!” she cried, pointing to the base of a nearby tree. “The treasure is right over there!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 7:53 pm
The Pirate's Drink!
When they reached the tree, they were greeted with the welcome sight of an ornate, antique-looking treasure chest and what looked to be a mug of apple juice. Ranza, however, was learning not to trust things based on what they looked like and found the scrap of parchment that corresponded to the chest.
“You shall have the thing you seek, if you can down the pirate’s drink,” she read.
“That doesn’t really rhyme,” scowled Nahuel, sniffing the mysterious liquid curiously. He wrinkled his nose. “Oh, yuck! That stuff smells awful. You’re on your own, Ranza.”
Ranza approached the cup and sized it up. She was of the firm opinion that she had come far too far to be defeated by a cup of apple juice, no matter how bad it smelled according to Nahuel. Glaring daggers at her brother, she defiantly picked up the cup and took a sip, being careful not to smell it. Just in case.
It tasted awful, but the clue said she had to drink it, so she forced herself to swallow. It never said if she had to drink all of it, but Ranza figured better safe than sorry. She took another sip and choked it down.
This was going to take forever. Maybe there was a better plan of action. Like chugging it. After all, you never saw pirates in the movies taking dainty little sips, and this was the pirate’s drink, right?
Ranza was an experienced chugger after all the milk-drinking contests she had with her sister, Orli. She picked up the glass and began to drink, ignoring the foul taste of the beverage. It was… bitter, a bit stale, faintly sweet, but in an exotic way she couldn’t describe.
“Done!” she exclaimed with a burp, slamming the empty glass back down onto the chest. Miraculously, the lock clicked open and the glass thumped to the ground. Nahuel hurried over to help her hoist the lid.
“That’s the treasure?” he asked, adjusting his fedora. “Lame!”
Ranza lifted her hard-won prize out of the chest. It was a well-worn leather tricorn, and she knew it was authentic because it smelled like the sea. There was an elegant peacock feather perched in it.
“You can keep it,” said Nahuel. “I’ve already got a hat, and it’s way cooler.”
Ranza ignored his sour-grapes attitude and put the hat on, adjusting it to sit with a roguish tilt on her head. It was too big for her, but she figured she’d grow into it.
“Let’s go home,” sighed Nahuel. Ranza skipped alongside him as they headed for the hole in the wall. Her shadow looked like a proper pirate, complete with a hat and an elegant feathered plume.
She rather liked it that way.
Complete.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 7:29 am
Preparing for Company
The sun rose on another not-so-quiet morning in the Cooper household. Ranza had recently grown and was now taking the opportunity to object that since she was now the same size as her brother, she deserved two sausages and two waffles just like he got. Nahuel was taking the opportunity to tell her, quite loudly, that she was a pig and would get fat if she ate as much as he did, and Orli took the momentary chaos and distraction to empty half a bottle of Aunt Jemima’s onto her breakfast and then gobble down the sticky mess while no one was watching.
“I’m going to the airport,” announced Eshaa once the breakfast dishes were put away. “Nahuel’s in charge.”
“Why’s he in charge?” demanded Ranza. “He’s always in charge.”
“’Cuz I’m the oldest,” Nahuel was quick to reply. Ranza was the same size as him, but that didn’t make things any different. “Why are you going to the airport, Mom?”
Eshaa sighed. “I already told you guys. Last week, remember?”
Nahuel, Ranza, and Orli exchanged looks. They hadn’t realized they were supposed to be listening.
“My grandfather is going to be visiting for a few weeks,” she explained. “I haven’t seen him in a few years, and he’s really eager to be meeting you guys.”
“That sounds a bit familiar,” said Nahuel with an uneasy laugh.
“Don’t burn down the house while I’m gone,” she stated, and then retrieved her car keys and purse. She still had the jeep from the dig site motor pool, and hoped she’d be able to hang onto it for the rest of the summer. “Nahuel, please remember to clean your room!”
“Aw man!” shouted the Jaguar boy, flopping down onto the couch as she left. That was right! He had to clean his room and change his sheets just so some old man could stay in it for the summer and he could sleep on the couch. Total suckage.
He turned on the television. A cartoon about a shape shifting ten-year-old filled the screen.
“Orli, Ranza,” he said, “Clean my room.”
“No,” said Ranza, who had been back talking to him more and more lately. “Do it yourself.”
“Orli?” he asked.
Orli was not that stupid, and was quite offended that he would have thought she was. Besides, she liked this show. “No,” she said. “Mom said you hafta do it.”
“Fine,” grumbled Nahuel, getting up off the couch and stalking off to his bedroom. The sisters were left alone.
“What do you think Mom’s grandfather’s like?” hissed Ranza, climbing over the back of the couch in a way Eshaa would have definitely disapproved of.
“I dunno,” shrugged Orli, mesmerized by a commercial for a remote-controlled plane.
“Mom’s from another planet,” said Ranza, flopping onto the seat. “What if he’s an alien?”
Orli shrugged. She herself was from outer space, so she wasn’t too inclined to comment on Ranza’s supposition. Ranza reclined on the couch, propped her feet up on the arm, and despaired that Orli was still so far behind her developmentally.
“I think Mom said he was cool,” she said. She hadn’t really been paying attention. “I just don’t remember why.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:08 pm
I Think He's a Clone
Nahuel busied himself the rest of the morning with cleaning, which presumably meant tossing all clothes on the floor, regardless of whether they actually needed to be washed or not, into the hamper, and shoving everything that would fit under the bed… under it. Ranza found a bag of chocolate chips in the kitchen and she and Orli ate half of it while watching the rest of the cartoon. After the episode was over, a show about poorly proportioned fairies that spoke with pseudo-European accents came on, but all they talked about was shopping and fashion so Ranza turned it off and put the chocolate away. At some point Orli hauled out the blocks and they constructed an elaborate ancient city, complete with a ziggurat, which stretched from the front door to the kitchen.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do when their mother was about to return home with a houseguest, but they weren’t thinking of that.
Nahuel came out of his bedroom, which looked, against all better logic, surprisingly clean.
“Woah,” he said, “You guys built Akator.”
“That’s the idea,” agreed Ranza, dumping out a bin of action figures on one of the remaining empty spaces on the floor. “Orli, gimme your space ship.”
Orli was happy to supply her plastic starfighter and joined Ranza in sifting through the action figures. They produced about six different versions of Indiana Jones (With whip-snapping action! With vine swinging action! With machine-gun accessory! With kung-fu grip!) until Nahuel decided that the one they needed was not in the box and vanished into his room.
He returned a moment later with the brand-new action figures he had bought with his pocket money. Ranza and Orli hadn’t been allowed to play with these yet. They were Nahuel’s prized toys, more detailed and elaborate than the hand-me-down figurines Eshaa picked up at garage sales.
He started to hand the Marion figure to Ranza, thought better of it, and handed her to Orli, choosing instead to give Ranza the Mutt figure, keeping Indy for himself. Both sisters knew better than to argue over their character assignments,
The action figures had just ascended the Ziggurat when the front door opened, triggering a chain reaction that send the entire block city tumbling to the ground. Nahuel lead a hasty retreat for the action figures and tossed the starfighter onto the couch.
“Like a broom over their footsteps,” he quoted. Orli climbed over the couch to retrieve her starfighter. The person on the other side of the door was having trouble getting it all the way open because of the blocks. Ranza noticed the trouble they were having and ran to pull the blocks out of the way. Eshaa pushed the door the rest of the way open.
“Not smart, guys,” she said, surveying the ruins. “What happened here?”
“The aliens destroyed Akator,” said Orli from the couch, holding up her starfighter as if it explained everything.
“Is your room clean?” Eshaa asked Nahuel, stepping into the apartment and kicking more blocks out of the way. She was followed by a man who, Nahuel quickly decided, looked like Dr. Jones except a bit older and with longer hair. The man set down a suitcase as Nahuel nodded.
“Alright,” said Eshaa happily. She motioned to each of the kids in turn. “These are Nahuel, Ranza, and Orli,” she explained to the man beside her, and then motioned to him. “Guys, this is my grandfather, Nat Cooper.”
“Hi,” responded the siblings in eerie and unintended unison. Nahuel took the initiative to start putting away the blocks before their mother could yell at him about it, and Ranza joined in. Orli, who could easily be considered exempt for no really good reason, hopped off the couch to get a better look at the visitor.
He didn’t look like an alien, she decided. Ranza had been wrong. He looked human, more human than their mother. (But Eshaa had already explained to them that she was what was called a half-breed, so Orli could sort of piece it together.)
He smiled and pointed to the plastic starfighter she held in her hands. “I flew one of those,” he said.
Orli looked at the starfighter, wondering how anyone larger than an action figure could fit into it.
“A real one,” he explained, seeming to understand her confusion. “The real ones are a lot bigger.”
Orli nodded. “You fly?” she asked.
“I’m a pilot,” he explained. “One of the best.”
“You’re forgetting the past tense,” said Eshaa gently.
“How old are you?” asked Nahuel, looking up from his clean-up effort.
“Eighty-seven last month,” he said, laughing.
To the siblings, none of whom had even been alive a year, that seemed impossibly old. Eshaa lead him off to show him the rest of the apartment, and the trio regrouped to whisper conspiratorially.
“He’s an alien in a human skin,” said Ranza lowly.
“He looks like Dr. Jones,” hissed Nahuel. “I think he’s a clone.”
“I think he’s cool,” said Orli, happily looking at the ship in her hands. He’d flown a real one! Someday she’d fly a real one, too!
Her siblings shot her annoyed looks and pushed her out of the circle so they could continue exchanging thoughts in private.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:18 am
Newfound Independence
Nahuel was gone for the day, off to explore the jungle with Dr. Jones. Ranza was a bit jealous, but now that she was older she was beginning to realize that her whole infatuation with archaeology stemmed from Nahuel’s infatuation with it, and not from her own interests. Ranza enjoyed adventure, enjoyed finding treasure… but was not all that certain that being the good guy was all it was cracked up to be. She had been reading a lot lately about pirates, and enjoying it immensely.
Nahuel was gone for the day, and he had left his bike at home. Orli, being little and therefore easily amused, was preoccupied getting as many stories as she could from Eshaa’s grandfather, all about being a deep space pilot. Ranza had no interest in deep space pilots. In fact, she was doing her best to be sulky and nonchalant about the whole thing. So, she did what any self-respecting girl with newfound freedom and her brother’s unattended bicycle would do.
She put on her pirate hat, took the bike, and went to the garden.
She had begun to see the garden in a new light since discovering it went further than just to the stream. The bridge they had taken on their adventure was gone, but a new set of stepping stones had taken their place and she hopped across on those. The path through the forest was still there, but the labyrinth at the end was gone. She arrived at the big tree and found that the climbing accoutrements as they were had vanished and instead they had been rearranged into a series of platforms and ladders approximating a tree house.
She wondered who had done this and whether they had had her in mind or not when they did it.
The zip line was gone, which was okay because Ranza hadn’t particularly enjoyed it. The treasure chest, she discovered, had relocated itself to the tree house. There were fish and a raft in the lake. She found a fishing pole in a hidden compartment under the floorboards of the tree house.
“Someone built this for me,” she realized.
Strangeness.
She tried to forget about the feeling she was being watched and went fishing, but without any bait it was tough. She’d try again tomorrow.
She supposed she had to tell Nahuel about it, but then again, did she? Wasn’t she entitled to a little bit of secrecy, a little bit of magic, a little bit of an advantage over him? Doubtlessly, there were things Nahuel knew that he hadn’t told her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:46 am
Ordinary Mayhem
“I found a potshard!” cried Nahuel as he danced around the living room, disturbing Ranza’s action figure diorama and the spaceport Orli and Nat were in the midst of constructing out of blocks on the coffee table. “It was my first day digging and I found something important.”
“Let me see it, then!” demanded Ranza, looking up from her book. It was an adventure about a girl who became a sailor, and she had read it at least seven times by now.
“Well, I don’t have it,” scowled Nahuel.
“Then it never happened!” Orli chimed in, pushing past him to get at her blocks that he had so unceremoniously knocked over. “You messed up my space port, Nah.” She looked disdainfully up at him and set about clearing blocks away from her model starship.
“Sorry,” muttered Nahuel, rounding on Ranza. “I swear I found it! I’m not allowed to keep it because it belongs to the institute, but I found it! Didn’t I, Mom?”
“Yes,” called Eshaa over the sounds of cooking.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” scowled Ranza. “I found six gold coins in the garden today.”
“Really?” asked Nahuel. “Show me!”
“I don’t have them,” shrugged Ranza. “I put them in my treasure box.”
“Arggh!” yowled Nahuel, and stalked off to find something to do that didn’t involve little sisters. Orli stared after him, put the last block back into place, and hopped up onto the couch next to Ranza.
“Whatcha readin’?” she asked.
“The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle,” explained Ranza. “I found that in that big box of books the neighbors gave us.” There had been a lot of adventure books aimed at a young audience in that box, but Ranza was drawn to the ones about high seas adventures. She’d sorted them out and intended to read them all, but had gotten caught up reading this one over and over again. “You’ve really got to learn to read, Orli. It’s great!”
Orli leaned over her sister’s shoulder and peered at the words on the page. She knew a few of them, but a lot of them were beyond her grasp. She was in preschool some days and they were learning their letters and their sight words, but she hadn’t mastered Dr. Seuss yet, let alone gotten to the point of reading anything with more than ten words a page.
“Grampa told me stories today,” she told her sister, “About how he met Gramma?”
“He’s not our grandpa,” corrected Ranza, turning the page. “He’s mom’s grandpa.”
“Well, it was cool! He was a pilot and he had to rescue her from bad guys who had captured her ‘cuz there was a war going on and--”
Ranza glared at her and looked back to her book.
“Orli,” she grumbled, “I don’t care.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:34 am
Sibling Rivalry
Ranza found herself fighting a two-fronted war. On one side there was Nahuel, who was feigning disinterest because she was big enough to fight him now. Besides, he had "more important" things to do. Her brother, Ranza evaluated, was getting bored with childhood and was eager to grow up. She, meanwhile, had just barely reached this new and exciting phase of life.
On the other side was Orli, younger than Ranza and getting left behind. Since Ranza had made it clear she no longer shared any interests with her sister, Orli was making a point of ignoring her in typically juvenile fashion. No longer did she invite Ranza to build things or play imaginary games in the living room - that honor was reserved for Nahuel, or, more often, Nat.
It wasn't that Ranza didn't believe Nat's stories - it was that she didn't want to. He was so old - heroes were never that old. Heroes didn't age. Heroes drank from the fountain of youth and stayed spry forever. (Even Indiana Jones, who looked old, moved like he was thirty.) Orli latched onto him and his tales of outer space adventure, but Ranza liked her feet on a planet thank you very much.
Her days were spent in the garden, where it seemed like childhood was never ending and the world belonged to her. She liked it that way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:51 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:26 pm
Oh shi--
Ranza stared at the blank patch off wall, unable to believe her eyes. This could NOT be happening. This was IMPOSSIBLE. NO WAY was this happening.
The bike was gone. Nahuel's bike. His shiny, retro blue Schwinn with the chrome fenders. Vanished. She left it the same place she always did that morning before going into the garden, and now it was lost. Stolen, probably. She should have locked it up. Nahuel always told her to lock it up or take it into the garden. She hadn't listened.
And now she regretted it, because the bike had disappeared into the ether.
This could not be happening.
Ranza pinched herself.
Then she pinched herself again.
Oh.
This was definitely happening.
What was she gonna tell Nahuel?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:08 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:09 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:29 pm
PCM - Part I
By the time Ranza got home that night, with no bike to show for her day of efforts, the itching was unbearable. Eshaa did everything she could think of for her daughter, but to no avail. Epsom salts, cortisone cream, allergy medication… nothing made the itching go way. Her arms itched, her head itched, her legs itched… even her butt itched! And she must have been scratching at everything pretty hard because her feathers were falling out all over the place.
Ranza remembered molting once, but it hadn’t been anything nearly as bad as this.
Finally, at a lack of ideas for what to do, Eshaa put socks on Ranza’s hands and sent her to bed. The parrot girl did not immediately fall asleep – she lay awake scratching at herself for what felt like hours until she fell into a fitful sort of nightmarish sleep, where she spent the night in a Caribbean hell populated by talking ice cream cones, stolen bikes, puppy soldiers, and a villainous first mate who looked curiously like a turkey.
The morning did not bode any better.
Stirring from sleep, Ranza realized that she no longer itched. However, that was not necessarily in her favor. She was cold – freezing, in fact. Her arms and head – never cold, usually hot – were covered in goosebumps.
Ranza cracked an eye open and looked down at her arms. She did a double take and sat straight up in bed. Her feathers were GONE!
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. She knew precisely where they’d went – they were strewn about her bed and, by extension, around her room. Ranza saw a few green ones and brought her hand up to her head.
She cursed. She cursed again, loudly.
She was Bald. With a capital B.
She wrapped herself in a blanket and found a hat, and then sat down on her bed to ponder this situation. Was she sick? She didn’t feel sick, but then again itching was a symptom of some things. Maybe she had Chicken pox? Could parrots get chicken pox?
She decided to get dressed, but taking off her pajama pants presented another strange development: her lower legs and her ankles had, over night, turned mottled gray. Ranza stared at them for a while but made the executive decision not to panic. She put on her favorite socks, the white ones with the toes cut out, and pulled them up so she couldn’t see the gray. She reasoned that she felt fine. She did not feel sick. She was no longer even itchy. Other than the weird color, even her legs felt fine.
There was still, however, the issue of her absent feathers. Ranza finished getting dressed, wrapped the blanket back around, put the hat back on, and ventured into the hallway. A quick look around the apartment revealed Eshaa and Nahuel to be at work and Orli to be at daycare. The girl pondered her predicament for a moment, but decided against calling Eshaa or getting the neighbors to take her to the emergency room. (They would probably just poke her and prod her and give her a tetanus shot. Not that she’d ever been to the emergency room, but that was what it was like in books and on TV.)
She drifted into the living room, flopped down on the couch, and picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone off the side table. She could afford to take a sick day off from searching for Nahuel’s bike, even if she didn’t really feel sick. All that mattered was burying herself in tales of Hogwarts and trying to not think about what level of hell would break loose when the rest of her family got home.
At least, she thought, flipping the page, she was no longer itchy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
