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Fa la la la la...and all that.----------------------------------------------
Dalal spends time with Ranza in the cold talking about books, secret santas and school
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Ranza was still not totally sure if this Avery brat was a boy or a girl, but either way she had a mission. She was unwilling to part with much of her own loot, so she told her mother she wanted to by presents for the family and asked for money. Eshaa was apparently charmed by the sentiment enough to not tell Ranza that was what she had a piggybank for, and gave her a generous allowance.
She rattled the coins in her pockets as she walked through Durem's shopping district. It was cold! She couldn't wear jackets on account of her feathers, but she was otherwise bundled up as best she could - a vest, a scarf, jeans, boots. She stopped short of a dinky pom-pom hat, because her hair was growing back from her bald scare and dreadlocking quite nicely and she wanted to show it off.
The parrot girl paused to peruse the window the a toystore.
"If I was an androgynous freak of nature, what would I want for christmas?" she murmured slyly.
"Why would you give a freak a Christmas present?" The red cheeked girl asked bluntly. Dalal had just been stepping out of the store and had heard the feathery girl's comment. Her mantis behind was strangely covered by a scarf whereas the rest of her more human body was decorated with all kinds of warm winter clothes.
A nice bag was attached to her and a pretty deranged barbie doll was peeking out of it. "You can forget about this shop..." She continued to comment and scratched her head. In fact she hadn't been sure what to buy for the basket she had to fill.
As she finally concentrated on Ranza she had the feeling that she was familiar.
Ranza looked up, located the other girl, and smiled slowly. She was bigger than last time they'd met, but that made sense. "Dalal, right?" she asked.
"Someone gave me a stupid basket to fill up for some brat named Avery," she explained. "Is that a boy's name or a girl's name, do you think?"
Either way, her tone of voice indicated she was not happy about the assignment.
So her senses hadn't betrayed her - they had met before! Dalal nodded and looked at Ranza with some interest. "Yes, right. You are..." Her memory seemed to let her down, but just as she wanted to ask for the other one's name it came to her mind. "Ranza."
Dalal grinned and tugged on the scarf decorating her back to cover a cool spot. "You got a basket too?" The mantis eyes widened. "Just so have I, that's why I'm here, I want to fill it so I get stuff too."
She pondered on the question. "I don't know anyone named Avery. My one is a girl, because I heard that name on TV before." Dalal shrugged. "Perhaps you could buy something for a girl and so a girl would be happy and a boy...wouldn't." The child grinned at the thought.
Ranza considered this suggestion and smiled. "I like the way you think, Dalal," she said slyly. So what if she made her basket as feminine as possible and it went to a boy? Served Avery right for having such a gender-ambiguous name.
"What says filling the basket necessarily means you're gonna get one back?" she asked. "I am like, this close to not doing it at all - but the other person doesn't know that, do they? So if they're nice and do what they're told, and I refuse to do what I'm told, who's to know anything?"
"Except for, you know, Avery, who won't get a basket."
She shrugged.
"It's my money," she said firmly. "I earned it myself."
Dalal smiled as the older one praised her way of thinking. Nobody had made her compliment on her thoughts before and so she felt way happy. Ranza was really somebody she could look up to, although she wasn't that much older.
"There was a note attached stating it..." The mantis girl responded while she thought about the possibility of not filling the basket. It was indeed quite a good idea, but what if ..."But what if the delivery person doesn't deliver it then. I mean...that santa or someone."
Dalal fumbled around in her pockets and tugged out a few gold. "I got these from Lizzi to spend the afternoon, they are all busy. Where did you earn yours?"
"I find it," shrugged Ranza, "Or I do chores, or find stuff to sell."
"Have you ever done this Christmas thing before?" asked Ranza. "My brother swears he has, but I don't know a thing about it. 'Cept some morbidly obese guy comes down the chimney that we don't have."
"Ah..." Dalal made a mental note that she had to ask Lizzi about earning more money so she could spend some more time at the shopping mall. Perhaps she could also sell some of Frank's stuff.
"No, never. At least I don't remember it. But I heard it's all about presents and it's stupid if you're lonely on Christmas. And I watched a show on TV where they were all crying because they found lost family members or something..."
Dalal looked around and suddenly spotted a small booth close to the street. "Do you want some hot chocolate?"
She enjoyed being with someone her age. It was often quite boring at home.
"Sure," said Ranza, who was not one to turn down what sounded like an offer of free food. She followed Dalal across the street.
"That sounds like a totally bogus holiday," she continued, "Long lost family members and all that rot. If I get any more family members, I will scream. Seriously scream. And then, like, kill someone."
"Indeed, stupid. But at least there are presents, right?" Dalal answered and pulled out her purse.
"Hot chocolate. Two times." She told the booth lady who quickly offered her two steaming mugs of hot liquid. The mantis girl licked her lips.
"You can be happy, Ranza, at least you have family." She paid the chocolate and handed one of the mugs to the older one. "You know, I live with three people who don't really like each other and often they don't like me either."
She shrugged. "But I finally got my own room. Do you have one or do you have to share?"
"I have to share with my little sister," scowled Ranza, blowing on her drink. "She glows in the dark. Can you even begin to imagine how obnoxious that is? She's like a friggin star or something."
"And they must like you a little bit," she continued, "Or else they why would they keep you around?"
"Someday," she said decidedly, "I will live on a boat, and I will not have to share a room with anyone unless I want to."
Dalal sipped her cocoa and nodded silently. Ranza definately had a point there. She wouldn't like anyone to glow in the dark in her room and at least she didn't have to share it with a sister of some kind. Hopefully it would stay that way.
"You can live on a boat? I would like to live in a large palace and everyone would do as I wish them too. But sometimes...I wish I would live in a tent on a meadow...comfortable one, of course."
Dalal hesitated as she came to think of something she had heard about earliert. "Ranza, do you go to school?"
"School?" asked Ranza, snorting a bit. "Pshaw, yeah, I go to school. Don't you?"
She narrowed her eyes at Dalal. "If you don't, you are so lucky. Unless you can't read, I mean. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't read. It's one of my favorite things to do, right after going on real adventures, is going on adventures in books."
Dalal looked away as she answered. "Not yet..." Her antennae twitched very slightly as she turned back to face Ranza.
Books...? They didn't have a lot at home. The one's of Frank mostly had pictures in them about video games and Dalal had liked to look at them when she was smaller. Eric had lots of medicine books, but they were supposed to be complicated and she hadn't been allowed to look at them. And Lizzi had read some fairy tales to her, but Dalal had enjoyed the TV and her Bollywood shows much more.
"I will go to school next year. I've already been...how do you call it? Anyway, I will go there. So it's not much fun?" The girl wrinkled her nose and kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk.
"You go on real adventures?" Dalal tried to sound very interested. In fact she was still a bit sad about not being able to read and missing book adventures. She could read her name and some other things and she could write with the help of Lizzi...
It dawned on Dalal that Ranza was probably far more intellectual, interesting and funny. She had to do something about it.
"But I've been on the internet. On a video in a blog or something."
"It depends who you ask, if they think school's boring or not. I do okay at it, but I don't like sitting still that long, and the other kids are dumb," she explained with a shrug. She sipped her hot chocolate.
"Yeah, I go on adventures. I've got a bike, so I can go all over the city by myself!" In truth, her brother had a bike that she stole on a regular basis, but that was just messy details.
"The internet?" Ranza smiled. "That's fun. My mom's got a computer for work - it's a fancy one, too, it's from off-world - my mom's an alien, actually, or part-alien, at least - and I guess they have really good computer's off-world. She uses it to talk to people on other planets, and to send letters to her family. She lets me use it sometimes."
"You definitely need to work on the reading thing," she declared. "And once you do, I'll give you some good books."
Dalal was still uncertain about the school thing, but stopped to bother Ranza with her questions. She would have to experience it on her own and perhaps she would like it. Perhaps not.
Shrugging the thought of mentally she tried to imagine Ranza on a bike instead. "That's cool. I don't have one, but I want inline skates. A bike wouldn't fit my large bum anway." Dalal grinned and pointed at her neatly wrapped mantis behind.
As Ranza started to talk about aliens though the mantis girl wrinkled her nose. Was that a true story or probably one of those things you told because you wanted to be cool? She decided to take it for granted, at least for now. "I don't send emails, although I've got an address...hey, I could write you once I've learnt it. What's your email?"
Dalal liked the idea of occupying Frank's computer. She could already imagine him being all grumpy, but he had to do it, because Lizzi had said yesterday that she needed social contact and emails were definately some kind of social contact.
"And then you can answer and I can try to read it." The mantis girl pointed out. What a great idea, she was probably meant to be a genius. Dalal grinned quite pleased with herself.
"Yeah, I do!" nodded Ranza. She dug around in her vest pocket for a bit and came up with a receipt from the bookstore and a ballpoint pen. "I've got an instant messenger name, too. You should get one! It's cool."
She paused to put her hot chocolate down on a bench and then crouched over to scribble something on the paper before handing it to Dalal.
"The first one's my e-mail, and the other's for AIM."
The paper said, in somewhat loopy and girly handwriting, although Dalal wouldn't be able to read it, "CaptainRanza@Gaiaweb.net" and "RanzaDanzaDoodad".
Instant messenger...Dalal tried to imagine something by repeating the name inside her head, but after all nothing sensible came to her mind. She would have to ask Frank and that idea alone made her feel all "blah". But Ranza said it was cool, so it probably was.
"I will. Thank you." Taking a look at the scribbles Dalal was really angry at herself. She really wanted to read it, but she coulded. She only recognised the A's and the D's, because they were similar to her own name.
"AIM...ok." Dalal tried to remember that and shoved the piece of paper into the bag she was carrying with her.
"So have you decided what you'll put into the basket?"
Dalal checked her watch as she listened to Ranza's answer.
Ranza nodded, having now had a chance to give it some thought. "I think I'll go the gender neutral route, right? Books. A jumprope," she shrugged. "Rocks."
She finished her cocoa and tossed the cup into a trash can as they passed it. "How about you?" she asked.
"That's pretty nice of you. Boys would probably like rocks too." Dalal smiled. "Since I know that my one's a girl, I will go with something nice probably. I found a pretty bell at the shopping mall and I filled a glass with snow which is in the fridge so it doesn't melt. And perhaps I'll find more nice stuff at home."
Her behind started to get cold although it was neatly wrapped and Dalal rubbed her hands against each other. "It was cool to meet you, Ranza, but I have to go home otherwise Lizzi will call the police because she think I'm missing or something..."
The girl rolled her eyes and shrugged. "I will write you an email, kay?"
"Yeah!" nodded Ranza. "No one ever writes to me, so it'll be cool! And I'll write you back! Getting mail's a lot of fun."
The cocoa gone, her hands were starting to get cold. She shoved them in her pockets and stomped up and down.
"I gotta get inside or I'm gonna freeze to death," she declared. "Seeyah!' Goodbyes exchanged, she hurried off, vanishing into the crowd and heading for a store.
