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 Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:30 pm
"So, how was your day?"
Vera held Nazrin's hand as they walked the last few blocks home. They had finally settled into their routine, much to her relief. Nazrin seemed to be enjoying her activities, and as an added bonus, they tired her out so much that she didn't argue when it was time for bed. At this rate, she figured it wouldn't be long before she was put back on active duty. She wasn't meant to be a desk jockey.
They were walking quickly, and Nazrin found she had to skip in order to keep up. Not that she minded. Skipping was fun, and she wasn't that tired. She was also glad that she could finally talk. Even after all her classes, she still had to sit and watch Mommy work for a long time, so she was ready to be active again. "Good!" she chirped, holding up the box she had brought back. "We made super-duper dessert!"
"Oh? Must be... Wednesday, right." The days all started to run together for Vera, so she was never sure exactly what she was taking Nazrin to do. "Cooking, I guess. What kind of dessert?"
"Surprise!" Nazrin grinned. "But it's yummy. Save room, okay?" There was usually more food at dinner than she could eat, and Mommy usually said she was full at the end, so she wanted to make sure that she saved room for what she made.
Vera laughed. "Oh, I definitely will. What else did you do today?" By then they had made it to the front door, and she was fumbling in her pockets for the house keys.
"Soccer. We kicked the ball into the goal," Nazrin explained excitedly, practically dancing through the door. Cooking was fun, since she had something to show for her efforts, but she enjoyed running around a lot more. "Soon we get to be on teams. Mommy's gonna watch, right?"
"Of course, sweetheart." Shutting the door behind them, she led Nazrin towards the mailboxes. Their schedule was tight as it was, but she would have to figure something out. Later. "Want to open the mailbox?"
Did she ever! Nazrin practically grabbed the keys out of Vera's hand. Their mailbox was in the bottom left corner, which meant that she could juuust reach the keyhole if she stood on tiptoe. It took a couple of tries for her to put the key in the right way, but finally she slid it into the lock and twisted. "There!"
"That's my girl!" As Nazrin turned pink from pride, Vera opened the mailbox and took out the contents. "Bill, junk, junk, junk, catalog... what's this?" There was a package receipt. Those weren't unusual; the mailbox couldn't hold anything bigger than a magazine, so most packages were delivered in person or held at the post office. "It's too early for this month's book club book," she mused. But there wasn't anything else it could be. She shrugged, and pocketed the slip.
Confused, Nazrin took the paper out of Vera's pocket. "What's this?"
"That says we need to go to the post office." Now that she thought about it, she'd been home for most of the past months' deliveries, so Nazrin had never seen the post office. "How about you come with me on Saturday morning?"
"Okay!" Whatever a post office was, if Mommy was taking her, it was sure to be fun!
"Alright then, it's a date." Vera took the skip back. "Now, last one upstairs is a rotten egg!"
She made for the stairs, trying to make it look like she was going fast, but taking one step for every five she would make if she were really racing.
As soon as she saw Mommy move away, Nazrin let out a small cry and tore after her. "Wait for me, Mommy!"
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:24 am
The post office was fascinating. Nazrin was used to busy places from accompanying her mother to work. But the post office was different. It had machines, and loooong lines, and windows with people behind them. More exciting, Mommy had explained that everyone was at the post office because they were sending something to somebody, or, like them, were picking up something somebody sent them. All those envelopes and boxes and parcels were big surprises, waiting for the right person. She couldn't wait to see what theirs was!
Except she could wait, and did, for nearly a half an hour. By that point, the post office had lost much of its charm. "Are we there yet?" she asked, not for the first time.
Vera looked up from her book. "Hm? No, not yet. Can you count the people in front of us?"
Mommy had asked the same thing when they got there, and Nazrin couldn't do it all by herself. But there were far less people now, so counting was easy. "One, two-" She was about to count three, but a light lit above one of the windows, and the person at the head of the line stepped over. "Two," she announced.
"Then it should just be another couple of minutes," Vera said reassuringly. Sure enough, before long they were in front, and a light lit above window number ten. "Let's go, sweetie."
They went together, hand in hand, and Nazrin stood on her tiptoes and pushed the slip of paper at the person behind the window. "Package for us," she enunciated clearly, having practiced saying the longer word on the line.
Vera beamed proudly, while the postal worker chuckled and disappeared, taking the paper with her. In a few minutes she came back with a rather large cardboard box, which puzzled Vera greatly. "Are you sure this is it? I was expecting something... smaller."
The postal worker explained that she was quite sure, but that if there were any problems, the package could be returned to its sender. Maybe it was a gift?
"Open it!" Nazrin said excitedly. She had waited patiently; now she wanted to know what was in the box!
A little less proud, Vera put her finger to her lips. "Not so loud, Nazrin. We're in a busy place. And we shouldn't open a package in this busy place."
After all that, they weren't going to open it? Nazrin's face fell, and her eyes teared up. She thought she had been a good girl, but maybe Mommy didn't think so. What had she done wrong?
Although she had become firmer as a parent, Vera couldn't take tears. "Okay, okay," she said hastily. "Come to the side with me, and we'll see what's inside."
Instantly the tears were gone, and Nazrin gleefully followed Vera to a quieter section of the post office. "Open!" she cheered. "Open open!"
"Hold your horses," Vera grunted, eyeing the label on the box. It wasn't from an address she recognized. Puzzling. For a moment she was nervous about opening it in public, but then she saw Nazrin's face again and sighed. There was no way to go against that, and if they all got blown to kingdom come, she'd be too dead to notice.
With a deft flourish she pulled a nail file out of her purse and sliced through the tape along the top of the box. Then, only hesitating for a moment, she pulled the flaps open.
It wasn't a bomb. Unless it was some kind of hippie bomb.
Nazrin peered into the box. "A flower?" she asked, scrunching up her face. If so, it was not a very pretty flower.
"Not exactly. It looks more like a cabbage." Quite large for a cabbage, really, but otherwise rather cabbagelike. She reached in and touched one of the leaves. Definitely cabbage. And no wires or odd noises, no unusual heat centers, so probably not a ticking cabbage.
"Dinner?" Nazrin asked next, her face scrunched up even more. She hated having salad for dinner, and was desperately hoping that she wasn't supposed to eat all of that.
Vera shuddered. "I don't think so. Here, there's instructions: 'Water frequently and leave in a sunny area.' Maybe some kind of do it yourself cabbage farm?" she considered, finding a small spray bottle tucked under a few cabbage leaves.
"Can I do it?" Much as she disliked eating green things, Nazrin did like the gardens Mommy had taken her to, and the idea of having one at home was exciting. For now, anyway.
Shrugging, Vera shut the top of the box. "Sure, why not? It's just cabbage, right?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:51 pm
Nazrin took her job as official cabbage caretaker seriously. At first she had considered purposely neglecting it, since while she liked the idea of growing cabbage, she did not like the idea of eating it. But killing it would just be sad and mean, so she did her best to take care of it.
And if cabbage showed up on the dinner menu later, she'd find a way to get it off. Somehow.
In the meantime, she made sure to wake up early in the mornings so she had time to spray the cabbage with the bottle and make sure it was in the sun, but not too in the sun, and talk to it. Mommy had told her that talking to plants helped them grow, so she did.
"G'morning," she said, taking the bottle down off the windowsill. "Did cabbage sleep good?" It was kind of difficult to make conversation with a plant, but it was also kind of reassuring. At least the cabbage wouldn't laugh at her or call her "so cuuuuute," which Nazrin felt was making fun of her, no matter what Mommy said.
Most days, the cabbage didn't say anything. Once or twice, Nazrin could imagine the cabbage talking to her. But it never actually had before, so it took her quite by surprise when the cabbage seemed to say "good?"
Nazrin froze. What could that have been? Was she imagining it? She listened for a full minute, but the cabbage didn't seem to say anything else. She must have imagined it, or maybe she was still dreaming. Yawning, she started to liberally spray the cabbage with water.
"Ah!" A mess of damp silver hair popped out of the cabbage, followed by a pair of deep blue eyes. "You wet me," the voice said accusingly.
For a moment, Nazrin wondered if she was still dreaming. Then she impulsively leaned forward and touched the face- the nose, to be exact. It was real. Once she knew that, she wasn't sure what to think. "Cabbage?" she asked in a whisper.
The face shook from side to side. Then, deciding that it was a tight squeeze in the green leafy thing, he tried to get out. It was difficult, especially considering that the cabbage was balanced on the windowsill. Unaware, the figure pushed away from the window, and started to fall.
Gasping, Nazrin tried to hold the cabbage up, and failed. One empty cabbage and two surprised children fell to the floor. "Owww," Nazrin whimpered, holding her elbow. That hurt!
The cabbage rolled away as they sorted themselves out, revealing a boy about Nazrin's size, wearing a long blue coat and fancy shoes. He held his knee for a moment, but when he saw Nazrin he scrambled to his feet. "Hurt?"
"Yes," Nazrin said forcefully. Then she felt had. This boy looked nice, and he probably didn't mean to hurt her. "A little. You?"
He shook his head, but still looked worried. "I should fix it"
Now Nazrin really felt bad. And confused as to why there was someone in the cabbage that Mommy didn't tell her about. "It's okay," she insisted, getting to her feet as well. "Who're you?"
"Uhhh..." The boy's expression clouded. Then he shrugged. "Dunno. C'mon, go fix."
Vera woke up to the sound of running water. Rubbing her eyes, she stumbled to the bathroom, where she almost collided with Nazrin and some other kid squeezed together on Nazrin's sink-reaching stool. "Who's this?" she demanded, opening and closing her eyes several times.
The boy was busy washing a small scrape on Nazrin's arm, but when he saw Vera he froze as if he was caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
"Mommy!" Pulling her arm away, Nazrin hopped off the stool and grabbed Vera's hand. "Cabbage, Mommy. Mommy, Cabbage."
"Cab- what?" Vera started to protest, but she caught a glimpse of the discarded cabbage in the living room. "They're sending them in innocent vegetables now? What's the world coming to?"
Nazrin's face fell. "Mommy's angry?" she asked nervously, squeezing the boy's hand. "I did bad?"
The boy had been pointedly staring at the floor, looking like he was trying not to cry. But when Nazrin started to get upset, he looked Vera in the eye angrily, as if daring her to punish them. He didn't know much about either the girl or the woman yet, but he knew that no one had done anything wrong.
"No sweetie," Vera said quickly. "Just take your friend here into the living room, okay? Mommy needs to think."
As soon as they were out of the bathroom, she shut the door and dunked her entire head under the still running tap. "Two," she asked no one in particular. "What do I do with two?"
No one answered, and Vera sighed. Her days just got much longer.
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