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 Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:09 pm
The museum of science and history in Durem had a fabulous reputation for being educational and kid friendly, and that reputation was being put to the test by the Cooper family. Eshaa had chosen the museum in an effort to find somewhere with some semblance of educational values that would keep her kids occupied on a rainy winter day, and it seemed to be working.
"Mom? Mom? Mom?"
Nahuel was at her elbow, and Ranza was at his, and both were being rather annoying.
"What?" asked Eshaa, trying to remain pleasant.
"Can Ranza and me go look at the fish skeletons?" asked Nahuel, pointing towards an exhibit that the conveniently-placed signs indicated was the 'Hall of Oceans'. Eshaa considered it.
"Yes," she said. "But stay together and don't leave it until I come find you."
"Okay!" replied the jaguar boy before taking his sister by the hand and making a break for the exhibit.
The chaotic masses properly occupied, Eshaa focused her attention on the child balanced on her hip that was taking in the wonder of the bustling museum with enormously wide gold eyes.
"Where do you want to go, Orli?" she asked her. The little girl looked pensive as she looked, owl-like, from one end of the lobby to the other before pointing at an exhibit with stars painted on the sign over the door. "You want to go to the..." Eshaa read the sign, "Hall of stars?"
"Yeah!" nodded Orli vigorously.
"Okay, let's go, huh?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:15 pm
"Polly don't climb that!" Gwen said, rushing across the hall to grab her baby. "You could fall off!"
The little girl grinned at her shamelessly before squirming to get free. She ad no fear whatsoever and it was driving her guardian insane. "Leggo!" Polly said, getting irritated when Gwen didn't.
"Let's go see the hall of stars," Gwen said. There was nothing to climb there. She hoped.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:32 pm
The hall of stars, as it turned out, was huge. It was a circular room, easily as wide as a football field, and scale models of a planetary system hung from the ceiling. It was the Gaian system, Eshaa supposed, though she didn't entirely remember its configuration after studying so many in school. The lighting had shifted abruptly as she and Orli stepped through the door, and now Eshaa saw why. It came from twinkle lights both in the ceiling and embedded in the floor.
Orli struggled to climb down, and Eshaa lowered the girl to the ground. The toddler promptly crouched and lowered her face close to the tile.
"Mom," she said, tugging at Eshaa's leg, "Stars."
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:41 pm
"Polly! Don't run! You'll tri--" Bam, the little girl fell flat on her face in front of the other child, having tripped over her own feet. She pushed herself up, shoving her hair out of her face with a hand and grinning sheepishly at the other girl.
"I Polly, who's you?" she demanded, shoving a thumb at her chest with the introduction.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:16 pm
Orli looked slowly up at the other girl and blinked her gold eyes a few times. "Orli," she pronounced carefully, drinking in every facet of the other girl's appearance and trying to figure out how to best proceed. How about a complement.
"Your hair's pretty," she said, thinking. It looked feathery. "My sister has hair like you's." Well, not quite.
"'Cept hers is blue," finished Orli, pushing herself into a sitting position.
Eshaa, after deciding that since the newly appeared other child was not crying she was therefore okay, began to search the vicinity for someone who was a likely candidate for a parental unit. The only person who appeared to be a match was a flustered woman about her own age, though a bit of a ways off. Eshaa waved sheepishly.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:28 pm
"I am so sorry," Gwen said, crossing over to the group. "She's a little bit of a... handful," she said as she tugged the little girl up by an arm. ((Don't EVER do that to your kid, btw, it can dislodged the shoulder-_-)) "Polly, apologize!"
"For what?" Polly asked blankly. "I no steal nothin, I no hurt, right?" she asked the other little girl. "I just go splat."
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:48 pm
Cute kid, but the mother immediately irked Eshaa. That looked like it hurt! "Why are you sorry?" she asked the woman. "It's not your fault."
Orli considered the questions for a second and decided all three statements were true. "She okay," she said plaintively, and smiled at the other girl. That was the right answer, right?
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:55 pm
"It's just that Polly has... light fingers, I'm afraid," Gwen said, letting go of her little girl. "See, you probably tripped over that tail of yours," she said. "Try wrapping it around your waist, like I showed you."
"But it don't wanna wrap," Polly said. "It don't like wrapping!"
"But it won't trip you if you wrap it."
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:04 pm
Eshaa, who had encountered similar problems with Nahuel's tail, frowned.
"If you don't mind the interruption," she said hesitantly, "My son has a tail and he used to trip over it. He outgrew it without any sort of wrapping." Really, wrapping? Who came up with this stuff?
Orli blinked at the feathers. "It's pretty!" she said enthusiastically, since she wasn't really sure how to contribute to the situation any. After all, she didn't have a tail.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:08 pm
"I like tail!" Polly said in agreement, bringing it up to show. "But kitty bit, now I no like kitty!"
"But kitty didn't mean to bite you," Gwen said, yet again. "He thought you were playing."
"I no like kitty," Polly repeated stubbornly.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:22 pm
"We have kitty," nodded Orli, tracking the waving tail with her eyes. "He's mean." On her first day out, Cat had dive-bombed her no less than four times, so she could commiserate there.
Eshaa had to agree though. Cat had never been nice, and he was even less friendly now that he had to share his turf with three children.
"I'm sorry," she said to the woman, "Our daughters have met, but we haven't really. I'm Eshaa Cooper." She looked briefly down at the dark haired little girl by her feet. "This is Orli."
"Hi!" said Orli, waving to Polly's mother.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:27 pm
"I'm Gwen Summers," Gwen said. ((Pulls a last name out of thin air.)) "This is Polly, as she probably told you."
"We friends," Polly said seriously, then reached forward to hug the other girl. "We no like kitties!" That made them a sisterhood as far as she was concerned. Had she been older she would have insisted on badges and club meetings of the NLK Klub. No Like Kitties.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:47 pm
"Friends!" echoed Orli, breaking into a grin. She'd never had a friend before, just heard everyone talking about them - what did friends do, anyway? "Kitties are bad!" she agreed, though. Kitties were just about the most horrid thing in the world. Except for Nahuel, her big brother. He was a sort-of-kitty, but he was nice.
But then again, he was only a sort-of-kitty. She guessed that was okay.
"She's lovely," laughed Eshaa, who was totally familiar with hyperactive children and sincerely hoped that this exasperated other mother got used to the nature of the beast.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:05 pm
"Well, ah, thank you," Gwen said. "She's a handful, that's for sure."
"You like shinies?" Polly asked Orli. "I like shinies lots!!" She was wearing several, after all, from her bracelet to the bead necklace around her neck, and a few child sized rings.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:18 pm
Shinnies? Now there was something Orli could identify with! She tugged a lock of glittering inky-blue hair in front of her face and stared at it, cross-eyed. "I have shinnies in my hair!" she declared, laughing.
"It happens," shrugged Eshaa. "They get better with age, though." Usually. She hoped. Nahuel still thought he was going to grow up to be Indiana Jones reincarnated.
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