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 Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:55 am
It hadn't been Brownie's idea to waste her time going to some weird kid maze. No, that had been all August. Sometimes having a little brother who could query your mind like a squishy brain spreadsheet was more trouble than it was worth. Even though August couldn't really read much on his own, he had proven adept at plucking just what his sister didn't want him to out of her head, and spending the afternoon at the maze she had read about in the paper was the catch of the day.
The object of this maze was to gather letters from helpful workers scattered throughout and make a predetermined word with them by the end. August and Brownie already had an S, T and E, but the fact that a million words could be made out of those letters kept them searching.
"Fork," August said, peering down the two paths they found themselves in front of.
"Yeah. Which way?" It seemed to Brownie they had been wandering in circles for the last twenty minutes, but August didn't seem fazed, so she kept her mouth shut.
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:48 am
"Eee tee essss!" sang Orli, one yellow hand firmly clamped to her older brother's, and one holding the letters they had already found. Nahuel's free hand had the map held open by his thumb in it, but it wasn't doing any good. They'd be lost in this maze forever. Still, it was a good adventure!
"We're gonna find a treasure, Orli!" He said hopefully, squeezing the little girl's hand.
"Shinnies?" asked Orli, managing to equate the word with her new friend Polly.
"I dunno," said Nahuel, wrinkling his nose. All he knew about the maze was that Mom had told them to go do it. "Letters, I guess."
"Eee tee essss!" sang Orli again, to the same tune as their doorbell at home.
"Let's go find the rest!" replied the Jaguar boy. They rounded a corner in the maze. There were people ahead - maybe they knew where to get the other letters? Or maybe they were evil Nazi minions of the villain? (In Nahuel's mind, though, there was always a villain and he always had evil Nazi minions.) Except... they didn't really look like Evil Nazi Minions (tm).
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:26 pm
Upon hearing the approach of other children, August turned, his task of choosing which way to go temporarily forgotten. He watched the jaguar boy and the shiny little girl silently until his sister noticed he wasn't answering her.
"Which way?" she asked again, looking down at the top of August's head. She followed his gaze to the new kids, fixing them with a look of interest. She was no Evil Nazi Minion (tm), but her pale hair and the back blades peeking out from the bottom of her long coat lent her a menacing air even when she was feeling friendly. "Hey, what letters you got?" she asked the pair. "We've got some dumb ones that you can spell almost everything with," she continued.
"You are searching for a time that has passed or a song from a beetle," August said, repeating the clue. There was something about the way he spoke the words that might lead one to believe the boy was uttering the longest sentence he had all day.
"Yeah, that. Any ideas?" Brownie asked, awfully demanding considering that she had just met the other two children.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:58 pm
"Eee tee ess!" said Orli again, holding up the letter cards for the girl and boy to see. Maybe they could be friends? Except the girl looked kind of scary... She drew closer to Nahuel's leg - big brother would protect her, after all.
"Yeah, that part about singing bugs didn't make any sense," shrugged Nahuel, taking the cards from his sister and looking at them again. The other two children were, thankfully, not evil nazi minions (tm), so he supposed they could be friends. And maybe they could help each other get out of this maze...
"What letters have you guys got?" he asked, handing the letters back to Orli and fiddling with the brim of his battered fedora. "I'm Nahuel," he added.
"Orli!" volunteered the little girl, surveying the letters again. She could read them! Eee tee ess! That made her smart!
"I think we'd need to get the bug part, because the other one can be a lot of things," said Nahuel, pushing his hat more firmly onto his head.
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Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:57 pm
"Brownie," Brownie said, her voice surprisingly devoid of the 'yes, like the dessert - what of it?' tone it usually held during introductions. "He's August," she continued, gesturing toward her brother.
"We got those ones too," August said. "Letters."
"They spell almost everything," Brownie repeated, nodding. "We should look for more while we think about the bug part," she suggested.
"Which way?" August asked, addressing Orli since he didn't have to look up to see her. He had attempted to decide which way to go on his own back when his sister had first asked him to choose, but he still couldn't decide.
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Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:19 pm
Orli considered the question from the boy. Well, there were only three ways. She had to be right with one of them.
"We already came that way," said Nahuel, pointing down the path they had come. "And you guys came that way," he continued, pointing down the path that Brownie and August had appeared on.
Process of elimination Orli could do. She looked from one path to another and settled on the center one, the one none of them had taken yet. "That one," she said with a sort of toddler firmness.
"Sounds good," said Nahuel, starting off in that direction. "Come on!"
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:16 pm
August and Brownie followed, the latter hurrying forward a bit as if she had been the one to choose the direction they were headed. The path twisted and turned, but it wasn't long before a letter table came into view. There were a bunch of kids gathered around; August tried to make out their conversations in order to see if they had deciphered the riddle.
"It's a D," Brownie said, picking up the next letter.
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:09 pm
"E T S D?" asked Nahuel, approaching the table and picking up a card for himself. He frowned at it and handed it to Orli. "Well, it's not 'past,'" he sighed, watching his sister shuffle the letters. "What have you got, Orli?"
"Dunno," said the blue-haired girl, pouting. She held up the letters for Nahuel to take.
"E, S, T, D," he read, thumbing through them. He looked down at her and shrugged noncommittally.
"That's not a word.
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:50 pm
"I guess we should keep going," Brownie said, looking past the table to the continuation of the path they were on.
In a rush a young girl ran past, catching her foot on some unknown obstacle and stumbling. Her letters flew from her hands and fanned out in front of her on the ground, but only two remained face-up. August pointed discreetly, looking over at Orli and up at her brother to see if they had noticed. Assuming that the different colors weren't meaningless, the answer they were looking for also contained a pair of Ys.
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Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:40 pm
"Y E S T D Y!" announced Orly happily, noticing the letters. She paused, frowned, and tried to pronounce whatever it spelled. "Yest-dy?" she asked, looking curiously at her three companions.
"Time past and a song by a bug."
"Yest-dy," said Orli again, deep in thought. What did that sound like? It was on the tip of her tongue! But what was it?
"Yesterday!" exclaimed Nahuel, snapping his fingers. "I still don't get the song by a bug part."
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:57 am
At Nahuel's realization, Brownie smiled. Her father was always listening to different sorts of music, including some really old crap. Obviously something had rubbed off at some point. The Beatles!
"Beetles?" August asked, looking up at his sister.
"With an A," she corrected, fairly sure August was getting it wrong. "They're a band. And they've got a song called Yesterday." She looked around to see if anyone had heard their answer. "Now how do we get out of here for prizes?" she whispered conspiratorially.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:52 pm
"I think we have to find the exit," said Nahuel lowly, patting Orli on the head. She'd done well. Orli responded by hugging his leg and burying her nose in his jeans. "I think..."
He stared at the hedge path ahead.
"I saw this on TV once," he said, which meant it had to work, "That if you ever get lost in a labyrinth, all you have to do is keep turning right every time you have a fork to take."
"Lab-i-rinth," repeated Orli, trying out the word. "Turn right?" She looked down the path, trying to see whatever it was her big brother saw. "Let's go!" she exclaimed, tugging his leg.
"Uh," said Nahuel to Brownie and August, "I guess we should follow her, huh?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:50 pm
"Sounds like a plan," Brownie agreed. She took her brother's hand and followed after the little star-haired girl.
"Yesterday," August chanted under his breath. He didn't want to forget, and in his determination to remember the riddle's answer, he missed a lot of the boring backtracking they were doing. It defintely made the most sense to go right at every fork, it was just time consuming.
"We make a good team," Brownie said to no one in particular, even though she hadn't done much more than translate for her brother and act superior.
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Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:00 pm
"I think so, too," said Nahuel. He had a hunch it couldn't possibly be much further, but then again, he'd been wrong before. Orli seemed like she was starting to lag. Instead of rushing ahead like she had been doing, she was walking closer to him now.
"I'm tired," she cooed.
"We'll be out soon," he assured her.
"Yesterday," she murmured, taking him by the hand.
The hedge seemed to thin up ahead.
"Is that...?" he asked.
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