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 Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:18 am
Fish finally had his own surfboard, and he was glad to have it. It meant that Crowley (or, you know, other friends - but mostly Crowley) could come over to surf and they wouldn't have to share, which was nifty. Feely was busy with painter stuff a lot of the time, though she did take her board out in the afternoons sometimes; in general, that meant that during the day, Fish and his friends were free to use it.
Laughing happily, Fish paddled back out after what he thought was an awesome ride. The board skimmed to a stop near Crowley and he sat up on it, spinning it around with his legs.
"Was that awesome or was that awesome?" he demanded, grinning at his blood brother.
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Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:20 am
Crowley was only slightly uncomfortable by the large amount of water surrounding him; his swimming was okay, but still kind of shaky in the ocean. It definitely grated that this was one place where he'd probably never stand a chance against Fish... But, well, he had everywhere else on Earth and it was only fair, and besides, surfing was fun even if swimming was not.
"Double-bazillion awesome," said Crowley, straightening up on his borrowed board. "How'd you do that? It was awesome."
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Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:11 am
Fish rolled his eyes at his friend. "I taught you how to stand up back on the beach," he said. "It's the same thing, except in the water. And it should be easy on Feely's board. That thing is mondo-long."
It wasn't, really. But it was seven foot something, which was longer than Fish's board by a lot.
"You've got to catch the next wave," he declared.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:09 pm
"That," said Crowley, "is like me telling you that it is the same thing to backflip onto a wall as it is to backflip on the ground." Which he'd never done because he could show people lumps on his head where he'd backflipped into a wall instead of onto it, the two things were very different indeed. But there was nothing for it, and like his friend he adored challenges, and who was going to question whether he fell off the board or managed to ride the wave?
Well, long story short, it all went well and then he fell off.
When he got back to where Fish was waiting, he set his chin on the board with his arms thrown across it - he was already soaked, so why bother getting back on - and said, "See? Backflips."
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:47 pm
"Sorry," said Fish in a way that didn't really sound sorry at all.
"And you not doing it first try is like me falling on my head trying to backflip off the wall," he added, "So we're even."
He still had the bump from that particular misadventure.
Fish looked over his shoulder, scouting a wave, and then looked back at Crowley as he prepared to paddle.
"Jeez, stop sulking and get back on the board!" he chided. The wave came and he was off. He managed to get up and ride it most of the way in, but then wiped out spectacularly in the shallows. He got up, whooped in excitement, and paddled back out.
"Come on," he urged. "Get back on! Try again!"
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 11:45 pm
He watched Fish wipe out, a small grin building. Yeah, that made him feel slightly better. It was still like backflipping, but this time like the time where he'd run into the wall in front of Fish. Confidence building exercise! Totally! Crowley pulled himself back onto his borrowed surfboard and peered around for a wave; finding one similar to the last, he attempted to not fall off his board at all as he rode it.
This time he made it substantially longer, but the end result remained the same; the board slipped out from under him and he fell off, but this time when he resurfaced he had a huge grin on his face as he paddled towards Fish. "Guess it's like making a penalty kick in soccer," he said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing. "Just gotta practice, right?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:33 am
"Yeah," agreed Fish, returning his friend's grin. "And I think wiping out's probably okay as long as you rode it for a while first. It's kind of hard to balance once the wave starts to fizzle."
His stomach gurgled. He groaned. "Man!" he declared, "I'm hungry!"
Surfing sure took a lot out of you!
"Let's go up to the house and see what there is to eat," he said. "Come on, let's catch a wave in."
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:06 pm
Crowley nodded firmly. It really rankled that he wasn't instantly awesome like he was at most sports, but he could deal with it, right? Right. He was a guy, and guys didn't hold grudges like women. No they did not. So he caught a wave into the beach, taking his own sweet time because falling on his face into water did not appeal to him. (Fish could breathe underwater, but Crowley could not, so keeping his face out of the water was only to the good.)
"What d'you think you've got," he asked as he balanced his borrowed surfboard on top of his head. The walk back to Fish's house wasn't long, thankfully, because the second Fish had announced he was hungry Crowley had promptly become so as well.
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:16 pm
Fish caught a wave and followed his friend in. He picked his board up and carried it under his arm like a pro, using his other hand to keep it balanced.
"Dunno," he said, thinking about what he wanted for lunch. "Maybe Dad or Feely can make us grilled cheese."
Grilled cheese sandwiches would be perfect on a day like today. He lead the way up the path, pushed the door to the detached garage open, and got Crowley to help him put the boards away.
"Come on," he said, waving him back outside. A bit of the back yard around the back door had a wooden deck built on it, and a garden hose snaked from the house to the deck. Fish turned it on and aimed it at his friend's feet.
"Dad'll get mad if we track sand in the house," he said ruefully.
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:41 pm
Grilled cheese sounded awesome to Crowley. His house was pretty limited on food most kids actually liked, and he knew from prior experience that grilled cheese at the Prosper house was not something you blew off with last week's tuna roll sushi. As long as he could avoid the fruits and veggies, he'd be happy, but as far as he knew there wasn't any kind of super-heavy stress on that anyway.
He was jolted from his reverie by the cold water on his feet. "Yeah, yeah," he grumped. Did he get to do this to Fish after? It was only a proper revenge, he thought gloomily as he picked up one foot, then another, to get the sand out from the bottoms of his feet. The instant he was clean, he jumped away from the icy stream and shivered convulsively.
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Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 6:37 am
Fish - undoubtedly to Crowley's dismay - sprayed his own feet clean. He headed for the door and waved for his friend to follow. "The water wasn't that cold," he said dismissively.
He opened the door and they went inside. "Let's try to find Feely or my dad," he said, making a beeline through the kitchen towards the studio. Ophelia was there, sketching in a notebook. Prosper was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Dad?" Fish asked her.
"He went to Dreaming for the day," she said, not looking up. "He should be back in a while."
"Okay," said Fish, "Can you make me 'n Crow grilled cheese sandwiches?"
"Sure," said his sister, getting up. Fish followed her back to the kitchen, dragging Crowley behind him. "Do you want tomato in them?" she asked.
"It's a fruit, isn't it?" asked Fish.
"I'll take that as a no," she said, beginning to go through the cabinets for ingredients and pans. Fish lead Crowley over to the table and sat down.
"See? She's okay some of the time," he said with a wink.
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:46 pm
He shook excess water off his feet before proceeding inside. Perhaps he could get better faster than other kids his age, but it didn't mean he fancied a tumble to the floor because of his own wet feet. Speaking of wet - "Yeah-huh, it was," muttered Crowley as he padded after Fish in near silence. He peered into the studio with Fish - really he didn't have any interest at all in painting, that was girly stuff, but he was interested in food, which could only be obtained from either Feely or Mr. Prosper. Grilled cheese was awesome.
Well, except when it had tomato in, that was just odd. He sat down at the table and said in a passable imitation of primness, "What about the rest of the time, huh?"
Then he remembered who was making the food and twisted in the chair to say, "Just kidding, really!"
Crowley swiveled back to stare at Fish. "What's Dreaming?" Other than the thing people did while they were sleeping. He did that all the time.
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:45 am
Fish shrugged in response to Crowley's question. He didn't know all that world painter stuff.
"It's a world," said Ophelia offhandedly as she plopped four slices of bread into the frying pan. "Sort of like Australia?"
Actually, she was pretty sure that Dreaming might actually be a part of Australia, sort of how Tidewater was a part of Gaia. Something to do with painters wards and such. "Dad has friends there," she added, poking the bread around the pan. Joshua Baobab and that boy from her exam group. "You look sort of like them," she said, looking at Crowley. It was true, though he was perhaps a bit lighter than her father's friend. Joshua Baobab had the darkest skin she had ever seen.
"I have no idea what she's talking about," Fish whispered to his friend. Ophelia put optimistically yellow slices of American cheese onto the bread and put the sandwiches together. They still had a bit longer to cook. She flipped them over.
"He should be back soon," she said.
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:01 pm
"Huh," said Crowley, which meant that he was wondering if Australia on Earth or whatever was going to shortly be added to the Commonwealth. Probably not, since high-population worlds almost never were targets to the Lord Major General... Earth was definitely populous if he remembered right.
The dark-skinned boy leaned over slightly to hear Fish's whisper. "Yeah," he agreed, "Me neither." Would the sandwiches be done soon? He was really hungry.
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:15 pm
Fish was of similar opinion - he was starving! No sooner had his stomach grumbled loudly than Ophelia set a pair of plates on the table in front of them. Each plate had a sandwich on it, cut into quarters. Fish pulled one towards him and bit into it. "Mmm! S' good, Feely."
"Thanks," said Ophelia, and began to make herself a sandwich.
Suddenly, voices could be heard coming from the next room.
"Sounds like Dad's back," said Ophelia. A moment later, Prosper entered the kitchen, followed by a man who looked like he might have been a long evening shadow gone solid.
"'Ello, girlie," Joshua Baobab said to Ophelia, who blushed furiously.
"Do you want grilled cheese sandwiches?" she asked. "I was just making them for the boys and me."
"Sounds delicious," said Prosper. "We've been hiking all over the outback all morning."
"Who're the ankle biters?" asked Joshua Baobab, whose accent was just Australian enough to be about as comprehensible as Steve Irwin. Luckily, Prosper seemed able to translate. He pointed to each boy as he introduced them.
"My son, Fish - Phineas, really," he said with a wince, "and his friend Crowley Howl."
Joshua Baobab folded himself into a chair at the table.
Fish leaned over to whisper to Crowley. "He looks like you," he said.
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