|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:31 am
Sometimes, she felt less like a lifeguard and more like a babysitter. Tallulah heaved a sigh as she planted a deck chair in plain sight at the base of her lifeguard tower. "Lissy," she said, pointing from chair to troublemaker to chair once more. She didn't have the heart to ban the girl, even after she'd been in time-out several times already since opening day. God only knew where her parents were - as far as Tallulah knew, the teal-haired hellion came to the pool by herself, and the rookie lifeguard didn't want to be the one responsible for releasing her out into the wilds of Destiny City.
"Lissy," Tallulah repeated, pointing insistently. "Sit down."
She didn't want to do this. Really, she didn't. The kid showed an early love for the water that reminded Tallulah a lot of herself, and she didn't want to risk quashing that. But certain measures had to be taken to make sure that everyone else could enjoy the pool just as safely.
"It's not that I don't like you," she said sympathetically, in case there was any doubt. After all, she had put the same child in time out three times this week and the Chair was starting to be a permanent fixture.
"It's just that... you can't push other kids in the pool. Especially when they're still wearing their street clothes." Some things you just had to learn! Tallulah surveyed the soggy girl in front of her, and in a last moment of weakness, grabbed a floppy sunhat off the side of the lifeguard tower and plopped it onto the kid's head.
"Sit here until the minute hand is at the three, okay?" she asked, pointing to the clock over by the changing rooms. It was just a ten minute time-out. She thought she was being more than reasonable.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:39 am
Time out was a dangerous thing for a girl like Lissy, all you were really doing was giving her ten minutes to plot whatever she was going to do not. However this time it really wasn't fair.
"Thats not reasonable actually. They wanted to swim and were moaning that they didn't know how to. I just helped them on their way to learning. I would have taught them but they started screaming. Wimps." See it was a perfectly legitimate reason as to why you would push someone into the pool!
Lissy just stuck her tongue out at Tallulah, something she would normally do when she couldn't be bothered to come up with something else. Instead she sat there kicking the sides of the seat watching the clock and then the people in the pool.
"HEY! Your suppose to put your head in the water when you swim... thats why you look stupid your not doing it right!" She called out to a poor unsuspecting old person who seemed deaf enough not to hear anyway. Nearly everyone else heard her shout out though but the lack of a reaction from the old person made her sulk a little. This was boring.
"Tallulah! She aint swimming right!" She said in an incredibly moaning type of voice. Lissy might be a pain but at the same time she was good at swimming and so in a way time out was good for her but she was getting bored and the plan was once that hand was at three she would go and show that old person what happens when you don't swim properly - Lissy style!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:52 am
Tallulah, who had by now climbed back up to her perch atop the lifeguard tower, leaned over the arm of the chair to look down at Lissy. "It's a free country and she can swim however she wants, Lissy," she said seriously. Doggie paddle was unacceptable on a swim team and she certainly discouraged kids from using it when she taught water safety and swim lessons, but it was perfectly okay when you were seventy-plus years old and enjoying a day at the municipal pool.
"And you're in time out," she added. "Pipe down!" You would think by now, Lissy would know the drill for how one was to behave when the lifeguard had just hauled your a** over to the Chair, but apparently not. Or else she did and was electing not to listen - that was all the more likely, and it steamed Tallulah to no end.
She crossed her arms and gave the clock a plaintive look, wishing it to go faster so she could release her prisoner. It ticked as slowly as ever. This was going to be a long ten minutes for the both of them.
Someday, she just knew it, Felicity Harrow was going to be a swim coach.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:56 am
"Tallulah.... those two over there look like they are kissing. Thats not allowed." In all honesty, the two teenagers looked like they were trying to do more then that but Lissy tried to at least seem innocent when around others. She knew the 'no petting' rule in the swimming pool as she had always found it amusing.
The truth was Lissy liked Tallulah, she also liked sitting and watching the swimming pool. She wasn't overly happy being told that the old person could swim how they liked though. They shouldn't swim like that!
"Can I blow the whistle at the two kissing? Pleeeeeeeeeeassssse" Yes the prisoner wanted a treat but then this was Lissy! It was that or she would shout at them first because Tallulah would still have the whistle in her mouth. She had that planned! Lissy would be a better lifeguard then Tallulah... if only someone like drowned so she could jump in and prove it... now that was a thought... nope drowning someone was going a little too far even for Lissy. Blowing a whistle on the other hand wasn't.
"Please Tallulah!!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 8:08 am
Tallulah squinted through her sunglasses at the aforementioned teenagers, who did indeed look like they were up to no good in the far corner of the deep end.
She glanced down at Lissy, and had to admit that the girl did, in fact, know all of the pool rules. It was following them where she got into trouble. Tallulah took her whistle off and dangled it down for Lissy, keeping a firm hold on the cord.
"One blow," she said, "And then I'm yanking it back up."
She didn't believe that Lissy would take it. Lissy seemed like a good kid at heart, bratty ways and troublemaking aside.
She looked towards the teenagers again, waiting for the kid to blow the whistle so she could shout, "OY, YOU TWO, GET A ROOM."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 8:14 am
Lissy's eyes lit up as the whistle was dangled in front of her and she took it, took a deep breath and blew on it as hard as she could. Then laughed at the teenagers faces when they noticed it was a ten year old girl who had blown the whistle at them.
"You should give them time out." Lissy was certain in fact that Tallulah should treat everyone fairly... She laughed though knowing that wouldn't happen and instead stared at the pool again but everyone was behaving.
"This is boring." She crossed her legs in the chair and looked around. Why was no one doing anything? She sighed and looked up at Tallulah before back at the pool again.
She started humming to herself different nursery rhymes starting with row row row your boat just because she could, after all what else were you suppose to do sitting here. "Booooored... why won't someone do something!" See this is why Lissy existed so lifeguards weren't bored all the time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 8:49 am
The minute hand clicked onto the two. Tallulah slipped her whistle back around her neck and called down to her prisoner, "Look! You're halfway done already!" As long as Lissy could hold still for another five minutes, they'd be golden. And as long as she didn't get into trouble again before three PM, they'd be golden for the rest of her shift.
"Say," said Tallulah, leaning over her chair to look down at the girl again upon hearing what she was humming. "Has anyone ever told you the better words to Row Row Row Your Boat?" She wasn't sure if the wordplay would appeal to Lissy, but it was something to pass the time - particularly because now that the teenagers had slunk off somewhere that they weren't her problem and Lissy was successfully contained, it was a slow day.
She scanned the pool deck quickly for anything amiss, and finding everything to be perfectly fine, looked down at the girl again.
"It goes... Propel, propel, propel your craft, lightly up the liquid solution! Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically... existence is but an illusion!"
Could Lissy smell what Tallulah was cooking? Because this was some metaphysical Inception s**t.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 8:54 am
Lissy just stared at Tallulah wondering what the hell was wrong with the older girl.
"What's that suppose to mean?" She looked at Tallulah again trying to work out whether she just put a load of meaningless words together or something. Lissy decided that no Tallulah hadn't made this up and had possibly heard it from someone else and so she now wanted to know what it meant.
"Come on... it makes no sense! What is ecstatically whatever?" Lissy didn't like not understanding things and it was obvious she was getting annoyed. See Lissy didn't mind sitting for ten minutes but being confused annoyed her and that led to her playing up again. She just didn't understand it!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:24 am
"Ecstatically. It means overjoyed," sighed Tallulah, sinking back into her chair. The clock's minute hand was halfway between the two and the three, and this time-out could not possibly be over soon enough. She was out of ideas to keep Lissy out of trouble and - come on! Most kids loved her song! Except for Lissy, apparently.
"Can you just sit quietly for two minutes of your life?" she asked. And then she had a better idea.
"Count to one hundred and twenty mississippi," ordered Tallulah, leaning back over the arm of the chair to look down at Lissy. "Slowly," she added. "And then you can go."
That should keep her occupied and get her out of Tallulah's hair.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 1:25 am
"I want to know what the song means!" She was going to be very stubborn about this, maybe she over-thought things or something but she didn't understand the song and it annoyed her.
"I am not going to count. Counting like that is for babies." Lissy had refused to count sheep when her mother had told her once it was going to help her get to sleep. Instead she had fallen asleep coming up with as many prank ideas as she could. She didn't like counting it was boring and Lissy didn't like getting bored.
"Can I just go now? It's not like it would make a difference!" Lissy looked up at Tallulah with pleading eyes that Tallulah would probably be able to see straight through. There wasn't many who gave in to Lissy's pleading eyes as they all knew Lissy a little too well. She was never innocent and rarely sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:09 am
"Nope, it's gotta be ten minutes," replied Tallulah, staring at the clock. Was it going backwards?! She shook her head. It couldn't be. She refused.
"The song's all synonyms," she explained, heaving a sigh. Maybe, if she was lucky, this would get her through the last minute of this ponderous discipline. "Words that mean the same thing as the real lyrics? But they made it overly complicated."
Admittedly the real stinger was "existence is but an illusion," but if Lissy hadn't gotten it the first time then she wasn't about to give the girl existential angst and matrix-scenario nightmares. She didn't want to be blamed for that, in addition to whatever other trauma Lissy might claim she endured while seated in the time-out throne.
The minute hand snapped mercifully onto the three. Tallulah perked up. She clapped her hands. "Okay! That's it! Get out of here! DO NOT GET INTO TROUBLE AGAIN OR I WILL END YOU."
It was an empty, useless threat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 11:38 am
Nope Lissy had no idea what she was talking about. Was probably one of those strange things that just happened as it were. Then she was told she could go and she jumped up! Yes freedom!
Then Tallulah spoke.
Lissy turned and looked at her.
"As if you could end me!" She laughed and jumped straight into the pool right next to the no jumping sign. Lissy knew the swimming pool well enough to know that it didn't matter that she jumped in where she did. She only did it of course to annoy Tallulah. Then she was off swimming again!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
