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 Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:38 am
Summer had become much more bearable when Kirra’s mother had found the Community Centre swimming pool. Kirra was happy in the water, and sometimes other kids would play with her for a while. And sometimes they wouldn’t, but she could swim better than them, so it was fine. Today was a good day, and she’d found some nice girls and a big floaty ball. They’d been playing Finding Nemo, and the ball was their egg. But the big kids wouldn’t leave them alone.
“Shark!” yelled one, and grabbed the ball right out of Kirra’s hands, tossing it over their heads. That was pretty mean. If she wanted to play, she could have just asked.
“Get it, get it!” called one of the other kids, so she’d splashed after it, only to see it sail over the side of the pool, rolling out of reach. Quick as a flash, Kirra dragged herself up onto the lip of the pool, shivering slightly as the dry air hit her wet skin. Ignoring the goosebumps, she ran along the edge of the pool, her bare feet slap-slapping along the rough surfacing beside the tiles, leaving fast-fading footprints behind her.
And she knew she wasn’t supposed to run at the pool, but this was an American pool, not an Australian one, so it was probably different because nearly everything was. And anyway, she was being careful. And anyway, the ball was still rolling way fast and if she didn’t catch it, they would never have any clown fish babies at all. Some other kid would pick it up, and what if they wouldn’t play with her? She would have to just find a kickboard, and those weren’t fun at all.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:06 am
Tallulah had practically begged for an Independence Day weekend shift - working on a federal holiday meant making time and a half, and she was all about that life. The pool was crowded - but then, in weather like this, it was always crowded - and she was busy enough dealing with a pair of little old ladies with heat exhaustion that the bullying going on in the shallow end had gone completely unnoticed. (She'd feel awful about that later, natch.) Now, returning to her chair, Tallulah had the good fortune of spotting a little girl running across the pool deck in pursuit of a beach ball that was headed her way. She picked up the ball and waited. "Hey," she said as the girl approached. "I know you know better than that. What's the rush?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 8:06 am
Uh-oh... Kirra watched the ball get whisked out of her reach, not by another kid, but by a grown-up. That was way worse! She slowed down, but it was too late, the lady had clearly noticed her. Kirra pattered to a halt, apologetically dripping in front of Tallulah. She glanced behind her to look for support, but the girls she'd been playing with were impossible to spot in the bobbing and splashing crowd. Well, the lady didn't sound mad yet, so she tried to explain. "I had to! Sharks stole our egg so I had to run and get it back so we can have baby fish. But now you've got it..." And it wasn't polite to say 'give it back', because it wasn't really her ball, it was the pool's ball. And the lady seemed kind of old to want to come and find Nemo with them, though you never knew until you asked. She smiled a 'definitely-wasn't-running' smile, trying to look like a kid who deserved to have the ball back. "Are you the lifeguard?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 9:10 am
Tallulah nodded, understanding roughly what was going on. The only question left in her mind was whether the so-called sharks had been an intended part of the game, or just older kids butting in. "Okay," she said. "Yes. I'm the lifeguard." (What gave it away? The red suit, the whistle, the t-shirt that said "LIFEGUARD"?) "My name's Tallulah," she said, crouching a little as to get down on the kid's level. "What's your name?" She waited for the answer, and then said, "Okay, Kirra. I take it you didn't ask the sharks to steal your egg, so let's go back over to the pool and you can point them out to me and I'll tell them to knock it off, okay?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:38 am
Kirra repeated the name silently, shaping her mouth around the syllables. Talloooolah. Talloolah-loolah. What a fun name! She responded readily, now assured that Tallulah was indeed an authority, but not a teacher-type one. "Uh-huh~" she agreed, nodding happily when it looked like the lady understood the gravity of the situation. Of course she didn't ask sharks to steal! Stealing was bad! And "Uh-huh!" with a nod at the suggestion of going to back to the pool. And an "Uh...oh?" when the lifeguard lady told her to point them out. Half-way to offering her hand to lead the way, Kirra hesitated, turning wide worried eyes to look up at her. "They're not gonna get in trouble, are they?" The lady was nice, and she very much wanted to help and do what she was asked, but what about the other kids? No-one wanted to play with a dibber-dobber! "I'm not telling, okay?" she explained quickly.
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Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 9:14 am
Tallulah nodded. While she personally wanted to see bullies punished if they were bullying on her watch, she didn't want to just make it worse for Kirra - and kids could be vicious if they sensed a tattle-tale. "Of course you're not," she said, smiling gamely. "And I'm not going to punish them just yet - but how about I keep an eye on them, and if I see them getting rough again, I'll tell them to stop?" Hopefully, even a child could see that there was much less obvious cause and effect in play if she did it that way - and besides, there was no point in punishing kids for something they already thought they'd gotten away with. "No telling involved," she said. "Sound good to you, Kirra?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:04 am
Ohh! That didn't sound so bad. They couldn't blame her if the lifeguard looked at them. Looking wasn't bad - and Tallulah had the big chair, so she could probably see all of everything anyway, so it wasn't Kirra's fault if they did get in trouble. Lifeguard lady was smart! "Okay!" she agreed, reaching for Tallulah's non-ball-carrying hand again and heading to a better vantage point nearer the poolside as directed. It was like 'Where's Wally' out there. Everyone in the whole city was in the pool. She stared out into the splash waves, peering at the other kids with detective intent. If she had a big chair, it would probably be easier. "There!" she pointed after a minute, spotting one of her shark's distinctive spotty bathing suit. And sure enough, if she squinted - "And that one!". She turned triumphantly to Tallulah, a grin on her face. "Two sharks!"
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 11:18 am
Tallulah nodded, taking note of the troublemakers. The pool was crowded, but she'd be sure to keep an eye on them. "Okay," she said, handing the ball back to Kirra. "Is that all of them?" Troublemaking kids usually ran in packs. Two was enough to cause problems, but if there were more, then she wanted to know. On the other hand, if Kirra was seen talking to the lifeguard for too long, the other kids would probably start to think she was a narc. Life was hard when you had to be a reasonable authority figure to kids who had no inherent reason to obey you. She was willing to bet that if she meted out any kind of punishment at all, she'd hear from their parents. What a headache that would be. "If that's all of them, you can go ahead back to your game," she said, smiling down at Kirra. "Just - no more running on the pool deck, okay?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 7:56 pm
Kirra accepted the ball back like a trophy, beaming up at Tallulah. She was so lucky the nice lifeguard had caught it, not someone mean! She wanted to do something nice for Tallulah, too, and help more. She hugged the ball against her chest, looking back to the water and her friends. Should there be more sharks? In the movie, there was more – there were three, and she’d only found two. But they’d only met two so far. Maybe more sharks were hiding? “I can look for more!” she volunteered. “Do you want me to look for more sharks? I won’t run anymore.” But she hesitated to make it a promise. What if the sharks got the ball again? What if there was a really big splash and the ball got away? It wasn’t like she wanted to break the rules, but there were so many what-ifs. Oh- but if the lifeguard stayed with her, she wouldn’t have to worry. Tallulah didn’t seem to be old-old, and she was really nice, so: “Do you wanna come play with us?”
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2015 8:32 am
Tallulah hesitated, smiling out of awkwardness. "No," she said, after a moment. "That's okay. Don't go looking for trouble. I'll keep an eye on things, and if anyone else starts to bully you, just wave at me, alright?" She pointed towards the lifeguard chair a few yards away. "I'll be sitting up there, so I'll have a bird's-eye view of everything that happens." "Thank you for inviting me," she added - it was a hot day and it would be really nice to take a dip, but she couldn't. "But I've got to be up on the chair for a while. Maybe once someone comes to take over for me." LokisRose This seems like it's heading for a wrap - and then we can do powered shenanigans?
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:49 am
“Aww. Okay.” Kirra wasn’t that surprised that Tallulah couldn’t come. Grown-ups didn’t get a lot of playtime, it wasn’t very fair for them. She looked up at the very high chair. It must be pretty cool to be a lifeguard, though. A bird’s view would be pretty neat for here, kind of like being up a palm tree at the beach. But you couldn’t really climb a palm tree, there weren’t enough branches. She lifted her hand to wave before heading back to the pool, but thinking of Tallulah’s instructions made her pause. “What if I want to wave to you to say hi and not because bullies? Will you know the difference?”
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:18 am
Tallulah considered Kirra's question for a moment. "Yes," she said. "If you're waving to say it's more sharks, smile with all your teeth real big, okay? Gnash 'em at me." She opened her mouth and chomped lightly in demonstration. "Like this. Like a shark." That should be simple enough for the girl to do and for Tallulah to spot, she thought, and straightened up to her full height. "I'm gonna go back to the chair now, okay?" she asked, wanting to make sure everything was okay before she went.
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Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 1:58 am
Delighted with this solution, Kirra copied Tallulah’s expression, baring her teeth in a sharky grin complete with gnashy sound effects. She could be a shark too! They could be shark friends! “I got it!” she giggled. “Okay, thank you, Talloooolah!” Her accent stretched out the name even when she didn’t do it on purpose. Kirra waved bye with a carefully close-mouthed smile, not to be mistaken for the emergency signal. With only the slightest skip on the first step (before she remembered the whole point of why the lifeguard had called her out), she turned and walked slowly, carefully back to the shallow-side pool edge, a happy and triumphant fishy returning to her friends, having (in her opinion) successfully made a new one.
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