Currently taking a break from my first round of newspaper edits... Yikes. It's taking a lot of self-restraint to not completely tear the one article apart. I have hiiiiiiigh standards, my friends.
On a more relaxed note, getting in the spirit of this update, here's a video of my puppy (who isn't so much a puppy now) enjoying the snow last March.
*** ***
"It's snowing!" Maeve screams without warning.
Lis flinches at the outburst.
"We need to have a snowball fight!"
"You up to that?" Jamison asks, catching her flailing arms and peeking under the bandages. The briefest wince crosses his face, there one second, gone the next.
My heart sinks.
What the hell was on that blade?
"Yes!" Maeve pulls away from him and runs back to the window.
"I found some first-aid stuff in one of the bathrooms," Ori says to me in an undertone. "Antibiotic ointment and painkillers."
"And what'd you do, give her a double dose?"
"No, I gave her a half-dose. She's just being a kid on Christmas."
I'm not entirely convinced, watching Maeve bounce around like there are springs in her feet, but there's nothing I can do about it anyway.
"Alright, we can go out, but only for a little while, and we have to put more clothes on first." Jamison grabs another Oreo and holds it between his teeth as he ushers Maeve from the room.
"Anyone else in?" Sander asks, getting to his feet and stretching.
"Me." Ori pulls on the hoodie she received from Lis. "Halle? Lis? Beck?"
Beck nods, for once showing something akin to eagerness.
"I'll watch," Lis says, pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"That means you're in, Halle."
"Great." I've never been a big fan of snowball fights, especially since the time Cass accidentally hit me right between the eyes with a really solidly-packed snowball back in first grade. I woke up flat on my back, snow all over my face, laughingstock of the entire schoolyard.
"Oh, don't be like that, we'll go easy on you." Ori smirks, and I'm sure she's remembering that day back in primary school.
"You say that now. I've seen you throw snowballs, Miss Softball Captain."
She shrugs.
***
"Okay, so here's our game plan." Ori pulls Maeve and I behind our carefully-constructed snow wall. "Halle, sorry, you're not exactly our strongest thrower, so you're on snowball-making duty for the first minute or two. Maeve, you can focus primarily on Jamison, 'cause he's a softie for you. Halle, you get Beck, and I'll take out Sander."
I raise an eyebrow but she ignores me.
"Cool." Maeve continues to vibrate with energy, but I'm thinking now it's from cold rather than excitement. "Can I hit him in the face?"
I cringe. "How about no head shots?"
Her face falls, but only for a moment. "Okay."
"Great. Let's kick some butt, yeah?"
"You girls ready?" Sander calls across the courtyard.
"Born ready!" Ori yells back.
I can almost see his eyeroll from here. "Alright. You get hit three times, you're out. On your honor. Last team standing wins dinner and a request of their choice. Limited to one hour in length and must be non-life-threatening." He glares at Maeve as he says this, and she grins. "Everyone ready?"
We all nod, and chaos breaks out the moment he opens his mouth to start the fight.
I drop behind the wall, scrabbling around for snow to pack into snowballs.
Ori screams a certain f-word at the top of her lungs as a snowball hits her right in the exposed part of her neck.
When the pile seems large enough to keep us going for a couple minutes, I spring up and launch one at Beck.
He sidesteps it with probably the first smile I've ever seen from him, quickly winding up a snowball of his own.
I dive out of its path, only to accidently block a snowball Jamison meant for Maeve.
I shudder exaggeratedly, trying desperately to get the snow out of my jacket before it can melt there. Nope, it's already soaking through my shirt. "Well, crap!"
Maeve laughs hysterically, then bravely takes a large snowball to the face.
I look up, and Beck's also laughing, albeit silently, so hard I think he's about to fall over.
Might as well take advantage. I whip another one his way, and it catches him by the shoulder.
Ori curses again. "I'm out, I'm out," she gasps, dropping behind the wall. "I'll make the snowballs; you guys keep going..."
Now that Ori's down, both Sander and Jamison are gunning for Maeve (as no doubt I'll be easy pickings once she's out of the picture).
"No!" Maeve flings two snowballs mid-dive, and I nearly lose my footing laughing as I watch her pinwheel forward.
Sander takes one to the chest, surprisingly enough, and promptly flops backwards. "I'm dead!" he yells as he starts making a snow angel right where he lays.
"And you're dead too!" Maeve screams at Jamison.
He gets her a moment later, and she falls yet again.
Beck throws three snowballs at me in quick succession, and I nearly fall over backwards trying to dodge them.
The last one hits me in the chin, but luckily it's not too tightly-packed. I straighten up immediately, throw another one his way and, in his attempt to dodge my snowball, falls right into Maeve's warpath.
I duck behind the wall to grab two more snowballs from Ori.
"You got this," she says as I jump back up.
"Neither can live while the other survives!" I dodge snowballs from both Jamison and Beck before sending off my own.
I miss, but Maeve pounds Beck in the knee, and he falls, laughing, to the ground.
"Oh, it's so on!" Jamison laughs wildly, and it makes his aim sloppy.
"He's only got one life left," Ori hisses. "Halle, you distract him with some misses, Maeve, you go in for the kill-"
So I pick up as many snowballs as I can hold and start whipping them in Jamison's direction.
And then another snowball comes from my right, landing smack-dab in the middle of Jamison's chest.
For half a second he looks shocked, and then he dramatically stumbles forward, finally landing facedown in the trampled snow.
"We won! We won!" Maeve body-slams me in celebration, sending both of us crashing to the ground.
"You have got to learn some better ways to vent excess energy," I grumble.
I doubt she even hears me, she's laughing so hard.
"Okay, okay, somehow you won, what would you like for dinner?" Sander asks, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet.
"A Christmas feast!" Maeve bounces to her feet.
"And what all does that include?"
She shrugs. "Daddy always stopped at the store on his way home from work and got a roasted chicken and some bread."
"I dunno if we have chicken-"
"I'm sure you'll find something," Ori says, cutting Sander off.
"Whatever. You have until dinner to decide on your other request."
"Thank you." Ori gives Sander a weird look that I can't decipher, nor am I sure I want to.
"Let's go in, it's freezing out here." Jamison takes Maeve by the hand and lets her pull him back toward the mansion.
I lag behind with Beck. "Nice game," I say.
He smiles shyly, and I take it as a good sign.
"It's too bad Kerris isn't feeling so great. I think she'd be very proud of you."
He shrugs, but his lighthearted mood seems to stick around.
"You know, I think Jamison and Sander found a Play Station. I'm sure they'd let you play with them if you wanted to. Something with racecars?"
Beck nods, but distractedly, and I catch his gaze flicking up to the windows above us, as if he's searching for the one that hides his sister.
I don't know what else to say, so I stay silent.
Back inside the White House, the boys head down to the kitchen to take stock for dinner preparations.
"Let's watch Christmas Vacation!" Maeve says, running down the hall to the living room.
"My God, Maeve, your dad let you watch that?" Ori asks.
"He didn't exactly let me..."
"I can't imagine being a single parent to that scrud," I joke.
Ori laughs. "She's certainly a handful."
"Or two."
"Or three."
"Her dad must've been an octopus. That's the only way."
"For sure."
We reach the living room, where Maeve is already climbing onto the couch to sit next to Lis.
"I'll go get another blanket," I say after watching Maeve try to squeeze in under Lis's blanket.
I gather up my presents (might as well take them with me) and go down the hall to my bedroom.
I've just started to open the door when I see Kerris stumble around the corner at the end of the hall.
"Hey, are you okay?" I ask, hurrying forward to steady her.
"Yeah, fine," she mumbles. Her eyes are glazed over; I guess lying down didn't do anything to help.
"We were going to watch Christmas Vacation, I don't know if you'd like to join us or... or go lie down..."
Her eyes seem to clear up a little. "Oh. I love that movie."
I hesitantly remove my grip from her shoulder so I can pick up my things again and put them in my room.
She seems steadier now, more... present.
Odd.
I grab the comforter off the bed and then we walk back to the living room.
Maeve apparently couldn't wait for me to return; the Griswolds are already well on their way to getting their Christmas tree, and she's squealing with delight.
"Watch them, watch them drive under the truck!"
"I've seen this movie," I tell her as I sit down on the couch.
"But watch! Watch!" She howls with laughter, and I can't help but smile.
*** ***
Hahaha. This one was fun to write. And mostly happened because I didn't know what should happen next, but there's also a few things in there that hint at what is to come... Did you catch them?
Anyway... your favorite winter activity? I don't think I can pick just one, but I enjoy just hanging out inside watching movies, cuddled up under a blanket. I also enjoy ice skating, but only for a little while, and then my ankles start to hurt from the rental skates, lol. I'm not really one for sledding anymore, but there was a day back in December where all classes were cancelled so my friends and I decided to use a cardboard box to 'sled' down the sidewalk in front of our apartment at ten thirty at night, and that was pretty fun (until the university police drove by and we got scared about getting a noise complaint and ran inside, hahahahaha... sorry, Mom).
I feel like I had another question, but I don't remember it. Oh well.
Also, that contest that I mentioned like a month ago, yeah, lol, that never happened.
I'm kind of debating starting a Patreon, though... I'll have to do a little more research about setting it up, but I think it would be a fun way to offer more content related to my stories... We shall see, we shall see...
Have a great weekend! I know I won't! (JK, mostly, but I'm going back up to school Saturday and I'm absolutely dreading the start of the semester.)