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Bella rolls over onto her back. She's been doing leg lifts. Now her legs hurt. She's going to lie there for a while, and then she's going to drive home, and then she's going to write about a paragraph of Government essay before expiring from boredom. Jessica is sick. Angela is babysitting. They're still doing stuff she's covered in Bio and books she's read in English; it would take better teachers than she has to make Spanish and Trig interesting. A trip to Port Angeles to do something is the work of an entire day, not a school afternoon. She really needs to save up and buy more books. Or take up - quilting, or something.
Sigh.
self_composed
self_composed
Bella keeps to a leisurely pace, looking at pretty things. She likes pretty things. She also doesn't think there's really a lair. "Who does the decorating? Is that one of your parents or a staff thing?"
edgeofyourseat
"Mom's in charge," he says, "but she makes other people do the boring stuff. Ooh, here we go."
He leads her through another archway and down a short corridor to a door, which he opens with a flourish.
On the other side is a set of stairs, going down. The space into which they descend is just as unreasonably pretty as the rest of the house.
He leads her through another archway and down a short corridor to a door, which he opens with a flourish.
On the other side is a set of stairs, going down. The space into which they descend is just as unreasonably pretty as the rest of the house.
self_composed
"Hm, this is a basement. I don't yet know if it's a lair," Bella says, going down the stairs and trailing her fingertips over the pretty wall. "You know, if you asked the part of my brain that generates stereotypes where you ought to live, it would have proposed next door to a gang hideout and across the street from someplace severely rent-controlled, but in its own way this works too."
edgeofyourseat
"Yeah, I don't act rich-kid, I know," Alice agrees, following her down and shutting the door behind them. "But I am, in fact, a rich kid."
The space is also quite large, once they reach the bottom of the stairs and step out into it properly. The ceiling is supported by a network of pillars and arches, some of which may be decorative, many of which probably aren't; the room is ballroom height at least, and quite possibly ballroom length and width as well.
The space is also quite large, once they reach the bottom of the stairs and step out into it properly. The ceiling is supported by a network of pillars and arches, some of which may be decorative, many of which probably aren't; the room is ballroom height at least, and quite possibly ballroom length and width as well.
self_composed
"You don't have a key," murmurs Bella. "Are you a rich kid or the kid of rich parents?"
She looks around appreciatively at the lair. "If there were some indoor sport which involved the strategic use of pillars, this place would be perfect for it."
She looks around appreciatively at the lair. "If there were some indoor sport which involved the strategic use of pillars, this place would be perfect for it."
edgeofyourseat
"We could make one up," he suggests brightly, apparently deciding the question was rhetorical.
self_composed
"No. No we could not. I'm rightly banned from all forms of moving around short of walking, and only may walk because I'd probably do more damage in a wheelchair."
self_composed
"I can dog-paddle well enough to not drown while I wait to be rescued," Bella says. "It turns out you cannot breathe water safely. General human failing." She looks around at the pillars. "I don't think I've ever invented a sport before."
self_composed
"Alrighty." She looks around again. "Two teams is standard. Who wants to be standard, I ask you. Three? Four? Five's probably unwieldy."
edgeofyourseat
Somewhere around 'I ask you', Alice grins.
"I like the way you think," he says, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the very attractively-papered wall. "Three. Let's go with three."
"I like the way you think," he says, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the very attractively-papered wall. "Three. Let's go with three."
self_composed
"And we can make them all the same size. Or not, but let's anyway, as if we deviate from all the standards no one will ever play and I will lose my opportunity to make a million dollars in speaking engagements as the inventor. Five to a team should be manageable. And the object is to get a ball, or two or three, to make a specific number of bounces off of pillars? Like pinball."
edgeofyourseat
"Brilliant," Alice pronounces. "Three teams, three balls, have to use another team's ball to score? And maybe you only get points for the number of bounces past what your team's already got, so it starts out easy and gets ridiculous."
self_composed
"In what sense does a team own a ball if they can't use 'their' ball to score?" inquires Bella. "And if I understand you right, it gets too ridiculous - I don't think I know anyone who could except by astonishing fluke get a ball to bounce off three pillars in a single throw, so this would hold down everyone to two points and they'd spend the entire rest of the game on defense thereafter." She tilts her head. "Unless there are other ways to score, too."
edgeofyourseat
"The same way a team owns a goal in, like, anything else?" he says. "And maybe you count up separately per ball, so that gives everybody four points with no ridiculous throws, I meant that word when I said it, but they'll be tough to get because now everybody's fighting like cats over everybody else's balls, and wow that got dirty fast."
self_composed
"I suppose we can say the blue team owns the blue ball if they start in possession of it and have to defend it. Making it per ball is good too. There should be some rule equivalent to traveling in basketball to make it harder for someone on the blue team to wrap themselves around the blue ball like it's a grenade and just lie there, though."
She ignores the remark about dirtiness with a genteel smile.
She ignores the remark about dirtiness with a genteel smile.
edgeofyourseat
"Yeah, good plan. And the first team to four points wins. Or five if we wanna force everybody to be ridiculous at least once a game."
self_composed
"Five points or - two hours followed by sudden death in case of tie? Will people generally tolerate playing a sport for that length of time?"
edgeofyourseat
"Sure they will. You can make it an hour and a half, that's about how long a game of soccer takes, I think."
self_composed
"So if someone gets five points, game ends, they win - if no one does, then whoever has the most points at an hour and a half wins - if two or three teams are tied at that time, whoever scores the next point wins." She chews her lip a little. "But if two or three are tied at four points, then they have to be ridiculous in sudden death mode. So if the tie is at four, they only have to make a two-bounce?"
self_composed
"I just have some compassion for the people in the stands, sitting there for six hours waiting for someone to pull off a triple," she shrugs.
edgeofyourseat
"Aren't you nice. Okay, I'll give it to ya," he says, making a gesture as though handing her an invisible object - perhaps the rulebook for this mythical game.
self_composed
"I'm going to start writing this down," she announces, and pulls out her notebook. She starts writing down a summary of the rules they've worked out so far. "So," she adds, glancing at an earlier note to self. "Why'd you move here?"