out with the old | Glowfic Constellation

"Whoopsie! Are you okay?" says the someone, who is a little old lady.

"I'm okay. Sorry," she says, briefly starscaping to fix her skinned knee and pushing herself to her feet.

"At least it was before you got your lemonade!" chuckles the little old lady.

"Yep."

The little old lady resumes her conversation with her little old husband.

She goes and gets her lemonade.

It's very sweet. The cookies are oatmeal raisin.

DECEITBERRIES.

She finishes the cookie she took to be polite but does not get another.

Nobody comments. Everybody's very quiet except sometimes someone stands up and comments on something, usually a personal problem or triumph but sometimes a current event.

She finds a quiet corner and sits down to keep reading her book, keeping an ear out for interesting comments.

The comments do not tend to be particularly interesting up until Joel stands up and announces that he doesn't think people should send kids to school hungry enough to eat ketchup. Some people look at his parents oddly; Mr. Wong murmurs in the nearest concerned ear.

Oops.

She stands up. "That wasn't Joel's parents."

"Thank you, Anna-Charlotte," says Veronica.

"Y'welcome."

She sits down again and hides her face behind her book.

There's a silence before someone stands up and says something about their dog having gotten hit by a car.

That's sad.

Yup.

Eventually the meeting dissipates. The snacks are packed up, less a plate of them Veronica takes up to put in Imani's dish area.

Anna-Charlotte follows her in the hopes of getting to pet Imani again.

Imani has made herself scarce. "Sometimes she leaves for a few days, but I put out something for her every day if I think she's gone and twice if I know she's around," Veronica mentions.

"That makes sense."

She enwagons the rest of her library books.