a word in your shell like - pt.2

[wytchcroft]

PART TWO: in which there is cake and a shell...

Granddad stood in the doorway, blinking and looking a little confused. "Greetings!" Nina said quickly,
"We are the delegation from the planet of cake!"
And she held out the box.
Grandpa looked down at the box and then at Nina.
"Cake y'say? Well then - you'd better come in!" and he laughed his trumpeting laugh.
 

As they crossed the thresh-hold Nina's dad looked around quickly at the door-frame. "Something need fixing?" he asked.

"Eh?" Granddad was clearly thrown by that.
"You knew we were coming?" Mum clarified, pointing to the open door, which she closed.
Grandpa laughed, "I heard that flashy car of yours." He shook his head. "I don't know why you people need to -"
"It's my car," said Mum, "it's a good car and I like it."
Granddad opened and closed his mouth then his eyes moved across to Nina's dad.
"Hmm?" Dad sounded a little absent himself. "Oh, what she said."

Nina coughed. "If this box is not opened quickly it will revert back to its original alien state," she said seriously.
Granddad turned back to her. "I don't have a clue what yer'on about girl, but let's get that cake seen to eh?"
He made a show of rubbing his hands together and licking his lips.
Grandpa had a very bristly white Santa beard and Nina wondered what it felt like to have such a thing getting in your mouth all the time. 
Beard flavoured cake. She shuddered.

By now her mother had been into the kitchenette and back and she and her husband were brandishing plates and cutlery and looking vaguely piratical as they did so.

"Why don't you help me with this?" Granddad asked Nina and they set the box down on the low Formica coffee table.

Taking one side each, they slipped the ribbon and the wrapping and opened the package up. It was a large fruitcake and homemade.
Granddad looked pleased.
"You like fruit-cake," smiled Nina's mother also looking pleased.
"Oh I do at that!" Grandpa was already looking for a knife to cut a big chunk for himself.
Nina's dad did the honours and for a while there was the sound of honest munching with everyone enjoying the cake.

Nina was sat on the couch, wanting to tuck her feet up under her skirt but she couldn't, not in her giant pumps.
She balanced her plate on her lap instead.
Granddad sat himself down in his armchair - but her parents ate standing up, as they always did.
Nina wished that one time they would actually sit down and get comfy, and she wondered if Granddad felt the same.
If he did he didn't show it.

After the cake there was of course tea to wash it down.

Nina always looked forward to this - her chance to drink tea and have it milky and sweet as well.
She had long ago decided that when she grew up and went to University then she would have a kettle in her room and drink nothing but tea. Things like fruit juice and mineral water (healthy yes, but) they would be banned completely!

Her mum and dad did not have anything to drink. Nina could already see Dad's fingers hovering near his pockets where he kept the spare car keys.
So predictable, Nina sighed.

Still, being full of heavy cake and milky tea Nina was not complaining so much – really all she wanted to do was relax in the folds of the sofa and nurse her happy belly. She was already planning the moment when she could stealthily slip off her footwear and curl up good and proper.
This settee is made of sleep, she thought.

And hardly had she done so when she realised that her parents had said whatever it was they needed to say to make their excuses, and vamoosed. Gleefully she kicked off her pumps and coiled her legs beneath her. It’s what skirts were for after all, she would have said if asked. Her eyes were roaming already to the dish on the nearby table, not the coffee table but a small round one, looking much older and supporting the weight of an antique lamp. In that dish and upon that table were the shells she loved.

Five in all, three small and two large – those were the two she was fond of sticking to her ears.
Grandpa seemed to have forgotten about her, she could hear him singing away in the bedroom and there were muffled noises as he opened a drawer and started rooting for something, a jigsaw probably.

Those jigsaws were also part of the visiting ritual; Granddad would set one up on a sort of strange tray that he liked and he would sit in his chair peering through his enormous spectacles; they really put Nina's to shame, "My Eric Morecombe goggles" he always called them, "Now where have I put me Morecombe’s?" having long-ago become a catchphrase back at home.

In turn, Nina would read one of her books, she loved to read and appreciated that granddad didn't disturb her.
Unfortunately, her most recent book (by someone called Sheryl Jordan) was so good that she read it down in one, like a fantastic cup of tea - and so today she had no book to savour. Granddad had a few books, but they were musty red bound hard-backs and slightly creepy looking to Nina's eyes. She never touched them.
So, shells it is then, she thought, not unhappily.

Reaching out a languid arm she plucked one of them from their bowl as if they were some strange sort of fossil fruit.

For a moment she turned the shell over in her hands admiring the smooth topside, smooth as glass and dappled like a young pony.
But the underside was the rough part, little ridges where the shell whirled into to its centre.
Nina held the shell to her ear, loving the rough coolness of what felt like stone and listening to the wind within; that airy sound that conjures waves, conjures the ocean.
It was quite a wild wind too, soughing through the hollows of the shell, sighing into the hollows of her ear. Maybe there was a storm, Nina thought - but then again no, it didn't sound like that - more, well, just windy.

She knew that kind of wind well, where she lived with her parents it was a flat place but high up al the same, where the line of rural hills had levelled off. It was a place where the wind loved to play. Yes, the constant whooshing from the shell was just that sort of wind.

Listening to it made her feel like a leaf or an old crisp wrapper whirling and twisting on the currents of air, dizzy dancing up and down - teasing a young kitten as it jumped at her with its paws out. No chance Mr Kitten, thought Nina laughing. She was already spinning way too high for that. It was a little scary actually, the ground so far away now and Nina tumbling along in the jet-stream and with the fast rushing clouds and so fast, she couldn't catch a breath. She should have felt cold - as she span around and gusted over houses but she was blushing so furiously that it kept her warm!

Oh yes, blushing - because her skirt was flapping and billowing now in a most embarrassing way!
If any of her friends spotted her she'd never hear the end of it back at school.

For this reason she found the sight of the vast ocean suddenly beneath her to be a BIG relief. She wasn't sure about the speed she was going now, not to mention the rapid way the sea looked to be getting closer and closer, she wasn't sure but she did think that she should be worried.

But she wasn't worried. She'd read enough books about just this sort of thing.

Then again, as she crashed quite suddenly down and with an almighty WALLOP! onto the scattered crates of a small ship that had been minding its own business somewhere beneath her, she had to admit, that this never seemed to happen in the books.

 "Ow..." she groaned blinking under the wind bedraggled lengths of her hair and putting one hand to the small of her back.
Her other hand was hurriedly smoothing down her skirt - just like Mum thought Nina. Glad she could still think. It was lucky that the wind hadn’t blown her brain cells away!

"Ouch," she said again as she tried to move. Yes, this never happened to Alice in Wonderland!"OW." and "Oh," she added, "great..." There were men looking at her with their mouths open. "Well, ok, yes..." she waved a hand at the smashed boxes that had broken her fall, "um... Oops! Sorry about that."

END OF PT 2.
...................................................

(i won't be around much tomorow so i'll probably post the last of this on monday)

Comments

[stoshagownozad.livejournal.com]

:)))
Yesterday I was caught in Oblovion (the game, I am a big fan of it), today I can read... and this is a good start for Nina!
Waiting for the rest of story :)

Abd why the Grandpa was so confused? was he also travelling inside the shell?

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

"well that would be tellin', wouldn't it..."



*GRIN*
thanks so much for reading and commenting!:):)

[reginaclarejane.livejournal.com]

Okay, here we go!
:D

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can just imagine this being read out loud.

"It's my car," said Mum, "it's a good car and I like it." Ouch. That felt real. Nina's parents seem in the John Burningham mould, but they're still likeable.

You're right, there isn't an adventure in the world that a child could have nowadays without referencing it from some story or film.

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

oh wow, i'm so glad you mention the parents, they're (hopefully) sort of the point of the story. :))

as for Alice, have you seen the new Tim Burton film??
i HATED it!

[aliasse.livejournal.com]

I've been reading some stories with parents to my little boy. The parents in Horrid Henry are like those poor people you see on Supernanny, the ones that make you shout 'It's all your fault you idiot!' at the TV.

I don't watch Tim Burton films. I don't like them. His work always has a quality of self-consciousness ickery that I find irritating.

[inmyocean.livejournal.com]

The familial scene is so life-like. It could be anyone's grandpa and family. That is a GOOD thing. :) The part about the milky sweet tea made me chuckle -- I like mine sweet but black -- no milk in tea for me! ha!

I have always had a fascination with shells and even to this day, when I'm out walking along the beach, I spy for interesting shells, pick them up, smooth my fingers along them and put them up to my ear to have a listen. So, that part with Nina took me back. :)

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

the family and their interaction were part of the reason for making up the story :)

i have a deep love of the Sea, since my childhood and even now the Ocean is my Goddess if i'm completely honest. But it's not always an easy relationship.

there are quite a few stories set on ships and whatever here in my lj.

and i have to say a big thanks to you again my friend and i'm glad this was a pleasurable read :))

[inmyocean.livejournal.com]

You and I share a deep love of the Sea. That's nice to know. :)