eek, monsters

[pandion]

Time goes by. Trouble keeps right on bringing desserts (and once a quiche and once a loaf of bread with nuts in it). The Swans are uncomplaining. On Christmas Eve he brings two kinds of cookies and an astonishingly edible fruitcake and stays overnight on the couch. (Andi, self-servingly, got him a little box of assorted Genuine Maple Products. Bella got him an inexpensive yet adorable miniature sewing machine.) Robin comes over too, Christmas day (Andi gives her a packet of guitar strings and sheet music for assorted Green Day songs. Bella gets her a tiny tape recorder.)

School is back in session in January, after New Year's. (The twins set off small fireworks in the driveway - well, Andi does. Robin is invited to this event; Trouble is not, it somehow does not seem wise.)

Now it is the first weekend after the resumption of school.

Robin's supposed to be over any minute for practice for Nameless Band Which Kind Of Needs A Third Person But Bella Doesn't Want To. Andi taps out beats on her drums. Taptaptap. Taptaptap-kish. Taptaptap. Taptaptapkish.

Comments

[hold_infinity]

"There were no cameras," she says. "You couldn't have faked that - creature, anyway, he wasn't a man in a bloody rubber suit, he was the real thing. You'd understand if you'd seen the way he moved. Anyway, I froze up and he turned around and looked right at me, but I was just barely peering around the corner and I guess he didn't see me there. He had something in his hand. Whatever he flashed the running man with, I guess. Then he went back in the shop and I bolted. That's where I got the scrapes - I fell down on the way home. Nothing chasing me, I just..." She shrugs helplessly.

[pandion]

"I have," says Andi, "no idea, at all, what to do about that."

[hold_infinity]

"Join the club," says Robin, hugging herself.

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan puts his arm around her shoulders.

[pandion]

Andi wedges herself into the hug too.

[hold_infinity]

Robin clings to both of them.

[pandion]

"Did you get a good look at the guy?" wonders Andi.

[hold_infinity]

"The one who...?" She shakes her head. "No. He was wearing a jacket... I think he had dark hair, not very long or anything... the jacket was red. Dark trousers, too. I never saw his face properly."

[pandion]

"So if he turns up missing and his face is in the paper you can't be sure it's the same guy," sighs Andi. "...Can I go get Bella?"

[hold_infinity]

"...Yeah," says Robin. "Sure. Yeah."

[pandion]

Andi goes. She gets Bella.

[instar]

Bella follows her into the living room. "You saw some kind of monster and you are very sure it was not a guy in a costume?"

[hold_infinity]

"Very sure," she says. "Incredibly sure. You couldn't have fit a human into that shape. And all his parts moved. He had this great big long tail and you could see how he used it for balance, he'd go one way and it'd go the other, and the feet - he had these massive bird feet. Talons. When he was looking around he sort of - grabbed the pavement with his toes."

[instar]

"In the interest of completeness - you weren't on anything, more than twenty-four hours' worth of sleep-deprived, suffering from a head injury...?"

[hold_infinity]

She shakes her head. "I was up late, but I slept all right the night before."

[instar]

"And this is not a charming prank, a test of the extent of anyone's credulity, etcetera?"

[hold_infinity]

[instar]

"Would you or would you not be asking me the same thing if Andi had told you that I were reporting this experience?"

[hold_infinity]

"No! I wouldn't!"

[palmofyourhand]

Ethan hugs Robin some more.

[instar]

"That's very generous of you," says Bella, looking surprised.

[hold_infinity]

"It'd be one hell of a prank," she says. "Believe me, I couldn't act this shook up if I tried."

[instar]

"Okay. So - you saw some kind of creature, maybe a really unprecedented special effect but maybe a mutant or a monster or an alien of some kind. This was an otherwise deserted street, no cameras - no obvious reason to be busting out the Muppets or the holograms - Did the guy or the monster say anything?"

[hold_infinity]

"Yeah," she says, "the monster - well, he made noise. I got the sense there were words, but I couldn't hear him well enough to make them out. If they were even in English."

[instar]

"The human said nothing, though? Where was this?"