✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

137. A Special Request

This chapter is dedicated to Cassie, with thanks for all your support. Thank you!

"Morning, baby," Gabby greeted Tess as she rushed down the stairs. Tess knew that she should have been annoyed by being called a baby, but she had gotten used to it recently, and somehow it didn't seem to bother her anymore. Gabby had allowed Spike to move in, and even after he'd been here for a couple of days, hadn't shown any signs of trying to cause him problems. This had been a big surprise for Tess, but she didn't want to jinx it by saying anything. Maybe Gabby had finally realised that she needed to do what was best for their little family, now that she was properly engaged and everything.

A more cynical side of her personality said that Ffrances must have done something. She had told Gabby that it wasn't acceptable to cause a fuss; or even hypnotised her to make her comply. Tess knew that wasn't remotely within the realms of possibility, because Ffrances took the rules of consent very seriously indeed; but it was an interesting thing to dream about.

"Hey," she answered, and gave a little wave. "Everyone up now?"

Nobody had to go to school today. They had a week long break now; there was a rumour going around school that it was because the teachers couldn't go too long without a break from their students. But Tess was pretty sure that it was actually because they needed time to set up everything for the graduating students to do their final exams. They would have finished normal lessons a couple of weeks ago, but next week they would be back for the most terrifying three weeks of their school lives. Tess found it hard to forget that in just a year, she would be sitting down for her exams. It felt like the biggest challenge she had ever been through. Sometimes she wondered if it would have been easier to settle down in some other country; but she felt like after all the time they had spent here, this school system was the one that she knew the best.

"Ffrances already went to work," Gabby said with a shrug. "It's just us today. Oh, but there's something I wanted to offer. I'm not sure if you would be interested or not, because it's not quite legal. But, well..."

Tess hesitated. She'd been planning to grab a flapjack to eat on the way, so that she would be out of the house before Spike was up and out of his room. She didn't want to explain her appointment with Dr Lutwa if she could help it. She was still half hoping that she would be able to cure the bedwetting problem before he ever knew about it. But when Gabby said that, she had all kinds of vague worries in her mind. Like, she had no idea what Gabby might be thinking of, but she was sure that anything that was against the law was sure to be bad news. Even if it didn't hurt anyone, did Gabby run the risk of creating tension between her and Ffrances? Tess needed to know what was going on, and she knew that it was important to know what was going on, so that she could head off any problems before they started.

"What is it?" she asked. "And are you sure it's worth the risk?"

"I don't think there's any risk here," Gabby said, and then paused as if wondering where to start. "Look... have you heard of incremental editing?"

"Like when you go over an essay a dozen times looking for small errors, rather than doing an intensive editing at the end?" Tess guessed. They had been taught something like that in the last country she had visited; different styles of time management. But she didn't know what the names for them would have been in English.

"Similar, but not quite. It's something from the TV industry. Seems obvious, but it wasn't practical in the days of recording on film. Basically, instead of filming everything, then having the producers cut and edit it at the end, they do the editing first. They make a kind of... video timeline. Like a cartoon thing, with panels from the storyboard, and subtitles based on a standard reading speed from the script. And then as they start filming, they swap in scenes one by one. Rough footage of rehearsals, even if it's a table read for the first cut, and then replaced by a dressed rehearsal, and then the best take they have so far. They're all swapped into the live edit as they're available. And the computer generated footage and special effects starts out as cutouts of something drawn on construction paper, overlaid onto the footage, then gets replaced by actual special effects as the team creates them. It gradually gets better."