South London Forever // George Karim

-raspberry jam and new books-

Freddie was glad George had drifted back to sleep eventually, because crawling around on the ground was pretty embarrassing. It wasn't for fun, she was searching for her gumboots that she'd kicked off yesterday, but it wasn't very flattering to be seen rolling around underneath the couch blindly.

Once she'd found them [one on the desk in the corner and the other in a china cabinet, somehow], Freddie trudged to the kitchen, wiping sleep from her eyes and flattening her hair, which she knew would be messed up. Chai wiggled through her legs and yapped until she found his bag of food and fed him, then she left the happy dog to find some food more appropriate for humans.

"Morning Fred, sleep well?"

Lockwood was tinkering around by the fridge, probably searching for more raspberry jam as he greeted her. Freddie nodded, stretching her arms above her head and wincing at the popping sounds her joints made. "You?"

"I woke up using George's legs as a pillow," Lockwood said, and the button of the toaster squeaked when he pushed it down. "But yes, I did."

Freddie went to sit at the table, but her typewriter was still there. She hadn't exactly thought to pack up her things while George was sobbing in her arms. The letter was pulled out and folded up in an envelope, but she couldn't be bothered to put the typewriter away. Lockwood put down a mug in front of her, and Freddie sipped the tea.

"How's George?" He asked tensely.

Freddie brought her legs up and sat cross legged, biting the inside of her lip for a minute. He'd been smiling the last time they spoke, but the boy turned out to be great at hiding things. Who would've thought. "Still asleep. And uh, he had some things to tell you as well, later."

"Cool," Lockwood said in a fake casual voice. He set down a few plates on the tablecloth and Freddie took a piece of toast with raspberry jam on it. "Why's the typewriter out?"

The window creaked as he opened it, and Freddie could smell the freshly made donuts waft through from Arif's shop. Freddie wondered if they had an order placed. Her favourite were the donut holes, which were little balls of donut with cinnamon sugar on them. "I wrote a letter to Laura."

Lockwood's voice was muddled by toast. "She's your old teacher, right? The one with the cool shoes."

"Yeah, the one who taught me braille and morse code, she always brought hot jam donuts on Fridays for us." Freddie said, and then realised why she was thinking about donuts so much. Shit. "Arif's shop, he called about the dead guy with the stroke, right? Death threats in icing powder, weren't we supposed to go deal with that tonight?"

There was silence. Lockwood spoke first. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

"You have such a big vocabulary," Freddie muttered, finishing her toast and wiping her sticky fingers on the tablecloth. They'd had the same one for quite a while, it was probably time to get a new one. "Hurry up, I can't walk out there with bed hair, Ant."

Lockwood cleared away the dishes. Which meant he chucked them in the sink to be a problem for later and sighed. "You can't go by yourself, and we can't leave George right now, Edith could come back. We'll just tell Arif something came up and buy extra donuts when we visit again."

"Do you know if Earnie's free?"

"Freddie I'm not arguing with you, Arif will be fine and we have to-"

Freddie took her fluffy jacket off and hung it on the back of the door, calling back down to Lockwood as she went to her room to get changed. "I've got some stuff to find at the Archives as well, it'll be dark by the time I'm done anyway. Did you want me to pick up that book you ordered?"