Sunflower

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At six years old, Penelope should not have been sitting in a pub past nine pm, but she was. It wasn't her fault. If anything, it was Charles' fault. He was the one who dragged Penelope and Raven along to the pub just to end up speaking to some random lady at the bar instead of them. Though in his defence, the lady was incredibly lovely to look at. Penelope could understand why he had beelined for her the moment they had stepped inside the pub, though not without throwing a warning over his shoulder to stay put and be careful.

Penelope could tell that Raven was fed up, even though she tried her best to hide it for Penelope's sake. "Raven, if plants need rain and sun to grow, and rainbows are made of light and water, are rainbows plant food?" As much as Raven loved Penelope, sometimes she just could not handle the strange workings of her mind, not like Charles could. Penelope would come up with the most random things depending on the time of day. In Raven's opinion, it seemed as if the little girl never ran out of things to say and had unlimited energy. Penelope didn't mean to annoy anyone with her limitless chatter and she did try hard to keep it under control but alas when a thought or opinion entered her head it had to be voiced aloud to whoever was in her closest vicinity. Unfortunately, for Raven, it was her.

Raven wanted to go. Penelope wanted to go. They just had to get Charles to want to leave. With that in mind, Raven bent down to Penelope's ear and whispered something that caused heavy nodding and stifled giggles to escape from the young girl.

Immediately, Penelope jumped from her seat, navigating through the numerous chairs, tables and people milling around the pub. Despite Charles being roughly a five-second walk away from them, Raven quickly lost sight of Penelope and her pigtails amongst the considerably taller patrons of the pub. The only evidence that Penelope had been there in the first place was a sole sunflower left on the seat she had just vacated.

'Mutant and proud, chin-chin.'

Colliding spectacularly with Charles' leg, Penelope wrapped her little arms around it with all her might, which wasn't much, but she did try. Charles, caught off guard by, as Penelope deemed, her surprise attack, nearly spit his drink all over the blonde lady he had been talking too. 'Hi, Daddy!' Charles was not Penelope's father despite their remarkable resemblance to each other. But the woman talking to Charles didn't know that. Penelope and Charles both shared the same dark hair and eyes that were like the sky on a warm sunny day.

Penelope wasn't sure why Raven had asked her to call Charles her daddy, but she did it anyway because she adored Raven and thought she was the coolest person ever. She could turn blue! Penelope had attempted to colour herself blue with felt tips numerous times, and each time, she nearly succeeded until Penelope's incredibly loud thoughts alerted Charles to what she was doing, and he would immediately swoop in, confiscating her felt tips for the rest of the week and dumping her into the bath.

Raven quickly strode over towards the trio that had formed at the bar, carrying the sunflower left in Penelope's chair, hoping that her declaration of Charles being her father would have scared the woman away from him so that they could go home. Unfortunately, it hadn't, so Raven would have to take matters into her own hands.

'I guess I have to buy my own drink.'

'I'm sorry. One Cola and what would you like Miss Penelope?' He asked, turning to the girl. 'One cola too, please!'

Letting out a small chuckle, he picked up Penelope, placing her on top of the bar, holding her in place to ensure she didn't fall, which she was prone to doing. 'No can do love I'm afraid, you know full well that you passed your limit a long, long time ago. We don't need you bouncing off any more walls.'

'Aw'

Completely dismissing Penelope, the blonde lady began to address Raven instead. 'Charles was just telling me that I'm like one of the first sea creatures to gain legs.'