Our Den

Two

I felt happiest here.  I don't know what it is but some days there is so much light, proper sun light that comes through the gaps in the wood, and that's my favourite thing. Oba likes the sun too, but she likes it because it means she can go in the river. I just like it to be there when I'm in bed, I feel the slight chill that comes with it makes me glad of the sun I have.  I re-open my eyes to see Oba standing wobbling on the stool and reaching between two roof planks to recover her towel from our towel crate.  It's a wooden box and Oba's mum taught us how to make it so that the wind could get through, but not the rain. I squinted against the light to see if she was finding mine.. She had on her brightest of bright yellow overalls so I couldn't make out anything. "You don't have to swim but you need to do something", she told me.

Her arm emerged with just one towel. She hopped down from the stool and jumped from the top step to the ground, bending her knees and ducking then rising and turning to face me.

"I'll start a story", I told her as she dodged away through the low-hanging branches to the river.  I sat up and pulled my knees to my chin before stretching my arm over my head to take a sheet of our paper.  We make it in autumn with the light-coloured leaves on the ground by soaking them in the river and then lying them on top of each other.  I had to turn my body to get a pen. I balanced it on the blanket bridge between my knees while I thought.  I slowly took my pen and put it to the paper, not sure of my idea. At school I'm told to write not from experience, but this wasn't really my experience, the sun wasn't really out to trick me.  I had decided.  This wasn't school, it was just going back on my bookshelf and all that mattered was that I liked my story, and Oba too.

The dragon called clearly,

Fetch the girl,

Her slave whimpered and shone,

Her way she walked to the cliff edge,

Before stepping into an ever-lasting fall,

Well not ever-lasting as she would be brought back up at break,

But oh well that's what we'll-

Oba's feet tapped fast up the steps and she flung her shivering body onto her bed, grinning.

"It's like a horizontal waterfall, Nadenka!", she breathed. "It's so fast and gushy".

"But there's not been enough rain", I argued.

"Look for yourself", she replied proudly. She slipped on her boots, I could see her ankles had been scraped and scratched badly by the thorns.  She then brought my boots out from where she had put them and I too slipped my toes into my shoes.  I'm going to add that I wasn't wearing socks, so my feet felt horrible, but I didn't have time before Oba grasped my wrist and hauled me, still on the floor, to our front step, leaving my story resting askew on her duvet.

Chapter dedicated to slayylarry