Temple's Pursuit

chapter 5

***re-written

Chapter 5

For the first time in Temple's life she felt free!  She skipped her way down the street with her arms stretched out as wide as she could.  She looked like she was trying to hug the world!  She tried to stifle her laughter but it didn't quite work and people were starting to stare at her as she flew past them. Even though she felt as if she didn't have a care in the world, she could still hear her parents voices warning her to be cautious.

As Temple approached the end of her street, she slowed and smiled, she knew exactly where she wanted to go.  Across the road, was the playground her parents took her to play in, when she was a child.  It was full of wonderful play equipment such as swings, round abouts, slides, teeter totters and monkey bars. The O'Mallon neighbourhood, was considered to be fairly well off which allowed them to have a few extra perks.  One of these was the neighbourhood use of a "spell caster". This is usually a talented university student that can cast, and hold a spell on an inanimate object, like the swings, and make them move on their own.  The spell never lasts and the casters must actually be in the park to make it work.  The residents were happy if the spell lasted long enough to give the children a great deal of fun.

Today there were several "spell casters" working and the whole playground was "alive"!  The children were laughing and running from one piece of equipment to the other.  There were coloured balloons and flying stuffed animals hanging over their young heads.  This is exactly where Temple wanted to be on the very first day of her independence.

As she crossed the road, she found an unoccupied picnic table.  This was perfect, she was away from the crowd, but close enough to see and hear the children's laughter. Temple stepped up and  sat on top of the wooden table. "I'm going to have a hard time being here for just one hour" she smiled to herself.  

There was a loud shout, then laughter behind her.  She turned to see what was going on and noticed a small group of kids jumping and rolling on top of  someone.  The children squealed in absolute delight as a single, small child rose gently in the air then was carried magically, upside down, to a gently moving rocking horse.  Everyone clapped and ran over to see if they could have a turn on the animated horse.

A young man brushed himself off as he held one hand up as if he was cradling something.  He motioned his fingers up and down which were in rhythm with the rocking horse. "Is he one of the new spell casters?" she wondered.  She was laughing at the children's attempt to get the small child off of the rocking horse but there was no way they were going to do that easily!  He was hanging on as tightly as he could, which seemed to be quite a lot.  When she looked up her eyes and the young and rather handsome spell caster eyes made contact.  Temple had stopped breathing when she could not glance away but he suddenly smiled one of the brightest she had ever seen which made her quickly look away.  She became very aware of the heat that was emanating from her face.  She reached her shaky hand up to her cheeks and they were hot to the touch, "what is wrong with me?" she grumbled "why is my face so hot?"

Temple smiled to herself as she pictured what he looked like. His hair was a warm chestnut, something like hers and he had slight shoulders and gray eyes.  Oh those eyes were so, so, beautiful but when he smiled at her,  she could see deep dimples near the corners of his wide mouth.  He was very handsome!  Temple suddenly blushed and turned away when she had glanced back and noticed him staring at her.  Now she was mortified, which was making her angry, "why don't you just go away?" she hissed under her breath but there was no way for him to hear what she said.

With a great deal of trepidation, Temple could hear someone clearing their throat behind her, so  she turned to look into the eyes of the handsome stranger.  "Did I do something to offend you?" he inquired with a voice that was deep and rich.  Temple stared up at him and seem to loose her voice.  He watched her curiously then spoke again, "Hi, my name is Killean, and you are?" he held his hand out.  Again, Temple sat still and was completely mute.  Killean put his hand down and tilted his head from one side to the other, as if he was examining an exotic animal.  Suddenly a child screamed from behind him and he turned to see what had happened.  The little boy was being tickled by one of the floating teddy bears.  Killean laughed, then turned back to try and have a conversation with  the beautiful stranger, but she was gone.