Still a little drowsy and disoriented after staying up all night, Sophie walked along the pavement, blonde hair tucked under a knit purple cap. She still wore her sleepover clothes, a soft pink shirt and pyjama pants with her duffel slung over her shoulder, too tired to care. Her parents were not going to be home that day, so she was going to her Aunt Juline's.
Aunt Juline worked in a bakery called Cinnacrème, and Sophie let herself in there through the back door. Two of the triplets, Bex and Lex were there, looking thoroughly defeated, probably because they had been punished for some reason, and Rex was not.
"Why the long face, Bex?", Sophie asked, dropping her bag to the floor.
"It wasn't us, it was Rex!", squealed Bex indignantly. "We didn't put the frog there,did we, Lex?"
The other tiny redhead shook his head solemnly. "We're didn't do nothing", he said mournfully. "You build one frog trap, and the whole thing is somehow your fault."
"You'll tell Mom it wasn't us, won't you Sophie?", asked Bex, turning her imploring periwinkle eyes on Sophie.
Sophie couldn't help smiling.
Biana had irritated them almost all night about her Tam Song plans, and she was glad other things existed in life, which weren't her friends' boy problems.
"I'll do what I can, kid", promised Sophie, making up her mind to sneak them some cream rolls later. "I just have to find Aunt Jules."
"You found her", said Juline Dizznee, walking into the tiny back room, wiping her hands on her apron. "And don't even think about giving them anything", she said, looking at Sophie. "They can survive without rolls and biscuits for a day. The way they act, it's like we're starve them or something."
Sophie smiled ruefully. You don't try to pull anything on Aunt Jules.
"Anyway, honey, since you're here anyway, will you take this to the travel agency across the road?", she said, thrusting a large, flat rectangular box into Sophie's arms. "And take these two with you."
"Sure", said Sophie. "Come on, you guys."
Bex and Lex chattered nonstop on the short walk, about how it was so unfair, and Rex was with Dad and Dex, making cool stuff in the Apothecary, and they could smell everything in the bakery, but Mom didn't let them eat a thing, that kind of thing.
The travel agency was barely a shop, squeezed between a grocery store and some sort of a hat shop, with a brightly painted wooden sign on the glass door, which read 'open'.
Inside, Sophie saw just one dimly lit room with a desk, on which sat a fat man with a red cap pulled low over his face.
Bex pushed the door open, and Sophie stepped in quickly before it slammed in her face.
"Mr-uhh", Sophie paused and read the name on the box in Aunt Jules' neat black cursive.
"Mr. Forkle? Errol Forkle?"
The man pushed his cap up.
He had a horribly bloated, creased, leathery face, with bushy grey eyebrows and dark green eyes, [Everyone's eyes are not blue in the real world, thank you very much] and the same grey tufts were sticking out of his cap, giving him the appearance of a dried apple with mould growing on it.
"You kids can't just barge in here like that", he grunted.
In the dim light, his eyes seemed unusually bright, like a cat's.
Box still in hand, Sophie took half a step back and said somewhat apologetically, "I'm sorry sir, we just have your delivery from Cinnacrème."
"You kids leave it here and get going."
Sophie would have dearly loved to see what this sour-faced man had ordered, but she kept the light blue box on the table in front of him, covering half the taped bus schedule, and called to Bex and Lex, who were trying (and failing) to climb onto each other's shoulders to get the aeroplane hanging from the ceiling.
"Come on guys", she said. "We've got to go."
"And you kids don't come again before you learn to knock."
Sophie thought it best not to say anything as she walked out of the place with two-thirds of the Dizznee triplets.
Bex and Lex trailed behind her, talking to each other too fast and too loudly, earning more than one odd look from the passers-by.
When they stepped into the bakery, Lex suddenly declared, "I miss Rex."
"Mom!", yelled Bex. "Can you take us to the Apothecary!"
"Not after what happened with the frog!", she yelled back.
"Please!", Bex and Lex yelled together.
Meanwhile, Sophie was calmly taking out her haphazardly stuffed clothes from her duffel, folding them and keeping them on a stack of tart tins.
The shouting was so typical, she would be more worried if her family was calm, quiet and discussed problems rationally and peacefully.
"We'll walk!", she shouted when her bag was repacked.
Her shout was lost in the racket, so she covered Bex and Lex's mouths with both hands and shouted again, "Aunt Jules! I'll take them to the Apothecary! We'll walk!"
"Wait!", came the shout, and Sophie turned to Bex and Lex.
"Troglodytes!", she hissed. "I can get us all out of here if you just stop screaming. And we can get your Dad to take us out for fro-, something nice if you just. Shut. Up!"
"You have five minutes to convince Mom", said Bex. "I know she doesn't listen to anyone, but you can try."
"Nothing works on her", Lex added somewhat unhelpfully.
Sophie grinned. "You underestimate the power of fake crushes."
"Kitty's strawberry crush has fake strawberries?", asked Bex, sounding very confused.
Sophie didn't know who Kitty was, and why she made strawberry crush, and how one made fake strawberries, so she just said, "Wait and see."
A/n:-
All right, apology time. First things first, when I first joined Wattpad, as a reader and not a writer, I cursed all those incomplete fic writers, and here I am, joining their cult. So my most sincere apologies to all the readers, especially my number one supporter, Novaroy15, who has dutifully read, commented and voted on every single chapter. Seriously. You don't know how much it means to me.
About crossing 1k, I didn't feel excited. I just felt I had let everyone down by not finishing the thing. By everyone, I mean all the readers as well as myself. Personally speaking, a high chapter number and a completed tag will give me much more happiness than a million reads, so I'm sorry for all the waiting you had to do, but I'm going to be very regular now, at least till 1st November. Then it's on to a one-month break for Nanowrimo.
The thing is, when I talked to people about overcoming my writer's block and continuing this fic, many of them said I didn't have to. It was my own life, my own fic, and I could let it go.
The worst thing was, I believed them. I thought commitments like these, which were more to myself than to anyone else, could be broken easily. But it's not that simple. The commitment may be broken, but it's jagged edges still cut into your conscience. It's not just about this one stupid Sokeefe fic, it's about every single broken promise, and the least I can do is put this one back together.
Once again, terribly sorry for the unfairly long hiatus.
In the name of fixing broken promises, best of luck with life in general,
-A
