Playdate 5, 4-ish years old, and new additions on Alumni

Raine Collindale

December 13, 2020 6:34 AM

Playdate 5, 4-ish years old, and new additions by Raine Collindale

There was, apparently, a suitable place for them to park outside the Xaviers' house. This, along with the fact that Dante would be welcome, and the reasons why all that was necessary had been established via letter in the weeks preceding the visit. Although he was a generally sociable person, Raine's boyfriend would probably have been quite happy to stay in the van and leave them to their fun, but that wasn't going to be possible for a number of reasons. Firstly, the miniature strawberry blonde tyrant who commanded the ship and was utterly obsessed with him. True, Summer was excited to see Uncle Xavier and Dora, but that didn't make it likely that she would willingly let go of Dan-Dan - after all, why settle for an army of two when you knew you could have an army of three? That tied quite nicely into reason number two, which was that Raine was currently counting herself out. She wasn't really much use at keeping Summer occupied right now, unless Summer felt like doing lots of quiet sitting. She rarely did. Therefore, it seemed fair to bring a reinforcement who could be responsible for Summer whilst Raine supervised from a suitably comfortable position on the couch.

There was also the added issue that saying he would be perfectly comfy in the van would probably seem strange to other people, and drawing attention to the van was not something they liked to do. Being a bright orange vintage camper, it drew quite a lot of attention by itself, but that was mostly to its exterior. Dante was concerned enough about parking it on the driveway of someone who belonged somewhat to The System, along with the fact that Raine being comfortable with such a long drive was potentially eyebrow raising - a fact she had already brushed off with 'it's fine, I'm used to it.' The fact was, Raine was just as comfortable in the van as she was at home because the van was home. The only difference when they were on the move was the slight swaying, but she was so used to that that she found it comforting. Perhaps, given her upbringing, a life on the road wouldn't have seemed too unusual, but the fact that they had squeezed a two bedroom apartment in there definitely was, along with being, at best, in a fuzzy grey area when it came to legality. So, it was best to all go inside, pretend the van was just a van, and hope that nobody asked too much about it.

A little way away from the Xaviers' house, they paused, to allow Raine and Summer to scramble into the passenger seats in the front, instead of hanging out at home, although it was a bit of a squeeze given that Summer couldn't get on Raine's lap. Still, it was only for a minute or two, and then they were pulling up to the house. It was odd, seeing it from the front, but still familiar. Dante climbed out of the driver's side, waiting for Summer to climb onto his back. He pulled her white stick and her little pink handbag from behind the headrests, although for now she seemed happy enough to ride on him. Or would have been had he been moving.

"Go! Go!" she geed him on, "I wanna pway with Uncle Dabier!"

"We're waiting for your Auntie," Dante informed her, as Raine slowly clambered out of the passenger seat and made her way to join them.

Their arrival had perhaps been watched and waited for, or at least heard, because the door opened without them having to knock.

"Hi," Raine smiled at Professor Xavier, "You remember Dante?" she added, indicating the man beside her. Given that he had crash landed on Professor Xavier's lawn with a splinched ankle and a lost child, it seemed unlikely that he would have forgotten. She wondered whether Professor Xavier also remembered the hesitancy with which she had introduced Dante as her boyfriend last time, as if some question had still hung over the matter at that point, and if so what he was reading into the present situation regarding how fast (or perhaps how deliberately or otherwise) that situation had progressed. She had mentioned being pregnant in her letter when setting up the play date, as it didn't exactly seem the kind of thing to spring on someone as a surprise, especially someone who was your former school teacher and perhaps had questioning feelings over whether or not you were a real adult. However, the size of the bump indicated that wasn't a totally recent development.

13 Raine Collindale Playdate 5, 4-ish years old, and new additions 327 1 5

Dora Xavier

December 27, 2020 7:35 PM

Fwiend! by Dora Xavier

Dora stood in front of the window facing Grandpa's driveway (most of the rest of the house was Grandma's, but the driveway was absolutely Grandpa's because she'd never seen Grandma go out the front of the house, but Grandpa like to draw with chalk on the driveway with her) watching for her friend to visit. Her friend usually came in through the back, but Daddy said she was coming by car this time, so Dora was watching the driveway. Her friend couldn't see, like Nevaeh couldn't see, but her sister had a Scout and her friend had a Raine, so it was okay. Daddy did not know if her friend would get a Scout when she was older. Dora would have to ask when she got here.

"I foget. What is my fwiend's name?" she asked Daddy. It had been a whole year since she last saw her friend, and she mostly played with Zeus now because she wasn't the only little kid at Sonora anymore. But this friend was her first friend. Daddy said so.

"Summer," Daddy reminded her, and then she remembered her friend's name was Summer.

"I know that," she told him.

"When will she eeeeeevvvvaaaa get here?" Dora asked.

"When she gets here," Daddy promised.

It was millions of minutes later (after Daddy could not satisfactorily tell her why Summer only came in Winter) when Dora finally heard the sound of a car's tires crunching on the gravel. "She's here!" Dora crowed in victory, "She's here!" She ran for the door but Daddy caught the door before she could get the knob turned and held it closed.

"You need to wait for the car to park," he told her, "or you might get hurt."

Dora grumbled unhappily about that, but soon the tire crunching noises and the car engine noises stopped and Daddy let her open the door. Dora threw it open and ran outside, "Fwiend!" she shouted happily. "Daddy! Look! Summa is here!"

Except it was still winter and it was cold outside and Dora wasn't wearing her coat.

"Come inside!" she yelled, and made big waving gestures. "It is warm inside!"

But Miss Raine walked slow and introduced the man carrying Summer, who was the guy who had come with Summer last year but hurt his foot when he landed in Grandma's backyard. Maybe that was why they drove this time.

"Welcome," Daddy told all of them, smiling, then was smart and repeated what Dora had said to start with, "Come on inside. Dora, get in, you're not wearing a coat, or shoes" he said chidingly, like she'd had time to put any of those things on. Silly Daddy.

"Come pway, Summa," Dora invited, reaching for her friend who was out of reach. "I can shaiw my toys." This was a big offer. She didn't usually like to share her toys. But Summer was a special friend she only saw one time a year.

They all got inside where in was warm, and Dora waited to take Summer's hand to show here where the toys were, because Summer didn't have a Scout yet. "I can be like Scout, okay?"

"Scout is her sister's seeing eye dog," Daddy explained to Dante. Raine already knew. Raine was Nevaeh's friend from Sonora. They both used to go there millions of years ago before Dora was even born. "Come, inside, sit. Do you need anything?" This was mostly to Raine, who had gotten a big belly, like Mommy had before Otto was born.

"Is Summa gonna get a broffa, too?" Dora questioned, because brothers were what came out of big bellies like that. "My broffa cries a lot. Daddy says he can't talk yet so he cries."

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Raine Collindale

January 03, 2021 6:24 AM

Good Scout by Raine Collindale

“I’ve met him,” Dante nodded, when Xavier (Mr. Xavier? It suddenly struck him that he’d heard referred to as both Professor Xavier and Uncle Xavier, both of which would be weird for him to use, and which - unless that was both his first name and his surname – meant that Dante wasn’t entirely sure what to call him…) mentioned Scout. “He and I are buddies.”

He lowered down a wiggling Summer, who had heard the promise of ‘toys’ and was eager to play.

“Take your stick - what are the rules?” he tried to remind Summer, who enthusiastically grabbed the white cane with one hand, reaching out the other to Dora.

“My stick is my eyes. It not a toy, no touch,” she informed Dora. “And no pet Scout him working,” she reminded Dan-Dan.

“And you,” Dante added to Summer, “no hitting with the stick.” This was really the primary rule that he had meant to remind her of. Summer was very, very good at remembering rules directed at other people, and enforcing them, sometimes rather shovily. She seemed to have more trouble with the ones that applied to her…

“And you be a good Scout we give you a bikkit,” Summer continued to Dora.

“Nah, Raine’s baby is a girl,” he answered Dora, not sure Summer was quite tracking the conversation given that she couldn’t see where Dora was looking, and given that she was talking in terms of brothers. That seemed the easiest get around of answering what relation the baby was going to be to Summer too… ‘Cousin’ didn’t quite seem to cut it given how much time Summer had spent being their responsibility this year, and seemed likely to continue being. Although his work around wasn’t without complications.

“We don’t know that for certain,” Raine stated, crossing her arms and sighing at him. He was saved from having to decide whether to push that he Just Knew Things (annoying his heavily pregnant girlfriend was, he knew, bad but he was also pretty convinced he was right) by Summer interjecting.

“It my baby.” Everyone and everything else in the van and at camp belonged to her after all. There was her daddy, and her Auntie Raine, and her Dan-Dan. The only thing that didn’t seem to belong to her were library books. You had to be extra careful because they were the library’s books not yours. But then, it was her library… Anyway, she was excited for the new baby who would play with her and be hers. “My baby is called Danury,” she explained to Dora.

“We’re not actually calling them ‘January,’” Raine explained to Professor Xavier, deciding that given the rest of the names in her family this was worth clarifying. “It’s just how we’ve been referring to them. Singular them,” she added, given that she herself was a twin, though she wasn’t sure whether non-identical ones actually ran in families... “Just the bathroom,” she answered his question, regarding whether she needed anything. She didn’t need it desperately, but she was pretty sure she would need it immediately upon sitting down if she didn’t, so she figured she’d take advantage of already being up. “Then maybe a glass of water. Just room temperature. Thanks.” She knew the bathroom’s location from previous visits, so excused herself.

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