The following day, Tara sat at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich and waiting for Chrissy to show up. She was nervous, bordering on the jittery, and currently unable to sit still. She had decided to let Chrissy read in the living room, and hiding the stories that she found objectionable, especially to herself, in her room.

The one she had written last night was the worst. Christine Le Sang had appeared again and the scene Tara had written had gotten excessively risque. A salient detail being the color of Christine’s undergarments … yellow.

She had hidden this specific notebook inside a dictionary, which had then been put in the bottom drawer of her desk, which she had then filled with an assortment of pens and pencils, pilfering her spares, her youngest brother’s room, and her father’s home office to find enough utensils to hide it.

She vaguely wanted to continue the scene, but the logistics of it had been unclear to her. She knew the basics of man plus woman, but woman plus woman was rather confusing to her. She had checked her brothers’ rooms for any ‘literature’ on the subject, but had not managed to find anything in Zach's’ and anything she found in Sawyer’s was of the strict boy/girl variety.

Leaning back in the chair, she was still considering when the phone suddenly rang. She yelped, dropped and hit her head against the kitchen tiles.

“Ouch,” she muttered, rolling off the chair and standing up to get to the phone, though needn’t have bothered. Her mother already arrived to get it.

“Told you not to lean,” she said shortly, then answered, “Brooks Res… Zach! How are… yes? Yes? Yes. ….I see… Really? Well, okay… take care and stay safe. Love you, honey.”

The phone call ended as quick as it started.

“On the phone…?” Tara asked, “Doesn’t that cost like a million dollars?”

“That’s why he kept it short I’m sure…”

“What did he want?”

“He’s staying another week, because… I’m not really sure why, but he’ll be back a little later.”

“Oh,” Tara replied, obviously disappointed.

“Miss your brother?”

Before Tara had to admit anything of the sort, she was saved by the doorbell.

“I’ll get it!” she yelled, jumping her to feet and rushing to the door, finding Chrissy waiting as expected.

Tara looked down a second to get her face in the proper mask, finding, much to her confusion, that Chrissy was barefoot.

She frowned at Chrissy.

“Dad forgot to do laundry,” was Chrissy’s explanation, “And it’s only across the road.”

“Wait here,” Tara said, running to get her dad’s slippers.

“Weird,” Chrissy answered a minute later, putting the foreign footwear on.

“Mom will kill me if I let you walk on her carpet with dirty feet…”

“Okay, okay,” Chrissy shrugged, throwing up her hands in defeat, “I’m just here to read anyway, not to walk.”

Tara nodded and took point to the living room, Chrissy shuffled after. Mrs Brooks was dusting the living room, pretending not to be listening in on the girls.

“I have A’rat versus Swile,” Tara informed, picking up one of two notebooks from the table. and getting the muttered response from her mother that ‘Mister Lewis was a very nice man’. The notebook was pristine, as Tara had copied it the night before to distract herself from the other story she had written.

“And I also have A’rat and the Broken Idol…”

“Not funny,” Mrs Brooks whispered to herself, referring the event that inspired the story. Tara breaking of her grandma’s prized figurines.

“Kinda funny,” Tara retorted under her breathing, remembering how ugly she had found the thing.

“Mhm,” was all Mrs Brooks had to say to that, quietly heading out the room, “I’ll get you girls some lemonade.”

As she left, she froze in the doorway, and put a finger to her chin, thinking.

“Tara, dear, do you know the time difference for Zach?”

Sara shrugged, “I could check the atlas?”

“Please.”

“I’ll be right back,” she mumbled to Chrissy hopped up and headed upstairs to find the book. Chrissy made herself comfortable and started to read.

“Fourteen hours, mom,” Tara informed her after ten minutes of perusing the atlas.

“That would make it,” Mrs Brooks replied, counting on her fingers, “Four in the morning there. What the hell is that brother of yours up to?”

Tara made a face, having vague ideas of the things her brother might be up to, “Something weird probably.”

Mrs Brooks did not reply, simply heading upstairs.

Tara turned her attention back to Chrissy, who seemed to have forgotten where she was, lost in Tara’s imagination.

Shrugging, Tara dropped herself down on the couch, turned on the TV and waited for Chrissy to finish.

Twenty minutes later Chrissy put the notebook down and looked sharply at Tara.

“What?”

“I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“Why do you call all the women in your stories beautiful…?”

Tara flushed, internally panicking, stuttered several defenses and ended with staring at her pink socks.

“Just kidding,” Chrissy assured her, “I’m sure the men are beautiful too, but you don’t really say that, do you? What I wanted to ask was, have you written down the lore for this?”

“Lore?”

“Background information.”

Tara shook her head. She generally made it up as she went, “No, but I have a map!”

“A map? Can I see!? Your world’s better than mine…”

Tara normally wouldn’t have shown it to anyone, but the flattery struck home. She got up, gesturing for Chrissy to follow her to her room..