InsaneJournal

Who: Daniel Eames, aged 8, and Ariadne Wood, aged 7, and Escher, aged a few months
What: First meetings, and the making of toast
When: Right after this and this, 28th July 2011
Where: Arthur and Ariadne’s apartment
Status: Complete/Closed



Daniel was sitting on the floor in the living room, playing quietly with Escher. He’d grown up with dogs, so he knew how to keep the barks to a minimum, and how to make sure the pup knew he was in charge, so they weren’t actually making too much of a mess. Well. Daniel didn’t think it was messy, but no doubt his mother would think so when she showed up. “My goodness, Daniel, we cannot take you anywhere, can we?” she would say, and then she would send for Elaine to tidy up and take Daniel somewhere dull so that she could keep an eye on him. So if he kept Escher quiet, it would take longer for her to find him and he’d be able to play for longer.

He kept examining the little machine that had the keyboard part and the screen, because the messages kept coming. He supposed it was an odd type of computer, although it was very small. He’d seen computers before, in school. His school had a room with about ten computers and every Wednesday morning, his class would spend an hour in the computer room playing silly games that were kept on floppy discs (and that was a stupid name, since they were neither floppy nor discs. They were black plastic squares. Anyone could see that) and it was a waste of time. He’d far rather have had art classes again, or library time was also excellent. Still, it meant he knew how to reply to the messages, so that was alright.

He told the girl about waking up in the biggest bed in the world, which was true, and he spoke to a number of people who seemed to know his father, but then Escher curled up and went to sleep on the couch so Daniel found a sketchpad and some pencils and sat down beside him. Flipping to the back of the sketchpad, he started drawing. Someone else was bound to wake up soon, and then they could have breakfast.

Ariadne was a very sound sleeper. Her mom said she slept like a log, which was funny because logs didn't sleep, they were just dead trees, and maybe it was just an expression but it was kind of stupid. So she didn't wake up till she was good and ready, no matter how much noise Escher might have been making. And when she did she was very, very confused, because this wasn't her room with the sunny yellow curtains and the quilt with the maze on it. It was someone else's room and someone else's very, very big bed.

She managed to climb her way to the edge of the bed and saw that a little box was buzzing away, and when she poked and pried she found it had a keyboard and a glass part and there were words and pictures like the Game Boy her babysitter had let her play with once. And people were talking to her on it and they knew her name! Had she been kidnapped like a princess in a story? One of them was talking about waking up in the biggest bed ever and she was pretty sure she could hear the dog he was talking about, so she rolled out of the bed and landed on her knees and went out to see if she could find him.

Peering around the edge of the wall, she saw a boy who looked about her age sitting on the couch. He didn't look mean, and while grown-up strangers might have been dangerous the worst most kids could be was just being a bully. She took a few more steps forward and tilted her head.

"What are you drawing?"

Daniel looked up at the sound of a girl’s voice, and smiled. “Are you Ariadne?” he asked, and then turned the sketchpad round to show her. There was a boxy robot with flashing lights on its chest, and a dinosaur like the one he’d seen in the museum the other week, only it was stomping around beside the robot, and he’d just started drawing Lion-O because he liked the Thundercats when Elaine looked after him and let him watch the telly and they were on in the afternoons when he’d done his homework for the night. He explained all that, then got down off the couch, leaving the sketchpad and pencils where they were. Escher slept on, but he stayed quiet anyway.

“Oh, I’m Daniel. I said on the thingy, but I don’t know if you read it? Daniel Eames, pleased to meet you,” he said, holding his hand out to shake hers, like he’d seen his father do at every single party he’d ever been at. “Is this your house? Because I just woke up here, I didn’t climb in or anything like that. And I haven’t explored or nothing, I just played with Escher and then he went to sleep so I started drawing.”

"Yeah," she answered, pleased that he said her name right and didn't try to call her Ari or anything. Most people got it wrong and then laughed at her when she told them so because it was funny or something. But they were wrong. But Daniel wasn't wrong and he was nice, and she crept over and leaned on the arm of the sofa to see the drawings better. She liked the dinosaur best but didn't know who Lion-O was. "You're really good," she said admiringly. "Better'n me, and I'm the best drawer I know." Not that she knew that many kids, but still.

Ariadne stared at his hand for a minute, not sure what to do. There wasn't a lot of hand-shaking in her life; her parents hugged all their friends and kids just waved at each other and then ran off to play or go get into trouble. "I read it. It's not my house, I woke up here too." She leaned around to look past Daniel, then sat down in front of the couch to get closer to Escher. The puppy snorted and she giggled. "He's cute! Is he yours?"

Daniel smiled at the praise and thanked her, but he was completely confused when she didn’t shake his hand. He turned to watch her as she got closer to Escher and promptly forgot all about Ariadne’s apparent lack of manners (Mother would have been very grumpy and she would have made some nasty little remark, but he kind of... didn’t care). “No, he was here when I left the bedroom. But he seems to know me and I don’t know how, but he had a really good sniff at me and then he rolled over to show me his tummy so then I had to play with him,” he explained.

Turning to look round the room, his stomach grumbled, so he looked down and rubbed at it a bit. “I’m going to find food. Are you hungry too?” he asked, even as he started towards the room that had to be the kitchen. There didn’t seem to be any grown-ups in the place, or none that were awake, anyhow, and a distinct lack of staff, so he was going to have to sort out food for himself and for Ariadne. How difficult could it be?

Ariadne was still engrossed in the puppy, reaching forward very carefully to pet his ears. Escher whuffed softly in his sleep but didn't wake up, so she kept running the soft velvety ear-flap between her fingers while she listened to Daniel. She stopped and looked at her own tummy and thought very carefully and decided she wanted breakfast too.

"I can help! I can make toast and jam. Or bagels if you help me cut. Or sandwiches. Or eggs if my daddy helps." Her parents believed very strongly in Ariadne helping and being self-sufficient, whatever that meant. She got up and headed after Daniel, then opened the fridge and looked in. "There's lots of juice! And... strawberry jam. And chocolate syrup!"

Daniel had dragged a chair over to the counter to climb up on because he couldn’t quite reach the top cupboards and that was where people put their cups and plates and things. So he got two plates out, and two glasses for juice, and then it was pretty easy to get at the bread-bin so he grabbed a loaf of bread. “Toast and jam is good,” he said, then climbed back down onto the ground. “Or toast and chocolate. I think that would be nice. Does it go on toast?”

Ariadne was currently hoisting a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and over to the table. "Toast and chocolate?" Her voice rose as she was confronted with this new idea. Could you even do that? Would her parents appear out of nowhere and tell her she would have carob soymilk instead? "I think it can," she said finally, putting the juice down. "We can try it! Anything goes on toast."

“Alright, then. We’ll do that.” Daniel pushed the chair back over to where Ariadne was, wincing at the horrible scraping sound it made, then looked over at her. “Will you show me how to make toast? Our cook won’t show me, he says I’d end up burning either it or myself. And then he tells me to get out of his kitchen, so I don’t know. But I can get the butter and the chocolate after that.” He scratched his elbow after that, before trying to shove up the sleeves of the huge tee-shirt he was wearing because they were annoying.

"Toast is easy." Ariadne reached up on her tippytoes and pulled the toaster out to the edge of the counter. "You put in the toast and push down the thingy and wait till it pops up." She struggled with the little tab on the bread bag and got it open, then pulled out two pieces and reached way high up to put them in the toaster. "Can you see the little turny part? The dial. It tells the toaster if you want it light or dark." Should Daniel have his first because that was nice or should he make his own? That was more complicated than the toaster. She pulled down on the lever and watched the bread disappear into the machine, then turned around. "And you gotta stay and watch because if it starts to smell bad then it's burning and you could catch the kitchen on fire." Which had never happened to her, but it sounded scary. And then Escher came running in and butted into her legs, which felt funny and tickly like her cat's fur. Ariadne laughed. "Can puppies eat toast?"

“Puppies eat anything,” Daniel told her with a laugh, then looked at all the things on the side of the toaster. “You do it first, so I can see, and then I’ll make mine and I’ll make some for Escher as well because he’s been a good boy since I got here.”

This wasn’t the sort of breakfast Daniel was used to at all, since there were no eggs or bacon or gross slimy mushrooms and no shiny pots of tea and coffee, and he never got to help make things, ever, and if the dogs had come into the dining room, Mother would have had a fit and Father would have stopped reading his paper to frown at them. But he really didn’t care about that, because he liked Ariadne, and he thought that having Escher snuffling round was fun, and he enjoyed learning how to do anything new. So really, this was shaping up to be his best breakfast, even if he did end up burning the toast three times before he managed to get it right, and Escher then ate that toast right off his plate.