I recently became determined to write a drabble. As a writer of epic fanfiction, I have always had respect for writers who can do drabbles, but the skill elludes me. What I ended up with was a body of ficlets mostly too long for drabble-length but shorter than even the usual length of my rare short fics. Some are connected to my Rediscovered Hearts AU and some are just random. So I'm just going to post each one separately because there's no rhyme or reason to them so it doesn't make sense to do a "collection".
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Manda had met Mary Bresslar on the
playground the first day of second grade. Mary was a transfer student who hadn't
quite found a comfortable niche in the hierarchy of Amelia Earhart Elementary
School's second grade social circle. The girls were in different classes, but
had apparently met when Manda twisted a boy's finger in order to get him to give
back Mary's book. After that, the two girls spent all their recess time
together, and Manda began taking the bus to Mary's bus stop after school. Mary's
house was closer to the library, she said, which was a reasonable enough
explanation to Daniel. Vala had met the girl and her parents before giving
permission for Manda to play at her house, and while she said she wasn't crazy
about them, she saw no reason to interfere in the friendship; Mary herself
seemed like a nice enough child, and it was good for Manda to have playmates
besides Teal'c, Carter, and Nicky.
When Daniel had still not met his
daughter's new friend by January, however, he began to be a little concerned.
Manda waved it off, reminding him that it wasn't her fault if he was at work in
the afternoons. Finally, Vala suggested that Manda invite Mary to spend the
weekend, which should provide Daniel with at least one opportunity to meet the
girl, no matter what he was working on at the SGC. She shrugged and agreed, but
when Friday afternoon rolled around, she came through the back door
alone.
"I thought Mary was coming with you," said Daniel, who was reading
at the kitchen table.
Manda let her bookbag slide off her arm and hit the
floor with a thump and crossed the room to kiss his cheek. "She
was."
"So, what happened?"
Manda walked over to the refrigerator and heaved it open with exaggerated effort. Shoving her head inside, she began to rummage around and replied, "Her mom said she wasn't allowed to sleep over here cause Mrs. Rooney told her Mommy was flirting with the mailman again."
Daniel sighed and rubbed his eyes. Then he said as delicately as he could, "Oh…well, how do you feel about that?"
Manda didn't reply for a minute, then pulled a bottle of Coke from the fridge, twisted it open, and turned around, kicking the door shut lightly with her sneaker. She shrugged. "I told Mrs. Bresslar that at least my dad wasn't kissing the mailman. Where's Mommy?"
Daniel blinked. "Um. She's upstairs. Why?"
"I'm gonna go see if she wants to watch QVC," Manda said, skipping off.
Daniel buried his face in his hands and sighed, "I give up."
