Chapter 07
"What had you meant by that?" Ted questioned, his eyes wide with curiosity when Grammy paused with suspense. He and Audrey had been listening to her tale for hours now. It didn't seem to be drawing to a conclusion anytime soon, either. She smiled at him the same way she always did.
"Well, I had dreams, Teddy. To make beautiful music. But, I was limited in skill. The Once-ler had just what I needed. With my knowledge and his skill... I imagined we could create masterpieces," she explained thoughtfully, rolling around the memory in her head.
"You both filled in for what the other lacked!" Audrey summed it up blissfully. Grammy nodded, opening her mouth to start again, but was interrupted. The chirping of the cuckoo clock sounded, closing in on four in the afternoon. How already so much time had passed, Ted didn't know.
"Gee, it's getting late..." Audrey stated solemnly. Her parents were expecting her home for dinner. She didn't want to have to go. She was so enthralled in the story, at the edge of the sofa with anticipation. Her head swirled with romance and theories of how the story would possibly end. She wouldn't even be able to sleep that night, replaying it over and over again in her daydreams.
"The story can wait," Grammy said with a grin, "Come on back tomorrow and we will continue."
Audrey had to peel herself reluctantly away from the sofa, dragging her feet to the front door. They all said their good byes, Ted trying to prolong it with extra adverbs and adjectives. He watched longingly as she walked down the walkway, turning one more time to wave a final goodbye for the night. She was gone shortly after, out of sight. Grammy patted his shoulder firmly.
"You'll get her," she hissed, walking slowly away and back to her arm chair.
"Wh-what?" he blurted out, scarlet deepening in his face. She laughed. How Ted still thought no one knew about his affection towards Audrey was baffling, but amusing. He followed after her, spurting out various forms of denial, returning to his place on the sofa across from her.
Ted examined his grandmother carefully. It was hard not to see her in a different light after hearing so much from when she was younger. But in some ways, her stubbornness and touch of attitude still came out even to this day. She was different, but yet still the same. When she spoke of the past, it was as if she was talking about yesterday. He couldn't imagine speaking so carefully and precisely about his childhood in fifty years from now. He couldn't expect being able to vividly describe his breakfast cereal from that morning. On the other hand, he had no idea just how often these memories may have replayed in Grammy's thoughts. Audrey was so positive and giddy to hear more, but Ted was starting to become uneasy.
"The story doesn't have a happy ending, does it..." he thought out loud. If it did, then would any of the Once-ler's story have ever happened?
"Teddy, no matter how it ends, it was a happy ending because I wound up with you and your mom," she replied, smiling warmly, "It's the things that happen in your life that shape you and make you who you are."
Ted held onto these words that night as he tried to fall to sleep. One day he would tell his grandchildren about how he helped save the trees. They would interrupt a lot, and probably get bored less than half way through, and maybe not even believe him. Either way, he would give that same piece advice.
The next morning, Ted awoke to a beautiful sound. It tingled in his ears, and made his heart flutter just a bit. He opened his eyes and found Audrey staring down at him. She was continuously repeating his name and shaking him from the shoulders. He closed his eyes back up. A dream.
"Get up, you sleepy head!" she exclaimed with a laugh, shaking him a little more violently than before. His eyelids snapped back and his spine stiffened up into a seated position. He wanted to scream but he tried to keep his composure. He also tried desperately to ignore the fact she was seeing him in his pajamas.
"Audrey... hey. Fancy seeing you here," he laughed nervously, pulling his bed sheets closer to his body. The awkwardness of the situation suddenly dawned on both of their thoughts.
"This is weird," she whispered flatly, suddenly ripping her hands away from him.
"Nah..." he tried to lie, but couldn't sound very convincing.
"I just, was so excited to hear more of the story that I ran over as soon as I woke up! Your grandma told me you were still asleep, but gave me permission to wake you, so..."
"Oh no, nothing wrong with that," he continued to lie. No, nothing at all.
"Okay... good!" she easily shook off the guilt and grabbed a hold of him once more. Before he knew it, he was being dragged, forcibly, out of bed, out of his room, and down the stairs. He let out a few yelps but it didn't seem to make a difference. Audrey was bent into getting the rest of the story out of Grammy. Right. Now.
"Good morning Ted!" Grammy cheered with laughter when he tumbled into the room after Audrey. Ted grumbled a greeting. This really wasn't how he imagined waking up to Audrey would be like in his detailed fantasies of their grownup life together.
"So tell us, what happened next?" Audrey chirped, finding her place on the sofa just where she was yesterday.
"Wait wait wait. Can't I at least change? Or eat breakfast?" Ted questioned abruptly. Both Grammy and Audrey just looked at him silently. They're expressions were blank. Ted felt himself beginning to sweat in anxiety.
"I guess not."
"So, where were we? Things were a little different between the Once-ler and I after that day on the hill," Grammy began, closing her eyes to watch her memories like a movie, "We became incredibly close, incredibly fast."
ooooo
They were on top of the hill again. It seemed to be the best place for them to just be. It became the place they went together after school and on the weekends. It was Norma and Once-ler's hilltop.
"Would you teach me how to play guitar if I teach you how to read music?" Norma pestered for the third time that afternoon.
Once-ler sighed, "How can I teach you to play when I don't even know what I'm playing?"
"How did you learn?"
"I picked it up and have been BSing my way around it ever since."
"Aww, come on... There has to be more to it than that," she whined, plucking at a few strings on his guitar. They were sitting cross legged, side by side in the grass. She held his guitar in her lap, trying to produce something even half as pretty as he was able to just naturally. There had been no luck so far. She squeaked in frustration.
Once-ler had his drawing book balanced on one knee as he sketched. They had told each other they'd work on their project from business class, but, it took only five minutes for them to toss their work aside and go about the things they actually wanted to do. He felt he was too close to a revelation to be focusing on anything else anyhow.
"So," Norma sang with a slightly horrible strum, "What are you working on in that drawing book of yours anyway?" She had never actually asked before. He spent a lot of class time in it, and a lot of their time together as well. He still kept it pretty secretive, but she caught glimpses every now and again. He looked over at her stubbornly.
"What's it to you?" he huffed. As always, whenever talk of his sketchbook came up, he closed it and stuffed it back into his backpack.
"Well, you always look so focused when you're drawing. Makes me curious," she explained, followed by another screeching twang.
"Here's my question: how can someone so knowledgeable in music theory create such horrifying noise?"
Once-ler received a viciously hard punch to his forearm for that one. He couldn't help but laugh, though, as her face reddened. It took less than a minute for him to realize how much it had hurt.
"Ow," he then muttered as it began to throb violently. He rubbed his oncoming bruise, a puppy eyed pout forming on his face.
"Oh, don't even look at me like that. You deserved it," Norma replied to his pushed up bottom lip. He pressed it out further in punctuation, but she only looked away. She wasn't a sap for those sorts of things.
"Anyway, you avoided the question," she persisted, continuing to try to make a nice sound come out of his reluctant guitar. This time, Once-ler was the one to look away. He hadn't shared his ideas with anyone so far. It wasn't a complete thought yet, anyway. He still had a lot of things to figure out, and he didn't need someone asking him a bunch of questions he didn't know the answers to yet. Especially Norma, possibly the biggest questioning downer he had ever met. No offense.
"Do I need to bribe you with food?"
"Is that always your last resort?" he sighed.
"I may have some marshmallows stowed away in my backpack."
Once-ler lowered his eyelids into a squinted stare, "Do you really think I am that weak?"
Norma smiled wickedly, beginning to unzip her bag. She watched him watch her as she slowly moved her hand around inside of it. When she felt what she was looking for, she let it sit in her fingers for a few extra seconds, just to add to the suspense. He continued to glare back at her blankly. With a quick snap of her wrist, a little plastic baggie of mini marshmallows jumped out of her bag and between the two of them. Once-ler's eyes shifted to them.
"They're tiny," was all he said.
"Yeah… and?" Norma questioned back, "They're still marshmallows!"
"Yeah, but… they're tiny marshmallows," he didn't sound very impressed. He picked up the baggie and looked them over closely. They looked just like the marshmallows he liked to eat, but, miniature. They were about a square inch each in size, and probably two chews and a swallow. He put them back down into the grass.
"I'm afraid if you want to get any information out of me, you will have to do better than that."
"What?" Norma exclaimed, irritated. She snatched the marshmallows away and stuffed them back into her knapsack. She was thoroughly offended by his reaction. The only reason she had those marshmallows in the first place was for him. She had even pestered her mom to buy them for her. Sure, she had brought them that day to give to him for free… but if he was going to be like that, then he wouldn't get any marshmallows at all. She went back to trying to make music, ignoring his presence entirely.
"You know, that was an opening, right?" Once-ler said after a few moments of her strumming angrily on his guitar and him cringing.
Norma silenced the instrument, "For what?"
"Offer me something better, and maybe I will tell you what I'm drawing."
She thought about this. Something better? How many times had she offered to take him out to eat and he declined? Food didn't really seem to be his weakness. Not even marshmallows, and he seemed to live off of those. As a matter of fact, she wasn't sure if she had ever seen him eat anything else. So, from what she knew about Once-ler, how could she strike him a deal he couldn't refuse? And then it hit her.
"Get up, get up, get up," she repeated, standing up and dusting herself off, "We have somewhere we have to go before our moms are expecting us home."
Once-ler looked up, confused. Norma slipped into her backpack, and swung his guitar around to her back. She looked back down at him, her eyes asking specifically why he was still sitting. He followed suit, standing up, over a foot above her height, and shrugging his school bag over his shoulders. Where were they going? Damned if he knew. Norma grabbed a hold of him, as she often did, and began to run.
A/N: Another chapter. I should have given warning that this fanfic is pretty slow and slice-of-life.
Thanks for reading/reviewing! I love you all. :)
