Chapter 22 - Monkey Bars

July 6th, 1992 (Monday)
Location: Hyde Park

She exchanges looks with Paige at Daphne's outburst. "What do you think?"

The eight year old put on a show of thinking about it before she stuck her tongue out at the blonde. "You are really really really really really -"

"How many really can you say?" Daphne exclaims as the girl kept going.

"Really really really really"

"A lot apparently," Meissa chuckles in amusement.

"Really really really really"

"What's going on?"

"Pretty!"

"Thirteen," the raven haired girl remarks, having actually counted, "face it Daph, you're pretty."

The blonde rolls her eyes at her before she turns to Hermione who was looking at the two of them with an exasperated expression on her face.

"Do something about this!"

"I don't even know what happened," Hermione comments.

"Daphne doesn't want to accept that she's really really really -."

"No - no, not that again."

"Pretty!"

"I think you should just accept it at this point, Daph."

"That's not the issue at all," the blonde huffs at the raven-haired girl.

"Then what is it?"

"The fact that you're encouraging a kid to compliment me."

"Am I encouraging you?"

"What's encouraging?"

"It means someone is telling you should do something," Hermione chimes in helpfully.

"Oh. No, she's not."

Paige completely misses the smug grin Meissa flashed at the huffy blonde.

"Paige!" Meissa turns her head to look for the source as the girl perks up at the voice. As far as she can tell, it's a woman with her hair tied up in a somewhat messy bun. There's a resemblance between the girl and the woman so she pegs her to be the girl's mother. "Time to go!"

"Aw!" the girl runs to the railing, peering through the bars at the woman, "I want to stay longer, mum!"

"We have to go pick up your big sister now."

"Aww," the girl pouts before she turns to Meissa. "Bye!" she waves excitedly before she runs off, going down one of the slides with a short 'wee'.

"She was interesting," Hermione remarks, watching as the girl joins her mom.

"Mhm." Meissa got back to her feet, grinning mischievously at Daphne, "She's also right."

"OI!" Daphne exclaims. Laughing, Meissa took off as she takes a page from Paige's book, sliding down the slide before she ran for the hills with the blonde hot on her heels.

Hermione shook her head at the duo before she went after them, shouting at Daphne to go left as she went right to corner Meissa.

~MJB~

Hermione's shoes dig into the sand as she pushes herself back and forth on the swing, her eyes half closed as she takes in the sounds of the playground. It's not as crowded anymore - she has to guess that the parents have taken the kids someplace else - maybe to pick up the older kids from school. Meissa was still exploring the playgrounds - so far she's finding a great deal of amusement from the spring riders.

"Hey," she hears Daphne call her over from underneath the monkey bars, "What are you supposed to do with these?"

It was fortunate that there weren't many kids around at the moment - that would've gotten a lot of comments from the younger kids.

'You don't know how to monkey?' would probably be one of the more popular comments.

With a small huff she leaves her seat on the swings and went over to Daphne, being joined by Meissa shortly afterwards.

"The easiest way to do it is," Hermione starts to climb up the ladder and then over the top rung until she could reach the bars, "Well, watch." She grasp the first rung and, after making sure she has a good enough grasp, push herself off the ladder and then quickly swung herself forward. She probably made it halfway across before she dropped back down to the ground. "Easy!"

Meissa narrowed her eyes at the bars before she quickly scaled the ladder, mirroring Hermione. She barely got past four rungs before she ended up stalling and lost her grip. Unlike Hermione she didn't absorb the impact and fell completely onto her butt with a startled 'oof'.

"Easy?" Daphne asks with an arched eyebrow, looking at the Gryffindor.

"Sort of?"

"Sure," Meissa grumbles, picking herself up and brushing off the sand from her butt.

"Well, I've done it a few times growing up but it might be easier if you took it a bit slower."

"If I went any slower I would be going backwards."

"It takes a lot of effort to get good at this," Hermione attempts to reassure the grumpy Slytherin while Daphne peers at the monkey bars.

"Can I make an attempt?" she asks as Meissa rubs her hands. She gets a wordless gesture from the other girl so she goes over and climbs up to the bars. She tries to mimic what Hermione has done, grasping the bar. However, instead of going as fast as the Gryffindor had she decides to take it slow. Move one hand forward and then brings the other one forward to the same bar.

Daphne made it about the same point as Hermione before it got too much for her arms and hands so she lets go. She manages to stay on her feet as she rubs her hands against her trousers. It actually hurts to do that. Her forearms actually feel a little tender now.

Now Meissa was really grumpy - she wants to do better now.

She climbs back up the ladder and decides to take Daphne's approach to the bars.

Off to the side, Hermione was silent rooting for Meissa - mostly because, they'd never hear the end of it if Meissa doesn't manage to get at least half way like they've managed. She not only manages to get half way but most of the way across before her grip on the bars is too hard to maintain. With a disgruntled noise she lets go and is able to stick the landing this time around.

"That's… hard," she remarks, rubbing her hands together before she rubs her forearms.

"But you did much better this time around," Hermione points out.

"Much better than both of us."

"I vote we do this every day."

"Every?" Hermione grimaces at the thought of that - it'd be brutal on their upper bodies.

"Yeah."

"It's not going to be easy."

"Anything worthwhile wouldn't be easy."

Daphne glance between the two of them. This promises to be interesting. Meissa had an excited look on her face, she was definitely enjoying the thought of the impending exercise. Hermione didn't look at all pleased with the prospects of this.

"Exercising isn't easy," Hermione reminds her firmly.

Meissa just gives her a large grin before turning around with a cheerful whistle. Hermione rolls her eyes at the other girl's antics, sighing as Daphne pats her on the back. There's nothing that could be said to ease the fact that come high or hell water, Meissa will have them doing some kind of exercise.

~MJB~

"So… what are we doing tomorrow?" Meissa asks, walking backwards as she spoke.

"Mm, well, my parents want to go to the movies this weekend so that's out," Hermione remarks.

"We could knock off a few more of the movies," Daphne chimes in, reaching out to tap Meissa. Signaling for her to adjust her path to allow for a couple to pass them.

"We watched, uh…" Meissa stumbles as she tries to remember what they watched the other night.

"Robin Hood."

"Yeah that."

"What else did we pick that night?" Daphne taps her chin as she thinks about it.

"I remember seeing 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramps, and Cinderella among the movies picked that night."

"Songbird!"

The trio turn at the shout - it wasn't the name, Meissa and Daphne were only just getting used to hearing that, that made them react. It was the frantic tone in Mr. Granger's voice that has them looking.

"Dad?"

"The house is gone!"

"What?!"

The witches dropped everything and broke out into a dead run to the frazzled Grangers - their car parked crookedly in the driveway. Henry looks absolutely disheveled - it looks like he's been running his hands through his hair often. He does look extremely stressed out so that's no surprise. Jean, on the other hand, looks rather calm in comparison. She has a slight exasperated look on her face - it's unclear if it's in response to the situation or a result of Henry's stress.

Meissa crosses her arms as she stares at where the house should be.