Kid's Games
By tami
Dario opened the door and Riddel stepped in, flushed from the cold and batting snowflakes out of her long hair with mittened hands. The sticky white clumps, freshly descended from the sky, were already melting into droplets from the warm atmosphere, small transparent beads glowing on the indigo strands. She shrugged off her white winter coat trimmed with soft ermine that matched the white fluff clinging to her sweeping lashes. Dario took it and hung it on the gleaming golden coat hooks jutting out from the wall, like a proper young gentleman was supposed to do. She swept a little mock curtsey, plucking up her knit skirt with her gloved fingers. Dario laughed and motioned for her to take off her mittens. She did, and arranged them neatly on the green-spotted marble of a nearby table.
"Hello, Dario!" she chirped.
"Hi Riddel!" he answered, just as cheerful as his friend. Without missing a beat he seized her arm and started to drag her up the stairs.
"Dario!" He heard his mother call. "Don't you and Riddel dare wake up Glenn!"
He paused and grabbed the banister suddenly, and as a result swung and slammed into the railing and sat down hard on a step. Riddel, who had been scrambling after him in order to keep up, couldn't stop in time and found herself sprawled over him. Neither one was hurt; it happened so often that they had perfected the maneuver. Dario answered his mother's warning with a very contradictory yell.
"We won't!"
"Hush!" his mother admonished.
Dario hoisted Riddel to her feet, who had been giggling wildly throughout. Then they both ran up the rest of the stairs, trying to make their shoes emit as little sound as possible. If it had not been for the fluffy carpet muffling Riddel's snow boots (she had forgotten to remove them at the door.) they probably would have had Dario's mother stomping up to the second floor to yank them both down to the kitchen where they could be as noisy as they wanted without disturbing Glenn's naptime, and pig out on cookies besides. But they'd much rather take the opportunity to get a rare glimpse of Dario's new baby brother.
"Be quiet Riddel!" Dario scolded Riddel. It was just a precaution; he knew that Riddel would behave, or else he wouldn't let her go into the nursery. "Glenn's sleeping!"
"I know!" she snapped. "Anyway, you're much more of a loudmouth than me!"
"Am not!" Dario protested, forgetting to whisper.
"Am too!"
"You're the loudmouth!"
"I bet you don't have anything to back that up!" she countered smugly.
"Yeah I do.you're a girl and a girl is always more of a loudmouth than a boy!"
Riddel burst out laughing, trying to smother the commotion with her hands.
"Shut up!!!" Dario hissed at her in mild annoyance.
"Okay, okay." She suppressed her laughter and shoved Dario a little to get him to move again. With a snort and a playfully scornful "Girls!" Dario grabbed the sleeve of her angora sweater again and steered her in the direction of Glenn's room.
Dario turned the knob and as quietly as possible, pushed it open, putting a finger to his lips at the same time. He and Riddel walked into the room, which was painted a pale pastel blue. The seven year-old and his four-year old companion crept up to the crib silently. Riddel peaked at what lay inside by getting up on her tiptoes and moaned with jealously.
"He's so cute, Dario!" She squealed enviously.
"All girls think that babies are cute!" Dario scoffed. But he smiled as if he were pleased and thought the same thing.
"Ooo.. I just want to pick him up and hug him! I can, can't I?"
"Not now. He's sleeping, can't you see that?"
"DARIO!" he heard his mother boom. They both jumped slightly "YOU'D BETTER NOT BE IN GLENN'S ROOM!"
"We aren't!" he and Riddel said in unison. They looked at each other and began to giggle wildly again. When they were done Dario made a face.
"She's always yelling at me to leave Glenn alone. but she's much louder than we are, so she's a hy.hip." Dario struggled to pronounce the difficult word. "Just wrong." He amended.
"Yeah!" Riddel exclaimed. A bit too loudly, because Glenn's began to stir.
"Uh-oh."
Glenn turned over and opened his slate-gray eyes. His face scrunched up as if he was in pain and Dario could tell he was about to start wailing at the top of his lungs. Swiftly, he reached for his brother and lifted him into his arms. If Glenn started to cry, he and Riddel would get in trouble for sure. Dario would be sent to bed without dinner, and Riddel would be virtually chained to her detested harp to practice for a week. Dario rocked Glenn as steadily as he could in his mounting panic. The result was a rather rattling ride for the infant, and it did nothing to ease his fury. His face grew red and his lips puckered.
"Here, give him to me!" Riddel urged.
He passed (thrust) his baby brother into the outstretched arms of the young Riddel. She was so small herself that she could barely support Glenn's slight weight, but she managed to hush the baby with her much more melodious voice, quieting him with soft little "shhs" and coos. By the time she actually got a good hold on Glenn so that they would both be comfortable, he was snuffling tearfully into her fuzzy shoulder.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, gently because Glenn was still a little miffed at being jerked out of dreamland by a pair of rowdy children. "He's so soft, Dario."
"Soft." Dario repeated, as if she were nothing less than insane. He held out his hands to take Glenn, but Riddel scowled and scuttled out of reach.
"You get to see him everyday. I want to hold him a little longer." She insisted with a pout.
"Riddel! He's my brother. Give him to me!" He made another grab for her but she scooted even further away.
"Be careful, you're going to trip and hurt him!"
"You're just saying that because oooo..!!!!!" Riddel's clunky boots caught on the carpet and she felt herself losing balance.
"RIDDEL!"
Luckily, a rocking chair that Dario's mother used to sit in while she fed Glenn was right behind her and Riddel plopped down into the hard wooden seat. Although uninjured, she gave a little yelp of surprise and clutched Glenn close to her chest as the chair swayed violently back and forth on it's curved supports. Dario watched, his eyes wide with horror as he imagined his baby brother flying out of his friend's arms and going "SPLAT" against the wall.
"Riddel? Are you okay? Is Glenn okay?"
"Y-yeah, I think so." She stammered as she shoved her feet against the floor, stopping the rocking once and for all.
At first, Dario's relieved face made Riddel think that he was too happy to see both her and his brother safe to say, "I told you so". Then-
"I TOLD YOU SO!!! Why didn't you listen to me, huh? God, sometimes I wonder why I hang around with someone who's still practically a baby. Little kids never listen to you."
"BABY?!" Riddel cried indignantly. She jumped to her feet, carefully, as she was still holding Glenn. "First of all, I'm only three years younger than you. Second of all, I don't have to do what you say because I'm the Lady Viper and if anything, you should do what I say."
"If anything, you should do what I say." Dario mimicked her in a high, nasal voice.
"Stop that!"
"Stop that!" he echoed her.
"I mean it, Dario!"
"I mean it, Dario!"
"Dario!!!"
"Dario!!!"
Her foot (she was still wearing her hard and dirty snow shoes) shot out and connected with his shin.
"OW!"
She stuck her nose triumphantly into the air and turned her back to Dario as she made her way back to the cradle and put Glenn down. Meanwhile, Dario did a little dance of pain around the room, clutching his leg and hissing out snatches of profanity.
"Are you alright, Dario?" She asked sweetly over her shoulder as she draped a blanket over the squirming Glenn.
Dario swore quietly at her from across the room, knowing that if she actually picked up the word he would probably not see the light of day until he was 18. It wasn't exactly the greatest revenge, but it would have to do; there was no way he as going to hit a girl, even if she hit him first.
"Ah.I hate you."
"Mm" Riddel agreed absentmindedly as she reached into her pocket and pulled out something wrapped in shiny tinfoil. Dario was by her side in a heartbeat.
"Hey, what's that?"
"What's it look like? Chocolate."
Dario eyed it eagerly. His father was strict about fattening sweets such as chocolate. Mostly because he didn't want his son to work harder then he would already have to once he got into an army program, and being a plump butterball among lean recruits would definitely be a disadvantage when trying to touch your toes. Riddel caught his hungry-jackal expression.
"Back off, Dario." She warned. "I only have one of these and it's for Glenn."
Dario thought of wheedling, but decided to use the highly effective claim of being more mature, and therefore, more learned.
"Babies can't eat chocolate." He scoffed. "Everyone know it.it."
"What?" Riddel asked curiously, the twinkling prize still clasped in her hand.
"-It messes up their mind."
Riddell eyed him suspiciously.
"My mother says she gave me chocolate all the time when I was a baby." She said slowly, the frown on her face accusing Dario of lying.
"Proves my point exactly." Dario answered crisply, forcing an experienced- professor-look on his features.
"Oh, you!" gasped/exclaimed Riddel, swatting both Dario's arm and the know- it-all expression off his face with her free hand.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." he feigned terror, raising his arms protectively.
"You know what happens when you're selfish?" she demanded to know, acid severity seeping into her tone.
"No.what?"
"When you die, the devil comes up to you and claws your eyes out." She informed him with all the assurance of a pastor.
"Really?" This was news to Dario. He was genuinely fascinated. It was quite possibly the only time Riddel had ever known something that he didn't.
"I wasn't done yet." She went on airily. "Then he takes up hot coals and shoves them where your eyes used to be. Then he stitches your eyes closed so you can't take them out. The heat burns your flesh so you don't bleed to death, but it never goes away and for the rest of time you have hot lumps of coal for eyes and you wander around blind and screaming from the pain." When she finished Dario was in complete awe. His eyes were round with amazement and a bit of fear. Riddel waved the chocolate deliberately in front of him.
"Go on, take it. I won't stop you. I just hope you'll be able to stand having hot coals for eyes for an eternity." She taunted him.
Dario bowed his head and muttered, subdued: "Well.I was thinking.that Glenn would enjoy it."
Riddel "Hmph"ed, satisfied. Then she bent down to pick Glenn up, all wrapped in a baby blanket, praying that Dario couldn't see the grin on her lips. She couldn't help smiling so big. She was genius! Dario was so much older than her, it was hard to get him back for all the times he had fooled her. But she had managed to stitch together a few things she knew about religion, medicine, and melodrama to make one convincing whopper that Dario had swallowed whole.
"Dario, could you hold him for me?" Riddel requested. Dario nodded in agreement and she shifted Glenn into his outstretched arms.
"Hey, little brother." Dario crooned, touching Glenn's chubby little hands. Glenn, recognizing his kin, gurgled in delight and snatched at the lily pendent dangling from Dario's neck, the heirloom his mother had given to him when he began training.
"Dario, I need to be able to reach him." Riddel instructed.
Dario wordlessly arranged Glenn into a half-sitting half lying down position. Glenn's wide bright blue eyes stared at his elders, tiny finger's curled around the material of Dario's sleeve. He blinked several times at the crinkling of Riddel unwrapping the sweet. When she was done, she held it to his lips, but Glenn, not recognizing the lump as edible, stubbornly kept his mouth closed. After several seconds of attempts, Glenn began to twist his head around to get away from it and cry out in agitation. Riddel sighed with frustration. She couldn't understand why Dario was looking so satisfied.
"He doesn't know you. He won't eat anything from strangers, that's why he's resisting." Dario said smugly.
"Then you do it!" Riddel snapped waspishly, a sulky expression crossing her delicately adorable/pretty face. With one arm Dario took the candy from Riddel and with the other he passed Glenn back to her. Riddel cautiously balanced Glenn on her hip as she sucked the creamy brown remains of melted chocolate from her fingers. With a single fluid movement Dario pushed the chocolate into Glenn's mouth and at the same time ran his free hand gently down the side of his rounded face. Glenn smiled in pleasure at Dario as Riddel's gift dissolved in his mouth. Riddel, on the other hand, was beginning to tremble from exhaustion. Glenn barely weighed ten pounds, but that was a fourth of her own weight right there. Seeing this, Dario took Glenn back and propped him up against his shoulder.
"See, Glenn? Chocolate tastes good. Enjoy it while you can cuz' when you're my age dad won't let you eat it." Dario said softly to his baby brother as he jostled the infant playfully. Glenn gave a short squeal of sleepy baby talk before lying his head down and closing his eyes on his brother's shoulder.
"Aw.." Riddel crooned. Dario blushed at being the receiver of a "you're so cute" exclamation, but said nothing. Instead, he went back to Glenn's crib and laid the baby down, covering Glenn's body with his dragon blanket. Asleep, Glenn's chest rose up and down steadily, his flaxen lashes swept down to chubby cheeks. Dario leaned on the railing of the crib for a little while, watching Glenn snooze. Riddel sidled next to him and did the same, only she laughed at what she saw.
"What's so funny?" Dario asked her absently.
"Lookit his face." She murmured, her tone warm with affection.
Glenn's mouth was ringed with brown from the chocolate. Dario chuckled and reached for a cloth on the bed stand to clean it off, but Riddel caught his hand.
"No, leave it." She instructed him. She reached down and fondly smoothed Glenn's silky hair. "He looks even cuter this way." She observed with a grin.
Dario shrugged and pulled her away from the crib.
"We should leave now." He told her. A nervous edge crept into his voice. "My mom will be up here soon to feed him." Riddel sighed, but followed him to the door bedecked with balloon and SD dinosaur decals.
"It's such a shame, having to wake him over and over again." She said wistfully as they went back into the hall and Dario shut the door.
"All Glenn wants to do is sleep." Dario replied. "It's good that we bring him back to life every so often."
Riddel pondered over Dario's words, wondering if he simply meant what he said or, like it had sounded, they had some deep, hidden meaning. She gave up metaphorical interpretation without a second thought as soon when Dario suddenly yanked hard on one of her curls and zoomed away towards the stairs. She shrieked her acceptance to the painful invitation of a game of tag.
It was at the landing she tackled him and pummeled his face as he laughed, glad that she really couldn't hurt him. Dario's mother soon passed by with a warm bottle and a towel draped over her arm. She barely glanced at the struggling heap of boy vs. girl as she stepped over the two bodies rolling around screaming bloody murder before mounting the stairs. Within minutes Riddel had tired of punishing Dario and got up to go, her long blue hair and knit dress considerably mussed from their tussle. Dario pulled down her coat from the hook and handed it to her, then sat on a step to watch her get ready. She buttoned up her jacket, fastening the grown-up looking gray overcoat buttons with the crocheted loops.
"Seeya" she told him. "I had fun." Then a dreamy look invaded her expressive eyes.
"Glenn in so adorable.Promise me you'll let me see him again, okay Dario?" Dario nodded in agreement. "Of course." Then he added, almost shyly. "I think he likes you."
Riddel smiled widely as she pulled on her fuzzy white mittens.
"I'll see you again soon, alright?"
"Yeah." Then they stared at each other for a full minute before turning down their heads, each feeling a little awkward and mortified although neither knew why.
"DARIO!!!"
Dario sprang to his feet as if he had been stung by a bee.
"The chocolate! We forgot to wipe it off! She knows we were in there!" he moaned.
"Oh no!"
"Oh no? What do you mean, oh no?! This is all your fault!"
"MY FAULT? What do you mean, my fault?!"
"You and your stupid sentimentality! 'Don't wipe the chocolate off Dario'. 'He looks cuter that way, Dario." he made his voice rise to a shrill whine when he quoted her. "Next time I'll know better than to listen to the ideas of a baby!"
"I AM NOT A BABY!!!"
"Yes you are!
"No I'm not!
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm- Look, that doesn't matter! We're both in trouble!"
For a few despairing moments their gazes were locked together, and each could see the helplessness in the other's eyes.
"DAAAAARRRIO!!!" Dario's mother bellowed again, this time her summons punctuated from a frightened wail from Glenn.
Riddel gulped and yanked open the door.
"Seeya!" She yelled over her shoulder as a flurry of snow flooded into the doorway, leaving miniature drifts neatly gathered at the corners. Dario called desperately after her.
"Wait! You can't leave me like this!"
For her answer Riddel slammed the door closed and darted down the drive.
"DARIO, COME HERE!"
Dario spied his mother waving at him from the top of the stairs, the bundle he assumed to be Glenn supported by one hand. Even as she descended the steps he turned tail and fled, his mother hot on his trail.
Author's notes- Kinda weird, ain't it? It's got absolutely no point at all, and yet it's seven pages long and took me two months to write it. But when I read fan fiction, I can't help but find the portrayal of the characters as children a little too mature. Oh yes, it adds intrigue to the storyline, but what's left that's real? Can't anyone remember being real stupid and naive when we were kids? How much fun we had doing seemingly meaningless activities? So Kid's Games is just for fun. stories that revolve around the characters growing up. Doesn't anyone want me to continue? I'll move on to other characters or to Riddel and Dario getting older, with Glenn and Karsh making bigger appearances. Leave me an opinion and a review, and maybe who you want to see next. Thank you.
Dario opened the door and Riddel stepped in, flushed from the cold and batting snowflakes out of her long hair with mittened hands. The sticky white clumps, freshly descended from the sky, were already melting into droplets from the warm atmosphere, small transparent beads glowing on the indigo strands. She shrugged off her white winter coat trimmed with soft ermine that matched the white fluff clinging to her sweeping lashes. Dario took it and hung it on the gleaming golden coat hooks jutting out from the wall, like a proper young gentleman was supposed to do. She swept a little mock curtsey, plucking up her knit skirt with her gloved fingers. Dario laughed and motioned for her to take off her mittens. She did, and arranged them neatly on the green-spotted marble of a nearby table.
"Hello, Dario!" she chirped.
"Hi Riddel!" he answered, just as cheerful as his friend. Without missing a beat he seized her arm and started to drag her up the stairs.
"Dario!" He heard his mother call. "Don't you and Riddel dare wake up Glenn!"
He paused and grabbed the banister suddenly, and as a result swung and slammed into the railing and sat down hard on a step. Riddel, who had been scrambling after him in order to keep up, couldn't stop in time and found herself sprawled over him. Neither one was hurt; it happened so often that they had perfected the maneuver. Dario answered his mother's warning with a very contradictory yell.
"We won't!"
"Hush!" his mother admonished.
Dario hoisted Riddel to her feet, who had been giggling wildly throughout. Then they both ran up the rest of the stairs, trying to make their shoes emit as little sound as possible. If it had not been for the fluffy carpet muffling Riddel's snow boots (she had forgotten to remove them at the door.) they probably would have had Dario's mother stomping up to the second floor to yank them both down to the kitchen where they could be as noisy as they wanted without disturbing Glenn's naptime, and pig out on cookies besides. But they'd much rather take the opportunity to get a rare glimpse of Dario's new baby brother.
"Be quiet Riddel!" Dario scolded Riddel. It was just a precaution; he knew that Riddel would behave, or else he wouldn't let her go into the nursery. "Glenn's sleeping!"
"I know!" she snapped. "Anyway, you're much more of a loudmouth than me!"
"Am not!" Dario protested, forgetting to whisper.
"Am too!"
"You're the loudmouth!"
"I bet you don't have anything to back that up!" she countered smugly.
"Yeah I do.you're a girl and a girl is always more of a loudmouth than a boy!"
Riddel burst out laughing, trying to smother the commotion with her hands.
"Shut up!!!" Dario hissed at her in mild annoyance.
"Okay, okay." She suppressed her laughter and shoved Dario a little to get him to move again. With a snort and a playfully scornful "Girls!" Dario grabbed the sleeve of her angora sweater again and steered her in the direction of Glenn's room.
Dario turned the knob and as quietly as possible, pushed it open, putting a finger to his lips at the same time. He and Riddel walked into the room, which was painted a pale pastel blue. The seven year-old and his four-year old companion crept up to the crib silently. Riddel peaked at what lay inside by getting up on her tiptoes and moaned with jealously.
"He's so cute, Dario!" She squealed enviously.
"All girls think that babies are cute!" Dario scoffed. But he smiled as if he were pleased and thought the same thing.
"Ooo.. I just want to pick him up and hug him! I can, can't I?"
"Not now. He's sleeping, can't you see that?"
"DARIO!" he heard his mother boom. They both jumped slightly "YOU'D BETTER NOT BE IN GLENN'S ROOM!"
"We aren't!" he and Riddel said in unison. They looked at each other and began to giggle wildly again. When they were done Dario made a face.
"She's always yelling at me to leave Glenn alone. but she's much louder than we are, so she's a hy.hip." Dario struggled to pronounce the difficult word. "Just wrong." He amended.
"Yeah!" Riddel exclaimed. A bit too loudly, because Glenn's began to stir.
"Uh-oh."
Glenn turned over and opened his slate-gray eyes. His face scrunched up as if he was in pain and Dario could tell he was about to start wailing at the top of his lungs. Swiftly, he reached for his brother and lifted him into his arms. If Glenn started to cry, he and Riddel would get in trouble for sure. Dario would be sent to bed without dinner, and Riddel would be virtually chained to her detested harp to practice for a week. Dario rocked Glenn as steadily as he could in his mounting panic. The result was a rather rattling ride for the infant, and it did nothing to ease his fury. His face grew red and his lips puckered.
"Here, give him to me!" Riddel urged.
He passed (thrust) his baby brother into the outstretched arms of the young Riddel. She was so small herself that she could barely support Glenn's slight weight, but she managed to hush the baby with her much more melodious voice, quieting him with soft little "shhs" and coos. By the time she actually got a good hold on Glenn so that they would both be comfortable, he was snuffling tearfully into her fuzzy shoulder.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, gently because Glenn was still a little miffed at being jerked out of dreamland by a pair of rowdy children. "He's so soft, Dario."
"Soft." Dario repeated, as if she were nothing less than insane. He held out his hands to take Glenn, but Riddel scowled and scuttled out of reach.
"You get to see him everyday. I want to hold him a little longer." She insisted with a pout.
"Riddel! He's my brother. Give him to me!" He made another grab for her but she scooted even further away.
"Be careful, you're going to trip and hurt him!"
"You're just saying that because oooo..!!!!!" Riddel's clunky boots caught on the carpet and she felt herself losing balance.
"RIDDEL!"
Luckily, a rocking chair that Dario's mother used to sit in while she fed Glenn was right behind her and Riddel plopped down into the hard wooden seat. Although uninjured, she gave a little yelp of surprise and clutched Glenn close to her chest as the chair swayed violently back and forth on it's curved supports. Dario watched, his eyes wide with horror as he imagined his baby brother flying out of his friend's arms and going "SPLAT" against the wall.
"Riddel? Are you okay? Is Glenn okay?"
"Y-yeah, I think so." She stammered as she shoved her feet against the floor, stopping the rocking once and for all.
At first, Dario's relieved face made Riddel think that he was too happy to see both her and his brother safe to say, "I told you so". Then-
"I TOLD YOU SO!!! Why didn't you listen to me, huh? God, sometimes I wonder why I hang around with someone who's still practically a baby. Little kids never listen to you."
"BABY?!" Riddel cried indignantly. She jumped to her feet, carefully, as she was still holding Glenn. "First of all, I'm only three years younger than you. Second of all, I don't have to do what you say because I'm the Lady Viper and if anything, you should do what I say."
"If anything, you should do what I say." Dario mimicked her in a high, nasal voice.
"Stop that!"
"Stop that!" he echoed her.
"I mean it, Dario!"
"I mean it, Dario!"
"Dario!!!"
"Dario!!!"
Her foot (she was still wearing her hard and dirty snow shoes) shot out and connected with his shin.
"OW!"
She stuck her nose triumphantly into the air and turned her back to Dario as she made her way back to the cradle and put Glenn down. Meanwhile, Dario did a little dance of pain around the room, clutching his leg and hissing out snatches of profanity.
"Are you alright, Dario?" She asked sweetly over her shoulder as she draped a blanket over the squirming Glenn.
Dario swore quietly at her from across the room, knowing that if she actually picked up the word he would probably not see the light of day until he was 18. It wasn't exactly the greatest revenge, but it would have to do; there was no way he as going to hit a girl, even if she hit him first.
"Ah.I hate you."
"Mm" Riddel agreed absentmindedly as she reached into her pocket and pulled out something wrapped in shiny tinfoil. Dario was by her side in a heartbeat.
"Hey, what's that?"
"What's it look like? Chocolate."
Dario eyed it eagerly. His father was strict about fattening sweets such as chocolate. Mostly because he didn't want his son to work harder then he would already have to once he got into an army program, and being a plump butterball among lean recruits would definitely be a disadvantage when trying to touch your toes. Riddel caught his hungry-jackal expression.
"Back off, Dario." She warned. "I only have one of these and it's for Glenn."
Dario thought of wheedling, but decided to use the highly effective claim of being more mature, and therefore, more learned.
"Babies can't eat chocolate." He scoffed. "Everyone know it.it."
"What?" Riddel asked curiously, the twinkling prize still clasped in her hand.
"-It messes up their mind."
Riddell eyed him suspiciously.
"My mother says she gave me chocolate all the time when I was a baby." She said slowly, the frown on her face accusing Dario of lying.
"Proves my point exactly." Dario answered crisply, forcing an experienced- professor-look on his features.
"Oh, you!" gasped/exclaimed Riddel, swatting both Dario's arm and the know- it-all expression off his face with her free hand.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." he feigned terror, raising his arms protectively.
"You know what happens when you're selfish?" she demanded to know, acid severity seeping into her tone.
"No.what?"
"When you die, the devil comes up to you and claws your eyes out." She informed him with all the assurance of a pastor.
"Really?" This was news to Dario. He was genuinely fascinated. It was quite possibly the only time Riddel had ever known something that he didn't.
"I wasn't done yet." She went on airily. "Then he takes up hot coals and shoves them where your eyes used to be. Then he stitches your eyes closed so you can't take them out. The heat burns your flesh so you don't bleed to death, but it never goes away and for the rest of time you have hot lumps of coal for eyes and you wander around blind and screaming from the pain." When she finished Dario was in complete awe. His eyes were round with amazement and a bit of fear. Riddel waved the chocolate deliberately in front of him.
"Go on, take it. I won't stop you. I just hope you'll be able to stand having hot coals for eyes for an eternity." She taunted him.
Dario bowed his head and muttered, subdued: "Well.I was thinking.that Glenn would enjoy it."
Riddel "Hmph"ed, satisfied. Then she bent down to pick Glenn up, all wrapped in a baby blanket, praying that Dario couldn't see the grin on her lips. She couldn't help smiling so big. She was genius! Dario was so much older than her, it was hard to get him back for all the times he had fooled her. But she had managed to stitch together a few things she knew about religion, medicine, and melodrama to make one convincing whopper that Dario had swallowed whole.
"Dario, could you hold him for me?" Riddel requested. Dario nodded in agreement and she shifted Glenn into his outstretched arms.
"Hey, little brother." Dario crooned, touching Glenn's chubby little hands. Glenn, recognizing his kin, gurgled in delight and snatched at the lily pendent dangling from Dario's neck, the heirloom his mother had given to him when he began training.
"Dario, I need to be able to reach him." Riddel instructed.
Dario wordlessly arranged Glenn into a half-sitting half lying down position. Glenn's wide bright blue eyes stared at his elders, tiny finger's curled around the material of Dario's sleeve. He blinked several times at the crinkling of Riddel unwrapping the sweet. When she was done, she held it to his lips, but Glenn, not recognizing the lump as edible, stubbornly kept his mouth closed. After several seconds of attempts, Glenn began to twist his head around to get away from it and cry out in agitation. Riddel sighed with frustration. She couldn't understand why Dario was looking so satisfied.
"He doesn't know you. He won't eat anything from strangers, that's why he's resisting." Dario said smugly.
"Then you do it!" Riddel snapped waspishly, a sulky expression crossing her delicately adorable/pretty face. With one arm Dario took the candy from Riddel and with the other he passed Glenn back to her. Riddel cautiously balanced Glenn on her hip as she sucked the creamy brown remains of melted chocolate from her fingers. With a single fluid movement Dario pushed the chocolate into Glenn's mouth and at the same time ran his free hand gently down the side of his rounded face. Glenn smiled in pleasure at Dario as Riddel's gift dissolved in his mouth. Riddel, on the other hand, was beginning to tremble from exhaustion. Glenn barely weighed ten pounds, but that was a fourth of her own weight right there. Seeing this, Dario took Glenn back and propped him up against his shoulder.
"See, Glenn? Chocolate tastes good. Enjoy it while you can cuz' when you're my age dad won't let you eat it." Dario said softly to his baby brother as he jostled the infant playfully. Glenn gave a short squeal of sleepy baby talk before lying his head down and closing his eyes on his brother's shoulder.
"Aw.." Riddel crooned. Dario blushed at being the receiver of a "you're so cute" exclamation, but said nothing. Instead, he went back to Glenn's crib and laid the baby down, covering Glenn's body with his dragon blanket. Asleep, Glenn's chest rose up and down steadily, his flaxen lashes swept down to chubby cheeks. Dario leaned on the railing of the crib for a little while, watching Glenn snooze. Riddel sidled next to him and did the same, only she laughed at what she saw.
"What's so funny?" Dario asked her absently.
"Lookit his face." She murmured, her tone warm with affection.
Glenn's mouth was ringed with brown from the chocolate. Dario chuckled and reached for a cloth on the bed stand to clean it off, but Riddel caught his hand.
"No, leave it." She instructed him. She reached down and fondly smoothed Glenn's silky hair. "He looks even cuter this way." She observed with a grin.
Dario shrugged and pulled her away from the crib.
"We should leave now." He told her. A nervous edge crept into his voice. "My mom will be up here soon to feed him." Riddel sighed, but followed him to the door bedecked with balloon and SD dinosaur decals.
"It's such a shame, having to wake him over and over again." She said wistfully as they went back into the hall and Dario shut the door.
"All Glenn wants to do is sleep." Dario replied. "It's good that we bring him back to life every so often."
Riddel pondered over Dario's words, wondering if he simply meant what he said or, like it had sounded, they had some deep, hidden meaning. She gave up metaphorical interpretation without a second thought as soon when Dario suddenly yanked hard on one of her curls and zoomed away towards the stairs. She shrieked her acceptance to the painful invitation of a game of tag.
It was at the landing she tackled him and pummeled his face as he laughed, glad that she really couldn't hurt him. Dario's mother soon passed by with a warm bottle and a towel draped over her arm. She barely glanced at the struggling heap of boy vs. girl as she stepped over the two bodies rolling around screaming bloody murder before mounting the stairs. Within minutes Riddel had tired of punishing Dario and got up to go, her long blue hair and knit dress considerably mussed from their tussle. Dario pulled down her coat from the hook and handed it to her, then sat on a step to watch her get ready. She buttoned up her jacket, fastening the grown-up looking gray overcoat buttons with the crocheted loops.
"Seeya" she told him. "I had fun." Then a dreamy look invaded her expressive eyes.
"Glenn in so adorable.Promise me you'll let me see him again, okay Dario?" Dario nodded in agreement. "Of course." Then he added, almost shyly. "I think he likes you."
Riddel smiled widely as she pulled on her fuzzy white mittens.
"I'll see you again soon, alright?"
"Yeah." Then they stared at each other for a full minute before turning down their heads, each feeling a little awkward and mortified although neither knew why.
"DARIO!!!"
Dario sprang to his feet as if he had been stung by a bee.
"The chocolate! We forgot to wipe it off! She knows we were in there!" he moaned.
"Oh no!"
"Oh no? What do you mean, oh no?! This is all your fault!"
"MY FAULT? What do you mean, my fault?!"
"You and your stupid sentimentality! 'Don't wipe the chocolate off Dario'. 'He looks cuter that way, Dario." he made his voice rise to a shrill whine when he quoted her. "Next time I'll know better than to listen to the ideas of a baby!"
"I AM NOT A BABY!!!"
"Yes you are!
"No I'm not!
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm- Look, that doesn't matter! We're both in trouble!"
For a few despairing moments their gazes were locked together, and each could see the helplessness in the other's eyes.
"DAAAAARRRIO!!!" Dario's mother bellowed again, this time her summons punctuated from a frightened wail from Glenn.
Riddel gulped and yanked open the door.
"Seeya!" She yelled over her shoulder as a flurry of snow flooded into the doorway, leaving miniature drifts neatly gathered at the corners. Dario called desperately after her.
"Wait! You can't leave me like this!"
For her answer Riddel slammed the door closed and darted down the drive.
"DARIO, COME HERE!"
Dario spied his mother waving at him from the top of the stairs, the bundle he assumed to be Glenn supported by one hand. Even as she descended the steps he turned tail and fled, his mother hot on his trail.
Author's notes- Kinda weird, ain't it? It's got absolutely no point at all, and yet it's seven pages long and took me two months to write it. But when I read fan fiction, I can't help but find the portrayal of the characters as children a little too mature. Oh yes, it adds intrigue to the storyline, but what's left that's real? Can't anyone remember being real stupid and naive when we were kids? How much fun we had doing seemingly meaningless activities? So Kid's Games is just for fun. stories that revolve around the characters growing up. Doesn't anyone want me to continue? I'll move on to other characters or to Riddel and Dario getting older, with Glenn and Karsh making bigger appearances. Leave me an opinion and a review, and maybe who you want to see next. Thank you.