NirSighted Chapter 5: People Just Love to Play With Words
"Okay, I've got… this gem," Wash said, leaning forward to place his tiles on the board.
"That's not a word," Catie said flatly.
"What do you mean, it's not a word?" Wash demanded, rereading his careful selection.
"Not a word," she repeated, studying the Word-Spell board intently. "H-A-L-E-P doesn't spell anything. Not a word."
"I only have seven tiles!" Wash protested. "And Halep is a word; it's the name of my favorite dinosaur!" As if to prove his point, he yanked a stegosaurus out of his vest pocket and waved it at the girl.
Simon had to chuckle. They'd conned Wash into playing Word-Spell after about twenty minutes of arguments. Wash had vehemently stated that he hated Word-Spell, but then he remembered that, besides a child's game Kaylee was teaching River to play, a deck of cards, and Kaylee's set of jacks, they didn't own any other games.
"Why can't we just play poker?" Wash pouted as Catie set up another word.
"Because…" Simon started. "Because this is an innocent girl, and she doesn't need to be exposed to the horrors of poker just yet."
"And because I'd steal all your coin," Catie murmured as she spelled out another word on the board.
"And because she'd steal all your coin," Simon repeated to Wash.
"Not his," Catie said. "He knows how to play. Steal your coin."
"Well, that's why we're not playing poker," Simon said. "Is it my turn yet?"
"Smells bad here," River said to Kaylee. Her left hand was clenched around the twenty credits Mal had given them, while her right hand gripped Kaylee's left in a way as to cut off the circulation.
"We'll be out of here in just a minute," Kaylee promised, her eyes searching the stalls and rundown buildings for what she sought. "Just a minute," she repeated as she felt River's arm stretching farther away from her. In another second, it was gone. Kaylee whirled around to make sure her friend had really wandered away.
Yes, it was as though River had disappeared. The dark-haired girl, who had been wearing a pink dress and her heavy boots, was nowhere to be seen.
"River?" Kaylee said, then yelled, "River!"
Simon was going to kill her. She'd lost his mentally unstable sister in a crowded marketplace, and if that wasn't bad enough, River was blind now, too.
"Kaylee, here I am," River's voice sang out, and Kaylee turned around. River was standing in front of one of the best-looking stalls. "Just looking at the pretties."
"Sweetie, those are Love-Bots. Not really fer ya," Kaylee said as she crossed the marketplace to regain control of River's hand.
"And not for twenty credits," River agreed. "Like this one, though." She pointed to the one farthest away from them, a lithe brunette with a fixed but cheery smile. "Could name her Lydia."
"Who's Lydia?"
River thought for a moment, and her sightless eyes flicked busily left to right as she tried to give Kaylee an answer. "Someone I forgot," she said at last.
Surprised by River's use of the first-person, Kaylee could only smile and hug her friend. "'S all right. We all forget somebody. Let's see what we can buy t' make th' cap'n happy."
They walked away from the Love-Bot stall, but they didn't see several pairs of eyes following them.
Wash groaned as Catie laid down another high-score word. "I hate this game," he confessed to Simon. "Can't you 'n I play poker 'n leave her t' her own devices?"
"Captain said to watch her," Simon said, rather lamely. He, too, was getting tired of watching Catie outscore both him and Wash, but he really wasn't very good at poker.
"Captain's usually wrong," Catie mused.
"Well, I'll give ya that," Wash agreed, "but I hate Word-Spell. I'm not good at it."
"Nobody's good at everything," Catie said, as though that would make Wash feel better.
"Really?" the pilot asked, sounding only a little eager. "Well then, what aren't ya good at? Let's play that."
"She's equally skilled in chess, checkers, poker, blackjack, gin rummy, regular rummy, pool, Parcheesi, backgammon, Word-Spell, Number-Line, five-circle, all kinds of marbles, dominoes, dice-throws, games of chance, logic puzzles, word-crosses…"
"Okay, I get it, you're a genius," Wash grumbled, interrupting the girl's litany.
Catie shrugged, tapping Word-Spell tiles on the table. "Not her fault. They made her this way."
Wash had obviously been considering the list. "Ya didn't mention six-circle," he said at last.
"Not very good at that," Catie said, as though ashamed of that fact.
"Great! Let's play!" Wash said.
"Wash, we don't own six-circle," Simon said, and he thought he was correct in that assumption.
That didn't seem to stop the pilot as he leapt from his chair and disappeared.