Prompt #211. The Games We Play. Involve a game of some sort in your story, whether it's a round of whist, an intense night of Cluedo, or a Pac-Man tournament.
Directly follows Rainy 3: Living Arrangements
"John! Harry! Time to come inside!"
Hamish's voice drifted from the house, but we remained seated. I laid down a four-card run to make Harry draw from the deck. The steadily decreasing light would soon limit our game. Hamish had horrible timing.
"John! Harry!"
"Think he'll give up?" Harry muttered.
"Not likely." Another set of three joined my pile. "Wanna go in?"
"Not a chance. I like it out here."
"I do too." He finally laid down his own set, but I filled my third to win the game. "You latched the chess box, right?"
"Course, and refastened the twine when I got up. It'll last the night."
"We just have to convince him of that. How long do you figure?"
He tilted his head, thinking. "Ten minutes 'til he comes down here. He probably thinks we're off in the fields. It's been hours since the weather cleared."
"I think we have a little less than that." The back door slammed. "Like now."
A harrumph carried from where my brother lay on his bedroll, though he never looked up from dealing us a new game. "It's like he's trying to be Father."
"He's trying to be uncle," I corrected, "and he doesn't know how. You know we agree, but cut him a little slack. At least he's trying."
Harry merely harrumphed again. Hamish reached our fort a moment later.
"Time to come inside, boys."
"No, thanks." I put down a low-numbered run. "We like it out here."
"And the danger winds died ages ago," Harry added, eyes on the game as well. "So don't try to say we might get a sandstorm. We wanna sleep out here."
"I was not going to say that." He poked his head further into our fort. "Can I come in?"
"No grown-ups allowed." We had agreed my irritatingly high voice kept that from sounding rude. Even Father usually acknowledged the sanctity of blanket forts. "And we didn't damage your plants. We checked."
He had checked that as well on his way around the fort, but he did not say as much. That expression on Father would have meant he had guessed our main reason for being out here. Could Hamish be that observant?
I doubted it. Harry won that round, and I dealt.
"I was not worried about the plants," Hamish finally voiced, "but you still need to come inside."
"Why?" Harry challenged, tone calm and genuinely wondering despite the obvious disobedience. "The weather's great, we have a perfect fort, and the gusting breeze through the vines sou—" The description abruptly cut off. Harry had almost admitted how homesick we were. "Is nice to listen to," he finished instead. "We'll be able to tell if the weather changes in the night, so there's really no reason we can't sleep out here."
"Except that I told you to come inside." Hamish's voice gained Father's razor edge of building irritation. We would soon learn how he reacted when angry. "You might be able to sleep outside another night, but not now. And you have lived here for barely a month. How do you think you can tell the weather?"
"The wind," Harry returned in a tone of, as you should know. Hamish's room had to be as windy as ours. "If you can't read the incoming storms by the breeze, Hamish, and after living here for so many years, you haven't been paying attention. Only took us a couple of weeks to figure out the patterns for this season."
Well, whatever counted for a season when we were so close to the equator. I won the next round, to my pleasure and Harry's visible annoyance. He had been in the lead until I got the card I needed.
"Did you cheat?"
"Why would I do that?" I made no effort to hide my grin as he dealt. "I beat you at cards all the time."
"Not usually coming from behind like that!"
"Just means I got lucky." I checked my new hand to find a good start. I might win this one, too. "Are you gonna draw, or do I get to go first?"
"You are going to put the cards away and come inside."
Neither of us looked at Hamish, though Harry finally quit scowling at me to take the top card off the deck. The resulting pout increased my chances of winning.
"Boys."
Harry scowled through his cards at the obvious warning. Polite refusal had gotten us nowhere. Anything short of obedience now would be disrespectful, rude, and all the other things our parents had taught us to avoid.
Hamish had not earned the respect we held for our parents, not after a month of trying to be authority without being anything else.
"We don't want to go back in that drafty house, Hamish. At least a bedroll is supposed to have grit in the sheets. Go away."
"No." He squeezed through the entrance to pluck the cards out of our hands. They joined the rest of the deck in his pocket, then one hand hauled me to my feet while the other reached for Harry. "Inside. Now. I'll not be writing your parents that the dingoes got you in the first month."
As if he had a right to care about that!
"The dingoes don't want to be in the vineyards," I returned, firmly jerking my arm out of his grip, "and you said they don't come this close to town anyway. Quit throwing your weight around like we've known you more than a month. We want a night out of that creaking shack you call a house."
Harry's eyes widened. He recognized my tone even if Hamish did not. Losing my temper had not been part of the plan.
"Johnny—"
"No." I cut him off as Hamish's face suddenly mirrored my burning anger. "Just because he's the adult does not mean he can act like Father. To earn the respect of authority you act like more than just a hovering grown-up trapping us in a shack on another continent! Go away, Hamish. We told you no grown-ups allowed in our fort, and the wind in the vines feels more like home than your drafty, sand filled rooms ever will. Proving your authority is not a valid reason for dragging us inside tonight."
I pointedly stepped out of reach, then turned away before retrieving a handful of coins to take back to my spot on the blanket.
"Odd or even?"
Harry had already moved out of Hamish's immediate area, but he merely stared. Surprise flicked his gaze between me and where Hamish stood behind me and to my left.
"Harry? Odd or even? Or do you want to play something else?"
Harry slowly gave a silent negative, a flick of his hand indicating I needed to look at our uncle.
Which I had no wish to do. Current guardian or not, he looked too much like Father to make me turn around. I wanted to go home.
"Harry?"
"You don't want to be here?"
The pained whisper carried from behind me, but the rush of anger had not faded enough to make me regret my words.
"Go away." I replied, my attention still on my brother. Did he want to go inside after all?
No, but nor did he want to return to our plan. A pointed glance referenced Hamish.
"You were right," he murmured.
About what? Hamish being irritating?
No. That frown looked more sad than frustrated, and I finally realized that I had just done what I had asked Harry not to do. When a glance found every bit of Hamish's anger replaced by clear hurt, my temper died as quickly as it had flared.
"Sorry."
I was sorry I had told him like that. We had not intended to tell him at all, but the word hit the air too close to a grumble to sound sincere. He obviously did not believe me.
"No, it's—" He could not call it alright. Our parents would have scolded me roundly for that tirade, but the pain lining his face said he understood at least somewhat. "That was honest, wasn't it? You—" He shook his head. "And why would you not be homesick? You did not know I existed until I sent your father that letter a couple of years ago."
I made no answer. I could not, not when I was still cross enough to tell him exactly what I thought about being punished because of something they had planned. Harry and I had not wanted to live in Australia for a year, and our parents only confined us to the house and immediate area when we found ourselves in deep trouble. That I knew a small part of the restrictions had to do with safety in a new terrain did not change that we had been locked up for a month for absolutely no reason.
"We weren't going to tell you," Harry supplied when I did not speak. "Not like it'd change anything. We can't go home 'til Father comes back, and he probably isn't even home yet. We sleep on the grounds all the time back home. We'll be fine tonight, and I can easily promise to come inside if the danger winds start again. Not sure about Johnny, though."
"I won't stay out in a storm," I agreed easily. Would he leave now?
No, but the anger had not returned either. A deep breath bordered a sigh before he joined us on the ground.
"I can't let you stay outside tonight," he started quietly, "and not because I want to 'prove my authority.' One of the prisoners escaped a plantation a couple of weeks ago, and they think he's still in the area. He will not risk being seen in daylight."
Harry made a noise of disagreement. "If he doesn't want to be caught, I doubt he'd show himself at all."
"Part of his conviction included endangering—and injuring—young boys."
Oh. I resisted the urge to grumble something unflattering. He could have just told us that.
Harry thought so, too. "Why didn't you just say so? We know by now that different areas have different dangers."
"I didn't want to scare you," he admitted.
And we had always come inside at sundown or a little before, I finished silently. At least his hovering made some sense.
I still did not appreciate being stuck here for another eleven months. Hamish changed the topic when we made no reply.
"What do you mean 'drafty'? Is something wrong with your room?"
This soon after losing my temper, my brother knew anything I tried to say would come out harsher than I wanted, but only his own desire to avoid Hamish's anger kept Harry from rolling his eyes. Blatancy colored his tone instead.
"We're used to a stone castle, Hamish. You might like being able to tell the weather by how far your stuff scatters in the wind, but we got tired of the sand everywhere with the second storm. At least a bedroll is supposed to be gritty—and it's easier to shake out. My skin was getting raw before I started cleaning my sheets with every storm."
"Mine too." I would have preferred to apologize for losing my temper and avoid the conversation entirely, but if Harry was going to be that honest, I might as well be honest, too. I kept my eyes on my lap though I could not quite drain the grumble from my quiet words. "We're trapped in a drafty house, on a strange continent, with someone we had never met before getting off the ship. We went from exploring the estate for entire days—and sometimes nights, if we planned ahead—to going nowhere and doing nothing. Miles and miles of rolling hills, open sky, trees to climb, and birds to play the melody to my harmony exchanged for dusty dirt roads and row after row of grape vines. We can't explore. We can't leave the house without you dragging us back—literally—within a few hours. We can't even build a blanket fort in our bedroom because there's nowhere to secure it against the wind. Is it any wonder we want to spend a night outside? The wind in the vines almost sounds like the night breeze through that rose bush in Mother's favorite garden."
The hurt lining his face slowly changed to a mixture of shame and something else. "No," he answered. "No, I understand, but—"
But we should not complain. I braced myself for the rebuke, but he merely shook his head again.
"Why didn't you say something?"
"What would we say?" Harry returned. "'We know you care about us because we call your brother 'Father,' but we don't know you, and we want to go home now?' Father bought four tickets on an overgrown boat for a month just to get us here. There's no way he'd let us go home early, and he'd probably scold us for asking."
"No, I mean—" The sentence broke as an emotion I struggled to name twisted Hamish's mouth. "Why didn't you tell me about your room? Or the sand in your bed? The rest of the house doesn't have that."
"The rest of the house doesn't face into the storm," I reminded him, "and it started the first couple days. Are you saying your room doesn't get a miniature dust storm with every real one outside?"
He nodded once. "Yours should not either. There is probably a hole in the wall somewhere. If we can find it, I can fill it."
Harry would probably start searching as soon as we reached the house, but while that would make our nights better, it did nothing for the long days. I made no answer.
"You could also spend a few hours a day helping me in the fields," he continued hesitantly. "That would give us time together and you something to do, and there is a small public park funded by the city where you could go most afternoons. You would not be alone there."
Even Harry pulled a face at that. He was the more social of the two of us, but we rarely needed more than each other's company. Neither of us would enjoy exploring an area already overrun with other kids.
Which Hamish easily read. "Not with a group, then. What about the river? You would need to avoid downtown and come home before supper, but there is a long stretch that is shallow enough to walk and covered in trees."
That sounded interesting. Hamish smiled faintly when I admitted as much, but a glance through the gap in the blankets changed whatever he intended to reply.
"I would rather finish this inside, where we don't have to worry about an escaped prisoner causing trouble. Will you come in now?"
Harry and I exchanged a glance before he nodded. Yes, because it was a safety matter. I still did not look forward to another night in our sandy bedroom.
Though, if Hamish stopped confining us to the house as if we were grounded, things might get better.
Hope you enjoyed the sequel to day 3! Thanks to those who reviewed last chapter :D
