When the ringing pulls Taylor out of dreaming, she only curls up tighter into a ball and pulls the blanket around herself once Daddy gets up, quickly drifting off back home again.
There's treasure lying about their secret briar. Snail shells and thread to make rattles out of. Stones they gathered to sit on. A pile of cones for throwing. Two rusty knives the grown-ups threw away but they picked up. A kinda broken umbrella for when it's raining. Green and brown and red bottles because they're pretty. A water jug with the pet lizard Anna caught in the well.
Emma pokes at the jug, making Mr. Lizard recoil and flee to the other side.
"Wanna hold him? He feels nice." She crawls closer to offer the cool and smooth lizard to her friend.
Emma squeals and tries running away, but there's no running from Mr. Lizard in Taylor's hands, even with the warm hand shaking her by the shoulder.
"-up. Wake up."
Taylor blinks, taking a moment for the world to make sense before yawning.
"Good morning."
"Good morning," Daddy replies. "Breakfast's ready."
She slips from under the covers and grabs a hold of her hair to not trip on it, before making a dash to the kitchen to find egg sandwiches on the table. Again. It's fine. She likes eggs. They used to have them a lot back home too, but they can't keep chickens in a flat now.
She slips from under the covers, puts her feet inside her slippers, and grabs a hold of her hair to not trip on it. She makes her way to the bathroom while Daddy goes back to the kitchen. Her business done and hands washed, she finds Daddy waiting by the table, his food still untouched. Once she's seated herself, they both clasp their hands together.
Thank You for this food. Thank You for the people who raised the chickens and the wheat and made the bread. And thank You for making chickens. They're cute and I like eggs a lot. Even if- sorry. Thank You.
She cracks open an eye to confirm Daddy's still praying, then another one to see how long it'll take him. He always does that nowadays - take so long. And it's okay! His prayers always took longer than hers, but never like this before leaving their home behind. Maybe he's praying for his friends. Oh! She should too.
And please tell Terry and Anna I'm doing fine. I made a new friend in the kider- um-
She waits for Daddy to open his eyes before asking.
"What's my school called?"
"Hm? You mean your kindergarten? It's-"
Please tell Terry and Anna I made a new friend in the kindergarden. She's called Emma and I like her a lot. They would like her too.
Done for real this time, she keeps waiting for Dad to finish praying before digging into her sandwich. The eggs here taste strange. She can't put her finger on it but they even look different - less orange. Actually! Everything tastes different here. The bread is dryer (and goes bad quick too!), milk has no smell (and they can't make cheese out of it because it goes bad instead of sour), the cookies from the store leave a strange aftertaste in her mouth, the juice in her glass only kinda tastes like apples, even the water tastes wrong until they buy it in bottles. But there's also just so much of everything! People here have food everywhere, at the corner if they need it.
"Thank you," she says out-loud once she's finished, then puts her plate and glass in the sink while she's dashing back to the bedroom to change, and taking care not to break any.
"Thank you," she says out-loud once she's finished, then puts her plate and glass in the sink while she's dashing back to the bedroom to change.
Some of their clothes are still in the bag because they'd have to lay them out in the open otherwise. They need to do laundry, maybe tomorrow, but she still has two dresses and a few shirts and some socks and underwear that's clean. The way those laundry- laundro… laundromats (!) work is one of the few things that are similar in the city to the way they did things back home. Difference is the generator here is the size of their town and powers everything all the time. Which is nice. Theirs broke down every second time they used it and then she'd had to help fix it by saying what worked and not.
She'd take care of the laundry herself so Daddy doesn't have to, but every time she's waiting for the washing to finish, someone starts asking if she's alright and where are her parents and stuff, like Mrs. Barnes did yesterday, and some even call the policemen so she never actually goes.
Now. Which dress to put on?
At first she chooses the yellow one with strawberries all over, but then remembers what playing hide-and-seek in the bright red one was like, and goes for the black one with white dots instead.
Taylor folds the bedding while dressing up and puts it away in the bed, also folding it back into a sofa. Daddy used to do it, but she's stronger than him and it takes less precision than washing dishes, and because she doesn't like washing dishes with her hands, they switched.
It actually gets Daddy a little longer than her to finish on his end, so by the time he's done with the dishes and emerges from the kitchen, she already has her shoes on and is ready for him to braid her hair. That's why Daddy gets up before her, to dress and make breakfast and stuff. Because he's a slowpoke like that.
"Did you brush your teeth?" he asks, causing her to stop bouncing on her feet to pass the time.
"Y-yeah?"
"Taylor." Daddy frowns, a note of warning in his voice.
"Yeah." She tries again.
"Taylor." Daddy frowns, a note of warning in his voice.
"I did."
"Taylor." Daddy frowns, a note of warning in his voice.
Aww.
She makes her way to the bathroom, switching the light on and pulling her toothbrush and toothpaste on the way, but only squeezes the paste out once she has both in her hands - small things are so hard to use proper. The grown-ups say she's supposed to brush for three minutes, but she's always done in one, and Dad doesn't mind, so it must be fine. Maybe she just brushes her teeth better, or maybe hers are more brushable or something.
Dad pokes his head in while she's rinsing her mouth, finally done with the dishes.
"I see you're about done."
Taylor spits the water out, before dropping back to the ground. The taps are so tall everywhere. Well, not in the kid-
"What's my school called?"
"Your kindergarten? It's-"
Not in the kindergarden, but everywhere else they are. They're super convenient, Taylor will give them that, but the water tastes strange, so there. And also, unlike their well, Daddy says they have to pay for it, so that's no good. People didn't make water.
"Yup. Ready."
"Alright, let's get your hair done and go," he says, already grabbing it and starting the daily task. Taylor likes her hair, it's soft and fluffy, but she'd still cut it if she knew how, or if biting it wasn't even more gross than biting on her nails is. No matter how she tries, she just can't get her braid to look as nice as when Daddy does it, and then it comes loose and she has to fix it herself and it comes loose again and again until Daddy does it right.
Still, as always, she convinces Daddy to let her try a few times herself, to the same effect as always, too. She just can't figure out what she's doing wrong; and it's even worse when she's using her hands.
"Don't worry, you'll get it eventually." Daddy promises every time. "You remember how it looked when I started doing it?"
Taylor smiles, because she does remember. They had to get Miss Heather to teach him, and then even borrowed Anna's doll so he could practice.
"Done. Put your shoes on and let's go."
Doing as told, Taylor skips down the staircase of their block, passing one of their new neighbors on the way, wishing her a good morning and getting one and a smile in return.
She's looking out the car's window all the way to the kindergart- kindergarden (she really has to finally remember) on the lookout for traffic. It's so weird to see so many cars in one place. They must be using so much gas every day that they could keep the generator back home running for a whole year. She'd followed one of those trucks that bring it to gas stations to some bigger gas station - but just for trucks - that got its gas from those big pipes, and those went to another gas station! So then she just asked Daddy and he said they went to something called refinery, or the coastline and then on ships all the way to the Holy Land. Or somewhere close, anyway.
Their ride isn't very smooth, and Daddy stops at red lights all the time, which he says is how cities work, but the best they get when they get to their destination is two minutes, so she stays silent when they get into the car and start driving. It still leaves Dad with lots of time to drive to… uh…
B-R-O-C-K-T-O-N B-A-Y C-E-N-T-R-A-L L-I-B-R-A-R-Y
Taylor scratches her chin, wondering what the letters mean. She knows the A and B and C and a few more when she doesn't forget, but there's a lot more there.
She follows inside, hoping for a clue as to what the building is; one she finds right away after entering. Their town's was much, much- super much smaller, but there's only one thing a place with so many books can be. Or maybe two, but she doesn't see those machines for taking money so it's probably not a store. Probably. Cities are strange.
"Daddy? Why are you in a library?"
Daddy shoots her a startled look, a myriad of expressions following that Taylor doesn't really understand besides that they're not good. Eventually, he laughs an unhappy laugh, slightly shaking his head before, finally, speaking up.
"I just have to check something there."
She looks at the clock when he leaves. Two hours.
"But aren't you late for work?" Two hours and ten minutes.
She follows him back to the car, where he pulls out his cell-phone and-
"You're listening to this aren't you?" he sighs.
Taylor's cheeks burn white hot at being caught. She drops her gaze down to her feet, closing the rest of her eyes.
"Sorry," she murmurs.
"What for?" Daddy asks as he's closing their flat's door.
She runs up the stairs.
She runs down the stairs, meeting their neighbor as she's heading down again.
She waits a moment and drops her voice anyway to make sure the woman won't hear it.
"You don't want me to watch you later, but I did. Sorry. I'll stop."
He looks at her blankly for a spell before a laugh escapes him, one a lot like in the car.
"No hiding anything from you, is there? Don't know why I even bother sometimes." He shakes his head, looking somewhere far away. "Alright. Let's go, I'll explain in the car."
She is sorely tempted to look for what Daddy's got to say, but fixes her eyes on the present for now. Daddy promised he'll say what he's doing in the library, so he'll say it. She can wait a little, even when that little takes a minute, then two, then three for Daddy to begin.
"I'll be looking for a new job."
In a library? Taylor frowns. And didn't he just get a new job last week?
"Why?"
It takes Daddy a few seconds of tapping his fingers on the wheel before he answers.
"Because the manager at the store is the kind of person who'd sick his dogs on the hungry if they dared to ask him for help, that's why."
Uh.
"So… because your elder is a bad person?"
"Not elder, Taylor. Just a manager. People here don't have elders. But essentially, yes."
Oh. Okay. She wouldn't want to do things with bad people too.
"I can help you look," she offers. Again.
"I'm your father. Let me worry about getting a job, alright?" he refuses. Again.
"But I could check if the people you'd work with are bad and stuff!"
"I know you could, that's not the point. The point is it's my responsibility, not yours." Taylor huffs. She doesn't look at the ways she could convince him. She'd tried before and there were none. Once her Daddy decides on something, that's it, there's no changing his mind.
"Just wanna help."
"And I'm glad." He smiles. For real this time "It means you're a good girl. Still, the answer is no."
Discussion over, Dad refocuses entirely on the road. Which is good because they once crashed while talking before she told him about it. But also bad, because she still wants to help.
Well. At least she can make sure nothing bad happens to him the rest of the day. And if she can't then too bad! She's looking anyway.
She opens an eye, following Daddy out of the library (two hours twenty now) as he calls one number after the next from the list he wrote down on a piece of paper while doing stuff on one of those com... com-pu-ter (hah!) things. Then as he drives around the city, talking with lots of people about work and handing them some sheets of paper he printed at the library. Then back to the kinder…garden (!) and back home with her.
"Seven minutes faster if we turn left," she tells him at the right moment. And then tells him about the other thirteen turns to actually get home those seven minutes faster. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more, but they need to fuel up whole two days later this way!
Their way planned out, she follows some of the other drivers. Nothing bad happens to any of them before they get to where they're going so she looks at the people walking on the sideroads, but nothing bad happens to any of them either. It's super easy to stop something bad from happening to the people she passes by most of the time, too. Harder to help the people they see later, but she could too if Daddy let her.
Daddy won't read her the newspaper because he says if bad things stop happening, the heroes and villains will both start looking for her. But she doesn't need to stop everything. It wouldn't hurt if she stopped a father here and mother there from moving on already, right? It's really so easy too. Sometimes it's taking a different way to kinder-garden or back from it and stopping their car for a second. Sometimes calling the police before it's too late. One time, Daddy actually asked her to help at their checkpoint, so that he could go talk with a man who jumped off a building so he wouldn't go to hell.
She can't wait to learn how to read next year. She tried learning from then, too, but all she got from that were a few letters and some terrible headaches.
"Taylor. Taylor we're here."
Huh? Oh, right.
She goes as far as pulling the door pin up before it registers it's still morning and pushing it back in. And then a few times more in the hope Daddy will just think she's playing with it.
"Stop playing with the lock, Taylor."
"Sorry." Whew. Okay. They got home alright so she can stop looking.
There aren't many other kids in the kindergar-den when Daddy hands her over to Miss Parker, and none of those she and Emma usually play with. Emma comes almost exactly at eight, so Taylor grabs herself a book and finds a corner to look at the pictures in the meantime. The city books are so pretty. There's more just in this room than her entire town had! And they all have pictures too, only two of the books back home had pictures, and they both showed the same scenes, even if they were drawn different - which is strange because both omitted so many things.
"Daddy? Can we go to the library together later?"
"I'm not sure. We'll see how much time I've got to spare, okay? Actually, I could look at a few books and you can tell me which ones you'd like?" He gives her a smile, and she gives one right back.
"Okay!"
She looks again as this time Daddy asks the lady in the library for the kids books section before using the com-pu-ter. He browses through ten, and then ten more, and another ten, quietly reading her the summaries when they have one to help her decide. To be honest, she likes all of them, so she'd like Daddy to read them all to her, but if she's gotta choose...
"The ones with the bear and piggy and other animals." They're the prettiest, and all the pages have pictures, too!
"Would that bear happen to be yellow and always be holding a jar?"
She looks again. "Well, not always. But in most of them."
"Alright, I know the one. Wait, shi- uuh. I need to make a library card first."
"A what?"
"Library card. It's uh… it's a way to keep track of who borrows what, because there are too many people in the city to just remember them all."
Oh. That makes sense. Back home she could just ask who took what book and go get them herself. That would be hard to do here because she doesn't know where anyone other than Emma lives. Oh! Oh! She wonders what books Emma has.
It's hard to stop herself from looking, but she does. It would be no fun to look through them all now and leave nothing for later.
She focuses on the pictures in her lap while she's waiting, instead. All the way until Dad leaves her with Miss Parker, when she pulls the book off the shelf to take it to her corner. Then she focuses on another, and another. Until a familiar shout of Taylor rings in her ears.
Her book forgotten, Taylor shoots up with a smile on her face and warmth overflowing her chest. The next moment, a tangle of arms tackles her in a hug, leaving no space at all in between them.
"Hi." Emma's grins as she pulls away, her warm hands holding Taylor's own.
"Hi." Taylor beams right back, putting all her feelings into it. And they're all good feelings! Emma's so nice. Taylor knew they'd be friends, but still couldn't help worrying. Because what if she messed up? It happened before. But then Emma came to her anyway and smote all the bad thoughts away just like that.
Just like now.
It's only fair she does the same.