Disclaimer: I don't own anything/anyone from the Pern world books. I do own most of the characters in this story and anything else not from the original series.
Chapter Three: Home Sweet Home
Earth
It was some two hours' drive to the pick-up point where her mother waited, the parking lot of a high school halfway back to Seattle. On the drive, Star frequently checked on the dragons, making sure they were doing all right. Every time, they were.
When they arrived, she looked out the window, and marked out her mother, a kind-faced woman, not overweight but certainly no actress, with a braid of brown hair standing in the shade of the high school. As soon as she saw them come around the corner, Lola smiled broadly and came forward.
Mother and daughter smiled and waved as she and the other parents kept pace beside the bus. When they stopped and the doors opened, Star took up her bag and exited behind several other eager campers. Everyone smiled and greeted their parents.
Lola Armstrong hugged her daughter, just her height, then let go and started to walk over to the pile of luggage, one arm still around her shoulders. Star checked the dragons mentally and reinforced her request that they stay flat on the top of the bus until she could find a good spot. Absently she stared off to the side, at a place in the wall where a single door stood, shaded, for the sun was on the other side of the building, though not too low as yet. On each side of the door, nearly touching a corner of the building were potted plants.
She didn't know the dragons were watching both through her eyes and their own until all three popped up there and darted into the most shadowed corner, behind a pot filled with half-dead pansies.
Her heart jumped, and she quickly turned her attention to the pile of baggage, picking out her large suitcase by the ribbons –blue, red and yellow– she had braided together and tied on the handles. Star hauled that one to its wheels and, finding it the perfect excuse, dragged it over to the corner where her little dragons lurked. Silently, she impressed again on them the need for secrecy and stealth. They chirped affirmative quietly, and she returned for her duffle bag holding her sleeping bag.
Lola carried her daypack and duffle, while her daughter towed the large suitcase behind her. "So I want to hear all about it," the woman said. "How was it?"
'I found three dragons and they teleport,' was the first thing that came to mind. "It was good," she said instead. "Really warm, too. The water wasn't freezing like it is in Puget Sound, but I haven't been in for a while." 'I was too busy trying to hide a couple of dragons.'
000
On the ride home Star was silent, listening to some good music, not the same kind or as loud as some people liked it, but good enough for her and her mother. They sang along together. Lola's voice was clear and deep, though not abnormally so for a woman. Her daughter knew her own singing wasn't perfect, but she did all right. Even though she'd never joined her High School choir or tried any sort of voice lessons at all, she could at least participate, even if she was horrible. People said they liked her singing voice, but…
Star cleared her throat and made sure to let her mother's voice drown her out. Soon she was just humming along with the song.
When at last the song ended she checked on the dragons, doing their best to keep up with the car on the highway. Then the blue seemed to have an idea and passed it on to the other two. They went slow, but kept teleporting in leaps ahead of the car. She smiled slightly.
Gradually she began to recognize landmarks, and knew they were almost home. Eventually her mother broke the silence. "Are you hungry?" she asked. Star jumped and blinked, then shrugged.
"A little. Not terribly."
"Want to stop and pick up something at the Market?" By the Market she meant the Pike Place Market, on their route.
"Nah," Star said.
"Anxious to get home?"
"Yeah."
Silence once more fell between them, though not uncomfortably. There was simply nothing they needed or wanted to say.
000
Lola Armstrong, her husband Michel Jefferson and Star Armstrong lived in a house in West Seattle, down two blocks from the beach where they went sometimes in warm weather. From her upstairs bedroom window she could see the water, and if she strained with her window open she could just hear the sound of the waves, when it was quiet and no cars ran on the roads close by.
The pair pulled up in front of the house. Already, she had told the dragons they were to wait for her call on the roof. Just visible when she looked hard, a small green head rose over the roof peak. Hush, she told them. Be still.
Lola reversed to slide neatly into spot between her husband's car and their neighbor's. She pressed a button under the dashboard to open the trunk and went around to the back to haul out the bags. Star took the large rolling suitcase from her mother and shut the trunk with her free hand, and they came into the house.
It was furnished comfortably, but not crowded, and not as much for style as for comfort. The living room they entered was considerably green; from the walls and fluffy carpet in the center to a large painting of a thick, blown glass green bowl with matching apples and pears.
Star hauled her bag upstairs to her room, her mother following, and dumped it on her floor, then took Lola's burden and tossed them on her neatly made bed. The down comforter floofed as first the bags touched down and then the teenager flopped onto it on her back, staring at the ceiling.
The second her mother left she was on her knees and opening the window over her bed. A call from her brought the noisily chirping dragons into her room. "Shhhh!" she said, and pointed at the bed. They obediently stopped whizzing around and settled gently onto the carved headboard, wings flipped to their backs and heads up at attention.
Vanya crooned when Star flopped back to sit cross-legged on the rumpled comforter and shuffled her green wings. 'Oh, what would they say if they knew I was talking to the pretty little birdies like humans?' she thought with a sigh. "I need you to stay out of sight from everyone. You should be able to catch food outside, so for most of the time I'll need you to stay out there."
Erzin, Vanya and Nivi chirped like they understood, and they came forward to stroke their heads along her cheek. Star held them gently, feeling the chill of her friends' skins and not caring.
Some time later she heard someone, her mother, because her father was at work, coming up the stairs to her room and swiftly sent her friends out the window. Seconds after she had slid it shut and thrown herself across the bed to stare up at the ceiling Lola knocked.
"Yeah?" she called.
"I'm putting in a load of wash, bring your stuff down when you're finished," her mother called.
"I'll start."
"You haven't yet?" Lola sounded startled. "Well, get hurry up! You can't just stare into space. I want to do some gardening today, and short of a dragon crash-landing in Seattle this time-" she chuckled at the undignified arrival of the first golden dragon to Earth "-you haven't got an excuse to skip out on chores."
Star smiled and couldn't quite stifle a giggle. It took all her effort just to keep from retorting that her very own three dragons were more agile than that gold, being much smaller. Instead she slid off her bed and started unpacking.
000
If she never complained about gardening, she never suggested it either. For the next couple of hours Star and Lola pulled weeds and watered the flowers and tomatoes and other assorted plants, vegetable or flower, in the front yard. They hadn't been able to care for the plants last summer, having visited her mother's relatives in New York just after the eight dragons had helped in the rescue efforts.
Janine had died in the hospital and no one had seen her son David, safe and well… or otherwise, since the eight dragons had left, never to return. Star smiled to herself as she poured water from the hose into their near-empty bird bath. 'Never to return' was so cliché, but it was true… sort of.
She checked her three little dragon-friends, apparently sunning themselves on the roof, and smiled again. It was not the same veiled, amused half-smile she had just had on her face; it was a smile content and happy with an unshared secret.