Sunday morning was a lazy one for everyone in the loft and it was almost ten before Kate made her way out to the kitchen. Castle was still in the bathroom and she made the most of the few moments of peace she'd have by standing at the window as she sipped her coffee, the pale autumn sunshine painting delicate warmth on her face.
That was how Castle found her a bit later, pausing in the doorway to admire the view of his muse with the morning glow on her skin. He would have stayed there, immobile for who knows how long, but the sound of steps coming down the stairs from above broke the tableau, stirring the actors into movement.
Kate turned towards the study her senses telling her that he was there. They smiled at each other, the easy, gentle smile of mutual understanding and then both headed towards the kitchen where a yawning Alexis was pouring herself an orange juice.
"Morning" she smiled sleepily, giving Kate a hug and then moving round for a father-daughter cuddle. Kate watched them, still surprised occasionally at how she'd been accepted into this crazy, wonderful family; how between them they'd broken down all the barriers she had so carefully built up over the years. She was brought out of her thoughts by Alexis' questioning and slightly amused look.
"Sorry?"
"I was saying that maybe we could go out to the park and read the second story there. As Dad based it on the park he can point out the relevant bits and pieces that might still be there?"
"How about taking a picnic?" Kate suggested.
"Hey! Great idea! Although there isn't much grass there, but we can sit at the tables, in summer its nice and cool under the trees, but we'll have to find somewhere in the sun and take some extra blankets just in case" Rick laughed.
Martha made a grand entrance just then and on hearing the plans for the day, politely but firmly declined the invitation to join them, claiming that her joints were not up to traipsing round New York parks in fall, especially after all the dancing she'd been doing the night before. So once everyone had had breakfast, she disappeared up to her room and the three remaining members of the Castle/Becket Brigade started raiding the fridge for ingredients and ideas for the forthcoming picnic.
It took the combined efforts of Kate and Alexis to stop Castle preparing some really horrendous concoctions, but eventually they had a thermos of potato and leek soup, an onion quiche and cheese and bacon one (they'd managed to stop Rick adding anchovies and capers) and some pork and apple sausage rolls. They decided they'd pick up their coffees and some cakes or something at the park.
Rick disappeared into his bedroom and appeared some minutes later with a large sports bag which looked stuffed. Seeing Kate's eye-roll he shrugged, "Blankets for sitting on and one each to wrap around us if it gets chilly"
"You think you and me will need more than one to keep warm" she said, looking at him from under her lashes and chewing her lip. Castle started spluttering and huffing and she burst out laughing turning to see Alexis grinning at her father's loss of words.
"She got you Dad … again"
"Not fair!" he huffed and dropped the bag by the door.
It took the best part of another hour to get everything gathered … Kate's eyeballs rolling each time Castle appeared with something to take with them. Eventually he agreed to leave the binoculars, the book on American Birds, the legal pad he used for writing when away from his laptop, the snakebite antidote (Kate had laughingly admitted to being sucked in by that one when he had grinningly put it back on the kitchen counter), the walkie-talkie set and the compass.
By the time they'd got the food bagged, pulled on their coats and picked up the sports bag with the blankets they almost walked out of the loft without the most important item. It was Alexis who suddenly called out and stopping Castle from shutting the door, rushed back into the loft to pick up Monkey-Bunkey at the Park.
They were quite warm from the walk down Broome and Essex Streets to Seward Park, where the weak sunlight filtered through the almost bare trees, autumn divesting most of them of their yellow and orange leaves, a few hardy ones still clinging with dignity to the last of their foliage.
The park wasn't very busy, so they were able to choose a bench near the central oval, its large spray shower turned off at this time of year and the marble mosaic map of the neighbourhood with the various quotations by historic local residents laid out before them.
Kate was curious, she had been past the park and of course knew it was one of the oldest and the first permanent, municipally built playground in the United States. But she had never been inside the railings and so she enjoyed walking round the central marble mosaic map reading the quotes curving in towards the centre whilst Castle and Alexis covered the bench with a blanket, placed the bags under the bench and sat down waiting for her.
Kate finished reading the last of the quotes before looking up; finding both Castles looking at her and with blushing apologies she hurried to join them on the bench. They both laughed and told her not to worry, they knew the place from old and were quite aware of how fascinating things could be. Rick sat in the middle with Alexis and Kate on either side. He bent down, pulled the binder from out of the sports bag where Alexis had placed it and opened it up over their laps. All three huddled together, Kate and Alexis holding the binder's pages open whilst Rick threw an arm around the shoulders of each of his girls and pulled them in.
They flipped the pages to the first one which had the title
MONKEY-BUNKEY AT THE PARK
For my little Pumpkin
By Richard Rodgers
... and a drawing of a tree with a swing hanging from a branch and what was clearly a self-portrait by Alexis given the amount of flying red hair the grinning figure in the swing was wearing.
Alexis grinned, and flipped the page allowing Kate to catch it and smooth it flat. Rick dipped his head and began reading ...
Monkey-Bunkey got up and looked out the window. It was a lovely day with the sun shining in a blue sky and a few white fluffy clouds floating past. He scratched his head ... scratch, scratch ... he went and then said "I know! I'll go to the park today!"
He packed a sandwich and a banana and a carton of milk in his backpack and put on his really, really cool Yankees cap and left the house, locking the door behind him and went out into the street. He said hello to Mr Loaf the baker and waved to Mr Chop the butcher as he walked along the pavement, stopping at traffic lights and waited for the signal to cross.
When he reached the park, the first thing he saw when he went through the gates was a fountain, it was whooshing water up in the air and then the water was coming down and getting everyone wet!
Rick looked up and could see Kate twisting her head back to where they had entered the park. When she turned back he nodded, telling her "The Schiff Fountain ... donated by Jacob H. Schiff" he added with a grin.
Monkey-Bunkey walked past the fountain and looked up at the trees. There were lots of little birds flying from one tree to another and it was nice and cool in the shade, the sun flashing through the leaves when the wind moved them.
As he got close to the centre of the park he could see the playground! Great he thought and he waved to all his little friends who were climbing all over the climbers, swooshing down slides and yelling "Higher, higher!" on the swings.
Some mummies were running round chasing after their little kids and daddies were pushing others on their bikes and everyone was laughing and having a great time!
Monkey-Bunkey was getting a bit hot now so he went to the centre of the park where there was a big map of that part of New York on the floor and the spray showers were shooting water up into the air and everyone was running through them and getting all wet and nice an cool! ... "and ending up with an occasional cold I have to add" he finished in an aside.
There was a snort from Alexis on the other side of Rick and then she looked round him at Kate "Yes, running in and out of the spray showers being chased by your Dad imitating a rampaging gorilla ... or being fed ice-cream all day long, I wonder which it was!"
Kate let out a laugh at the thought of Castle running around amongst all the kids doing a King-Kong number. She looked at him with a sly grin "Hmm, I wonder what it'd be like being chased by an Ape?"
He waggled his eyebrows at her and Alexis gave another snort of disgust, although Kate could see her trying to hide her grin.
"How about we have some soup and you can tell me about the park before carrying on with the story?"
Rick nodded, pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket to mark the place and closed the binder before placing it on the bench behind Alexis. Kate had meanwhile pulled out the thermos and was handing plastic cups out to Alexis to hold whilst she poured the contents. All three sat back with a sigh, wrapped their hands around the cups and enjoyed the sensation of warmth spreading round their insides as they drank the soup.
After a while Rick pointed over to a small bronze statue of a husky dog over by the far railings. "That there is Togo, who played a heroic role in the 1923 dash to bring an antidiptheria serum to Nome, Alaska. Alexis and all the other small kids used to love climbing on him and pretending to race him" he looked at Alexis and smiled, then turned back to Kate with a quirked eyebrow.
She nodded, "I know the story, but I thought it was Balto, musher Gunnar Kausen's lead dog ... the one in Central Park ... who made the run?"
Rick grunted in assent as he finished his soup, "Kausen and his sled dogs, led by Balto, carried the life savings serum almost 700 miles in six days and is probably the best known part, but the part played by musher Leonhard Seppala and his sled team, led by Togo, has been largely lost to history. Seppala met Kausen at Shaktoolik and turned back to Nome, travelling in freezing temperatures, wind and darkness. When they reached the next musher in the relay in Colovin, they'd carried the serum for over 90 miles but had actually had to travel more than 260 miles"
"Research?" she asked.
"Nope ..." he grinned, "... but when Alexis asked me who Togo was I had to look it up!"
By now Alexis was pulling out the quiches and the smell was making them all hungry. For the next several minutes they sat in silence, enjoying the weak sunshine, the singing of birds in the trees and the company of a number of sparrows and pigeons who knew exactly what human food looked like and had appeared out of nowhere the moment the quiches had entered stage left.
"So what's that over there?" asked Kate, pointing to the right at a building that could be seen through the trees in the far corner of the park whilst she used her other hand to wipe some crumbs off the corner of Rick's mouth.
"Our favourite place when it rained ..." answered Alexis looking to where Kate was pointing, "... the Seward Park library, it's a branch of the New York Public Library and we'd run in and spend the afternoon reading ... Dad of course would soon end up the centre of attention reading out loud or making up stories! "
"How kind of him!" said Kate somewhat sceptically.
Alexis looked at her with a grin, "Yes, not to mention all those mothers who were also sheltering from the rain!" The wise nodding of Kate's head had Alexis laughing out loud and Rick trying out his own Beckett stare on Kate ... which of course was a total failure.
"Well they also used to have really cool exhibits every now and again; dinosaur exhibitions, Egyptian artefacts, Native American ones ..." he trailed off at the unimpressed looks from one pair of blue and one pair of hazel eyes.
When they'd finished eating they stood up and dusted the crumbs off their clothes before shaking the blanket out, initially much to the feeding birds' disgust and then much to their joy as more crumbs flew through the air. They then settled back down, Rick picking up the binder and opening it to the marked page. Both of his 'girls' crowded into his side with Kate even slipping her hand into his jacket pocket.
When Monkey-Bunkey was nice and cool he picked up his backpack and sat on one of the benches under the trees. He ate his sandwich and drank his milk and gave the birds all the little crumbs that fell from his sandwich. Then he ate his lovely banana which he didn't give to the birds ... "not like someone who shall remain nameless and who tried feeding her banana to a duck!" ... and when he'd finished he made sure to pack away his milk carton and the banana skin and sandwich wrapper so that he could throw it in the bin at the park entrance; Monkey-Bunkey didn't want to be called a dirty monkey and get chased by the park keeper again!
Monkey-Bunkey could see lots of people going into the library and he could see all sorts of coloured flags outside. There were green ones and red ones and they had funny drawings on them so he decided to go over and have a look!
There was a big, big banner over the entrance that said Dinosaur Exhibition! ... wow! Monkey-Bunkey liked dinosaurs so he went up the steps and because he was only little he didn't have to pay ... he could go in for free!
When he got inside there were all sorts of booklets and posters and glass boxes with funny looking stones like snails ... but without the snail! And one that looked like a chicken with no feathers and one that looked like a very, very big tooth! Suddenly Monkey-Bunkey stopped! In front of him was a big foot made out of old bones ... and the foot was connected with some wire to a bone that was almost bigger than Monkey-Bunkey! And as he started to follow the bones up and up and up it reminded him of the gi-raffe in the zoo!
When he looked aaaall the way up he went oooh! The bones went up for miles and miles and miles and there was a veeerrryyy long neck and a tiny head on the end ... Monkey-Bunkey laughed 'cos the head looked silly. When Monkey-Bunkey looked at the sign by the big foot bone he read A – P – A – T – O – S – A – U – R – U – S ... what a funny name he thought Apa..., Apato..., Apato-saurus. Well, Monkey-Bunkey was glad he wasn't called Apat..., Apatosaurus!
Monkey-Bunkey spent hours looking at all the funny looking creatures and he bought himself a t-shirt that said 'I'm a Rex' and wondered why the dinosaur on the t-shirt was wearing a crown!
He was beginning to feel tired, so Monkey-Bunkey decided to go home. It had been a long, fun day at the park, but it was time to have supper and go to bed. So Monkey-Bunkey waved goodbye to Camptosaurus and to Shantungosaurus and to Dryosaurus and to Heterodontosaurus and of course to Apatosaurus!
He walked all the way home, stopping before crossing the streets and waiting for the traffic lights to tell him when to cross and he said goodnight to Mr and Mrs Latte from the coffee shop and also to Mr Pasta from the Italian restaurant …. And by the time he got home he was so tired he could barely wash behind his ears and brush his teeth before falling into bed and going zzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzzz…
He slowly closed the binder and looked at Kate who in turn was looking over his shoulder with a sweet smile on her face. Twisting his head back the way she was looking he spotted a little girl of no more than four or five staring at him with wide eyes as she clung to her mother's hand. They were only a few feet away and the mother was smiling back at them with a slightly embarrassed look on her face, "I ... I'm sorry, we were just passing and when Amy heard the story she ..."
Rick gave them both one of his glittering smiles and a "That's no problem, you're welcome, I hope you liked the story Amy?" Amy promptly buried her face in her mother's dress and one slightly shy child and one thoroughly flustered mother departed the scene.
"How about we head across the road and get some coffee and some cakes?" asked Castle as he turned back to his companions, totally unaware of the emotional havoc he had wreaked on their unannounced audience. With a roll of her eyes Kate nodded and helped Alexis pack away the blankets, binder and thermos as a very Monkey-Bunkey-like Castle headed off to dispose of the rubbish.
"You know, I didn't think much of this park when we first arrived, but seeing it through Monkey-Bunkey's eyes and discovering about Togo and the map and the quotes" Kate said as she pointed to the central area, "I've become quite attached to it!"
Castle grinned at her, "You'll like it even more in summer, sure there are nicer parks and better ones, but this one ... One of the things I like most are the tennis courts over there. There are four courts lined up next to each other and on the weekends the local kids really take a lot of liberties with the standard rules of tennis. Trying to play a normal game is like entering the Tennis Twilight Zone. Kids are yelling, tennis balls are flying in all directions, there'll be about six kids playing on one half of a tennis court, and thirty kids playing basketball with two balls on half a basketball court ... I can tell you, it sure keeps you on your toes!" Kate laughed at this picture of sporting mayhem .
He continued, "They also started the Hester Street Fair a few years back. It's on every Saturday for most of the year and you can find great local food, clothing, furnishings and lots more!"
"I'm liking it more and more! Maybe we should come down next week?"
Alexis nodded enthusiastically, "I haven't been for ages, I'd love to!"
As they left the park behind them and headed across the street Kate started laughing even more as she saw where they were headed. The Cafe Grumpy sign over the door seemed to sum up the fun day they'd had.
AN: Not ever having been to the Big Apple and certainly never having visited Seward Park, apologies for any mistakes and errors, I have done my best to gather information from the internet, but anyone who feels they can correct me on any glaring errors is welcome to do so. Thanks!