Day 25 – Children
"Moooom, I'm bored." Carver stared out of the window, wishing the rain would stop.
Saturday afternoons at home were bad enough when the sun was shining and he could go out in the yard to play ball. In this weather, they were unbearable.
His mother sighed. "Why don't you play with Revon, dear? You two have such a lot of board games."
"Revon says he's busy." He'd also added a few choice insults, but Carver knew better than to tell their mother about this.
Revon never wanted to play with him. Carver pressed his nose harder against the window pane. Other kids had siblings who played with them. Not him. All Revon ever did was disappear up to his room with another library book and grunt at him when he suggested a game. If only Bethy was here, but she was off all weekend, for extra choir practice. Her friend Delilah Howe had gone too. Now, here was a thought…
"Can I go over to the Howes' place and play with Tom?" He put on his best pleading face. "Please, mom?"
"I don't know." Leandra Hawke sighed again. "Mrs Howe mentioned that they have guests this weekend. They may be too busy."
"Maybe they won't mind. Can I call him and ask?"
When his mother nodded, he raced off to get the phone. Fortunately, it was Tom's mother who answered. Carver was a little afraid of Mr. Howe, who always looked so grim. Mrs Howe was much nicer, even though she seemed so sad.
"Of course you can come over, Carver. Tell your mother it's no trouble. We have a house full of kids already and you'll fit right in."
His mom looked doubtful when he relayed the answer, but she didn't object any longer. She was probably just as relieved to see him go, he thought. After all, he wasn't like Bethy or Revon, always with his nose in a book or a school project to finish. He was just Carver, good at sports and not much else. He knew very well she wasn't as proud of him as she was of the others. He could always tell when he had disappointed her again. She'd give him that look, with her forehead all creased with worry and her eyes sad and resigned.
The Howes' large, rambling house was just across the road, and it was crowded with people today. He nodded shyly when he was introduced to the visitors. The Cousland family, "very old friends of ours, dear", a nice-looking lady and her husband and two kids, Fergus and Megan.
"Hey, Carver." To his disappointment, Tom barely had time to say hello. "Come on. Nate and Fergus are playing Death Race and they said I could play, too."
Tom didn't know how lucky he was to have Nate as his brother, Carver thought gloomily as they followed the two older boys upstairs. True, Nate was almost as serious as his mother, but he was never mean, like Revon, and he always let Tom join in.
"Want to play too?" Nate's smile was friendly, but he shook his head.
He knew very well he couldn't compete. Tom was really good at the game, but then he got a lot of practice. Carver sat down on Nate's bed and watched as Fergus and Tom raced each other on the game's second most difficult track, their faces flushed with eagerness.
"Hey, I'm Megan." A tousled head of red hair had appeared next to the bed's headboard and a pair of large green eyes were sizing him up. "Want to come and play?"
He shrugged. Her parents had said she was nine, a year older than him, but she looked tiny, almost like one of the first-years at his school. "I don't know. What do you want to do?" He wasn't in the mood for playing with dolls, that much was certain.
Her face lit up. "We could play knights and dragons." She pointed at the huge dog who had appeared in the doorway. "Samson here can be the dragon. He's used to it."
Carver deliberated for a moment. "All right. I'll be a knight. You probably want to be a princess, don't you?" Bethany always wanted to be a princess, sitting high up in a tower, brushing her hair and playing the harp.
But Megan just grimaced, freckles dancing all over her small nose. "Nah. Princesses are boring. I'll be an assassin." She grinned. "I'm really good at climbing roofs, you know."
"Assassins don't fight dragons." He felt on firmer ground here.
"Yes, they do." She stamped her foot, her lips set in a firm line. "Assassins can fight everything. They're fast and they're deadly and they have all kinds of cool weapons."
"Well, knights have swords." Carver was confused. He'd never met a girl like her. "And you need a sword to kill a dragon."
"No, you don't." Megan's eyes narrowed. "There's lots of ways to kill a dragon."
Fortunately, Nate intervened at this point, clearly bored with watching the two others race. "Can I help kill the dragon too?"
Megan gave him a doubtful look. "Do you really want to play with us?"
"Why not?" Nate shrugged. "Sounds like fun. We could go out into the garden. The rain has stopped."
"Okay," Megan conceded generously. "What do you want to be?"
"I'll be an archer. Like Robin Hood." Nate sounded confident. "Archers are good against dragons. You can weaken them with arrows before you attack."
"Oooooh, yes." Carver could hardly contain his enthusiasm. "What about you, Tom?"
But Tom was hardly listening. Fergus had just agreed to a rematch, and the two of them were wholly caught up in their competition.
"Leave them be." Nate got to his feet and took Megan by the hand. "Come on. Let's see if you are as good at slaying dragons as you claim."
"Of course I am." She sounded indignant, and Carver had to bite back a laugh at her determined expression. "Just you wait."