Chapter 2: A little spying going on
Now it was time. Lily and Allison want to go into the woods together. But now Lily is still at home. She is sitting in the kitchen playing with a ball that has every color of the rainbow. She was wearing a white t-shirt and purple pants. Rita did the dishes. Rita was talking to Lily.
"You think highly of Allison." said Rita.
Lily giggles.
Rita starts thinking about Allison.
"Allison is a strange girl." thought Rita.
The doorbell rang. Rita went to the door. She opened the door and Allison stood in front of it. She was wearing different clothes. She wore camouflage pants and an old jacket that had U.S. Marines stood.
"Hello Mrs. Loud." said Alison.
"Hello Alison. Lily!" said Rita.
Lily crawled over. She sees Alison, and crawls to her.
"Hello to you too, Lily."
Alison picked Lily up.
"What are you going to do?" asked Rita.
"We'll be watching the deer. I got a camouflage jacket especially for Lily."
Alison took out a small camouflage jacket and gave it to Lily, who put it on. She hugged Alison's face. "You're welcome."
"You look good Lily." said Rita.
"We'll both be going now. I have your phone number. Bye."
"Bye Lily. Bye Alison."
"Bye." said Lily.
The two went towards the bus stop. Rita thought.
"Shall I follow the two? No, they would recognize me. Unless."
Rita went to her closet. She found red shorts and a dark blue t-shirt. She changed. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. She noticed that the pants are a bit tight. She turns around and looks at her butt. She was now a little upset.
"Great." said Rita disappointed.
Rita went back to her closet. She pulled out a wig. She went in front of the mirror and put them on. She straightened them. Now Rita looked very different. She now had black, straight hair that was 16 inches long and hung down her back and in front of her shoulders. She took a deep breath.
"Hi. I'm Marie Baker. Nice to meet you." she said to her reflection.
Lily and Alison were not visible in the forest. The two lay in a bush. Alison looked through binoculars. But Alison hasn't discovered anything yet.
"Not good. Actually we should see something." said Alison disappointed. Lily looks sadly at Alison.
"Let's wait a little longer."
It was worth it. Alison saw a little bunny.
"Lily, look. A bunny." Alison said, holding the binoculars in front of her eyes. "Bunny." said Lily.
Rita, on the other hand, didn't have much fun. Her pants got caught on a brambles. "Oh please. Don't."
She tried to pry the brambles from her pants with her hands. But it hurt a lot. When she had freed herself, more spines stuck in her hand. She pulled out the thorns. Rita walked on. But it was difficult, because there were many deep branches in this part of the forest. She held out her hand to keep branches from getting in her face or eyes. Then she found Alison and Lily. Rita hid behind a tree.
"So there they are. What's the best way to do this now? I pretend to be interested in plants." said Rita.
The two saw a hedgehog. Allison holds the binoculars in front of Lily again.
"Look Lily. That's a hedgehog. He should be sleeping by now. Someone had startled him." said Alison.
Lily looked through the binoculars. She was mesmerized by the sight. Alison picked up the binoculars again. Lily looked around and spotted Rita.
Lily pulls on Alison's jacket.
"Did you see something?" Alison asked. Lily points to Rita.
"Yes. You really saw something."
Alison picked up Lily and went to Rita.
"Hello. Are you also a nature lover?" Said Alison. "Yes. Yes I am. I am Marie Baker." said Rita. "What are you looking for?"
"I'm looking for deer."
"We too. But I'll give you a tip, put on camouflage clothes next time."
Then Alison saw a deer, and puts the binoculars in front of Lily's eyes again.
"Look Lily. That's a deer."
"Deer" said Lily.
"Cute." said Rita.
They watch the deer eat the leaves of a young tree.
"Watch closely Lily. Observe the behavior." said Alison.
The deer ran away.
"And its gone." Said Alison.
They go through the forest. Suddenly Allison stops.
"Stop!" yelled Alison.
"What's going on?" asked Rita.
"Over there."
Two meters in front of them was a Black Snake.
"It's a Northern Ring-Necked Snake. It's not venomous, but we should keep our distance. Wait. I know how to get through."
Alison stomped on the floor. The snake didn't move. Alison stamped again. The snake was startled and crept into a bush. The three walked on. Then they reach a creek. Alison looked for frogs and newts. Then she pointed to a black newt. Another swam up. They walked a little further along the creek and saw a brown frog.
"Are there fish here too?" asked Rita.
"Yes. Salmon, trout. But you have to search well." said Alison.
At that moment a small salmon swam by. Alison put Lily down and pointed to the salmon. Lily tried to catch the salmon with her hand. Alison stopped her.
"No! That could hurt the fish." said Alison.
Lily looked at Alison, slightly startled. But then she understands. "We have to go. Nice to meet you." said Alison.
Alison picked Lily up and they walked on.
Rita went in a different direction. She came into a part of the forest that was extremely dense. Now she had to crawl. She stopped with a shock. She looks back. She saw that her hips were too wide to pass through a pair of thin and flimsy trees. Rita realizes she's stuck. She gets mad.
"God dammit." cursed Rita.
She pushes with her arms. Then she frees herself and falls over, as one of the trees broke. When she was finally outside, she was relieved. She gets up and brushes the leaves from her clothes.
"Great. Now I can put that in the washing machine."
Alison and Lily came out of the woods. They went towards Royal Woods. To the north was a greenhouse containing a North European forest. Alison and Lily entered the greenhouse. In the middle of the greenhouse were some tables. Rita watches from afar. She is sitting on a bus stop bench. She looks at everything carefully.
"The center. Lily will like that." said Rita.
The glass reflected the sunlight, blinding Rita. "Ouch."
In the club center were three youngsters. We were sitting at a table. A boy with a neon tree shirt and yellow shorts. He had messy brown hair. A girl sat across from him. She had red, wavy free hair. She wore a blue shirt and blue jeans.
"Hey Kira, hey Mitch." Alison said, waving at the two of them.
The two waved back. Alison walked over to a girl who was sitting alone at a table looking at pictures on a camera with a huge lens. She wore a black and white checked shirt and blue jeans. She is 17 years old, and has long auburn hair that hangs behind her back.
"Lily, this is Samantha Silverlake."
Samantha doesn't look up.
"Nice to meet you Lily."
"A new lens again?" Alison asked.
"Yes. A telephoto lens. With that I could read a newspaper a kilometer away." said Samantha proudly. "You exaggerated again."
"You know I like to exaggerate." said Samantha, while looking at the photos on the camera.
Samantha looks at Alison. She points to Lily.
"Is that your little sister?" asked Samantha.
"No, that's Lily. She's one of our like-minded people." said Alison.
Rita is right next to the greenhouse. She's holding her cell phone and looking unobtrusively at the greenhouse. The plants obscure the view. She sees an open, square window two meters up. She takes a box and puts it under the window. She takes a leap and pulls herself up to the window with her arms. The four members talk in the greenhouse.
"Well, we agree. A rare item from nature. It can't be a living thing and it can't be relevant to the ecosystem." said Mitch.
"Exactly. Do any of you want to come with Lily and me?" Alison asked.
"Me. I'm sure it'll be great." said Samantha.
Everyone left the greenhouse. Rita had brought her upper body through the window.
"Don't let me see you. Don't let me see you." Rita said quietly to herself.
Rita suddenly stopped. She looked back. Her hips were a bit too wide for the window. She went back a bit and tried to swing through the window. Her hips hit the window frame. It hurt.
"Damn. How is that possible?"
She keeps trying to squeeze through. Then she looks back. "Those damn pants." cursed Rita.
Rita knew it wasn't the pants. Bringing eleven children into the world naturally widens their hips. But Rita didn't care. She had wonderful eleven children whom she loved very much. Rita gives up. She climbs back down and walks around the greenhouse. She notices that nobody is inside anymore. She goes in.
"How is it possible that my hips have gotten so wide?" Rita wondered. Rita looks at a table on which lay a map of Royal Woods.
"Hello. What's that?"
Rita looked at the map.
"What forest are they going to?"
Rita goes outside. She looks around and walks in the direction the group was walking. Rita arrived at the steel mill site in ten minutes. The steel mill was big and there was a lot of noise here. It stinks there because of the coking plant. There she saw Samantha, Alison and Lily standing on the street. A freight train with slag wagons drove across the street. The rusty brown wagons were pulled by a red
diesel which was very dirty. You could still see the white letters on the locomotive. It stand RWR Cargo on it. When the freight train crossed the street, the three ran and Rita followed them.
After another ten minutes they came back to a residential area. Alison's home was there. It had two stories, and was white with a sky blue lower part. Alison rang the bell and a woman with long, light brown hair that hung down her back answered. She wore a light gray sweater, blue jeans and dark blue glasses with tinted lenses. Her name was Constance Judge.
"Hi Mom." Said Alison.
"Hi Al. Who is this?" asked Constance, pointing in Lily.
"This is Lily."
"You take care of her?"
"Yes. Like me, Lily is interested in nature. That's why I show her everything." "You know that's a big responsibility?"
"That's why I came with Al." said Samantha.
Rita watched from afar.
"That's where Alison has to live." said Rita.
Alison, Samantha and Lily go into Alison's room. It's right under the roof and there are a lot of plants inside. The walls are light green. Alison gives Lily to Samantha, and starts searching in the drawers. Samantha sat down on Alison's bed with Lily. Rita climbed an oak tree across from Alison's home to spy on the three.
"Your cute." Said Samantha.
Lily starts patting Samantha's cheek with her hand.
"Yes. Such a cute one."
"There it is." Alison said, pulling out an old instant camera.
"Hey Al, didn't you still have those costumes you had as a toddler?" "Yeah. Oh. Lily, do you want to play dress up?" Alison asked.
Lily nodded. Alison got a cowgirl costume from a closet and put it on Lily. Lily liked it. Then Alison found an old princess dress that Lola would have liked. It was red. Lily liked this too, but she preferred the cowgirl outfit. Then the two Lily put on their normal clothes again.
"We should go." said Alison.
"Good. Where are we going?" asked Samantha. "We're taking Lily home."
Rita heard these words through the open window. "I have to get home before them." sate Rita.
She tried to climb down the tree and fell down. She ran home. Rita ran past the steel mill. She ran very fast. She reached the city center and had to walk across platform four of the main train station. On platform four, a tramlink was waiting to depart. The train driver was standing next to the tramlink, smoking a cigarette. He had dark hair and a mustache. He looked at Rita.
"Don't stress. We'll leave in three minutes." said the train driver. "I don't have to take the train." Rita said running past.
Rita kept running. She went through the underpass and ran down the main street. Rita arrived home. She ran to her bedroom and changed clothes. First she had changed her shirt. When she wanted to change her pants, she had problems. It was her hips that were too wide. She got angry again.
"How can that be. I didn't have any problems getting dressed today."
She took off the wig. The doorbell rang. Rita went to the door. It was Alison, Samantha and Lily.
"Hi Rita." Said Alison.
"Hi Alison. How was it?" Said Rita.
"It was great."
Lily kisses Alison on the cheek.
"Oh. Thank you."
"Hi. Did you have fun." Asked Rita.
Lily nodded.
"We were in the woods where we met a Marie Baker. She should also join our club. Oh yes, I was with Lily in the club center, and for a moment at my house. Samantha accompanied me." said Alison.
"Bye Lily. Bye Rita." Said Alison. "Bye ms. Loud. Lil." Said Samantha. "Bye. Se you soon." Said Rita.
Lily waved goodbye. Rita closed the door. She wondered how the three got here so quickly. Then she remembered that just before the tram left the station in the evening, another one was arriving. Now she went towards the garden with Lily.
"And? Did you Likes it?" Asked Rita. Lily nodded.
Rita and Lily smelled BBQ. Both were happy. Rita because it was a surprise to her and Lily because she loved BBQ.
"Smells like Dad's making BBQ." said Rita.
Lily giggled and rejoiced. She clapped her hands. Both went into the garden.
End of the Chapter