214

214
“So Mother,” I say, trying to make her happy by calling her mother. “Have you told Anen about Wren’s visit next month?”
“Oh yes!” she says, leaning forward. “Next month, Wren will go on a visit to stay with my cousin. “She’s from a canary yellow house as well, and her daughters are about Wren’s age. One is a year older; one is a year younger. I’m sure that they would have invited Kestrel too,” she says, patting my hand, “but of course she’ll be busy with other things once she passes her Exam.”
“Yes, I wanted to mention something about that,” Anen cuts in. This is bad. She has this idea that I should go stay with her for a long visit. “I was thinking--”
“Feld says that I’m a baby, and I’m not!” Mallee wails as she runs into the room and buries her face in Mom’s lap. “I’m not.”
Mom sighs and pats her hair. “Of course, you’re not,” she says. “You know that he’s just trying to bother you.”
Mallee pokes her head out, “Maybe you could send him to his room?”
Mom covers her mouth with her hand. “I’m not sure about that, but I will talk to him.”
Mallee looks relieved. The universe is fair again. I roll my eyes. I can’t believe what she gets away with. No matter how hard I try to be fair, I just can’t remember life being that easy when I was seven. Of course I’m glad that she distracted Anen from inviting me, but it’s almost not worth it.
“Your Anen has something for you,” Anen says. I keep myself from sighing. She’s seven, not two. But Anen is already pulling out a box from a bag at her feet and handing it to Mallee. It rattles as Mallee impatiently tries to get the lid off. My hands jump forward to take it from her, and then I pull back, not wanting to make my mother or Anen feel like they are doing a bad job.
But both of them seem to agree on one thing. They both smile as Mallee rips the box apart because she had a hard time untying the ribbon. She pulls out a very small clockwork doll that stands on a base.
“Would you like me to show you how it works?” Anen asks, trying to get an arm Mallee, who managed to slide away. She abruptly ran off.
The grownups just had time to exchange surprised glances and consider new topics when she ran back, followed by Feldspar. “Hi Mom,” he bursts out with. “Hi Anen,” he says, and even drops a kiss on her cheek--a sure mercenary sign from him that she completely falls for. “Mallee wanted me to help her with her new present.” His emphasis on the word “present” was less than subtle.
Anen didn’t care. “That is a very good idea,” she tells him, “and when you’ve finished figuring that out, then maybe you’d like to have your own gift?”
Feldspar whoops way too close to my ear, and then gets down to business. In a couple of minutes, the doll is twirling around on the stand while the base emits a music box song--the kind that sounds really pretty in the shop, but gets old after your little sister has played it for six hours straight. The base also glows green, then blue,then purple, red, and so on. I notice that it doesn’t have yellow. I wonder if that is on purpose, or if she really didn’t think about it.
Feldspar is holding out his hands, and soon he’s preparing to fly his tiny working model plane, and Mom is telling him to take that thing outside, before she remembers that we have company and changes from her Mom voice to her visiting voice.
“I don’t know where Wren is,” Anen says, as she pulls out another package. It’s a big, floppy one tied in paper and string. “I hope it fits,” she says. “I had to guess at Wren’s size, and that girl is growing so fast.”
“It’s true,” Mom agrees. She seems much more relaxed now that the topic is indulging her children. I notice that we have addressed three out of four children, but I try not to notice. After all, I’m nearly an adult. In fact, I’ll be sort of adult status in just two or three weeks, maybe, so I don’t really care about little things like that.
“Kestrel, I was thinking,” Anen says. I knew it. I knew that she wouldn’t forget me. “You know I would still love to have you come visit me,” she says, “and it’s so cold where I live. I worry that you won’t have a proper coat, so I thought I’d give you mine.” She holds out her coat to me. “Just so you don’t forget to stay with me soon.” The smile froze on my face.
“Thank you,” I manage. “That’s so nice of you.” And suddenly I have a gaudy patchwork monster spilling across my lap and slithering halfway down the floor. There is embroidery all over it. I lift up something fuzzy. It’s the fur-edged hood. Great, wearing a beaver will make me the envy of EI.
“But what will you do without your coat?” my mother asked in her sweetest company voice. She glanced in my direction just once, and I knew that she was trying to get me out of taking a present like that.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Anen said as if people passed around their coats as gifts all the time. “We’re in a warmer phase for a few days. In fact, it was warm enough to snow a couple of days ago.”
“Snow?” I was taken off guard.
“Yes, most of the winter, it’s too cold to actually snow, so the clouds just hover most of the time. It makes for very interesting gray skies--especially when the sun is up--which is only for only about four hours a day.”
I keep my face a perfect mask of pleasant interest, but inside, my common sense is screaming for me to run away right now. I thought winter meant cold and snow, not ice world.
“Even in the summer?” Mom’s expression is too sweet to be honest. I doubt that Anen or most people can read her, but I can.
“No, in summer, it’s light all day and night. It’s like having one long day for about three months.” She turns to me. “But you’ll get to experience all of that soon enough,” she says. “In fact, I was wondering if I could take Kestrel on a walk so that she could try out her new coat and we could talk about it.”
Instantly I’m sending out thought waves to my mother to get me out of this, but she doesn’t know how to overcome her good breeding enough to be bluntly rude. Besides, I suspect that she is considering that if I took Anen off, then she would be free of visiting conversation.
“It’s up to Kestrel,” she says. “Would you like to go?”

1) “Actually,” while I really wish that I could, I promised to meet Daisy, and I’m already late. I would put her off if I could, but we’re planning to study for the Exam, and she really needs me,” I say, hoping that I don’t sound like I’m babbling. Although as long as I get out of that walk, I’m willing to babble.

(Do we want this to go to 210 or 203?)

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/203.html

2)I look at Anen. She was so nice to come visit, and the other presents are very thoughtful of her. Well, okay, mine is thoughtful too, just in a strange way. I can’t disappoint her. How long can it last?

http://kestrelbook.blogspot.com/2012/08/214.html