A Summer Holiday
Summary: The Earl gives five hard-working Noahs the opportunity to vacation at a lake. Everyone is set to enjoy themselves in their own ways--until Jasdero and Devit learn that Rhode can't swim.
Prompt: 08. Holiday
Notes: Like the first fic I posted here, this was written for seylyn for the DGray Gift Exchange. It's made of cuteness and fluff. I love you, Seylyn! Thank you for the drawings you've given me--I treasure them all.
The Earl called together five of the Noahs and told them they’d been working very hard. “Therefore, you deserve to go on a vacation,” he told Rhode, Tiki, Skinn, Jasdero, and Devit as they crowded around him in a drawing room made smaller by his presence.
There was an outcry of joy from Rhode and the twins; Skinn smiled and Tiki (forming plans to return to his laborer friends and Eaze) looked more relaxed already.
“But where should we go?” asked Devit.
“I have saved time by asking Rhode the sort of place where she would like to vacation,” said the Earl. “You are going to a lakeside house in the country for a week.”
Rhode clapped her hands together. “‘Somewhere hot where I can sip cold drinks and do nothing at all.’ Thank you, Millennium Earl!” She hugged him, which was to say she pressed herself against his stomach.
“Anything you wish, Rhode dear.” The Millennium Earl detached her.
Skinn was smiling his agreement. The twins visibly struggled between happiness and anger that the Earl hadn’t consulted them, until Jasdero exclaimed “Swimming!” After that they just looked excited.
Tiki silently cancelled his plan to relax with his friends.
“Can you all be ready by tomorrow morning?” the Earl asked.
The general consensus was that they could. The Noahs parted to let the Earl through, then followed him out like chicks after a mother hen-except for Tiki. He lingered a moment to pull a card and its prisoner from his pocket.
“Lord Tiiiiki Miiiiick,” wheezed the wormlike prisoner.
“So. Summer vacation. I won’t be hunting Allen Walker or his friends for awhile.”
“Lord Tiikii Miiick…. What is this ‘vacation?’ Should you continue your work instead… the Earl will be… most impressed….” It kept mumbling-something about vacations being a sign of laziness in youth, if not a harbinger of the end of the world-in its tiny voice.
Tiki stared at it blankly. “You watch the house,” he said, and set it face down on a table.
A little smaller and the lake could have been called a pond. Still, its glassy green surface was pretty, and, in the oppressive heat, inviting. A low pier extended into the lake. There was a small rowboat moored there. The trees surrounding the lake and streams were a fresh green, and a beige brick cottage with wide windows nestled among trees of its own. It had enough bedrooms for Rhode to get one all to herself.
A cluster of Noahs stood in the pebbly clearing that sloped down to the lake. They carried bags and boxes, except for Rhode, who had entrusted hers to Skinn and Jasdero.
The heat was set to prove that it was midsummer, and they had been in the cottage no more than a minute by the time Skinn had unbuttoned his shirt, Tiki had lost his shirt, and the twins were in swimming trunks. Jasdero had even removed the bandages from his arms. Rhode was still unlacing her boots in the living room.
“I’m not going to move for days,” Rhode smugly told her half-dressed companions. And, to Tiki, “Make me lemonade.”
Jasdero and Devit had looked half-strangled by the heat since the moment they’d arrived. “Too stuffy,” said Jasdero, upon which he and his brother left the cabin and entered their new home, the lake. (Since guns did not take kindly to water, they left them in their room.)
Tiki found that Akuma servants had stocked the pantry. He also found the cellar. There was a delightful chill emanating from the cellar’s darkness, and following the stairs down Tiki found enormous blocks of ice occupying the small space.
Amply supplied with lemons, Tiki set about making lemonade.
Jasdero and Devit were happy with the lake. The lake was heaven.
Both were capable of conversing while treading water. “Weather’s damn hot!” said Jasdero, submerged up to his chin.
“Felt like God was trying to fry us,” said Devit.
“But he gave us this lake,” said Jasdero.
“Your mascara’s running,” said Devit, and the ensuing battle of splashes finished off the last of their mascara.
Skinn sat in the shade of trees near the water’s edge. He watched the splashing, shouting, laughing boys for awhile, then fell into a pleasant nap.
Rhode made Tiki set up a folding chair under the shade of cottage-side trees. They piled it high with cushions from the living room. Rhode then lugged out a volume of Shakespeare’s plays and began to fulfill her intention of not moving. The only concessions she made were to turning pages and holding out her hand for one of the lemonades Tiki brought out on a tray.
Tiki was living off lemonade. When he wasn’t pumping water, chipping ice, or squeezing lemons, he was sitting on the pier drinking cold lemonade while he submerged his legs in the water. The most intimate he’d gotten with Nature was hacking out its more desirable minerals in mines. The lake and woods surrounding him now were a lot prettier.
He watched Skinn swim out into the lake. The twins were treading water in the middle. As Skinn swam past them with powerful strokes, Jasdero caught his shoulder. Jasdero’s words carried to Tiki. “Bet you can’t hold your breath longer than Dero-”
“Trust me, you’re wrong-”
While they were submerged, Devit swam over to Tiki. “You wanna race me to the other side of the lake?”
“Nah, I like it here,” said Tiki.
“You’re so lazy. Or are you afraid you’ll get clean?” Devit snickered.
Tiki shrugged off his comment, so Devit turned his attention to Rhode. She was lounging on her chair reading, as usual. Devit swam to where he could stand. “Hey, Rhode, it’s been two days and you haven’t even touched the lake yet. Come on in-you’re crazy to stay out in the heat!”
Blond hair dripping, Jasdero suddenly surfaced beside Devit and said, “Jasdero lost.”
“Too bad,” said Devit. “Y’know, Rhode hasn’t been in the lake yet. Think we should throw her in?”
“Sure!” said Jasdero.
Shielded from the sweltering heat by being completely soaked. Jasdero and Devit advanced on Rhode.
Rhode shut her book and held it close. “Don’t you even try,” she said.
“Heehee! Sorry to get your clothes wet, Rhode,” said Jasdero, who may have been apologetic but was grinning widely.
“Off the end of the pier with her,” Devit said with a wicked grin of his own.
“Do it and you two are going home early with stab wounds,” said Rhode. When Jasdero put his dripping hands on her shoulders anyway, she continued hurriedly, “I can’t swim!”
“What!?” exclaimed Jasdero.
“Yeah right,” said Devit.
“I actually can’t swim,” said Rhode, deadpan.
Jasdero backed off. Devit called, “Tiki, can Rhode swim?”
Tiki was peacefully finishing his lemonade on the pier. “Rhode, can you swim?”
“No,” said Rhode.
The twins stared. They were amazed to discover that they could do something that Rhode couldn’t, for such things were few and far between. They consulted each other in whispers.
Devit turned to Rhode, whose face was obscured behind her book. “Don’t worry, we’ll teach you,” he said.
Rhode didn’t take them up on it. In fact, she didn’t speak to them for the rest of the day. She took her book of plays to dinner and hid behind it until she finished her bowl of strawberry ice cream. When dinner was over, she went to her room to read by candlelight.
Jasdero finished his third helping of macaroni and his second of salad. He turned to Tiki and asked, “How come Rhode can’t swim?”
“Just ‘cause she’s Rhode doesn’t mean she can do everything,” said Devit from behind them. Still in his swim trunks, he was leaning out the window to catch the breeze.
“There are a lot of people who can’t swim,” said Tiki. “If you’re a kid growing up in a city, the only lakes and rivers around are too filthy to swim in. It’s not as if most people need to swim.”
“Heehee! So much water, and people can’t swim? That’s funny!” said Jasdero.
“We had a pond where we’d swim around in the summer…” said Devit.
Jasdero took one of the five lemonade glasses surrounding Tiki’s empty plate. “Rhode knows the world is mostly water-she told Jasdero so!”
“Sometimes in the fall, too. It froze up in winter, though…”
Tiki shook his head. “You country kids!”
“We’d beat you up, but we’re on vacation,” said Devit. He climbed out the window, ran down the pier, and dived into the lake.
“Thanks for dinner, mean Tiki,” said Jasdero.
“Sure,” Tiki said as Jasdero clambered out the window.
Rhode continued to refuse their lessons. “No,” she’d say, and hurl cushions at them and turn back to King Lear. The cushions (and the unbearable heat) drove the twins back into the lake. Rhode was content where she was-except for how she felt Jasdero and Devit were taunting her by swimming around as if it were as natural as walking. She held her book up so that they were somewhere behind it. However, she couldn’t hide the sound of their laughing and splashing.
Jasdero and Devit believed that the only way to survive in the heat was to be sopping wet at all times. They helped each other out by splashing gouts of lakewater over each other’s heads in case the sun dried out their hair. Sneaking up underwater and dunking each other was also found to be effective. It was difficult for Jasdero and Devit to catch each other off guard, because they were conscious of where, in general, the other twin was, but this only made them try harder. They also tried to help Skinn. They were there to splash him when he approached the lake. Once, they imagined a sphere of water over his head while he was napping. This led to an exciting lake chase that Rhode lowered her book to watch; the twins were faster, so it lasted until Skinn had calmed down. Tiki, too, got splashed when he sat on the pier or waded into the lake up to his waist. He found it refreshing.
The twins were offended by Rhode’s refusal to get wet. She’d made Skinn take her out in the rowboat that morning, but she hadn’t touched the water. Four days, and she wouldn’t even dip her toes in.
“Rhode, last chance to move your book,” said Devit from close by.
Rhode lowered the volume of plays, which she’d been having trouble concentrating on, to find that Jasdero and Devit were on the attack again. This time they held a sphere of water between their raised hands. Rhode threw the book at Devit’s head.
He fell backward. The water vanished as gave Jasdero gave a short cry and knelt by his twin. “Oww. Goddammit,” said Devit, rubbing the bruise on his temple as he sat up.
“Jasdero, could you hand me that book?” Rhode asked sweetly.
Jasdero hesitated, glancing between her and Devit. His expression settled on anger. He picked up the book by a corner and walked away. Devit strolled by his side. “Hey, what are you doing?” shouted Rhode as Jasdero walked along the pier (population: Tiki). She sat up and ran after him.
“You sure about this, Jasdero?” Tiki asked as the twins walked behind him.
“Hee!”
“Okay.”
Jasdero held the book up over the water. He looked over his shoulder at Rhode. “Say you’re sorry!”
“You two attacked me,” said Rhode.
Devit whispered something in Jasdero’s ear. Jasdero grinned broadly at Rhode and dropped the book into the water.
“Hey!” yelled Rhode, and shoved Devit into the pond. Jasdero reflexively caught his arm and fell in head-first after him.
When they surfaced, they grinned up at an angry Rhode. It wasn’t very satisfying to push Jasdero or Devit into the lake, because they preferred the water to the air.
“Now that you’ve ruined my book, you’re going home and spending days in the basement,” Rhode said. She was already plotting to grab the pistols from their cottage bedroom and hurl them into the lake.
“We didn’t ruin it,” said Devit. “It’s in a big bubble of air.”
“Then get it back right this instant. Tiki-”
“You could get it back yourself,” said Devit, “if you let us teach you to swim.”
Rhode paused. The truth was that after doing nothing for several days, Rhode had grown bored of her book, bored of lying around. Now she had the perfect opportunity to do something active without contradicting her earlier words. “You’ve caught me,” she said.
Rhode emerged from the cottage in a black swimsuit she’d dug up from one of her bags. She ran down and paused at the water’s edge. Jasdero and Devit were waiting hopefully where the water came up to their shoulders. Rhode dipped a toe into the lake. “It’s like ice cubes!” she said.
“Doesn’t Rhode like ice cubes?” said Jasdero.
“You call yourself the oldest, but you can’t swim. It’s too good!” said Devit. “Time for Jasdevi to help you-but you’ll have to get in the water first.”
Rhode advanced until the water was up to her chest.
“Good, good! Now touch off from the bottom and try to stay afloat,” instructed Devit.
Wearing a serious expression, Rhode flailed around in front of them.
“Heeheehee! Rhode’s swimming!” said Jasdero.
Devit paddled back and forth in front of Rhode. “You can’t just splash around, you gotta move your arms more evenly. And, uh… put your fingers together….”
Rhode’s flailing moved her deeper into the lake. She started coughing. Jasdero was there in an instant, gripping her shoulders and steering her back to where she could touch the bottom.
“You guys… are crazy,” said Rhode once she’d coughed the water out. Her wet hair fell around her face. “The lake’s just waiting to drown you.”
Devit grinned. “Noahs dying in a lake on vacation? Funny, but not the way we’re gonna go. Now try to reach me.” He retreated until he was treading water.
“What? I just breathed in part of this lake, you know. I have to rest. I’m delicate,” said Rhode. She slogged towards shore, but Jasdero swam round to block her.
“Heehee! Try!” he said. “Can’t leave until you try.”
“I’m moving farther oooout,” called Devit, doing just that.
Rhode glanced between the shore and Devit, then launched herself at him.
Evening came. Rhode left the lake with a certain reluctance that was not missed by Tiki, who, lemonade always at hand, had been entertaining himself by watching the swimming lessons. Rhode trotted along the dock to him. “I can nearly swim!” she said. “Jasdevi say so.”
“Congratulations,” said Tiki.
“Tikiii, give me your lemonade.”
“Your prize.” Tiki handed it over. She drank the remnants in one long draught, said, “Tikii, make me more lemonade.”
“Soon…” Tiki said. Rhode made an irritated noise, and sat beside him. She kicked her feet in the water.
Meanwhile, the twins ran dripping into the cottage and emerged with a hammock. Although they tied it between two trees quickly enough, it took them ten tries before they both got in it without falling out.
The next morning Jasdero and Devit fell out of the hammock again. They awoke, startled, to see Rhode standing over them. She was wearing her black swimsuit.
“Teach me,” she said.
“But the sun’s hardly up,” said Devit. The sun had barely crested the trees. The temperature, too, was something Jasdevi might call “warm” instead of “hot” or “goddamned sweltering.”
Jasdero sat up and combed dirt out of his hair with his fingers.
“I can almost swim,” said Rhode.
The twins looked at each other. “Now that Jasdevi are awake….” said Jasdero.
Devit ducked under the hammock and picked Rhode up around her waist. She squealed with laughter. However, as they entered the lake, she gasped and elbowed him in the back of the neck. He cried out and dropped her into the water.
“It is made of ice cubes!” she said, shivering. She stood up where the water only reached her knees.
“Feels refreshing,” said Jasdero, splashing into the lake and not stopping until he was completely submerged. He emerged seconds later with his hair plastered down. An ecstatic grin was on his face.
Rhode regarded the ice-cold lake with trepidation. Devit stood by her rubbing his neck. “You gonna stand or you gonna swim? Remember to take a big breath, you’ll float better.”
Jasdero turned his grin on Rhode. “Try to reach Dero-”
By the time the adults had woken up and the weather was what Jasdevi would call “hot,” Rhode was out deep enough that she couldn’t stand. She raised splashes as she paddled in erratic circles. The twins tread water on either side of her.
Jasdero said, “You’re swimming thanks to Jasdevi!” and giggled.
“Yeah, a hundred years from now, you’ll think about us and say, ‘Oh, I’m sooo glad Jasdevi taught me to swim! They’re the best Noahs ever! I love Jasdevi!’” said Devit, using falsetto as necessary.
“‘If only I hadn’t stabbed them through the skull for being full of themselves,’” mimicked Rhode. But her eyes were shining. “I’m not leaving the lake until vacation is over,” she declared.
Tiki and Skinn, with swimming trunks and lemonade, walked out of the cottage. They sat next to each other on the dock. Rhode swam over with more enthusiasm than finesse and held to the dock. Jasdero and Devit trailed after her.
“You can swim!” said Tiki.
“You can swim,” agreed Skinn.
“I can swim,” said Rhode.
“We taught her,” said Devit.
“The lake feels so nice, Tiki!” Rhode tread water for a few seconds before gripping the pier again. Her smile left her face for the first time in ten minutes as she took on a look of puzzlement. “But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you swimming, Tiki…”
It was generally agreed that swimming lessons were in order.
Prompt: 08. Holiday
Notes: Like the first fic I posted here, this was written for seylyn for the DGray Gift Exchange. It's made of cuteness and fluff. I love you, Seylyn! Thank you for the drawings you've given me--I treasure them all.
The Earl called together five of the Noahs and told them they’d been working very hard. “Therefore, you deserve to go on a vacation,” he told Rhode, Tiki, Skinn, Jasdero, and Devit as they crowded around him in a drawing room made smaller by his presence.
There was an outcry of joy from Rhode and the twins; Skinn smiled and Tiki (forming plans to return to his laborer friends and Eaze) looked more relaxed already.
“But where should we go?” asked Devit.
“I have saved time by asking Rhode the sort of place where she would like to vacation,” said the Earl. “You are going to a lakeside house in the country for a week.”
Rhode clapped her hands together. “‘Somewhere hot where I can sip cold drinks and do nothing at all.’ Thank you, Millennium Earl!” She hugged him, which was to say she pressed herself against his stomach.
“Anything you wish, Rhode dear.” The Millennium Earl detached her.
Skinn was smiling his agreement. The twins visibly struggled between happiness and anger that the Earl hadn’t consulted them, until Jasdero exclaimed “Swimming!” After that they just looked excited.
Tiki silently cancelled his plan to relax with his friends.
“Can you all be ready by tomorrow morning?” the Earl asked.
The general consensus was that they could. The Noahs parted to let the Earl through, then followed him out like chicks after a mother hen-except for Tiki. He lingered a moment to pull a card and its prisoner from his pocket.
“Lord Tiiiiki Miiiiick,” wheezed the wormlike prisoner.
“So. Summer vacation. I won’t be hunting Allen Walker or his friends for awhile.”
“Lord Tiikii Miiick…. What is this ‘vacation?’ Should you continue your work instead… the Earl will be… most impressed….” It kept mumbling-something about vacations being a sign of laziness in youth, if not a harbinger of the end of the world-in its tiny voice.
Tiki stared at it blankly. “You watch the house,” he said, and set it face down on a table.
A little smaller and the lake could have been called a pond. Still, its glassy green surface was pretty, and, in the oppressive heat, inviting. A low pier extended into the lake. There was a small rowboat moored there. The trees surrounding the lake and streams were a fresh green, and a beige brick cottage with wide windows nestled among trees of its own. It had enough bedrooms for Rhode to get one all to herself.
A cluster of Noahs stood in the pebbly clearing that sloped down to the lake. They carried bags and boxes, except for Rhode, who had entrusted hers to Skinn and Jasdero.
The heat was set to prove that it was midsummer, and they had been in the cottage no more than a minute by the time Skinn had unbuttoned his shirt, Tiki had lost his shirt, and the twins were in swimming trunks. Jasdero had even removed the bandages from his arms. Rhode was still unlacing her boots in the living room.
“I’m not going to move for days,” Rhode smugly told her half-dressed companions. And, to Tiki, “Make me lemonade.”
Jasdero and Devit had looked half-strangled by the heat since the moment they’d arrived. “Too stuffy,” said Jasdero, upon which he and his brother left the cabin and entered their new home, the lake. (Since guns did not take kindly to water, they left them in their room.)
Tiki found that Akuma servants had stocked the pantry. He also found the cellar. There was a delightful chill emanating from the cellar’s darkness, and following the stairs down Tiki found enormous blocks of ice occupying the small space.
Amply supplied with lemons, Tiki set about making lemonade.
Jasdero and Devit were happy with the lake. The lake was heaven.
Both were capable of conversing while treading water. “Weather’s damn hot!” said Jasdero, submerged up to his chin.
“Felt like God was trying to fry us,” said Devit.
“But he gave us this lake,” said Jasdero.
“Your mascara’s running,” said Devit, and the ensuing battle of splashes finished off the last of their mascara.
Skinn sat in the shade of trees near the water’s edge. He watched the splashing, shouting, laughing boys for awhile, then fell into a pleasant nap.
Rhode made Tiki set up a folding chair under the shade of cottage-side trees. They piled it high with cushions from the living room. Rhode then lugged out a volume of Shakespeare’s plays and began to fulfill her intention of not moving. The only concessions she made were to turning pages and holding out her hand for one of the lemonades Tiki brought out on a tray.
Tiki was living off lemonade. When he wasn’t pumping water, chipping ice, or squeezing lemons, he was sitting on the pier drinking cold lemonade while he submerged his legs in the water. The most intimate he’d gotten with Nature was hacking out its more desirable minerals in mines. The lake and woods surrounding him now were a lot prettier.
He watched Skinn swim out into the lake. The twins were treading water in the middle. As Skinn swam past them with powerful strokes, Jasdero caught his shoulder. Jasdero’s words carried to Tiki. “Bet you can’t hold your breath longer than Dero-”
“Trust me, you’re wrong-”
While they were submerged, Devit swam over to Tiki. “You wanna race me to the other side of the lake?”
“Nah, I like it here,” said Tiki.
“You’re so lazy. Or are you afraid you’ll get clean?” Devit snickered.
Tiki shrugged off his comment, so Devit turned his attention to Rhode. She was lounging on her chair reading, as usual. Devit swam to where he could stand. “Hey, Rhode, it’s been two days and you haven’t even touched the lake yet. Come on in-you’re crazy to stay out in the heat!”
Blond hair dripping, Jasdero suddenly surfaced beside Devit and said, “Jasdero lost.”
“Too bad,” said Devit. “Y’know, Rhode hasn’t been in the lake yet. Think we should throw her in?”
“Sure!” said Jasdero.
Shielded from the sweltering heat by being completely soaked. Jasdero and Devit advanced on Rhode.
Rhode shut her book and held it close. “Don’t you even try,” she said.
“Heehee! Sorry to get your clothes wet, Rhode,” said Jasdero, who may have been apologetic but was grinning widely.
“Off the end of the pier with her,” Devit said with a wicked grin of his own.
“Do it and you two are going home early with stab wounds,” said Rhode. When Jasdero put his dripping hands on her shoulders anyway, she continued hurriedly, “I can’t swim!”
“What!?” exclaimed Jasdero.
“Yeah right,” said Devit.
“I actually can’t swim,” said Rhode, deadpan.
Jasdero backed off. Devit called, “Tiki, can Rhode swim?”
Tiki was peacefully finishing his lemonade on the pier. “Rhode, can you swim?”
“No,” said Rhode.
The twins stared. They were amazed to discover that they could do something that Rhode couldn’t, for such things were few and far between. They consulted each other in whispers.
Devit turned to Rhode, whose face was obscured behind her book. “Don’t worry, we’ll teach you,” he said.
Rhode didn’t take them up on it. In fact, she didn’t speak to them for the rest of the day. She took her book of plays to dinner and hid behind it until she finished her bowl of strawberry ice cream. When dinner was over, she went to her room to read by candlelight.
Jasdero finished his third helping of macaroni and his second of salad. He turned to Tiki and asked, “How come Rhode can’t swim?”
“Just ‘cause she’s Rhode doesn’t mean she can do everything,” said Devit from behind them. Still in his swim trunks, he was leaning out the window to catch the breeze.
“There are a lot of people who can’t swim,” said Tiki. “If you’re a kid growing up in a city, the only lakes and rivers around are too filthy to swim in. It’s not as if most people need to swim.”
“Heehee! So much water, and people can’t swim? That’s funny!” said Jasdero.
“We had a pond where we’d swim around in the summer…” said Devit.
Jasdero took one of the five lemonade glasses surrounding Tiki’s empty plate. “Rhode knows the world is mostly water-she told Jasdero so!”
“Sometimes in the fall, too. It froze up in winter, though…”
Tiki shook his head. “You country kids!”
“We’d beat you up, but we’re on vacation,” said Devit. He climbed out the window, ran down the pier, and dived into the lake.
“Thanks for dinner, mean Tiki,” said Jasdero.
“Sure,” Tiki said as Jasdero clambered out the window.
Rhode continued to refuse their lessons. “No,” she’d say, and hurl cushions at them and turn back to King Lear. The cushions (and the unbearable heat) drove the twins back into the lake. Rhode was content where she was-except for how she felt Jasdero and Devit were taunting her by swimming around as if it were as natural as walking. She held her book up so that they were somewhere behind it. However, she couldn’t hide the sound of their laughing and splashing.
Jasdero and Devit believed that the only way to survive in the heat was to be sopping wet at all times. They helped each other out by splashing gouts of lakewater over each other’s heads in case the sun dried out their hair. Sneaking up underwater and dunking each other was also found to be effective. It was difficult for Jasdero and Devit to catch each other off guard, because they were conscious of where, in general, the other twin was, but this only made them try harder. They also tried to help Skinn. They were there to splash him when he approached the lake. Once, they imagined a sphere of water over his head while he was napping. This led to an exciting lake chase that Rhode lowered her book to watch; the twins were faster, so it lasted until Skinn had calmed down. Tiki, too, got splashed when he sat on the pier or waded into the lake up to his waist. He found it refreshing.
The twins were offended by Rhode’s refusal to get wet. She’d made Skinn take her out in the rowboat that morning, but she hadn’t touched the water. Four days, and she wouldn’t even dip her toes in.
“Rhode, last chance to move your book,” said Devit from close by.
Rhode lowered the volume of plays, which she’d been having trouble concentrating on, to find that Jasdero and Devit were on the attack again. This time they held a sphere of water between their raised hands. Rhode threw the book at Devit’s head.
He fell backward. The water vanished as gave Jasdero gave a short cry and knelt by his twin. “Oww. Goddammit,” said Devit, rubbing the bruise on his temple as he sat up.
“Jasdero, could you hand me that book?” Rhode asked sweetly.
Jasdero hesitated, glancing between her and Devit. His expression settled on anger. He picked up the book by a corner and walked away. Devit strolled by his side. “Hey, what are you doing?” shouted Rhode as Jasdero walked along the pier (population: Tiki). She sat up and ran after him.
“You sure about this, Jasdero?” Tiki asked as the twins walked behind him.
“Hee!”
“Okay.”
Jasdero held the book up over the water. He looked over his shoulder at Rhode. “Say you’re sorry!”
“You two attacked me,” said Rhode.
Devit whispered something in Jasdero’s ear. Jasdero grinned broadly at Rhode and dropped the book into the water.
“Hey!” yelled Rhode, and shoved Devit into the pond. Jasdero reflexively caught his arm and fell in head-first after him.
When they surfaced, they grinned up at an angry Rhode. It wasn’t very satisfying to push Jasdero or Devit into the lake, because they preferred the water to the air.
“Now that you’ve ruined my book, you’re going home and spending days in the basement,” Rhode said. She was already plotting to grab the pistols from their cottage bedroom and hurl them into the lake.
“We didn’t ruin it,” said Devit. “It’s in a big bubble of air.”
“Then get it back right this instant. Tiki-”
“You could get it back yourself,” said Devit, “if you let us teach you to swim.”
Rhode paused. The truth was that after doing nothing for several days, Rhode had grown bored of her book, bored of lying around. Now she had the perfect opportunity to do something active without contradicting her earlier words. “You’ve caught me,” she said.
Rhode emerged from the cottage in a black swimsuit she’d dug up from one of her bags. She ran down and paused at the water’s edge. Jasdero and Devit were waiting hopefully where the water came up to their shoulders. Rhode dipped a toe into the lake. “It’s like ice cubes!” she said.
“Doesn’t Rhode like ice cubes?” said Jasdero.
“You call yourself the oldest, but you can’t swim. It’s too good!” said Devit. “Time for Jasdevi to help you-but you’ll have to get in the water first.”
Rhode advanced until the water was up to her chest.
“Good, good! Now touch off from the bottom and try to stay afloat,” instructed Devit.
Wearing a serious expression, Rhode flailed around in front of them.
“Heeheehee! Rhode’s swimming!” said Jasdero.
Devit paddled back and forth in front of Rhode. “You can’t just splash around, you gotta move your arms more evenly. And, uh… put your fingers together….”
Rhode’s flailing moved her deeper into the lake. She started coughing. Jasdero was there in an instant, gripping her shoulders and steering her back to where she could touch the bottom.
“You guys… are crazy,” said Rhode once she’d coughed the water out. Her wet hair fell around her face. “The lake’s just waiting to drown you.”
Devit grinned. “Noahs dying in a lake on vacation? Funny, but not the way we’re gonna go. Now try to reach me.” He retreated until he was treading water.
“What? I just breathed in part of this lake, you know. I have to rest. I’m delicate,” said Rhode. She slogged towards shore, but Jasdero swam round to block her.
“Heehee! Try!” he said. “Can’t leave until you try.”
“I’m moving farther oooout,” called Devit, doing just that.
Rhode glanced between the shore and Devit, then launched herself at him.
Evening came. Rhode left the lake with a certain reluctance that was not missed by Tiki, who, lemonade always at hand, had been entertaining himself by watching the swimming lessons. Rhode trotted along the dock to him. “I can nearly swim!” she said. “Jasdevi say so.”
“Congratulations,” said Tiki.
“Tikiii, give me your lemonade.”
“Your prize.” Tiki handed it over. She drank the remnants in one long draught, said, “Tikii, make me more lemonade.”
“Soon…” Tiki said. Rhode made an irritated noise, and sat beside him. She kicked her feet in the water.
Meanwhile, the twins ran dripping into the cottage and emerged with a hammock. Although they tied it between two trees quickly enough, it took them ten tries before they both got in it without falling out.
The next morning Jasdero and Devit fell out of the hammock again. They awoke, startled, to see Rhode standing over them. She was wearing her black swimsuit.
“Teach me,” she said.
“But the sun’s hardly up,” said Devit. The sun had barely crested the trees. The temperature, too, was something Jasdevi might call “warm” instead of “hot” or “goddamned sweltering.”
Jasdero sat up and combed dirt out of his hair with his fingers.
“I can almost swim,” said Rhode.
The twins looked at each other. “Now that Jasdevi are awake….” said Jasdero.
Devit ducked under the hammock and picked Rhode up around her waist. She squealed with laughter. However, as they entered the lake, she gasped and elbowed him in the back of the neck. He cried out and dropped her into the water.
“It is made of ice cubes!” she said, shivering. She stood up where the water only reached her knees.
“Feels refreshing,” said Jasdero, splashing into the lake and not stopping until he was completely submerged. He emerged seconds later with his hair plastered down. An ecstatic grin was on his face.
Rhode regarded the ice-cold lake with trepidation. Devit stood by her rubbing his neck. “You gonna stand or you gonna swim? Remember to take a big breath, you’ll float better.”
Jasdero turned his grin on Rhode. “Try to reach Dero-”
By the time the adults had woken up and the weather was what Jasdevi would call “hot,” Rhode was out deep enough that she couldn’t stand. She raised splashes as she paddled in erratic circles. The twins tread water on either side of her.
Jasdero said, “You’re swimming thanks to Jasdevi!” and giggled.
“Yeah, a hundred years from now, you’ll think about us and say, ‘Oh, I’m sooo glad Jasdevi taught me to swim! They’re the best Noahs ever! I love Jasdevi!’” said Devit, using falsetto as necessary.
“‘If only I hadn’t stabbed them through the skull for being full of themselves,’” mimicked Rhode. But her eyes were shining. “I’m not leaving the lake until vacation is over,” she declared.
Tiki and Skinn, with swimming trunks and lemonade, walked out of the cottage. They sat next to each other on the dock. Rhode swam over with more enthusiasm than finesse and held to the dock. Jasdero and Devit trailed after her.
“You can swim!” said Tiki.
“You can swim,” agreed Skinn.
“I can swim,” said Rhode.
“We taught her,” said Devit.
“The lake feels so nice, Tiki!” Rhode tread water for a few seconds before gripping the pier again. Her smile left her face for the first time in ten minutes as she took on a look of puzzlement. “But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you swimming, Tiki…”
It was generally agreed that swimming lessons were in order.