Lauren--Part Ten

Splog # 38

Ten

   Lauren waited to see if Splog had any response to that but he only muttered quietly "That makes sense" with his head bent down and his eyes on his feet.

   "My mother told me that the hill we live on is called Witch Hill but she said she didn't know any reason why it might be called that. It's a wonderful hill with trees and flowers and bushes. And all kinds of animals and birds. There are squirrels and chipmunks and skunks and raccoons and snakes and frogs and turtles and even some deer. I don't know too many of the birds but I can recognize owls and cardinals and robins and blue jays and sparrows and crows and hummingbirds and...and sometimes way up high there are hawks or falcons, I'm not too sure which, and...I think those are all the ones I know the names of. And there's a brook that leads to a small pond where I learned how to swim and it freezes in winter and you can go ice skating but it's pretty small so you can't go too far in one direction but you can make circles and figure eights. And there's a big meadow and part of it is slanted so when it snows you can go sledding. And at night there are ever so many stars and my mother knows their names and she tells me which are stars and which ones are really planets that look just like stars but are brighter, usually, and she shows me how you can make pictures by connecting stars and those are the constellations and because my birthday is in July I was born under the constellation Cancer which is a crab and sometimes my parents say I'm crabby but not too often and I don't like that the crab's name is Cancer because that's a terrible disease. I got the chicken pox once and it was very hard not to scratch because they were terribly itchy but my mother and father would put lotion on me to help with the itch and one of them would always keep me company and we would play games like checkers or cards and they would take turns reading to me and sometimes I would read to them. We read "Peter Pan" and "The Wind in the Willows" and "David Copperfield" which was fairly difficult because the author, whose name is Charles Dickens, wrote a long time ago and some of his words people don't use any more and he wrote awfully long sentences which sometimes are hard to follow so you have to pay attention very carefully. And the sunsets on the hill are sometimes very pretty to watch and sometimes my mom or dad will get me up to watch the sunrise which is sometimes nice and sometimes plain depending on whether there are any clouds or not. And besides my schoolwork I have to do chores. I have to make my bed and do the dishes for one meal every day but we take turns of which meal we clean up for. I like lunch the best because a lot of times it's just soup and sandwiches and so there isn't really a lot of cleaning up to do. And sometimes I sweep the floor or rake leaves or shovel snow or clean windows. I don't mind. But I don't really like washing clothes very much. But Mum does that better than I do and I think she enjoys it because she hums or sings while she's doing it and she doesn't ask me to do it very much. I have a swing on a tree not so far from my house. That's fun too. And I climb trees quite well. I only really fell once and it wasn't really very high but I did hurt my arm a little but it was only stiff for a few days. My mother put it in a sling and that was fun because I had to do things without my arm and try to write with my other hand. And they had to help me put my clothes and shoes on and I had to be careful not to roll on it when I was in bed."

   Lauren was enjoying rambling on aimlessly. Every once in a while she would look over to Splog to see how he was doing. He rarely looked back because he was concentrating on his feet but every once in a while he would nod his head or mutter "Mm-hm". So she guessed he was listening to her. She kept trying to catch a glimpse of the bottom or of how far away it might be but there didn't seem to be any end in sight. She had run out of conversation for a moment but, just as she thought of telling Splog about her father and his piano, she saw movement below her to her left. There was a figure coming up the stairs. As the figure got closer, she saw that it was a woman all dressed in black. The woman was walking up the steps in a leisurely tempo, holding her dress up a little with her right hand so that she wouldn't tread on it as she climbed. When she was about five steps below them, she looked up and her eyes met Lauren's. Her eyes looked so big to Lauren. They looked like two moons in the sky. She had very dark hair clouded around her face and that accented the brightness of her eyes. She kept her eyes on Lauren's as she passed her a few yards away. Enthralled by the woman's eyes, Lauren was unsure of whether or not she saw the woman's mouth give a slight smile of greeting. Once they had trod the  same step simultaneously, she turned her head forward and kept climbing. She hadn't paused or seemed surprised to see Lauren and Splog. She hadn't even looked at Splog as far as Lauren could tell. Lauren realized that she must have been staring rudely at the woman as she went by but the woman's expression had been calm and she hadn't seemed to react at all to Lauren's gaze. As if the woman had only seen something ordinary and commonplace. Lauren stopped moving and turned to watch the woman as she ascended.