Eric--Part Forty-One

Splog # 178

Forty-One

 Splog returned the child's embrace in a crouch and then stood up and gestured to Eric.

 "I'd like to introduce a young friend of mine who is a stranger to Parkwold. This is Eric. Eric, this is Jan and Hes and their daughter, Kiz."

 Seeing the couple rising from their meal, Eric hurried over to save them the inconvenience. They all shook hands and exchanged greetings, Eric quickly finding the response of "No waste" to emerge as second nature.

 While Kiz was holding on to his hand, she asked,

 "Where do you come from?"

 Eric took a breath. The whole family was looking at him with interest in their eyes.

 "Eric has come from quite a distance away." Splog spoke directly to Kiz. "In fact, he's come so far that he sometimes can't remember exactly how he got from there to here."

 Kiz looked at Eric with wonder in her eyes.

 "Why did you come here?"

 Eric slowly opened his mouth and glanced at Splog.

 "Eric is here to aid me with some difficult problems I've been attempting to discover solutions for."

 "I have a problem," Kiz said to Eric. "Sometimes when I'm trying to swim, I can keep my head up but sometimes it goes down and once I got water in my nose and it didn't feel good but when it went down my throat I almost started choking and I had to keep spitting a lot..."

 Kiz was cut off by both parents protesting against her monopoly of the conversation. She heard them out patiently and then turned back to Eric and asked,

 "How old are you? Do you have a middle name?"

 Splog moved to sit with the parents, who had wisely decided against trying to restrain the natural loquacity of their offspring.

 She and Eric sat on the floor of branches right were they were and Eric responded,

 "I'm fourteen and my middle name is Stephen."

 "I'm six and I'm trying to find a middle name that I like. What do you think of Mar?"

 "Mar." Eric repeated the name a couple of times, once letting the "r" roll off his tongue. "Mar. That has a pleasant sound."

 "Say Kiz Mar."

 Eric repeated the name and Kiz reflected on what she heard for a moment.

 "I guess there's plenty of time to decide. Did you have your breakfast?"

 "I did, yes. I ate with Splog and three of his friends."

 "Who?"

 "Bev and Cor and Nol."

 The little girl got up and went to her parents. "Bev and Cor and Nol are here!"

 "Would you like to go see them?"

 "Could we?"
 "Why don't you start cleaning up while Splog and Mommy and I finish talking and then we'll go say hi."

 Kiz immediately started taking dishes from the table and bringing them to what appeared to be a dumbwaiter carved into an especially large branch. Eric got up to help her and together they cleared off the table. As they were loading the dumbwaiter, Kiz resumed chatting nonchalantly.

 "Bev helps me with my swimming sometimes. And she rides me on her horse, too. She has a rabbit. His name is - is..." Eric tried to remember what Bev had called the rabbit but couldn't bring it to mind. "Rab," Kiz finally decided.

 Eric wasn't quite sure if that was it but only said, "She brought him up here with her. But I don't remember seeing him while we were eating."

 "She probably just left him on the floor in a corner with some vegetables. He's very soft and cuddly and he doesn't bite."

 On the floor near the dumbwaiter was a wooden bucket from which Kiz took a cloth and wrung it out until it was no longer dripping water. She brought it to the table and began to wipe but her father took it from her and continued the job.

 Kiz came back to Eric. "Is it hard to help Splog with his problem?"

 Eric admitted, "We haven't really done much work yet. We were just going for a walk and he was going to explain it to me when we heard you."

 "Maybe I could help too," Kiz offered. "I wonder if it's about swimming." Eric smiled. "Probably not," Kiz admitted. "He's old so he can probably swim without getting water in his nose and mouth. Can you swim?"

 "I can. Swimming is one of my favorite recreations."