Fandoms 20 and 21
[Title] Best Days
[Fandom] Gillian Cross's The Demon Headmaster
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] SPLAT consider the difficulties of talking about their schooldays.
"Don't you find it a bit weird?" Harvey said, at the beach, on the last day of the holiday. "When someone asks you about school?"
Lloyd, who had been muttering about nearby kids kicking sand everywhere, looked round at him, scowling. "It isn't as if you never had a normal school day in your life. There's lots of things to talk about that aren't weird."
Harvey sighed, rolled onto his stomach and began to pull together a half-hearted sandcastle. "One of my friends remembered seeing us - well, not us, but, you know, our school - and you, Di - on Eddie Hair that time. He thought it was really cool. He kept going on about how he'd loved the show, and asking what it had been like."
"Well, it's not that hard to answer," Lloyd snapped. "You could've told him about it... not being a normal school day. Or about, I don't know, how cool it was getting to see Eddie Hair in real life. Or..."
His voice trailed off.
"Oh, yeah, sure," Ingrid said, flicking sand at him. "It was amazing. Particularly the bit where we all nearly got murdered by our zombiefied classmates. What with that, and seeing Eddie, I was so excited -"
"Oh, shut up," Lloyd said. "Or your ice cream supply is no longer coming out of the SPLAT holiday fund."
"The only thing that bothers me," Ian said, "is that I can't talk about saving the world in job interviews. It seems such a shame when they ask about teamwork and initiative and I have to tell them about directing the university production of Oklahoma!"
"It was a very good production," Mandy said, grinning.
"True. But it won't make me stand out from the other candidates in the same way as certain other events might."
"You'd get put away in a loony bin," Ingrid said. "We all would." She pulled a face, wrapped her arms around her body in an imitation of a straightjacket, and collapsed dramatically onto the sand. Lloyd rolled his eyes.
"What about you, Di?" Harvey said.
His sister lowered her book, and turned to look at them.
"It is a bit odd," she said. "But... everyone's got things they can't really explain, haven't they? Or things that they know would make them sound odd. Everyone else is hiding things as well."
"What, like the fact that you're reading a book on computer programming when we're at the beach?" Ingrid said.
Dinah smiled. "Yes, I suppose so."
"And we can talk about it with each other," Mandy said. "That's something."
[Title] Snowdrops
[Fandom] Tove Jansson's Moomins
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Moomintroll thinks about winter.
The tune Snufkin was playing on his mouth organ dipped and became sadder and softer. And even though the sun was blazing and everything around them was bursting into flower, Moomintroll suddenly saw it as it had been in the depths of winter, and he felt sad too.
"I didn't use to think about it," he said. "About it not really being like this."
Snufkin stopped playing, and said, "Who says that it's not?"
"In the winter -" Moomintroll tried to explain. "There's nothing but snow, and even if you dig away at it, there's nothing underneath. Just black earth. I thought it would feel like everything was waiting for summer again, but it doesn't. It's more like summer wasn't even there. I thought sometimes I must have made it up."
He wanted Snufkin to say something reassuring, but Snufkin just started playing his mouth organ again. That, in its own way, was quite reassuring, because Snufkin was the kind of person who said things that needed to be said, not just the things that you wanted him to.
"Have you come here when it's winter?" Moomintroll asked at last. Perhaps Snufkin knew all about how it was then. Perhaps he thought Moomintroll was being stupid for caring.
But Snufkin shook his head. "When I go travelling, I go to see other places."
"But it is like another place. It... it was to me, anyway."
"Well," Snufkin said, "I come back here to see you. There wouldn't be any point coming in winter. Of course if I'd known you weren't hibernating, I'd have come to find you. I'm sure we could've found the bits where there was something. Even in a snowstorm."
The music started up again, but even though it was still sad, Moomintroll felt a little better.
[Fandom] Gillian Cross's The Demon Headmaster
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] SPLAT consider the difficulties of talking about their schooldays.
"Don't you find it a bit weird?" Harvey said, at the beach, on the last day of the holiday. "When someone asks you about school?"
Lloyd, who had been muttering about nearby kids kicking sand everywhere, looked round at him, scowling. "It isn't as if you never had a normal school day in your life. There's lots of things to talk about that aren't weird."
Harvey sighed, rolled onto his stomach and began to pull together a half-hearted sandcastle. "One of my friends remembered seeing us - well, not us, but, you know, our school - and you, Di - on Eddie Hair that time. He thought it was really cool. He kept going on about how he'd loved the show, and asking what it had been like."
"Well, it's not that hard to answer," Lloyd snapped. "You could've told him about it... not being a normal school day. Or about, I don't know, how cool it was getting to see Eddie Hair in real life. Or..."
His voice trailed off.
"Oh, yeah, sure," Ingrid said, flicking sand at him. "It was amazing. Particularly the bit where we all nearly got murdered by our zombiefied classmates. What with that, and seeing Eddie, I was so excited -"
"Oh, shut up," Lloyd said. "Or your ice cream supply is no longer coming out of the SPLAT holiday fund."
"The only thing that bothers me," Ian said, "is that I can't talk about saving the world in job interviews. It seems such a shame when they ask about teamwork and initiative and I have to tell them about directing the university production of Oklahoma!"
"It was a very good production," Mandy said, grinning.
"True. But it won't make me stand out from the other candidates in the same way as certain other events might."
"You'd get put away in a loony bin," Ingrid said. "We all would." She pulled a face, wrapped her arms around her body in an imitation of a straightjacket, and collapsed dramatically onto the sand. Lloyd rolled his eyes.
"What about you, Di?" Harvey said.
His sister lowered her book, and turned to look at them.
"It is a bit odd," she said. "But... everyone's got things they can't really explain, haven't they? Or things that they know would make them sound odd. Everyone else is hiding things as well."
"What, like the fact that you're reading a book on computer programming when we're at the beach?" Ingrid said.
Dinah smiled. "Yes, I suppose so."
"And we can talk about it with each other," Mandy said. "That's something."
[Title] Snowdrops
[Fandom] Tove Jansson's Moomins
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Moomintroll thinks about winter.
The tune Snufkin was playing on his mouth organ dipped and became sadder and softer. And even though the sun was blazing and everything around them was bursting into flower, Moomintroll suddenly saw it as it had been in the depths of winter, and he felt sad too.
"I didn't use to think about it," he said. "About it not really being like this."
Snufkin stopped playing, and said, "Who says that it's not?"
"In the winter -" Moomintroll tried to explain. "There's nothing but snow, and even if you dig away at it, there's nothing underneath. Just black earth. I thought it would feel like everything was waiting for summer again, but it doesn't. It's more like summer wasn't even there. I thought sometimes I must have made it up."
He wanted Snufkin to say something reassuring, but Snufkin just started playing his mouth organ again. That, in its own way, was quite reassuring, because Snufkin was the kind of person who said things that needed to be said, not just the things that you wanted him to.
"Have you come here when it's winter?" Moomintroll asked at last. Perhaps Snufkin knew all about how it was then. Perhaps he thought Moomintroll was being stupid for caring.
But Snufkin shook his head. "When I go travelling, I go to see other places."
"But it is like another place. It... it was to me, anyway."
"Well," Snufkin said, "I come back here to see you. There wouldn't be any point coming in winter. Of course if I'd known you weren't hibernating, I'd have come to find you. I'm sure we could've found the bits where there was something. Even in a snowstorm."
The music started up again, but even though it was still sad, Moomintroll felt a little better.