(Untitled)
WHO: Belinda (Jack the Giant Killer) and Harrison (Tweedledum)
WHEN: 6-8pm
WHERE: The Pen, lobby.
WHAT: Knitting lessons.
( k1p2, k2tog. Soon this will make sense to Harrison. (Maybe.) )
WHEN: 6-8pm
WHERE: The Pen, lobby.
WHAT: Knitting lessons.
( k1p2, k2tog. Soon this will make sense to Harrison. (Maybe.) )
Harrison was sitting in his big cardboard box in the living room, watching tv and eating Captin Crunch for dinner again. Somehow he always managed to accidentally sleep in much longer on the days he had evening shifts at Jekyll & Hyde. This Captain-Cruch-for-dinner thing had become an almost ritual on such days; a ritual that he wanted to end but was too lazy to do so. Besides, the cardboard box reminded him of his mother. In large black marker on one side of the box, it read "MUM'S CLOTHES". Sometimes, if he sat in there, closed his eyes and concentrated really hard, he could almost hear her singing in the other room as she had when he was a child hiding in that box.
A commercial for the upcoming cartoon made him realize that it was nearing six o'clock. So, he switched off his small television, climbed out of the box with minimal milk spillage, and made his way to his room to put on his costume for work. He had not yet met Belinda in person, so he was beginning to feel terribly shy. He felt this way whenever he met anyone, and it took a while for the feelings to go away. I probably will be rubbish at knitting, he thought as he threw on his oversized leather jacket. I hope Belinda won't mind. Will it really be all that sexy to see a bloke trying to knit? I'd think it would be amusing more than anything...
He looked at his reflection and ran his fingers through his hair. As tired as he might look, there was no hiding the fact that he was quite handsome. With a final nervous sigh, he collected his keys and went downstairs to the lobby to find Belinda. He didn't have the faintest idea what she looked like, so finding her would be interesting. Luckily, the collection of knitting supplies gave her away. He cautiously walked toward her and smiled a smile which betrayed his shyness. "Hello," he said timidly. "Are you Belinda?"
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"Harrison? Reporting for knitting lessons?" she asked him, smile not fading right away. "Fantastic. Where should we settle down?" Belinda wasn't too familiar with the layout of the Pen, so she had no idea where there were sitting areas or couches. "Preferably someplace quiet," she added, adjusting the tote under her arm.
Belinda was dressed far more casually than usual, because at eight she had her Gardening Club meeting and she hated to get good clothes dirty. So it was just jeans and a pair of Converse sneakers, and her glowing wi-fi shirt (it really glowed when there were wireless signals around; the more glow meant a stronger signal) under her peacoat.
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Harrison smiled and gave a nod. "Yes, Harrison Tweed, reporting for duty." He gave a cute little salut before looking around for a quiet spot. "Uh, we could always work in the lounge over here," he stated, leading her over to the comfortable couches and chairs in the nearby Pentamerone lounge. "My flat might be quieter, but it's also a bit of a mess. I wouldn't want to subject you to that."
"Thank you so much for offering to teach me. It's one of the things my mum was planning to teach me but never got around to doing." He felt unusually comfortable with this girl and relaxed into his chair, smiling sweetly. "About the only thing I've been able to get my fingers to do is play around with synthesizers and things like that. I'm not very coordinated, I'm afraid. So you might have your work cut out for you." He chuckled.
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Unpacking her tote, she pulled out a couple of skeins of yarn, passing them over to Harrison. One was red, one blue. Simple, cheap acrylic - good to learn on. Needles got unpacked next, and then the other necessary supplies.
"Ready to start?" she smiled to him. "At first it's going to seem like you don't have enough hands to do it, but with a little practice you'll get the hang of it."
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"I don't know about that," Harri chuckled. "I'm fairly confident that my cooking skills are limited. I never did catch Ratatouille, either, so I guess I fail at seeing popular flicks, even." He noticed her glowing shirt and looked at her with curious brown eyes. "Your shirt is...glowing?" It came out more as a question than a statement, because he figured, he hoped, that she knew it was glowing.
He received the yarn with a smile and admired it. Though he had watched his mum knit a bunch of times, growing up, he couldn't recall the last time he had actually held yarn like this. It brought him back. He looked up from the yarn into Belinda's eyes, his own eyes sparkling with eagerness and enthusiasm. "I'm ready whenever you are, teacher. What are we making today?"
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All manner of self-deprication was lost when she looked up and Harrison had those eager puppy eyes pointed at her. He was so... she just wanted to pinch his cheeks. She didn't, of course; she had more decorum than that. "We're going to knit a square," she said, and then laughed. "I know, square's not that exciting, but everyone starts with squares. Then it's just a hop, skip and jump to knitting rectangles. And that's a scarf."
She held her needles aloft. "Got your needles?" she showed how she held hers, and picked up the yarn. "So first we'll cast on. Grab your yarn and a needle." She showed him how to cast on a stitch - it involved tying a fancy sort of knot onto the needle. She did it slowly, showing him how it was done. "So the tail of the yarn goes over your thumb, there. Always make sure you have a long enough tale to make your whole row. Usually you'll need a tail that's about three times as long as the row you want to make."
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Harri looked quite amazed at Belinda's shirt. "It picks up wifi signals? That's awesome! How does it work?" He did not think she was a nerd at all, and really enjoyed creative, inventive things like that. His obsession with how things work added to his childlike qualities.
He laughed when she told him what they'd be knitting. "A square? You say square, I say pot holder." He grinned. "I imagine that corners will be pretty hard to do. I don't remember my mum doing too many things with corners. She was a circle kind of gal, always making hats and things like that."
Watching her closely, he raised his needles and attempted with moderate success to mirror her every move. His delicate hands fumbled slightly, but he was so careful that he was able to make a whole row with hardly any problem. Any time he made a mistake, he let out a cute little laugh. "My fingers aren't used to so much exercise."
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"That's the spirit! Everyone starts with pot holders. And tea cozies. Coasters. Place mats. There are a zillion things to do with squares and rectangles. I once knit a robot out of a bunch of different-shaped squares. Just sewed them up and stuffed it." It was a proud moment. She grinned a bit more, at his mention of his mother. "Ah, knitting in the round? I'm working on a sock, so I have it on dpns - double-pointed needles, I mean. Here, I'll show you," she pulled out her current project - it was probably a bit daunting, to see something being worked in the round. The stitches were spread out along four different needles, situated in a circle.
Determined not to get too enchanted by this tiny, cute, pixie-man - she sure was getting attracted to a lot of men lately, wasn't she? It'd been a while since she'd... well, years, really. Four of them. She hadn't dared to even date after the disaster with her last boyfriend (husband) and so it was a sudden shock to find herself attracted to not just one, but a couple of men at once.
"Your fingers are doing fine," she reassured him, smiling. "You've cast on your first row. Now, grab your other needle. The one the yarn on it already goes in your left hand, empty needle in your right. Hold the yarn on your left, too. Usually, I wrap it around my pinkie." She showed him how to knit a stitch, on the needle she'd just cast on, her sock-in-progress set aside for now.
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