Chapter 5

The girls enjoyed their outing to the seashore, quickly learning how to swim in the warm waters, befriended by some porpoise (no doubt partly due to Jim.) and wildly cavorting with them.

Since the Porpoise taught them to swim they didn’t dog-paddle like Missy did with a slightly panic stricken look of determination but instead they somehow arrowed through the water and at times towed by the playful curious creatures. Jim also demonstrated that he could swim underwater quite fast, popping up quite far away like a monstrous seal. (he had a large head) The playful porpoise were too respectful of Jim to cavort interactively.

They appreciated the climate being warm enough to drop the clothing Long-winter had forced upon them while out-of-doors. Jack didn’t try to impose any of his vestigial morals upon them, although he did teach them as a game wrestling moves designed to foil over amorous and persistent mashers although he didn’t inflict his worries on them, just the skills to have their own wishes be paramount.

Jack convinced them that wearing attire when visitors arrived or when away visiting was decorative and festive, but it was hit and miss, and if the guests stayed overnight all bets were off.

He also taught them deadly skills to destroy any monsters in human form who were intent upon harm, like that cocodrilo. The twins promised to be aware that perhaps not every one was harmless.

Although a lot of the relict human population had re-located to warmer climes yet the numbers were low enough that the group met no one on their sojourn home.

Jim scouted out the neighbors, there were a few about, and more beyond. A whole monastery of Buddhist monks who were chanting in group meditation when the magnetic polar shift occurred, had just been kept in the group trance by the Master, for 68 hours, chanting in grounding, supporting unison. They pursued their own goals and ends, and didn’t offer much by way of help or hinder.

Jim encountered a head trip who knew he was more than he seemed, and he insisted on telling Jim about how he had been tripping heavy on three mikes of looking-glass cellophane when the sky had opened up from the muffling blanket and he could clearly hear the celestial music, the singing of space. Jim was polite but unimpressed. The dude was lucky to have survived the violence.

Jim found a single mom with two young children- She was a helicopter mother, very involved and providential, of very loving to smothering mothering. Her progeny were a young lad of 12 and his little sister who was five. During their visit Jack had to distract the slightly obsessive woman since the twins were showing an interest in the young man, the first person they had met of approximately their own age. They later confessed that they hadn’t found him to be very bright, but Jack defended his gender, and said that any male would be mentally overwhelmed by the both of them, let alone either.

The boy paid equal attention to both Dragonfly and Porcupine, which was a good choice since they were very tight and wouldn’t accept anyone wedging between them. His name was Trey(von) and he seemed trainable since his mother had invested a lot of time on him. But Jack didn’t hold out much hope for Trey loosing the apron strings, he was a mamma’s boy through and through, a survival trait with such a strong personality in authority.