Chapter 3: Christmas with the Primdales

He woke up before anyone else, of course, and hurried to take a shower then head downstairs for breakfast. It felt like waking up on Christmas morning.

The others joined him not long after. Brit, of course, teased him incessantly, but he was so excited that he forgot to fight with her, so the morning went relatively peacefully.

At 8:30, just as before, Allison arrived. He was thrilled to see her again, especially knowing that he would get to spend the day alone with her. She seemed to be in good spirits, just like before, and talked and joked with the family until it was time for them to leave.

As soon as they drove away, Allison turned to Jeff. "I was looking forward to spending this time with you," she said.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes. I used to play multi-player computer games with my students in the computer lab all the time before I lost my teaching job, but since then I haven't had a chance," she explained. That was when he noticed that she had brought over her laptop computer.

They went up to his room and she set to work networking it with his. He was amazed at how technically minded she was; in his experience, most women were at best uninterested in computers, and at worst, afraid of them.

"You don't graduate college with a math-related degree without knowing your way around computers," she explained. "Our knowledge of math has progressed to the point that it's impossible to prove, and in most cases even research, new mathematical theorems without computers these days; they're that complex."

He had no idea what she was talking about; math had never been his strong subject, but computers were perfectly understandable to him. He could write papers for school, look up stuff on-line, and play games on them. There was probably math involved in programming them, but he wasn't interested in programming. Mainly just games.

Surprisingly, she had a dozen games installed, most with some form of multi-player capability. They spent the rest of that day brutally punishing each other, figuratively speaking. He was surprised at her skill; he could hold his own with some of the other boys in the school, but he didn't think anyone over twenty was interested enough to spend the time needed to get good at it, especially a girl. Allison, however, managed to keep right up with him, and even won a few games.

After that, any misgivings he might have had about her simply vanished. All it took was a simple common interest in computer games, and suddenly he felt comfortable with her.

They shot a little pool that afternoon, and Jeff gave her a few more pointers, helping her with her aim, how to hold the cue, and how to pick the best shots. She was a quick learner, soon getting into the hang of things although certainly not competing at professional skill level by any means. She didn't win a single game against him, but she didn't seem to mind a bit. In fact, she looked like she was just happy to be spending the time with him. Of course, he felt exactly the same way.

When they decided to play a game of ping-pong, though, she beat him almost without effort. She explained that her parents had a table just like this one at home, and she would sometimes spend hours practicing with her friends or her sister. Jeff wasn't exactly thrilled with losing every single game, but with Allison laughing every time she made a mistake, or deliberately and sometimes comically missing shots just to give him a running chance, she actually made losing fun. Until that point, Jeff hadn't really understood the concept of "it's just a game," but now he realized that the score really didn't matter in the end; it was more important to enjoy himself than to win.

It was a shame when Greg and the girls returned that night; Jeff could have gone another day with her. But he had to be fair and let Brit take a turn.

The next day Allison arrived again at the appointed time, and soon Brit found herself alone with the woman. As soon as the van was out of sight, Allison immediately turned to her.

"Your father told me you like to draw," Allison commented.

"Yeah," said Brit.

"What kinds of things do you draw?"

"Fantasy stuff, mostly."

"Fantasy? I assume you're not talking about big-breasted barbarian princesses in chain mail bikinis," Allison smiled.

Brit gave an embarrassed laugh. "No, of course not," she said. "I mostly draw fairies and unicorns."

"Really? Would you mind if I saw some of your drawings?"

"I don't know..." Brit mumbled. "I'm not very good."

"I've never been a big fan of false modesty. Besides, nobody starts out good, so what does it matter if you're still learning?"

"Okay fine, but you have to promise not to laugh."

"I only laugh at things that are intentionally funny."

Brit headed to her room, where she pulled her sketchbook from her desk. Then she headed downstairs, where Allison was sitting on the couch. Brit plopped herself down beside her and opened it up.

They flipped through the drawings slowly, and Allison made comments about each of them. As she had said, Brit drew mostly fairies and unicorns, with the occasional dragon, castle, princess, or knight. There were pages of figure studies, of fantastical creatures in various poses, and one or two full drawings. Actually, now that she had the chance to look at them with a critical eye, she realized that they weren't all that bad after all. She had her weaknesses, but they were nothing that couldn't be overcome.

"May I give you a word of constructive criticism?" asked Allison.

"What?"

"You do marvelous work on the subjects of the drawings themselves. I don't see much effort put into the backgrounds, though."

"I know. I'm really not that good with landscapes."

"Any particular reason?"

"Part of it is the perspective. I can never get things the right sizes. And then, just visualizing things. Horizons, especially, like with mountains and things. It always ends up looking flat, like those mountains are just a cardboard cutout behind the subjects."

"Then it seems to me that you just need to develop an eye for landscapes."

"I suppose so. But how would I go about doing that?"

"I noticed there's a park down at the bottom of the hill, about a mile away."

"Yeah, we like to go there to play sometimes during the summer."

"Do you have a camera?"

"No."

"Then you can borrow mine. Let's go down to the park and have you take some reference pictures. Start building up a photography portfolio. When you get stuck on visualizing things, you can refer to those pictures."

Brit smiled. "That sounds like a great idea!" she said.

Allison gave Brit a five-minute lesson on how to use her camera, then the two of them climbed into her car and headed down to the park. The weather was cool but not cold, and the most of the trees had lost their leaves. There were still enough bright autumn colors, however, that Brit was able to take a lot of good pictures. There were places where Brit could take shots of the mountains in the distance, but mostly she just photographed the scenery around the park.

"There are a lot of flowering bushes," Allison commented. "It's too bad none of them are in season. I would love to come here during the spring; it must be beautiful."

"Oh, it is!" Brit smiled. "It's absolutely wonderful. There's something magical about this place when the flowers are all in bloom."

"Then we'll have to come back next year so you can take some more pictures. I can imagine a bunch of fairies flying around here, or sitting on the petals of some of those flowers. And right over there would be a great spot for a unicorn to pose."

Brit made sure to snap off a picture in the direction that Allison pointed. It was great to have someone with her who could visualize things the way she could. A lot of people said that Brit had an overactive imagination, and maybe it was true. She often saw magical beings or fantastic settings in the world around her, all in her mind of course. But they were there nonetheless. When she closed her eyes her mind was always whisked away to worlds of fantasy.

Apparently Allison could see some of the same things. The two girls talked about the images in their minds, sometimes joking but sometimes serious, and bit by bit their two imaginative worlds drew together and became one. While Brit had plenty of friends, this was the first time she had met someone she could talk to about all these wonderful visions.

Allison explained that most people lost the ability to see such things as they got older, but she herself had always refused to grow up. Although her perception of the fantastic had dimmed with time, she had never lost it entirely.

"Sometimes I need a little help, though," she said. "It takes someone like you to awaken it within me."

Brit blushed at the compliment, but she was certainly pleased. Now more than ever she was glad that Allison was going to become part of their family.

They continued to take pictures all morning, then went and picked up some hamburgers at the nearest fast food place and brought them back to the park to eat. Allison said that her favorite time to take pictures was in the late afternoon as the setting sun brought out the warm colors, so they continued for several more hours. The time passed surprisingly quickly, and before they knew it, the sun was slipping below the mountains in the west.

"Time to head home," Allison told Brit, and the two of them climbed back into her car and drove back up the hill to the house.

Greg and the others hadn't quite arrived home yet, so Allison asked Brit if she had a computer to download the pictures to. Unfortunately Brit didn't because she had never really been interested in computers before, but now she wished she had one. Instead, Allison brought out her laptop and downloaded the pictures there.

They didn't have time to go through the pictures together, because the others arrived a few minutes later. Greg insisted on hearing about what they had done all day, so they talked about their excursion.

After dinner, Lissa went to her room and Greg and Allison went to theirs. That left Jeff and Brit alone in the front room together, which meant it was only a matter of time before they got in a fight.

"What's this?" asked Jeff, picking up the sketch book that Brit had dropped there that morning. Brit tried to take it away from him, but he pushed her away, then dashed up the stairs. Brit chased him to his room, where he wasn't quite fast enough to close and lock the door before she entered. So he simply sat down on his bed and opened up the sketch book.

"Give that back, Jeff. It's mine!" she complained.

"Yeah, I can tell," he said, flipping through the pages.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it obviously doesn't belong to a professional artist," he teased.

"You're just jealous because you can't draw!" she snapped.

That was true, but he wasn't going to let her win the argument that way.

"Apparently, neither can you, but at least I don't pretend I can."

To his distress, Brit suddenly burst into tears. "I hate you!" she shouted, then dashed into her bedroom.

Once more he had crossed over the line and made her cry. He always felt guilty when he did that, even though he knew she shouldn't be that sensitive. Feeling quite ashamed of what he had done to her, he followed her into her room, carrying the sketch book with him. He set it down on her desk and came over to sit on the bed by his sister, who had tears running down her cheeks.

"Brit..." he began, more softly this time.

"Get out of my room!" she shouted at him.

"Okay, what's going on here?" Lissa suddenly demanded, bursting through the door. Spying the two of them sitting there with Brit sobbing, she closed the door behind her and strode over to them. "Jeff, did you make your sister cry again?"

He had been just about to apologize, but now with Lissa butting in where she wasn't wanted, he had his honor to protect.

"No," he denied. "It's up to her whether she wants to cry or not."

"Jeff's being mean to me!" Brit blurted out.

"I thought you were supposed to be nice to her," Lissa said.

"It's her fault!" complained Jeff. "Why do you always have to take her side?"

"Because it's so much fun to punish you," Lissa replied, then pounced on him. Caught off his guard, he fell off the bed, with his big sister on top.

"Get his hands!" Lissa shouted at Brit, laughing and forcing Jeff's hands against the floor above his head. Brit's sad look instantly changed to a grin, and she knelt down on top of his wrists to pin them to the floor.

"No fair!" exclaimed Jeff. "Two against one!"

"Exactly," said Lissa. "Maybe this will teach you not to pick on your little sister." She suddenly puckered her lips and leaned in.

"No!" he shouted in playful horror, then turned his head away. This was something Lissa used to do to torture him when they were younger, but only when he was being a brat. Since their mother had left and she had suddenly gotten more mature, she had stopped doing it, until now.

She pressed her lips up against his cheek and made a loud smacking sound.

"Ew, gross!" he said.

"Just for that, I'm going to do it again," Lissa said.

"Don't you dare!"

But she ignored his pleas and kissed him again.

"Tell Brit you're sorry," she commanded.

"No way! It was her fault!"

"Okay, then we'll have to do this the hard way," she grinned, then grabbed his head and turned it face up. Once more she puckered up and very slowly leaned down. Jeff tried to turn his head away, but she held him tightly. This time she planted a big, loud kiss right on his lips.

"Blech!" he shouted, turning his head and pretending to spit. "I'm going to get rabies!"

Brit, meanwhile, was giggling hysterically. She seemed to be enjoying this every bit as much as Lissa. Perhaps that had been Lissa's plan all along, to put her in a better mood. Of course, it was at Jeff's expense, so he couldn't approve too much of what she was doing.

"Tell her you're sorry," Lissa demanded again.

"Brit, I'm not sorry," he said stubbornly.

Lissa forced his head up again and pressed her lips against his for the second time. This time she kept them there. Jeff felt humiliated and degraded, but another feeling had begun to grow inside of him. If he were anyone else, he would probably enjoy being kissed by Lissa. She was, after all, a beautiful girl. This game of Lissa's had worked well when he was younger and not interested in girls, but in the last year or so, most of his revulsion had disappeared. Now it was only the fact that she was his sister that turned him off, and even that was starting to lose its horror as his hormones reacted to being kissed by someone as pretty as her.

He had his eyes shut tight, but he stopped struggling and even relaxed his lips a little instead of keeping his mouth closed tight. The kiss suddenly became much less innocent.

Apparently Lissa noticed the change too, because she pulled away. For a moment she stared at him in surprise.

"I think he likes it," Brit teased.

"Shut up," Jeff snapped, although in fact, she was absolutely right.

"Widdle Jeffy's in wuv with big Lissa," Brit laughed.

Jeff pushed both girls off of him, something he admittedly could have done at any time. He sat up and wrapped one of his arms around Brit's neck and pulled her in to a headlock.

"Ow!" she complained.

"Take it back!" he told her.

Then he felt Lissa's hand on his arm. "Jeff, let her go," she said softly. He glanced at her. She didn't have an angry or haughty look on her face, and her tone of voice was anything but commanding. But somehow, it worked. He released Brit, who punched him in the ribs, although she wasn't strong enough to cause him anything more than the lightest discomfort.

"Brit, that's enough," said Lissa. "This game's over." She glanced once more at Jeff, then suddenly shuddered, though she had the tiniest trace of a smile on her lips. She looked a little flushed as she stood up and hurried out of the room. Jeff wondered what that was all about.

Jeff picked himself up off the floor, then headed for his own room. At the doorway he stopped and turned around.