james makes some friends!
Nov. 6th, 2011 05:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieOn Monday James can resist no longer and has to share his Saturday adventure with some of the boys in his class. He is pretty sure that his retelling of The Millionaire Pirate is not quite accurate, but he doesn’t think any of his schoolfriends will be going to see it, so it does not matter. He asks Mr Van der Waal to teach them about Jean Lafitte, but the answer he gets is “Perhaps later”.
One of the boys in James’ class has a brother who is in William’s class, so the story travels from James to the boy to his brother to William to Luisa and then to Mrs Godwin. By the time she hears the story, it is a mangled version of the actual events, but there is enough truth there for her to sit Julia and James down and have a talk with them about lying to Luisa.
“It was my fault,” Julia says. “Please do not get Luisa in trouble.”
“Luisa is not the problem,” Mrs Godwin tells her sternly. “I know she is very lenient with you, but she is a good girl and believes what you tell her. Do not lie to her again. And I do not want you riding the streetcar and traveling downtown by yourselves. You could get lost. Something could happen to you and I would not know. At least bring Con with you next time.”
Julia and James glance at each other, James thinking that Mrs Godwin has just handed them permission for all the adventures they might want, and Julia no doubt thinking the same thing.
Mrs Godwin seems to realize what she has just said.
“No. Do not under any circumstances allow Con to chaperone you anywhere without Luisa. You will all end up on the next train to Mexico and I will never see you again. If Luisa does not know the truth of where you are going, do not go. She must ask me for permission for taking you anywhere aside from school and Central Park. And yes, James, she has already mentioned to me that you asked her to take you to the movie theater on Saturday, and I have told her no. I expect you both to obey her and not lie to her again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” Julia says meekly. James nods in agreement.
“Good. No dessert for either of you for the rest of the week. I will tell Mrs Malcolm. I will have to tell your father, and if he chooses to punish you himself I will not talk him out of it.”
But Mr Godwin leaves most matters of discipline to his wife, the same as he trusts her with his children’s pre-university education. The most Julia and James have to suffer is the loss of dessert and Luisa turning a much sharper eye on them than before. She is not best pleased that they tricked her once and were planning to do it again, and for the rest of the week she keeps a close eye on James.
“It was worth it,” he tells Julia. She does not argue.
Saturday breaks dark and rainy, so even if they had managed to get Luisa to agree to take them back to Union Square for another showing of The Millionaire Pirate and the new chapter of The Masked Rider, there is no way she would have taken them, or at least not on the streetcar. Mr Sewell would have driven them, and as far as James is concerned, riding the streetcar is half the fun.
But he still has a surprise – Mrs O’Donnell, as promised, brings her two sons to play with him. James wonders if she has mentioned this to his parents, and if his mother is still punishing him for his and Julia’s adventure last weekend. He does not think she approves of his playing with the children of the staff, for the same reason Con stands no chance with Luisa. They are so different in class and background, they have no future together.
But Mrs Godwin has taken Julia shopping and James is bored and Mrs O’Donnell has made her sons sound interesting to him, and as long as his mother does not interrupt them and demand the boys go home, what is the harm? It could be fun. Perhaps he can convince them to be pirates with him, and the three of them can successfully menace William and Con in ways that he and Julia cannot.
Sean, who is older than James by a year, must look like his father, because he does not look like his mother. He has light brown hair and freckles, and he is just a bit taller than James. Liam, who is two years younger than his brother, is skinny and has darker hair that needs to be cut. Both of them are dressed in clean clothes that nevertheless look inherited from someone else,
“James, Sean, Liam,” Mrs O’Donnell says, introducing them all at once. “Do not go into the courtyard because I do not want to clean up your muddy shoeprints. Go upstairs and play.”
“Luisa!” James calls, as they thunder up the stairs to the nursery. “Mrs O’Donnell brought her sons to play!”
“Goodness,” Luisa says, looking them up and down once they finally arrive in the nursery, where she and Aimee are setting up for a tea party. William is arranging his toy soldiers in neat rows, possibly so he can declare war on Aimee’s dolls and engage them in battle before her tea party gets underway.
“That’s Sean and that’s Liam.” James points to each of the boys, and then to Luisa. “And that’s Luisa. She’s the nanny.”
“I’m Aimee,” Aimee says. She shoots James a look that seem to say “How rude of you not to introduce your sister”, but he is not sorry. He does not think she will be interested in playing with them, especially if Luisa is around to keep her occupied.
“And that young man over there is William,” Luisa says. “Ask him to play with you.”
“No,” William calls. “This is more fun.”
“Are all these toys yours?” Liam asks James, looking around the nursery with big eyes.
“Some of them are mine,” Aimee says. “But you can have the wooden trains.”
“I have a better idea,” James says, grabbing Sean’s sleeve and tugging him towards the door. “Come on.” He pulls Sean out of the nursery and down the stairs to the ballroom, Liam following after them.
James pushes the ballroom doors open and gestures at the vast empty space beyond them. The ceiling of the ballroom is twice as high as any other room in the house, and the tall arched windows look out over the street. There is nothing in the room right now but a row of upholstered chairs along a wall, leaving the expanse of polished parquet floor open and ready for sliding.
James takes off his shoes and leaves them just inside the door. He indicates that Sean and Liam should follow his lead, but they are ahead of him and have already divested themselves of a shoe each. He notices that one of Liam’s socks has a hole in the toe, and when Liam catches him looking, he just wiggles his toes to emphasize the hole.
“My older brother Con can slide all the way across the floor,” James says, scuffing over to the wall and preparing to run. Sean follows. Liam is still standing by the door, watching them.
Sean takes off first, pushing away from the wall and running a quarter of the way across the floor before aiming for the far wall and sliding. He is clearly unprepared for the slickness of the floor, because he loses his balance and flails his arms as his feet shoot out from underneath him and he lands on his behind. James stifles his laughter, thinking it rude to laugh at someone you just met, but Liam has no such manners and laughs out loud. But brothers are allowed to laugh at each other when near-strangers are not.
“Shut up!” Sean calls from his position on the floor. Liam giggles. Sean gets to his feet, brushes off his behind, and slide-walks back across the floor. “That was fun,” he says. “I’m gonna do that again.”
This time James races him, and because James has done this before but it is only Sean’s second time, James knows where to stop running and start sliding for the greatest distance. Sean skids into his slide but at least he does not fall.
They run back to the far wall, sliding into it, and this time Liam lines up with them to run. His balance is much better than his brother’s and he travels just as far, but the next time they race, Sean deliberately slides into him and knocks both of them down.
This changes the game, much to James’ delight, and now rather than trying to out-slide each other, the three boys spend their time trying to bang into each other. The ballroom floor is hard and unforgiving, but the boys are young and resilient, and even though it hurts when he slams into Liam or Sean – or they slam into him – it is so much fun that James does not care.
After a while Liam gets tired of playing bumper cars with his brother and James, and goes back to just trying to see how far he can slide across the floor. James and Sean end up chasing each other around the ballroom, until Liam gets in their way and Sean accidentally pushes him over in an attempt to get around him.
“Ow!” Liam complains. “You cow! That hurt!”
“Did you just call your brother a cow?” James asks. He has never heard that particular insult aimed at another boy.
“I called him a cow!”
Sean giggles. Liam looks indigant, but if that is because his brother is laughing at him or because his brother pushed him down, James can’t tell. It isn’t any different from the way he and Con and William act around each other, anyway.
“Don’t run into me any more!” Liam insists.
“Ok, ok,” Sean says. “No more running into you. But I can chase you.”
Liam looks exaggeratedly scared and takes off running. Sean follows, and James follows after him, and the three of them slide and chase each other around the ballroom.
They are interrupted by Mrs O’Donnell, who shoves the ballroom doors open, sees them, and yells “Sean Murphy O’Donnell! You stop chasing your brother this instant!” Sean is so distracted that he forgets to turn, falls on his butt, and slides sideways into one of the chairs along the wall.
“Are you alright?” James asks worriedly, skidding to a stop near him. But Sean gets right up, brushes himself off, and stands up straight as his mother stalks over to him.
“Out,” she says, pointing to the door. Liam is already putting his shoes on. From this distance, he looks contrite. “Do not scuff the Godwins’ good parquet floor.”
“We weren’t wearing shoes,” Sean protests.
“I do not care. This is not a playroom.” She is still pointing to the door. She is not Luisa and James does not in general feel obliged to obey her, but there is enough of Mrs Godwin and Luisa in her tone that he sheepishly slides over to the doorway to put his shoes back on.
Mrs O’Donnell herds the boys downstairs and into the kitchen, so Mrs Malcolm can feed them.
words: 1938
total words: 10,551
quickie research: none for this bit
One of the boys in James’ class has a brother who is in William’s class, so the story travels from James to the boy to his brother to William to Luisa and then to Mrs Godwin. By the time she hears the story, it is a mangled version of the actual events, but there is enough truth there for her to sit Julia and James down and have a talk with them about lying to Luisa.
“It was my fault,” Julia says. “Please do not get Luisa in trouble.”
“Luisa is not the problem,” Mrs Godwin tells her sternly. “I know she is very lenient with you, but she is a good girl and believes what you tell her. Do not lie to her again. And I do not want you riding the streetcar and traveling downtown by yourselves. You could get lost. Something could happen to you and I would not know. At least bring Con with you next time.”
Julia and James glance at each other, James thinking that Mrs Godwin has just handed them permission for all the adventures they might want, and Julia no doubt thinking the same thing.
Mrs Godwin seems to realize what she has just said.
“No. Do not under any circumstances allow Con to chaperone you anywhere without Luisa. You will all end up on the next train to Mexico and I will never see you again. If Luisa does not know the truth of where you are going, do not go. She must ask me for permission for taking you anywhere aside from school and Central Park. And yes, James, she has already mentioned to me that you asked her to take you to the movie theater on Saturday, and I have told her no. I expect you both to obey her and not lie to her again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” Julia says meekly. James nods in agreement.
“Good. No dessert for either of you for the rest of the week. I will tell Mrs Malcolm. I will have to tell your father, and if he chooses to punish you himself I will not talk him out of it.”
But Mr Godwin leaves most matters of discipline to his wife, the same as he trusts her with his children’s pre-university education. The most Julia and James have to suffer is the loss of dessert and Luisa turning a much sharper eye on them than before. She is not best pleased that they tricked her once and were planning to do it again, and for the rest of the week she keeps a close eye on James.
“It was worth it,” he tells Julia. She does not argue.
Saturday breaks dark and rainy, so even if they had managed to get Luisa to agree to take them back to Union Square for another showing of The Millionaire Pirate and the new chapter of The Masked Rider, there is no way she would have taken them, or at least not on the streetcar. Mr Sewell would have driven them, and as far as James is concerned, riding the streetcar is half the fun.
But he still has a surprise – Mrs O’Donnell, as promised, brings her two sons to play with him. James wonders if she has mentioned this to his parents, and if his mother is still punishing him for his and Julia’s adventure last weekend. He does not think she approves of his playing with the children of the staff, for the same reason Con stands no chance with Luisa. They are so different in class and background, they have no future together.
But Mrs Godwin has taken Julia shopping and James is bored and Mrs O’Donnell has made her sons sound interesting to him, and as long as his mother does not interrupt them and demand the boys go home, what is the harm? It could be fun. Perhaps he can convince them to be pirates with him, and the three of them can successfully menace William and Con in ways that he and Julia cannot.
Sean, who is older than James by a year, must look like his father, because he does not look like his mother. He has light brown hair and freckles, and he is just a bit taller than James. Liam, who is two years younger than his brother, is skinny and has darker hair that needs to be cut. Both of them are dressed in clean clothes that nevertheless look inherited from someone else,
“James, Sean, Liam,” Mrs O’Donnell says, introducing them all at once. “Do not go into the courtyard because I do not want to clean up your muddy shoeprints. Go upstairs and play.”
“Luisa!” James calls, as they thunder up the stairs to the nursery. “Mrs O’Donnell brought her sons to play!”
“Goodness,” Luisa says, looking them up and down once they finally arrive in the nursery, where she and Aimee are setting up for a tea party. William is arranging his toy soldiers in neat rows, possibly so he can declare war on Aimee’s dolls and engage them in battle before her tea party gets underway.
“That’s Sean and that’s Liam.” James points to each of the boys, and then to Luisa. “And that’s Luisa. She’s the nanny.”
“I’m Aimee,” Aimee says. She shoots James a look that seem to say “How rude of you not to introduce your sister”, but he is not sorry. He does not think she will be interested in playing with them, especially if Luisa is around to keep her occupied.
“And that young man over there is William,” Luisa says. “Ask him to play with you.”
“No,” William calls. “This is more fun.”
“Are all these toys yours?” Liam asks James, looking around the nursery with big eyes.
“Some of them are mine,” Aimee says. “But you can have the wooden trains.”
“I have a better idea,” James says, grabbing Sean’s sleeve and tugging him towards the door. “Come on.” He pulls Sean out of the nursery and down the stairs to the ballroom, Liam following after them.
James pushes the ballroom doors open and gestures at the vast empty space beyond them. The ceiling of the ballroom is twice as high as any other room in the house, and the tall arched windows look out over the street. There is nothing in the room right now but a row of upholstered chairs along a wall, leaving the expanse of polished parquet floor open and ready for sliding.
James takes off his shoes and leaves them just inside the door. He indicates that Sean and Liam should follow his lead, but they are ahead of him and have already divested themselves of a shoe each. He notices that one of Liam’s socks has a hole in the toe, and when Liam catches him looking, he just wiggles his toes to emphasize the hole.
“My older brother Con can slide all the way across the floor,” James says, scuffing over to the wall and preparing to run. Sean follows. Liam is still standing by the door, watching them.
Sean takes off first, pushing away from the wall and running a quarter of the way across the floor before aiming for the far wall and sliding. He is clearly unprepared for the slickness of the floor, because he loses his balance and flails his arms as his feet shoot out from underneath him and he lands on his behind. James stifles his laughter, thinking it rude to laugh at someone you just met, but Liam has no such manners and laughs out loud. But brothers are allowed to laugh at each other when near-strangers are not.
“Shut up!” Sean calls from his position on the floor. Liam giggles. Sean gets to his feet, brushes off his behind, and slide-walks back across the floor. “That was fun,” he says. “I’m gonna do that again.”
This time James races him, and because James has done this before but it is only Sean’s second time, James knows where to stop running and start sliding for the greatest distance. Sean skids into his slide but at least he does not fall.
They run back to the far wall, sliding into it, and this time Liam lines up with them to run. His balance is much better than his brother’s and he travels just as far, but the next time they race, Sean deliberately slides into him and knocks both of them down.
This changes the game, much to James’ delight, and now rather than trying to out-slide each other, the three boys spend their time trying to bang into each other. The ballroom floor is hard and unforgiving, but the boys are young and resilient, and even though it hurts when he slams into Liam or Sean – or they slam into him – it is so much fun that James does not care.
After a while Liam gets tired of playing bumper cars with his brother and James, and goes back to just trying to see how far he can slide across the floor. James and Sean end up chasing each other around the ballroom, until Liam gets in their way and Sean accidentally pushes him over in an attempt to get around him.
“Ow!” Liam complains. “You cow! That hurt!”
“Did you just call your brother a cow?” James asks. He has never heard that particular insult aimed at another boy.
“I called him a cow!”
Sean giggles. Liam looks indigant, but if that is because his brother is laughing at him or because his brother pushed him down, James can’t tell. It isn’t any different from the way he and Con and William act around each other, anyway.
“Don’t run into me any more!” Liam insists.
“Ok, ok,” Sean says. “No more running into you. But I can chase you.”
Liam looks exaggeratedly scared and takes off running. Sean follows, and James follows after him, and the three of them slide and chase each other around the ballroom.
They are interrupted by Mrs O’Donnell, who shoves the ballroom doors open, sees them, and yells “Sean Murphy O’Donnell! You stop chasing your brother this instant!” Sean is so distracted that he forgets to turn, falls on his butt, and slides sideways into one of the chairs along the wall.
“Are you alright?” James asks worriedly, skidding to a stop near him. But Sean gets right up, brushes himself off, and stands up straight as his mother stalks over to him.
“Out,” she says, pointing to the door. Liam is already putting his shoes on. From this distance, he looks contrite. “Do not scuff the Godwins’ good parquet floor.”
“We weren’t wearing shoes,” Sean protests.
“I do not care. This is not a playroom.” She is still pointing to the door. She is not Luisa and James does not in general feel obliged to obey her, but there is enough of Mrs Godwin and Luisa in her tone that he sheepishly slides over to the doorway to put his shoes back on.
Mrs O’Donnell herds the boys downstairs and into the kitchen, so Mrs Malcolm can feed them.
words: 1938
total words: 10,551
quickie research: none for this bit
