Annie CII: ... Fort Ever After

(Chronological index: Early in Marriage)

Denise woke to a fine spring morning. Birds chirped outside the window and neither Annie nor Ray were grumbling about the happy noise.

Her husband stretched as he slowly rose to consciousness. She blocked her eyes as his hands came down, searching to find her. He'd yet to actually blind her doing that, but he'd come close a time or two.

When his hands came to rest on her shoulders, she uncovered her face and snuggled in close. He sighed and held her tight.

"What, NEVER?" He flinched a bit as the sylph's voice carried out of the drawer beside the bed. If it had been Annie, he'd have woken.

She rolled over to face the nightstand. He moaned in protest until she wiggled her ass into his lap. He stroked her sides and buried his nose in her hair. She sighed happily and waited for someone to climb into view.

Moments later, Pet rose up on the ladder and stepped to the table. She turned and waved, then jumped to the bed.

The sylph padded quickly across the bedsheets to kiss her owner good-morning. Then she stood still for a return kiss.

"Good morning, Denny!" she said quietly. "Annie and I have to stay home today!"

"Annie?" Ray muttered. Denise lifted his roaming hand to her face and licked the palm. He giggled and settled back down. Pet shook her head.

"Why does that put him to sleep?" she asked.

"It's his Kryptonite," Denise whispered. "Why do you have to stay home?"

"Annie has NEVER built a blanket fort!"

"What, NEVER?"

------

"Well, no, I wanted to build a tree fort," Ray said. "But someone was sure I'd take a header out of the tree and crack my skull on the swimming pool deck."

Annie got defensive as four eyes tracked to her. She put down her piece of muffin and laid hands on her hips. "NO! MOM thought he'd die. I just thought he'd forget to take me down and I'd spend the night waiting for an owl to eat me."

"So, we just swam in the pool."

"When we weren't blowing up roses."

"Or burning them."

"Crushing them."

"Anyway," Pet tried to interrupt.

"Parking a car on them."

"That's crushing them."

"Well, yeah, but it's not like the one I crushed by falling off the roof."

"You fell off the rain gutter."

"Which I was hanging from because I fell off the roof."

Pet was starting to look scared about the number of times they'd suffered violence. Denise scooped her sylph up and gave her a finger hug. "Don't listen to them, Pet. If their childhood had been anywhere near as dangerous as they like to say, they'd both have far more scars than they do."

"Really?"

"Really," she assured the little blonde. She pointedly ignored the look the other two passed each other. The girl hadn't heard Gwen's story about people falling off roofs, and she probably never would. It was a little much for such a sensitive girl.

"ANYWAY!" Pet said insistently. Then she stood there as everyone turned to look at her. After a moment she blushed. "I forgot what we were talking about."

"Rose bushes," Ray offered.

"No, we were talking about tree forts!" Annie corrected him.

"BLANKET forts!" Pet said. "We need to build one."

"The Southern version of snowforts?" Ray asked.

"Gels up nawth make them as weyl," Denise drawled. "Okay, you guys don't have to go to Jeff and Sandy's wedding rehearsal. You just stay here all day and play with your fort."

"But we weren't coming back from St. Augustine tonight," Ray said.

Denise smiled at him. "They can stand one night alone," she said. "And that means we'll have a night in the motel, all alone."

"Alone?" His ears, eyes and smile perked up.

"Oh, gods," Annie muttered. "They're at it again."

"At what, Annie?" Pet asked with exaggerated innocence.

"That cloying lovey dovey romance schtuff," the other snarled.

"Oh. I LIKE the lovey dovey stuff! It makes me feel warm inside. Like a cinnamon roll."

"Exactly. Soft and chewy, but so sticky it's impossible to eat." She shook her head.

"Well," Ray said. "You can eat it naked."

"True," Annie replied. She glanced up to see Ray was staring across the table at his wife. There was a brief surge of jealousy, but for the most part, she was like Pet. The fact that her master had found someone as tolerable as Denise, who came with a friend like Pet... Well, it made the world a tiny bit better place to be.

"Awwwww," Pet was cooing. "He said nakedidity."

Annie took a last sip of her juice. "Come on, Pet, there'll be no talking to either of them for the next hour."

---------

"Okay," Ray said. "You two behave. There's food, water, an upper limit to the volume on the TV, and Mom's number-"

"Has been the same for ten years, Raymond," Annie snarled. "I've got it 90% memorized."

He grunted and set her down by the card table.

Denise was asking Pet if they'd forgotten anything. Folded bedsheets were piled on top of the card table, the step ladder, the computer chair and the sofa.

Butter tubs of hair elastics, sock clips, clothes pins, hair clamps and dental floss were placed strategically.

"I don't.... think... No. It's all there!"

"Okay. We'll be back to take you guys to the reception tomorrow. Sandy promised you'd have a place at the table."

"Yaaay!"

Denise kissed Pet and blew one to Annie. The Master blew a kiss to Pet and nodded at Annie in a familiar way.

She replied in a similar, gruff fashion. Inside she felt a thrill at the knowledge he trusted her alone with an innocent like Pet.

She might even skip the Gumi Bear head on the pillow tonight. Well, maybe.

"Okay," she asked as the door closed. "What do we do?"

They started with the card table. Pet assumed the rank of expert at making blanket forts, with the rights and privileges associated.

She led the way as they climbed up and tied floss to the four corners of the sheet. With some back and forth maneuvering, they got it unfolded and stretched out, dangling down over the sides.

"Now, to tie it off, we tried pushing pins through like this." She air-pinned one corner around the table leg. "But then you have pins sticking out in your nice soft fort.

"And we tried clothespins, but if it's a weight bearing stretch of sheet, it's going to slowly pull itself off."

"But this is just dangling here," Annie said.

"Sure, clothespins will hold it, if that's all we do with it. Hand me the hair elastics."

"Is that what you call them? I thought they were from someone's action figure." She grabbed a handful, then pulled the sheet around at Pet's direction. "Raymond was always dropping those when he unwrapped a figure.

"He shot one at me off his fingertips."

"OH!"

"Oh, I was fine, he missed by a mile." Her reassuring smile turned wicked.

"And?" Pet asked.

"The one _I_ shot went right up his nose. He had teary eyes for two hours."

"Aww, poor Ray," Pet sighed.

"You never met the little monster he was before I civilized him," Annie said. They walked to the next leg.

"Oh, no! Ray's sweet!"

"Thank you," Annie said. "Ray's very sweet and it took many hours to make him so. Raymond was a little jackass."

"I don’t believe it." They gathered in the next leg like a sail. Annie pulled and Pet secured.

"I ever tell you about the time Raymond had this brilliant idea?"

"Which brilliant idea?"

------------

Annie was sunbathing in the windowsill when Raymond came home. She lay face down, her back warm from the sun. The vibration of his feet on the stairs came through the frame of the window planter and the sand of her private beach.

The door opened and slammed shut. There was the thud of his backpack, and then another sound, something thrown on the bed.

"Annie?" he called.

She raised one finger to wave, here I am, Master. She was too comfortable to move anything else. And he'd find her eventually.

She heard the sound of curtains sliding. "There you are! Getting a tan?"

"No," she said. "I'm practicing photosynthesis. Am I green yet?"

There was a shadow over her, then the familiar touch of fingertips rolling her over, scooping her up. She kept her eyes closed until she was inside.

"Hello, Master!" she said. "How was school?"

"Oh, you should have come today," he said. "We did 'limits' in Calculus."

"And I would have wanted to be there, why?" she asked.

"Mr. Carson was sorry you weren't there to help him explain the concept of diminishing returns. A story problem of training sylphs to juggle for the amusement of, um..."

"The amusement of the higher orders," she finished, familiar with Mr. Carson's view of talkative pets. "Glad I missed it."

She looked down at the bed. A stack of folded fabric lay at the foot. "What's that?"

"Science Fair project," he said. "I'm going to perfect waterproofing on tents."

She sat on his palm, feet kicking idly. "Those look like pillowcases, Master."

"Well, it'd be pretty expensive to waterproof a tent big enough for me," he said.

"Oh. Oh, no. I'm not going camping!"

"Just in the back yard. Once I waterproof all of them."

"I'm going to be rained on? For your experiment?"

"I'll be sure to give you credit in the report, Annie."

"Yeah, that'll help put my academic career on the fast track." She looked out the window. The sun shone in a clear sky. "How will you test the waterproofing?"

-------

"I had to ask," she muttered. She slogged through the mud and grass to check the next tent.

Raymond had set up his scout tent in the back yard. The thick canvas protected him from the downpouring. And once a round, it protected Annie.

The pillowcases were propped upon on hangers to produce tiny tents, all lined up in a big U shape around the pup tent.

Annie stood in the middle of each one and reported the conditions. "Number Seven, water wicking through."

"What does wicking mean?"

"It means, it doesn't drip, but if you touch it, your hand comes away wet. Water's wicking through!" she shouted.

She had no idea which treatment was for number Seven. She wasn't sure Raymond knew. He'd gone to some lengths to collect all sorts of aerosols. And sprayed the pillow cases liberally.

She still teared up at the thought of the noxious atmosphere he'd produced.

Now, she had no intention of admitting that many of them seemed to work.

But she took delight in pointing out the ones that didn't.

You're sure it's not condensation?" Raymond called back.

"No, I'm not, what does condensation look like, oh glorioso mastroso? After all, growing up in Florida, in air conditioning, and drinking from chilled sodas, and iced tea, I'd have no idea what the expected amount of goddamned condensation would be on the underside of a pillowcase!!!" She stormed through the remaining tents, finished her circuit and ran from the last one to his tent.

"The rest of them are unchanged since the last loop," she snapped. He started to open his mouth. "And if you don't believe me you can FUCKING go out there and check it yourself!"

"Annie?" he asked. She'd gone too far with the f-bomb, she knew that. But an apology would be an admission of error, of weakness. She strove to attack. To make it his fault.

"What? I'm wet. I'm cold, and that makes me hungry and I'm tired and that makes me hungry and I'm wet and I'm cold and I'm..." She saw him pull her sleeping bag (one of Dad's hunting socks) out of his armpit.

He unrolled it across his leg and beckoned. She ran for the body-temperature sanctuary. He delayed her long enough to wipe the mud and water off of her body.

"Jungle explorers agree, keep the swamp out of your sleeping bag. Or you just never get away from the swamp."

He finally slipped her down inside. She shivered deliciously in the warmth.

"Is there a Hersheys in the other armpit?" she asked.

"There's a With Almonds on the clipboard," he said.

"Oh, baby, I may forgive you after all." She curled down deep in the thick wool.

"Okay. And when you make another loop, you'll have this to return to."

"Aw!"

"The test plan, Annie, says tests every ten minutes."

"What if it lets up by then?" she moaned.

He glanced out at the lawn sprinkler in the middle of the tent loop. "Weatherman got this one right, Annie. One hundred percent chance of rain, continuing through the morning."

She sniffled, a long, loud and bubbly intake. He bit his lip. "Well... If it's dry now and it's dry in an hour, it was probably dry all through the hour." He put a hand over the sock and held her close.

The wind picked up around 11:30. Water started coursing over the back of the tent, chilling the space.

Raymond turned up the lantern flame. As he did, Annie saw a whopping big insect fly up to land on it. A beetle of some sort, it looked as big as her entire torso. She screamed.

Raymond flinched, tipping the lantern over. The magazine he'd been skimming started to brown. He reflexively kicked the lantern and the magazine out the front of the tent.

He jostled Annie enough to wake her. She sat up and saw the water hissing on the side of the lantern. And she was still looking as tent number One burst into flames. They were an odd but exuberant color. Jetting out from the hangers, licking at the next tent.

Raymond dropped the sleeping sock, shouted something about his test, and grabbed the frame. He thought only of throwing it away from his other tents.

It landed in the middle of one of Mom's rose bushes. He grabbed the watersoaked tent number Seven to try to beat the flames out.

But the waterproofing material floated on top of the water. That was his theory later, anyway, as the firefighting equipment started to burn. He dropped that and staggered back.

The fire was out by the time Dad came outside. He glanced from the two empty spots of the U, the downed lantern, to the smoldering spot on the ground where the rose had been.

"Did you even think of using the hose on it?" he asked.

"Water made it worse, sir."

"Ah." Then he pointed to the tent. "I'm going to bring you out a change of clothes, son. I expect you're going to be sleeping in the tent for a while." "Yes, sir," Raymond said. "Can you bring out Annie's-"

"Annie's coming inside with me," Dad said. Raymond started to protest. Annie bit her lip. Raymond just nodded, his head drooping and shoulders sagging.

Dad leaned down to the corner of the tent where she had watched the flames. "Um... Thanks, Dad? But I think I'll stick it out with my esteemed Master. If that's okay?"

"That's your call," he said. He looked around at his son, then back down at the sylph. She thought she saw him wink...

----------

"Awwww," Pet said. They pulled on the floss once more, then tied it to the paperclip-cleat. "You joined him in his punishment."

"I could be generous," Annie said. "This one wasn't even slightly my fault."

They stepped back and examined their construction. "This is a blanket CASTLE!" Pet said proudly.

"It's an honor to have served under you, Miss Pet," Annie said. Then she looked towards the hall. "I know where there's at least one more sheet, though."

"Oh, could we?"

---------

Ray and Denise slipped in together. He went for the living room and the sylph carrier, she went for the bedroom and their forgotten gift.

"Okay, guys, we gotta... Oh. My. Denise, come in here."

The sylphs had covered the entire living room. There was the main castle of the card table. One end of that draped to the edge of a tunnel between a chair and a stepladder. The back of the table continued on to the back of the sofa, making an upper gallery.

Overhead, a piece of fabric stretched from the top shelf of the bookshelves to the top of the stereo.

"Is that a hammock?" he asked his wife.

"That's a sky-bridge," she exclaimed. "My, they must have put in some time on this."

"I guess. Um...how many sheets did you give them?"

She was stepping into the room, peering in and under sheets to see what was where and where the sylphs were. "About half of this," she said.

"They must have gotten the rest out of the closet." He stood up slowly. "They didn't tie anything to the carrier." He looked inside. "But they're not here."

"Found them," she said softly. He stepped over. A coffee mug was cupped in her hands. The two little pets were curled up inside it, sleeping as the dead.

They didn’t wake as she literally poured them into the beds inside the carrier, or when he stowed it for the drive back.

They left the sheets as they found them. There would have to be some exploring done.

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