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One last peek around the wisteria and, yes, it's the little yellow school
bus bringing Poly home from her first day at school.
Sourcerer having made a few preparations quickly dashes down to the end
of the path to the road, and as the bus comes to a stop and the doors
open, he pulls up short and begins a nonchalant saunter...
It's been a long afternoon and he is very happy to see Poly, although he
is certain he's screwed up and that Poly will be displeased with his
articles...still, it's nice to know someone cares.
Poly is all bright-eyed and excited, her arms full of books; she runs up
to him and begins to chatter excitedly about class -- Sourcerer can
hardly follow any of it, but he gathers she was not harassed by
unix-geeks, which seemed an invevitability in a class devoted to unix, c,
c++, the universe and everything -- the love-sick unix-geek on the hoof
is a sight to behold...
Quite naturally, Sourcerer takes her books and tucks them in his left
hand; he notes Poly's aqua-regia water pistol looks unused, confirming
the non-harassment of the first day. When Poly starts to turn towards
the house, he tugs at the sleeve of her white blouse and indicates the
fork in the path leading to mpa's cave.
And there under a big old sycamore-maple he's set out some of his special
gatorade iced-tea on a card-table by a park bench, all frosty in a glass
pitcher. Poly is a bit leery of Sourcerer's concoctions, but she knows
this one is relatively harmless, and she knows he made it 'specially for
her because whenever she visits him and he asks if she'd like anything to
drink she always answers "gatorade iced-tea, please" -- not because she's
very fond of it, but because she knows for certain that it, at least,
won't give her cold-sweat nightmares, like some of his other infernal brews.
And anyway, there's a big bowl of sugar on the table...
And she's pleased to see that Sourcerer is looking much more fit than
when she left for school, dressed as he is in his usual black jeans,
black t-shirt and black boots, and he'd shaved and slicked back his hair
(although it was still ruffed out around his neck).
And there on the table was a stack of articles...
She really didn't want to do this, but would rather sit in the shade and
listen to the blues emanating from mpa's cave, but it was for his own
good and he was trying so hard...
So, she patted her little red plaid skirt and uncrossed her white socked
ankles and stared expectantly at the pile of articles and then up
to Sourcerer's impassive expressionless face.
He sighed and pushed the stack across to her with his finger, and folding
his hands in his lap, awaited the verdict...
After a bit, Poly set the stack down with a sigh of her own.
"You got testy with Telford, didn't you?" She asked pointedly.
"Well, yeah...but not much"
"And Omar? Not much there either?"
A tic ripples across Sourcerer's cheek..."Well, some, yeah.
Some...it's...it's so *easy*..."
"And the nice .edu? Who only wanted some blackberry pie? Was that
necessary? All that sneering and ooga booga-ing?"
"Well...sigh...I'm a sick man, Poly"
"Well, fair enough then, but you're forbidden to play with motley for now."
"Not even in the Communications thread?"
"Especially not the Communications thread! You'll get all colicky and
then where will you be?"
"Here, I hope."
"Check your lease, Source, it's in the fine print; you can have pets, but
you can't go ballistic."
Sourcerer slumped down in his seat. "This," he thought, "is going to be
harder than I guessed".
"And you aren't allowed to mope either" (Poly wasn't exactly fibbing, "no
moping" wasn't in the lease, but Sourcerer was too distracted by his
thoughts to notice the eliding of ballistic to mope).
"And I'm giving tea to Lisa in an hour in the parlour, and I've just
decided to invite you". Sourcerer looked appalled! "Company?", he
gasped, "But I'm a sick man, Poly!"
Poly narrowed her glistening eyes and smiled, "And it's a *formal* tea.
You have just enough time to change."
Sourcerer dragged himself to his feet and began a slumped walk towards
Rancho Deluxe, then stopped, returned to the bench and picked up Poly's
books.
Poly tucked her arm in his and patted his hand as they walked back to the
house.
"Don't worry. You'll do fine. Why in a few more days you'll be your old
self again", and she laughed merrily as they approached Rancho Deluxe.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O "RL is a story told in cyberspace"
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O -- Sweet Poly
|| OO|||OO||O||O
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