Flotsam

Sorry, everyone. This is the last piece I have of this fic. This time, I know I wrote more, but it’s just… not there.

Continued from yesterday:

  “Mort might object.”

  Sara surfaced from the depths of her book. “Hmmm?” She looked up. Oh. Kurt. “Hi. ‘Sup?”

  “Did you think about what would happen if he heard you’re letting people sniff you?” teased the big blue elf.

  Sara grinned.

Continued from yesterday:

  “Well, *fudge*,” said Sara. She knew this ceiling only too well. And the smell of the mats.

  Logan sighed. “C'mon, Tallwater… we both know you’re holding back. Ya gotta learn this stuff and be able to *use* it.”

  Sara untangled herself from the mat. “I don’t like hurting my friends… and I’m not that strong, anyway.”

  “You remember the lifting tests?” said Callisto.

Continued from yesterday:

  Mort could smell her cooking, and the cinnamon was working its magic. And nutmeg. He moaned under his breath. He could smell the sugars caramelising.

  O God…

  Sara and pastry manufacture were an *experience*. People put on pounds just watching the treats come out of the oven.

  It was more than an effort of will to hang back. It took supreme measures just to stay where he was. Those supreme measures currently involved clinging with all his might

Continued from yesterday:

  December 9.

  “…sing sing a song, sing a so-oonnng… Sing.”

  Mort sighed with relief and let go of the ceiling, falling to the bed and grinning like a maniac. She sounded in fine voice, today.

  And after getting through *this* day, there was just the tenth and the eleventh before her birthday… and their shared freedom.

  Or something close enough to it.

  Like it or not, Sara would be sharing an hour a day

Continued from yesterday:

  One of the kids held up his hand. Simon. “Sir? I could have stayed in the art room instead of going off to -uh…” a telling hesitation, “do stuff.”

  Scooter gave him the fish-eye. A remarkable feat for someone with their eyes obscured. “We’ll discuss *that* part, later,” he advised.

  Bobby raised his hand. “I could have run for the extinguisher…”

  A group of other hands raised.

Continued from yesterday:

  Mort was lingering. He knew it, and he was certain that everyone else did, too. Hank gave him an excuse with the analysis of his skin secretions, and the collecting of a sizeable sample to see if they could reproduce it for the good of Science… and a completely unnecessary detour through an indicator of exactly how much time Hank had on his hands.

  The good doctor had noticed, when Sara was bought in late last night, that

Continued from yesterday:

  Sara was lost. She knew it and acknowledged it, but failed completely to let the situation bother her in the slightest.

  It had begun small, as predicaments often do, with the palming of a love-letter into her hand by one of the volunteer couriers between herself and Mortimer. That list of couriers was now legion, and all Sara had to do was a ‘scouts honour’ salute with a letter betwixt the two fingers for it to vanish

Continued from yesterday:

  December 8.

  Mort’s eyes snapped open in fear. Something was wrong. Something was missing. Something life-threateningly important. He checked out his quarters rapidly. Nothing gone. Nothing messed with.

  But then, he had buggerall in the way of posessions, anyway. Not important ones like–

  A flurry of movement to the bottom left drawer inside his wardrobe. He felt into the back. The box was still there. And a paranoid check ensured that its contents were both intact

Continued from yesterday:

  December 7.

  It was going to be a very, *very* long day. He could tell.

  It had already been a long night, owing to the theme song karaoke stomp party one of the kids had decided to throw directly above his room. Just how many people could stand to sing _Star Blazers_ in a row anyhow? He’d had to get up ten times to tell them to keep it down to a dull roar.

  Scott lurched into

Continued from yesterday:

  “Okay,” Scott drawled, feeling an intense relief to have made it into Sara’s room. The various mind-spooks[1] were still scurrying around, but he’d achieved a goal. A safe haven. An environment which, as far as everyone knew, Sara had yet to hurt herself in. The creepyness of some of her ‘decorations’ was more than enough to creep him out without having to deal with the phantasms from her mind. Some

Continued from yesterday:

  “She packed her bookshelves.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “She *packed* her *bookshelves*?”

  “Which particular word do you have trouble understanding?”

  “I have trouble with the whole idea that one sixteen-year-old kid can have a small *library*.”

  “Most of it was in storage,” said Sara, turning the corner to find her two newest educators, Mr Logan and Mr Summers. “All the better