“Now, let’s see if this doesn’t fit you.” Eliza held up a light blue summer dress. She slipped it over Maggie’s head and helped her with the sleeves before helping her down from the changing table. “Now you go outside and play with the others.”
Maggie walked back to the kitchen and out onto the porch, wondering what Eliza had meant by ‘the others’. But once she set foot outside, she heard excited voices from the other side of the house. She tip-toed to the corner and peeked around it. By the pond she could see four children playing. No, not children. They were adults dressed as children. Then it struck her: So was she. Maggie crept closer, ducking behind bushes until she was close enough to hear what they were talking about. It seemed the three of them, two girls and a boy, were having an argument about some kind of race in the brook that fed the pond. Eventually, they decided that the only way to settle it was another race. They picked up their crude wooden boats and ran upstream.
“I can see you, you know.” Maggie froze. “Oh come on. That blue dress isn’t exactly camouflage.”
Feeling like she had been caught trespassing, Maggie slowly emerged from behind her bush to see who had spoken. It was another boy. No, not boy; man. He was maybe in his late twenties, average height, a little chubby, with a deep tan and mop of curly brown hair. All in all not entirely unattractive, Maggie thought. He was sitting on a stone with his knees pulled up and his arms around them.
“Um, hi?”
“Hi, I’m Tommy.”
“Maggie.”
“So, you’re gonna want to have a seat for the today’s grand final of the race,” Tommy said wearily. “I think the score is like a thousand points to Maria and a thousand points to Jacob.”
“So they’re tied?” Maggie sat down on the stone next to Tommy.
“I have no idea, I’ve lost count. But they should have time to finish before the rain starts.”
“What do you mean?”
“See that cloud over there?” Tommy pointed towards the mountains in the distance. “The one that sort of looks like a fish.”
“Yeah?”
“When it’s on the other side of that mountaintop, it’ll start to rain.”
“How do you know that?” Maggie looked at Tommy.
He sighed. “That’s how it is every day. It’ll start to rain and we go inside to play. It’ll stop halfway through dinner.”
“What do you mean ‘every day’?”
“Every day is the same here. I’ve tried to figure out the routine, but this place get inside your head. Makes you forget numbers and letters and-”
“Who’re you?” A voice interrupted from behind them. Maggie turned around to see one of the two girls that had run off earlier.
“Uh…” Maggie was a little thrown by the childish appearance of the young woman. While she might be around twenty, she was wearing a pink dress so short her diaper peeked out below the hem. She had mussed-up, blonde hair and a couple of dirty smudges on her cheeks and forehead.
“Charlotte, this is Maggie,” Tommy said. “Maggie, Charlotte.”
“Like the thpider,” she lisped
“She’s been here a while,” Tommy whispered. “Like I said, this place gets inside your head.”
“Will you be my friend?” Charlotte looked up at Maggie with a wide-eyed, innocent expression.
“Um, sure,” Maggie answered.
“Yay!” Charlotte shouted and threw her arms around Maggie to give her a hug. The unrestrained enthusiasm surprised Maggie, but she returned the hug, rubbing Charlotte’s back.
“Does this mean you’ll stop bugging me now?” a voice asked snidely. When Maggie looked to see who had spoken she saw a girl with olive skin and long black hair. She was wearing overalls and a red t-shirt and was carrying a wooden boat.
“I guess you must be Maria,” Maggie said. “I’m Maggie.”
“Ooooo, look at you talkin’ all fancy,” Maria replied and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t listen to her Maggie. She’s just being a meanie,” Charlotte said, frowning at Maria. She grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her towards the garden. “Come on, I wanna show you something.”