Rising Shards

The car doors thunked as we stepped out into a snow-covered parking lot. Night had fallen, and we were cast in an orange hued light from the streetlights. A bunch of folks were descending on a culture building on a college campus, circling it as the main doors were apparently hard to find. Our footsteps crunched in the snow as we crossed the parking lot, following the paths of others searching around the culture center.

“Evy, remind me why we’re here again?” Stella asked, adjusting her gloves.

“I believe we’re here because somebody forgot to do her social studies project until the very last minute,” I poked Zeta in her shoulder.

“Well, in my defense, it’s not so much that I forgot…” Zeta started.

“You just didn’t want to?” I sighed, knowing that excuse.

“I’d phrase it a bit better than that,” Zeta said.

“Because you lot are workshopping excuses for more time than you do on your actual homework,” I said.

“When you put it that way, it makes it sound like I’m not trying at all in class, but it’s quite the opposite,” Zeta said. “Just…this particular project slipped through the cracks. Stella, back me up!”

“No,” Stella answered immediately. “You remember to bring everything?”

“Yeah!” Zeta held up her notebook, her glittery pink pen sparkling.

We must have been doing something right, as Zeta wasn’t reacting to our scolding with her usual anxiety driven ways. She was in hyperactive mode, which could get tiresome especially when it meant she had to be dragged into doing school business, but she didn’t have the others around to feed off of, all of them hyping each other more and more, usually leading to something getting destroyed. Tonight the focus was on Zeta finishing this assignment, and our little family unit continuing our series of educational trips.

“It’s snowing,” Zeta said.

It was a little bit, just a dusting. It hopefully wouldn’t turn into a big blizzard, but as I thought that, I remembered how Stella and I first got together because of a big blizzard. Snow had been the backdrop to our relationship so far; I wondered how other seasons would feel now that we were together. I squeezed Stella’s hand.

“Mhm,” Stella said.

Not satisfied with her sister’s answer, Zeta started pretty much just making noises for attention. Or maybe to just fill the air. Hyper Zeta does that.

“Snowing…snow…ding. ‘Snowding.’ Snowding.” For some reason, ‘snowding’ was really funny to her. I was torn between acknowledging it and ignoring it, either ran the risk of her continuing. It wasn’t hurting anyone so I shouldn’t have cared. But if she got so obsessed with saying a word kinda wrong that she didn’t pay attention to the exhibit and didn’t get any of this project done, I had to at least try to intervene there.

“When is that assignment due again?” I asked. It was for Letoh’s class, and while she was a bit lenient, I knew she was a stickler for due dates on papers.

“Tomorrow,” Zeta said.

“You better not rush through it,” Stella said.

“Rushing through like all this snow…” Zeta said. “Snow…ding. You think they’ll close school tomorrow?” It was an incredibly optimistic hope that they’d close school for maybe a millimeter of snow.

“I don’t think this will be a snowed in situation,” I said.

Zeta gasped.

“Snowed in! That’s it!” Zeta said.

“Huh?”

“That’s where I got ‘snowding’ from!”

“…Ah.”

We hadn’t even gotten inside yet and it felt like this would be a long night. I wanted to be in teacher mode, maybe even level two stern teacher mode, but I didn’t want to seem like a grump to Stella.

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