in a forest of legs

[she_sells_seashells]

The second time ever Bell finds to Milliways, she is better prepared. She has a bigger bag of shells with her, and she knows that she'll need to pace herself with the food to stay as long as she can.

She is still six. As far as she can tell, she is the only child in the place - everyone else is an adult or at least in their mid to late teens.

Except - oh, there is a girl her age, over there. (Only maybe not. Last time she was warned that appearances can be deceiving.) But she's certainly worth investigating.

Bell drags her shells over in that direction.

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell tilts her head. "I have to look at things to pick them up, too, at least if I don't want to just knock them onto the floor. But I can feel that I'm feeling them and not just knowing where they are, 'cause they have textures and temperatures and heavinesses and stuff."

[missnicegirl]

"It's a different thing from picking stuff up with your hands," she says, shrugging.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Well, yeah. Yours is magic. How fast can you make stuff go? We could borrow stuff from the bar to float, and a timer, and go outside and you can zoom it around!"

[missnicegirl]

"I haven't done that! Let's do that."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell races to the bar, politely solicits an array of balls of various sizes and a stopwatch, and then frowns at the results, as she has no good way to carry six balls in her arms. "I think you might have to carry most of it," she says, picking up the stopwatch.

[missnicegirl]

The six balls float up into the air and commence following Bell around like a trail of ducklings, largest to smallest.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell giggles and dashes out towards the door to the outside, looking over her shoulder and only barely not running into the doorframe or tripping onto her face.

[missnicegirl]

Her ball-ducklings match speeds with her, and zoom around her in circles when she stops.

Matilda follows, trailed by a similar line of books.

[she_sells_seashells]

"This is awesome," crows Bell. "Okay, so..." She picks up a stick and plants it in the ground, then runs to a distant point still visible from the original. Then she picks a spot between the two to stand so she can see each stick. "I'll time you, and you can start with the small stuff and move it as fast as you can from the first stick to the second stick! And then try the bigger stuff and we'll see if that's slower. Or it could be faster!"

[missnicegirl]

"Okay!" she says, and lines up all the balls hovering vertically over the first stick with the smallest one at the top.

Smallest ball: zoom!

[she_sells_seashells]

"Five seconds!" reports Bell.

[missnicegirl]

Next ball: zoom!

[she_sells_seashells]

"Five seconds," Bell repeats. "Maybe it doesn't matter how big the thing is, maybe you could move a whole whale from here to there in five seconds!"

[missnicegirl]

Matilda giggles.

"I don't know if I can move a whale!" she says. "I've never tried!"

Ball number three: zoom!

[she_sells_seashells]

"Four seconds! That's even faster! Maybe this is more like rolling stuff down a hill than like picking it up. Can you move stuff that's alive? Can you move me? Can you move you?"

[missnicegirl]

"I wouldn't know how to move me," she says. "It'd be like the Lorax picking himself up by the seat of his pants and flying away. But I can move people all I want! I made a bunch of kids in my class fly!"

[she_sells_seashells]

"What's a Lorax?" Bell asks.

[missnicegirl]

"He's from a kids' book! He's fuzzy and yellow and he speaks for the trees and at the end of the book he picks himself up by the seat of his pants and flies away and nobody ever sees him again."

[she_sells_seashells]

"So he's not real," Bell clarifies.

[missnicegirl]

"I'm pretty sure he isn't."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay." Bell picks up another stick and scratches 5, 5, 4 in the dirt to record the results so far.

[missnicegirl]

Ball number four: zoom!

Four seconds again.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Four," Bell calls, as she adds the numeral to the list.

[missnicegirl]

Number five also takes four seconds.

Number six takes three.

"I think I'm just getting faster," she says.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Really?" Bell says, adding the numbers. "I'll start a new row, try the first one again?"