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

[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?"

[missnicegirl]

First ball, second try: two seconds.

Second ball, second try: two seconds.

Third ball, second try: two.

Two.

Two.

One.

[she_sells_seashells]

"If you get any faster than this I won't even be able to tell the difference," Bell says. "I can't push the button that fast, and you have to be able to see it so we can't just move the stick farther away..."

[missnicegirl]

"Time me there-and-back," Matilda suggests.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Okay. We can just add laps, unless you get too fast for me to even see what's going on," Bell agrees. She draws a line under the new row.

[missnicegirl]

First ball, round trip: two seconds.

Second ball: one second.

One, one, one, and one.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Let's do ten round trips," laughs Bell. "You're getting really fast and maybe this way it'll take a few rows before you get down to one second again."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay," she says, giggling.

The first ball does its ten round trips in six seconds.

The second ball does them in five.

The third, in three.

The fourth, in two.

The fifth, in one.

Just for completeness' sake, she does the sixth. It takes one second.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I'm not gonna be able to count how many times you take it past the far stick if it goes any faster," Bell says frankly. "So I think the experiment just says you can move stuff fast and you can get faster."

[missnicegirl]

"Yep," Matilda agrees. "—Oh, hey, I have a really silly idea!"

She finds a nice tall rock close by and climbs up to stand on top of it, looking at the lake.

[she_sells_seashells]

"What?" Bell asks. She goes over to the rock, but doesn't try to climb it - she'd fall.

[missnicegirl]

"I wanna see how much I can lift," she explains, and stares intently at the surface of the water.

It begins to bulge upward in the middle.

"C'mon, lake," she mutters under her breath. "Up. Go up."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell watches in fascination. "Does talking to it help?" she whispers.

[missnicegirl]

"I don't really know if it helps or not," she says. "I do it anyway. C'mon, lake, c'mon..."

It is a fairly big lake, and about half of it is gathering into a sphere above the original waterline.

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell stares.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda keeps going.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually she gets two-thirds of the lake floating in the air full of bewildered fish.

[she_sells_seashells]

"SQUID," screams Bell, forgetting wonder in place of fear and hiding behind the rock.

[missnicegirl]

There is indeed a squid in the middle of the floating ball.

Except that the second Matilda is distracted, it stops being a floating ball and starts being a falling ball. And then a falling blob.

And then a whole lake's worth of splash.

Matilda yelps in surprise, stumbles, clings to the top of her rock, and gives the wave racing toward them as big a shove in the opposite direction as she possibly can. It reverses course, crashing back into the surface of the lake.

The shore is soaked in every direction. There are stranded fish scattered all along it, and the squid is scooping them up by the grumbly armful.

"...oops," says Matilda.

[she_sells_seashells]

The squid's attention to anything on the shore is sufficient to send Bell tearing into the safety of the bar.