Put away the books, we’re out of school
The weather’s warm but we’ll play it cool
We’re on staycation, havin’ lots of fun
S-T-A-Y-C-A-T-I-O-N in the summer sun

Can you tell I’m getting a little excited?   Only 16 more sleeps before I go on leave and I don’t go back to work till the end of January – 43 days off – woo hoo!

This will be the longest continuous break I’ve had since I was diagnosed with glandular fever 20+years ago, and I spent 5 weeks at home feeling cruddy and the only energy I had was to cross stitch while getting addicted to Santa Barbara and Days of Our Lives (I watched the first episode that Patch appeared in and was hooked, lol).

But like then, I’m going to be predominantly housebound, apart from some small trips and a quilt class or two… and a friend coming to stay for a few days.   May actually be forced to be housebound, as my nephew’s car is off the road and he’s regularly borrowing mine to get to and from work.

Flossie (Mum) coming to stay for the 1st week of the New Year, we’re going to have a ‘bee’ between putting together some quilt tops and finishing off some small projects like wallhangings and bags.

It’ll be the usual deal of her using the machine, and my cutting and pressing…though I am thinking of getting her to help me make a start on either one of these gorgeous quilts by Roslyn of Bloom…Simply a Bloom or Sweet Menagerie.

A bit inspired by Blessed’s version of Simply a Bloom and the bundle of Allspice Tapestry Charm Squares and Jelly Rolls I found when sorting out the stash for the sale of surplus items!

Both of these seem like relatively simple projects for someone who is less than comfortable on the machine, as it’s just straight sewing…

Am busy getting organised and things prepped with the intention of sewing something every day!

Things I must do while on staycation:

• Get my blocks finished and posted to Aunt Pitty Pat for the Holly Jolly Christmas Block Swap – have got all my backgrounds cut, just need to sit down this week and start to prep the appliques, I’m doing Christmas Wreaths, Plum Puddings and Christmas Ornaments

• Make softie book/s of this panel – I commented on the Busy Thimbles blog and as a result the panels arrived today and I get to have a play… already have ideas swarming through my head

• Finish my South Seas Lace cross-stitch… as usual I’m lagging behind behind on this SAL, both Claire and Sandra have finished theirs… and I’m still stitching on mine, making slow progress… got bored with the narrow border and wanted to see what the final border looked like.

Actually, check out Sandra’s Grand Marquoir finish post… isn’t it gorgeous?   This is another project I’m lagging behind on, I’ve done 3 letters…sigh…

• Keep up to date with The Parsonage Dresden Plate Exchange – I’m working on Kylie’s at present … you can see one of her blocks below, I didn’t make this one, Jules did.    I’ll also have Jules handed over to me in the next fortnight.

• Start my Blackbird Design Stocking Series – I’m hoping to be part of Dragon My Needle’s Christmas Design SAL – a year long stitch along working on particular Christmas Designs.  I got the January 2009 kit from Stitches and Spice for these gorgeous little stockings, and hope to get the rest of the series during 2010.  So the aim is to stitch at least 1 stocking a month during 2010.

Things I’d like to do while on staycation (and more likely towards the end of my 43 days will be getting lots of things prepped so that I can just pick things up and work on them once I get back to work… including:

• Prep Aunt Millie’s Garden blocks – I’m using a white with black pindot background and lots of spotty/dotty/striped bright fabric
• Prep Love Letters blocks – I’ve got 2 lots of fabric for these, deep navy, burgundy, browns on tan backgrounds for Mum, and the 3 Sisters Chocolat range that was used in the original quilt for me.   Not going to make both – will get the blocks ready for Mum to stitch hers, and will prep and applique mine

• make a start on Kellie from Don’t Look Now’s Joseph’s Coat Quilt along

• Organise cross-stitch patterns for Aury’s Bride’s Tree SAL.  The Bride’s Tree is a German tradition. It is believed that a couple’s Christmas tree needs twelve specific ornaments for happiness in their life journey together. My eldest nephew and his girl get married in November 2010, and have asked us to give them money towards their honeymoon in lieu of gifts as they are funding the wedding themselves.   This seemed like a nice idea, to make them 13 ornaments for their 1st tree as a married couple, and I thought I’d look for quakerstyle patterns for each months theme, and have found some freebie patterns already i.e. the quaker heart to represent true love and love of family.

I’d also really like to aim to do a blog post a day… either a progress report on what I’m working on, or maybe dragging out some WIPs/PIGs and posting in more detail, in an attempt to shame me into progressing some of these.

Anyway, off away to do the dishes and to bed… coming home tomorrow night to progress the embroidery on some Christmas ornaments for a catch up with some girlfriends weekend after next.

Will blog a Christmas themed post at the weekend, hopefully to show the finished ornaments, and my first blocks for Holly Jolly as well as some show and tell as Mum has started decorating the house today, and I realised none of her Christmas quilts are recorded on the blog.

Yes… it is here… the culmination of the year 2009.  December is upon us.  I canhardly believe the year has flown by so fast!  Today I will begin to play my Christmas playlist… starting off with a lovely medley of the Rat Pack… into some folky Sufjan Stevens… 

My house is starting to get into the holiday season… I’ll be putting up our wreath tomorrow and beginning to put up decorations!  I’ve had the apple spice oil fragrances going in the house for about a month now… I will take advantage of the orange peels my middlest boy keeps leaving in his wake and add them to a small pot of water, clove and cinnamon… you let that simmer for a couple hours on low and your whole house just fills with the smell of the holidays.  It’s time to celebrate the blessings of the past year and delight in the memories made! 

Now that the impending holiday gift giving looms I have to turn on a different part of my brain.  Make one for the shop, make one for etsy and make one to give away.  I need to make a list… haven’t done that yet… but need to.  

Need a gift giving idea?  What about a warm set of fingerless mitts?  I have a few sets, both short and long available at Dreaming Tree in downtown Winchester.  Coming soon to the etsy site in time for Christmas gift giving… new hand painted yarns!  Merino, alpaca silk blends, & sock yarn galore!  Since I’ve been such a busy knitter I’ve neglected the kick spindle… hoping to get back to that this week… I have quite a few rovings that are in need of some spinnin! 

Happy December Everyone!

This is half of the current piece I am working on. As I develop the piece it is the brink of winter here in PA. I have always had an uneasy relationship with winter. I viewed it as something to endure, never something to be cherished. While occasionally fresh snow or a glimmering ice storm brought my loving gaze to it, most of the time I felt sad and lacking. And don’t even get me started on having to drive in it.

Somewhere back in my mind winter must have been working to change me. With the first bite of the approaching cold the idea for this piece surfaced. Winter is preservation. She might be cold and she can be terrible, but she keeps what is most precious safe. The dark time of the year is just like our own dark times; necessary for new growth. Tiny seeds slumber beneath a blanket of snow, held suspended in frost. They are kept safe until it is time to send up green shoots. How much subconscious work do we do in dark corners of our mind? How often are we going through trials in our lives, certain parts of us are frozen as we focus on muddling through. When we emerge from the darkness all the seeds of our potential are kept safe and have new fertile ground to grow in.

I will very shortly begin work on the Winter Queen, I have only just finished the Spring Dragon. He is just falling into his winter sleep. The Winter Queen’s arrival brings the first dusting of snow. He is dusted by it, his cold blood slowing, slowing until eventually it will be suspended. Under a blanket if snow he will dream his slow dreams and awaken to bid the Winter Queen farewell and thank her for her protection. He has a dreamy happy look knowing The Queen will manage things while he slumbers.

Snow, sleet, ice

Thawed, frozen again

Into sheets bubbled

With air from last week—

Dusted lightly

With snow confection

Upon which the booted foot

Flies without resistance

To moon surface heights

While the padded coat

Wheels horizontal

The hooded head

Cranes forward

In the instant flash

Between sky and ground

The concussion follows

With the shock of pain.

For some, creating objects on the lathe such as bowls, platters, vases, and nonfunctional art is an end in itself. These people are known as turners and they can be quite devoted to their pursuits. My own ambitions for the lathe are much more modest. The lathe is a tool I want to gain enough proficiency with to make parts that can add to my design vocabulary as a furniture maker. For several years I have experimented with incorporating simple split turnings as parts in some of my furniture. I define a split turning as a piece that is spindle turned between centers on the lathe and then split down its length into two (or more) pieces creating parts that are round on one side and  flat on the other. The legs on the table below are examples of what I have described.

I recently made an updated version of this table in Macassar ebony and bubinga, so I thought I would show how I went about making the legs for this new piece and incorporating them into the overall design of the table. As seen in the photo above, there is an upper stretcher that is mortise and tenoned into the legs at the top and a lower stretcher that passes through an open mortise cut in the bottom end of  each leg creating what I call a bridle joint.

One nice thing about split turnings is that they are a two for one deal; one turning gets you two legs. To make two of the legs for this table, I begin with two pieces of lumber 3 1/2″ wide by 1 3/4″ thick by 28″ long. These two pieces glued together will give me turning stock that is 3 1/2″ square in section, but before I glue them together, while my stock is still rectangular in shape, I will first cut the mortises that will later accept the upper and lower stretchers. To cut the open mortises in the bottom end of the legs I make multiple passes through a table saw blade with the help of a tenoning jig. Because the stock is pushed vertically through a saw blade set at 2 3/4″ high, great care must be taken for wood and jig to completely clear the back side of the moving saw blade once each pass is made. The back side of a moving table saw blade is one of the most dangerous places  in the workshop; STAY CLEAR and NEVER attempt this operation without the aid of some kind of tenoning jig.

Next I cut mortises in the upper end of my leg stock using a plunge router and straight-edge guide. These mortises must be centered exactly in the face of the stock and cut 7/8″ deep. I square the rounded ends of the mortises with a chisel.

With mortising completed, the two pieces are ready to be glued together, and here is the trick to being able to split them apart after turning. After applying a thin layer of glue to both pieces, a sheet of newspaper is placed between them, and then they are clamped together. Edges and ends must be clamped perfected flush with one another. Hand screws keep things aligned as clamps are tightened down.After the glue has dried a snug fitting block of wood is cut to fill in the open mortise in the bottom end of the turning stock and a couple of drops of super glue are applied to this block before tapping it into place. A little bit of super glue will hold it in place during the turning but allow the block to be knocked out after the work on the lathe is finished. Now centers can be located in each end of the turning stock and it can be mounted and turned. The turning is very simple for this design, just a straight taper with the finished piece being 3 1/4″  in diameter at the bottom end and 2 1/2″ at the top.

Once the turning and sanding on the lathe are finished the piece can be removed, and the block in the bottom end can be tapped out with a smaller block of wood and a mallet. Now the stock is ready to be split in two. Line up a 1″ wide chisel on the glue line at the top end of the piece and give the chisel a firm tap. The piece will separate pretty easily at the top. Then push the chisel on in, and, using it as a wedge, split the glued up pieces completely apart. A couple of light passes on the jointer and a little sanding will completely remove the newspaper and glue from the flat side of our split turnings and the two pieces are now ready to become table legs with mortises already cut. The photo below shows the split turned legs being dry fitted to upper and lower stretchers.

Here is the base of the table completely assembled.

Here is the finished table. The split turned legs compliment the over all design very nicely.

Click to enlarge these images.

To see more of my work please visit My Furniture Gallery.

Here is an old ship that I haven’t worked on for about a year. I can’t believe it’s been that long. It’s a freighter that belongs to my own Universe called U.E.G or United Earth Government. These two pics are old but I’ve recently started to work on the ship again.


This is some of the work I started to on the inside. Mainly it’s lighting and thinking about a few extra containers of crap in the catwalk. I also added an indicater to sho that the door had a good seal or not. Sadly the work shown in these two picture got lost when my last saved file got corrupted.


Lucky for me I was able to go back to another saved file. I didn’t loose much but it was still a pain in the ass. I worked more on the lighting and changed the color of it. I also thought that I might add a first aid kit and fire extingisher at each door. Just in case.

“This is fucking retarded.”
-Kyle
SOUTH PARK: IMAGINATIONLAND ***

Did you notice we’ve updated our logo ever so slightly?  It showed up on Facebook last week and we changed out the one at the top of the blog a few days ago. 

It’s a subtle change from the old one…we basically just cleaned up the line work a little bit and most importantly, we’ve updated the color of our logo.  Tracery’s gone grey–we’ll be introducing new business cards, shopping, bags, etc over the next few weeks.  We’ve used chocolate brown as ‘our color’ for the past few years, but we all were in the mood for something new.  We think it’s crisp and up to date, what do y’all think?

Our logo is, of course, a visual representation of our name’s definition–ornamental linework from gothic architecture.  Ryan Davis with our sister company, The G Brand, is responsible for our ‘look’ and updated the design and color scheme for us.  Ryan’s also working hard on a brand new website for us which we are really excited about…we hope to have it live around the beginning of 2010.

Convention dictates

He began…

And then lost his way.

Reprehensible, his buddy said,

Have you no respect?

Given the sacrifices

You’re an ungrateful

Despicable aspersion—

All good words.

The blinking customer said,

So don’t push me.

Reporting you as you are

Will bring repercussions

That may scar eardrums.

You don’t listen, do you?

The damage is already done.

Me (Talking to Whit about my latest story): Yes honey, this story is finally flowing for me. In the next chapter I’ll finally get them N-A-K-E-D.

Luke (Frowning at me): Mama why do you want them naked? What about modesty?

Sigh. Clearly spelling words out is no longer effective. Maybe I should switch to Spanish.

Here is my final design. (I found the letters and numbers on my SewPrecise 3 CD.) Now hopefully I can find the time to complete it. We still have a couple of weeks before dh’s (Dear Husband’s) family Christmas get-together.

It’s all very well to have a design to work towards but one must spend some time behind the sewing machine, wish me luck!

have arrived! I found some beautiful lampwork glass beads from fellow Etsy vendors Cottagecove and glassaddictbeads, and have already completed 2 new earrings. Photos will come soon – I loaned my camera to my friend.

Cottagecove makes beautiful beads that she calls raku – swirls of color and random patterns abound and are more striking for the simple design of the beads.

raku lentil glass beads by Cottagecove

glassaddictbeads are also striking – the patterns running through the lampwork look like flames, in brilliant shades and the beads have a nice heft, so that they will suspend nicely.

satori beads by glassaddictbeads

I already have more designs running through my head for the beads, I just need to find the right gems!

The baby bat
in a bird’s nest
is as misplaced
as the bird egg
in a bowling alley.

Close, but,
not quite right.
He slips across
the sound of wood,
thumbed by man,
he will be heaved
and heaved and used,
dirtied by the oils
of skin and lust,
hair and gluttony.

I can hear him inside,
under the howls of win,
or grunts of loss:
Please don’t crack.
Please.

And I have been eating
the wrong bugs,
raised by chirping,
pecking, I have
dangled by my toes,
the twigs creaking,
with a wing that
has much to learn.

I watch him, never
safe or sure.

They wonder why
I keep my eyes
wide open
during the night.

I will not see a shooting star.
Feeling the anxious pangs of surgery,
stretched on the careless wooden bench,
it was cold. How suiting–-
for a naked moment that passes
like the breathings of lust,
the scalpel’s incision,
and is gone. (But the cut remains.)
Now cut open to the air,
A lot of things are gone,
lately, beyond the beautiful streak of
waste, in the sky.
Isn’t that what meteors are, Dust?
And so why we should want them,
I do not know.
But

I will not have a shooting star.
I’ve decided, resigned, but, bemused,
I thrust my hand up as an angry leper
in denial, defiant, and alive, from where it
laid; Where another should have been.
And, with a cigarette instead,
reducing itself to soot (I wonder
if this happens to stars: the burn, the ash,
the leprosy, until nonexistence),
Where the flame waived,
something like passion,
but wrong, with smoke trailing
asunder, under the cruel void
of pinheaded lights,
it streaked across the sky,
until I buried it in my chest.

(I have not cried that much since.)

With the addition of a new baby in the extended family I have been thinking about what type of design to make and have decided to ‘run’ with the Carpenter’s Wheel. I find this block has plenty of visual appeal even when made in a large size; mine will be 24″.

Not sure about the star sashings yet as I have been thinking about some foundation pieced letters with her name and date of birth instead. I’ll just have to get the blocks made and see how I go for time! When I made the 50th wedding anniversary quilt for friends a couple of years ago the foundation pieced letters took me about 5 days to make. They look great and certainly personalise a quilt but you begin to wonder why you thought it was such a good idea.

A piece of sky

Cut by a diamond

Dropped on a plate

Blessed by a goddess

Whose kisses press

My nodding head

Till awake & fresh

The meal is eaten

In calm realms

Far above the play

Knocking at the world

An embrace of arms

Collisions unknown

While ignorance avoids

The scripted future

My celestial meal

Saves me from harm.

I’m not even going to try and pretend that this photo doesn’t suck. However, it is just here to quickly show a friend and no, the painting isn’t even finished. I still have some touch-ups to do. Project for university, supposed to pick an object and paint it 12 times with different colors. I’ll post it again (with a much better photo) when it’s done.

Here’s another piece that’s going int the knitted chakra anatomy series. This is a representation of the Third Eye or Ajna (to perceive and command in Sanskrit). This energy center in the body is related to vision and the eyes.

Not a lot of stitching going on still in the Frou Palace… am still sorting out cupboards and boxes and bins purging stuff (see the For Sale pages)… look what I found, and forgot I had…

These were a set of Dresden Plates I bought on ebay a few years ago.  Not vintage made, but using vintage fabrics.   So have cut out muslin squares to applique them on to.

What little work I have been doing is primarily work on South Seas Lace – this was a SAL I was doing with Claire and Sandra – but both of them have finished theirs… so I’ve been attempting to get this done in what little time I have had free.

I did manage to get a Kris Kringle present stitched up last weekend, but forgot to take a photo!   I’ve talked before about The Parsonage gang – a group of women who are planning our 4th visit to The Parsonage in 2010, a weekend of laughter, mayhem and stitching.   On Thursday night, we had a get together – partly to do a block exchange – as we are making Dresden Plates for each other, as well as a chance to catch up with each other before the Christmas crazies kick in.   We organised a Kris Kringle exchange, something sewing related – and I made a couple of stitched pincushions.   And was very lucky to end up with Jayne’s gift … isn’t this gorgeous!

And the only other excitement is the purchase of this!

I’ve fallen for Moda Bella Solids – the white is lovely and crisp, gorgeous to work with, some give but also irons up well.   Have recently bought some of the Bella Snow a lovely pale cream after noticing that lots of designers are using it.    And being constantly frustrated by the difference in image quality and reality looking at fabric online, ordered the Colour Card… dreaming of working with solids!

I’ve been busy at work in my studio and I’ve decided to post a works in progress series of pieces that are going to be part of my thesis exhibition. For one of the installations in my show, I’m knitting sculptures that are representative of the anatomy that corresponds to the chakra system. The intestines, seen here, are influenced by the 3rd charkra, also known as the solar plexus, or Manipura (Sanskrit for lustrous gem).

I have been working on these foundation pieced blocks for a few months and finally put this one together yesterday. Although it appears to be fine in the middle (the seams are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination) there are actually a lot of seams making it very bulky and it doesn’t seem to sit well. I think I may have to play around with it and take the scissors to something before I am happy.

This is a (free) Kim Noblin Dried Flowers Quilt Pattern. Kim also has a blog with 365 days of foundation pieced patterns which is well worth a look. Kim also has other interesting blocks and designs at her Block Central site.

Thank-you to my friend Shayne for giving me the background fabric it looks really great!

Who’s in charge here?

What’s with bedlam

And broken bones—

Look,

Do I have to—?

No,

I didn’t think so

Okay let’s pick up

And make the adults happy—

After all,

They’re feeding us—

And please stand still—

We’re all in crises here

Don’t make matters—

Hey, put that down—

Help,

We’ve got a problem here.

I’m starting to piece things together in order, even though I’m still not posting them that way! I’m at the halfway point now, with only NINE DAYS LEFT, and I’m trying not to go into a blind panic. But the good news is that, since I’ve found an order and therefore a pattern of how this will all be laid out, it’s coming a bit more easily. I’m gonna go rest my hands and shoulders now; I leave you with the most recent 2,000 words from the “mouth” of our ever-so-charmless narrator. She’s a lot more fun to write than Ivy’s diary entries. Can you tell?? Hah.

~~~~~~~~

I was laying on my stomach, absentmindedly attempting to flatten that one goddamn spring that had been digging into me, right through the cheap mattress the Phoenix people try to pass off as “beds,” when I heard some chatter getting closer to my door than I was comfortable hearing. For one thing, there was a rule about laying facedown on one’s bed, and I’d already seen what sort of privileges got taken away from people who ignored that particular regulation. If the Nazis behind the plexiglass at the nurses’ station thought they’d catch me doing something that meant I couldn’t whip the schizo floor’s asses at euchre every Friday night, they were sorely mistaken.

Not to say I actually cared about the rules. I just didn’t get caught. Not me.

The other possibility, and one that seemed more likely as the voices came nearer, was that it was a gaggle of patients, the ones who had free run of the corridors until bedtime. There weren’t many of those around these days. I glanced at the giant clock that was screwed rather precariously into the wall above the desk in my room, saw that it was only 6:24 p.m., and sighed. Still too early to dig into the stash. Three more checks until lights out, and damned if those nurses weren’t given to shining a fucking flashlight into your eyes if they suspected you were dabbling in extra-curricular pharmaceutical use. Stupid, really. What did they think would happen to pupils when suddenly exposed to a MagLite? I’d gotten tired of wondering where these bitches had gotten their diplomas, but the prospect of missing out on euchre once again won out over the temptation of asking. After all, it wasn’t money I stood to win from the schizos. And bed checks or not, my stash was looking a bit skimpy at the moment.

“You actually believe that?” I heard one of the voices say. I recognized the pitch right away. Nails on a chalkboard. Tracey Truth. I sat up a bit, despite knowing that I wasn’t about to get busted for breaking an arbitrary and as yet completely nonsensical-to-me rule. I wanted to hear this. Tracey lived life as though every day was her own personal episode of The X-Files. I kept meaning to jot down those lines – you know, the sort that prisoners use to mark off the days they’ve been caged – to keep track of how many times in a 24 hour period she used the word “believe.”

The door to my room was open only slightly, and I was, mercifully, alone for the time being. I had to make sure I was in a good enough position to eavesdrop without making it look as though I was welcoming company.

The second voice became clearer now. “Well, yeah,” Gully replied. Had I already known who was talking, I’d have ben able to write out their conversation like a script that had been played to death and back again. I didn’t call Alicia “Gully” for nothing. She continued, and I realized that the pair of them had stopped right outside. Perfect. “I mean, she’s so open and honest, right? Like, who else would have the guts to read their diary on Group days?”

“Oh, please!” Truth groaned. I could just barely make out her eyes rolling in that supremely annoying way she had. I shifted to prop myself up on one elbow. Now that I knew what – or, more accurately, who – they were discussing, I was more interested than before.

“What?” Gully simpered. I’d never known anyone who could actually simper in one syllable before Gully, but there it was. “I mean, like, she’s baring her soul!”

“She’s a fucking drama queen,” Truth shot back. “And if you don’t think we’re getting the sanitized version of every little thing, you need to up your meds or something. She could be making all that shit up, for all we know!”

Gully sighed, and I could see her hands twisting together nervously. She was so Truth’s bitch. I had that pegged from Day One.

“But, like, what would she… I mean, how does she benefit from telling us this way how she got here? Everyone else just, like, goes in and sits and says, ‘I had to come here because I was…’ You know. Whatever.”

“That’s my point,” Truth said, her voise rising just a fraction. I had half a mind to tell her to hush, because the Nazis would come and drag them both away if it looked like there was anything more compelling than tea-time talk happening here, and then how would I hear this pathetic attempt to dissect The Enigmatic Ivy?

“What is?”

“That we all just tell it like it is, but she has to haul her stupid books in and read to us like we’re in third grade. Come on. She’s probably a pathological liar and has to keep things written down so she doesn’t lose track of what she’s told people. She’s not stupid.”

“Well, no, of course she isn’t,” said Gully in her comparative whisper.

“Although I guess she can’t be a rocket scientist if she landed in here. She got caught, somehow.”

“Not necessarily…”

Truth laughed, the sound of a dog being jerked back on its leash just as it tries to bark. “You don’t think anyone wold put themselves here on purpose, do you? This isn’t Promises, in case you hadn’t noticed.” I saw her gesture to the ceiling, and I knew she was calling attention to the stains creeping around the edges of every styrofoam panel. “She. Got. Caught.”

“Caught doing what, though?” Gully asked, sounding more anxious than even her twisty hands would let on. I perked up a bit more. I always wondered what people said about The Ivy Story when they thought they were out of earshot.

“Think about what everyone else here has done. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t got a rap sheet for something. Not on this floor, anyway. The Cuckoo’s Nest is pretty self-explanatory, but us? We’re completely inorganic fuck-ups!”

Gully didn’t say anything for a moment, and I wondered if I might be about to hear some grand revelation, either about her – not that I cared, but kicks were getting harder to find – or about what she thought was written on the last page of the last black-and-white composition notebook.

“Um…what does that mean?” she asked.

Unbelieveable.

I tried to slap a hand over my mouth before the guffaw escaped, but either sound would’ve tipped them off, and that was it. Through the gap between the door and the wall, I saw both of their heads swivel toward me, two pairs of eyes widening as they realized they’d been overheard. I thought the level of alarm in their expressions, especially Gully’s, was more than a bit overblown, considering neither of them had said antything of consequence whatsoever, but either way, I’d just screwed myself out of hearing anything more.

Truth slid her hand along the door and pushed it open, about halfway now, but didn’t step into the room. She glanced around nervously, and I thought about asking who she was looking for, just to be a smartass, but I didn’t. I just leaned back on my elbow a bit further, the very picture of mellow, and smirked at her.

“Oh… Uh…sorry,” Truth offered. It was pretty lame, coming from her. I’d have expected her to be a bit more brash, accusing me of deliberately listening in, even though I’d been there the whole time and it was their choice to pick their location for chitchat.

I sat up rather suddenly, and the sound of the spring jumping up against the mattress once more ricocheted off the paint-peeled walls. Gully actually jumped, though I couldn’t tell for sure if it was the noise that did it or if it was me. Both options struck me as funny, and I let myself laugh. That definitely creeped Gully out, and Truth didn’t look altogether comfortable either.

“We didn’t disturb you or…anything…did we?” Truth asked. Gully looked as though she was trying to shrink enough to be completely obscured by the taller woman.

“Nah,” I said. I felt my face twist into a sweet smile. “I wasn’t doing much. Don’t mind me.” With a gracious wave of my hand, I motioned for them to carry on as they were. Truth shot a look over her shoulder at Gully, who was the only thing preventing her from backing out of my line of sight.

“Okay…” She stepped back and elbowed Gully, the way you’d dig into a horse to give it direction. “Sorry, again, anyway.”

“No worries,” my singsong voice said, but they’d already vanished before I could finish even that short a sentence. I heard them scuffling away, and I just shook my head and smirked again. Nutjobs. And to think they hadn’t even invited me into their little pow-wow.

“I’m telling you…” I heard Truth hissing at Gully as they neared the end of the hall, but whatever else she said was swallowed up into the labyrinth of corridors. I glanced over at the stack of composition books on the desk, each one labeled with a flowery little flourish and the words “IVY” and the start and end dates of the volume on the spine. As I closed my eyes and laid back onto the bed, hearing the springs groan in protest, I wasn’t even remotely tempted to pick up the last one and flip to the end.

~~~~~~~~