Of Postcards And Pill Bottles

Setting: English countryside, possibly a small village with one large manor, belonging to George's family. 

George (He refuses to be named anything else,) is setting out for a year abroad after university, and has just been making the rounds and taking down notes on what sorts of souvenirs his friends would like to have brought back, and where from... And he has come to his old playmate at this point in the picture.

"And what kind of a souvenir would you like to have brought back, my fine little country lass?" 

He smirked at her ever so slightly. "The others have already handed in their requests quite unaffectedly, so you needn't worry about setting the gossips talking."

He looked as if waiting for her answer amused him, and added quippingly, "Though it cost me half my kingdom,--er, income per annum, since I haven't got the former-- it shall be executed to the best of my abilities."

She looked at him with a solemn warning on her lips, and a laugh in her eyes, belying it.

"Don't say that. I might ask for something more expensive than you want to dole out."

He raised an unconcerned eyebrow at her.

"Give it your best shot, I doubt you can make me blink. You're too much the farmer's daughter for that, there's economy in the very veins of you."

She shrugged her shoulders as if she had tried to warn him in time, and went on lightly.

"In matters of money, yes. But not so regarding time. I can be frivolous with the best of your finishing school ladies with that." 

He only looked at her quizzically, and she obliged with an answer.

"I want a word picture, then, if you insist on knowing. A verbal postcard, in a way, but nothing like the kind you mail, dear me no."

And she was laughing, wicked amusement flashing mischievously from her eyes. It intrigued him, and he begged her make her request a little plainer to the minds of ordinary mortals who did not often deal in word pictures, be they post cards or otherwise.

She drew her words out slowly, never taking her eyes off him, or the blithely twisting smile off her face.

"Alright then. I want a picture of your favourite place abroad. But not a photograph, ahh, no. Sit down in a chair and write it out so clearly that I feel as if I'm there."

She looked up at him as if there was a dare peeping out from behind her lashes.

"You see what I mean when I say it would cost you more than money? It will take time and patience, two things a good deal less abundant in your coffers than money, as I recall, and therefore more costly."

He looked at her a little taken aback.

"That's what you want? For me to sit down and write a letter?"

She shook her head slightly.

"Not quite that. I want you to make it feel as if I'm seeing it through your eyes. As if..."

She finished brightly.

"As if I were sitting in the chair next over seeing it alongside you."

She lifted an eyebrow at him.

"You see now why you shouldn't write blank cheques, old dear. People WILL take advantage of it." 

She shook her head as if wearied by the ways of the world. The effect was somewhat impaired by the undeniably present twinkle in her eye, but not for nothing had she been cast the heroine in the village productions five times running. 

She was holding in too much laughter for it to remain hidden, however, and while not a chuckle passed her lips, her eyes, her mouth, her very posture emitted the laughter of a joker who has plotted well and played to perfection some prank of their own cunning ingenuity. 

He looked at her, astonishment warring with something like rueful respect in his expression.

"Leave it to you to ask for the one thing I never would have thought up myself. I was sure you were going to ask for a book or something."

She lifted a slightly pink face to his, (surely the effect of holding in such a quantity of laughter,) and met his eyes boldly.

"I tried to warn you, but you would have it. It's really no one's fault but your own—" But he held up a hand, stopping her.

"No. No, it isn't that, you just—startled me, that's all."

He fiddled musingly with the handkerchief in his pocket as he went on.

"You know... I did play with the pen a bit years ago. Shouldn't wonder if the old knack came back directly I whistle for it."

He nodded at her as of he had made his mind up about something.

"I say, I'll do it."

She laughed up at him. "You expect your pen to be awfully biddable after years of neglect, but I wouldn't dare shoot down your confidence in it. Thank you."

Her voice had somewhat diminished towards the end, until it was barely audible over the purring of the breeze playing through the trees. She looked as if she was lost in thought, and blinked with a start as he flung himself down on the grass in an attitude of thoughtful deliberation. He pulled up a blade of grass, and twirled it contemplatively between his fingers. 

"What I want to know is how you knew I'd do it. Because you can't say you didn't, I see it in your eyes. I don't make exactly a habit of jumping to attention, do I?"

She flushed a little, laughing under his gaze.

"You? Never. But see, I found an old notebook of yours when I was rummaging in an old armoire up in the attic. You'd written in it when you were ten years old and staying for the summer... It was full of word pictures. You had a sort of a way with them."

She shrugged, flashing a quick smile at him and looking away again.

"And ever since, I've wanted to see what you would do with a pen now."

He persisted in spite of the warm feeling that was spreading itself with no thought for economy around the regions of his third coat button. She thought he'd had a way with those confounded whatchamacallums.

"But how did you know I'd do it?"

She smiled. "You couldn't help but. When you've got words in your blood, they never go away. It's like Gold Fever. They just wait for you to let them out on a page, and won't leave 'til you do it."

He peered at her closely.

"You say that as if you knew it from personal experience.

A smile quirked at the corner of her small mouth as she traced an outline in the grass with the toe of her shoe.

"Would I have asked for a word picture if I didn't?"

He looked up at her again, his voice considering now.

"I'll tell you what. I'll write you that picture—" He fumbled around for words, and finding the right one at last in his possession, finished triumphantly. "-postcard on one condition. You write me one back."

She shot a startled look at him.

"Why on earth? You're the one going abroad, remember, not me. I shan't have a thing to write about other than the school picnic, and you can't honestly mean you want that." Her tone had a derisive tint to it, but he ignored it, nodding firmly. 

"I do so. In minute detail, with exhaustive descriptions of every dessert."

He cast a teasing glance at her. "It's no good pleading off on the grounds of nothing to write about, I happen to know you've written five page letters on the same subject. And all I beg is three."

He cocked his head a little to one side, and wrinkling his nose as if in deep thought, amended this. 

"Maybe four, if there are a lot of desserts."

She threw one of her gloves at him, a laugh rippling out in spite of herself.

"Alright, alright. It will save you counting sheep at night, I suppose. Save it for bedtime like a good boy then, Georgie, and it may cancel all need for a warm glass of milk.

He nodded comfortably at her.

"I'll do one better, and roll it up in a pill-bottle. One dose to be taken on a full stomach--to render the dessert section less agonizing-- in case of homesickness."

(This, dear reader, happens to be All The Story There Is. I wish there were bookfuls of it, but there are not. Sadly. *Sniffs* Oh well. Suppose we go cheer ourselves up with the next story thought in line? There isn't more of that than there is of this, but still, it IS there...)