Grit: Yearns to throw herself at life, given that life is a tropical island with butterflies. Roused by bird song, she wakes in the morning, and draws back the bedroom curtain. Beyond the clouds there are dragon mountains wrapped in jungle greens. Then she remembers how Tiger daughter hates her, and said so 253 times yesterday. The poetry of dragons falls away. Lumps of brown rock emerge, covered in pointless wastes of green. Grit pulls pillow over face. Sobs. Unstable. Might be mad. Lashings of lip gloss.
Dig: Indestructible. Utterly and completely focused. Has goal: family will live on a tropical island and have a nice time. Sticks to vision at all costs, despite all reason, despite all punishment. Dedicated, even when vision is bonkers. Determined that everything is improving and the children are settling in. Declares after the latest Tiger temper tantrum that this is sure evidence that Tiger daughter is at last calming down. Force of will and two brains may yet dictate that this is so. Or may be more unhinged than Grit with that level of stubborn denial. Should have been a prophet. And fingers crossed about the indestructible.
Shark: Cool, calculating. Thinks like a computer. Sees beach. Goes to beach. Not coming away from beach. Has a better answer than you for everything, especially when it comes to leaving beach. Out to win at all costs. Blood may be shed. International competitor class for mucking about at beach, also for sibling rivalry, dolphin knowledge. Takes after Dig. Difference is that Shark's vision is made mostly of fish.
Squirrel: Romanticist. Happy-go-lucky. Curious. Chattery. Inscrutable. Sometimes suspect she is having deep and complex thoughts about outer space and magnification of stars. Sometimes comes out with profound complex thoughts about stuff like moths. Sometimes goes to live on Planet Squirrel, where everything is real, sparkly, and pink. Example: thinks she lives on a tropical island with family and is having a nice time.
Tiger: Hypersensitive. Self critical. Creative. Brilliant, like a diamond. Locked self in bedroom on tropical island, refusing to come out. Has been tempted out for visits. To shops (horrible). To beach (terrible). To library (what is the point). To dinner (not hungry). To window to see view (I want to go home). Otherwise, horse obsessed. May be George Stubbs reincarnated in a pink frock and scowl.
There. That sounds normal, doesn't it? I think we're all doing fine.
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3 comments:
Well it seems 3/5 of the family is doing fine...
Any chance of a ride on a Chinese horse to tempt the fair Tiger from her pit of anguish? It will be alright, keep applying the lip gloss ;-)
Yeah, I was going to say what Sharon said: can you find any horses? When we were in Brunei my parents found an army barracks where I could go and ride their horses once a week. I rode along the beach with the south china sea on one side and jungle on the other. It made a huge difference to how I felt. xx
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