Bounce

~ SandyX


Catherine listened to the tapping on the pipes and tried to decipher the messages as she made her way through the tunnels towards Vincent’s chambers.  She understood the basics, but Pascal’s shorthand changed and evolved constantly and she wondered how the others kept up with it.  She made out some short messages about Devin’s arrival.  The rest sounded like normal tunnel chatter.

She had ventured below a little earlier than necessary, hoping to steal a few minutes alone with Vincent before they joined Father and Devin for dinner.  Having hurried down the last stretch of tunnel corridors, she paused in the doorway when she spotted Devin sitting on Vincent’s bed.

“He went to the kitchen with Father.  I think they’re trying to talk William out of attempting Baked Alaska for desert,” he said with a grin.

“They’re excited about having you here,” she said as she walked across the room and sat on the bed next to him.  The bed springs squeaked as she settled on the mattress.  Devin grinned.  “What?” she asked.  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.  He started as if to get up but plopped back down suddenly, causing the bed springs to groan loudly in protest.  

“Devin?”   

“Yeah, Chandler?”

Catherine raised an eyebrow in question, waiting for an explanation for his sudden bounciness.

“Old beds and damp air equal rusty box springs ... they’re all like this down here,” he said, jostling the bed one more time.  

“I see,” Catherine said.  

“One night when a bunch of us were sleeping together in the dorm chambers, I got all the kids to jump up and down on their beds,” he started.

Catherine smiled, “Probably wasn’t too hard to convince them.”

“No,” Devin said. “It was a bunch of the younger kids ... they’d do pretty much anything I told them to.”

“They looked up to you ...”

Devin shook his head, smiling, “they were bored.”

“So they bounced ...”  Catherine said, prompting him to continue the story.

“They bounced,” he confirmed, “and it made an awful racket.  The old man heard the noise and came bursting into the room all fired up ... scared one poor kid so bad that he fell off his bed and sprained his wrist.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah. Uh oh,” Devin replied.  “I caught hell for that.”

“For encouraging the others?”

Mmmhmm. “You’re  the oldest,” he said in a mimicking voice, “you should set a better example ... shouldn’t encourage such foolish behavior ...” the smile faded from his face and his own voice returned. “He called me irresponsible.”

For a moment, they sat together in silence.  Catherine looked at Vincent’s possessions scattered around the room and wondered how many had been acquired in his childhood, wondered what dreams accompanied each.  When she turned to looked at Devin, he seemed lost in thought.    

“Irresponsible enough ...” she said, breaking the silence. Devin raised his head to look at her in question.

“Something Vincent said,” she continued. “He said that you were the only one irresponsible enough to dream dreams that included him.”

“Maybe. Once,” he replied. “But I left.”

Standing, he walked across the room, then turned and flashed a warm grin at Catherine.  “You, on the other hand ... you’ve made irresponsibility an art form.”

“Me?” Catherine laughed. “You’re calling me irresponsible?” she said, lifting her feet to a position better suited to bouncing and sitting cross legged on the bed with a pile of pillows at her back.

“If the shoe fits ...” he said, sitting next to her with a thud ...*twang.*   “Father would say you're ..."

“Father doesn’t ...”

“And Vincent ...” he interrupted, “if that’s his definition ...”  

The bed whined as Catherine leaned back against the pillows.  “This thing really is noisy,” she commented with a sigh.  

“You’ve never noticed that before?” he asked.

“No, I hadn’t,” she replied, looking down at the patchwork quilt covering the bed.

“Oh ... ” Devin replied, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

“Hush ...” she said, tossing one of the small pillows at him.

“Chandler, my brother ...”

Catherine suddenly looked past Devin toward the chamber entrance, a smile lighting her face.  Vincent walked across the room and took her hand, helping her to her feet.  “They’re waiting for us in the Dining Hall.”

“Great, I’m starved,” she said, taking his arm.

Pausing at the doorway, Vincent turned. “I’m afraid I interrupted when I came in ... you were saying something, Devin?” he asked with a quizzical tilt of the head.  “Your brother ... ?”

“... is a lucky man,” Devin replied patting him on the back as he passed to walk by. “My brother is a lucky man.”






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