#robert would much rather play a quiz type game but no one else likes those

[sparrowwritings]

Day Six: Curtain

Day Five -- Masterpost -- Day Seven

Five years after Warm

The weather in Greatwood was almost always consistent. Summers were hot and winters were cold, though neither normally had so great an extreme to cause alarm to its populace. Compared to places like its closest neighbor of West Plains, the city tended towards more mild climes. 

On occasion, however, the hot air of the south and the cold air of the north collided with Greatwood as its epicenter. Depending on the time of year, this could lead to either immense rainstorms or thick snows. 

The winter after his sister got married, a blizzard hit the city hard enough that Robert Sophos was forced to room with them until utilities could be restored to his own home. This meant that he would be living in the same house as two other adults and two young children for an unpredictable amount of time. Not only that, he couldn’t even retreat into his work or his books for very long due to the constant distractions of the household.

To say that Robert was unhappy was an understatement.

He could sense the watchful eyes of Caleb and Jerran boring holes into the back of his head as he attempted to type out his intended lesson plan for when university classes would resume. Very recent experience had taught him that merely ignoring the boys would have the same result as indulging in their antics. Still, Robert pretended not to notice them until they had taken places on each side of him. The grey eyes of his 12-year-old brother and the blue eyes of his 10-year-old nephew went wide with identical pleading expressions. He sighed through his nose, already giving up on having a productive day. The tone of his voice was flat as he said, “You have my attention. What is it, you two?”

“Brother, can you play with us?” Caleb started to pout, predicting Robert’s typical answer. There was a reason why their sister was his primary caregiver.

“Yeah, Uncle Robert, can you play with us?” Jerran, less used to his uncle’s behavior, smiled sweetly as he begged.

Robert called up a new tab on his browser and searched for the local weather. Once the page loaded, he pointed at the screen as if the boys couldn’t see it for themselves. “It’s already in the negatives out there, I can’t think of any game that would be worth the potential frostbite.”

Rolling his eyes, Caleb responded, “We didn’t ask for you to play with us outside, we just asked for you to play with us.”

“I’ll concede to that particular point, but I still wish to know what it is that the two of you want me to join you in playing before I agree to anything.” 

Caleb opened his mouth, then closed it with a frown. He was deep in thought when Jerran piped up, “Hide and seek, duh!”

Resisting the urge to mention that the younger boy’s suggestion was not the most obvious choice, Robert asked, “And I take it I would be “it” first?”

The boys looked at each other before turning back to him with faux-innocent expressions. “Well...we were *hoping* you would be…” Caleb gave a sheepish grin.

That left him with two options with similar unfavorable results. Either he declined and the boys bothered him until either his sister or her husband could distract them away or he agreed and got caught up in the children’s game for far too long. After a moment or two of deliberating (and realizing that he’d lose approximately the same amount of time working for both options), he sighed and covered his eyes. “I will count to 50. Neither of you can hide outside or in the bedrooms. Starting now.” Robert heard the boys scramble away as he started to count.

“That was nice of you,” Matilda commented. He took his hands away from his eyes to find that she had been standing just out of sight until that moment. “Usually you wait until the begging stage to give in and play. What gives?” 

Without looking, Robert carefully moved a hand so that it was pointing in the direction of the bedrooms upstairs without anyone being able to see him doing so from behind. “In the past four games of hide and seek, one or both of them have hidden behind a set of curtains in one of the bedrooms. I’m attempting to teach them how to be more creative.”

“Ohh, I see.” She grinned at him. “You’re actually giving yourself time to work some more while they find places to hide.”

He couldn’t help the smile that started to grow on his face. “Your words, not mine.”