Rain May and Captain Daniel Read Online Free Page B

counting down. Yes, yes — good night, Mum. Good night, galaxy. Lights off.
    The Captain’s Log. Stardate 150901
    Fridge poetry was frustrating. The words you want are not there. Maggie, that’s Rain’s commander-in-chief, said it didn’t have to rhyme, but it sounds better when it does, I reckon. Anyway, what I think is that they’ve evolved it into a highly selective language of their own. There are hidden messages. A useful communication device that at first glance appears wanky.
    Commander-in-chief Maggie talks to you as though you’re nearly at her rank. That could be a sophisticated alien ploy — assimilate or die. It sounds like they are staying, though — she was pretty keen on getting the place painted and she wanted to know all about the Training Barracks. I didn’t tell them it was like Hell, only noisier. What was the point. She’ll find out soon enough.
    Observations of Artefacts on Ship 7
Small visual entertainment unit — indicating a wider acceptance of printed material than generally regarded as normal on Cosmos.
No computer!
Many of the small female alien’s printed visual stimuli match my own. And she’s in the same year as me, so she did lie about her age.
Little or no evidence of girl artefacts such as nail polish, glitter gel etcetera.
CHESS SET! But pieces in an old jar and no board visible.
    They didn’t seem to mind me hanging round, observing. They didn’t shoo me away or ask me whether I hadn’t anything better to do. If they had, the answer would have been ‘no’. The Doctor is on hospital duty and Counsellor Diana is out doing good. It’s her old-people day. She’ll come home with a knitted vest for me from Mrs Gregor — some strange colour mix. Her eyesight’s worse, the Doctor says. I’ll have to wear it. What I want is one of those vests that are waterproof with lots of different pockets. That would be useful.
    And she’ll have a couple of jars of jam or pickles from Mrs Doherty — they’ll be yummy and she dates all hers so you know if it’s really too old to eat, not like Mr Wills’. He doesn’t bother and he can never remember which year he made them. The last lot I reckon might have been made when his wife was still alive — and she’s been dead three years. I told Mum not to bother — just throw them straight in the bin — but she will open them and there was mould, right over the whole top. Disgusting.
    She’ll be exhausted, too, and headachey. The Doctor will pour her a glass of wine. I saw him put a bottle in the fridge before he left this morning. He’ll tell her she shouldn’t visit them, it’s not her responsibility. And they’ll talk about the old days, when there was a proper community. Then she’ll watch television and the Doctor and I will play chess.
    There’s the landing vehicle.
    Later: 2000 hours
    The Doctor narrowly checkmated me. I do not play a good defence game. It’s a weakness. Also my openings are stale. I wish there was a chess club here so I could really practise. Can’t wait until high school. They have a club there and play chess in the lunch hours when it’s rainy. That could be a lot of chess in winter and spring. Age and strength don’t matter with chess. Your mind is all. I do have a good mind. Otherwise the Upper Training Barracks would not have approved my early promotion. Depending on health evaluation, as the Counsellor and the Doctor remind me.
    Sleep pod in ten minutes. Captain Daniel is retiring to revise chess strategies. Next week the championship returns to me!

The Dream House
Countdown
    Making Granny’s old place into the dream house wasn’t easy. For a start we had to drive practically all the way back home to get the kind of paint we wanted. That took one whole day because Maggie insisted on doing a big grocery shop as well, then we had to check out the op shops,