Story: Middle Part 5
[[Continuity Note: What do you reckon?]]
Alf rang home from the school's phone booth after the bell rang, explaining to his mother about what the girl had told him.
"The girl from the dentist's office? Jessica? I know her parents. I must say it's quite shocking, but I suppose there's no harm in you going. They seem a decent sort."
And with permission, Alf set off toward the girl's house. Thankfully, the walk to the girl's house (he wasn't going to call her Jessica until he was absolutely certain that that was her name) was no longer than his usual walk home. In fact, it was a little shorter as it turned out hat the girl lived in the rather large house around the corner from his own. As he stared at it during his approach, he thought it seemed typical. In fact, if he'd thought about it, their house was probably the one in town that you would pick to be haunted, or inhabited by witches. Probably only because it was old and made of brick, probably from the Victorian Era if his mother's favourite paintings were anything to go by. It had a dark roof and shutters as well as a wrought iron fence and stone path leading from the street to the doorstep and veranda. Otherwise, it was extremely well kept and had the look of many people living there, if the music coming from one of the upper rooms was any indication.
The gate did not squeak as Alf opened it, and there were no black cats lounging on the veranda. The doorbell sound was a perfectly cheery and normal "ding dong". Not a grotesque "di-i-ing do-o-o-ong" as he was expecting. Or something worse like the bell pull for Lurch in the Addams Family. He heard no screeching noises and Alf wondered where he'd managed to get all these preconceptions from. They were obviously unfounded.
The door was opened by a middle aged woman with dark red hair knotted into a bun close to her neck. She was wearing a simple blue and white cotton dress, and was barefoot. There was no make-up on her face, save the redness of her lips which was surely not natural. His imagination running away with him, Alf wondered if it was supernatural.
Those red lips curled into a smile. "You must be Alfonso." And suddenly, Alf felt right at home, as though this was where he was always meant to be.
"Yes ma'am," he replied. "Though I would prefer if it you'd call me Alf."
"Of course, my dear," she replied, graciously. "But only if you'll call me Karen."
That went against what Alf had been taught and he said so.
'Karen' smiled elegantly. "Okay. I shall call you Alf if you call me Mrs Aldus. Though I dare say there are a lot of us and you might get a little confused." She invited him in after that, and began showing him around the house, introducing him to the various occupants as they came upon them.
"Our family has lived here for so long, and our house is so large that it's sort of a hub for magical people passing through. Of course the other families have their own houses, but there are only four of us in Sydney. Comparatively speaking, that's quite a few, as there are only fifteen branches of the magical family tree."
The history lesson was fascinating, and so were the people in the house. Those who lived in the house permanently were Mrs Aldus, her husband and her daughter. Then there was her husband's sister, his wife, and their two sons. Her husband's aunt lived with them, though they rarely ventured out, and her two daughters and their families. The reason why Mrs Aldus said that it would be quite confusing to call her Mrs Aldus soon became apparent. Aldus was the family name, and a powerful one at that. Anyone who married into the family took the name Aldus whether they were female or male.
And then there were the temporary boarders. For some reason, each one of them seemed to have a pet, despite the fact that no one living there permanently did. There was Markus and his pet iguana. They were from Canada. Markus had spent a great deal of his time ice fishing and was now travelling fishing in less frigid temperatures.
Alison was a woman who looked like she would have been right in place in the seventies with her flowing strawberry blonde hair and long skirts. She had a pet mouse, strangely enough. A small white one that she looked to for fashion tips, apparently. With a wiffle of its nose, it could tell her whether anything was a fashion do or don't. Apparently Jakob the mouse had liked Alf's outfit, to which he wasn't sure whether to be complimented or not, until he realised that it was his school uniform and the opinion had nothing to do with him.
And lastly there was the Magalot family. Mr and Mrs Magalot were taking their twins Bella and Sebastian on a trip around the world as part of their education. Mostly it seemed that they liked visiting whichever food production plants would let them have free samples. To say that the parents and children were rotund was putting it nicely. And any room all four of them were in suddenly seemed to suffocate Alf as though the walls were closing in on him. Not that they weren't perfectly charming people. They'd brought a menagerie with them, too. Bella and Sebastian each had a cat, and their parents carried goldfish... probably with a spell that wouldn't have the water completely spilling out of the bowls as they travelled. Besides the cats, Bella had a small budgerigar that they'd only just picked up, and Sebastian had a bald eagle. Something Alf debated the legality of.
But Alf didn't actually have the chance to meet most of the permanent dwellers in the Aldus house. Mrs Aldus swept him into a sitting room onto a soft lounge with a pile of biscuits and a cup of tea before him before sweeping her husband and daughter into the room in a similar fashion.
"I guess a little history would not be amiss at this moment," Mr Aldus began. "Though I haven't managed to tell it without sounding like a terrible braggart."
"I'll tell it," his daughter (who was almost certainly named Jessica) stated. "Since people have been known to exist, which is about fifty thousand years, the sort of people that we are, magic users, have also always existed. The first known account of a magic user was Cornucopia of Alderfield. She is also our first known ancestor. The Aldus family has been her direct line since then.
"This has led to people esteeming our family far more than they perhaps should. In fact, the family is something akin to royalty of the magical variety, though we deny that we are at all special."
Mr Aldus was right, the girl did sound like a braggart, telling it. As though everything she said to attempt to dispute that was merely said to give the impression of not being one and therefore increasing the boastful nature of the entire monologue. And because of his father's introduction, Alf didn't fault her for it.
"So," the girl continued. "The point of this brief family history is to illustrate that our family is special in the magical world, though it is for no real reason."
"And the point of telling you that," Mr Aldus interrupted. "Was to explain that our family is special, but that you are special in a very different way."
[[and I'm going to stop there to go to bed.]]
posted by Cedric @ 11:48 pm
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