Copyright: What elements of this story that I own, and are not the property of anyone else, are licensed
CC-BY-NC-SA. That means that you can take anything in this story, up to and including the whole thing, and use it
however you like, as long as you promise me three things:
1. You will link back to me (preferably to my author page)
2. You will not make money off whatever you do
3. You will share your work under these same conditions
So sorry it took me so long to get this one up; life recently became insane, and I've been working out the best way to say what I wanted with this.
Today's prompt is: 'Is there an animal you can equate with your character?'
Today's update also features the triumphant return of John and Sarah Granger, likely for the last time in this story.
A quick word about sources: John Granger is inspired by John Green, American author and one-half of the popular vlogbrothers Youtube channel. I have great respect for John, and I could think of no better way to honour him than to make him Hermione's father. I also stole a piece of diaologue from one of his videos. I also owe a slight dialogue debt to Ken Robinson, a British educational theorist whose 2007 TED talk I blatantly plaigarized for this story.
Hope you enjoy!
"Come on, come on; we'll miss them!"
"Oy, Hermione! Wait…" But it was too late. All it took was one second of lost eye contact, one unfortunate person crossing in the wrong direction, and the abnormally bushy head of Hermione Jane Granger disappeared from her father's view. In a more typical family this would be cause for significant alarm - losing one's child in a zoo being a recurring nightmare for most parents - but the Granger's were not a typical family, and this was not the first time they had 'lost' their only daughter in the London Zoo. "I blame you for this, you know." John Granger complained to his wife.
"I know you do, dear." Sarah smiled right back. "But don't forget who first read her Tarka."
"Oh yeah…"
"And isn't it nice to get outside occasionally?" She prodded.
John wrinkled his nose. "Sarah, my relationship with Outside is like a relationship with a jealous ex-girlfriend: I want the best for Outside, but I believe that we should keep our encounters brief, and rare."
Sarah only chuckled at her husband's behaviour as the two of them rounded the corner and spotted their daughter exactly where they both knew she'd be: in front of the otter exhibit, nose flat against the glass, hair spread out like some ridiculous halo.
Despite John's personal disagreements with Outside, he could not for one moment deny how glad he was to see his daughter this way, this excited about something not printed on a page. John loved his daughter as much as any father could, and he could certainly not begrudge a love of books in anyone, but he did occasionally wonder if Hermione didn't love books a little too much.
Sarah liked to say that their daughter "Lives in her head, and slightly to one side; her body is just a way of getting her head to breakfast." John wouldn't disagree with this, and didn't necessarily consider it a bad thing - after all, his own parents frequently commented on how similar John had been to his daughter at that age - but he was becoming slightly concerned. Hermione seemed to prefer books to virtually all other pursuits: when asked, she would list her best friends as Mary Lennox, Lucy Pevensie, and Sherlock Holmes. At first, John and Sarah had chalked it up to being a relatively isolated child; the Grangers didn't have many close friends of their own, and they had no other children, so young Hermione's developmental years had mostly been spent indoors with naught but her parents and their extensive library for company. She would do better, they reasoned, once she was old enough to start school and spend time with other children her own age.
"Miss Potts rang yesterday." His wife commented, seemingly reading his thoughts. Miss Potts was one of the supervisors at Hermione's nursery school; she called about once every two weeks.
"What did she say?"
"The usual," Sarah noted drily, "That Hermione doesn't socialize, doesn't participate in group activities, and doesn't speak when spoken to."
John sighed. This was nothing new. Every time she called, Miss Potts would give the same story: Hermione wasn't interested in nursery school. After her first call, she had gently suggested that Hermione might be handicapped. John had looked over at his daughter then, reading The Lord of the Rings aloud, and had to laugh. When asked, Hermione merely said that she found the school boring and the other children immature.
"I'm worried about her." Sarah admitted, sadly.
John was quiet for a long while, watching his daughter. It wasn't right, he figured, for a little girl to prefer books to people. Books were nice, he had to admit, but there was something to the feeling of being connected to another human being. Even John Granger, admitted enthusiast of books and eschewer of Outside, had to admit to that.
Gradually, John found his attention shifting from the brown-haired girl he knew so well to the otters playing in their tank. He observed some otters 'sunning' themselves on the land, and watched them walk around awkwardly. They managed it all right, but it didn't look natural - not where they belonged. Once they got in the water, though, it was a completely different story. Few things, as John had come to discover over the course of his life and his daughter's recent obsession with the aquatic mammals, were as graceful as a swimming otter. They glided effortlessly through the water, seemingly for no other reason than because they could, and because it was fun. It was where they came alive.
The sound of his daughter's voice brought his attention back to her, and he smiled. She was talking a mile-a-minute, the way he knew her to do at home, to some poor little sandy-haired boy who could only stare slack-jawed at her. She talked for maybe five minutes, not seeming to need to breath, extolling the virtues of the otter, the mythology of the otter, the beauty of the otter, and the everything-else of the otter.
John nudged his wife, and directed her attention to their daughter. Even Sarah had to smile at that. "I think she'll turn out okay," John said, finally addressing his wife's fears. "She just needs to find something she's passionate about, and find someone to share it with."