Аннотация: An ordinary morning in the Shepard family.
Part 1.2 An ordinary morning in the Shepard family.
March 25, 2355
So, one step, one more step, take your time Igor, take your time, keep your head, keep your head, I say! Here is the corner of the crib, we intercept with our hands, and then a step, another step. I'm learning to walk! My legs are still weak, but my hands are already much better. It's early in the morning, it's just getting light, and my parents are sleeping on the couch with their arms around each other.
A Barsik is lying at their feet and follows my steps around the crib with an attentive look. So, keep the balance, oops, the head is outweighed, eee! I manage to fold in half and land on the fifth point! Whoo! It took my breath away!
"Are you awake, my little one?" I hear my mother's voice, she looks at me with a smile, I smile back, grab the bars, pull myself up and stand up. My head is higher than the bars, and I, sincerely crushing my forehead, stretch out my arms to my mother. Yes! Now they are really parents to me. There is not only a bright side to empathy, but also a "dark side." It is impossible to remain indifferent under the pressure of parental feelings. Mom gets up, picks me up from the crib, and I'm just basking in a wave of maternal love.
They take me to the potty while I do my chores, mom puts on a robe, and we hold hands and quietly stomp into the kitchen. There's a mega-device called a chairstool. It's a tall chair with a sliding table attached in the front. Mom puts me in it, pulls up a table. I look out the window, and there are leaves blooming on a large, sprawling tree in the courtyard. The tree is strange: the bark peels off it, falls off in layers, and the leaves come out in a strange silvery-green color. I've only seen such trees in the elven forest before. A hefty brown dog walks thoughtfully around the yard, he is so big that he looks like a bear. It was shaggy with a metallic sheen. And when this beast yawns, it seems like my whole head can enter its mouth!
"Come on, eat," mom says and puts a plate in front of me, in it semolina porridge with pieces of fruit and some berries. I take a spoon in my right hand and start eating slowly. It's not working fast yet! There's a good chance you can get a spoon past your mouth. Meanwhile, Mom takes out a soft plastic container with a volume of one and a half liters from the pantry and goes out into the yard with it. The container contains a mixture of boiled meat from local cows and boiled groats with pieces of vegetables, sprinkled with vitamin and joint composition. The dog rushes to her with an expression of such intense joy that it seems as if his tail is about to fall off and, spinning like a boomerang, fly off into the far distance! Mom walks past the container and holds in her hand a huge bone made of pressed protein with additives. Fish waste is boiled and pressed in the form of bones and filled with gelatin.
"Quiet, Polkasha!" Mom exclaims at the dog spinning around. If you stay hungry, I'll dump all your breakfast past the bowl, and you'll eat from the ground again!
But the dog doesn't seem to be intimidated by this prospect at all! Mom dumped the food into a bowl and put an ersatz bone next to it.
Footsteps are heard from behind, someone entered the kitchen, quietly came up to me and kissed me on the back of the head, showering me with adoration! Daddy woke up, he's a weak empath himself! Mom came back from the yard, and I can hear her saying:
"Misha, how many times have I told you, don't walk around the house in family clothes! Well, you have a bathrobe!"
"Come on, Diane. I'm only here in the morning, and anyway, I'm at home, and that's what I want to wear!"
"Oh so! Look at the example you're setting for our boys! Just imagine if I start walking around the house in my panties!"
"Oh! It will be a magnificent sight! You have nothing to hide and something to be proud of!"
"Double flattery! And anyway, in case you haven't forgotten, I'm seven months pregnant!"
"Oh-oh-oh! Ha ha! It's hard to forget and even harder not to notice! And anyway, come here, retired Major of the medical service! I will explain to you all the subtleties of communication with a senior officer! Hehe!"
"Take your hands off me, Mr. Captain of the first rank, retired, what are you doing?"
There is scuffling and kissing sounds behind my back.
"Oh-oh! Michael Shepard, I love you, my husband! But now you go, put on a bathrobe, go up to the second floor and wake up our sons, and don't you dare contradict me! Is everything clear to you?!"
"Yes, ma'am! The order is clear! Allow me to perform!"
"Do it!"
And the father, humming some cheerful tune, leaves the kitchen.
Ten minutes later
"A-a-a-a"
"a-a-a-a! I'm the first one down!"
"No, I am, I am the first!"
"Nifiga, ha-ha-ha!"
It came from the stairs to the second floor. My two older brothers flew down it with a bang! This is the weather of Deniska and Leshka! Elbowing and puffing, they stumble into the kitchen.
"Hello, Ma!" says Deniska.
"Hey, Mom!" Leshka echoes him.
"So, young people, how should well-mannered chevaliers behave at breakfast? Come on, come out of the kitchen, and come in properly!"
The brothers went out the door, caught their breath, and sedately went back in.
"Hello, Mother," Denis said, bowing slightly.
"Good morning, Mom," Leshka said, repeating his brother's gesture.
"Hello children, have a seat at the table." Mom replied, bowing her head.
The guys went around the table, "accidentally" passing by my chair, and hugged me from both sides.
"Hello, little one!" Deniska whispered and kissed me on the cheek.
"Dorova, Little Snake!" Leshka whispered, kissing the other one.
After that, they both sat down at the table.
Three hours after
I'm sitting alone in the middle of the carpet in the children's room on the second floor of our house, talking softly to the cat. Slowly and gradually, my tongue begins to obey me.
"Tell me, Basik, wy my tonue is so bat. I'm tainin, I'm tainin, I'm talkin to you. Wat's te u'se?"
The cat is silent, quietly purring, lying down on the carpet next to it, stretched out to its full length and rolling a wheel from some kind of machine with its front paws. The brothers have a whole box of this "scrap metal". Ehhh! I'm itching to make something out of it, but they only give me rattles and model airplanes. Hopefully, the torment won't last too long.
"Isn't tat riht, cat? I'll lean eveytin!" The Barsik purrs, squinting affectionately.
By the way, I managed to find out my location. An hour ago, Mom, holding me in her arms, turned on the huge TV. Uh-huh-huh! What a thing it is! A natural window into another world! So, there was news, and a pretty presenter, in quite decent English, broadcast that the current state of affairs in the colony of Mendoir is just fine, all mining and processing complexes are operating at full capacity, which will allow this year to increase the shipment of concentrate, increase the number of colonists and the income of existing ones.
Then there was a block of interplanetary news about the new initiatives of the Citadel Council, about the work of the ambassador of the Alliance of Systems... hmm! It seems that in the canon, people should be on the council, but here is an ambassador, not an adviser.... Then there was the sports news block, and it all ended with the weather block. Everything is the same as always: the surroundings change, but the essence remains the same.