Maisel’s Neighbourhood Watch Log: September 17th, 2023 – 12:16 PM – Harrington Street
I’m not going to lie to you, we struggled to get out of the ravine. If I thought it was hard to stop ourselves from sliding into the ravine, it was that much harder to get out of it. We would sometimes only make it up a few feet before we slid back down. Eventually, we figured out a pathway where we could hold onto tree trunks to prevent ourselves from falling back in. It took forever, but we did make it to the top. (A minor victory for the Neighbourhood Watch, I’d say.)
I kept telling Maisel that we could have just walked along the creek back to my house, where there are old wooden stairs that lead out of the ravine, but no, let’s waste a ton of time trying to scale the steepest part.
We would have spent so much time backtracking. It just didn’t make sense.
We wasted just as much time climbing out— Plus I cut up my palms.
At least you didn’t get bitten by a snake!
Nobody got bitten by a snake; we don’t even have venomous snakes in Harrington!
And I’m thankful for that every day.
…Why do I try with you?
We started to make our way over to Murlocke’s house. It wasn’t going to be a very long walk, as he only lived a few streets away.
Woah, look at all of them.
I glanced around and realized what she was referring to. There were several clumps (or schools?) of butterflies around us, each clump had maybe ten or twelve butterflies.
A few schools were in a park across the road, one in the middle of the street, and one fluttered right past us on the sidewalk.
Where are they all coming from?
I don’t know, but we need to find out.
We picked up the pace, walking a little quicker. Everywhere we looked, we saw more and more butterflies. I glanced over to the park across the street and saw a couple of children, both maybe six years old, chasing butterflies. Their dad was standing nearby, totally oblivious to the insects infesting Harrington. He just yawned and checked his watch.
It’s always so weird that adults can’t see what’s going on around them.
No matter how many missions we go on, I never get used to the fact that there will be some supernatural event threatening Harrington, and the adults won’t notice. I remember on one of the first Neighbourhood Watch missions, the pizza store vanished from Harrington, and all the adults seemed to forget that pizza ever existed in the first place. See the Slice of Life from November 15, 2020 Looking back, it’s embarrassing how much work Pocket and I put into trying to explain to our mom what pizza was.
We need to move quicker, come on
We broke into a run.
BAM!!! We didn’t make it far before we ran directly into someone. We both looked up, but it was impossible to tell who it was. The person had a massive butterfly on their nose, which was covering the person’s entire face.
Uh, sorry, miss…
Maisel Montgomery! Sasheen Ansari!
Oh no… I could tell who it was from her voice: the secretary at our school, Mrs. Rodriguez. As far as I could tell, she only owned four outfits, all in varying shades of grey. Today, she was wearing her floor-length grey skirt and light grey sweater. Despite never leaving her office, Ms. Rodriguez always seemed to know when we were doing something we shouldn’t be. It was as if she had a sixth sense for when we were on a Neighbourhood Watch mission and always felt the need to get in our way. (In this case, literally.)
Uh, hi, Mrs. Rodriguez.
Where are you off to in such a rush that you’re running into people?
Where are you not off to that you can spend your time taking up the whole sidewalk?
Perhaps not my best work.
Maisel!
The mouth on you, Maisel Montgomery.
As she did so, the butterfly on her face crawled up the bridge of her nose so it looked like she had ridiculous eyebrows.
Oh, I didn’t recognize you, Mrs. Rodriguez…
Sasheen and I tried to keep a straight face. Just then, though, the butterfly crawled down her face, so it looked like she had a bushy mustache. Neither of us could hold it in any longer, and we started to laugh.
What’s so funny? I swear, I’ll never understand what goes on in your heads…
Mrs. Rodriguez shook her head as she walked past us.
Bye, Mrs. Rodriguez!
I looked back and saw the butterfly was now perched on her head.
Come on, Maisel, we have to keep moving,
I turned to follow Sasheen down the sidewalk and noticed for the first time how many butterflies there truly were. There must have been thousands of butterflies in every direction. They were all varying shades of bluish green. It kind of felt like standing outside in the middle of a heavy snowfall. It was hard to see more than a dozen feet in front of you.
Sasheen and I started running down the sidewalk. I could feel the soft wings of the butterflies as they fluttered to get out of our way.
– Maisel
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