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daily_prompt: #854, photo prompt
Nov. 12th, 2012 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xifengTitle: Platform 9 3/4
Author: Wang Xi-feng (xifeng)
Challenge:daily_prompt. Original.
Warnings: Mild language.
Summary: 1930. Alisja isn't sure this is real.
Notes: I have lived my life in calculated ignorance of the Harry Potter franchise, and boy does it show here!
"Platform 9 3/4," Alisja says, examining the dropped ticket carefully and smoothing the edges. "This can't be real." She turns to her older cousin, who is currently engaged in shouting at an acquaintance across several platforms. "Ed, it isn't rag week, is it?"
"--TELL HIM I SAID HELLO!" Ed finishes before turning back to Alisja. He overtops her easily by a head, and she always feels a little awkward trying to look him in the eye. "What's that then, Alice?"
"This," Alisja says, showing him the ticket. "Someone printed all these out for a lark, didn't they?"
Ed scratches his head. "Expensive lark, if they did. Looks real enough to me."
"How do you have a fractional platform?" Ed blinks and looks confused, and for a moment, Alisja thinks her English has failed her again. She spent the entire summer speaking Nastrántsy, and is just moving carefully back into her mother's world again. There are days when she can identify with Pola Negri: I am a Slav, and have not your Anglo-Saxon restraint.
"So it is," Ed says, looking at it again. "That's queer."
"What's a hogwarts?"
Ed shrugs. "Damned if I know. A wart on a hog?" They laugh; of all her cousins, Dick is Alisja's favorite, but she likes Ed well enough to joke with him. "Someone's having you on, Alice. I'd toss that thing."
"Miss!" A child's high-pitched, despairing voice wails through the crowd, and Alisja starts, turns her head. At sixteen, she hardly feels old enough to be called "miss". "Miss, that's my ticket! I dropped it!" She can see reddish-brown hair, and a tear-stained face.
Alisja mutely holds out the ticket, and a small, sticky hand snatches it from her. "Thank you, miss!" Just like that, the child is gone as quickly as it came, and lost in the crowd not long afterwards.
"Be on with you!" Ed shouts after it, almost paternally. "And mind you're not late!" It's advice he'd do well to heed himself, because their train is just pulling into the station. He takes Alisja's bag from her and offers her his arm. "What was all that about?"
"Damned if I know," Alisja says, trying out the adult phrase to get a laugh. She succeeds.
They look over the course of the autumn when they think of it, but neither of them finds Platform 9 3/4.
Author: Wang Xi-feng (
xifeng)Challenge:
daily_prompt. Original.Warnings: Mild language.
Summary: 1930. Alisja isn't sure this is real.
Notes: I have lived my life in calculated ignorance of the Harry Potter franchise, and boy does it show here!
"Platform 9 3/4," Alisja says, examining the dropped ticket carefully and smoothing the edges. "This can't be real." She turns to her older cousin, who is currently engaged in shouting at an acquaintance across several platforms. "Ed, it isn't rag week, is it?"
"--TELL HIM I SAID HELLO!" Ed finishes before turning back to Alisja. He overtops her easily by a head, and she always feels a little awkward trying to look him in the eye. "What's that then, Alice?"
"This," Alisja says, showing him the ticket. "Someone printed all these out for a lark, didn't they?"
Ed scratches his head. "Expensive lark, if they did. Looks real enough to me."
"How do you have a fractional platform?" Ed blinks and looks confused, and for a moment, Alisja thinks her English has failed her again. She spent the entire summer speaking Nastrántsy, and is just moving carefully back into her mother's world again. There are days when she can identify with Pola Negri: I am a Slav, and have not your Anglo-Saxon restraint.
"So it is," Ed says, looking at it again. "That's queer."
"What's a hogwarts?"
Ed shrugs. "Damned if I know. A wart on a hog?" They laugh; of all her cousins, Dick is Alisja's favorite, but she likes Ed well enough to joke with him. "Someone's having you on, Alice. I'd toss that thing."
"Miss!" A child's high-pitched, despairing voice wails through the crowd, and Alisja starts, turns her head. At sixteen, she hardly feels old enough to be called "miss". "Miss, that's my ticket! I dropped it!" She can see reddish-brown hair, and a tear-stained face.
Alisja mutely holds out the ticket, and a small, sticky hand snatches it from her. "Thank you, miss!" Just like that, the child is gone as quickly as it came, and lost in the crowd not long afterwards.
"Be on with you!" Ed shouts after it, almost paternally. "And mind you're not late!" It's advice he'd do well to heed himself, because their train is just pulling into the station. He takes Alisja's bag from her and offers her his arm. "What was all that about?"
"Damned if I know," Alisja says, trying out the adult phrase to get a laugh. She succeeds.
They look over the course of the autumn when they think of it, but neither of them finds Platform 9 3/4.
