Jan and Kyle - Treehouse Fun

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Backdated to before Jan gave her "History of Peeps" presentation. Kyle takes Jan outside to show her a not-so-secret surprise and Jan discovers The Secret of the Treehouse.



"Kyle, Kyle, Kyle!" Jan sang as she held firmly onto his hat. "Where are we going?" She had her new voice amplifier with her but wasn't using it. She didn't need to shout for Kyle to hear her; she hadn't needed to do that even when she was only one inch tall.

Even if he hadn't been transporting Jan around, Kyle'd probably have worn his hat anyway. Wearing the hat-with-ears always put him in a better mood, and he was determined not to be grouchy in public. "Outside." He said, knowing it wouldn't actually answer the question. "I need fresh air, and I figured I could show you something cool at the same time."

"I kind of guessed we're going outside!" Jan laughed, climbing up the hat and hanging onto the side. "But hey, surprises are cool, so surprise away!" She knew she needed to get better at flying around by herself outside, but she'd just as soon go places with somebody bigger, just to be safe. Besides, it was fun to ride around on shoulders and heads and climb around a hat-with-ears.

"Yeah, except I'm so bad at secrets." Kyle said, laughing. "And you'll see it before we get there anyway." Once out on the back patio, he put on the Teva-style sandals that he'd been carrying. The ground outside was still really too cold to be walking around barefoot and be comfortable about it.

"I'll know it's the surprise when I see it? How far away is it? Are we close?" Jan was excited. She loved surprises, but it could be so hard to wait to find out just what something was!

"Well, it's not like an oh-my-God big secret." Kyle explained. "Just one of those cool things on campus that you probably missed getting in the tour." He wasn't, in fact, sure that Jan had gotten a tour. Or that she hadn't.

Even slowing his usual pace, it didn't take Kyle a lot of time to go out to the path in the wooded part of the grounds that led to the treehouse. He stopped at the tree and looked up, eyeing the tree and the ladder. "You know, I don't think I've ever actually climbed up here with the ladder before?"

"Really? How do you get up there then?" Jan asked, peering up at the treehouse, then clambering up the hat to sit on top of his head for a better view.

"Usually from one of the other trees." Kyle explained. "But climbing one handed would probably end in bruises, and I just got rid of the dinosaur bruises." He flexed his injured hand under the bandages. It still ached, so it was probably not a good idea to even test it. "How high can you fly? I mean, do you even have a limit?" Flight still baffled him.

"A limit? I dunno." Jan paused, considering this. "I never really flew a lot before, and now I've just been flying around in the hallways. Flying when small is different from flying when big... don't ask me why, maybe Forge would know. Um... air pressure or something?" she suggested, trying to recall some of the genius's rambling from the previous day. "I could try flying really high, but I think I should only try that when I'm around someone else who can fly."

Kyle pointed up to the treehouse. "I can go up the ladder, but... well, one-handed, so I dunno how steady I'm gonna be." Not that it was going to stop him from going up there. He was not staying on the ground if he could help it. "I don't know I wanna risk squished Jan."

"Squished Jan is sad Jan, and possibly dead Jan," she replied cheerfully, "so yeah, let's not risk that. I think I'm safe on top of your head unless you climb high and go kersplat in which case it'd be squished Kyle, and that would also make a sad Jan. Not a squished Jan, though, 'cause I'd jump off."

Looking up at the treehouse and feeling anything other than the urge to go right up to a high branch and flop over for a nap was -not-something Kyle was enjoying. For a moment, he returned to the memory of falling from the allosaur and hitting the ground. And then he tore his eyes away from the treehouse, and forced himself to look at the ladder.

~You aren't gonna fall, dumbass.~ He thought, and put one hand on the rung closest to his shoulder. "Hold on." He said, and one rung at a time, pulled himself up to the treehouse entrance.

"I'm already holding on, so I'll just keep holding on!" Jan answered. She wasn't worried at all and was sure Kyle knew what he was doing, even if a few climbing fingers were missing. She hummed to herself as Kyle climbed the ladder, noting that Kyle was talking to himself, but she couldn't quite tell what he was saying. "Nice view!" she said, taking a look around when they had reached the treehouse.

Reaching the top was a relief, and Kyle sat with his feet dangling out of the entrance to look around. "Yeah. And it's pretty quiet up here. Yvette reads up here sometimes, and I think some of the others use it to get away. I tend to hit a tree, but I'm also better at getting into them then almost everyone."

"If you have super hearing and can hear tiny girls like me, it must be nice to climb up high and away from everyone who's a lot louder!" Jan said. "It's a really cool treehouse, too, a very good surprise. Was it here when you got here or did you build it?"

"Yeaaah." Kyle drawled a bit. "Dude, I live with Mondo. And I mean, he's an okay guy, but not the quietest always. And sometimes it just gets loud. Or crowded. Or both." He gave a resigned sort of shrug. "I have earplugs for the mall and stuff, but sometimes it's just easier to not be in the noise for a while. Or the smells. And.. I think a guy who used to go here, Jamie, built the treehouse. Or found it. I'm not sure where it came from, but the rumors say it was his."

Jan giggled. "I heard something about running around with kazoos and yelling and stuff. And then he was all 'It's Easter' when I divebombed people with Peeps. At least my fun wasn't loud, except for the surprised screaming as people found themselves under attack by marshmallows. But, you know, a little bit of sticky and sugar never hurt anyone." She grinned. "Rumors about the treehouse... well, as long as it's not haunted. I mean, this Jamie guy is just not here anymore, right, not dead and haunting his old treehouse?"

"Well, Peeps make me boot up, but that's part of the feral thing." Kyle explained. "But sugar doesn't. Just, like, whatever's in them that makes them colored." He'd have given his to Mondo even if they didn't make him sick, that much sugar at once didn't taste quite as good did as he had when he was younger. "And no, he's not dead. He's in California or something. So no ghosts in the treehouse. I'm pretty sure he made out with his girlfriend in it a lot though."

Jan collapsed into giggles. "I hope you didn't say that to Yvette! Yeah, I can just see you telling her all about the old uses of her quiet reading spot! I don't think she'd really appreciate this bit of info."

He couldn't even imagine how Yvette would react. Just that it would not end well. "Oh God no." Kyle protested. "Dude. I'm like, court jester of the kingdom of no tact and even I know not to tell her -that-." She'd be mortified, he'd implode into a black hole of foot-in-mouth-itis and it would just end badly for everyone.

The look on Kyle's face was priceless. "I didn't think you did," Jan said, patting Kyle's hat-with-ears reassuringly. Aw, poor Kyle... "Don't worry, I won't tell her," Jan said in as solemn a voice as she could manage. "The secret of the treehouse is safe with me."

"You? Are like, the evil sugar pixie." As opposed to the cinnamon sugar pixie from the club so many weeks ago. Had Jan not been on the top of his head, he'd have pointed his finger and pretended to scold. "Which reminds me. How heavy -were- those Peeps for you?"

"They weren't heavy at all! Being tiny doesn't make me a weakling, I can still pack a hefty punch, just ask Julio! Better yet, see for yourself!" Without giving him time to respond, Jan whacked him on the side of his head, not enough to really hurt, but enough so he could feel a slight punch from her tiny fist through the hat.

It felt a bit like having an eraser or pencap flicked at his head. And he was definitely familiar with -that-. "They're as big as you are!" Kyle protested. "And walking or flying around has to feel like miles and miles for you right now." He was -so- glad he wasn't tiny.

"So? Ants can lift ten times or whatever more than their weight, and I don't walk around by myself, silly!" Jan laughed. "I ride around on people, or I fly, and sure, everything's bigger now, but I do ok when I fly. I never got to fly that much before, but now it's kind of necessary to go anywhere by myself and not take forever." Jan dropped down from Kyle's head and hovered next to him, her tiny wings flashing as they kept her aloft. "Catch me if you can!" she said, grinning, then darted behind his head.