D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 2330 A Friendly Visit Part 1

--- Sylvie --- Currently at Alice’s House.

The three of them were sitting in Alice’s shed. Hank had just left them with a jug of water and four cups... why were there four cups? "So Alice, what’s the plan?" asked Sylvie.

"Well... to start with I was wondering if you guys wanted to make some toothpick houses? We can work on the first one together, or at least the start of one, then we can make whatever we want for the second lot and compare them," suggested Alice.

Penny sent a raised eyebrow back at Alice. "Why are we using toothpicks when we could use actual equipment?" Penny pointed at the stack of wooden boards, the smaller woodchips, the big wall of tools. Then she looked at the bench they were all crowded around. It had three bottles of glue and a giant bag of toothpicks. There was a second bag over in the corner in case that one ran just in case.

"Because making stuff with proper materials is super easy... and I’m not allowed to use the power tools without Dad around. He’s going out in like, thirty minutes or so, which isn’t really enough time to cut up all the materials. Still, I’ve done this before and it can be fun!" insisted Alice.

Sylvie looked over at her friend. They were all wearing big safety goggles that had to be significantly tightened. They were also wearing proper shoes, and big leather aprons... but they were just using glue and toothpicks? "Alright, in that case why are we wearing safety glasses?"

Alice shrugged, "I just thought it would get everyone in the mood. You can take them off if you want. I’m not really bothered by them anymore. I’m used to it, though I remember they used to be annoying when I was little."

Sylvie immediately took the chance to take hers off. Maybe she hadn’t put it on properly because it was starting to hurt around her ears where they’d been squished down against her face. It felt much better without them. Sylvie could see Penny doing the same. Alice glanced at the two of them for a bit before shrugging... and keeping hers on.

"So, why toothpicks?" asked Sylvie. "You mentioned safety reasons but... surely you have lego and stuff right? Pretty sure I saw a bunch of display as we were lead through the house."

"Oh that’s because we don’t really have much spare lego around anymore... not since... the incident," Alice admitted with a slight shiver. "Mum ended up giving Dad and I a week to build whatever we wanted for display, then the rest got donated... somewhere? I think we gave it to some friends of mum’s with younger kids. Probably for the best, but it does mean we don’t really have any legos."

Sylvie really wanted to ask about whatever incident Alice was referring too... but the fact she seemed to agree it was best to get the lego out of the house implied that it was really serious. So, best not to poke that bear. "Alright, so... can we get a bit more information about this?" Sylvie gestured towards the desk. "Neither of us know how to build something out of toothpicks, though clearly glue is involved.

"Right, right, so, you mostly want to do boxes and stuff... actually let me show off an example," Alice began to explain before stopping to quickly put together something to help explain things. It was just a quick square made from four different toothpicks glued together at the ends, and then a triangle that was made from three.

"So, this is what I’d call a basic shape," Alice hovered over the square, "And to give it stability you’ll probably want to pile in more toothpicks," Alice quickly added a bunch to the square without bothering to glue them down. "So most things will become this... but you can also do like, windows and stuff," Alice removed most of the picks except for two that she used to make a cross in the centre.

"For more complex stuff, then you need to start breaking things," Alice turned to the triangle and laid out her picks and then gestured at the edges. "See all this that’s too long for the triangle? You just break off bits and pieces so that it can fit. You can keep the chips if they’re big enough and you probably should, but sometimes I get a bit lazy."

"Now, with those two techniques... you can make basically anything! You just have to have an idea of how we’re putting it all together. What we’ll do, is go slowly on just the first wall and glue it all together, then we can do the more complicated stuff later. I just want to show off a basic house design because it should have enough complex stuff without being too hard," Alice continued.

Sylvie looked over at Penny, not entirely sure this was a good idea. Penny shrugged at her. Sylvie shrugged back and then nodded. Penny nodded back. The pair were glad they’d established that neither was... too interested in this just at a glance, but Alice really did seem to think it would be a fun activity so they gave noises of affirmation and then got started.

Alice directed them to start with just making some toothpick cubes, they’d need plenty apparently so the girls got started. Things were quiet as they worked away. You did have to accept that the ends of the toothpicks were going to bend a bit, considering the border was also toothpicks, but that seemed to be fine. Alice was doing it as well.

Sylvie was careful with the glue, trying not to get too much of it anywhere, the same with Penny. Alice on the other hand, was just making long lines of it and then fitting the toothpicks in afterwards before it dried. It was faster sure, but there was now a bunch of glue on the bench which was probably a bad thing right? Of course, this was Alice’s house so she probably knew what was and wasn’t fine... also a waste of glue though...

"It’s kind of like knitting," Penny said.

"What?" asked Alice. "Where did that come from?"

"It reminds me of knitting. It’s meant to be mediatatitive, or something. We did it in school once and I got to keep the stuff for it. Well, the parents had to pay for the stuff first, but I actually did get to keep mine. It was nice. Not sure I loved it, but it was nice," explained Penny.

"Was nice? What happened to it?" asked Alice, at the same time as Sylvie winced. Something Penny did catch.

"Oh nothing bad, I just used it all up and then eventually it fell apart. I didn’t make anything too fancy, it was basically just a square, but the holes were too big for it to be a blanket. It didn’t keep anything warm... so it was just sort of... a thing. Eventually I ran out of yarn for it and I didn’t really care enough to ask for more supplies to continue," Penny explained.

"Hmmm," mumbled Sylvie. "I think I remember having a similar lesson, but I can’t remember it all that well. I wonder why? I guess it wasn’t that important."

"I got kicked out of my knitting class," offered Alice.

"Why?" asked Sylvie.

"I accidentally set the wool on fire," admitted Alice.

"How did you do that? Yarn isn’t all that flammable!" insisted Sylvie.

Alice was nodding along, "Yeah I don’t know either. I just sneezed while I was holding it and must have done something wrong with my hands. No idea how that was enough to set anything alight, but it was. Might’ve been the paper stuck in the yarn? I had like, bits of paper and cardboard I didn’t clear out super well mixed into mine. Or maybe it was stored poorly?"

*Really not sure how you store it quite THAT poorly...* To move away from that potential disaster, Sylvie asked, "Have you guys had any music lessons yet?"

"Not properly," offered Alice.

"Yes- err, well no Alice is probably more correct. Not properly. At my school we just had some bells and things we could use. I think we’re doing recorder stuff next year though," explained Penny.

Alice nodded, "Not sure if we’re doing recorder stuff but yeah, same with the bells. Though we do also have like, a band program thing you can try out for when you get a bit older. I think I might like to play the drums... but I know you can’t really have too many kids doing that. The school only has the one drumkit after all."

"So you’d play the drums? I think I’d prefer something like a flute or a harp," mused Sylvie.

"Drums seem fun," countered Penny. "I’d probably also try to play them if I thought I had the chance. You can’t practice them at home without a drumkit and I really don’t think I’d be able to get one."

"Ah," Alice and Sylvie mumbled, making understanding noises. It was... hard to know what to say when stuff like that came up. Sylvie knew Callisto was looking into some things, and Vivian would offer more substantial snacks and things to slip into Penny’s backpack but what could the pair of them do to help?