Six relatives. No assigned seats.
The Best Place
“I’ve got the best place,” Tavi announced.
His brother looked down at him.
“Your feet are in it.”
Tavi hung beneath the branch, his tail curled securely above him. He spread both arms to demonstrate how much room he had. A leaf brushed his ear and remained there.
Remi lay along the top of the branch with his chin near his hands. At one end, their mother held the baby against her warm belly. At the other, their aunt was trying to recover a strand of her own fur from her daughter’s fist.
Nobody had asked Tavi for a demonstration.
He gave them one anyway.
A Different View
“There’s nothing in front of me,” he said.
“There’s a whole tree,” Remi replied.
“Not from here.”
Remi wanted the gap between two sprays of leaves. Through it, he could see the far ridge, where sunlight had reached a patch of pale stone. He had been watching a dark speck move across it, hoping it would turn out to be something interesting.
So far, it might have been a leaf.
Tavi looked towards him, upside down.
“You could come here.”
“I can see perfectly well.”
“What can you see?”
Remi studied the ridge.
“Something.”
Their aunt finally freed her fur. Her baby immediately discovered the loose end of a nearby stem and held that instead.
“There,” she murmured. “A much better arrangement.”
Tavi waited for somebody to ask about his arrangement.
Above his head, the bark smelled warm and dry. A breeze moved through the outer leaves, bringing little pieces of sunlight across his face.
He opened his mouth to explain another advantage.
Then someone opened a smaller mouth back at him.
Someone Watching
The baby against his mother’s belly was looking straight at him.
Tavi closed his mouth.
The baby kept hers open.
He lifted one hand beside his cheek and spread his fingers. Her small hand rose from her mother’s fur, opened halfway, then closed again.
Tavi tried the other hand.
She lifted both.
His mother glanced down, following the baby’s gaze.
“Oh,” she said. “You’ve found him.”
Tavi grinned. He had often tried to interest his little sister in things: a curled leaf, a stone with a stripe, the end of his own tail. Usually she had examined his offering and then tried to taste it.
This time, she was watching his face.
He puffed out his cheeks.
Her eyes widened. Then her mouth folded into a small, uncertain smile.
Tavi did it again, more slowly.
The smile arrived sooner.
Along the branch, Remi lifted his chin. The speck on the ridge had disappeared, and a soft bubbling sound was coming from beside their mother.
He edged closer to see.
The Front Row
Remi leaned over the branch, directly between Tavi and the baby.
“What are you doing?”
Tavi moved his head to one side. Remi moved too, trying to follow his eyes.
“You’re blocking my audience.”
Remi looked back. The baby was reaching towards the place where Tavi’s face had been.
He drew his chin out of the way.
Tavi puffed out his cheeks once more. His little sister answered with a laugh that brought their aunt’s head round.
Her baby looked round too.
Tavi noticed. He turned towards his new spectator, the leaf still caught beside his ear.
Remi settled along the branch to watch.
For the moment, the distant ridge could manage without him.
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