"It's a perfect day to be outside. Don't you think so? Because I definitely think so," Jasmine giggled, sitting down in her seat and leaning back right away, her ice cream cone in her hand. She waited patiently for Mark and Monet to join her in the seat. It was their weekly meet up, required by the children or they would complain, and since they were nine years old now, they had deemed that they were old enough to sit by themselves. Jasmine had made it very clear to Melissa and Rebecca and so, the two of them were sitting at another table, far enough away to make them feel like they were on their own when, in fact, they were definitely being watched by them still.
"A perfect day to get away from Julia," Mark replied, scrunching his nose up as he sat down. "All she does is cry. And I'm sad that Mom had to take her with us today. It's supposed to be our day!" He didn't say anything else on the matter since he knew that Jasmine was in the same book and understood what he was talking about and Monet was over at his house enough to get the gist of the conversation. Instead, he reached across the table and patted at the space in front of him. "Sit here, Miss Knight. That way we can talk." Monet gave him a small smile as she sat down, continuing to stir her chocolate sauce into her vanilla ice cream. Jasmine watched her for a minute like she was watching an alien break out of a chicken egg, before licking at her own mint chip ice cream so it didn't run down her hand.
"You do that every time. Why don't you just get chocolate ice cream?" Jasmine asked after a minute. Monet looked up at her, shocked like she had just been told that the sky was green.
"Ew, no! Chocolate ic cream is disgusting!"
"Is not! It's basically the same thing, stupid!"
"Aw, come on, Missy. Leave Monet alone. It's just ice cream!" Mark protested, kicking Jasmine in the leg. Jasmine whined and kicked him back but she did stop arguing with her sister and returned her attention to her ice cream again. Monet sighed and pushed her seat back, standing up and grabbing her ice cream bowl.
"Where are you going?" Jasmine asked, looking up at her and tilting her head in confusion. Monet furrowed her eyebrows together like she didn't quite understand what Jasmine was asking her. That just made everything else more confusing.
"To get chocolate ice cream?" Monet replied, brushing her shoulder-length hair behind her ear.
"I thought you said you didn't like it though!" Jasmine exclaimed, shaking her head back and forth like she didn't understand the conversation anymore. She looked like she was going to say more but her ice cream slid down the cone and onto her hand, requiring her attention once more.
"I don't. But you won't leave me alone about it so now I guess I'm going to get chocolate ice cream because now I'm stupid," Monet huffed softly. She didn't sound mad, not even slightly. In fact, she just sounded confused and lost, like she wasn't even sure of her own opinion anymore. After all, Jasmine had just told her that she was stupid for mixing her chocolate sauce in her ice-cream instead of just getting chocolate ice cream. What else was she supposed to think?
"No! You don't have to do that!" Jasmine exclaimed like she just realized what she had done to her sister. She shot up in her seat, shaking her head back and forth. "Just sit down and eat your ice cream, okay?"
"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with your vanilla and chocolate sauce ice cream, okay? I'm sure it's awesome," Mark interjected, reaching over his own bowl to tap the table again. Monet stared at him for a second, like he was crazy. "Just sit down, okay Monet? Jasmine'll leave you alone. Right?" He gave a very pointed look to the blonde girl next to him, who huffed and nodded her head.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just sit, okay sis?" Sis happened to be Jasmine's new favorite word of the week. Ever since Mark had known Jasmine, he knew that she had a new word every week. Mark and Monet knew how much she loved words and so, every week she'd come up with a new word that she'd throw into every sentence she got the chance too. Monet just glared at Jasmine this time, sitting back down at the table and taking an angry bite of her ice cream. To that, Jasmine stuck her tongue out at her and giggled.
"Are you two going to fight all day? Because that'll make the day no fun at all!" Mark protested, looking between the two of them before finally turning his attention to his own ice cream. He took a decently sized scoop of his chocolate chip cookie dough and took a bite but it was then that Jasmine decided to kick in the leg again, causing him to almost choke on his spoon. Sputtering, he coughed out, "Hey! That's not nice, Missy!"
"Maybe you should have been nicer then!" Jasmine replied quickly, coming to her own defense. Her own defense couldn't really be counted for anything, considering that she had a habit of kicking Mark in the leg all the time, regardless of if he really deserved it or she was just making it up. Mark only rolled his eyes and dropped the conversation and continued eating his ice cream. This time, it went without interruption and the three of them sat at the table silently for a while. But of course, since they were with Jasmine, the silence could only last for so long before the girl interrupted it.
"What do you want for your birthday, Marky?" Jasmine asked, scooting her chair closer to Mark. Once she settled down again, she slammed her hand down on the table, not hard enough to draw attention to them but hard enough to create a satisfying sound. Upon discovering that she liked it, Jasmine repeated the action a few more times while she waited for Mark to reply, only stopping when she saw Monet flinching every time she hit the table again. Jasmine was impulsive and sometimes, she wouldn't realize the impact that things would have until the deed was done. Mark was about to scold her before answering her question but it was then that they got distracted by someone shouting Jasmine's name.
Jasmine only flinched slightly when she heard her name being called and she turned, scanning the streets for whoever had shouted her name. Mark turned, also looking for the person and it was clear that Monet was doing the same. The three of them looked around, trying to figure out who was looking for Jasmine while keeping an eye out like they needed to keep each other safe. It wasn't until two high school girls walked over did they relax and realize they were safe.
"Hey!" One of the girls said, stopping in front of Jasmine and smiling at her. Jasmine squirmed a bit in her seat like she wasn't fully comfortable with the attention of the public yet, but she smiled at the two of them. "We just wanted to say that we saw you in your movie the other day! You did pretty good, girl!" Jasmine smiled again and nodded her head, the way that she had when they went to see the movie in the theater for the first time and everyone there treated her like a star that had fallen on earth. She wasn't comfortable with the public attention yet even though she had loved being an actress in a movie. Her experience on Miss Blumer and Mr. Jack 4 really had changed the way that things were going now.
"Thanks! Did ya see it at the theater? Because I did. Oh! Maybe we saw it at the same time!" Jasmine giggled a bit, kicking her feet back and forth under the chair. She seemed to be getting more comfortable with the attention but it was clear that she still didn't like it all that much. Mark glanced at Monet out of the corner of his eye and saw that she could feel it too. Yet, he knew Monet. She wouldn't get involved unless she absolutely had too.
"Yeah. We got to see it on Friday," The second girl replied, nodding her head. Jasmine's face fell and Mark knew why. After all, they had gone to see it the day that it had come out and that was two weeks ago. Jasmine really looked like she wanted to have gone see the movie on the same day as them.
"Aww. I guess we didn't see it at the same time," Jasmine frowned, kicking her feet back and forth a bit again. Then, she got an idea and her face brightened. "Oh! Maybe you can come see Peter Pan! I'm in it and then we can be there at the same time! Except I'll be on stage and you won't. But we'll still be there at the same time!" Jasmine giggled slightly and shrugged her shoulders. Leave it to her to not completely understand what her newfound popularity meant. The only thing she knew was that she liked it when people liked her so she was the kind of kid who would invite a kid from the park to her house for a playdate. She enjoyed people knowing her name.
It was then that Jasmine's ice cream decided to meltdown her hand and the girl frowned again, licking it up quickly before her hand was turned into a sticky mess. The girls laughed at her slightly and Mark was quick to jump to her rescue, glaring slightly at the girls simply out of habit. Back when they first met, Jasmine had been getting made fun of by a few kids in their second-grade class and since then, he'd been very careful to watch out for her and Monet. After all, no one liked to get teased. But these girls didn't seem mean.
"That sounds like fun! We'll have to think about it!" The first girl said, leaning down to Jasmine's height. Jasmine smiled up at them, clearly happy that she'd made from friends. Mark relaxed and leaned back in his seat. The first girl looked at her phone and sighed. "Hey, we've got to go now but can we get a picture before we go? Just so we can prove to our friends that we really did see you. They'll never believe it." Jasmine giggled again and nodded her head. She offered her ice cream out to Mark to hold, who took it without complaining. The two girls gathered around her and held out their phones for a picture. Once that was over, they waved goodbye to the little trio at the table and left.
"Hey! Hey Aunt Melissa!" Jasmine shouted, standing up and waving her arms over at her aunt to get her attention. Melissa looked over at her with a small chuckle. "Guess what? You'll never guess. I just made some new friends!" Melissa smiled at her and nodded her head like this was no new news for her before turning back to continue her conversation with Rebecca. Mark and Monet giggled at her, though Monet was actually being nice about it and trying to hide the fact that she was laughing. Jasmine laughed a bit as she sat down again, taking her ice cream back from Mark and focused her attention back on finishing it off. "Okay, so, we're still going to the park, right guys? Before we go home."
"Of course! We have to check back in on Blaten, right?" Mark replied, nodding his head in agreement.
"I agree. They should have been working on the town while we were gone. I bet they're on the last building now anyway," Monet said. She stood up and grabbed both her and Mark's bowls before throwing them away. They were just waiting on Jasmine now and then it was off to the park to work on Blaten. That was what made summer their favorite time of year. It was the only time that they could get away with playing Blaten all day long.
After a long day of working on their make-believe world, it was time to part ways until the next week. After an awful goodbye and many promises to each other saying that they would get together as soon as humanly possible, Jasmine went home with her aunt while Mark and his mother took Monet home with them. Since it was the summer, that meant that Monet's father was at work all day and she spent most days with Mark and his family, when she wasn't being watched by her father's girlfriend. At this point, he spent most of his days with Monet, though you'd never hear him complaining about it. It just meant that he got to spend more time with his friend.
Back at Mark's apartment, Monet was laying upside down on Mark's couch while he worked on his house on their shared Minecraft world on the computer. Ever since the game came out, he, Monet, and Jasmine had started a world on it, one that the three of them worked on collectively to build a town and whenever they were together, they always found it fun to see what kinds of things that they could come up with. The cartoon playing on the TV was simply just background noise for them and the smell of Rebecca's cooking was enough to make any child be starved for food. Monet felt right at home, which didn't happen all that often.
"How's the house coming?" Monet asked, shaking her head so that her hair fell behind her and touching the carpeted floor. Mark didn't look away from the computer at first, too focused on the wall he was working on before finally turning away to give his full attention to Monet. But when he turned, he did laugh at her.
"Your face is bright red, Miss Knight!" He laughed, making Monet frown and stick her tongue out at him. She did sit up, much to her own disappointment. "And it's going good. I was just thinking about our town. There's so many things that we could do with it, you know?"
"I don't care what you do with it as long as Mom's statue gets to stay in the middle," Monet replied, standing up to walk over to him. Mark nodded his head and turned back to the computer, moving his mouse around and clicking around so that he was now flying in the air, letting both him and Monet get a better view of their land.
"Of course it will! I was just thinking about it. We could totally turn it into one of those big water things. If you and Jasmine are okay with it, obviously," Mark replied, flying his character over to the statue and the middle of their town. He turned Minecraft Steve around so that they could see everything they've already built.
"I'm okay with it. And I'm sure that Jassy is too. I mean, we're not gonna take it down or anything like that. We're just making it better," Monet replied, shrugging her shoulders slightly. She kept silent for a minute before she gasped slightly, her face lighting up at whatever idea she had come up with. "We should make this town Blaten! I mean, it's already a town and all!"
"That's a great idea! We need to do that!" Mark laughed slightly, looking back at his friend for a second before turning back to the computer and looking around the half-finished town they had made in their little Minecraft world. "We could make the town hall riiiiight-" He moved Steve back on the screen until it hit the base of the mountain, keeping his face to the statue. "-here. So that it's in front of the statue but still in the center of town square, just like it is in Blaten."
"That's a good idea! That would mean that the library would be right about there, just like it is in Blaten." Monet took her hand off the computer table, pointing to an area on the screen, trying to show Mark was she was talking about without taking the computer from him. Mark nodded his head but he never got the chance to respond before Rebecca came into the room.
"Monet, do you know if your daddy told you if you were staying here for dinner, or did he tell you that you were gonna go home?" Rebecca asked, leaning against the doorway. She drew Monet's attention away from the computer screen, making her focus on the adult speaking to her for a minute.
"Daddy didn't tell me anything. He didn't even tell me when he was gonna be home. But he's always home late from work so I dunno," Monet replied with a shrug, sighing like the issue bothered her some, but not enough for her to care all that much. Then, she turned back to the computer, pointing to another space on the screen. "And I think the bank would go there, don't you think?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Mark replied, nodding his head. Then, he turned in his seat, looking back at his mother, who was still in the doorway. "Hey, Mom? Can Monet stay for supper? Pretty please?" He folded his hands together like he was begging her to let Monet stay. Rebecca just chuckled and nodded her head.
"As long as you two go to bed on time, I don't care if she ends up spending the night." When she said that, Rebecca turned back into the kitchen, going to finish up their meal. Mark and Monet looked at each other for a second before Mark held his hand up for a high five excitedly. Monet returned his high five with almost as much enthusiasm. This was going to be a great night.
"Sleepovers are the best! We're gonna have all the time in the world for Blaten now!" Mark cheered. Monet nodded her head in agreement and pulled up a chair, sitting down at the table next to him. Sleeping would come later but right now, it was time to build their little world in Minecraft.