Mr.Pelton and His Five Children

Campfire Memories

"Something is terribly wrong." Tiffany barged into her fathers room.

"Don't startle me like that! What is it?" He jumped up from putting on his socks and held his heart.

"Annabel and Mr.Pelton."

"There's always something wrong with these two." He said and continued to wear his fuzzy socks.

"No, you don't get it. They won't even talk to each other anymore. They're not even looking at each other." She grabbed her fathers boots from beside the door and handed them to him.

"Thank you dear, and I guess that is a big problem. What do you think happened?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you. George is also trying to find out. We think it has something to do with when they brought Margot up here. When she had frostbites yesterday."

"Well, why don't you come up with a plan to get them talking to each other again?"

"We're also trying to do that. We're even getting Maggie's help. Say, what do you think, tonight, when we're all around the campfire and sharing stories and memories, we bring one up of them and see their reaction?"

"Wonderful idea. We can even get a little game of truth or dare going."

"Excellent! Father you're brilliant!" She kissed her fathers cheek and ran out of the room to tell George and Maggie.

*

"Pst, mama." Sam whispered to Annabel.

"Sam, what did we say? You can't call me that anymore." She scolded.

They were all seated on logs, in a circle around a camp fire. They had found sticks and George and James sharpened their ends with knives so they could put marshmallows on the ends of them and they were all currently roasting theirs.

"I know, but look at my marshmallow. It's on fire!"

Annabel quickly dropped her marshmallow in the snow and took Sam's stick and pulled it close to her.

"Oh God!" Rebeca screeched when she saw the fire increase on the marshmallow. Everyone turned to look.

Annabel quickly put out the fire and the smell of burnt marshmallow wafted up her nose.

"I'll get you another one." She got up, threw the marshmallow away and put a new one before sitting back down and handing it to him. "Be careful this time, and keep your eyes on it, alright?" 

Sam nodded.

She looked down and noticed that her own marshmallow was also ruined, since she dropped it in the snow. She sighed and picked it up. She was about to get up and replace it with one of the marshmallows they had in the bag on the table when a stick got handed to her.

"You can have this one." Richard had gotten up from his seat across from her and handed her his. Without even waiting for her to respond, he took hers, switched it for a better one and sat back down in his spot.

She looked at the stick in bewilderment, then she just went along with it. She didn't even thank him or glance up at him.

George nudged Tiffany at the interaction between the two and she nodded, silently telling him that she noticed. Her father gave her a look from across the campfire and she grinned at him. This was some sort of progress.

"I think it's time to start the first plan." George whispered to her.

"I think so too."

Their first plan was to get Richard to hand out some s'mores. That way, him and Annabel will slowly start to interact before playing a big game like truth or dare.