Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden:
Naomi decided not to take over our journal tonight, and that is entirely because we’re happy and content right now; and she doesn’t want to mess that up by offering a rant about the top story for today. It is also late, and we have a baseball day just hours away; so we’d better get to it and then get some sleep.
Our day began happily-enough with Tai Chi by the river with Mom and Dad for Ehlana and me; we had a quick breakfast; and then our top chore of the morning was to get packed for our weekend with Cassie and Michael. That included getting our own gear rounded up and everything we needed for Silkie. There were some house chores to deal with to have the house ready for being empty for a few days; and Mom eventually helped us with getting everything – including Silkie – over to Cassie and Michael’s place. Aunt Leanne did the same with Brianna and Faith; Zack and Caleb had already been dropped off with the Seagers and Ayres respectively; and then it wasn’t much longer before Mom and Aunt Leanne had moved on to get their minivans loaded and ready for when Dad, Uncle Adam, and Faith’s parents were ready to take the rest of the day off and head off to their wedding weekend getaway. Violet, Dillon, and their kids left around lunchtime too, but we didn’t see them before they left; and the lab will be shut down for everything except the must-do work until Monday.
There was lunch and some play time between then and getting to our top story, and we had fun with all of that because Cassie and Michael were with us for all of that, but the biking, swimming, and food fun wasn’t newsworthy. We would have loved for that to continue for the rest of the day, but Miles, Joshua, Zack, and Eli messed that up with what to be blunt was an idiotic prank attempt. That happened not very long after an ice cream food fight that I got the worst of, and that’s why I wasn’t right there by the river when those guys decided to knock four of the girls into the river. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to someone reading this in the future, and it certainly isn’t as though that sort of thing doesn’t happen with kids and tweens everywhere, but this was one of those times when the how they did it went very wrong.
I was not the only member of our group to get the imminent danger warning, but it was too-late to keep it from happening. Naomi reacted fast-enough to send Zack into the river instead of getting pushed in by him, but Jennifer, Caroline, and Sophia were all hit hard; and they were all hurt by Joshua, Miles, and Eli respectively. I was already on the run for the river as they were getting hit, and Cassie, Michael, and everyone else that had been with us near the playground followed. I knew that Jen was in the most trouble because she’d been hit hard-enough to knock the air out of her and then she sucked in lungs-full of water and was too-shocked to react. I hit the river at a full run; got to her first; and pulled her up to the surface. I have been teased a lot about that since then, but yes, it did look like I was hugging her from behind; and yes, I did ‘hug’ her very hard to force the water out of her lungs so that she could breathe again. Everyone can have fun with the jokes, but there wasn’t time for anything else; so I’m only sorry that Jen ended up with sore ribs and some bruises because of how hard I’d needed to squeeze to make that happen. Cassie was helping me by then; we towed Jen to the dock and Michael pulled her up out of the water and then took over her care while Cassie and I were still busy – including helping Caroline and Sophia. Most of our friends didn’t find out until later that Caroline hurt her back and a shoulder and Sophia ended up with bruises, scratches, and a twisted ankle.
As you can guess, our play time was finished for a while after that – especially since we needed to get Jen to the clinic. By the way, the timing for that scene earned some jokes because Cassie, Michael, and the kids and tweens with them had just been discussing not jinxing us by talking about getting through the earlier biking without injuries while the doctors are away. Fortunately, Aunt Deborah did not need to call Uncle Adam or Uncle Mark back to help, but that was partially-true because she had Cassie with her to help with quietly healing Jen – though not all of the way; since they couldn’t make miracles happen for all of the bruising and sore ribs. Aunt Deborah also needed to check Caroline after noticing her sore shoulder; and Cassie needed to help again after sensing what was wrong with both the shoulder and Caroline’s upper-spine thanks to being twisted around by Miles’ hard hit. I want to add that Cassie used some Magi tricks to do all of that healing with non-Magi patients, and while nudging Jen into a micro-hap wasn’t a big deal; her near-body shields around just herself and Caroline along with using a time-phase was an interesting choice of tactics that allowed her to help Caroline so-quickly that her patient didn’t even notice it happen. Caroline started to feel a lot better much-faster than she would have without the help, but Cassie left the muscle strain behind so that Caroline didn’t miraculously feel completely healed instantly.
Moving along, while Jen and Caroline were taken home by their mothers from the clinic, and quite a few of our guy friends had left before we were done there; most of the rest of our gang came home with Cassie and Michael; and the rest of our afternoon was much-quieter through until dinner time. Cassie and Michael had help for the work around dinner; we enjoyed that meal; and we’ve mostly had a quiet evening since then. As I mentioned already, we’ve stayed up too late with movies and the rest of our fun. Brianna and Faith are in bed with the pets now; and we’re going with a co-ed sofa sleepover instead of splitting up into guest rooms too. Brianna and Faith have the first ball game of the day for our family, and we’ll be there to support her; so we really should wrap this up and get to the sleeping part of our co-ed fun.
Before we do that, Naomi – and Ehlana – wants me to add at least a bit of news about the four pranksters at the heart of that afternoon mess. Getting mad at them is normal, but we’re all also aware of the fact that what they did wasn’t meant to hurt the girls; and the whole incident likely would have been shrugged off in minutes if nobody had been hurt. We haven’t even seen the guys since we were at the park, and haven’t heard anything about consequences, but we have mixed feelings about that too; so we should probably just leave it to the parents to deal with and not offer our two-cents at all. I am personally glad that it isn’t my problem; since I don’t know what I’d do about a case that ranges from Zack and the fact that Naomi stopped his part in the prank and he went for the swim instead of her to the other end with Joshua and the fact that Jen could have drowned without the quick reaction from Cassie and me. By the way, Cassie had her phone with her when she went in the water, and it would have been ruined, but she ‘healed’ it too; and only went through the motions of the usual procedures for trying to save a phone that got soaked. Miles and Eli fall into the range between the two for what they did to Caroline and Sophia; so I won’t try to guess about whether any of them will be in serious trouble. I will predict that there will be more to this story – especially if any of the girls can’t play ball tomorrow or if Jen still feels rough for her birthday on Sunday; and there are sure to be ongoing jokes – including any that come my way about hugging Jen and then all of the hugs I got from her mother and others for helping her out.
We’ll keep you posted on all of that – and the fun we’re going to have all weekend, but we really need to get some sleep now; so that’s all for this report.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
