Give a Little Love ((open))

Canis lupus familiaris of the family Canidae to which the jackal and fox also belong. Della knows the formal name for most of the animals found in the district, is pretty good when it comes to small birds that flutter over head; sometimes she and her father sit out on the porch looking through binoculars, sitting side by side on old plastic chair going. Her father might say ‘lovely plumage,’ like he has any idea what plumage is ’what do you reckon that is?’ ‘That’s a pigeon, Daddy’ Della giggles, thinking of a thousand better uses for a pair of binoculars- none of them all that savoury.

Names of animals are fine for Della; the taxonomy, biology, intelligence and all their behaviours is easy enough for someone with her brain, so long as it’s in a book or studied from afar. Up close…she is not so good with animals. Perhaps it’s because she can’t tell what they are thinking, that they behave so irrationally; pissing where they want, biting out without warning that puts her on edge. Even the friendliest dog has a mouth full of sharp canines to pierce and incisors to rip so as the two large sheepdogs hurtle towards her, wet noses pushing into her pants, bodies up against her slim frame, Della did what she figured was the most sensible thing. Backed right up into the wall, shoulders stiff, her collection box held up to her chest.

“Nice doggies,” she murmurs uneasily, as if dogs responded to reason and flattery. If one of them wants to go for the juglar, it’s gonna go for the jugular no matter what. Nice…balls of murderous fluff.

I'm sorry about my dogs, she hears beside her, but she doesn’t dare turn her head all the way for fear of it seeming like she’s presenting a long section of her neck to one of the dogs to use as a chew toy. “It’s okay, ma’am” she says in a strangely high voice. Representative of the fact that things are clearly not okay at all. “No problem at all, honest,” Della insists. Really though, she wants to screech ‘get em off, get em off’ and shout about keeping animals under control but that just aint good manners and her Daddy taught her better than that. So instead she becomes a nervy wreck of a statue, watching the dogs until they tire of her.

And finally turning around, Della sure is glad that she didn’t get snippy with the owner of the two dogs. She’s the kind of stunning beauty that makes Della’s mouth fall slightly open; with dark hair the way that Della likes, tied up but in a messy way that sends loose curls tumbling down the nape of a slender pale neck. All she can think of doing is reaching out and threading a finger along those curls, tucking a silky whorl back behind her ear. She’s small and delicate, and Della likes that too, follows the curve of her body from clavicle to the glass vial inlet of her waist and slight flaring of hips with eyes staring hard enough that she can almost feel the touch of her skin.

What’s most striking though, is the colour of her eyes. She’s read about polygenic phenotypic characteristics, has only had to look at other people to know how rare such an occurance is naturally. Della knows that the eyes of people with severe forms of albinism may appear red under certain lighting conditions owing to the extremely low quantities of melanin allowing the blood vessels to show through but never about what causes eyes to appear as purple as this girl’s do, almost the colour of an orchid. A fantastic specimen, some kind of beautiful genetic mutation. Licking her lips, breaking out into a smile Della decides that she’s just this moment about to become an avid dog lover.

Heh, they’re kinda cute aint they?” Della says pleasantly, for murderous fluff balls, cocking her head to look for a minute at the dogs before immediately returning her gaze back to the other girl. Her eyes don’t want to be anywhere else, they’re just having much fun finding little details like the separate outline of each long eyelash and the plump curve of her lips. “Cotton and Bud, isn’t it?” Della asks more to make conversation and not because she needs reminding. Della can remember the names of each star in the Pleiades constellation (Alcyone, Atlas, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Pleione, Celaeno and Sterope) simply because she read a book about them once five years ago, knows how to mend a pilot light without batting an eye because she saw her daddy do it when she was eight- the names ‘cotton’ and ‘bud’ prove no significant problem to Della.

“Oh,” she says with a smile, remembering her box. “You don’t got any spare change on you, do you?” She loves this good Samaritan bit a whole bunch right now, loves that her Daddy made her go out canvassing after all. Like, it’s unfortunate what happened to Cannel Bauer but to be perfectly honest Della doesn’t know him from any other roughneck from out on the rigs, isn’t exactly loosing sleep over what’s going to happen to him- but as a pulling technique it’s done quite well for her so far. Della makes sure to pull her best selfless hero face“I’m trying to raise money fer a disabled friend of my dad. Accident out on the oil rig. Just a little bit to help him on his way, you know? I’d sure be grateful for anything…not that…there’s any pressure,” she added quickly, knowing that a lot of people in district five weren’t the wealthiest. She and her Daddy did just fine but that was because it was only the two of them and both of them lived like church mice anyway, cheap clothes, a taste for the crappier things in life- honestly Della couldn’t think of anything better to have for dinner than a can of cold beans poured over sliced, chalky white bread, it was the food of the goods- other people, she knew were not so better off.

Tipping her head as the girl, Clairy, speaks Della gives her the kind of smile that a teacher would to a particularly slow child. Talking nineteen to the dozen though Della is hardly listening to a word, simply watching the way that her lip moves up and down, Clairy makes offers that aren’t particularly necessary; a healer for a man who’s arms are long gone now, and aint all that likely to grow back no matter how good a doctor her momma might be and a loaf of bread- Della and her Daddy don’t have much need for extra bread and by the time they get it to Cannel Bauer it’d probably be stale. Unnecessary offers, yes…but downright adorable all the same. She puts twenty whole dollars in to the collection tin too, which is going to make Della’s father happy, and do some good for Cannel Bauer ,or whatever, quite frankly she’s beginning to forget just what and who the collection is for-Della’s just hoping she’s doing it to try and impress her.

As if she needs try and do anything with eyes like those.

“Wow. That’s so generous! Gee, thankin’ you Miss Clairy,” says Della sincerely, a nod of her head as she takes the bread in her hands- it’s just good manners after all, accept a gift and be incredibly grateful. And even though her father and she live quite comfortably, they still aren’t rich enough to turn their noses up at free bread. “Smells real good, me and my Daddy normally just get the kind that comes in bags from the market. We aint exactly the cookin’, homemade food type- you know? We’re beans and biscuit sorta people.”

Della laughs because it’s entirely true. She can’t figure it out because she’s heard that cooking is like science, and all that seems to be true; certain elements and compounds mixed together to create reactions, she’s cooked tonnes of chemicals on the stove before because they needed to be heated to a certain point but when it comes to baking and cooking Della just has no interest. Maybe its got something to do with the fact her daddy’s idea of cooking is lancing a pack of hot dogs through with a poker before balancing it over a trash can fire. He never cooks, because it bores the heck out of him and it’s a trait Della has inherited.

“Della Conagher, I’d shake your hand but,” she gestures to her hands full of bread and the collection box.

“I sure do appreciate it. Won’t be no need for a healer right now though; last I heard Mr Bauer suffered several comminuted fractures in both humeral capitula, oblique and transverse fractures, severe tissue damage, with severe axonotmetesis in both arms and neurotmesis in his left. So yeah they was pretty busted up, like you know how meat gets real tenderised? Doctors just took both arms right off.” Della shrugs, watching one of the dogs, Cotton or Bud, who cares (they are virtually indistinguishable at least to Della, she’s a genius but come on there are limits) sure that it’s waiting for her to lower her arm a little so it can steal the bread right out of her hand.

Catching the end of what she’s saying, Della realises she’s a farm girl. Well she should have guessed, farm girls aren’t like rigger’s daughters much- they’re more wide eyed innocent, rosy cheeked and thick hipped from fresh milk and cream like perfect dirty pictures. The closer to the oilfields the more poulluted a girl gets, scrawnier, more sarcastic, too sharp sometimes for their own good- or at least they like to think they are sharp. Della doesn’t mind that, but sometimes she just wants someone pretty (most of the time she just wants someone pretty) and they can leave the sharp sarcastic barbs at home- Della’s smart enough for both of them anyways.

“Worst part is,” she continues, going back to Cannel Bauer, a sly grin as she gets the ghost of an idea, “Is the rigs let him go, just like that with no compensation or nothing. It’s terrible aint it? And since it’s a government rig…I shouldn’t even be here right now, you know? Might get a lot of trouble discussing it out in the open,” Della looks around and chews on her lip. It’s a terrible excuse to try and talk a girl into going back to your place, but the premise is sort of meant to be quite thin anyway. “I mean…if you wanted to help a little more….we could go somewhere and talk…my place or somethin’?”

When Clairy agrees to go back with Della to her place, she can’t help but smile like the cat that still has fresh cream clinging to his whiskers. They won’t be totally alone in the house; not until Della’s daddy has shaken the last traces of sleepy dust from his eyes, pressed cold lunchmeat into stale bread, wrapped up in cellophane and pulled a clean flannel shirt over his usual wife-beater and left for work. But Della’s room is tucked away in the loft of the house; it had once been the one next to her father’s when she was a little girl, decorated with the nursery frieze of animals and hand painted trains chugging along the wall (as if her father would decorate her room with flowers and fairies, as if Della would ever want it that way) but the new room had been a present on her fourteenth birthday- for extra space and privacy. They’d repaired the attic and made it habitable together and now it’s Della’s own inner sanctum. A place to think, to read and relax, it’s where she can conduct a few scientific studies and, most importantly of all, screw. The door would muffle everything, encasing them and holding them warm and close cupped in the attic of the house. Alone with Clairy.

Della’s cup filled up and ran over with joy. Bouncing on her heels a little like an exuberant puppy before she reminded herself to play it a little cooler, Della gestured with her head and started walking, turning around to look at Clairy. “Out in the desert near the oil fields, aint so far though.” She wonders what she’ll taste like; strawberry red lips, buttermilk skin like a walking talking dessert making Della’s mouth water for want of kissing it. “You want me to help with the basket at all?” she adds, watching Clairy slide it up her own arm. It’s just good manners, after all, and Della Conagher aint nothing if not the very image of politeness and common courtesy.

Even if her thoughts may be incredibly dirty.

They walk a little while and Della wonders if she ought to try slipping her arm into the crook of Clairy’s elbow, trying coiling it around the curve of her waist and pulling her close, but she isn’t sure if that would scare her off. Della’s confident in her own charm; she has a brain the size of a small planet after all, and has an excellent track record- but she’s no letch. Well, she is a letch, but an incredibly dignified one. These girls remind her of little rabbits, startled when you hold out a handful of food, snuffling and sniffling as they watch for danger and start forwards. Move too quickly and they are bound to flee. It’s a shame that Della is so impatient though.

“I don’t know if I ever seen you around at school,” she says, to pass the time on the journey back to hers. “You’re so pretty I think I would’ve remembered you,” Della catches her eye in and in a moment tries to convey the significance, tries to let Clairy know just how pretty she finds her and just what she wants to do with all of that pretty. “But yeah, where were we? Cannel Bauer.”

As she shakes the tin, they approach the Conagher household, edging onto the desert and the oilfields like she’d said. It’s a sweet little bungalow with white picket fence and a flat roof over the front porch held up by pillars. The walls are a pale shade of buttercup yellow, the yard is mostly dust interspaced with a few patches of coarse grass like the bristles on a hair brush. “Some equipment fell on him and that’s all- it happens all the time up on the oil fields- the safety codes are…dismal, I’ve checked some of them myself,” Della smiles apologetically, opening the gate. “I’m going to work up on a rig one day, gonna be an engineer. And nothing I build is gonna break. Ever.”

Her nod is firm and Della believes it; can’t see any better use for a brain the size of a planet then make sure that there aren’t as many Cannel Bauers out on the oil fields. She sees a problem and she solves it, like all engineers should. There is a problem now, as far as Della can tell. A problem lurking within the distance between her and Clairy and solving this problem is all part of the fun. “Not all that mysterious in the end I guess. You’re the mystery to me really,” she says, stopping at the front door before she fishes for her keys. “How have I not noticed the girl with the amazing eyes before now? I know I’ve only just met you…but gosh, Clairy…I think I want to know all about you.”