“What’s going on?” Diana asked. “Is there someone else here?”
“What? Oh, you must be imagining things,” Calvin laughed, as he gestured for the assembled crowd to be quiet and to duck down a little. “Who else would be here? Well, you can open your eyes now, anyway.”
“Well, I don’t kn—” Diana began, just as Calvin finally lifted the blindfold from her eyes.
“SURPRISE!!!!”
Diana gasped, jumping a little, at the sound of about thirty adults and half that many children all leaping up and shouting at once. She stood, her mouth hanging open, as she stared around – at the new wooden playground with its play house, secure climbing frames made from sturdy, knotted ropes, and the swing set, placed a little apart from the rest of the play area so kids could swing to their hearts’ content.
But the main part of the playground was the huge wooden pirate ship that Calvin had built with the help of Henry and some of the other residents, featuring a flagpole flying a cartoon pirate flag – made by Eula and Janie – a long plastic slide flowing down from the deck, a short ladder and climbing rope, a steering wheel that could spin around, and even a wooden anchor that could be slowly lowered with a crank.
Looking at it, Calvin couldn’t help but feel just alittleimpressed with himself – while he might have worked as a builder for a long time, this was the first time he’d ever designed and built a whole playground.
Our mate will decide whether this is impressive enough for her or not!his wyvern interjected.She is the judge of whether this meets her standards!
Well, it had a point there, Calvin was forced to concede.
WhatdoesDiana think of this…?
She’d been silent so far, but when Calvin risked a glance at her face, her mouth was still open, her eyes as wide as saucers.
Is that… a good sign?
But then, a peal of amazed laughter burst out of Diana’s mouth. She clasped her hands together and practically jumped on the spot, her eyes shining as she gazed around at the assembled crowd, the playground, the garden beds – the things that all the people of Girdwood Springs had put so much time and effort into.
“Oh – oh my goodness!” she squealed. “I can’t believe this! This is… this isamazing!I just – is this reallyreal?”
Calvin couldn’t help himself from laughing along with her as Diana dashed off ahead of him, following the path he and Henry and Gale had spent this morning sweeping clean. It ran through the garden beds Gale had already planted, which Calvin knew, with Gale’s unicorn’s touch, would grow up to become dense with native flowers and trees.
He followed her as she wandered, as if in a daze, past the swings and the pirate ship.
The kids from her pre-school class, clearly unable to hold in their excitement any longer, came jumping and skipping to form a crowd around her, tugging at her hands, their eyes shining as they competed to be the ones to tell her about every piece of equipment in the playground.
I’ll let them take on the tour duties,Calvin thought, smiling, as he watched Diana be buffeted along by a crowd of four-year-olds, all of whom clearly adored her.
And it was easy to see why.
Diana crouched down, listening intently to each of them as they excitedly chattered at her, pointing to the pirate flag, the slide, the swing set. She let them pull her over to the flower beds and vegetable gardens, nodding as they explained to her what would be planted there. Diana laughed and thanked them all for the tour of their new playground – and, of course, for the beautiful mural they’d made.
“But I think there might be some cupcakes over there that need eating,” she finally said, standing and brushing off the knees of her jeans from where she’d been kneeling on the ground. “But make sure you ask your parents first before grabbing anything!”
Whether the kids were listening was debatable, as they’d all started screaming and jumping up and down at the mention of cupcakes – but really, where Sylvie’s baking was involved, Calvin couldn’t say he blamed them.
The kids ran whooping with delight toward the snack table – only some of their parents managing to intercept them before they grabbed at the pink-frosted cupcakes – as Diana made her way back over to Calvin, stopping every now and then to thank the people of the crowd who wandered over to congratulate her on her hard work finally having paid off.
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Diana muttered when she was finally back by Calvin’s side. She squeezed her eyes closed for a long moment before opening them again, as if she expected to find everything had disappeared in an instant.
“Nope. I promise this is all real.” Laughing, Kieran’s mate Natasha broke away from the crowd who were now busily supervising a horde of apparently ravenous children to give Diana a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I should know, I’ve been hearing updates from Kieran about it for the past six weeks!”
Diana laughed. “I can’t believe all of this was going on behind that temporary fencing. Iknewyou were fibbing when you told me it was just a basic playground and swing set!”
“Would you have preferred that I told you exactly what we had planned?” said Calvin with a grin. “No surprises, just a detailed list of what we were going to do?”
“Of course not,” Diana said, playfully swatting at his arm. “I’m glad you were fibbing. Even if itwaspainfully obvious.”
She looked up at him, her love for him clear in her sparkling eyes, and he leaned down to give her a quick, chaste kiss on the forehead… though eventhatwas apparently not fast enough, if theooohs from a couple of nearby kids were anything to go by.
“Okay, enough of that,” Diana laughed.
