Words for Wednesday - Unicorn Farm - The Beginning 1

Delores at Mumblings  is supplying the prompts for Words for Wednesday for the last time today. She gave us Television. Thank you for giving us a fresh take batch of prompts, Delores!

The only episodes of Unicorn Farm where television plays a part - albeit only as a supporting actor - is right in the beginning. The first visit to Unicorn Farm. It might be time to write that chapter out in English as well. 
There's not much magic in this first part, but with patience - and good prompts - it will eventually come. 

To allay any confusion - I hope - the chapters will be captioned with the words: Unicorn Farm-The Beginning 1 - ...

You know, if I carry on like this, I'll have to send my manuscript to an English publishing house - then you can have the honour of being my proof readers ;)  Please point out any mistakes you find. I love getting better.

Aunt Dina and uncle Kurt had finally finished building their new summerhouse. Last summer Susan and her little sister, Linda, had been watching, while uncle Kurt laid the first bricks for the house, not one but many times. He had tried different ways to lay the bricks in patterns and chose the best, not the one Susan liked best of course, but not the one Linda voted for either.The summerhouse was brand new all right, but it was ever so boring. The adults found it was practical and compact. It was mostly just a big cube with glass on the side facing the water. To the right when you entered was a bathroom and Kurt and Dina's bedroom. The rest was one large room with lots of airy space and a fireplace on the wall opposite the bathroom. The garden was as boring as the house. Newly planted ornamental trees with support rods and windblown hedges bordering the plots on two sides where the neighbouring plots looked just the same. The fourth side was open, leading to a big, rolling field of some grain and behind that the cliffs and finally the beach. Last summer, they all had still slept in the small wooden shed that now had been downgraded to a garage and fortunately also to a guest rooms for the girls.
Susan and Linda were warmly welcomed by their aunt and uncle. Then they helped carry things from the car into the house. When that was done, they rushed to see if everything was as it used to be. The summerhouse was totally uninteresting, just a base for hiking trips in the area. The excitement began where the hedges and the yellowing lawn stopped. Out in the corn field that everybody was allowed to play and walk in! You could build intricate complexes in the style of beaver holes, but you could also just go for a walk, picking grains and wild flower bouquets. You could sit quietly hidden, hoping that a rabbit came by. They often raced the rabbits, but the rabbits always won. Or you could just lie on your back and look past the slowly moving ears of corn up on drifting white clouds, that created always new patterns and pictures.

At first they played in the grain field, making the almost ritual tunnel from the path down to the water. Then they ran down the path to see if the stairs leading to the water was still there. It was. Solid railroad sleepers curved down towards the shore. They ran down the sleepers loudly counting the steps 29, 30, 31, 32! Yes, they were all there. They did not go for a swim, only waded in the water, because the waves were big that day. Big enough to push over a little girl. The water was wonderful, Susan loved the big waves, it was wonderful to skip through them, and over them tumbling like a dolphin. But this pleasure had to wait.
Out at sea, a boat sailed past, loaded with strange looking people in Icelandic sweaters and with looking glasses around the neck.
"It's probably the ornithologists, aunt Dina talked about," Susan said, feeling relieved to have remembered the strange word.
"Oy," Linda replied, "why do yo always have to use all those big words. It's just a boat full of bird watchers." Susan resisted the temptation to answer that she had read it in a book somewhere, partly because it was not true, partly because she did not want to start the holiday with a quarrel.

The two sisters were very different. Susan, the eldest, had just turned 13, her hair was straight, common dull blonde and almost always tousled, the elastic bands fell out, or broke, or got lost, she almost always ended the day with both braids gathered in one hair band. She was tall, not very slim nor fat. Just plain. Unlike Linda, she loved reading books. Linda would rather sit on the back of a horse, or dress up in new clothes, or play with baby dolls. Her hair was fair and wavy, her hair bands - the fashionable ones with two balls in them - never got lost, her teeth were neat and white, and she never had any cavities. She had many girlfriends, and they talked and giggled in her room. Right now she was only 11, This was the half of the year when Susan was two years her senior, and she was not happy with that. She was more than 6 months away from her 12th birthday.

After having reassured themselves that their large stones were still there at the water's edge where they used to, they went looking for belemnites in the rubble below the cliffs. Today, Linda was lucky and  found the first one, but a little later Susan found a petrified sea urchin half hidden in a stone. They agreed to go home again, it would soon be time for dinner. Linda and Susan raced one another on the paths back to the summerhouse.

After supper, the television was turned  on. The Olympics had just begun and the adults sat watching drinking soda and Campari and cheered on all the Danish participants, whether they were good or not. Susan took a red soda and a book went outside to sit on the terrace. She pondered the strangeness of adults in general and more specifically her parents. Why did they cheer on someone, just because he was a Dane. That swimmer was not even very good. And the stuff they were drinking! By accident, Susan had happened to drink from her mother's glass. Even diluted in lots of soda, it was awful! And to boot Mom and Dad and the others just became stupid from drinking it. Susan would remember this. She did not want to grow up and behave like that. She wanted to live alone in a small cabin near the forest, with a large, lovely garden and a wood burning stove inside. And people would only be allowed inside if they were nice. Susan sat with the book in her lap and her legs stretched out on the terrace boards. The stars began popping out in the sky, and with them the mosquitoes. She hurried into the garage and into bed.