Chapter 4

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You have chosen option (b): Cafe cooked lunch

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<Hannah>

Dammit! I've lost my retainers already! I wouldn't mind, but I've only had them just under 3 weeks, and I was almost used to wearing them. I last had them when I took them out at lunchtime: I had gone to the park, I had sat on a park bench, when I took them out, put them into their retainer case, then dropped them into my bag. Well, that's what I THOUGHT had happened. But when I got back to work after lunch, they weren't in my bag. After work, I went back to where I was sitting, looking around as I walked, and had a look around on the way to the park too, but could see nothing.

It actually feels strange not having anything on my teeth after so long in braces. As a young teen, my teeth were a bit of a mess, my teeth were not in a nice curve like most other kids, plus my top teeth stuck out.

I first got braces when I was about 14: I'd been on the waiting list for about a year before I got them. It was a big plastic thing called an activator, plastic in the roof of my mouth, which continued down inside and over my lower teeth too, then plastic over my lower teeth, holding my jaw a bit forward. There was a wire over my top teeth, very similar to what I have on my retainers. In the top it had what they called an 'expansion screw', which I had to turn every week. In total, I wore that thing for something like 9 months. 9 months of finding it hard to talk. 9 months of people taking the P*ss.

After that, I had metal brackets: at least they were deemed to be a bit more 'normal', and life became a bit more bearable. The original plan was to have those for 18 months to 2 years, but Covid got in the way: I ended up having them for over three years! Initially, when Covid came in, I didn't have an appointment for most of six months because of the lock-down. Then I wasn't able to see the ortho for maybe a couple of months at a time.

I finally got them off 3 weeks ago, and got my retainers.

Which I've managed to lose already!

I stood there looking at my new smile in the mirror: my teeth actually look pretty awesome now, I just need to fix the rest of me, if that's possible! I started wearing contact lenses about two or three months ago, which I think has helped, although I find some days my eyes don't seem to be 'in the mood', so I just wear my glasses, it's no biggie. I've had glasses since I was about 12, so it's nice to finally not have to wear them all the time.

I'm not yet sure what to do with my hair, so for the moment I just either tie it back, or sometimes - if I'm in the mood - I'll plait it into one or two ponytails. However I do it, I try to make it just cover my ears, to hide my hearing aids: I've had those for as long as I can remember. I'm not completely deaf, but it seems I have a genetic issue of some sort, which means my hearing isn't as good as most people's. I used to have big ones that go behind my ears: I still have those as a back-up, but mum & dad treated me to some nice in-ear ones when I turned 18, which aren't quite as obvious.

I had just finished making my dinner, and was about to serve it up when my phone rang: it wasn't a number that I knew, but I answered it.

Hello, who is this?" I asked.

"Oh, hello, you don't know me, my name is Chris. I believe you might have lost a pink retainer case with some retainers inside..." he replied.

Oh, thank goodness for that, I thought.! It turns out that they probably just fell out of my bag, as he'd found them next to the bench I'd sat on

"Ah, yes, that would make sense... you're right, I did stop there for my lunch. "I explained. "Oh, I'm Hannah by the way"

His name was Chris, and we arranged to meet at lunchtime the next day, next to the park, where there was an old memorial.

As I walked there I was feeling a little nervous for several reasons. First of all, I was meeting someone I know absolutely nothing about. Next, he's a guy, and from his voice he sounded to be fairly young, probably only a bit older than me... and I'm not great around guys. It's strange, I was fairly ok on the phone to him, but meeting in person is different. The last thing is that when I went to put my contacts in this morning, my eyes felt a bit 'itchy, so I had to wear my glasses... I feel a lot more confident in my contacts.

He was already there when I got to where we agreed to meet. He was about my height, had short dark hair, clean shaven, and dressed 'smart casual': new-ish jeans, a t-shirt, and a lightweight coat on top.

"Hi, are you Chris?" I asked nervously.

"Hi, Hannah, yeah, I'm Chris, nice to meet you!". He put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out my pink retainer case.

"Yours, I believe?". His gentle voice had a pleasant calming effect on me.

"Thank you so much!" I replied, so happy to have my retainers back again: I checked them, then put them into my handbag - I knew we would be eating, so it seemed pointless to put them in. Besides, it wasn't the sort of place I'd actually want to put them in!

We talked briefly about the memorial.

I had promised Chris some lunch, as a simple way of thanking him for returning my retainers. "So, lunch! What would you like? There's quite a choice around here... we could go to the Wetherspoons, have a proper pub lunch. Or there's a couple of simple cafes, that do cheap cooked lunches. Or we could just sit in a place that does sandwiches. To be honest, I'm ok with any of those."

"Oh, a pub lunch sounds nice, but far too heavy, so how about we go for the cafe option?" he replied.

"In that case, follow me..." Having actually met Chris, I was feeling a lot less nervous as I led him to a nice cafe I'd had lunch in a few times. They had a fixed menu, but they also had one or two 'specials', things like lasagne, or shepherds pie, freshly made that day: tasty and at a good price.

The place was already busy, but there was still a couple of empty tables, so we sat at the one in the window. I took a look at today's specials: Shepherds pie and spaghetti.

"What's their specials like?" asked Chris.

"Oh, well worth going for."

"You know," he said, "I sometimes wish I could create a two-minute poll, and get everyone else out there to choose what I should eat: select A for the Shepherds pie, B for the Spaghetti, or C to have something from the normal menu!".

I smiled: it was nice to meet someone who didn't take life too seriously. "Well I'll be voting A for me, because I had the spaghetti last time I was here!"

I have a suggestion for all the people who would like to try writing a story but don't know what to write about. If a few people were to take the options Sparky isn't doing and write a short chapter using the unused options, we would have a real reader-guided story.

The challenge I propose is to have one story for each of the unused options, written by someone other than Sparky, and have the chapter end as a conclusion to the option.

I would say C

Then Hannah can remember (and talk about) the food that she couldn't eat when she had braces....

Tell the story-wanderer to stay in his own story for a whlie.

Sorry for the lack of updates on this story, but I had a week of work, then I was away on holiday for a week.

And whilst I got inspired by Dianne, I'm currently trying to work out where Chris and Hannah are headed... I'm certainly not wanting them to get into a normal boy/girl relationship, that would be too obvious and very boring. I kinda know their next step, just need to think ahead a bit more...

Chapter 7

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You have chosen option (null): no option has been selected

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"Don't they do something a bit stronger?" I asked.

"Well.... I guess there's always the 'Old Joe's'" said Jewelled Princess. As she said this, many faces turned to look at us, as if to say 'No, don't do it!'.

"Yeah, I'll have a double of Old Joe's!" I replied. The barman nervously poured my drink, and JP paid for it. I picked it up and took a sip of it.

"Hey, go careful, that stuff is strong!" said Jewelled Princess. "So, have you bought any weapons or anything yet?"

"No, I did go to the shop and have a look around, but decided that you might have a few suggestions about what might be good for me."

"Good idea! Yeah, we can go to the shop later... had a play of the game yet yet?"

"I went to the Tutorial Dungeon, to get a bit more familiar with the controls.."

"Another good idea, took me a bit to get used to some of the strange moves, but if you like, I can sort-of tutor you."

"Oh, ok, that would be nice... although I'm not sure I'm wanting to really get to know the game."

"Oh, you should, it's fun!" I could hear a sort of 'please' in her voice as she said it.

"But why would you want to teach me, rather than go out fighting yourself?"

"I guess coz it's something different to do. It gets a bit boring after a while, just doing the same sort of stuff, in the hope that eventually your skill level goes up a tiny bit, or you get a new weapon, and you neet a new monster."

She was right: I felt the same after playing a game for a while with the same people, it did get a bit boring. So you'd maybe start with a new team, or find a new game. I was still fine with playing Fortnite: whilst I started playing 'Battle Royale', I now tended to play 'Save the world'. A couple of players I knew enjoyed creating stuff in 'creative', and I'd joined them to play, but the idea of creating a world wasn't my thing, I enjoyed playing. Ok, I enjoyed shooting!

"So, you chose to be a female thief then: any particular reason?"

"Well, I'm normally a male fighter, with a big gun, so thought it might be fun to try out something new. So, yeah, I'm a girl, what do you think?"

"You look quite cute, but still very basic, we need to change your appearance a bit. So what subclass did you choose?"

"I randomly went for 'Kunoichi', is that gonna be ok?"

"Ah, right, not so many of them around... your armour is only cloth, so doesn't give you so much defence, but your attacking skills will be greater. Your specialties will be projectiles and fire magic."

We chatted together for a while, without me actually mentioning Hanna's online braces, but finally I couldn't ignore it any more. A message came up on the screen, saying 'the alcohol is starting to affect your vision!' JP's braces seemed to get shinier, prompting me to finally ask: "So, you seem to have some substantial braces: is that what you actually had for your treatment then?"

I heard a slight giggle from Hannah. "I was wondering when you'd mention them. Yeah, I had headgear for a bit, but not quite as much as my character. And the straps were plain blue. I decided to have a bit of fun with it for my character!"

At lunch, whilst Hannah had mentioned her appliances, and then having braces, she's not said anything about having headgear: I guessed she had found having headgear to be a bit embarrassing. But in that case, why go overboard in the game? "So, the game lets you make custom stuff then?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's generally based on an existing item, so inherits it's properties. So you get a lot of people customising things like shields, swords, or clothing. My headgear is deemed to be a sort of hat, my braces are a form of 'makeup'."

"It actually looks pretty good. Is it expensive to do customisations like that?"

"Not particularly cheap, but not over expensive... but it did take a lot of work to get the coins to pay for it. I started with just the braces."

"So what are you then? Some sort of fighter, I'm guessing?" I decided it would be better to not go on too much about the braces and headgear, it might 'weird her out'.

"Close, I'm a 'Female Slayer', specifically a 'Vagabond', although I actually started as a 'Gunner'. I decided pretty quickly I didn't enjoy that, but understood enough to choose to be a 'Slayer' instead, so created a new character."

"Doesn't your strange 'hat' make you stick out a bit?"

Again, she laughed. "Yes, but now I'm a pretty strong character, it often works to my advantage. It's also good at 'breaking the ice' when I meet a character I don't know. There's actually four other characters that have braces like this... it's a good way to earn a few coins, letting others copy your equipment!"

We chatted a bit more: she didn't seem too shy talking about her 'hat', so I probed further. "So how bad WERE your teeth before you got your braces then? Your real ones, that is?"

"Oh, I had bunny teeth: my top front teeth were quite big, and stuck out way too far. Also my other teeth were a bit crooked. So they gave me an activaror appliance, to help my lower jaw get bigger. At the same time, they needed to make my top teeth go back a bit, so I had to wear a headgear with the activator. Oh, yeah, it also had a screw in it, to make my teeth wider." Her description made sense: an expander would help create space for her top teeth, as would moving them back slightly with the headgear. Then the effect of enlarging her lower jaw would create more space for her lower teeth too.

Back in the game, I took another sip of my drink, and the NPC sat next to us said "Hey, take it slowly, that stuff is strong.. and I mean STRONG!"

"I bet you didn't like that?" I asked Hannah / JP.

"No, I didn't, although looking back, on balance I think it was all probably worth it. But having to wear headgear made it so much harder for me to go out: I mean, there was no way I was going to wear that headgear out the house, even to a friend's place, but I needed to wear it enough to move my teeth."

"You didn't fancy having to wear it to school then?" I asked, jokingly.

"You're kidding me, I'm sure of it!"

"Yeah, I was! Hey, you don't mind me asking about your braces, do you?"

"No, they were part of my teens, part of me, part of who I am now... Hey, you ever had braces?"

"No," I replied truthfully. I left out the bit: 'but I wish I DID'. "But there were several kids in my class that did. One of my friends even had headgear, but obviously never wore it to school" I lied. One of my mates did have braces: he had a removeable followed by brackets, but never any headgear, but I wanted to 'relax' Hannah, so she might be a bit more willing to talking about her braces. And it was a lie I felt ok with, there was no way she could ever find out if it was true or not.

"Hey," I continued, "you said you had brackets: so which was better, the appliance or the brackets?"



(Ah, a good place to pause for another quick poll: (a) for the activator, (b) for the brackets, or (c) for the headgear! And please feel free to explain your choice!)



[4088/41]

B - She had some form of braces for about five years, which is a bit longer than most treatments last, at least in North America. She seems to be comfortable talking about her braces and her character has them in the game, where they are quite noticeable. It seems to me there may be a bit of enjoyment associated with her braces.

If I was writing the story, I would have them go down the rabbit hole, both in the game and in real life.