The Knights of the Treehouse (& Princess Francine)
Emil, Preston, Nikolai, Ruth, Thomas & Frances - Late 1935
It was an early Autumn morning, about a month before Thomas & Emil's 13th birthday. They'd made excuses to their parents, and were off into the woods. Not that their parents would have particularly minded, but there was a certain thrill to a secret expedition into the forest.
Edith had never let them off easy though, meaning Frances had slowly become (almost) as much a part of the group as the rest of them. She wasn't bad to have around, but that was because she mostly kept to herself. While they were off hunting for centipedes, she would be back on the path with her book, or under a tree nearby. Her and Thomas got along well for that reason specifically. Both of them were mostly there to keep an eye on Emil anyway.
Between the four of them; Emil, Ruth, Nikolai, and Preston; it was a competition to see who could go the farthest. Who could find the creepiest bug, do the biggest dive bomb, climb the highest or do the longest rock skip. That day, Emil pushed Preston into the lake, and had laughed so hard he'd inhaled a dragonfly. He swore he could still feel the buzzing in his throat walking home, Preston laughing almost the entire way back. Still, to Emil, in a way it felt like he won that day. For one reason, or another.
