The Last Days of Summer (Demo and Susannah [and anyone else, if they wish])

The lake was warm today, in the summer-autumn weather. A young man was dipping his feet in the cool water and his niece was finishing the last sentences of her summer homework.

"And so you promise to stay out of trouble?" said Democritus as they stood by the lake having a picnic. "School starts soon, in fact we're leaving to buy your books in a couple hours."

"When am I ever in trouble?" she asked, looking up from her essay. She took a grape and chucked it at him for his foolishness. She shook her head in humorous exasperation.

"A lot of the kids at your school are rather..." he thought for a second, not wanting to insult them, but also not trying to be politically correct to the point of untruthfulness, "...strange."

He wiped off the grape that was thrown at him and put it in his mouth. "Violent too," he added. "I did not raise you to be like your father, or in your mother's words, 'reform your behavior for 8 years'."

He laughed at that.

"Yeah, I guess," she said with a shrug. "But they always look so miserable, and I've overheard them talking to people about their hard lives. So I'm benefited by that. That's why I like Hufflepuffs, because they're just... nice and happy, you know?"

She wiped the small smile off her face and said, "I don't know what I was thinking when I wanted to be in Slytherin, like my mother. You don't like her anymore, do you, Uncle Demo?"

"'spose not," he replied. "No, I'm over her. When I saw her this summer, she was as mean and cold as she ever was. She used to be so nice to me, but now... I guess not. If she chose your dad over me, then she doesn't deserve the best."

He waited for his niece's sarcastic reply. He loved bothering her.

"The best at what? Being an idiot?" she said, seeing that her uncle was trying to get in an argument for fun. "I hate to break it to you, but you're the clumsiest person in all of the English-speaking world. I mean, I think only Cousin Bessy from Germany might be worse than you are. She can't walk without somehow getting her shoelaces tied together."

"Idiot doesn't mean clumsy," he said with an annoyingly cheerful demeanor. "And Cousin Bessy isn't on my side of the family, is she? Nope, she's one your mom's side of the family. You heard me. I say mom, not mum."

He knew that this bothered her a lot when she was a little kid, and since he hadn't said anything like that in a long time, she almost laughed.

"C'mon, we should clean up and get those books. You can finish your essay later... you should've finished it a long time ago!"

He glanced at the essay and his eyes widened. "That's an Astronomy essay!" he said in irritation as they began to leave. "Why is it that you always do home work for my class LAST?"