Title: Paperback
Author: eponymous_rose
Word Count: 453
Rating: G
Characters: Maria Jackson, Alan Jackson, Chrissie Jackson, Kelsey Harper
Spoilers: Set pre-series.
Author's Note: Huge thanks to wondygal for the short-notice beta!



As a kid, Maria had always loved stories about adventurous girls, about the ones who went out and really did things, the tomboys who didn't much care what others thought - her dad read them to her sometimes, making faces and using silly voices at all the best parts. She dreamt she had a brother or a sister to drag along with her on journeys through the garden (they'd be hesitant, of course, but they'd follow her in the end).

And then her mum, beaming, had pulled out a massive box of her favourites, a load of books about boys and makeup and falling in love and so many grown-up things that Maria felt a little thrill of rebellion every time she cracked one open. The dog-eared paperback adventure novels gathered dust on the shelf, and friends would come by to visit, and Maria would tell them that she was too old for stories like that. She daydreamed about meeting a boy who was actually a prince, imagined pearls and lovely dresses.

(Sometimes it frustrated her how little the books actually revealed about the adult world. All she knew was that it seemed like people were a lot angrier and did a lot more shouting after kids were in bed, and that didn't seem at all worthwhile.)

And then, all of a sudden, there they were, she and her dad starting a new life.

She was determined not to get teary-eyed when her parents sat her down and told her it was all for the best. With a grin that she knew to be hiding something else, her dad called it a new adventure, and she'd rolled her eyes like any teenager, but something inside her had started smiling again.

The first thing she did on her last day in her old home was to pull out the battered adventure novels, the old paperbacks, and read them one by one. When she finished, at nightfall, with a pile of books and half a sandwich next to her, she found herself quoting Shakespeare of all things, lining up her mum's old books and explaining to them about more things in heaven and earth. She felt silly after the fact, but her dad had told her once that feeling silly was a part of growing up, and she was starting to believe him.

A new adventure, her dad had called it, and that's what it became - a story. And when an overconfident girl dragged her off to a brightly-coloured bus, and when she spotted the strange old house across the street, she felt herself turning familiar pages, holding her breath at each new danger facing the brave heroine.

If this was growing up, Maria decided, it couldn't be all bad.