Astronaut

Chapter Fifteen: Playtime with a Compromise and Yachting Dreams

Pulling up at the White House, William turns the engine of the car off, gets out and waits on his passengers to exit the vehicle before he locks the car. Harvey follows behind his siblings and Clint and Kenny into the vast building on the lookout for either of their parents, their uncles or their nanny Mrs Shaw; reaching the second floor, Harvey goes straight into his room to put his shoes, bag and hat away before regrouping with his brothers and sisters out in the hallway. Rejoining his siblings, he continues to help them in their search of trying to find their dads, they head back downstairs to see if they're in the Oval Office or any of the other surrounding rooms in the West Wing. They eventually find their dads and uncles in the Blue Room. Harvey begins rambling on about all of the things that he learned at school today, leaving no breathing space for his siblings to get a word in; eventually, Caroline, John, June, Rachel and LJ get a chance to tell their parents about their day without their pesky brother interrupting them every two seconds. Harvey heads up to his room to read and listen to one of his records, getting to his bedroom door he pushes it open using the door handle and takes himself into the room, going over to his shelved records he picks up Beatles for Sale to listen to whilst he reads one of his books; taking the vinyl out of its sleeve and placing it onto the turntable, he picks up the needle, then presses play. He takes himself over to his bookshelf and peruses it before coming across his planetary book on Jupiter, he walks over to his bed, props his pillow up against the headboard, lies down on top of his quilt covers, and then starts to read about one of the great gas giants in our solar system whilst he listens to his favourite band. When he's stopped reading about Jupiter, he gets up off his bed and takes the book over to his bookshelf, when he's done that, he goes over to his record player to take off the finished record and put it back into its sleeve to be put by; heading towards his bedroom door, he opens it and takes himself out into the vast hallway on the lookout for his dads or his siblings. Reaching the ground floor, he sees Kenny with William again and walks up to the two agents to ask:

"Are my dads still in the Blue Room with my Uncle Bobby and Uncle Ted?" Kenny looks down at him to reply with:

"That's the last place I seen them, buddy," he says with disappointment, "maybe you could try the Oval Office or see if your brothers and sisters are around?" He also suggests

"Okay, I'll head to the Oval Office first. Thanks, Kenny," he leaves William and Kenny behind and begins his journey to the West Wing. Arriving at his destination, he enters the large room and finds his dads at the Resolute desk again. Seeing that his parents are occupied with the small piles of important documents that are sprawled out on the large desk, he saunters over towards one of the couches in the room that's next to his dad's rocking chair that he uses for his Addisons; Harvey plops himself down onto the upholstery and the soft thump he makes when sitting down gets the attention of both his parents who look up from what they're doing and focus their attention on the inquisitive redhead sitting in front of them. Jack is the first of the two to notice him and questions:

"What's up, Harv?"

"Nothing. It's just that there's nothing fun for me to do," he groans complainingly whilst throwing his head back and to show his boredom, he makes his body slide down into the seat, using his feet to make the motion as if he is going to fall off and end up on the carpeted floor.

"Why don't you go and play with your brothers and sisters?"

"I do that most of the time though,"

"And that's not fun for you?"

"It is but John, LJ and I end up going off and doing our own thing. The girls do the same. I wish we could all just play together as the six of us instead of two groups of us doing different things,"

"Well, that's where you get everybody together and explain to them that you're not happy with the way that things are going on between you and see if you can come to an agreement or if not, you can compromise,"