Naval Warfare

It was three in the morning and Ophelia was lying down in her bed face up, staring at the ceiling and wondering why in the world her grandma's house was so cold all the time. She was buried under three different blankets, a soft hill at her eyes' level.

Granny Lisa always kept the heating system either off or at its minimum.

"We've got plenty of sweaters,"

she said when Ophelia complained. Being five and having dozens of sweaters -of all kinds-, all she could do was obey and put on one of the ones Aunt Margot insisted on knitting every single Christmas.

Anyway, that night Ophelia really wanted to take a hot bath. What better way to keep warm in a place where heat seemed forbidden?

She carefully took off her blanket layers and put a foot on the ground.

(now this is really cold, even for Gran Lis)

She put another foot on the ground and as a shiver ran down her spine tiptoed out of the bedroom in the corridor. It was dark, but luckily Ophelia had to do only a few meters before reaching the bathroom. Or to be more precise, since it was dark run a few meters.

After a minute, she quietly opened the bathroom door and hurried to turn on the lights after closing it behind her.

The circular lamp on the ceiling turned on with a few glitches, casting light on the perfectly tidied bathroom under it.

Everything was in its place: the soaps on the little shelves above the bathroom and the towels in the cabinet on the wall.

Everything was clean: the bathtub was shining and the mirror was without the faintest hint of a stain.

"Gran Lis really loves to clean," Ophelia thought as she got closer to the bathtub and sat on its edge.

The white and yellow checkered floor was even colder than the bedroom one, and Ophelia was dying to take that hot bath.

She rotated the metallic hot water knob and looked at the water pour in with a pleasant murmur. As her eyes wandered across the room, Ophelia's attention was caught by a toy ship in the corner. It was her cousin's, she realized.

Tommy had really great toy ships and she loved to play naval warfare with him whenever they both were at Gran Lis' house. And that's when the idea came.

Why not play a match of naval warfare?

Yes, that would be fun, but Tommy wasn't there.

"That's not a problem, I'll find someone else to play with." She thought as she stood up from the bathtub and got in the corridor again.

She kept hearing the soft sound of the water in the bathtub as she headed to her grandma's bedroom, on the other side of the dark corridor.

The door was open, as always when Ophelia slept over. Grandma Lis' wrinkly face was peacefully lying on the pillow, her white fluffy hair around it.

"No, too old and too kind to not let me win easily." Ophelia thought as she analyzed her grandma's sleeping figure.

She hesitated a second on the doorway, then snuck back into the corridor and once again closed the door behind her.

On her way back to the bathroom, Ophelia glanced at her cousin's empty bedroom, and that's when another idea came: "If I can't have someone to play with, then I'll have something to play with. "

She entered the room and as usual closed the door behind her before turning on the lights.

Again, everything was perfectly clean, probably because of her grandma's love for tidying up. The room was filled with toy boats: from tiny pirate ships to cruise ships miniatures.

Ophelia sat down on the floor and started making a careful selection of which items of that vast collection to bring back to the bathroom, oblivious to the water that didn't stop pouring in the bathtub- and not only in it anymore.

After a handful of minutes, she returned to the bathroom with her arms full of the chosen toy boats. As soon as she opened the door, the water escaped the already wet bathroom floor and quickly went down the corridor in a trickle, touching the closed doors at the sides of it.

"Whoah! Just like in Titanic!" She thought as she watched the scenario unfold under her excited eyes. "Mom and Dad didn't let me watch the movie, but they don't know I'm living it right now!" she kept thinking as she put all the toys on the white, smooth and now comfortably warm bathroom tiles and closed the door behind her.

She sat on the floor and looked around.

“It’s so fun, but something is missing. The boats won’t float in this little water” she thought, looking at the pouring bath water and wondering how to make it even more.

Until her eyes landed on the small, old sink.

Ophelia giggled and walked up to it. She twisted both the hot and the cold water knobs at the same time, causing a huge line of water pouring in the sink.

It only took a handful of seconds and the sink’s water was contributing to the already wet bathroom.

Since Ophelia was in a genius mood that night, she did the same with the shower.

”Yes! Yes!” Ophelia laughed and twirled around the bathroom, pj completely soaked now.

The room was a chaos: water poured everywhere with joyful sounds, and Ophelia splashed in it just as joyfully.

The only noises that could be heard were her laughter and…

”OPHELIA!” Gran Lis entered the bathroom, water splashing on her ankles. She looked around, eyes wide, and for a second her jaw dropped, not saying anything. She held the door handle strongly, knuckles white, and her messy hair made Ophelia laugh.

”Come play, granny!” She said, extending a toy boat to the old lady.

When Gran Lis fainted, of course, Ophelia didn’t worry. After all, if she liked the water so much, why shouldn’t she let her lie in it?