What's Coming in 2008?

 

Dancing With Tad

After a quick stop at a quick shop, Clancy and Jeffrey headed toward Starshine House. They quickly climbed the cement stairs and knocked on the closed and locked front door. Despite ongoing and increasingly insistent knocking, the door remained closed and locked.

“She’s not here.” Clancy said with a frown. “I have a really bad feeling about this, Jeffrey.”

He applied his large, closed fist to the door one last time and then reached into his pocket. “If you ever tell Margaret I did this I’ll bitch slap you.” Then he proceeded to use a professional looking lock picking tool to open the door.

Clancy’s mouth hung open. “You still have that thing?”

Jeffrey turned to her, grinned wickedly, and pushed the freshly unlocked door open. “It came in handy when we needed places to make out in high school didn’t it?”

Clancy snorted. “Like finding places to make out was ever a problem for us.”

Jeffrey chucked her under the chin gently and started to enter the house. Clancy grabbed his arm and he turned back, scowling.

“What?”

“Don’t forget this.” She handed him a Ding Dong.

His handsome face creased in an embarrassed grin, “Oh yeah. That would be bad wouldn’t it?”

“It’s either that or you’ll have to buy an underwear scarf.”

Jeffrey was halfway down the darkened hallway toward the kitchen by the time Clancy had the front door closed. She was peering through doors on both sides of the hallway when she heard a low rumbling sound, followed by a particularly heartfelt expletive from Jeffrey.

Apparently Were was in the house.

Clancy tiptoed up behind Jeffrey and peered over his shoulder. The half wolf, half dog was crouched next to the kitchen table with his head down, hair up, and lips tucked back to show his entire set of sharp white teeth. “Try throwing him the Ding Dong.”

Jeffrey spared her a quick glance. “What are you doing? Get the hell back. This dog is dangerous.”

Clancy huffed out a sigh, “Just throw him the damn Ding Dong, Jeffrey.”

Jeffrey started to unwrap the snack cake but the crinkling wrapper noise apparently got on the angry wolf’s last nerve and he half stood up out of the defensive crouch, his head coming up and the volume of his growling increasing measurably.

In a panic, Jeffrey threw the whole thing, still wrapped, at the wolf. It hit him right between the eyes and, though it distracted him for a second as he checked it out, it didn’t even begin to tempt him. He gave it one quick sniff and then turned back to them, a malevolent look in his golden eyes.

With a particularly intense snarl he sprang.

They didn’t wait for him to land. With less than manly screams they ducked into the nearest doorway and slammed the door shut behind them. They heard Were’s heavy body hit the door just after they slammed it, causing Jeffrey to turn the lock on the door with a squeak.

Clancy laughed nervously. “Oh good, I was afraid he was gonna open the door and come in after us.”

Jeffrey glared at her. “Well now he can’t can he?”

Clancy looked around the tiny room where they were trapped. It was, of course, a bathroom, which was only about eight feet by five feet in size and filled with various porcelain objects that made movement difficult to say the least. The room had only one extremely small window, set high in the wall above the toilet.

“Now what?” She asked Jeffrey with a sigh.

He grinned. “Want to make out?”

Clancy hit him on the arm. “Let’s hear Plan B.”

His gaze moved to the window. “Unless you want to face off with that wolf out there, that’s the only way out.”

Clancy snorted. “Do you really think I’m gonna squeeze my ass through that window? It’s only about ten inches across.”

Jeffrey swung his gaze to her rear end parts and nodded. “You’re right, we’d better go beat the shit out of the wolf.”

Clancy hit him hard on the arm. “Ass. Give me a boost. I’m going through that window if it shaves an inch off my backside in the process. I’m so not going back out there to face that animal.”

Clancy climbed up on the toilet and placed her left foot in Jeffrey’s cupped palms. To his credit, he only grunted a tiny bit when she put all her weight in his hands and pushed herself up toward the window. She glared at him and then reached to open the small window. “Damn!”

Jeffrey’s voice was just a little strained, “What’s the problem?” He gasped.

“This is a fake window. It doesn’t open.”

Large beads of sweat were breaking out on Jeffrey’s forehead. His arms were beginning to shake. “Shit.”

Clancy nodded, “Ditto on that. You can let me down now.”

Jeffrey gave a shaky laugh. “Oh, am I still holding you up? You’re so light I thought I’d already put you down.”

Clancy snorted, “That would explain why you look like you’re giving birth to a baby elephant.”

Jeffrey lowered Clancy’s foot until she could stand on the toilet again and then released it. He stood shaking and panting, swiping at an extremely wet face with his shirt sleeve. “Birthing an elephant would have been a vacation in comparison. You ever give any thought to letting up on those Oreos, sugar?”

Clancy grabbed a towel and slapped him with it. “If you weren’t such a pansy ass you could have held me up there for five minutes without sweating through your shirt.”

Jeffrey snorted. “Another month or two of those cookies and I won’t be able to hold you up with a crane.”

Clancy glared at him and snapped him again with the towel. “Am I gonna have to kick your ass, Dr. Hintell?”

Jeffrey grabbed the towel she’d snapped at him and used it to wipe off his face. “Maybe later. Let’s escape with our lives first.”

Clancy nodded. “You’ve always been good with priorities.”