Excerpt Clancy trudged wearily to the front door. She threw it open and immediately wished she'd looked out the window first. As her hazel eyes widened to the popping point, the thought danced through her mind that perhaps they had emptied California because of an earthquake or something, and all of its residents had been dispersed to other, unsuspecting states. She hadn't had time to watch the news yet. So if California was emptied, she wouldn't know it. She opened her mouth and moved her lips, but nothing came out except a creaking noise. When she tried again, the creaking finally gave way to a crackling, but barely discernible, "Here Jack, come Jack, come..." "See Jack run." The aberration on her front step said with a smile. She chuckled weakly. Black lips surrounded the smile. The middle of the smile was capped in what looked like tri-colored gold, one gold color on each of three teeth. The black lips and multi-colored smile were only partially visible behind long, thick, fuzzy strands of black -- like vertical blinds in the Munster's house. One, light blue eye peaked out from between two of the blinds. The eyebrow above the eye was pierced with a scary looking cross stud, and a large silver hoop shone behind the fall of dreds over its nose. "Hi." It said to her. When a small amount of drool fell on her foot, Clancy forced her lips shut. Then she opened them again, intending to return the greeting, but her mouth had other ideas. "Are you the Kohlrabi Kid?" "Huh." Its face behind the dred blinds scrunched, and then its shoulders pinched upward. "Whatever." And there it was. The modern teens' multi-faceted and intellectual response to anything and everything it doesn't understand or can't deal with. It said nothing and it said everything. It said: I don't care. Or, that's too tedious for me to waste brain cells on. Or, you're an idiot. Or, I don't want you to know that bothered me. Or, lady, you belong in a rubber room. Adam came down the stairs and stopped dead, staring. "Wow!" It turned its one, light blue eye on the young boy and nodded, sending the dreds into spasms. "Dude." Adam said, "Here Jack, come Jack..." The aberration looked from Adam to Clancy and sent the dreds dancing again on a negative head movement. "What's up with this Jack shit?" Just then, the canine crew made its appearance at the front door. The five assorted sizes and shapes exploded happily into the house, causing the aberration to hop from foot-to-foot to avoid total capsizing and the resultant full body floor touching. The last one in, Jack felt it was his duty to greet the aberration with a traditional doggy hello. Coming on at full speed, his six-inch-long pointed, wet nose poised and ready, and four foot long tongue dangling soggily, Jack hit him with a full frontal nose in the crotch greeting. "Shit on a brick," said the aberration. "It molested me!" "Meet Jack." Pulling Jack from his crotch, the aberration sent the dreds into spasms again. "Yeah, I can definitely see why you're so obsessed with it." Then, with one blue eye on Jack, the aberration turned to Clancy and said the two most horrible words in the English language. In fact, it might have been the only question that could have put Clancy off Oreos for a week. "Jennifer home?" The entire Clancy household went completely silent -- deeply, unnaturally, eerily silent. Even Jack stopped his incessant panting to stare, head tilted in confusion, at the aberration in their doorway. Frick stopped humping his favorite blue pillow and stared. Frack, bobble eyed as always, was sitting next to Jack with his eyes even more unfocused than usual. Mush, who had been in a defensive crouch since entering the house -- legs spread, feet planted firmly, head lowered, her soft brown eyes hardened to shiny little pebbles -- began to growl low in her throat and lifted her lips, showing just the tiniest bit of teeth. Willie whimpered suddenly, tucked his tail, piddled a Lake Michigan sized puddle, and then hit the floor belly up right in the middle of it. "I think I messed myself." Clancy swung her eyes to her son just long enough to shoot him a glare. "Jennifer's not at home right now. Can I give her a message?" The aberration swung its gaze around the room and then pinched its bony shoulders upward again. "Whatever." It turned and left. Clancy calmly closed the door and locked all three bolts on it. Then she turned to Adam and they shared a look across the space. The canine crew waited expectantly for a clue as to how they should feel. Five pairs of brown eyes, in assorted sizes and shapes, glommed onto Clancy and searched her face and body language carefully. Five wet noses sniffed to see if they could smell any fear. Clancy, feeling like Jesus on the Mount, closed her eyes, pulled a large chunk of the air from around her body into her lungs, and then let it out slowly. Then she looked at Adam, still standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Tad's having a block party." Adam blinked. "I think you should lock her in her room until she's forty." |
