![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Grandma Demure and Her Three Weird Boys"
Feb. 9th, 2024 01:44 am"Granny Demure and Her Three Weird Boys"
8/19/2015
I.
As Timothy dropped down his kickstand and turned off the engine, Gabby disengaged herself from where she had been hugging him from behind. She hopped down to the side of the country road and gratefully tugged off her helmet to let a full mane of curly brown hair tumble free.
Only a few inches over five feet tall, Gabriella Elizabeth Marchetti felt she didn't have much of a figure, so she compensated by showing off two very trim legs which this late in the summer were nicely tanned a golden brown. Above the flip-flops and denim shorts, though, she sensibly wore one of Tim's leather jackets for protection in case of a fall. At the moment, the round piquant face was displaying an enormous grin of pure joy.
Timothy Lambert was under six feet tall and his own black leather jacket hung loosely over a slim body. When he tugged off his helmet, bright blond hair the color of fresh butter hung down into friendly blue eyes. He couldn't help smiling back at her blissful expression. "That was a nice ride, huh? Up one side of Overlook and down the other."
"I am STARVING, Tim!" she yelled loud enough to make a bird take off from a nearby tree. They were fifty feet from the tiny general store that sat tucked back from the road without a parking lot. Ancient hand-done lettering in the plate glass window read FRIENDLY MARKET - BEER, SODA, CIGARATTES with the misspelling immortalized by now. "I didn't have breakfast. We've been riding for two and a half hours."
"Except for that hour in the store outside Woodstock," he objected. "You like our rings?"
Gabby held up her left hand so the silver circlet on her second finger caught the sunlight. It was a Claddagh friendship ring with two clasped hands. "Oh, do I ever! I'm kind of glad there can't be any romance between us, Tim, it's just not in your hardwiring. But a solid friendship that has lasted since first grade is a real treasure."
"Yeah, we met when we were six!" Tucking his helmet in the crook of one arm, Tim patted his beloved Harley the way a cowboy stroked a beloved horse. "Boy, Megan made some great modifications, huh? We hardly used any gas, the bike handles like it can read my mind and I get GPS projected onto a corner of my visor."
"Are you deaf or something? My poor little stomach cries out in anguish. Let's empty that store! Do you think they have ready-made sandwiches? Oh, and maybe some potato salad or at least a big bag of Nachos? And I wouldn't say no to a can of Red Bull right now."
"Nothing's stopping you..." Tim protested politely as she seized his arm and dragged him bodily toward the store. Parked alongside old Germantown Road were a beat-up aged Dodge truck on tires twice normal height and a similarly old school Volkswagen Bug with a door held shut by clothesline. Off to the south, the rounded blue shape of Overlook Mountain loomed up in the sultry sky.
"I hope they have a bathroom," she muttered, "My kidneys are floating..." Gabby stopped short and her eyes bugged out behind the round-lensed glasses at the biarre individual who had dropped down from the driver's side of the pick-up truck.
It was hard to tell just how big the stranger was because of his strange posture, but he must have been well over six feet tall and nearer three hundred pounds than two hundred. He was wearing loose Navy blue sweatpants and an equally baggy sweatshirt that was Canary yellow with blue side panels His oversized hands and feet were bare. The man had a wide, homely face under a thick thatch of light brown hair but his expression was amiable enough.
What was remarkable was that he had dropped to stand with his weight supported on stiff arms with his fists pressed down on the hot roadway. The thick brawny arms were visibly longer than the massive legs, and this posture looked entirely reasonable for someone built that way. Simian comparisons were inevitable.
Gabby made a sound that could be best represented as "Gack."
"You'd be Timothy Limbo, right?" asked the apelike man in a rather mild and squeaky voice.
A veteran of the Midnight War for years, Tim was not taken aback at all. He smiled pleasantly. "I think I'd remember if we had met before."
"I DO make an impression," admitted the apelike man. He raised one thick-fingered hand in a greeting. Like his ankles, his wrists were matted with thick light brown hair. "My grandma would like to see you."
Tim leaned back, placing more weight on his rear leg, readying for an attack. His years of Kumundu training did not alert him to any body language indicating hostility in this strange man. No tension showed in the neck or facial muscles, there were no subvocal tremors in that childlike voice. And yet, it was always good to be wary. "You seem to know my name, Mr....?"
"Oh. I'm Clench. Clarence Rudolph Ambrose, but everyone calls me Clench."
"I'm Gabby. Gabrielle Elizabeth Marchetti, but everyone calls ME Gabby." She shrugged. "Not that you seem interested."
"This has to be Midnight War related, right?" asked Timothy as the VW Bug puttered finally away.
"I calculate so. Shall we proceed? Grandma is waiting." Clench waved an arm thick as most men's legs toward his truck.
"We are going to eat first," Gabby insisted, seizing Timothy by one arm. "That's not up for discussion."
"Yeah, whatever your grandmother wants, it'll have to wait a few minutes," Tim agreed just as a size 22 bare foot crashed against the side of his head. Even with all his experience and training, Timothy was taken off guard by the sheer speed and dexterity of the apelike man. That kick seemed to come out of nowhere and knocked him out completely. As he fell, dragging the confused Gabby down with him, she was tugged away by Clench and hauled straight up twenty feet into a thick horizontal branch of an elm tree. Gabby gasped and clung to the trunk of the tree by pure instinct before she was consciously aware of what had happened.
Picking up Timothy by the back of his jacket exactly as one might lift a kitten by the neck, Clench placed the limp form in the passenger seat of his truck. As he loped over to the driver's side, he waved up at where Gabby was stuck in the tree. "Please be careful getting down, miss," he called cheerfully. "You might want to wait for someone with a ladder."
( the rest of the story )
8/19/2015
I.
As Timothy dropped down his kickstand and turned off the engine, Gabby disengaged herself from where she had been hugging him from behind. She hopped down to the side of the country road and gratefully tugged off her helmet to let a full mane of curly brown hair tumble free.
Only a few inches over five feet tall, Gabriella Elizabeth Marchetti felt she didn't have much of a figure, so she compensated by showing off two very trim legs which this late in the summer were nicely tanned a golden brown. Above the flip-flops and denim shorts, though, she sensibly wore one of Tim's leather jackets for protection in case of a fall. At the moment, the round piquant face was displaying an enormous grin of pure joy.
Timothy Lambert was under six feet tall and his own black leather jacket hung loosely over a slim body. When he tugged off his helmet, bright blond hair the color of fresh butter hung down into friendly blue eyes. He couldn't help smiling back at her blissful expression. "That was a nice ride, huh? Up one side of Overlook and down the other."
"I am STARVING, Tim!" she yelled loud enough to make a bird take off from a nearby tree. They were fifty feet from the tiny general store that sat tucked back from the road without a parking lot. Ancient hand-done lettering in the plate glass window read FRIENDLY MARKET - BEER, SODA, CIGARATTES with the misspelling immortalized by now. "I didn't have breakfast. We've been riding for two and a half hours."
"Except for that hour in the store outside Woodstock," he objected. "You like our rings?"
Gabby held up her left hand so the silver circlet on her second finger caught the sunlight. It was a Claddagh friendship ring with two clasped hands. "Oh, do I ever! I'm kind of glad there can't be any romance between us, Tim, it's just not in your hardwiring. But a solid friendship that has lasted since first grade is a real treasure."
"Yeah, we met when we were six!" Tucking his helmet in the crook of one arm, Tim patted his beloved Harley the way a cowboy stroked a beloved horse. "Boy, Megan made some great modifications, huh? We hardly used any gas, the bike handles like it can read my mind and I get GPS projected onto a corner of my visor."
"Are you deaf or something? My poor little stomach cries out in anguish. Let's empty that store! Do you think they have ready-made sandwiches? Oh, and maybe some potato salad or at least a big bag of Nachos? And I wouldn't say no to a can of Red Bull right now."
"Nothing's stopping you..." Tim protested politely as she seized his arm and dragged him bodily toward the store. Parked alongside old Germantown Road were a beat-up aged Dodge truck on tires twice normal height and a similarly old school Volkswagen Bug with a door held shut by clothesline. Off to the south, the rounded blue shape of Overlook Mountain loomed up in the sultry sky.
"I hope they have a bathroom," she muttered, "My kidneys are floating..." Gabby stopped short and her eyes bugged out behind the round-lensed glasses at the biarre individual who had dropped down from the driver's side of the pick-up truck.
It was hard to tell just how big the stranger was because of his strange posture, but he must have been well over six feet tall and nearer three hundred pounds than two hundred. He was wearing loose Navy blue sweatpants and an equally baggy sweatshirt that was Canary yellow with blue side panels His oversized hands and feet were bare. The man had a wide, homely face under a thick thatch of light brown hair but his expression was amiable enough.
What was remarkable was that he had dropped to stand with his weight supported on stiff arms with his fists pressed down on the hot roadway. The thick brawny arms were visibly longer than the massive legs, and this posture looked entirely reasonable for someone built that way. Simian comparisons were inevitable.
Gabby made a sound that could be best represented as "Gack."
"You'd be Timothy Limbo, right?" asked the apelike man in a rather mild and squeaky voice.
A veteran of the Midnight War for years, Tim was not taken aback at all. He smiled pleasantly. "I think I'd remember if we had met before."
"I DO make an impression," admitted the apelike man. He raised one thick-fingered hand in a greeting. Like his ankles, his wrists were matted with thick light brown hair. "My grandma would like to see you."
Tim leaned back, placing more weight on his rear leg, readying for an attack. His years of Kumundu training did not alert him to any body language indicating hostility in this strange man. No tension showed in the neck or facial muscles, there were no subvocal tremors in that childlike voice. And yet, it was always good to be wary. "You seem to know my name, Mr....?"
"Oh. I'm Clench. Clarence Rudolph Ambrose, but everyone calls me Clench."
"I'm Gabby. Gabrielle Elizabeth Marchetti, but everyone calls ME Gabby." She shrugged. "Not that you seem interested."
"This has to be Midnight War related, right?" asked Timothy as the VW Bug puttered finally away.
"I calculate so. Shall we proceed? Grandma is waiting." Clench waved an arm thick as most men's legs toward his truck.
"We are going to eat first," Gabby insisted, seizing Timothy by one arm. "That's not up for discussion."
"Yeah, whatever your grandmother wants, it'll have to wait a few minutes," Tim agreed just as a size 22 bare foot crashed against the side of his head. Even with all his experience and training, Timothy was taken off guard by the sheer speed and dexterity of the apelike man. That kick seemed to come out of nowhere and knocked him out completely. As he fell, dragging the confused Gabby down with him, she was tugged away by Clench and hauled straight up twenty feet into a thick horizontal branch of an elm tree. Gabby gasped and clung to the trunk of the tree by pure instinct before she was consciously aware of what had happened.
Picking up Timothy by the back of his jacket exactly as one might lift a kitten by the neck, Clench placed the limp form in the passenger seat of his truck. As he loped over to the driver's side, he waved up at where Gabby was stuck in the tree. "Please be careful getting down, miss," he called cheerfully. "You might want to wait for someone with a ladder."
( the rest of the story )
