Spontoon Island
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16 November 2007
| "Valentines Dazed"
by E.O. Costello, M. Mitchell Marmel, & Walter D. Reimer All
characters © their respective creators
Chapter 20By arrangement, we all met for breakfast before heading back to the aeroport, to catch (or in one case, fly) the return flight to the Spontoons. All were in a jolly mood. Inocenta was in a chipper mood, and was bouncing up and down as she walked, giving the world in general the boomps-a-daisy feeling. Oddly, this was matched by her mother, who was wearing a very happy expression. Actually, there was one sour face at the breakfast table, which belonged to Senor de Ciervos, who spent much of the meal glaring at me, as if to figure out what the best cuts were on the person of yours truly. The ladies went off in their own limousine, leaving the gentlefurs to share their own. This was by order of Senor de Ciervos, who wanted words. He came right to the point, in the back seat. "You! Why you deceive me, Carlos de Ciervos?" This was very dicey, as I had long experience with this chap's temper and expertise with firearms. Clearly, what was required was The Blank Look of Incomprehension, which was my area of expertise. "Whuh?" "Do not make with the playing of stupid, Senor Buckhorn." Les was in a cheery mood. "It isn't an act, there are lots of witnesses." Senor de Ciervos turned on him with a gaze that managed to mix fire and ice all at once. "Do not, for your sake, SENOR duCleds, make with the matter of the witness." Les caught the feeling, and moved a little further away from the buck, who turned back to me. "Why you deceive Carlos de Ciervos in the matter of what it is, the ‘nooner?’" Blast. This was going from bad to worse. Thankfully, the Baron, who was smoking a cigar and feeling in general well-disposed to the world, intervened. "What is it that Herr Buckhorn told you about the "nooner," Carlos?" The elder buck harrumphed, and pointed an accusatory finger at me. "He have the effrontery to tell Carlos de Ciervos that this "nooner," this "nooner" mean something you do in bed during the hour of the siesta." The Baron nodded. "Ach so? It is truth-telling, I am thinking." Senor de Ciervos wiggled his mustache in agitation. "You saw yourself, I suggest to Consuela it is the noon yesterday, that we have the "nooner." I am not knowing what this phrase, it mean in the English. I find out that my Consuela, she know what the word mean in the English. She drags me, Carlos de Ciervos, back to the hotel. It is only by the great expenditure of the force that I keep the trousers on in the elevator. Consuela, she act like the doe in heat." The Baron pondered this, and blew a smoke ring. "You are complaining?" The buck bristled. "Do not mock me, Heinrich! You know it is why I am the agitated." Here, he shot a glance at Les, one full of arsenic. He began to mutter under his mustache. The Baron shrugged. "Really, Carlos, in this matter, I suggest that you put it in the behind yourself." Only a swift sideways kick from myself directed at Les' shin prevented an outburst that could have had dire consequences. *****
The flight back was deucedly strained. I stared out the window uneasily. Senor de Ciervos stared at me poisonously. Heinrich von Kojote stared at Senor de Ciervos, concerned. Sofia von Kojote stared at Willow, puzzled. Consuela de Ciervos stared at her husband, lustfully. Inocenta de Ciervos stared at the cockpit door, hungrily. As I settled back for a bit of a doze, Inocenta approached Willow with a datebook. I overheard some whispers about dates, and there was much consulting the little calendar and counting off of the day. I spent the rest of the flight looking at Willow, lost in thought. Which, given the vast wilderness beneath my rack, wasn't all that difficult to accomplish. next |