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[F&R] They'll Never Forgive Us For This

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posted on Nov, 24 2011 @ 07:17 AM
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Jeanie and Vicky were walking along the pathway through the hills in a state of great disgruntlement. They had been out walking with Jeanie's older sister Greta and her boyfriend, Nick, and had managed to annoy them to the point that they'd been told, quite unceremoniously, to sod off.

Not only that but they'd been told to take charge of Nick's bike, since wheeling it along was impeding him from holding Greta's hand.

The two little girls were muttering to each other and becoming more and more animated as they tried to decide what to do with or to Nick by way of revenge.

They'd come on this walk partially because Greta was a massive wimp who was scared to be alone with her boyfriend. Jeanie and Vicky had hooted with derision at the idea of being scared to be alone with a boy. Either of them would have been more than capable of walloping one who tried to pull their hair or steal their toffees.

They had hoped, though, that Nick might try and snog Greta and this was the other reason for their coming along. All their little friends thought it was highly entertaining to watch a pair of teenagers snog and would have mightily envied this chance.

Things had been going quite well at first. Nick and Greta had been walking together, quite shyly, and Jeanie and Vicky had been playing on their imaginary horses. Jeanie's horse was a large chestnut and Vicky's was black with a white star on his forehead.

They'd been galloping over the hills pretending they were characters from the Wild West. Usually they argued because both of them wanted to be Billy the Kid but Vicky had recently been reading one of the old books her grandparents had brought on their last visit. This book featured many Western heroes including Annie Oakley, who Vicky had found completely admirable. Today she wanted to be Annie and fired several pot shots at 'Billy', insisting that Sure Shot Annie couldn't possibly miss. Sadly for her 'Billy' refused to be shot and galloped away, straight into Nick and Greta just as Nick was zooming in for a kiss.

'Annie', not far behind, saw what was happening too. She and 'Billy' started pointing and laughing as only a pair of nine and ten year olds could do. Greta rewarded them by blushing and Nick actually shook his fist at them, using language entirely unbecoming for a fourteen year old.

'Annie' and 'Billy' galloped off laughing and decided to play a different game, now they would practise all the fancy moves needed for a Gymkhana.

Jeanie was horse-mad and went for regular riding lessons and Vicky was happy to get caught up in Jeanie's fantasies, which had miles more chance of coming true than did her own.

Vicky's earliest memory was of standing in the middle of Jeanie's living room wearing a new blue dress that her mother had made for her. Kneeling beside her on the floor were Greta and Jeanie, armed with a pair of large scissors. The two older girls were rather unskilfully cutting the hem off her new dress and she, as a toddler, had no way to stop them.

It was an inauspicious start to their relationship, but Vicky had soon forgiven Jeanie and the two grew up together, playing happily and generally being the instigators of most of the mischief their little group of friends got into.

Neither of them really fitted into their families and it wasn't surprising that they should get on so well together. Jeanie was the middle child in her family and both her older and younger sisters had been written off as wimps as soon as she and Vicky were able to understand the concept. Greta cried at just about anything and was scared of spiders. It was a mystery to the two little girls how someone who was three or four years older than them could be such a cry-baby. They soon learned not to show Greta any of the great black beetles they used to collect as pets.... unless they were in the mood for some grand entertainment.

Jeanie's younger sister, Harriet, was whiney and needy and spent a lot of her time with a handkerchief stuffed up one nose-hole. She was a complete waste of space unless either Jeanie or Vicky had some dirty work they needed to be done without getting themselves into trouble.

Jeanie would spend her evenings in front of the TV with her sisters arguing about who would get the latest doll to be advertised on telly. If an actress or singer arrived on a programme wearing a beautiful gown they'd argue over who would get that, too.

Vicky had ambitions to be a ballerina and was delighted when someone had given her a pair of ballet shoes, they fitted her and had points. She'd happily pirouette around the front garden, much to the delight of her elderly neighbour across the road. Her mother found her rather less delightful and Vicky would find herself being called a fairy elephant if she danced in the living room and was threatened with a thick ear if she didn't stop clod-hopping around.

She'd give up at that point and go and look at pictures of ballet dancers and imagine herself in a tutu performing wonderful arabesques and leaping into the arms of some handsome young Russian dancer who was sure to notice how talented she was and whisk her away on a world tour, possibly stopping off to get married in Paris.

No-one was prepared, however, to send her to dancing lessons and Vicky realised that she'd need to find another ambition if the dancing didn't work out.

Jeanie had found her, on the day of the walk, sitting at a small table in her front garden with her mother's best table cloth draped over her head and shoulders. There was a small blackboard beside the front gate proclaiming the legend: Madame Lulubelle's Free Fortune Telling.

Jeanie gawped at her friend, forgetting for a moment about her excitement over the planned walk with Greta and Nick and the prospect of seeing them snogging. Vicky generously offered to tell her fortune, an offer that Jeanie had no hesitation in refusing.

'Are you actually getting any customers?' she asked.

'Oh yes' said Vicky happily, 'I've been sending Little Margaret (her neighbour) over the road to ask the people at the bus stop if they want their fortune told while they're waiting for the bus. I've had about five customers plus the old girl opposite'.

'How do you know how to fortune-tell?' asked Jeanie only to be shown a battered old book that Vicky had found in the pile left by her grandparents. The book illustrated several ways to spread and interpret a deck of playing cards and Vicky had located the simplest method and was now employing it to the amazement of passers-by.

Just then Little Margaret turned up with another fortune-seeker and Vicky asked him to shuffle the cards, which she then laid out and started to 'read'. Being new to fortune telling, Vicky hadn't memorised all the meanings of the cards yet and had to duck down behind the table to consult her book, secure in the knowledge that her client wouldn't be able to see what she was up to. After all, she didn't want them losing confidence in her.

Jeanie watched the proceedings open-mouthed. Of the two of them she was the most consistently imaginative and most often came up with ideas for their games. Vicky had the odd flash of evil brilliance and, Jeanie decided, this was one of her better ideas.

cont...



posted on Nov, 24 2011 @ 07:18 AM
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...cont

They could always rope the local kids into their games and either of them was happy to take the credit for the fun, with one notable exception. None of the kids wanted to admit to being the one who had noticed that the cow pats in the local fields made excellent Frisbees. How many happy hours had they enjoyed in those fields flinging the cow pats at each other until Vicky picked one up that had been carelessly 'dropped' onto a nest of red ants. That was one of the very rare occasions when Vicky screamed, but everyone had agreed that she was entitled to. That was the end of the Cow Pat Wars.

Vicky finished the reading for her rather bemused victim and Jeanie asked her if she wanted to come on the walk, dangling the prospect of Nick and Greta snogging in front of her friend. Vicky started to snicker at the thought as she packed up her table and blackboard.

The table had a bit of a history and had been a prop for Vicky in the past when she'd used it as an altar in the back garden. It had occurred to her that her dog had not been christened and she was a bit concerned about it.

She hadn't been christened either, but felt that she could grow up to do good works and get into Heaven that way. But the dog, she knew, wasn't likely to have as many years on Earth as she was looking forward to and would probably have little chance to do good deeds.

What had started off this chain of thought had been the discovery of an ivory silk christening gown, tucked away at the back of the top shelf of her mother's wardrobe. Knowing that it had never been used for her, Vicky thought it was a shame to waste it when there was another family member in need of it and had started to plan the christening for the dog.

She arranged for three of her friends, including Jeanie, to be godparents and had set up the table in the back garden. She'd filled her mother's best fruit bowl with water and sorted out the best table spoon with which to scoop the water over the dog's head.

Blessing the water might have been a problem for anyone less resourceful than Vicky, but she had it covered. She'd waved her cursing stick over the water and intoned a few appropriate words and was sure that the water was properly charged.

The cursing stick had been made by herself and was very effective. It was about a yard long and sported various ribbons and small plastic skeletons and skulls that Vicky had found in Christmas crackers and Lucky Bags. Vicky had drawn her inspiration from Gagool, who she had read about in King Solomon's Mines – another book left by the grandparents – and seen depicted with just such a stick.

If she didn't grow up to be a ballerina Vicky thought she might grow up to be a Witch Doctor since it wouldn't take the years of training required to be a ballet dancer. She was planning to run away to Africa when she was older and learn from a Witch Doctor over there. She thought she might stay a while with Tarzan and hoped he would introduce her to one.

Sadly for Vicky and the dog, the godparents didn't turn up for his christening which left Vicky to do the entire ceremony by herself. The dog, although not especially large, was quite big for a nine year old to handle and didn't appreciate being dressed in the christening gown, lovely as it was. Vicky managed to get him to the table / altar without any mishap, but struggled to hold him while she was ladling the now-holy water over his head. With a final surge of energy the dog wriggled free and ran away, jumping all over the garden.

To Vicky's absolute horror, he put his front paw through the gown ripping it from nearly the neck to the toe. One long, straight, irreparable rip.

Poor Vicky finally managed to catch the dog and disentangle him from the ruined gown. Carefully, she'd folded it up so the tear wouldn't show and packed it away in its box, hiding it at the back of the wardrobe where she'd found it. (She didn't expect to be forgiven if it was ever discovered and spent many months hoping that no-one close would produce any babies).

Then, to take her mind off the disaster, she'd gone back into the garden to practise walking along the washing line, preparing herself for the day when she would be a famous circus artiste.

The dog went about his business, barely christened and Vicky worried a bit that he might not be allowed into Heaven in the absence of any godparents who, she had decided, ought to be forgiven for not turning up, as an act of charity on the day of the dog's welcoming into the Faith.

She comforted herself with the fact that he had, at least, had some religious instruction. Shortly after she'd learned to read, a few years ago, she'd read the entire Book of Genesis to her dolls, Teddy, a blue toy rabbit and a rather fidgety dog, stopping to carefully explain all the bits she thought they might find hard to understand. She hoped that the dog had been paying closer attention than he had appeared to.

Now, though, the table had served its purpose for the day and Jeanie and Vicky headed off to meet Nick and Greta for their soppy walk through the hills, where they would hold hands and gaze at each other and, the girls tried to hold in their giggles, SNOG.

The girls hadn't bargained for the teenagers getting so miserable with them when all they'd done was laugh at them for kissing, although Greta always had been a bit wet and it didn't take much to set her off.

Even so, after getting bored with playing Gymkhanas they went back to point and laugh at Greta and Nick all over again and were now lumbered with wheeling Nick's bike along the bridle path.

They were quite a way ahead of the other two, having been made aware of their acute displeasure and were scared to get within eye-shot again. Nick and Greta had made a bit of a mistake in dismissing them in this way as, if anyone needed careful watching when they were together, it was Jeanie and Vicky.

Who could have guessed that Vicky was about to have one of her evil brain-waves at the very time she needed one?

Looking at the floor, she'd noticed some horse droppings and carefully steered the bike around them, half wondering why she was bothering when Nick would jolly well have deserved it if she'd pushed his tyres right through the mess. She started to look out for some more, thinking that perhaps she'd be a bit less careful next time. Except, ooh boy, now she had The Idea.

She called Jeanie over to put The Idea before her and was delighted to see Jeanie start to laugh and agree to carry out the evil plan.

Diligently, and with great care the two little girls filled Nick's saddle bag with horse droppings, imagining with great glee how surprised he'd be when he got home and found it. They could barely contain their little selves as they accomplished their mission and walked on as if nothing was amiss.

They (just) managed to behave perfectly for the rest of the walk, being quiet as mice (a sure sign for anyone who knew them that they were up to something) and leaving Nick and Greta in peace. Just up the road from their houses, they handed Nick's bike back to him and prepared to take their leave.

When Greta piped up 'Nick, can I have my headscarf, please? It's in your saddle bag'.

The two little girls looked at each other – that very familiar look that both of them were used to whenever they got rumbled. Neither of them had known about the scarf, tucked away in the dark depths of the saddle-bag, and they hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

They started to move away as casually as they could as Nick put his hand into the saddlebag. Vicky was the first to run as they were pelted with the offending matter, making it all the way to the safety of her front gate where, thankfully, her mother was standing, gossiping as usual.

Jeanie wasn't so lucky and had to go home with her whimpering sister, after having been on the receiving end of most of the missiles.

A couple of days later when Jeanie and Vicky met up and discussed the event they both agreed that they'd never be forgiven for this one.

edit on 24-11-2011 by berenike because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 27 2011 @ 11:34 AM
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Excellent read. SnF.

I had to chuckle at the mischievous activities the girls partook in. What imaginations they have. They need a paddling.



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