“It feels like forever since we did this,” Trixie mused, as she and Honey hurried down to the clubhouse for a meeting. The summer day was still hot, but dark clouds were gathering. “Remember way back in the beginning, when we used to have regular meetings?”
Honey giggled. “You make it sound like it’s been decades and we’re both little old ladies with walking sticks. It’s only been five – no, six – years since the Bob-Whites first formed.”
“Only.” Her friend shook her head. “It feels like forever. Or yesterday. I can’t decide which.”
“Not yesterday.” Honey looked wistful for a moment. “The way we’re all spread out now… sometimes it’s like we’ll never all be so close ever again.”
Her best friend nodded. “Sometimes. But then, we see each other and it’s like we’ve never been apart.”
“I suppose so. I would have thought things would have turned out differently if we never had split up.” She sighed. “I mean, I’m happy with how things are, and I’m not sure that I want things to be exactly as I imagined they would be when I was thirteen – because I don’t really think it was likely that we’d all meet our future spouses almost at once and all live happily ever after without ever having to look any further than next door – but really, I didn’t expect things to be as… well, as unromantic as they turned out, no matter what we did. I always thought there’d be at least one couple among us.”
Trixie considered the matter for a moment. “Me too… but it’s not like any of us have settled down with someone else. And, to the best of my knowledge, since Mart split up with that ditzy girl he was dating and you dumped the gold-digging loser, we’re all blissfully unattached at the moment.”
Hurt shadowed Honey’s face for a fraction of a second, then her eyes widened with enlightenment. “I think you might be right. I hadn’t noticed that before.”
“And you never know; you might be about to start the romance of a lifetime with – well, with whoever it is you’re pining after.”
“Or, you could.”
Trixie laughed. “Or, we could both look on while Di does.”
Honey’s smile turned wry. “It would have worked out so much better if any of us was spending the summer in the same place as one of the boys. How did we manage this anyway?”
‘This’ referred to the fact that while Trixie, Honey and Diana planned to stay in Sleepyside for the whole summer, the four male members of their club were only visiting for a few days before embarking on other plans in far-flung places.
“Who knows?” Trixie screwed up her nose. “They obviously don’t know what they’re missing.”
They reached the clubhouse and unlocked the door. Unlike its owners, little about the clubhouse had changed over the years. The table and benches still took pride of place and the storage area still held many of the group’s belongings. In the few days that the three young women had been home from college for the summer, they had given it a good clean and also had used the building to store items for a new project.
“I hope everyone gets here soon.” Honey glanced at her watch. “I’m not sure we should even be meeting here this evening; I think it’s going to storm.”
Trixie looked through the doorway at the darkening sky. “Maybe. Or maybe it just looks that way because it’s cloudy. It’ll probably just blow over.”
Her friend gave her a dubious look. “I heard thunder before. And it doesn’t look like something that might just pass us by.”
“What will pass us by?” Mart asked, as he sauntered into the room.
Honey launched herself at him and gave him a tight hug. “Oh! It’s so good to see you! But we’re going to get a horrible storm; I just know it.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Trixie chastised, even while taking her turn at hugging Mart. “It will probably rain two drops and that will be it.”
Brian and Jim arrived in time to hear her prediction and shared a dubious look.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you both!” Honey cried, throwing an arm around each of them and trying to hug both at once. “How was your trip?”
“The first part was great,” Brian answered. “The last hour, after we picked up Mart, was – let’s just say it was an experience I don’t want to repeat.”
“I don’t see how that was my fault,” Mart sniffed, as thunder grumbled in the background.
“Maybe we should move this meeting somewhere else,” Brian suggested over his sister’s head as she hugged him.
Jim shook his head. “The girls really wanted to meet here, for old times’ sake. Did you realise it’s been two years since the last meeting we held in the clubhouse?”
Honey’s brow creased. “I did really want to meet here, especially since it’s been so long, but I’m not so sure, now.”
“Where are Dan and Di?” Jim wondered. “I thought for sure we’d be last to arrive. Didn’t he get in yesterday?”
Trixie nodded. “We put the two of them in charge of refreshments – after Mart’s terrible behaviour at our last meeting, I thought we’d better have something ready. They should be here soon.”
Mart assumed an attitude of pained innocence and glanced out through the door. “Speak of the devil.”
“We’re here! Let’s get this party started!” Dan entered the room, guiding Diana ahead of him, and dumped the plastic bag of snacks he carried in one hand onto the table. He eased a heavy box onto the table and began unloading bottles of soda and plastic cups from it, while Di set out the food she had carried.
“We’re not having a party; we’re having a meeting.” Trixie delivered a mock glare, which only caused Dan to smirk.
“Yeah, whatever.”
The last of the greetings were exchanged, Trixie called the meeting to order and asked Honey to read the minutes of the last meeting.
“Are you sure?” she asked, frowning at the page she was handed. “I didn’t attend that meeting and Mart took the minutes.”
“Go ahead, Honey,” Brian urged, in all seriousness. “I really want to hear you read those.”
“Okay. Here goes: Meeting held on… December ham? I don’t understand what that means and why are you all laughing?”
“It says 22nd, Honey; not ‘ham’.” Mart scowled, taking the minutes to examine them. “My writing isn’t that bad.”
Trixie snatched the paper from him. “No, Mart. It was supposed to say December 22nd, but it really does say December ham. If you remember, you spent the whole time complaining about how hungry you were.”
Honey took the page back and tried again. “Meeting held on December 22nd at Crabapple Farm. Apologies: the lovely Miss Wheeler. (Thank you, Mart.) Business: Item 1: Subsequent to extensive disputation, during which refreshments were cruelly and unnecessarily withheld, a determination was agreed upon not to engage in extraneous charitable considerations within the yuletide season, in consequence of the scarcity of resources, both human and material. Item 2: From now onwards and forevermore, refreshments are required to be served at each and every Bob-White meeting, regardless of the objections of such churlish persons as have no sense of the unimpeachable veracity of the reasoning upholding this decree. Meeting closed at 5:57:36 in the post meridian.”
“Can we cut the word extraneous, please?” Brian asked, rolling his eyes. “I don’t believe we ever conduct extraneous charitable activities.”
“And record a vote of thanks to Honey for writing our minutes,” Jim added, while Mart grumbled about being unappreciated.
Both of those passed and they carried on.
“First item of business: clubhouse maintenance.” Trixie glanced around at her friends. “I hope you noticed how much work we girls have done to get the place ready.”
“It looks great,” Jim commented.
“Thank you.” Honey smiled at him. “But… we found a few things that need fixing. We thought, since we’ve done this much, it might be someone else’s turn to do some repairs.”
Trixie produced a list, which she passed around.
Mart frowned as he read it, still sore from the earlier teasing. “What say the rest of you men? Methinks we are being hoodwinked into spending our sparse days together in menial work, which could be handled by our fair compatriots over the course of the summer. They may be female, but they are not helpless.”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “No, we thought this was a good time to allow you all to prove how manly you all are by giving you the physical work. You don’t have to join in, Mart, if you don’t feel manly enough. We’ll understand.”
Her brother bristled with indignation. “I don’t feel any need to prove my manliness, especially not to you! And if this is the kind of treatment I receive here–”
Brian snatched the paper from his hands and scanned through it. “I say, less time complaining and more time working. We’ll have most of this done first thing tomorrow, before it gets hot. How about if we meet here at, say, six?”
“Agreed,” Jim added, and Dan nodded.
“Thanks, everyone.” Trixie glanced down at her agenda, completely missing the frown Mart directed her way. “The second item of business is another good opportunity for those of you of a manly persuasion to show us what you’re made of: the Garden Club’s charity bachelor auction.”
“Now, wait a minute!” Jim objected, at the same time as Mart declared, “There’s no way I’m going to even think about such a thing.”
“I don’t think I’ll be around. Sorry, girls.” Dan’s tone of voice belied the apology.
Brian, meanwhile, considered his sister with narrowed eyes. “I wouldn’t have thought that bachelor auctions were quite the Garden Club’s style.”
“Oh! Did I say ‘bachelor auction’?” Trixie asked, wide-eyed. “I meant ‘rummage sale.’”
She gave her almost-twin a sickly-sweet smile. He, in turn, rolled his eyes. “Was that meant for me, sister dearest?”
“I don’t know why you’d say that,” she answered. “It’s not like you were trying to avoid doing your share of the work or anything.”
“We’ve been collecting donations.” Honey returned to the point of the discussion in spite of Mart’s attempt to chastise his sister. “Could we have a volunteer to help Diana deliver them tomorrow, please? Trixie and I have something else we need to do.”
Mart’s expression brightened. “It would be my pleasure.”
Trixie snorted. “You still just want to get out of the work.”
Beside her, Honey was glancing from Mart to Diana, both of whom looked pleased with the arrangement. “Not just that,” she murmured.
Trixie ignored the byplay. “Now, that’s everything I have for us. Does anyone have any other business?”
“Disciplinary action against a certain co-president who misrepresented the business at hand?” Mart suggested, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I think not,” Jim answered, trying to pretend to be serious.
Mart narrowed his eyes and tried again. “Elections for new office-bearers?”
Honey frowned. “I thought we voted last year to keep things as they are for the next couple of years.”
“We did.” Jim pointed to the place in the minutes of the meeting before last. “It was unanimous.”
“That was before this despicable display of treachery.” Mart scowled at his sister in a theatrical manner. “Circumstances have, I think, changed.”
Trixie threw up her hands in exasperation. “It was a joke! Have you lost your sense of humour, Mart? I didn’t think it was that hard to spot.”
“It might have been funnier if I wasn’t the one being constantly picked on,” he countered, losing his temper.
Brian looked incredulous. “I don’t think you’re being picked on. You’re taking things too personally.”
“I tell you, it wasn’t my fault.” Mart ground the words out between his teeth.
Trixie cast a curious look from one brother to the other and across to Jim, who had averted his gaze. “Do the three of you have something to share with the group?”
All three shook their heads. At length, Mart muttered an apology for his behaviour.
“In that case, is there any other business?” she asked again, to be answered by a long silence and a loud crash of thunder.
“I think we’d better break up this meeting,” Brian suggested. “The storm’s about to hit.”
Before anyone could answer, the rain started pelting down and another crash came, louder than the last. A gust of wind lashed the rain against the side of the building and in through the open windows. Several people jumped up to close all of them.
“On second thoughts, maybe we should stay here and wait it out,” Jim added. “Honey, have you got your phone? I had to leave mine to charge. We’d better call home and tell them not to worry.”
She nodded and made the call, while the others notified their families as well. The intensity of the rain increased, and so did the thunder, so close now that it came at the same time as the lightning and made the windows rattle. The wind picked up and was soon howling around the tiny building. Outside, a branch could be heard to fall. Di shivered and moved closer to Mart. Another crash sounded from somewhere in the distance as a tree fell. Nearby trees were creaking in a most alarming fashion and with every gust of wind, the rain splattered against the windows on one side of the building.
“I wish we’d gone home earlier,” Honey fretted, as she peeped out through a window on the leeward side. “It’s so wild out there, I don’t really feel safe.”
“We should be just fine,” Brian started to say, but his words were drowned out by the groaning of breaking timber and the crash of a falling tree, the very ground seeming to shake with the impact. The clubhouse door rattled as something collided with it and the window next to it shuddered, the glass squeaking as it was scratched by twigs and the foliage of a downed dogwood tree blocked all sight through it. Loud creaks sounded as the fallen tree settled.
“Or, perhaps not,” Mart noted. “On the other hand, it looks like we’re not leaving here for some time.”
Honey groaned. “I’d better call someone so they can come and get us out as soon as it stops thundering.”
She began trying to call someone, only to find that she had no reception. In moments, it became clear that none of them could make any calls. The seven glanced at each other, wondering what was going to happen now. Another crash of thunder sounded, and the lights flickered and went out, leaving them in gloom. The light from the two unblocked windows was enough to show little more than silhouettes. After a short interval of noise and confusion, Brian and Jim managed to light one of their camping lanterns.
“I’m so glad we decided to still keep those here,” Di announced, her arms wrapped around herself. “Just think what it would be like to be stuck here all night in the dark!”
Brian patted her arm. “It’s not really dark, only dim. And when the storm passes, it will be light enough that we can turn it off again.”
“If the storm passes before dark,” she answered, as another tree crashed down in the distance. “The way it’s going, it might go on all night.”
The storm passed without further incident, in spite of Di’s gloomy prediction. When the rain had eased to a drizzle, the group decided to try to get out through the doorway or one of the windows, but were soon forced to give up the attempt. The doorway was blocked by the broken branches of at least two different trees and masses of wet foliage, while the window sashes seemed to have swelled from the rain and wouldn’t open wide enough for even Honey to squeeze through. Phone coverage still had not been restored. They sat down again and started discussing what they were going to do.
Mart inspected the empty snack platters and groaned. “If we had some food left, we could have a snack. As it is, I doubt there’s anything edible here at all.”
His sister grinned. “Are you regretting the lack of birdseed porridge?”
Mart shook his head. “No, I’m regretting the lack of far tastier treats, such as–”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Trixie interrupted. “Don’t you dare name the foods you want to be eating, or you’ll make us all hungry – just that time we spent the night in the schoolhouse. We didn’t really need anything to eat until you started talking that way.”
Mart’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t even there and it sounds like you’re blaming me for that.”
“If I recall correctly, it was Trixie herself who made us hungry.” Brian’s expression showed his amusement at the memory. “But there are more important things to discuss right now, such as how to get out of here.”
“If we had some tools, maybe we could take out a window and its frame,” Jim mused, running a hand over the one opposite the door. “It would do a lot of damage, but I’m sure we could fix it.”
“When?” Dan asked. “I didn’t really want to spend all my time in Sleepyside fixing up the clubhouse. I have other fish to fry, so to speak.”
He waggled his eyebrows at Diana, who giggled prettily.
“Mind on the matter at hand,” Mart urged, stepping between them.
Several of the others exchanged glances, but none of them commented.
“We’re just going to have to wait for someone to come looking, I think,” Trixie noted with a shrug. “There’s no way out that won’t cause a lot of damage and no way to let anyone know that we’re stuck.”
“But how long will that take?” Honey wondered. “It might not be until morning.”
Her question was answered only a moment later by a shouted greeting. “Hello? Anyone home?”
“Tom!” several people cried at once, crowding around the window nearest the door. They had pushed it open in the hope of allowing some ventilation, but mostly they had just allowed the branches to drip water onto the floor.
“At your service,” he replied.
Diana pushed to the front of the group to call to him. “Please tell me you’re here to help us get out.”
He hesitated before answering. “Well… I came to see that you were okay. You are, aren’t you?”
“We can’t get out of the clubhouse. I don’t class that as okay.” Di frowned at the implications of the question. “So, how about if you get us out of here?”
“That would be easy enough if I had a chainsaw.”
Jim stepped closer. “Of course we have a chainsaw. In fact, we have three. What’s the problem?”
“Ah. Well. One of them is on loan to a man your father knows, who’s considering buying one for his staff. The second got damaged the other day and is in for repairs; it isn’t due back until tomorrow.”
“So, where’s the other one?” Trixie asked.
A pause. “We don’t know.”
Trixie huffed. “You don’t know? Oh, please! How hard is it to find a chainsaw?”
“You can rest assured that we’re looking! I don’t know whether we’ll find it before dark… but you’re safe in there, aren’t you? I’ll bring you anything you need – there’s a window on the other side, isn’t there? I can probably pass things through it.”
“What I need is a bathroom,” Di called. “How are you going to pass that through the window?”
Tom snorted with laughter. “I’ll bring you a bucket.”
As her friends snickered, Di let out a loud groan and sank onto a bench. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“So, what do you need?” Tom called. “Any particular requests?”
“You’ve heard mine,” Di answered.
“Any doable requests?” he clarified, stifling more laughter.
“The dinner that Moms was preparing for us,” Mart requested, one arm across his stomach. “We’ve hardly eaten anything in hours and I’m starved!”
Jim glanced around the room. “Some water would be helpful. And that bucket you mentioned. It would be nice to have something to sleep on, but I’m not sure what will fit through the window without getting terribly wet.”
“We do have some camping gear in the storeroom.” Brian rose and went to look at what was there. “At least we could make ourselves comfortable for the night.”
“Well, how about if I go and let everyone know what’s going on, and get started on bringing you your meal?” Tom suggested. “It might take a while – there’s no phones and no power to any of the houses around here, and Glen Road is blocked in several places.”
“Sounds like we were luckier than we thought,” Jim noted.
Tom gave a nervous kind of laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Half an hour later, Tom was back, with a number of helpers. They forged a path around to one of the rear windows and began passing foil-wrapped parcels and other odds and ends to the Bob-Whites inside.
“Food! Glorious food!” Mart sighed. “We’re saved.”
Di cast him a disgruntled look. “You think so? I’m still waiting for them to bring me a bathroom.”
Tom laughed and forced a green plastic bucket through the gap, distorting its upper edge so that it would fit. “Here you are, Diana. As requested.”
“Is there any sign of the chainsaw, Tom?” Jim asked.
The other man shook his head. “None at all. We’ve looked everywhere we can think of.”
“Maybe we’d better prepare ourselves to stay overnight, in that case.”
Tom hesitated, then passed in the last few items, including a plastic bag filled with cutlery. “Yes, I’m pretty sure you’ll be in overnight. Even if we found the chainsaw now…”
Jim nodded his understanding. “Well, thanks for bringing these things. And pass on our thanks to everyone who helped.”
“Will do. See you in the morning – hopefully with some chain saws.”
Tom and the others departed and the Bob-Whites sat down to a veritable feast.
“We’ll have to eat every scrap,” Mart noted, helping himself to seconds. “No refrigerator to put away the leftovers, and we wouldn’t want to encourage vermin.”
His sister smirked. “That’s your story, is it?”
He nodded, his mouth full.
This turned out to be no hardship. The seven finished the food and made a parcel of the rubbish, which Brian placed in the storage area, out of the way.
“Now, all I need is a comfortable place to sleep and all will be well in the world,” Mart declared, patting his full stomach.
Brian nodded and handed his brother a couple of sleeping bags. “Make yourself useful and open these up. Jim and Dan, could you please shift the table against the wall to give us some more space? Girls, you can help me find what else we can use.”
Before long, they had each made themselves a spot to sleep, with a sleeping bag to take some of the hardness off the floor, as well as insulate them from the ground. The sun was going down, so Jim relit the lantern, which they had turned off earlier to conserve gas, and set it on the table.
“I couldn’t possibly go to sleep yet,” Di observed, as she sat cross-legged on her makeshift bed. “We’ll need something to do to keep us occupied until it’s late enough. Who’s up for a game?”
“What did you have in mind?” Dan asked, suspicion clear in his voice.
There was a short pause before she answered: “Truth or Dare.”
“No.”
“No way.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
The four male Bob-Whites talked over each other, in a jumble, with Dan adding at the end, “That game is for girls.”
“Are you scared, Dan?” Di challenged.
There was a pause as the two eyed each other, then Dan spoke. “Right. You’re on.”
“What? Dan!” Mart gave his friend a thump on the arm. “What did you go and do that for? Real men don’t play Truth or Dare.”
“Whatever,” Dan answered.
“So, since you’re not scared, Dan, you can go first.” Di smiled in a predatory manner. “Truth or Dare.”
Dan frowned. “Truth, I guess.” At the sound of disgust that Di made, he corrected himself. “Fine, then. I’ll take a dare.”
Di smiled her most wicked smile. “Okay, then, Dan. You’re going to show us what you’re made of. You need to kiss someone – on the lips, mind – for at least ten seconds. I’ll let you choose who it is.”
For a long moment, he considered the matter. He looked at each of the girls in turn and then studied the faces of the other three men, each of whom showed various degrees of disapproval. He ended his scrutiny with Mart.
“If you’re thinking of kissing me, you can forget it!” Mart scowled at his best friend.
Dan laughed and shook his head. “No, I had someone else in mind.”
He scrambled to his feet and picked his way across the room. He pulled Di by the hand until she stood, then planted a kiss on her lips. The other two girls called out encouragement as he did so, but Mart, Brian and Jim all scowled. Mart, in particular, looked livid and would not meet anyone’s eyes.
“What do you think, Di? Did that qualify?” Trixie asked, the light of mischief in her eyes. “Or, does he need to try again?”
Di fanned herself for a moment. “Oh, yes. I think that qualifies – though I wasn’t expecting him to choose me.”
“I get to choose someone next, right?” Dan asked, settling back down on his makeshift bed. He looked pleased with the result of his actions. “Trixie: Truth or Dare.”
“Truth,” she replied, at once. “What? Like I’m going to let him dare me something. He’d probably come up with something it’s really inappropriate to do in front of my brothers.”
“Who says I’m not going to ask you something inappropriate to say in front of your brothers?” Dan teased.
“I say you’re not,” Brian put in. “I think we should attempt to keep this game respectable, if at all possible.”
“Meaning, I suppose, no more kissing, or that kind of thing.” Dan nodded. “Okay, I can deal with that. Trixie… please tell the group–”
“No!” she interrupted, becoming alarmed. “You know I told you that in confidence.”
An evil grin spread across his face. “Please tell the group what happened to the temper box.”
“The… oh! I haven’t seen that in years. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing.” Honey looked a little confused. “I thought we voted to stop keeping money in the clubhouse after one of the times it got broken into.”
“We did,” Brian confirmed. “And the temper box got emptied at the time that we made that decision. We put it away in the storeroom, but… well, you’re right, Honey. I haven’t seen it since, to the best of my memory.”
“Yes, Trixie. Why is that?” Dan smirked at her as her face reddened.
“Because, the next time I got fined for losing my temper,” she snapped, “I came down here and smashed it up. Then, I had to hide the pieces somewhere until I could dispose of it.”
Honey giggled. “You took your temper out on the temper box.”
“So, do I get to choose someone now?” Trixie asked, swatting at Dan, who continued to laugh. “Mart. What do you say? Truth or Dare?”
Her brother put his head in his hands. “Why me?” he asked.
“Because I have evil plans for you,” Trixie answered, giving him a grin to match.
“Fine. I’ll take a Dare.”
His sister pouted. “I wanted you to choose Truth. But since you asked, I’ll dare you to go into the storeroom, find the first article of clothing that comes to hand and wear it for the rest of the evening.”
“But Trixie,” he objected, “there won’t be any clothing in there.”
She smirked. “Just go in there and look.”
Mart grumbled as he got to his feet and went to look. The grumbling changed to howls of protest as he found that she was right. A few minutes later he returned, wearing a frumpy floral dress and a disgruntled expression.
“What is this even doing in there?” he wondered aloud.
Honey was visibly struggling with laughter, but managed to explain, “It’s one of the donations we girls have been collecting for the garden club’s charity rummage sale that’s coming up. You were going to deliver them tomorrow, remember?”
“That really suits you, Mart,” Trixie told him, laughing. “You should wear dresses more often.”
“Honey, you’re next,” he snapped, ignoring his sister. “Truth or Dare?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Truth.”
Mart’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about the time that Brian came home from your house wearing someone else’s clothes?”
Her brow furrowed as she glanced between the two brothers; Brian’s face had tinted pink. “Nothing, as far as I know.”
“I think you do,” he persisted. “It was about a year ago, in summer; we’d had a picnic at the lake and he helped you carry the baskets home–”
“Oh!” Honey’s eyes widened. “I remember that day.”
Mart tapped his foot. “Well? Are you going to answer the question?”
Honey nodded, looking away from Brian. “Like you said, he was helping me carry the baskets home. We went to the kitchen door. We went in the kitchen. We put the baskets on the counter.”
“Is there anything interesting in this story?” Trixie queried. “It’s kind of dull, so far.”
“We unloaded the baskets,” Honey continued, as if she had not been interrupted. “We started putting everything away. There was a container of leftover pasta salad in one of the baskets. Brian leant over to pick up something that had fallen on the floor… and I accidentally dropped the container of pasta salad on him.”
Trixie burst into laughter. “You dumped pasta salad all over him?”
Honey blushed. “Only over his head and shoulders, at first, but then we tried to clean it off and my hand bumped his hand and a glob fell onto the floor and, well, we bumped heads trying to clean it off and I stepped the wrong way and started to slip, and he tried to steady me, but there was some under his foot, too, and… well, we both ended up on the floor, covered in pasta salad. And the least I could do was to get Brian’s clothes cleaned, and lend him some of Jim’s to go home in and now you’re all laughing at me.”
“We’re laughing at the mental image of Brian with pasta salad in his hair,” Trixie corrected. “That was a great question, Mart. So, Honey, who are you going to choose?”
Her friend eyed the group members who had not yet had a turn. “Brian: Truth or Dare?”
“Truth.”
Mart made a noise of disgust. “I’m stuck wearing this dress and you choose Truth?”
Brian nodded. “I see what you’re wearing, Mart, and I don’t want to join you.”
“Well, since Brian asked for Truth,” Honey interjected, “I think I should ask him his question. So, Brian, what was the name of the first girl you kissed?”
“Oh, that’s too easy,” Mart complained. “It was Jenny Ratner; everyone knows that. She’d kissed every boy in her year before she turned fourteen.”
Brian’s face tinted pink. “It wasn’t,” he admitted.
“You kissed her,” Mart objected. “I saw you.”
“Yes, I did.” Brian paused. “It’s just that she wasn’t the first girl I kissed. That would be… well, it was Susie Altemus.”
Most of the group shared confused looks, but Mart knew who he referred to straight away.
“What! You mean Chuck’s older sister? No. You couldn’t have. She was like five years older than you.” Mart slapped a hand to his forehead. “My own brother, cradle-snatched. I don’t believe it.”
“It only happened once,” Brian assured him. “So, now I get to harass someone? Jim, Truth or Dare?”
“Dare,” he answered at once. “I think I’m safe from you, Brian, unlike from some other people here.”
Brian nodded and smiled. “You have a point. Okay, Jim, I dare you to pick Trixie up, throw her over your shoulder and do three laps of the room with her up there.”
Jim shook his head at his friend, but did as directed. The others scrambled to clear a path for them. Trixie shrieked as he slung her into position, then cried out as each step he took sent a jolt through her mid-section.
“Don’t they call this a fireman’s hold?” she asked. “I’d hate to be carried out of a burning building like this – it hurts!”
His laps finished, Jim returned Trixie to the upright position and regained his seat. “Di, your turn. Truth or Dare?”
She considered the matter carefully. “I did make fun of Dan for saying Truth, didn’t I? I suppose I’d better take a dare.”
Jim rubbed his chin as he thought. “Di, I dare you to tell each person in the room something that you’ve never told them before.”
She looked at him in surprise. “That’s an interesting dare, Jim. May I ask why you’ve given it to me?”
He shrugged. “I think you might be able to put it to good use.”
Di nodded and stopped to think. After a few moments, she began.
“Jim, since you asked, you can be first. I want you to know that you’re my role model when it comes to persistence in the face of trouble.”
“Persistence?” He raised an eyebrow. “Uh, thanks, I think.”
She smiled and turned to Brian. “This one might be a little embarrassing. Brian, I’ve got kind of a confession to make. See, there’s this guy I know and he reminds me so much of you that once or twice I’ve almost called him Brian.”
“That’s not very embarrassing,” Trixie pointed out.
A delicate pink tinged Di’s cheeks as she blurted, “He’s a stripper and I went and saw him, well, strip, and I couldn’t help thinking of Brian the whole time.”
“You what?” Honey could barely contain her laughter. “Oh! When can I see him?”
Both Brian and Mart looked red and uncomfortable, but it was Mart who spoke. “Kindly save that discussion for a time when we are not present.”
“Okay.” Di glanced at Honey and both of them giggled a little more. “Okay, Hon, you can be next. You know that you’re closer to me than a sister, but I’ve never told you that when one of my actual sisters asks me embarrassing questions – you know, like what I think of their outfit when it’s terrible – I imagine that it’s you talking to me, rather than me talking to her.”
Honey smiled and reached over to give her a hug. “You’re closer than a sister to me, too, and I’m so glad that I can help, even when I’m not even there.”
Di turned to Trixie. “You’re closer than a sister, too, but I never try to give my sisters your fashion advice.”
Trixie laughed. “That’s just as well.”
“That wasn’t my revelation for you, by the way.” She paused, thinking. “Okay, I’ve got one: I know you wouldn’t have thanked me at the time, but I was the one who convinced Paul Victors not to take you to the Prom, after he’d already asked you, because I heard him talking about what he was going to do with you and I didn’t think it was right for him to tell all his friends something like that.”
“Thanks.” Trixie looked reflective for a moment. “I wouldn’t have thanked you before the Prom, when I needed another date, but I was glad later, when I found out what he was really like.”
Di glanced between the two remaining members of the group and a smile flickered around her lips. “Dan, you can be next. You kiss very well.”
“Thank you,” he replied, grinning. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
Mart, beside him, let out a growl. “Let me out of here. I’ve had enough of this.”
In a clumsy movement, he stumbled to his feet, hampered by the dress he still wore. In frustration, he struggled out of it and dropped it on the floor, before making for the door.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do? Push your way through the branches? We already tried that and it didn’t work.”
“I’ll try harder,” he answered, throwing the door open and making the attempt.
“Wait, Mart. I’m sorry.” Di caught his arm, but he shook her off. “Stop it. You’ll only get soaking wet and you’ll probably hurt yourself on a broken–”
“Argh!” Mart cried, withdrawing his arm from the gap through which he had thrust it. “Argh, that hurts.”
Brian joined them and inspected the wound, which was bleeding. “Sit down next to the light. Can someone get the first aid kit?”
Jim nodded and went to look for it. Di guided Mart to sit down, with his hurt arm closest to the lamp. He turned his face away from her. After a moment, Jim set down the first aid kit and Brian began sorting his supplies.
“I’ll need to clean the wound,” he observed, “and I expect that you probably have some splinters in there that will need to be removed. It was a broken branch that you hurt yourself on, wasn’t it?”
Mart nodded, but did not otherwise answer. His face was set in a scowl.
As Brian worked, Di hovered nearby. The rest of the group had moved as far away as they could, which was not very far at all.
“Yes, I can see the splinters, now.” Brian sounded satisfied and selected an implement for the next stage of the treatment. “Hold still; I think I can get them all out.”
Mart grit his teeth as his brother probed the wound. On impulse, Di took his other hand. Mart looked up at her with a question on his face.
“I didn’t set out to make you jealous,” she told him. “I had something else in mind when I gave Dan that dare.”
Mart frowned and shifted in his seat. “Who says I’m jealous?”
Brian took a firmer hold of his arm. “Hold still, please, and don’t ask silly questions.”
Mart grunted, wincing as another splinter was extracted.
“And this isn’t what I was intending to say,” she continued, “but the thing I’ve never told you is that I have feelings for you, too.”
He met her eyes. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t mean for this to get caught up in the whole pick-on-Mart-day thing that Brian and Jim had going and that Trixie and Dan joined in.”
At this, Mart’s scowl returned. “I still insist that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Just tell us already,” Trixie called from the other end of the room. “It will be better if you just get it out in the open.”
Mart looked mutinous for a moment, then raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Fine. But someone else has to tell it.”
Brian waved the matter over to Jim, his eyes fixed on the first aid he was still applying.
“I don’t really think we were having a pick-on-Mart-day.” Jim shot his friend an apologetic look. “It was just a really uncomfortable scenario and maybe we didn’t handle it well enough. Sorry, Mart.”
He nodded acknowledgement, but made no comment.
“So, we’d been driving non-stop for quite a few hours when we picked Mart up,” Jim explained, “and we were both hoping that Mart would take a turn at driving. Only, when we got there, he was so sleepy that we just couldn’t in good conscience let him.”
“My room-mate has a hacking cough and has been waking me up at all hours, night after night, for an entire week,” Mart added. “And last night he was so bad that I got hardly any sleep, then I had to start work at six this morning to get everything finished so I could leave. I was tired.”
“We know. And we put you in the back seat to get some rest.” Brian finished his scrutiny of the wound and began applying antiseptic.
Mart drew a sharp breath between his teeth. “That stings!”
“It’s better than an infection,” Brian intoned. “Hold still.”
Trixie became impatient with the interruption. “You were saying, Jim? Mart was tired and you put him in the back seat…”
Jim nodded. “Where he promptly went to sleep… and began dreaming… and talking in his sleep.”
“About?”
Mart’s cheeks tinged pink. “Apparently, I spoke of Diana.”
“Or, more correctly, to Diana.” Brian could not conceal the mix of amusement and discomfort on his face. “It was the kind of conversation that I never want to hear again.”
Jim took up the story. “When the, ahem, conversation reached a point that neither of us could bear to hear, we woke him up.”
“After which, he promptly went back to sleep and the whole thing started again.” Brian finished adhering the dressing and started packing away the unused supplies.
Mart cradled his damaged arm against his chest and refused to meet anyone’s eyes. “If you’re all quite finished laughing at me, now…”
Diana touched his chin and guided him to look at her. “I’m not laughing.”
He managed the ghost of a smile.
She looked around the room at their friends. “Now, I think that Mart and I have some unfinished business to attend to. Brian, you can put the first aid kit away. When he’s done that, Jim, you can turn off the lamp. I think it’s time for bed, now.”
Trixie looked at her watch and looked outraged at what she saw. “It’s only just after nine!”
Di shrugged. “Well, maybe you can find some unfinished business of your own to deal with.”
“Someone is going to be left out,” Brian pointed out, having just done as he was directed.
“You can always sleep if you have nothing better to do,” Di answered, smiling. “Go ahead, Jim. Good night, everyone!”
“You’re really going along with this?” Trixie asked, as Jim shut the valve on the lantern.
“If it reduces the chances of another afternoon like this one, I’m all for it,” he answered. “Please tell me if I’m standing on anything important; I can’t see a thing. Oh, sorry, whoever it was I just landed on.”
“That was me,” Trixie answered, laughing.
Five friends fell into easy conversation in the darkened clubhouse, while two embarked on a new adventure together.
Around five-thirty the next morning, as it was getting light, they were awoken by the welcome sound of chainsaws.
Diana groaned and tried to pull the covers over her head, but to little effect. “What is that? Can’t they wait until a decent hour?”
“We’re saved!” Honey cried. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
Di sat up, now wide awake. “Oh, that’s wonderful. There are so many things that I’ve wanted to do since we got stuck in here and couldn’t.”
Trixie glanced from Di to Mart, who was reclining next to her. “Please! I don’t want to know about that sort of thing.”
Di rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I meant completely innocent and inoffensive things. You know, like a taking a long soak in the tub – by myself!” she added, as Trixie started spluttering. “The things I wanted to do with Mart I actually did already, in the dark. But I could kiss him some more now, if you’d like.”
“No, thanks. Why don’t you wait until we’re out?” Trixie turned away from them, choosing to join her other brother and Jim at the window. “I still can’t see anything at all. I wonder how long they’ll take to get us out?”
“That sounds like two chainsaws, so I guess not too long,” Jim answered.
The noise went on for an interminable time, limiting the amount of conversation that was possible. Every now and then, there was a lull as debris was moved. They managed a short conversation with Regan in one of these times.
“You all okay in there?” he called, from somewhere out of sight.
“Yes, fine.” Jim stood closest to the window and he took the lead. “Any idea how long it will be?”
“A while, yet. It’s a pretty big tree,” was the answer.
The cutting started again and they were forced to simply wait.
At last, the door to the clubhouse opened and Tom stepped inside. “Good morning, Bob-Whites!”
“I am so glad to see you,” Di told him, kissing his cheek. “Thank you for letting us out. See you all later – I’m going straight home.”
“Wait!” he answered. “Uh, I hate to tell you this, but it might not be so easy.”
“You’re not thinking of standing between me and a nice, relaxing, hot bath, are you, Thomas Delanoy?” Di assumed a forbidding expression. “I’ve had a difficult night, you know, and a girl can only be expected to put up with so much.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he answered.
“Good, because that’s where I’m headed.” She stepped around him and out the door, only to stop, gasping in surprise.
“What is it?” Trixie demanded, racing after her. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene outside their cosy shelter. “Oh. That’s a big tree, all right.”
The rest of the group gathered around behind her. An enormous blue spruce lay fallen, entangled with a couple of smaller trees it had brought down with it. Some of the branches and a large section of trunk had now been cut away to allow them to exit the clubhouse. Several dogwood branches extended across the roof and one corner of it had lost some shingles when something crashed past.
“It looks like we had a very narrow escape,” Mart noted, running a hand down the deep scratch beside the doorway, left by a broken branch.
His brother turned to him. “Yes. I think it was your lucky night all around, Mart – in spite of your attempts to claim that the whole world was against you.”
“Shut up.” Mart turned away and pulled Di into his arms. “You’re just jealous that I got the girl.”
The End
Author’s notes: This story was written and posted for my eleventh Jixaversary. I find it hard to believe that so much time has passed. A big thank you to all who have helped and encouraged me over the years. A particular thank you to Mary N. (Dianafan), who edited this story, spotted a big error and assured me that it was not as disjointed as I imagined it to be.
Research for this story was done with the help of Susan’s Sleepyside Files and Julie’s Trixie Notes. Thank you, both!
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