TWASHY FLUFFY
CHAPTER 1
Everything, except for the snorts and snores of Mr. Jones—who lay flat on the porch by the corner—and the gurgling of the water by the creek, was quiet.
Steve and Bill sat on the porch with their legs crossed while Cody sat astride on the rail cap, dangling his meaty feet so that tons of fin would hump from the dingy sward.
Their face fresh with zits, and their eyes jutting out like the eyes of a reeling fisherman who’s rod jolly-bally-hooked a great socking trout.
“What about we go to Truckers, play Pacman—what is the new game that the whole town talks about? Ah, wha-tevah it is—an’ buy some juice from Dunning’s Jungle.” Cody said in a throaty voice and took the bowl of cookies from the table below him, put onto his shins, and ate scads of cookies like a giant.
“Gimmesome you Lard Ass! You just ate half of the bowl. God, why don’t you fucking ate the bowl itself and pour the crumbles at our guts?” Bill heaved a puff of saliva which lunged at Mr. Jones that the dog twitched its paw a bit.
Cody climbed down the cap and teased Bill, who had the face of a rat with fury at his mammalian eyebrows, in a hearty voice, “Oh, dear, pardon me. Next time I’ll bring the cookie monster.” He pinched Bill’s rooty cheeks that Bill snorted and sulked at Cody more than the face of a rat but a puckered trowel.
“You know, Pacman’s great. But Digdug was way better than Pacman.” Steve brushed his cookie-crumbled cuffs. “C’mon. Let’s go check out the new game before the cookie monster arrives.” He snickered. And their throats belched with tuna clumps, ha-ha-ha.
“You boys having an important discussion out there, huh.” Mrs. Sheldon stood at the doorway with a plate of cookies in her hand and the other hand on her hips.
“Yeah, mom. Cody just shat on his pants.” Steve grumbled a funky tnt out of his mouth and the boys chortled in a spasm of the fusty scent of cookies.
“Stephen! Langua—!”
Somewhere on the flanking yet swaying trees—like winoes returning from a strip joint—a cry—not more of a caterwaul—reverberated by the only silent Finchbow-cat's paw.
For a moment, the eyes of Mrs. Sheldon locked at Steve. Her other hand twitching the hem of her blouse, her graying hair brushed the whippy cookies as she shifted the plate at her chest, her mouth standing ajar that a fly almost went at it.
The faces of the boys were no longer animated but rather dissolved in a frantic rat expression. And Mr. Jones—hip to by the cry—stood on his hind legs, his hackles up, and began yapping.
Is it a loon? Maybe, O’ God. Maybe…O’God. Mrs. Sheldon thought. The Finchbow’s Creeper tale—some kids’ stuff. God help me.