Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, assorted people have been taking monthly turns at putting up a selection of words which is called “Words for Wednesday”.

This month the meme continues here, at Elephant’s Child’s blog, with words supplied by Elephant’s Child in place of Jacqui, who is sadly unable to be with us.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.   

Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or images.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  We would really like it if as many people as possible joined in with this fun meme.

If you are posting on your own blog - let us know so that we can come along and read your masterpiece.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. cheerful

2. caravan

3. some

4. gossip

5. crossfire

6. group

and/or:

1. freaky

2. error

3. afterlife

4. decade

5. end

6. cruise

we also have a picture, which you will see about halfway into my story.

Here we go: Chapter Nine

 Three weeks after Tom Feather's onslaught began, Rick was showing definite signs of cracking up mentally. Four days of half-eaten sandwiches, Mary's photo back in its frame, and Jackie's bath toys left in a damp tub had been a great beginning.  

Rick had a fear of anything he couldn't explain and he had started wandering the house at night instead of sleeping, which caused him to fall asleep during the day while he was at work. 

His boss wasn't happy and suggested he pull himself together or get fired.
Being a bit of a weakling, as most bullies are, Rick went running to his Mum, Leoni, gibbering about the afterlife and how he was sure Mary was coming back from it every day to haunt him.

Leoni knew Rick hadn't killed Mary, so her coming back was ridiculous, but Rick was too jittery by now to see the sense in what she said. Leoni hoped he would have enough sense to listen when she decided it might be time to end their life in Rivertown and move away. 

They'd been here a decade and things just hadn't worked out as Leoni had planned. They'd retreat while she thought of some other way to blackmail George Hughes. Only she knew that he was Rick's true father and she'd planned to make him pay for all the years she had raised Rick on her own. But that would have to wait. 

Perhaps a river cruise, a holiday away from Rick and Mary's home, would help Rick calm down enough to listen to her.

Back at Tom Feather's caravan, he and Old Billy indulged in some cheerful gossip about Rick and what Tom planned next. Rick had began sleeping at Leoni's a few nights a week and Tom's plan was to light the interior of Rick's bedroom there with an orange lamp to look like a fire was burning in the fireplace on the one night when Leoni wasn't home. 

She spent Wednesdays at the library with a group of knitting women, learning techniques and new patterns, while all the while listening closely to the gossip; anything she learned about George Hughes would be useful in her future plans. 

When Rick came home from the pub on the Wednesday, he would look up to see his room glowing and hopefully would go charging up the stairs thinking he was going to corner Mary or her ghost at last. 

Tom and a friend would stand in the shadows of the tall trees below and as Rick's shadow was seen against the blind, Tom would start playing Mary's favourite tune on his harmonica, at the same time stepping further back into the shadows so that only a faint outline would be seen. 

His friend, a young cousin from Aunt Gabby's camp, would be dressed in Mary's clothes and remain just visible enough that Rick would think it was Mary by the tree, looking up at him. 

Dan was light enough and young enough to still look feminine enough to fool Rick at night, although such a trick probably wouldn't work in daylight.

Old Billy almost wet himself cackling at Tom's plan, "it's gonna be great! he's already freaky about seeing Mary's photo back every time he throws it away. Seeing what he thinks is her will really tie him up!"

Tom grinned widely, while hoping no error would be made, young Dan was a bit impulsive and might decide to add something of his own to the delusion. Tom didn't want to be caught in any crossfire should anything really bad happen.