Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Alex J. Cavanaugh and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. guacamole 

2. ninja 

3. lollygag 

4. malarkey 

5. skedaddle 

6. piffle 

and/or: 

1. berserk 

2. earwig 

3. fiasco 

4. gazebo 

5. huzzah 

6. nitwit 

7. thingamajig 

8. pandemonium

As usual I've gotten a bit carried away, so here is Chapter One using only the first six words, while I work on Chapter Two.

The children huddled together in the waiting room of the bus station. Grandpa Joe was picking them up, but none of them knew what he looked like. The only other person there was a grumpy looking old man who kept staring at them until Chrissie began to cry. Douglas looked around nervously and decided at last that maybe the old man was in fact, his grandpa Joe. He got up to go and ask just as the old man also rose from his chair.

Joe Davis held out his hand to Douglas who shook it and asked, “are you my grandpa Joe? “

“I surely am,” Joe said, “that’s if you are Douglas Wilson.” “I am,’ said Doug with some relief. “The little ones were starting to get a bit upset, none of us have ever been away from home before, but now mum has had that car accident, a drunk driver rammed into her, so she’s got to stay in the hospital for a while. Told me to pack up and get the bus here to Willow Wood and you would meet us.”

They walked back to the rest of the kids, two sets of twins and a young girl who couldn’t possibly be older than three, this was Chrissie, who still had fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “I want my mummy,” she said between sobs. She had been brave enough while on the bus, but the trip had been long and now she needed her nap.

Joe asked them if they wanted anything to eat or should they all get started out to the farm. Everyone decided the farm would be a great idea, as Chrissie would probably fall asleep on the way and feel better for it. “Marie is waiting for us with hot tea and sandwiches,” said Joe. “That’s your grandma,” he told them. One of the twins spoke up, “Marie is my name too, and this is Simon, he’s my twin and these other two are Joanna and Steven, they’re twins too.”

“We are ten,” said Simon, “and Jo and Steve are eight. Mum was real glad when Chrissie didn’t have a twin, guess we were all a bit of a handful when we were little.” “Mum always says she doesn’t know how she managed half the time,” said Doug. “I’m thirteen.” “Almost a man,” said Joe. “You’ll be a big help around the farm for a few weeks, all of you.”

They were soon settled in the big farmhouse kitchen drinking cups of milky tea and eating sandwiches. Marie wanted to know why they had never come out before now and “why did mum leave this pretty place?” “Well, Missy never was one for doing what she called ‘dirty work’, always wanting to keep her hands clean and always drawing pictures too. She’d lollygag around the place, head in the clouds, dreaming up this or that story, then drawing the pictures that would go with it,” said Joe. “Always loved picking the flowers,” said Marie, “but never would weed the garden bed.”

“I got cross with her one day,” said Joe, “told her to stop all this drawing malarkey and do a bit of work for a change. Next thing we know, she’s skedaddled with that young city salesman, that one who comes around the farms with his van selling pots and pans, brooms and such-like, and pretty dresses and silk stockings too. Load of piffle I told him. Farm women got no need for such fripperies, they can’t wear silk stockings to milk the cows and slop the pigs.”

Young Marie was bug eyed hearing this, Mum had never said anything about why she left the farm, only that she’d fallen in love with the salesman and that Duncan had come sneaking back in the night ‘like a ninja’ and they’d gone off together.

“We got letters from Missy for a while, and a photo each time you babies got born, but she never did want to come back,” said grandma Marie. “Then she was so busy with her drawing, said she was illustrating children’s books now and making decent money too.”

“That’s for sure,” said Doug, “we just bought a bigger house, so now we have separate bedrooms and one spare for visitors, I think Mum is hoping you will come to see us, but now we are here instead.”

After the tea things had been washed and put away, Grandma Marie showed the girls how to make guacamole dip, while Joe took the boys out to see the farm, telling them this was an old-fashioned “mixed farm”, where they had a bit of everything so as to be self sufficient as much as possible, not one of the big modern style farms where all they had was acres and acres of just one crop.

“I won’t make you do any work today,” he said, “it’s a bit late in the day to start explaining everything, but you can watch me milk the two cows and see how it’s done and then the eggs will have to be collected before we all get dinner. Marie will be out shortly with the chicken feed, you can watch that too and maybe one of you would like to take over feeding the chickens tomorrow.”