X is for Xenobombulate
Author: Jelsemium
Rating: K
Author's Note: Memorial Day is to commemorate those brave men and women who have given their lives in defense of their homes. I am so very grateful to live in this country.
In the United States, the three days of the Memorial Day weekend is considered the start of summer, blithely ignoring such paltry concerns as solstices and meteorologists.
In southern California, where summer weather usually started at least six weeks before, the three day weekend was filled with parades, baseball games, pool parties, friends, family and barbecues.
Don Eppes used to love family barbecues.
Then the cousins closest to him in age had started college and stopped coming to these family functions. That left Don with no one to talk to but his bratty little brother, the obnoxious little boy cousins who thought he was a thug, and the giggling little girl cousins that followed his brother around like love-sick puppies.
Some of his cousins were actual adults, who would be okay if they hadn't picked up the bizarre habit of always asking: "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Then there was Aunt Irene. Well, really, she was his great aunt, but there was nothing "great" about her. Except maybe the headaches she distributed.
Don almost didn't mind how Aunt Irene looked down her nose at him and referred to him as a young hooligan. What really got to him was the way she talked to Dad. It was as bad as the way the bullies at school talked to Charlie.
Only Don would get a far more serious punishment if he punched Aunt Irene or even 'accidentally' rammed his elbow in her gut. He wasn't even allowed to respond sarcastically to her because Mom would have a fit.
To rub salt into his wounds, the Engs were having a pool party. Val had invited him (well, okay, him and Charlie) to come over for a little while if they could make it. A lot of their classmates would be there. There would be hot dogs, chips and dip, Mrs. Eng's special potato salad, cake and ice cream, someone to play ball with, the Eng's swimming pool…
Val Eng in a pink bikini.
Don had overheard Val describing the bikini to her friends. His imagination had been filling in the details ever since. It had been hard for him to concentrate on anything, espeically school work because Val had such very nice details.
Frankly, Don hadn't felt this close to having a temper tantrum since before Charlie had been born. He glared up at the windows to the solarium, where Charlie was happily ensconced with this stupid math problems.
He sighed and mentally corrected himself. Genius math problems. Whatever else he called his bratty little brother, stupid was one thing that would never fit.
He dumped the leaves that he was lugging into the trash and scowled at his father, who was fussing with the barbecue. Life was so unfair. He could be at a cool pool party with his friends. But no, he was stuck spending Memorial Day with his family freak farm.
"Dad!"
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to ask!" Don tried to growl, but he was afraid it came out more as a whine.
"You want to go see your friends," Alan replied.
"Um, I need to go to the library," Don said.
Alan gave him one of those Parent Patented 'At least try one I haven't heard before' looks. "Donnie, it's Memorial Day. The library is closed."
Crud. He was never going to see Val in that pink bikini.
"Finish raking," Alan said.
"I AM finished," Don said sullenly.
"Good, now help me get the ping-pong table out of storage," Alan instructed.
Don sighed tragically. The ping-pong table would not be used for playing ping-pong. It would be used for food, because their picnic table wasn't big enough for everybody to sit at.
"Oh, enough already," Alan told him. "You will be off to college next summer. It won't kill you to socialize with your family!"
"No, I'll just go into a coma from boredom," Don muttered.
Alan rolled his eyes.
"I just want to go swimming over at the Engs for a while," Don said, for the tenth or eleventh time that day. "I don't see why I have to spend all day here!"
Margaret came up behind her firstborn and ruffled his hair. "You know that Aunt Irene doesn't like to be out after sunset," she said. "She'll only be here a little while. You'll miss her if you have lunch at your friends, and you know how much she looks forward to seeing you."
There were many things Don could have said in response to that, from "She only wants to see me get arrested" to "I'd think she'd be more afraid to go out after sunrise, the old bat" to "Yeah, Mom, missing her is half the point of going to the Eng's house."
Even at his current reckless age, his sense of self-preservation was enough to keep him silent on the topic of Aunt Irene. Instead, he just set up chairs around the ping-pong table.
His father shot him a sympathetic look, but also said nothing.
Don was in the midst of another dramatic sigh when his bête noire arrived and flung himself on a bench that Alan had just set next to the picnic table. The younger Eppes brother buried his head in his arms and wailed "I am so dead!"
Immediately, his mother abandoned the croquet set that she'd been setting up and hurried over to Charlie's side.
"I'm sorry, sweetie," she said. "What are you stuck on?" She rubbed his shoulders and Don felt like gagging.
If she had hoped that Charlie was having trouble with a normal subject, like English or History, she was soon disillusioned.
"I need to talk to Dr. O'Brien!"
Dr. Sorcha O'Brien was Charlie's current math tutor. She was short, fair skinned and red haired and reminded Don of a chain-smoking, Irish dragon. One who had a tendency to glare at him like she was contemplating barbecuing him.
Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that most of his conversations around her consisted of "Aren't you done yet, Chuck?" and "Who cares about this math stuff, anyway?"
"You know that Dr. O'Brien is welcome to join us," Alan said.
Charlie shook his head. "She can't come here, she's in the middle of a collaboration with a biochemist."
"Are you sure you won't be bothering them?" Alan asked.
Charlie nodded. "Dr. O'Brien and her partner said I was welcome to come over. Don, too." He looked at Don when he said that last.
Margaret said looked around as if hoping that Dr. O'Brien would suddenly appear. "Your father and I can't take the time to drive you, sweetie," she said. She looked at Don anxiously. "And I'm sure your brother would be bored."
Don was torn. Knowing Charlie, he and his tutor would invariably get sidetracked during their consultation. Usually Don hated that, but today that would mean several hours away from the monotonous uncles, twittering aunts and self-important grown up cousins.
So, which did he prefer? Waiting around in Dr. O'Brien's overcrowded, smoke filled condo with a television whose screen was smaller than the palm of his hand, or staying at his comfortable home, with food laden tables… and Aunt Irene.
The smoke filled condo was winning handily even before Charlie said. "Don could go swimming while he waits."
"I'll drive him," Don said immediately. He didn't remember there being a pool at Dr. O'Brien's condo, but he never actually looked around.
Margaret hesitated, but Don could see her worry about her sons missing part or all of the barbecue warring with her instinct to help Charlie with his math as much as possible.
For once, Don was glad that Charlie's precious math always won.
"Make sure you get some swimming in, Charlie," Margaret admonished him. "I don't want you spending the entire holiday doing math!"
Charlie sighed. "Yes, Mom," he said.
Don dashed upstairs, gabbed his backpack which already had his swimsuit and a towel, and then he dashed back downstairs. Charlie was waiting for him with his backpack slung over his back. Obviously, his genius brother had prepared in advance for this.
"C'mon, before Mom and Dad change their minds," Don said.
"Right," Charlie said.
Don bellowed a quick farewell out the back door, and then they were gone. Don didn't speak to Charlie until they were over a mile away from home.
"You picked a good time to have problems with your homework, Buddy," he said appreciatively.
"Who said I was having problems?" Charlie asked blandly.
Don slowed down and shot him a bewildered look. "You told Mom…" Then he snapped his eyes back to the road. Their father would kill him if he got into an accident.
"I told Mom that I needed to talk to Dr. O'Brien. I'm not having problems. In fact, my research into low dimensional topology is going even better than I hoped. I just need to brag about it to somebody who will understand what I'm talking about!"
Don slid Charlie a sideways glance. "You lied to Mom? And got away with it?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "I didn't lie. It's not my fault Mom misinterpreted what I said." He paused, and then added grimly. "Besides, there's no way I'm going to spend the entire afternoon performing math tricks for those Neanderthals who claim to be related to us."
Don gave a bark of laughter, but didn't take his eyes off the road. "What about your female fan club?"
Charlie snorted derisively. "You mean the ones who hate math?" he asked. "All they do is giggle and point at me like I'm an escapee from the freak show."
"Never mind," Don said. He hadn't realized how hard family picnics were on his little brother. Somewhat embarrassed, Don followed Charlie's directions for a few more blocks before he finally asked. "So, how do we get to where Dr. O'Brien lives?"
"We're not going to Dr. O'Brien's place," Charlie said.
Don was so surprised that he actually did take his eyes off the road to gape. "What?"
Charlie shrugged. "I told Mom that Dr. O'Brien was working with a biochemist," he said. "They're at the biochemist's place."
"Oh," Don said. He mulled that over, so far it looked like everything his little brother had said this afternoon had been a lie. He was impressed. Charlie was usually such a cruddy liar. "So, where are we going?"
"Did I mention that I introduced Professor O'Brien to this biochemist? I mean, since they obviously had so much in common."
"No," Don said. "And you haven't told me where I'm going, Chuck."
"Did you know that Mrs. Eng is a biochemist?"
Don blinked. "Are you saying…?"
"We're headed to the Engs' house," Charlie said. "Dr. O'Brien is helping to chaperone the party."
"We can't just barge over…" Don trailed off when he realized that he was arguing against the pool party.
"It's not like we're gate crashing," Charlie pointed out. "After all, Val did invite us to come quote If you can make it close quote.'"
Don was laughing so hard that he had to pull to the curb. He recovered pretty quickly, though, and hit the road again. After all, Val Eng and her pink bikini were waiting for him.
End Note: Xenobombluate is a twenty dollar word meaning "to goof off." Who said fan fiction wasn't educational?