Chapter Nine
Beverly sighed. She needed to get Leonard a Christmas present, that was clear enough about the experiment that Mary Cooper had persuaded her to do. It needed to be something which he liked. OK, what did Leonard like? What had Sheldon described about their routine.
She wished that she had an eidetic memory like Sheldon did. It would be so useful now. Wednesday was halo night. Did the people who sold halo do other merchandise? She didn't know. She could Internet it, but Leonard might already have a lot of that sort of thing. She didn't want to buy him something that he already had.
What about paintball? According to Sheldon, they did that every other Saturday. She wouldn't have pegged Leonard as the type who would like paintball, she mused to herself. Paintballs left bruises if they didn't explode and still hurt even if they did. Video gaming was like Leonard, but not actually being hit with something.
Maybe she could buy paintball armour. They sold that, she was sure. She had seen pictures and knew that Leonard didn't have paintball leg armour or gloves. But an Internet order wouldn't come in time for Christmas and she didn't think that you could buy it anywhere else. Pity.
Alright, maybe she was going about this the wrong way. The experiment was to do with Leonard's emotions, what made Leonard emotional? The blonde girl next door did. But somehow, Beverly doubted that she could buy Leonard sex with Penny for Christmas- and thought that he would likely dislike it if she did.
She was almost sure that his attraction to Penny was physical as the two had very little in common. Leonard, although not as intelligent or successful as his brothers, was certainly more successful than the actress slash cheesecake factory waitress he lived next door to.
Penny didn't have a good education, she recalled. Community college graduate.. Or was it community college dropout? Either way, Leonard had a PhD and had studied physics for years in university. Beverly didn't know what Penny had studied, but she was almost sure that it was not physics. Or mathematics or any of the hard sciences for that matter. At least Leonard had achieved that much.
Alright, exploiting his love of curvy blonde women was out of the question. Leonard became very emotional when Sheldon knew more about her than he did. But giving your son facts about yourself for the winter holiday wasn't the social etiquette, not to mention it being part of the deal that she had made with Mary Cooper in general.
Wait- Leonard became particularly emotional when she told him that his dog and his uncle Floyd had died. She was sure that she had photographs of both the dog and her brother saved on a hard drive. She could put together a photo album of him, going through his childhood.
Most of the pictures from Leonard's childhood were him with that dog. Well, there were a few with the hugging machine he had built- rather badly- and some others, but many of them were him walking the dog, him being chased up a tree by the dog, the dog using him as its bed.
She wasn't exactly sure why Leonard seemed to love that dog more than his own mother or father. Scuffles, its name was. Scuffles was quite a large dog, a black and brown German shepherd. Leonard used to walk it all the time, more than was needed according to her research.
Now she needed the pictures. The hard drive on which she kept them was in the third drawer on the left of her leisure desk at home. Her house was one hundred and twenty five miles away now, so assuming an average speed of fifty miles per hour- more on the motorway, but much less on the smaller village roads- it should take 2.5 hours to get there.
She would need to stop of at one of the twenty four hour stores to buy a gift, card, labels, photo paper and some wrapping paper. That would take around twenty minutes if it was a good store efficiently run. She had her doubts about that assumption, so she rounded it up to half an hour- lowly paid workers who were paid per hour tended not to be efficient.
Then there would be the time at home spent printing and labelling the photographs and inserting them into the album. She had some labelled already, but most of those were the ones used in her book, which seemed to anger Leonard. She would have to redo some of the labels, keep it to the minimum instead of explaining exactly what the photo meant. Perhaps leave out the photos for psychosexual stage three.
That could take around one and half hours. And then the car journey back. Another two and a half hours. She added up the times in her brain. Seven hours. Seven hours work for a present showed the dedication that would be useful for the experiment; seven hours would impress Leonard and appease Mrs Cooper.
That would mean she would get home at.. Beverly glanced at the digital clock in her car.. It was eight pm now, she would be back in her hotel room at three am. That would mean to get the recommended eight hours of sleep, she would be forced to wake at eleven, which fit perfectly with Penny's "Do Not Wake Me Before Eleven Or I Swear I Will Punch You In The Throat" policy.
She pulled off at the next junction. As she drove, the idea of manipulating her son's emotions using gifts appealed to her more and more. Beverly had rarely used bribery as a tool as a mother when Leonard was younger. She had rarely used blackmail or punishment either, just given advice and allowed him to do as he would.
After a few hours, she reacher her home town and pulled into the car park of a twenty four hour gift store. Above the entrance, a huge and tattered sign hung: "Cheap gifts! Sales end Christmas!". Beverly glared at the sign. It was a decent business plan, putting the highest sales just before Christmas to attract the lazy, but it also glorified procrastination.
She was almost sure that none of the other shoppers had the excuse that they only realised that they would need to buy a gift tonight due to setting up an affection-experiment which began the next day with their friend's mother and their son. Most people just saw the convention of gift giving useful, but were too lazy or were rubbish planners.
She glanced at the aisle labels. Ah yes, there it was, gifts for families. There was bound to be a nice photo album there. Well, judging by the average price of items in the store, perhaps not nice, but one of decent appearance and quality. She had what she wanted visualised in her mind, a black faux-leather bound one with the words childhood photos inscribed on the front.
After searching for a few minutes, she didn't find what she was looking for. There was something similar though, black faux-leather with the words memories on the front. Memories was irritatingly vague, but Beverly knew that she wasn't going to find anything better at this hour.
She managed to get some stereotypically Christmassy wrapping paper and a fairly generic card. She remembered that she had some photo paper for the printer in her study. Beverly gathered the items and took them up to the counter. There was an irritatingly long queue. Did all of these people procrastinate gift buying for so long?
At last, she came to the bleary eyed youth scanning items slowly. This place was run very inefficiently, she reflected. They should have self-scanning machines- they would be much quicker and would not have to be paid. So many jobs could be replaced with the tireless metal of robots.
The boy scanned all of her items through. "Do you have a membership card for a discount?" he asked. Beverly shook her head impatiently. "Would you like to get a membership card? Every time you come back here you can collect points, which.."
"-I don't want a membership card. I won't be coming back here. Be quiet. Take my money. I have a lot to do tonight." She handed him the cash. Normally she would have respected social etiquette more, but it was eleven pm and she was tired. The boy had a focused expression, trying to add the change. "It's $3.76," Beverly prompted.
"Right, thank you," the boy said and handed over the change. "Have a very merry Christmas!" he called after her as she strode away. Beverly huffed.
A few minutes later found her taking the hard drive out of the drawer and plugging it into her computer. The image files loaded up. Good. She had already organised it into pictures which had Leonard in, pictures of his brothers and pictures with both. She opened up the Leonard folder first.
The first photograph was the one of five year old Leonard with Scuffles sitting on his chest and licking him under the chin. Beverly printed it out and inserted it into the first slot of the photo album. "Leonard Hofstadter, age 5. Photo taken whilst overpowered by his dog, Scuffles (now deceased)."
The next one showed Leonard making a den out of books. Beverly smiled slightly at that one. "Leonard, age 5. Could not understand part of the brain, so made a house out of the textbooks." She placed another photo of Leonard curled up inside the book den underneath. "The house was well-made."
The next photo was of Leonard was one used in her book, so she left it out. After that was one of him riding Scuffles like a horse. "Leonard, age 5. Enjoying riding his dog Scuffles. Possible payback for Scuffles sitting on him." The next one was the one of Leonard being chased up a tree. "Scuffles takes revenge against Leonard for sitting on him. Leonard proves climbing skill."
She could remember Leonard's older brother Michael rescuing him from the tree and wondered if she had a photo for that. Fortunately, she did. "Rescued from tree by older brother." The next photo of Leonard and Michael showed Leonard hugging him with Scuffles nearby. "Leonard hugs his brother after the rescue. Scuffles lurks."
The photos carried on. Leonard teaching his dog to fetch. The dog licking his face. Michael showing Leonard how to do trigonometry. Christmas age 6, first C. Seventh birthday. Beverly had actually attempted to bake a cake that year at the challenge of her husband. The cake tasted good, but the decorations failed. "Leonard, age seven. Eating home-baked birthday cake. Trying to work out what grey icing blob was. It was a dalek."
Never again, she decided. From that birthday on, it had been store bought cake every year. Leonard had told her that he missed having a home-baked cake, but she reminded him that the store-bought cakes were much higher quality and that she didn't enjoy failure at something that most could do with ease.
"Leonard, age seven. Scuffles scares bullies." That picture had been in her book, but it had come with her hypotheses on desire for power and superiority. "Leonard, age eight. First (recorded) wedgie." "Leonard, age eight. Third C at Christmas." "Leonard, age eight. Shared Easter chocolate with Scuffles. Scuffles taken to vet, Leonard spent night crying."
There weren't too many milestones at age nine. She put in one of Leonard hugging Michael goodbye as Michael was going to university to study law. There was Leonard's hugging machine. Christmas, given first B minus in paper. Age ten, Leonard leaving primary school. Leonard with kick-me sign on his back. Leonard accepting science reward at the end of school. She had been proud of him that day, even if the other students weren't exactly tough competition.
Secondary school had pictures of Leonard with homework. Leonard with somebody called Jimmy Speckerman's homework. Leonard with some science and Maths certificates. One year, he was given one for effort but not for attainment, which she was disappointed with. That was when he was thirteen.
"Christmas, age 13. Waiting for re-ascended testicle to drop." "Leonard, age fourteen. Asking advice to ask out girl." Her advice hadn't been what he was looking for. Observation and subtly changing his appearance before asking her to an activity she would look using very rehearsed wording counted as manipulation to him.
"Leonard, age fourteen. Doing chemistry paper for temporary girlfriend." This one had Leonard and a blonde girl over some books together. She and Leonard both knew that the girl had only agreed to go out with him for the paper and would dump him after the deadline.
"Leonard, age fourteen. Sulking over being dumped by first girlfriend after chemistry paper was handed in." "Leonard, age fourteen. Hugging Scuffles in sadness." "Leonard, age fourteen. Deciding that he doesn't need a girlfriend." "Leonard, age fifteen. Needed alone time after being rejected by girl (Anne Forbury)."
Then came the comics and dungeons and dragons stage. "Leonard, age fifteen. Discovers comic books." "Leonard, age fifteen. Finds a group to play dungeons and dragons with." "Leonard, age sixteen. Hours spent playing World of Warcraft." "Leonard, age sixteen. Sandiego Comic-con."
Ages seventeen and eighteen saw Leonard revising for exams, Leonard's tantrum over her book, more comics and computer games, more playing with Scuffles. Leonard holding up his exam results. Leonard preparing for university interviews. Leonard's letter of acceptance to Princeton for physics.
Finally, after around one and a half hours (near perfect estimation of time before) of printing and labelling photos, Beverly was finished. She wrote the card, wrapped the present, prepared a thermos of coffee and headed back to her car. She longed to go to bed and sleep, but she needed to be at Pasadena tomorrow with Leonard and Sheldon for Christmas.
The drive was frustrating. There was no traffic thankfully, but she went through the entire flask of coffee she had made. Beverly had never been the type to stay up and party all night, like say Penny who could probably do this easily, so the hour took its toll on her. Mary Cooper would have to admit that this showed dedication.
Beverly sank in bed, the present waiting on the bedside table with a smile on her face and slept like a log.
xXx-X-xXx
Sorry for the lack of updates. I was going to update this a while ago, but my computer deleted the document for some reason and I kept putting off rewriting. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. What did you think of Beverly Hofstader's present to Leonard and of the memories of Leonard's childhood?
-MoonOfPluto
