"GORDON COOPER TRACY, YOU ARE GROUNDED!" Shouts his father.
15 HOURS EARLIER
All 5 boys are up with the sunrise, for their first full day on the Island, eager to explore. All gathering on Gordons bed to watch as the suns rays burst through the dark sky showering the glittering ocean below with an array of golden flecks, and Gordon just wants to dive out the window into the waiting sea.
He gives it one last look of longing before getting down from the bed and following his brothers for breakfast. He eyes bulge at the sight on the table in front of him. There is a large stack of pancakes, various cereals, toast, fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes, some disgusting looking black ring he can't identify, tomatoes, croissants, and several jugs of freshly squeezed juice.
Grabbing himself a plate, he starts to load it up with eggs and bacon, ignoring the fresh fruit now being added to the table by Kyrano.
Tanusha is already at the table, carefully eating her way through her own choice of cereal. Shooting a look of disgust as Gordon picks a whole egg up with his fingers and stuffs it in his mouth in one bite.
"stish ish good food" He announces appreciatively, still with his mouth full.
"Yuck" Tanusha replies, wishing that she could take her food upstairs to the sanctuary of her room away from these pigs.
"Morning Taneeshi" Alan pipes up, trying to pronounce a name he can't really remember. Ignoring the look she is giving him as he too starts to stuff food into his mouth with his fingers.
"Tan – ush – a" she replies slowly and impatiently.
"Bless you" Alan replies, assuming she is sneezing.
She notes that she is the only one fully dressed, as the boys are still in pyjamas.
"Grow up, Tanusha. He is 4 years old; it isn't his fault he cant pronounce your name." Virgil tells her, despite his promise to Gordon to give her a second chance, he finds himself snapping at the slightest provocation.
"Maybe you should just change it to something he can remember!" Gordon tells her, trying to keep the atmosphere light.
"I am not changing my name!" she replies indignantly, there is no way she is letting these spoilt children change anything about her.
"Or we can give you a nickname, Alan can you pronounce Crazy-ass?" Gordon asks him.
Tanusha is done, getting up without bothering to excuse herself, she leaves the kitchen and wanders outside to the yard where Jeff and Lord Creighton-Ward have the blueprints for the house out on the table. Even though it isn't 7 o'clock yet the sun is already warming the ground.
"SEE YA CRAZY" Gordon shouts at her, as his brothers all laugh with him.
"What are we doing today?" Gordon asks.
"Well, you are going to find some trouble to get you and Alan into, I am writing my book, no idea what Scott and Virgil have planned" John replies.
"I was going to help dad, want to come with me Virg?" Scott asks.
"Sure, let me finish my second breakfast first" He replies happily, piling up a second round of pancakes onto his plate. He even tries a bite of the weird black stuff, gagging in disgust at the taste.
"Hey Kyrano? What is this?" he asks, holding up a piece speared on his fork.
"Black pudding Mr Virgil. It is lord Creighton-Wards favourite, and he can't have a full English breakfast without it" Kyrano tells him.
"He can keep it!" Virgil replies he has finally finished eating, and with Scotts help they clear away the table, Gordon and Alan have long since scarpered to avoid chores.
"You don't need to help me boys, go and help your father" Kyrano tells them.
"No way, if Grandma found out we hadn't helped she'd have us on cleaning duty for a week!" Scott tells him.
Kyrano just wishes his daughter could have seen this, it might have helped her come to the right conclusion, but he knows that he can't force their friendship, this has to happen naturally.
*TB*
Gordon is determined to get even with Tanusha for kicking him, ideas are buzzing round his brain as he pulls on a clean pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Topping his outfit off with the new trainers Grandma bought him, a pair of odd socks and his favourite baseball cap. Finally the perfect revenge comes to him, and he is going to need Alans help to distract the grownups while he puts his plan into action. Mainly Grandma, he knows his father will be too busy with the project to notice what is going on around him, but Grandma has eyes in the back of her head!
"Hey Allie, I am going to need your help with something, can you distract Grandma for an hour or two for me?" Gordon asks him.
"What are you going to do?" Alan replies.
"Less you know the better" Gordon insists, his usual 'I am planning a prank' evil grin on his face.
"Okay sure, I will ask her to take me down to the beach" Alan advises.
"Not the beach! She will get suspicious that I don't want to go!" Gordon replies. "Just ask her to go exploring with you, and that I am going to help dad, that way she will be gone and dad is so distracted with the build that he will not notice that I have slipped away. This is perfect, trust me"
Alan skips out the room to go and find Grandma.
She is just sitting down for her won breakfast, having taken the time to shower and dress, rather than going downstairs in her pyjamas, keeping her dignity!
"Grandma, no one will play with me, can we go exploring? John is boring and reading again, Scott Virgil and Gordon all want to help dad and Taneeka doesn't like me. Which is fine because I don't like her either" Alan tells her.
"let me have breakfast first, then we will take a walk together just you and me" She tells him, smiling. Unaware that he is being used as bait!
Gordon watches as they head down to the beach together, giving him 5 minutes for them to get far enough away before he puts the second part of his master plan into action.
"Hey dad, I am just going to nip to the bathroom" Gordon informs his father, who barely looks up from the plans to acknowledge this new information, but grunts in his direction.
Gordon runs through the house and back out through the rear door and down into the jungle. The trees are so close together it is almost dark in places. And the noise coming from the various bugs is enough to distract him from his immediate task. Looking around at his surroundings he is fascinated by what he is seeing. Placing the box he bought out from the house down he starts to examine the trees. Some of them would be perfect for climbing, and he makes a note to ask his dad for a tree house in one of the ones close to the house.
Sticking to the main path, he continues his walk through the trees, and finally stumbles on the exact creature he has been looking for. Smiling silently to himself he grabs the snake by the tail, holding it away from his body so it can't swing round and bite him. It is hissing angrily, and he has no idea what kind of snake this is.
Getting it into the box, Gordon has the chance to properly look at the beast. It is about a foot and a half long, with ragged yellowish and black stripes from its head down to its tail. Its eyes are small and beady, and it is eyeing Gordon up with distrust, barely able to believe its quiet slumber has been interrupted by this weird looking creature, the likes of which he has never seen in his jungle before. Rearing its head it goes to strike him, missing by inches as Gordon pulls his hand away and quickly seals the box, picking it up and taking it back into the house, hiding it under his bed until he Is ready to put phase three into operation.
"I am back dad" he announces to the group, who are now arguing over colour schemes for the main lounge area and haven't noticed that he has been gone for so long, which was just what he hoped for.
"Oh good, what do you think of this shade for the lounge?" His dad asks. Holding up a colour swatch of a light lilac colour.
"Girly" is his reply. "can we not paint it neon yellow instead?" Gordon asks. "and have glow in the dark stars on the walls, with green and black polka dots on the ceiling?"
"No!" His dad replies groaning. "You can do that to your room"
"I don't want my own room" he tells him seriously, staring nervously at Vigil.
Which surprises Tanusha, she thought this awful boy would demand not just a single room but the whole floor.
"Tell him dad" Virgil replies.
"Yours and Virgil's rooms will have an adjoining door, which you can leave open but this way you'll have a lot more space and your privacy for when you need it" he replies.
"And if that doesn't work, we will use your sledgehammer skills to knock the wall down!" Virgil tells him, squeezing his shoulder. "You won't be alone Squid, I promise."
"Okay I think!" Gordon replies, still not convinced that this is a good idea.
Tanusha has no idea what is happening between the 2 brothers, but she is starting to think that she may have misjudged them, watching more closely during the rest of the morning, quietly observing the interactions between not only Gordon and Virgil but also between Scott and their father. They laugh and joke together, naturally teasing each other, and it is obvious even in the few short hours she has known them that they are unusually close. Unfortunately, it only fuels her jealousy of the boys. Determined more than ever to hate them and hate them on her terms, not to be sucked in by the charms they so easily turn on, to get what they want.
*TB*
Grandma returns with Alan for lunch, forcing Jeff to take a break. Knowing him as well as she does, she knows that he would not stop unless she physically intervened. Bringing out a fresh platter of sandwiches and jug of lemonade she calls them to the table to eat.
Gordon escapes into the house, using the flimsy excuse of wanting to change his shirt, as this one if sweaty and sticking to his body making him uncomfortable. He checks on the snake, who he has nicknamed toes seeing has it does not have any feet!
Toes is still in the box, looking through the see-through lid of the plastic storage box Gordon notices that the snake has resigned itself to its fate, curled up in the corner it is snoozing.
Smiling to himself as he remembers to change his t-shirt. After all the keys to a successful prank are the details! He goes back to his lunch. Picking out the tomatoes from his cheese and ham sandwich and flicking the pips at John, before eating the fleshy part
"Stop playing with your food Gordo" his dad admonishes him, "And don't flick food at John!"
"Okay dad I wont flick it at John anymore" Gordon replies. Turning his attention to Scott he flicks the remaining pips at him instead.
"GORDON! Let me rephrase that, do not flick food at anybody!" Jeff backtracks, ignoring the sniggering from Alan and Gordon and returning to his own food. "After lunch you are on clean-up duty" he tells him, issuing one of Gordons least favourite punishments.
To his credit he does so without a word of complaint, which in hindsight should have been an indication that he was planning something else, but his dad just assumes that he is sorry and taking his punishment seriously.
*TB*
Once he has finished the clean-up, and checked to make sure Toes is happy, Gordon is bored.
"Grandma, can we please go to the beach?" he asks. "I have been helping dad all morning, I promise"
"Come on then. Allie are you coming too?" she asks.
"YES can I bring my bucket and spade, daddy gave me?" he asks.
"Of course you can" Grandma tells him smiling.
"Can you carry them for me?" he asks cheekily.
"Nope! You can carry your own, Gordon are you bringing anything?" she asks.
"Just the essentials." He replies. A box of celery crunch bars and a jar of peanut butter under his arm.
"No, you can take one bar for an afternoon snack and leave the peanut butter here Gordo" she replies, there is no way she is letting him get hyped up on sugar.
"Fine" he replies, smiling, determined to let her think that nothing is wrong. That there is not a highly poisonous snake under his bed!
Alan and Gordon spend all afternoon on the beach, building their own empire of castles and sand sculptures, even hunting for shells and seaweed for decorations. Grandma bought one of the portable sun loungers down with her and has spent an enjoyable afternoon watching her 2 youngest grandbabies playing happily together, a site that she could never get tired of seeing.
They only stop when the sun goes down, and with it the temperature. Shivering slightly they agree to pack up and head back, Alan even carrying his bucket and spade without a cord of protest, as they make the short walk up the path to the house, were dinner is being served.
"Where are you going Gordon? Your dinner is on the table" Grandma asks after they have washed their hands.
"To grab a jumper, its cold in here Grandma" He replies, his face a neutral picture of pure innocence.
"Okay, well hurry up, or Virgil will eat the lot!" She tells him laughing.
Firstly he checks on Toes, making sure he is still in the box before he gets changed into a pair of jeans and a jumper. He wasn't lying when he said he was cold, before joining the rest of his family and new friends and Tanusha for dinner.
Kyrano, he can't deny is a much better cook than Grandma, and he could easily get used to this life, as he tucks into his tacos happily slathering extra chilli sauce on them listening to the conversation Scott is having with his dad about the house plans, not bothering to add his own opinion, choosing instead to focus on the task at hand, his food!
Tanusha eats sparingly, again not adding to the conversation but for her own reasons, she has spent all day carefully observing the boys, gathering as much information as possible, if only to use against them at a later date. Still unhappy about having to move to the Island but knowing that she has no choice in the course her life is taking she is sullen and resentful.
She wants to desperately for them to be the grotesque, spoilt individuals that she suspected they were, and the more time she is spending with them the harder it is getting to hate them.
*TB*
Gordon lies in wait all evening for his opportunity to strike back, eventually Tanusha announces that she is going to bed, he stealthily follows her up the stairs, smiling as he goes into the bathroom and not her bedroom as he goes to get Toes.
Sneaking the snake under the blanket, he hides in the closet in the hall and waits for her reaction.
He isn't disappointed and her screams bring the adults upstairs followed by his brothers, as they race into the room.
Gordons unabashed laughter is enough to tell the room exactly who did this.
"A rubber snake Gordon?" His dad tells him unimpressed, approaching the snake, now frozen in terror at the disturbance. "You are better than that"
"Oh I know, the snakes real!" Gordon replies.
Jeff orders the boys and Tanusha out of the room, so they can catch the snake and get it released back out into the jungle where it belongs.
"When did you pull that off?" John asks him, once they have escaped to the sanctuary of their room, Tanusha is with them.
"Well I caught it this morning in the jungle" he replies. Interrupted by Scott.
"YOU WENT INTO THE JUNGLE?!" He explodes.
"Yes, and keep your voice down Scotty! I had Alan distract Grandma so I wouldn't get caught, then I kept Toes hidden away under my bed all afternoon, then slipped him into Tanushas bed while she was in the bathroom."
"You used Alan?" Scott is horrified by the level of deception employed by his brother.
"He agreed to be used, and I didn't tell him what I had planned so he can't get into trouble" Gordon insists.
"Dad will not see it that way, and you were told not to go into the jungle because it is dangerous" Scott lectures.
Gordon is about to reply when the door is swung open. Jeff is standing there, his hands on his hips glaring at his 4th son, with an anger that scares even Scott.
GORDON COOPER TRACY. YOU ARE GROUNDED!"