Chapter 83.
Gordon knew he failed miserably when it came to acting his age.
He was a fully-fledged member of the world's most elite rescue organisation, an Olympic champion, and one of the most experienced aquanauts on active global duty. And yet, he stole his brother's clean laundry, stashed emergency jellybeans inside Thunderbird Four's storage lockers, and drank milk straight from the carton.
Out of all of them, he was the one who'd had the most scrapes with death. While this might have been enough to scare some people into refusing to leave their bedrooms, it had instead inspired him to not to take life too seriously and to indulge in whatever made him happy.
"Get set…"
Checkout Kid stood idly to the side of Alan's trolley, a notepad and pen in his hand, "Do you have team names?"
"Oh, umm," Gordon stammered, his creativity blurred by the adrenalin in his veins, "Just put down my name: Team Gordon."
Checkout Kid frowned, "How am I spelling that?"
"G for gerbil, O for okapi, R for raccoon, D for dingo, O for okapi, N for narwhal."
Virgil snorted into his fist.
Teams Alan and Kayo added their names to the rather unimaginative list thereafter, then took their places on the imaginary start line beside their rival trolleys.
"On your marks," Checkout Kid began, disregarding Gordon's original command, "Get set…"
Brows were furrowed and jaws set as the all too familiar sensation of brotherly competitiveness began to sink its claws into the brains of all five brothers. Kayo appeared casually indifferent.
"Go!"
Gordon emitted something akin to a battle cry as he and Virgil surged forward, swiftly overtaking John and Alan who, rather amazingly, were already disagreeing over which direction to go in. Scott meanwhile, had a slightly different battle strategy. One of the benefits of being the eldest was that he knew all of his brothers inside out, back to front, and upside down.
Gordon and Virgil would be utterly directionless. They'd charge around like lunatics, grabbing items at random with no clear record of where they were going or where they'd been.
John and Alan would end up locked in a power struggle. Alan would complain that John never listened to him, and John would complain that Alan didn't deserve to be listened to. There was a lot of intellectual snobbery between the space brothers. Alan had the decency to keep his discreet, while John's was about as obvious as an ostrich wearing a tutu.
"We'll give them a one-minute head start," Scott whispered, "Just to see if they stay true to my predictions. How many items does Penny need us to get?"
Kayo took Scott's phone and did a quick tally, "Twenty-four in total, most of which are fruit and veg based. I'm not sure why Virgil and Gordon have gone into the homeware section, though."
Almost on cue, both brothers emerged. Gordon was yelling for Virgil to bank left into the bakery section, a long feather duster held high above his head.
"Probably to acquire weapons," Scott sighed, "How much alcohol do we need?"
Kayo re-consulted the list, "Ten bottles of Champagne, five bottles of Pimms, and eight bottles of Pinot Grigio."
"Excellent, we'll grab those first," Scott instructed, deploying some of the speed he was well known for, "From the sound of things, they've made poor use of their head start."
A woop of delight from several aisles away made Kayo frown, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
Scott sighed and inclined his head toward John and Alan, who appeared to be rowing over a pineapple.
"I would."
-x-
The Tracys were a respectable and well-mannered band of brothers. They'd been well raised and possessed compassion and wisdom far beyond their young years.
Compassion and wisdom that, unfortunately, went sailing out the window as soon as any sort of competition was afoot.
While eating competitions tended to be their preferred battleground, over the years they'd corrupted movie theatres, zoos, public libraries, beaches, and pet stores with their rivalry. Any large area with long aisles or lots of space was fair game for a wealth of imaginary competitions.
"Out of my way you piece of Space Trash!"
"Out of my way you piece of Sea Trash!"
"Out of my way you piece of Sky Trash!"
Grandma had once made a very apt comment about her grandson's mental ages. Something along the lines of, 'Boys never grow up, their toys just get bigger.'
Alan was living proof of that statement.
Alan, who was locked in a bitter feud with John over a pineapple. Or rather, his inability to tell a pineapple from its fruity siblings.
"No Alan, a pineapple," John groaned, bracing his hands against their trolley's heavily sanitised handles, "A pineapple. No, that's a guava."
Alan blinked innocently, "Alright, alright, chill. How about this one?"
"A papaya."
"This one?"
"A jackfruit."
"This one?"
"A mango."
"This one?"
"A cantaloupe."
"This one?"
"Holy hell on a Thunderbird," John whined, resisting the urge to headbutt the floor, "You need to start eating healthier. That's a watermelon."
Despite growing up all over the place, the brother's early lives had been peppered with Texan and Kansan influences. Lucy had spent a couple of years at a ranch in Dallas during her late teens and had, in the process, picked up a mild Texan drawl. Most of the boys had adopted the more neutral accent Jeff had brought to the table from his native Kansas, save for one.
John was the only one who slipped into a southern twang when he was particularly excited or angry. It was a harmless by-product of hearing it from his mother when he was young and was completely subconscious. People often complimented him on what a pleasant voice he had, but those comments were often reversed when he began drawing out his A sounds and dropping his G sounds. It was just as well that he never got excited or angry while on duty.
Alan bit his lip to stop himself from laughing at his brother's sudden pronunciation shift, "Grandma only ever buys apples and bananas. You can blame my fruity illiteracy on her."
"No excuse," John clipped, his southern mode gathering momentum. Without giving Alan a chance to reply, he stabbed a finger menacingly at the assortment of fruit trays in front of them, "Grab three boxes of strawberries, a net of oranges, a bunch of grapes, a bag of cherries, and that godforsaken pineapple."
"But none of those items are on the list," Alan snapped, shifting in the basket so that he was sat on his knees, "Aside from the pineapple."
"I don't care. Your diet needs some work," John replied, now in full redneck-redhead mode, "I'm disgusted at your lack of basic knowledge. Didn't you learn any of this in kindergarten?"
Alan knew better than to argue when John was having a big brother moment. He never turned down an opportunity to lecture, and the chance to deliver one on minerals and antioxidants was giving him a chance to flex the biceps of his inner intellectual snob.
The bonus sermon he went on to deliver on colon health was just that: a bonus.
-x-
"That's the alcohol done," Scott announced, handing Kayo the final bottle of Pinot Grigio, "Going in aisle order will be more time efficient. Which one is next door?"
Kayo craned her neck to peer at the overhead signage, "Frozen goods, maybe? You do know I can't read Spanish, right?"
That came as a shock for Scott, "Seriously? I thought you were part Spanish?"
A decade of respect abruptly fell through the floor, "I'm Malaysian, you dolt."
"Ah, my bad," Scott breezed, unconcerned by his error, "The only frozen thing I can see on here are three bags of ice cubes. Reckon you can grab 'em without me stopping?"
Kayo nodded and sat back on her haunches to make room for the Pimms bottle that was poking her in the thigh, "How am I supposed to stay sat in here with all this stuff? At this rate, we won't have room for the rest of the items."
"The biggest ones are out of the way," Scott replied, motioning to the boxes of booze, "I could put you in the child's seat if you fancy a bit more leg room?"
Kayo was about to retort, and a good one at that, but was forced to swallow her counter-insult when Gordon and Virgil blasted past her and Scott at the main intersecting aisle. It was only Scott's considerable upper body strength that saved the four of them from a devastating, and perhaps historic, collision.
"Weeee!" Gordon yelled, throwing his arms up in the air as Virgil put on a burst of speed and turned off into the dairy section.
"Morons!" Kayo bellowed, bracing one hand against the side of the basket and the other against her pounding heart, "This is an aisleway, not a freeway!"
"Suckers!" Gordon sang, his voice carrying over the two rows of shelves that now divided him and Virgil from Kayo's fury.
"Wheel me into the homeware section," Kayo demanded, pointing ahead like a captain aboard the world's most pathetic ship, "And make it snappy. Those two need reeling in."
"Thinking of arming yourself with a mop?" Scott teased, cringing when he overheard Alan and John start another disagreement over bagels and waffles, neither of which were on the list.
"Of course not," Kayo spat, motioning at the rows of washing up liquid, "We're going to level the pitch and fight dirty. Hold the cart still, I'm going to have to stand up to reach that shelf."
Scott did as instructed, watching tensely as Kayo extended a hand and grabbed the first container her fingers came into contact with.
"Okay, now back to the booze section," she directed, "From the brief look I got of their trolley, it doesn't look as if they've gotten any alcohol yet. Most likely that'll be the section they finish off with."
Nearby, a very southern sounding John was busy berating Alan for his use of non-organic deodorant. Little did he know that it had taken poor Scott six weeks to convince Alan to wear any kind of deodorant, period.
Waving her hand when she was in position, Kayo popped the cap off the washing liquid containers she'd nabbed and squirted the contents over the floor. She'd gone for the unfragranced variety to reduce the risk of her targets sniffing out her evil plan.
"Please don't say I'm going to have to explain what a bottle of Pimms looks like?" John groaned, "Not that it'll make any difference, since I'm certain we're going to lose."
Kayo gave a peep of alarm and motioned frantically for Scott to wheel her out of sight. They'd barely cleared the nearest corner before John and Alan materialised, the former draped over the handles of his trolley in despair.
"Hey!" Alan quacked, "You don't know that. We've got all the fruit and veg, all the confectionaries, all the dairy, and all the dry goods. All we're missing are the drinks."
Scott and Kayo shared a look of poorly masked concern as they took cover behind a flower display. It sounded as if all that southern-accented arguing had actually worked in Team Alan's favour. Misdirection at its finest.
"Ten bottles of Champagne," John instructed, his eyes widening when Alan's grip faltered, "Don't drop them!"
Alan swallowed nervously and gave a grunt of exertion as he extended an arm towards the desired shelf. One downside of being the baby of the family was that he still relied on his brothers to open the top kitchen cupboards for him.
"Well done," John praised, waiting until both the Champagne and Alan were safely down in the basket, "Just the wine left, and then we're done."
Alas, done Team Alan was not.
A space-themed expletive tore out of John's mouth as his balance fell victim to the slipperiness of the washing up liquid Kayo had drenched the floor with. Five seconds of comical slipping and sliding ensued before his feet were whipped out from underneath him, sending all six foot and three inches of him crashing onto his back with a loud 'squelch.'
Alan barely had time to bail out of the trolley before it too ran into Kayo's trap. Without John's weight to stabilise it, the cart veered into one of the shelves before wonkily careening off down the aisle.
"Are you okay?" Alan gasped, planting his palms against the floor in an attempt to push himself into a standing position. Unfortunately, the laws of physics made standing upright on a soapy floor near impossible, and he soon found himself spread-eagled next to his fellow space brother.
"Kayo," John snarled, "This has her dirty fingerprints all over it."
Alan frowned and flipped onto his belly, "What about Gordon? He's the living definition of trouble."
A wet slap echoed around the aisle as John readied himself for a vertical take-off, "Nope, this positively stinks of Kayo. No one obsesses over winning as much as she does."
Alan inclined his head in reluctant agreement, shielding it with his hands when John's balance betrayed him once again. To anyone watching on the security cameras, it probably looked as if he was trying his hand at stationary snowboarding. The windmilling arms, swaying hips, and jerking knees really didn't serve any purpose other than to make him look utterly stupid.
Splat.
Swear words with Solar System origins began to flow freely from John as his back objected to being landed on for the second time in two minutes.
"Hold on to me," Alan suggested, worming his way over to his starfished brother, "If we use each other for stability, we might be able to hold out long enough to regain our balance."
What followed was perhaps one of the most hilarious sights Scott had ever been blessed with witnessing. John and Alan, clinging to each other's arms for dear life as they tried desperately to re-assume the posture of ordinary upright humans. Alan sticking his butt out for stability was the icing on the cake.
"Yahoooo!" came Gordon's delighted squeal as he and Virgil rounded the corner, their cart full to bursting point, "Victory here we -WHOA, steady big fella!"
Gordon's warning came as Virgil's own feet began to zig-zag upon coming into contact with the puddle that had already claimed two of his brothers. A particularly violent zig saw his feet fly out from underneath him. One half backflip later, and he was splattered on the floor next to the precariously unbalanced forms of Alan and John. Naturally, he was forced to relinquish his hold on the trolley when he too fell victim to the bitch that was gravity. Unfortunately, he'd been travelling at speed and the collective mass of his trolley was large, thanks in no small part to the aquanaut riding inside of it.
"VIRGIL!" Gordon squealed, his life flashing before his eyes as the trolley freewheeled down the aisle and smashed into one of the shelves.
Scott and Kayo could only watch in silent horror as the huge shelving units that accounted for most of the store's decor began to fall against each other, one by one, like domino tiles. Checkout Kid looked close to cardiac arrest as the dairy aisle became one with the meat aisle, which then in turn became one with the cosmetics aisle. That was going to be a hygiene breach of galactic proportions.
Scott's own concerns, however, were more domestic in nature.
"I am not paying for that!"