Little Boxes
The first three boxes contained bits of pieces of clothing, belonging to various members of the family, and a number of items for cabin use. A lot of what they found caused much hilarity.
"This has gotta be Alan's" Gordon exclaimed, holding up a tiny, babies romper suit. He held it under Alan's neck. "Gee you haven't grown much."
"How about this?" Alan asked in return, he'd found a slightly larger outfit. It was coloured purple. "You must have looked 'simply divine' in this colour." Gordon screwed up his face.
"I used to fit this?!" Grandma Tracy stood up and held a dress against herself. She wasn't a big woman now, but the dress she held looked several sizes too small.
"I used to love this outfit." Jeff was holding a tan two-piece number at arms length. "All the astronauts used to wear them. We thought they made us look so dashing... 'devil may care'... reckless. The girls used to love it. Looking at it now, it's a wonder that they trusted us with a supermarket trolley, let alone a moon rocket. Taste obviously wasn't a part of the job description!"
"I don't remember this!" Virgil had found a portable keyboard. He played a scale on it. "Sure could use some tuning."
"Trust you to hone in on a piano." Scott said as he pulled a box out. "Hey, this used to be a great game. We should see if we can remember how to play it after dinner."
"You thought it was a great game because you always won." John reminded him. "Things might be a bit more even now."
In the hall Brains, Tin-Tin and Kyrano were listening to the sounds of laughter emanating from the lounge.
"It is time to prepare for dinner." Kyrano said. "Perhaps I should wait."
"T-they sound like they are enj-joying themselves." Brains said. "They m-might be a while yet."
"Why don't we make a start?" Tin-Tin suggested. "We can make something that can be re-heated if they haven't finished by the time it's ready."
There was another shout of laughter from the lounge.
"What are they doing?" Tin-Tin asked.
"The boxes. They are the ones that contained the goods that were in the car that Mr Tracy's wife and father were killed in." Kyrano informed her.
Her eyes widened. "How'd you know?"
"Mr Tracy, he told me to put them in the farthest corner of the storeroom, when we all moved to the island. I think he wished to hide them from memory."
"S-so why are they g-going through them now?" Brains asked.
"I do not know, Mr Brains. Perhaps Mr Tracy felt that it was time..."
"Time to open the last box." Jeff said as he slid the knife around the tape that sealed the box that had held the official envelope. He was feeling more relaxed now, but tensed up when he saw the contents. The rest of his family felt his change in mood and lapsed into silence.
The topmost item was contained in a sealed plastic bag. It appeared to be some kind of floral material. Jeff took it out of the box and examined it more closely. "It's the dress your mother was wearing." He eventually said.
No one knew what to say.
After a long pause Scott cleared his throat. "Let's see what else is in here." He reached in and pulled out a torch.
"That was the only light they had." Jeff told them.
Scott turned it on. Even after 22 years the light still worked. "Good batteries." He remarked before reaching into the box again. This time he pulled out a blanket. "Hey Alan. This was yours."
Alan took the midnight blue blanket. The pattern was a constellation of yellow and white stars. "It's minty."
"You were wrapped up in it." Jeff said. "Your mother must have taken it off you as the car began to get warmer."
Alan looked at the blanket again, folded it up and laid it on his lap. He'd take it back to his room when they'd finished here.
The next few items were commonplace ones - a map, a pen and paper, a box of tissues...
"Hey what's this?" Gordon reached into the box and pulled out a yellow piece of plastic.
"Fishie!" Scott, John and Jeff told him, in a chorus of laughter.
"That was your favourite toy." His grandmother told him. "We couldn't take it off you. If it went missing the whole house would be in an upheaval until it was found again."
"So that's why you became an aquanaut!" Alan snapped his fingers at the realisation. "You've spent the last 22 years looking for your plastic fish!"
Gordon put it into his pocket, before looking back into the box. "Well here's something of yours that would have been very helpful over the last 22 years." He pulled out a baby's dummy. "No wonder we can't keep you quiet. We didn't have this to shove into your mouth."
John had spied something. "Hey there's the radio." He pulled it out of the box. "Now I've got the full set again."
"Just how did you boys know to use the radios and triangulation to find the car?" Jeff asked.
"I can't remember." Scott said. "We must have studied it in one of the few classes I actually attended."
"I remember that Scott said something to me, and I turned away and the signal weakened." John said. "I didn't have a clue what Scott was doing after that, but it worked. We knew where to dig."
The next item to emerge was a battered old hat. Mrs Tracy took it. "It was your grandfathers favourite. I kept on trying to throw it out, but he always retrieved it. Said good hats were hard to find and there was still enough wear in this one that he wasn't about to waste money on a new one." She hugged the hat close to herself. "I always hated it, but he loved it."
They had reached the bottom of the box. Well nearly the bottom. Jeff reached in and pulled out another envelope. Opening it he pulled out a painting. A big green blob on a blue background. "Look! Your aeroplane." he grinned and showed Virgil.
"She took it with her?" Virgil was amazed.
"Here, let's have a look." Alan reached out and carefully took the picture. "Not up to your usual standards, Virgil."
"Hey! It's Thunderbird Two!" Gordon exclaimed, looking over his brother's shoulder.
"What?" John took the picture. "Well so it is. It's got the wings facing forwards and everything. I always said that ugly big green bug looked like it had been dreamed up by a kid. I was right."
"Ugly big green bug!" Virgil was scandalised. "She's beautiful."
"Aw!" Gordon and Alan began making kissing noises. Virgil threw a cushion at them.
The painting had returned to Jeff's hands. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I might just get this framed."
"Father! No!" Virgil protested.
"Why not? I can't have a picture of any of our Thunderbird craft on the wall, but why not a painting that my son did when he was five. I'll hang it underneath the other two you did in my office. No one will ever know what it means to us."
"Okay." Said Virgil grudgingly. He sat back and ran his fingers through his hair.
Jeff was watching him. "You really are like your mother." He said gently.
Alan and Gordon started sniggering and waited for the stock answer.
Instead, Virgil cocked an eye in Scott's direction. "So I keep getting told." Scott offered him a grin in return.
"If you want to stop people saying it," he said, "you're going to have to stop doing that."
"Doing what." Virgil was confused.
"Running your fingers through your hair." Jeff told him. "Your mother was always doing it."
"It was a refined version of pulling her hair out over you boys." Mrs Tracy commented.
"Oh!" Virgil said.
Gordon and Alan began to laugh, and the rest of the family had to grin. Virgil froze, his left hand half way towards his hair. He then used his right hand to force it back down again so he could sit on it. "I've got to get that fixed," he said, as his right hand automatically did the very action he was trying to stop. His entire family collapsed in laughter. He frowned. "How come everyone's suddenly picking on me?"
"Cause you're the middle kid." Alan was still laughing. "It's your turn."
"Yeah," Gordon agreed with a big grin, "and now we've got some juicy ammo about our oldest brother we can save it up for later."
"Great!" Scott moaned.
"Hey Virgil." John suddenly said seriously, "Do you realise that we were only a couple of minutes away from you being the youngest brother and me being the middle one?"
Alan and Gordon stopped laughing. "It really was that close?"
"It wasn't minutes, it was seconds." Jeff informed them.
"Wow." Alan lapsed into thought.
"You know," Gordon said haltingly, "I think I can remember some of what happened." Everyone looked at him. "I think I remember a scream and being jolted about, and then darkness. I think I remember Ma's voice telling us everything would be all right."
"Anything else?" his Grandmother prompted him gently.
"About the accident? No. But I'll tell you something else that happened after my hydrofoil accident. When I woke up out of the coma everything seemed kinda familiar. I knew that Dad would be sitting beside me, before I saw him, but I expected him to look as he did 17 years earlier." He paused. "But one thing was exactly the same..." He stopped.
His family waited expectantly.
Alan grew impatient. "Well!"
"No. You don't want to hear it. You'll think I'm crazy."
"So what's new?" Alan asked.
Gordon shot him a dirty look. "I'm being serious here."
Alan looked abashed "Sorry."
"Please, Gordon." His father asked. "Tell us."
"Well..." Gordon still sounded reluctant. "At your shoulder... There was a woman..."
"A nurse?" John asked.
"No. I looked at Dad... then at the woman... She smiled at me... then I looked away... When I looked back she'd gone."
"She'd left the room?" Scott asked.
"Yeah... but no one had gone out the door."
Jeff was frowning. "After your hydrofoil accident, I was the only one in the room when you came round. And there were only male staff on duty at that time."
"So who was this woman?" John asked.
"Some psychiatrist would probably tell me it was a figment of my imagination formed out of the trauma of the events that had led to me being in hospital, but... I think it was Ma."
There was a collective intake of breath from the rest of the family.
"I'm only going on photos," Gordon continued on, "and the fact that this woman was so much like Virgil," he gave his older brother an apologetic grin, "but I honestly think it was Ma, just letting me know that everything would be okay. That she was keeping an eye on me. On us."
"Whew." Scott let out the breath he'd been holding.
Gordon was determined now to complete his narrative. "As I said, everything seemed to be familiar. I think that when I woke up after the avalanche Dad was sitting beside me, on the same side," Jeff was nodding agreement, "and 'Ma' was standing beside him. She was only there a moment, only this time..." he screwed up his eyes trying to dredge the memory up from the depths of his subconscious, "she said that I had to be brave, and that we'd be together again sometime." He gave a small chuckle. "I guess after the hydrofoil accident she was trying to tell me that it was too soon yet."
"Thank heavens for that." Mrs Tracy said quietly.
No one else said anything.
Eventually Jeff cleared his throat. "Well, I've learnt more this afternoon than I anticipated. Thank you for being so... open. I hope that from now on we won't feel so reticent about discussing the accident. It's done none of us any good keeping it bottled up, and I'm including myself in that. Does anyone else want to say anything?"
No one moved.
He looked at his watch. "Look at the time! We're late for dinner." There was a loud rumble from Scott's direction. "And I think we're being summoned to the dinner table." He stood up.
"Ah, Father." John was slow getting to his feet. "Would it be all right if..."
His father smiled genially. "I think International Rescue can survive with Thunderbird Five unattended for one night. You can head back tomorrow."
John looked relieved.
The first three boxes contained bits of pieces of clothing, belonging to various members of the family, and a number of items for cabin use. A lot of what they found caused much hilarity.
"This has gotta be Alan's" Gordon exclaimed, holding up a tiny, babies romper suit. He held it under Alan's neck. "Gee you haven't grown much."
"How about this?" Alan asked in return, he'd found a slightly larger outfit. It was coloured purple. "You must have looked 'simply divine' in this colour." Gordon screwed up his face.
"I used to fit this?!" Grandma Tracy stood up and held a dress against herself. She wasn't a big woman now, but the dress she held looked several sizes too small.
"I used to love this outfit." Jeff was holding a tan two-piece number at arms length. "All the astronauts used to wear them. We thought they made us look so dashing... 'devil may care'... reckless. The girls used to love it. Looking at it now, it's a wonder that they trusted us with a supermarket trolley, let alone a moon rocket. Taste obviously wasn't a part of the job description!"
"I don't remember this!" Virgil had found a portable keyboard. He played a scale on it. "Sure could use some tuning."
"Trust you to hone in on a piano." Scott said as he pulled a box out. "Hey, this used to be a great game. We should see if we can remember how to play it after dinner."
"You thought it was a great game because you always won." John reminded him. "Things might be a bit more even now."
In the hall Brains, Tin-Tin and Kyrano were listening to the sounds of laughter emanating from the lounge.
"It is time to prepare for dinner." Kyrano said. "Perhaps I should wait."
"T-they sound like they are enj-joying themselves." Brains said. "They m-might be a while yet."
"Why don't we make a start?" Tin-Tin suggested. "We can make something that can be re-heated if they haven't finished by the time it's ready."
There was another shout of laughter from the lounge.
"What are they doing?" Tin-Tin asked.
"The boxes. They are the ones that contained the goods that were in the car that Mr Tracy's wife and father were killed in." Kyrano informed her.
Her eyes widened. "How'd you know?"
"Mr Tracy, he told me to put them in the farthest corner of the storeroom, when we all moved to the island. I think he wished to hide them from memory."
"S-so why are they g-going through them now?" Brains asked.
"I do not know, Mr Brains. Perhaps Mr Tracy felt that it was time..."
"Time to open the last box." Jeff said as he slid the knife around the tape that sealed the box that had held the official envelope. He was feeling more relaxed now, but tensed up when he saw the contents. The rest of his family felt his change in mood and lapsed into silence.
The topmost item was contained in a sealed plastic bag. It appeared to be some kind of floral material. Jeff took it out of the box and examined it more closely. "It's the dress your mother was wearing." He eventually said.
No one knew what to say.
After a long pause Scott cleared his throat. "Let's see what else is in here." He reached in and pulled out a torch.
"That was the only light they had." Jeff told them.
Scott turned it on. Even after 22 years the light still worked. "Good batteries." He remarked before reaching into the box again. This time he pulled out a blanket. "Hey Alan. This was yours."
Alan took the midnight blue blanket. The pattern was a constellation of yellow and white stars. "It's minty."
"You were wrapped up in it." Jeff said. "Your mother must have taken it off you as the car began to get warmer."
Alan looked at the blanket again, folded it up and laid it on his lap. He'd take it back to his room when they'd finished here.
The next few items were commonplace ones - a map, a pen and paper, a box of tissues...
"Hey what's this?" Gordon reached into the box and pulled out a yellow piece of plastic.
"Fishie!" Scott, John and Jeff told him, in a chorus of laughter.
"That was your favourite toy." His grandmother told him. "We couldn't take it off you. If it went missing the whole house would be in an upheaval until it was found again."
"So that's why you became an aquanaut!" Alan snapped his fingers at the realisation. "You've spent the last 22 years looking for your plastic fish!"
Gordon put it into his pocket, before looking back into the box. "Well here's something of yours that would have been very helpful over the last 22 years." He pulled out a baby's dummy. "No wonder we can't keep you quiet. We didn't have this to shove into your mouth."
John had spied something. "Hey there's the radio." He pulled it out of the box. "Now I've got the full set again."
"Just how did you boys know to use the radios and triangulation to find the car?" Jeff asked.
"I can't remember." Scott said. "We must have studied it in one of the few classes I actually attended."
"I remember that Scott said something to me, and I turned away and the signal weakened." John said. "I didn't have a clue what Scott was doing after that, but it worked. We knew where to dig."
The next item to emerge was a battered old hat. Mrs Tracy took it. "It was your grandfathers favourite. I kept on trying to throw it out, but he always retrieved it. Said good hats were hard to find and there was still enough wear in this one that he wasn't about to waste money on a new one." She hugged the hat close to herself. "I always hated it, but he loved it."
They had reached the bottom of the box. Well nearly the bottom. Jeff reached in and pulled out another envelope. Opening it he pulled out a painting. A big green blob on a blue background. "Look! Your aeroplane." he grinned and showed Virgil.
"She took it with her?" Virgil was amazed.
"Here, let's have a look." Alan reached out and carefully took the picture. "Not up to your usual standards, Virgil."
"Hey! It's Thunderbird Two!" Gordon exclaimed, looking over his brother's shoulder.
"What?" John took the picture. "Well so it is. It's got the wings facing forwards and everything. I always said that ugly big green bug looked like it had been dreamed up by a kid. I was right."
"Ugly big green bug!" Virgil was scandalised. "She's beautiful."
"Aw!" Gordon and Alan began making kissing noises. Virgil threw a cushion at them.
The painting had returned to Jeff's hands. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I might just get this framed."
"Father! No!" Virgil protested.
"Why not? I can't have a picture of any of our Thunderbird craft on the wall, but why not a painting that my son did when he was five. I'll hang it underneath the other two you did in my office. No one will ever know what it means to us."
"Okay." Said Virgil grudgingly. He sat back and ran his fingers through his hair.
Jeff was watching him. "You really are like your mother." He said gently.
Alan and Gordon started sniggering and waited for the stock answer.
Instead, Virgil cocked an eye in Scott's direction. "So I keep getting told." Scott offered him a grin in return.
"If you want to stop people saying it," he said, "you're going to have to stop doing that."
"Doing what." Virgil was confused.
"Running your fingers through your hair." Jeff told him. "Your mother was always doing it."
"It was a refined version of pulling her hair out over you boys." Mrs Tracy commented.
"Oh!" Virgil said.
Gordon and Alan began to laugh, and the rest of the family had to grin. Virgil froze, his left hand half way towards his hair. He then used his right hand to force it back down again so he could sit on it. "I've got to get that fixed," he said, as his right hand automatically did the very action he was trying to stop. His entire family collapsed in laughter. He frowned. "How come everyone's suddenly picking on me?"
"Cause you're the middle kid." Alan was still laughing. "It's your turn."
"Yeah," Gordon agreed with a big grin, "and now we've got some juicy ammo about our oldest brother we can save it up for later."
"Great!" Scott moaned.
"Hey Virgil." John suddenly said seriously, "Do you realise that we were only a couple of minutes away from you being the youngest brother and me being the middle one?"
Alan and Gordon stopped laughing. "It really was that close?"
"It wasn't minutes, it was seconds." Jeff informed them.
"Wow." Alan lapsed into thought.
"You know," Gordon said haltingly, "I think I can remember some of what happened." Everyone looked at him. "I think I remember a scream and being jolted about, and then darkness. I think I remember Ma's voice telling us everything would be all right."
"Anything else?" his Grandmother prompted him gently.
"About the accident? No. But I'll tell you something else that happened after my hydrofoil accident. When I woke up out of the coma everything seemed kinda familiar. I knew that Dad would be sitting beside me, before I saw him, but I expected him to look as he did 17 years earlier." He paused. "But one thing was exactly the same..." He stopped.
His family waited expectantly.
Alan grew impatient. "Well!"
"No. You don't want to hear it. You'll think I'm crazy."
"So what's new?" Alan asked.
Gordon shot him a dirty look. "I'm being serious here."
Alan looked abashed "Sorry."
"Please, Gordon." His father asked. "Tell us."
"Well..." Gordon still sounded reluctant. "At your shoulder... There was a woman..."
"A nurse?" John asked.
"No. I looked at Dad... then at the woman... She smiled at me... then I looked away... When I looked back she'd gone."
"She'd left the room?" Scott asked.
"Yeah... but no one had gone out the door."
Jeff was frowning. "After your hydrofoil accident, I was the only one in the room when you came round. And there were only male staff on duty at that time."
"So who was this woman?" John asked.
"Some psychiatrist would probably tell me it was a figment of my imagination formed out of the trauma of the events that had led to me being in hospital, but... I think it was Ma."
There was a collective intake of breath from the rest of the family.
"I'm only going on photos," Gordon continued on, "and the fact that this woman was so much like Virgil," he gave his older brother an apologetic grin, "but I honestly think it was Ma, just letting me know that everything would be okay. That she was keeping an eye on me. On us."
"Whew." Scott let out the breath he'd been holding.
Gordon was determined now to complete his narrative. "As I said, everything seemed to be familiar. I think that when I woke up after the avalanche Dad was sitting beside me, on the same side," Jeff was nodding agreement, "and 'Ma' was standing beside him. She was only there a moment, only this time..." he screwed up his eyes trying to dredge the memory up from the depths of his subconscious, "she said that I had to be brave, and that we'd be together again sometime." He gave a small chuckle. "I guess after the hydrofoil accident she was trying to tell me that it was too soon yet."
"Thank heavens for that." Mrs Tracy said quietly.
No one else said anything.
Eventually Jeff cleared his throat. "Well, I've learnt more this afternoon than I anticipated. Thank you for being so... open. I hope that from now on we won't feel so reticent about discussing the accident. It's done none of us any good keeping it bottled up, and I'm including myself in that. Does anyone else want to say anything?"
No one moved.
He looked at his watch. "Look at the time! We're late for dinner." There was a loud rumble from Scott's direction. "And I think we're being summoned to the dinner table." He stood up.
"Ah, Father." John was slow getting to his feet. "Would it be all right if..."
His father smiled genially. "I think International Rescue can survive with Thunderbird Five unattended for one night. You can head back tomorrow."
John looked relieved.