A/N: See I can update more frequently. Thanks for all the birthday wishes and such. I have a really long note at the bottom referencing a reveiw I received from my "out of place chapter." You can skip it if you wish or not. Also there may still be a few mysterious "s" floating around, just assume tat the word is supposed to be "girls" and keep going. The filter at the computer at my current residence likes taking words out at random. Anyway don't forget to click the review button, if you notice I got a lot of reviews for the last chapter and I updated licky split hint hint. I also have the story more or less planned out for the next few chapters so hopefully there will be no month long pauses. Now on to the story...
Disclaimer: I don't own them, don't even know what I would do with them if I did, well maybe I'd ducttape 'em to my ceiling ;-)
Hazel wasn't a bit surprised that all seven of the guys were silent as they followed Pip and Calyx into the farmyard. Pip's plan on waking them up was sure to make them all nervous. The idea was to make them so nervous that they wouldn't try anything more. Hazel thought a few of the girls were also hoping for an apology, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't going to happen. These boys were still convinced that they hadn't done anything wrong. For them to realize that they had would take more than just a trip to the jail and an early wake up call.
As the boys trudged to the barn Hazel heard Pip yell, "You guys missed lunch, see you at supper time." Pip and Calyx entered the house and began giggling. "Hazel you missed it. You should have seen their reaction as we woke them. They didn't know what happened till they were all awake."
"Even the deputy thought it was fun." Calyx said with a smile.
"Well that is because we didn't pour water all over the boys. I think he would have been less friendly if we had done that." Pip explained as she made her way to the stove.
"You're back, how did the wake up call go?" Michelle asked as she came in the kitchen, her hair covered by a handkerchief.
"Well, really well, the guys are out in the barn, getting cleaned up. They have some chores to do but they know they have some apologizing to do before we allow them to eat dinner." Calyx was helping herself to bread and butter.
"They can apologize all they want it, but it won't make their problems go away. The other girls are talking." Michelle started, but stopped as the rest of the girls entered.
As the rest of the girls congregated in the kitchen Calyx and Pip were peppered with questions; after they all sat down at the table the questions started coming in a logical order. "So Pip how did the boys react?" Hazel asked.
"They reacted like I thought they would, jumping up and falling all over each other until they realized they were in jail." Pip answered.
Calyx gave her a look, "Then they began cursing."
"Do you think they are really angry?" Helen asked throwing a look at the door.
"Of course they are angry, but it isn't like they can do anything about it." Pip said with a shrug.
"What all did you do? I want details." Michelle said perching on the table top.
"Okay we went in quietly, then we began banging the pots and Pip yelled that they needed to get up because the presses are rolling?" Calyx looked at Pip for conformation.
"Yep, they're newsies, from what I understood that was the only thing that gets them moving in the morning. That and the promise of breakfast, but we weren't about to feed them. And you should have seen them. Oh the confusion, I wouldn't be surprised if Blink has a black eye after this." Pip was smiling.
"Parker is going to have a black eye?" Hazel seemed a bit excited.
"Well Sam thought so. And he was so nice about letting us do that. Sam even said if they ended up in his jail again that he would want us to wake them up for him." Pip had a bit of a dreamy smile.
"Sam is it?" Hazel teased, "And who exactly is Sam?"
"Sam's the deputy." Pip said off handedly.
"So the guys will be doing the chores again?" Saiorse asked suddenly.
"Of course, they should get the barnyard ones finished pretty quickly. I know Skittery had mentioned that having to go work out with the horses at some point." Pip assured her.
"Well it sounds like they were put in their place." Anne commented as she began to walk out of the kitchen.
"But how are we going to treat them now?" Trish, who had been silently listening to the older s talk asked.
"Treat them?" Michelle asked snidely, "Sweets we treat them they way they treated us. No mercy."
"Well do we have to treat them all like that?" Trish questioned.
"Yes all of them, they were absolutely horrible in tricking us into coming out here." Anne said snidely.
"Exactly, I will not be treated like that ever again." Saiorse agreed.
"I think we should just ignore them." Helen said nervously.
"Ignoring them won't make them go away. But why did you ask Trish?" Pip responded.
"Well Mush is kinda cute and he was really nice to me at the station." Trish said with a shrug.
"Kinda cute? Don't you think he might have been nice at the station just to make you like him since he had tricked one of us into coming?" Michelle said incredulously.
"I'm only angry at the guy who wrote to me, it's his fault I'm here. Not Mush's."
"Well I'm mad at Mush because he was the one who wrote me. And you should be mad at all of them. I don't care who wrote me, they all had a hand in this. They all wrote us knowing what they were doing. But you're welcome to him. There is no way I would marry any of these guys now." Anne said putting her hands on her hips.
"So what are you going to do Anne?" Hazel asked.
"I'm writing my parents, they'll send me the money to come home. If I promise to marry the man they want me to." Anne said resignedly.
"You really want to marry a man of their choosing?" Pip asked her voice a bit skeptical.
"Well no, but it isn't as if I have any choice." Anne's voice was now full of regret.
"You don't have to marry one of these guys. There are plenty of men in town. I'm sure any of them would like a nice woman from out East to marry." Hazel pointed out.
"Okay but what are we going to do about the men here? We can't just let them think they have free reign here." Anne said her voice holding a bit of hope.
"I have an idea." Calyx said motioning the girls to gather close. They began discussing some ideas an occasional giggle coming from the circle.
Out in the barn the seven guys were fuming about their wake up call. "Can you believe those two? Acting like they were the queens of the town." Jack said throwing a pitchfork full of hey into the milk cow's stall.
"I just don't get it what did we do wrong?" Mush asked.
"We brought them all out at one time. If we had done it one at a time like I suggested it wouldn't have happened." Skittery said morosely.
"Oh it would have happened, six separate times." Spot said simply.
"You do know you did deserve something for what you did. You all lied to those girls in there. They came out here expecting to live with a new husband on a farm and raise lots of babies. You guys crush that dream in two minutes by showing up in mass at the train station. They have no time to adjust to that fact before you all decide to head out. No wonder they ganged up on you." Chaney pointed out.
"Shut up old man, you have no idea what they were expecting." Jack scoffed.
"Well boy I know what Miss Williams was expecting and it certainly wasn't to live in a house with seven other girls dealing with seven guys." Chaney said giving Jack a pointed look.
"Fine they were expecting romance and moonlight walks. Well this is Texas romance isn't exactly part of the scenery. They just have to except that." Race commented.
"Don't matter what they expect, but we have a house full of angry girls just waiting for us to screw up so they can send us back to Davis's jail." Skittery's tone was depressing.
"Fine then how do we make them unangry?" Race asked looking around for suggestions.
No one spoke up, finally Chaney gave them an obvious answer, one none of them wanted to hear. "Apologize. Be nice to them; make sure they got enough cow chips for their fire. Keep the yard clean, sweep the porch, bring the milk and eggs to them each morning. That sort of thing."
"That's too much work." Spot scoffed. "Why would we do that, the girls back home just practically fell at our feet."
"Well you never kidnapped any of those girls and brought them to the middle of no where telling them they had to marry you." Chaney reminded him.
"Maybe we should apologize." Mush suggested.
"Fine we'll apologize, but who is going to do it?" Spot asked. All eyes turned to him as one. "What me?"
"Well Pip is your sister and Calyx is your wife. You have the most influence. If they forgive you the all the girls will." Jack pointed out.
"Fine." Spot said surly. He stalked out of the barn and walked up to the house the other guys following him as a group. He straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
Pip answered the door with a superior look. "Can I help you Ben?"
"Well Penelope there is something I want to say on behalf of all us guys to all of you ladies." He said seriously, ignoring her evil glare at her name.
"Fine, hey the boys are coming to grovel." Pip yelled back into the house.
The girls gathered at the window and door to await Spot's apology. He looked back at the guys before he began. "Okay we're sorry for tricking all of you into coming out here. We just wanted to have wives and we didn't think of how you all would react to coming here so surprisingly. We ask that you won't be mad at us anymore and we'll do our best not to screw up anymore." He motioned to the guys, who in one voice said, "We're sorry."
"Your apology needs more work to be appropriate." Pip said before she slammed the door. The guys watched opened mouthed as Hazel made an obscene gesture before pulling the curtains shut. They were left wondering what they had still done wrong.
Really long A/N: This is in response to a review that commented on the cursing in my story. I guess I didn't realize I was cursing, because I do it so rarely and I don't think my swears are all that bad. Then again my internet software blocks cuss words. So anyway I'm sorry if anyone thinks that there is too much cursing in my stories. I feel where I use it were it is appropriate given the characters for the most part are street rats who grew up in the slums of New York City. Plus I compare my work with other stories in this section, in particular and the site in general, and I think I'm actually quite clean in both my language and my content. Anyway I hope I haven't turned anyone off to my story because of my language, if anything I hope that I gain people who are looking for quality stuff that doesn't involve Mary-Sue look alikes and slash.
