As Told by Ginger copyright Viacom
Chapter 20: Epilogue
It was middle of the night.
They took their time returning to the Earth. Although why everyone was going to her house Dodie couldn't fathom. She knocked on the back door.
A very frantic looking Mrs. Bishop answered the door. "What is it?" she snapped before she saw who it was. Then her eyes grew in joy as she found her two children in her backyard. "Deirdre Hortense! Robert Joesph! You've returned to me!" Joann scooped them in such a bear hug, their breath was squeezed out of them.
"We're glad to see you too, mom," Deirdre managed to get out.
Joann released her hold on her children and herded them inside. Joann breathed easier now that her babies were home. Without that out of the way… "Just where were two, anyway? And I know you didn't go camping with Lois and the others."
"But we were with Mrs. Foutley and the others," Deidre pleaded. "We really were, Mom."
The corners of Joann's mouth curled up. "So where were with them?"
Deirdre and Robert exchanged uneasy looks.
Joann sighed. She was starting to get a pretty good idea where all this was heading. It was rather incredible. But she still needed reassurance that it wasn't so. She dragged her children into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. "Tell me this has nothing to do with Flying Saucers," she told them.
Their uncomfortable silence told her.
"Mother of mercy." She promptly fainted after that.
-OOO-
Lois felt that there had been something very significant happening the night before, but she could never remembered. And from the looks her children were giving her that morning, she was starting to get the idea that they knew what it had been. But why would they keep it from their own mother?
She waited until Carl and Ginger finished pouring cereal into their bowls. "Something had happened last night," she said. And nothing more.
But it seemed to have the desired effect. They froze. "What ever do you mean, Mom?" Carl tried to sound casual. But Lois Foutley knew her son too well for that.
"You know perfectly what I'm talking about, young man," she said. "And nobody's leaving this table until somebody tells me what it is."
"But, mom," Ginger said, "I have a thing with Dodie and Macie to get to in half an hour."
"It can wait."
The kitchen became very still. Nobody said a thing. Hopefully this was going to work. If it was a weekday, then it would be a problem. But, fortunately, it was a Saturday.
Unfortunately a feeling in her lower abdomen showed that there was a problem that she didn't think of when she told everyone to sit still. As if he could minds, no doubt he would go reckless using such an ability if he could, Carl asked, "What we need to use the bathroom?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." She didn't cross her legs.
Carl looked to the eyes of his mother, and sighed. "Here's the thing, Mom," he said. "Last night, at the camp-out, I sort of spiked the punch."
Lois's ire was raised a second. But just a second. Before she remembered. "We didn't have punch last night," she said.
"D'oh!"
"Why don't you me the real story. Before my bladder bursts." Now she crossed her legs.
Ginger and Carl looked uneasily at each other.
-OOO-
"Aliens?" Claire laughed. "Who ever told you that there were aliens in Sheltered Shrubs?"
"You did, actually," Euphrasia replied. There were murmurs from the assembled Protected Pines residents. I knew she was flighty, she thought. But I didn't she was ditzy. Typical blonde. Euphrasia had brought this mob to Claire's front door to get some much-needed answers.
Claire appeared thoughtful. "I might have said something like that once," she allowed.
"You most certainly did," Euphrasia retorted. Which was back by murmurs of agreement from the crowd. "Now where is this alien you promised us? We went to the spot in the woods you said to go. And you know what? We show no alien spacecraft."
Claire shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't any aliens, and that's all there is too it. Now good day." She closed the door.
Euphrasia was fuming. How the woman…? She raised her hand to actually knock on the door this time, when she a movement out of the corner of her eye.
-OOO-
"Courtney," Claire called at the foot of the steps. "Could you come down here for a sec?"
"Coming, Momma," Courtney called back.
Claire waited as her daughter appeared at the top of the stairs and then hurried down those stairs toward her. "What is it, Momma?" she asked as she made way down those last few steps.
When she "Some of the residents came by." Courtney nodded. "They said something about an alien, and for some strange reason, I thought of you."
"Well, it was your choice, Momma." Courtney clamped her mouth shut when she realized what she had just said.
"Excuse me? But what is that suppose to mean?"
"Err… nothing, Momma. Just a slip of the tongue."
"You're hiding something from me, aren't you?" Claire grabbed her daughter's arms.
Courtney's eyes started to tear up. "I just trying to keep the promise I made to you, momma."
Claire's heart skipped a beat. Did she just treat her daughter like she was five-years-old. She quickly embraced her daughter. "I'm sorry," she said. "I won't force you to break your promise." I'll just find some other way to uncover this secret."
-OOO-
Dodie was lying on the couch in her parents' basement. "I still don't get it, guys. Just how did we keep our brains from being erased?"
"It was out promise," Macie replied. "The one we can't ever break."
"Oh yes. That one."
"Believe me," Hoodsie said. "He wasn't kidding. Blake has tried to brag to Blake, but the words just wouldn't come."
"But what I don't understand is," Macie said, "why Ginger's mom and Mrs. Gripling choose to lose their memories and not promise not to tell."
"Maybe it was so they could find the truth later on." They looked. And found Darren heading down the stairs. "We have enough clues lieing around."
"What do you mean, Darren?" Dodie asked.
"Where was Mrs. Gripling before our little rendevouz in the woods?"
They were silent for a minute, thinking.
Suddenly Macie looked at her watch, frowning. "And what's keeping Ginger?"
"Carl isn't coming?" Hoodsey asked.
Dodie answered him. "Ginger said that he was planning to rub it in the face of Brandon."
"He won't be able to of course," Macie said sadly.
"No," Dodie agreed. "I guess not."
"Does anyone know if our host survived," Darren said.
Dodie shook her head. "And I don't think we'll ever find out."
Darren sighed. "I suppose not."
-OOO-
"You're on the right track," the young black girl in the trench coat and sunglasses had said. What did she knew? She had said she had a secret, but had indicated that she couldn't divulge it. She had taken an oath she had said. One that she couldn't break.
But from the look on her face, Euphrasia could only surmise that it had something to do with the alien that Claire had announced. "I swear, Little Miss Hostess," she said to a photo of Claire that she was holding. "I find that little alien of yours, no matter it takes."
-OOO-
"Did she take the bait?" Mipsy said over the phone.
"Hook, line and sinker," Miranda replied with smirk. "Socialites are only too eager to bring their neighbors down."
"I'm just glad that our little oath didn't include giving people little nudges toward the truth."
"Oh yes. Most fortuitous." Miranda began laughing. Most fortuitous indeed.
-OOO-
It would seem that Courtney thought that she left through the back door unobserved. Claire knew better. She had watched her daughter creep out of her bedroom wearing black clothes, and carrying knack sack filled with… Claire didn't know what, so she decided to follow her.
Once out of the door, she looked both and headed left.
And Claire followed.
-OOO-
Yeah, it's a little open-ended. But I don't see any other way to end it. Maybe My story will end differently.