The Mysterious 'Ship
Chapter 7: Drive, Reverse, Drive
Things only got worse as time went on.
"Are you sure you're okay, Luan?" her father asked. They were all sat around the dinner table and, though she hated it, she lied and nodded her head.
"Yeah," she said through a yawn as she fell back on a rehearsed cover. "Just stumped with my new routine, that's all."
Luna swallowed the food in her mouth before saying, "Is that what's been going on? I thought it was those books."
Luan made a show of considering Luna's words. "Might be that, too, but lately it's mainly writer's block, I guess." She really wished they'd stop asking questions. She might slip up and blurt something out. And like hell she wanted that to happen!
But of course they'd ask, even she knew what she looked like. Sure, she did her best to keep appearances up, but she knew she was looking crazier with each passing day.
Of course, that's all it was. Looking. Not going.
All this may have been driving her crazy, but she wasn't going crazy. Big difference.
Lincoln asked after her as well, but she did her best to disengage, to wave him away. Never harshly, because she wasn't sure if that would set him off, make things worse, but she did her best not to be in the same room alone with him that whole rest of the week.
It was rather difficult, especially given that he seemed hard up to be near her now.
"Ah, look at the time!" Luan laughed nervously as she and Lincoln stood in the kitchen. No one else was home and she really didn't want to be so close to him right then. "I, uh, gotta go…um… talk with Giggles! Yeah, you know… uh, things and stuff!" Lincoln looked stunned but said nothing as Luan inched around him, never once touching him as she did, and power walked out of the room.
The next time was when she went to the garage. She barely managed the excuse that she thought she saw a squirrel trapped and that's why she crawled out the hole in the roof Lisa put there recently, but she was proud to have thought it up so quickly.
But even her luck had to run out.
Damn it all!
She wanted to throttle her parents, something she never thought she'd ever want to do, when they'd assigned her and Lincoln to clean the attic that Saturday.
Trading was out of the question. The older girls would think something was up while the younger girls were called away to help their parents do other tasks. So Luan's rotten luck meant she was stuck there.
Literally.
Very, very literally.
"Uh, Sis?" Lincoln said as Luan pounded on the attic hatch. "Er, I don't think that's gonna help."
A strand of hair fell into Luan's face, sweat plastering it along the bridge of her nose and giving her just enough of an air of I-will-cut-you to make him back off when she looked his way.
Still, she said as politely and calmly as she could manage, "What else can we do, Lincoln? And also," now Luan considered it, this seemed kind of suspicious, "why'd you close the hatch to begin with?"
"It wasn't me!" Lincoln shook his head.
Luan sighed, huffed. "Then we should at least get someone's attention, shouldn't we? Check around, maybe we can-" something caught her attention then. "Hey, do you hear that?"
They stopped and listened. Someone was just below them.
"Hello!" Luan and Lincoln shouted at the same time. "Can someone help us!"
It was their father who called up, "Luan? Lincoln? What are you two doing? Aren't you supposed to be cleaning?"
Luan hollered down, "The hatch was closed on us and now it's stuck!"
Their father swore. "Really?" then the hatch rustled, the mechanism rattling but refusing to give.
It was decided, after a consultation between Lana, Rita and Lynn Sr. that they'd just break the hatch if necessary, but that they'd first try to get it unstuck. Whatever it was, neither Luan nor Lincoln knew nor had the tools to fix it if they did, so they sat away from the hatch, sighed, and both prayed that neither would need to use the bathroom while they waited to be freed.
But now Luan's fear began growing.
Alone, in the attic, with her brother who was madly in love with her-
Okay, calm down, she reminded herself that she didn't know if Lincoln was madly in love with her. For all she knew, it could just be infatuation, that's all. Sure.
Then she considered the situation from a different angle.
"Hey, Linc?"
"Yeah?"
Luan considered her plan of attack, looked around; nearby, she could see an old lamp that might be enough to bludgeon a horny out-of-control boy before shaking her head furiously.
Get. A. Grip. Girl, she told herself. "Wanna talk?" Oh, so smooth, Luan.
"About what?" Lincoln and she both leaned back against some boxes, stared up at the ceiling. In the distance they heard their parents and Lana tromping up the stairs.
Luan wondered how to approach this. Then, deciding to just dive on in, she looked over and asked, "How's your crush?"
She really couldn't work up the ability to be playful about it. Especially given that she was afraid of what she'd hear.
But then Lincoln surprised her as he said, "Oh, good."
Well, Luan wouldn't say good, exactly.
"How so?"
Lincoln shrugged. "Well it's not like anything's changed between us so, you know, good."
She wanted to know more, needed to. "So, what's your crush like?" when he looked at her, Luan waved her hand. "You know, looks?" then she crossed her arms and kept one eye on him for any reaction. "I mean, all I know is you like long legs, apparently."
Lincoln looked away, stared at the wall. Before she could urge him on, he spoke up again. "Well, you know what I said about long legs?" Luan nodded. "Well, I'd definitely say that their soft dark hair is possibly even better than that, if you can believe it."
She nodded again.
Then stopped.
"Soft dark hair?" she wanted to find a reflective surface, get a good look at herself.
He nodded now. "Yeah, definitely one of their best features, if you ask me."
But her hair was brown, she knew that for an absolute fact!
Then it clicked.
No way.
Uh-uh.
Luan's eyes widened, and she turned away as she felt her jaw slacken. Was he looking her way? Did he see her?
Oh, oh, oh!
It was all Luan could do to keep from bursting out laughing her head off.
That's who he has a crush on! It has to be! It explains so much!
And she failed.
Lincoln just stared at Luan, watched as she kicked the air, clutched at her stomach and laughed until it hurt. And then laughed some more.
When she finally started calming down, he asked, "What was that all about?"
She shook her head, wiped her face with her hand. "Oh, I needed that! Er..." remembering who she was talking to, Luan put both her hands up. Now he seemed far, far and away less threatening, she reached over and hugged him, not caring that he stiffened a little in her grip as she laughed some more. "Thanks Lincoln! You... uh, helped me break my writer's block," she lied. "That's all."
When she let him go, it was his turn to inch away a bit. "Really? Well, th-that's good, I guess?" but he kept an eye on her afterward.
But she did nothing else. Well, save for giggle madly.
When her parents and Lana finally got the hatch unstuck she was the first out as she said she needed to use the bathroom. Lincoln just shrugged and went down to get a drink since their father excused them from cleaning.
Just as the bathroom door was closed, however, Luan clapped her hands over her mouth to hold in a squeal while she rocked back and forth on the floor.
Then she burst out laughing again.
"Oh this is rich!" she hissed under her breath, tried everything to keep herself under control so nobody heard her. "Why the heck didn't I think of that earlier! Of course he didn't have a crush on any of us! We aren't the only ones he wakes up to, and I'm not the only one who wears yellow!"
She kicked her legs again, it was just too much.
It all fell into place now; of course his crush was unattainable! Because his crush was crushing on someone else all along!
"Clyde!" she gasped, laughing harder still. "Oh wow, my brother's got a crush on Clyde!"
But when she said it, she noticed something.
What the hell was this hint of disappointment she was feeling in the back of her mind?
And then, she thought about it a bit more; did Clyde really have big teeth? She didn't know, come to think of it. But Lincoln would, he'd been best friends with the dork for a while now. And maybe Clyde did have long legs, who knew? Small nose, perky ears. Luan had to admit she wasn't entirely aware of the particulars of Clyde's appearance, but hey, whatever floats Lincoln's log!
She briefly started to gag when that quip slipped into her mind.
When she finally calmed down and looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but laugh at her appearance; so ragged, and all for that?
Geez.
After a few more seconds to recover, Luan considered what she'd tell her sisters as she pulled her pants down and sat on the toilet. She couldn't help laughing again as she thought of how stupid she had to have been thinking Lincoln had the hots for one of them, for her!
After she was done she reached over, grabbed some toilet paper and was just about to clean up when she noticed something rather interesting.
Her breathing quickened, pulse and nostrils flared. Her body shook uncontrollably as a cold streak went down her spine.
"Soft dark hair?" her jaw quivered, eyes widened.
Slowly, she closed her legs, hunched over, looked around the bathroom in fear.
"No." She couldn't believe it. There was just no way! "No."
"Please no."
