Quilt
Bill rubbed his forehead as he closed the door to Tilly and Cricket's room. 'Dang it Nancy, I told you two hours after supper is too late in the day for ice cream.' Took him five hours past their bedtime to get his two blessings asleep.
"You gotta be kidding me, they fit a whole ten thousand marbles in that jar!"
Bill sighed, now onto his next problem.
"Hey, Ma." The farmer began as he tread into the living room, the old woman's eyes were glued to the T.V. as she sewed another patch onto her quilt. "How about we call it a night? You know you got that water aerobics meet in the morning."
Ma scoffed. "Billy boy I'm not going anywhere til I get this quilt finished."
Yeah, he'd figured she'd say that. "It'll still be here in the morning, c'mon you know how grumpy you get when you haven't had a full night's rest."
Ma huffed, not even slowing.
"Well alright then, if you don't mind Merideth getting on you for your form again…." His mother finally paused, taking a second to scowl as she tossed the quilt to the side and hopped off the couch.
"Darn Merideth, I'll show her a 'proper flamingo pose'."
Bill tried his best to stifle his smile as Ma shuffled past him. He turned the T.V. off after she left.
"Anyone see Phoenix? It's brushing her time." Cricket yawned still in his pajamas as he waltzed into the living room.
Gloria shrugged from her crossed legged position on the couch as she set up a pair of easels. "Last I saw, she was still eating her dog food."
Cricket hummed, heading for the kitchen only to come to a quick halt as he saw Phoenix about to accidentally waddle into the hall closet, again.
"Come here gal," Cricket crooned as he latched his arms around her hind quarters and dragged her back over by the couch. "Okay brush stroke number one." The boy had to grit his teeth as he forced the thick brush through Phoenix's even thicker curls. "Now for two-"
"That Merideth is gonna get it one of these days!" Gramma hollered as she kicked the front door open. Her hair was still wet from the pool shower as Dad walked in behind, carrying her bag.
Gloria perked up as she opened her box of acrylics. "Well hurry and get your paint brush, Rob Boss is about to come on."
Cricket laughed as he just finished Phoenix's third brush stroke. "Boss hehehehe."
Gramma sighed with a head shake as she pushed aside her easel and sat down. "Afraid I'mma have to miss our painting time today." Gramma reached for the fresh quilt slung over the armrest "I've got a quilt to finiiiiii….what in the sam hill is this?"
Cricket looked up just as Gramma unraveled the quilt to reveal, well, a quilt. "Uh, a quilt?"
Gramma narrowed her bespectacled eyes. "I know it's a quilt boy, what I'm asking is how in the heck it's all done. I coulda sworn your father made me go to bed before I could finish it."
Cricket shrugged going in for the fifth brush stroke.
"Unless…" Gramma suddenly leaped to her feet, her fiery gaze a stark contrast to Rob Boss's on the T.V. "One of you ding dongs had the nerve to touch my quilt!"
Tilly had just walked into the living room and Chip was behind her ,but as soon as he heard Gramma yell he turned right back around, saying a short "Nope." as he headed back to his room.
Tilly and Cricket shared a panicked look while Dad went stiff in the background. Meanwhile Gloria had yet to look up from her canvas.
"Alright," Gramma marched over,mindful enough to not step on Phoenix's tail. "Which one of you youngins was it?"
"Why do you think it was us?" Cricket asked as he ran the brush through Phoenix's furr. Plus, didn't they learn a lesson about this kinda thing the other day?
"Because, you two are the only ones with enough energy to get up in the middle of the night to sew an entire quilt."
"Okay that is pretty sound logic, counter point," Cricket crawled over on his knees, preparing his best teary eyed look possible. "It wasn't us Gramma, we swear! Can't you trust us!?"
Gramma narrowed her eyes, hands already placed on her stout hips. "Boy you once faked falling off a building so I'd make y'all biscuits."
"Pft, amateurs. Next time try faking something more believable like a broken wrist." Gloria added unhelpfully, realizing just a second too late what she'd said.
"Uhhh, I mean..ow darn wrist is uh, heh, acting up again I better go put some ice on it." With that Gloria nervously darted out the living room.
Gramma sighed, turning back to Cricket and Tilly. "Don't test my patience grand babies y'all know you won't like what happens."
Cricket and Tilly swallowed. "Gramma I promise from the bottom of my country boy heart, neither of us touched your quilt." Cricket shuffled over on his knees to grasp her hand in both of his. "And to prove it to you we'll figure out who the real culprit is, starting now!"
"But you haven't finished brushing Phoenix brother." Tilly reminded.
"Starting in five minutes!"
"Ok detective Green what have we got so far?" Cricket asked as he paced the kitchen floor with his arms crossed behind his back.
"Well detective Green we've got," Tilly lifted the quilt onto the kitchen table. "A quilt….that's it."
"A hard case for sure, and I was two weeks away from retirement!" Cricket bemoaned the ceiling as he hopped onto a chair and leaned over the fabric. "I suppose we should start by dusting for fingerpriiiiiinnn-or just go by this conveniently placed hair strand" Cricket plucked the little brunette hair off the quilt and lifted it up for inspection.
"You know what this means Tilly?"
"The assailant has hair?"
"Yes. Also whoever touched Gramma's quilt has brown hair, and who do we know with brown hair?"
"You, brother?"
"Wha-well yeah ,but also…"
"Dad!"
Dad jumped. "Kids! What I have told you about bursting into people's rooms?! I don't even have my socks on."
Cricket shook his head as he and Tilly hopped upon the bed. "You won't need socks where you're going punk."
Tilly nodded in agreement. "Confess now and your sentence might be lightened to ten minutes in the corner of shame instead of fifteen, with good behavior you could be out in eight."
Dad arched a brow. "What are you talking about kids?"
"I'm talking about this!" Cricket lifted the hair up for his father to see. "A Bill Green hair plain as day sittin' on the edge of Gramma's quilt. Admit it, you made Gramma go to bed early because you couldn't stand the thought of not finishing it yourself."
Dad pursed his lips. "Look boy, I think you got it all mixed up. I didn't touch Gramma's quilt last night. I don't even like sewing, remember? I always more of a woodcarver."
"Well then how do you explain the evidence, smart guy." Cricket asked with a smug grin.
His father shrugged. "You know I shed like crazy. It was probably already stuck to the couch when Gramma sat down to sew."
"That….actually makes a lot of sense." Cricket slumped slightly. "Well darn, Detective Green we gotta reconvene."
"I concur." Tilly nodded solemnly as they hopped down from the bed.
"Darn, I guess Dad was kind of a far fetched suspect. Whoever touched Gramma's quilt would have to have to be someone with an artistic side."
"Well actually kids woodcarving can be very artistic-"
Tilly hummed, ignoring Dad as she scratched her chin. "Now who do we know with that?"
"Gloria!" The bluenette jumped, her smooth paint stroke turning jagged instantly as Cricket and Tilly tumbled over themselves rushing down the basement stairs.
"Yes?" She asked through gritted teeth.
"We know it was you!" Cricket accused with a wild finger point.
Gloria's frown deepened. "Uh, I thought we dropped the whole door thing weeks ago?"
"What? No, this is about Gramma's quilt!" Cricket yelled. "We know it was you, your late night artistic tendencies got the better of you. You had to get them out somehow and what better way than to sew up an unfinished quilt in the dead of night."
Gloria blinked. "Well a few other ways come to mind, but that's beside the point. Do you actually have any evidence I touched the quilt?"
"Do you have any evidence you didn't touch the quilt?"
"That's not how that works, but I actually do." Gloria lifted her phone screen for Tilly and Cricket to see. "As you can see by my app data I spent-wow I have a problem-practically all night watching escalator fail videos."
"Oh." Cricket and Tilly slouched together with a sigh. "That actually checks out….also wow you really need some Gramma's sleep jelly tonight."
"Well this is just great!" Cricket moaned, throwing his hands into the air. "We're right back to square one."
Tilly sighed alongside him, as she shut the basement door with her foot. "I'll have to hand my badge over for this embarrassment."
"You're darn right you will." Gramma grouched, spooking them both out of their socks as she came to stand beside them. "Can't believe y'all can't find one simple culprit."
"We're trying Gramma, we really are." Tilly pleaded as she sank to her knees. "But it's harder than we thought."
"Yeah," Cricket agreed. "Thirty seconds on the job and I ain't ever seen a case like this."
Gramma sighed. "Well you'll just have to try harder, or else."
"Or else what?" Cricket finally snapped. "Why do you care so much anyway? It's just a quilt, you make 'em all the time!"
Gramma huffed, crossing her arms. "Yeah, alone…..never could get anyone else in this family into it."
Cricket and Tilly arched a brow simultaneously. "What do you mean?" Asked Cricket.
Gramma sighed again, sadder. "Y'all probably don't remember ,but when you were both younger I tried to get you into quilting."
"Really?"
Gramma nodded. "Yeah, you both hated it though, Cricket you could never sit still long enough and Tilly, you were always too afraid of the needles."
"Oh Gramma," Tilly began with a hand over her heart. "I'm sorry, we can still try to sew together if you want."
Cricket fought the urge to groan, Gramma wasn't lying he hated quilting.
Gramma shook her head. "I ain't forcing y'all takes all the fun out of quilting together." The old woman let out a sigh as she shuffled towards the window. "Back when this place was still Big Country I used to have a little quilting circle with some friends, we'd sit around and work on these big quilts, talk and mostly complain about life and what not. And one by one they all moved away (or dropped dead) over the years and… now I'm quilting by myself nowadays."
Gramma let out one last sigh as she leaned her full body weight against the window. "Guess a part of me just, got kinda excited to have someone to quilt with again."
Cricket and Tilly both got hit with a massive sadness bomb as they scrambled in their heads about what to do.
Then, as if praised by the divine hand above, Cricket's eyes caught on something peculiar on the couch.
A bloodstain.
A fresh, bloodstain.
"Bingo bango! Bingo Bango!" Cricket cheered excitedly as he pointed to the bloodstain.
Tilly arched her brow. "What's this bloodstain got to do with anything brother?"
"Because, dear sister, what usually happens at least once when someone sews?"
"They get finger cramps?"
"What? No, they prick their fingers with the needle."
"Oh I see," Tilly nodded. "But how are we gonna figure out who's blood that is."
"Oh we're not looking for who's blood it is." Cricket "We're looking for whoever's got a needle shaped wound at the end of their finger, and I know just how to go about it."
"Patty cake, patty cake-"
"Slow down Tilly!" Cricket demanded as he leaned in closer with magnifying glass. "Argh, he's clean."
Dad sighed in relief as he got up from the kitchen chair, leaving Cricket and Tilly to seriously consider their life choices as they reconvened yet again.
Chip looked at everyone weird from the other side of the table as he went back to staring at his phone, his fresh cup of coffee still wafting steam.
"Still don't know what's going on, and to be honest I prefer it that way-ouch," The blonde jerked as the tip of his pointer finger accidentally pressed against the brim of the mug.
Tilly and Cricket's eyes widened as they looked at eachother, than back at the small slit at the edge of Chip's digit.
The former ceo noticed their intense stares and quickly excused himself from the table, snagging his coffee on the way out.
"No, there's no way-"
"Chip Whistler!? I did not see that coming."
Tilly hummed, scratching her chin again. "Can we really be sure it's him though. Chip is a tad, accident prone from time to time."
Cricket huffed out a laugh. That was an understatement, one time Dad left Chip out back by himself for five minutes and the blonde somehow ended up hanging from the apple tree by his ankles with two broken ribs and a sprained wrist. According to him 'it was all the rooster's fault.'
"You're right, we need something more solid." At that exact moment a brilliant idea popped into Cricket's head. "And I know just the thing."
"Stealth mode activated." Tilly sang as they crouched by Chip's door.
"Remember the plan." Cricket said as he produced a pair of safety scissors from his back pocket. "We make a small incision in one of Chip's shirts, if it ends up sewn back together in the coming days we'll have our guy, if not, we buy Chip a new shirt."
"Already got my finances in order." Tilly replied as she twisted the door knob open. They stayed low to the ground as they snuck in like a pair of ninjas.
Chip snored like a hummingbird from his bed, occasionally twisting and turning enough to keep them on edge.
Cricket placed a finger over his mouth as he and Tilly looked for Chip's suitcase.
Cricket spotted it underneath the desk and cart wheeled himself over, trying his best to be mindful of the squeaky floorboards. Tilly mimed a bunch of stuff to him in sign language that he couldn't understand so Cricket just edged the desk chair out enough to free the suitcase.
If only that hadn't immediately caused the framed photo sitting atop the desk to fall over, causing the glass of water Chip always kept at his bedside to topple over and spill directly onto his unconscious face.
Even though Cricket couldn't understand sign language he could tell Tilly was saying "Whoops."
"NO!" Chip bolted upright. "Take my soul instead, anything ,but another tooth!"
Cricket gritted his teeth as he looked at Tilly from the corner of his eye. Awkward.
"I'll do any-" Chip blinked his eyes open in the moonlight, frowning before his gaze immediately wandered over to Tilly and Cricket standing beside his bed. "Okay hold up, what are you two doing in my room? Cricket I swear if this another whip cream prank-"
"Is everyone okay?!" Gramma burst into the small room, sword out and ready as her wild eyes darted from wall to wall. "I heard a shrill, girlish scream!"
Chip's gaze flattened in offense. It was not girlish, okay.
"We can explain!" Cricket hastily began. "Me and Tilly were just trying to prove Chip's the one who finished sewing your quilt the other night, Gramma."
"Do what now?" Uh oh.
"Chip? Seriously?" Gramma asked with an arched brow. "That makes about as much sense as your daddy's intense love of woodcarving."
"I'm telling you Gramma it was him!"
Chip huffed out a laugh. "What, do you think I couldn't sleep last night and when I went to grab a glass of water I just so happened to see the quilt and-" Chip paused. "I mean uh- where would I have even learned to sew huh?"
Definitely not from mom tricking him into it one summer when he couldn't stop complaining about how boring everything was.
"But, what about your finger!" Cricket argued. "You pricked it, we saw it!"
Chip scoffed. "I uh, cut myself shaving." He remembered lying being easier than this.
"Now if y'all are done messing up my sleep schedule," Chip stood to his full height and went to usher everyone out his room. He got the three shorties to edge of the doorway when he happened to notice the turned over picture frame.
On an impulse he leaned over and tilted it back up to reveal him,mom and Dad smiling over the pumpkins they had carved for Halloween that year.
He went back to close the door, only to do a double take as he realized Gramma had slipped beneath his arm and walked back over to his desk.
A blank look past her face as she reached out to grip the frame.
Chip frowned.
"She, she looks familiar…"
Mom?"
Chip stuffed his hands into the bottom half of his matching silk pajamas as he walked over. "Uh yeah, that's Whistler genetics for you. We all look alik-"
"Mallory…"
Chip froze, eyes wide and mouth wider. Out the corner of his eye he watched Tilly and Cricket share a look before scurrying away.
"How did you…You knew her?"
Gramma finally set the photo down. "She…she was apart of my quilting circle way back when. ..never would have guessed she'd go on to have a kid. Real quiet girl, that one."
Chip was too stunned to talk, so they just kinda stood there for a while.
"...and apparently it wasn't actually my trident, but I decided to keep it because it looks cool."
"Very cool." Chip agreed as he sat crossed legged next to Gramma, looping his thread through the next patch of fabric. "I hate that place anyway, their 'monster burger' tried to suck my face off last time I was there."
He had to move around every so often so as to avoid his wooden anklet digging into his thigh. Dad had made it for him as a baby, cause he couldn't sew baby blankets like mom could, was always more of a wood carver.
