A/NFirst off I must appologize on how long it's taken to get this chapter up.But I'm sure you understand with the school year coming to a close. Marik, Hyzenthlay, and Kurai thanks for your first time reviews, I hope to hear more from you. Kerei, hun, I luv ya hugs You've stuck around and reveiwed from the off and without you I would have stopped writing when my lil sis the realy Serena lost intrest. Marik you said this was a unquie fic I hope that's a good thing. Well, the chapter title has probably already caught your eye so I'll shut up. Thank You!
Mud and Teenagers
Ryou awoke early the next morning aware of only two things. He was on the floor of his room with Serena, and Bakura and Lilly were in the girls room talking in whispers. Mrs. H had given the Okay for the later two to spend the night in the same room due to the fact that the moment either left the goats side she screamed bloody murder. But that was no excuse for his current position. So he eased himself from Serena's grip, as she had her arm around him, then managed to get a blanket for her from his yami's bed and crawl into his own. It was Sunday morning so he only had a little while to wait before Bakura and Lilly left for church. Of course that was saying Matt was on time. He found the silence between the three most disturbing the day before. Matt seemed angry with the other two who just seemed to be sharing in some secret.He rolled over to face the wall and was nearly back to sleep all the worries in his mind swiming wildly when the voices came to his room.
"Told you. Now let's hurry up. Matt'll be here soon." Lilly whispered harshly.
"I've half a mind to"
"It doesn't matter what you've a mind to do. We did the same thing. Mama ain't stupid if she thought anything would happen she'd of bolted us in seprate rooms." There was a long pause before he heard them shuffle out. He lay dozing in and out of sleep untill he heard the door shut and the light click of the dead bolt. Then sleep over whelmed him and sleep fully consumed him.
Lilly sat in the back seat holding a bottle for the goat in her arms. The only sound in the Jeta was the grunting of the little creature she was feeding. The two teens in the front seat refused to speak to one another. They'd never really said much but we're at least social before. Matt had somehow found out about the night in the barn and upon seeing the goat figured out the sleeping arangments. Matt hadn't looked at Lilly at all and she knew what he thought. The ride was easily uneventful. They went in to the church and down to the basment where the Sunday school and day care,for those to young for the school, was held. Lilly carried the box with the little doe in it to their room. Already three todlers sat playing with legos. The two girls were building a house for their Barbies while the boy sat stacking them haphazardly around his G.I. Joe.
"Guess what I brought." Lilly exclaimed announcing her presence. The three toddlers sprung up and came to pull at her sleeve, or in the case of Luke, he climbed up Bakura's leg.
"Baka. Baka. Baka." he chanted in a sing song voice.
"Morning little one." Bakura greeted.
"What did Miss Wiwwy bwing me Baka?"
"You'll see." Bakura plucked the small boy off his hip and sat him on the ground. Lilly sat the box on the floor in a corner out of the way. Both the girls cooed over the small creature withing the cardboard prison.
"Matt, I'm gonna go tell Lou we're here." Lilly said. Matt nodded but didn't reply. Lilly wasn't about to beg for forgivness nor would she explain herself. Instead she went out of the small room back up stairs into a small office off down a hall to the right. Father's office was more of a broom closet then and office. He sat at a small desk and went over his sermon.
"Father, we're here." he looked up and smiled.
"Good. How's the little goat? Have a name yet?"
"She's fine, but we still haven't found a name for the little goat."
"Did the boys agree to take the kids trick-or-treating?"
"Bakura will. I haven't talked to Matt yet."
"Okay. Well people will be ariving soon you best get back down there. Thanks agian for helping out so much with the kids."
"Father, I wouldn't have it any other way." She thought she heard him mutter something but didn't go back to listen.
After the 11 o'clock mass the goat was restless from having been petted and poked at for the past 4 hours. Matt seemed to have decided nothing had happened the previous two nights but still didn't say more than he had to. Lilly knew this was because she'd kicked his ego. Allison was the last child left in their care beyond Lou's neices and nefew.
"Teddy, will be here soon Miss Lilly. He likes to talk to the girlies." Allison asured her as she gave the goat a bottle.
"I doubt he'd leave his little sister. Ted don't seem like someone who would want to face your mother."
"Nope. Mommy gets really ugly when she's mad." the little girl giggled.
"Lils Ted's nearly here." Matt called from the door way where he was picking up Barbie clothes, grumbling about the size of the dolls clothes. Sure enough the not thirty seconds later Ted walked through the door.
"Hello Miss Lilly." he greeted coming to kneel infront of his sister. "What have you got there sis?" he asked.
"Miss Lilly's baby goat. Itin't her cute?" Allison asked. Lilly wondered if she had ever looked at her brother with the admiration that was in Allison's baby blue eyes.
"She sure is. Did you ask Lilly what you were talking about the other day?"
"Oh. Miss Lilly, will you teach me how to ride?" Allison asked. Allison was the oldest kid in their little day care. Her parents didn't want her in Sunday school and the next year she would be sitting up stairs in a pew with her family.
"A horse?" the little girl nodded. "How about you come over to my house on Friday after school and we'll pick you out a horse."
"Really? You'll teach me?"
"Sure. As long as you promise to listen to me. Horses can be very dangerous. I don't want you to get hurt." Ted snatched up the goat as his baby sister jumped off the chair and threw her arms around Lilly's legs.
"Thank you Miss Lilly."
Like every Sunday Ryou and Serena had gone down stairs to check the others. They'd been busy so the pair hadn't stayed long. Serena had spent most of the time since the goat was born coming up with names. The newest one was Interplanet Janet. After which she had started singing the song and even put the video in when they got home. Ryou was forced out of the house when he found himself singing along with Serena and the tape. He wondered around for a while before finding himself comencing in the day's chores. He'd nearly finished milking the last goat when the trio pulled in the drive. He quickened his pace as much as possible careful not to injure the goat's teets. He'd taken to milking the goats which he'd heard Matt make jokes about. He finished just in time to set the goat out as Lilly came in talking to herself. Or so he asumed he didn't stay long enough to find out. Instead he went to find Serena. She was, as he expected, in her room working on the end of her school work. So he flopped on to her bed and waited for her to finish.
"Where's your hat?" she asked as she printed off her book report.
"In my room." he muttered. He had only excepted the hat because she had spent all her saved allowance for it after discovering she'd missed his birthday. It was a deep brown leather cowboy hat.
"Why donna you wear it?" she asked. He only shrugged. "What you wanna do today?"
"I don't know. There's nothing to do here on Sundays."
"Suteki mentioned a party or something." Serena mummbled reading back over her summary of The Seven Songs of Merlin.
"I don't much care for that sort of thing... We can go though if you'd like."
"Nah. It'll just end up with one of the morons getting into the host's dad's beer. Then half the kids'll have a hang over tommorrow morning."
"I thought this was supposed to be a quiet little town. Where every girl is the apple of their father's eye and the boys are all the boy next door." he teased.
"Once upon a time. Of course ask Lils and things are still like that. Oh they home yet?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I've come up with another name."
"What's this one?"
"Lady Elanie. She was the mother of Sir Galahad. She tricked Sir Launcelot into sleeping with her making him think she was Queen Gwenuvier. Isn't that cool?"
"Not really. Launcelot was King Arthour's best friend, and he meant to sleep with his best friends wife? That just sounds like a Soap Opera. What happened to Galahad?"
"He was knighted after being raised by nuns or something. Well first he was a squire. But in the long run he became known as the perfect knight and one of the two knights who claimed the Holy Grail."
"Well at least their son was a good person."
"Do you think they'll like that name?"
"Lilly will. I don't know about Bakura."
Bakura agreed to the name simply because Lilly seemed to like it. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. She seemed oblivious though. Since he'd realized who it was that she reminded him so much of he'd had a lot of trouble telling her no. Which, as far back as he could remeber, was never a problem. He couldn't remeber much about this Norfret girl. Just the basics. Enough to know she was something else. On Friday Allison had shown up with her older brother. This was the pairs second visit this time was for Allison to get riding lessons. She'd chosen to learn to ride on Athena. The school week even passed by without problems. That Saturday he was supposed to go trick-or- treating with Father Lou's neices and nefew. The costumes he'd seen we're disgusting. You could dress like anything from Barbie to Bob the Builder to your favorite duel monsters card. Of course there were more traditional costumes like cowboys, princesses, vampires and ghosts. Lilly hadn't said what she was going as yet. But had promised the children she'd dress up.
He stared at the cracks in the plaster on the ceiling listening to Chris and Lilly outside the window. He'd found an old water gun and was chasing her around the yard with it. As grown up as Lilly tried to act she'd never really gotten passed age seven at heart. It was even more obvious as she laughed and called out empty threats at her cousin. Somewhere out there mounted up on horses was his hikira, Serena, and one of her friends Suteki. They were rarely apart. From what was said Suteki was the only one of Serena's friends to have stayed around after she lost her memory. He figured if he understood either of the two sisters it would be Serena. But she was a complete mystery. Which was, he gessued, the reason Ryou was so fasinated by her. One day she was this little angle who'd never dream of doing anything harmful the next day she would be wearinig all black have her nails and lips painted black and a fake piercing in her eyebrow. No one ever said anything about the frequent personality changes. Mrs. Halse said she was just trying to find herself.
This was Lady El's last night week in the house. She'd be moving to the barn this weekend. He considered this as the goat nuzzled into him. He had wondered around with hickies on his ear lobes for the first two weeks. Which had made him the butt of most of Matt's jokes. Now that the goat was moving to the barn Matt's topic of choice was separation anxiety. Matt liked to make fun of anything he didn't understand or didn't like. Lilly never paid him much attention when he'd start his little jokes otherwise the two spoke in a short hand language of their own. It wasn't just them who spoke this language it was all of the Halses, Mandy, and Matt. Just then something smacked into this window making Lady jump up and shriek. Bakura sat up and pulled the kid into his lap cooing to her as he investigated the window. It was absoultly soaked with a yellow liquid. As he stared at the window a fist size brown rock hit it. Again the goat tried to leave but he stroaked Lady El behind the ears and she relaxed.
"Hey! WHITEY! Come play with us!" Lilly hollared. Normally she spoke a rather understandable version of the english language. But when ever she got excited or upset her words slurred and a twang entered her voice. Bakura held back a laugh and opened the window as El beat her head into it trying to get to Lilly's voice.
"What if I don't want to?" he called back.
"Chrissy did I ask him if he wanted to?" she asked her cousin her left hand placed on her hip. She looked so sassy standing down below.
"Nah. You never ask. I ain't never once heard ya ask for a single danged thing." Chris the son of a teacher never swore unless it was well warrented.
"Fine. Elly's getting restless anyway." He called down to them. Then shutting the window he plucked up the kid and made his way outside.
"The terd bombs and water gun is a little boring. What you guys wanna do?" Chris asked. He was the only one walking looking forward. Bakura and Lilly walked backward to watch Lady El. "You can stop watching her. My goodness I've not seen you act like this over an animal since Seth was born."
"Oh hush Christopher." he grumbled. Chris laughed at him when Lady El began to stumble on her landing from one of her leaps and he sprang forward to catch the little goat.
"There's nothing to stop all this rain from flooding the feilds, aside from the trenches." Lilly said with a grin, turning back around.
"So?" Chris asked.
"We've got a truck with 4-wheel drive, tweenty arcers of mud, and all day."
"What about her?" Bakura asked picking up on Lilly's line of thought.
"There's no one in the stalls down in the goat barn. You go put her in there with one of the younger kids and I'll go get the truck started?" she suggested. Bakura nodded. "Chris?"
"Got gas?"
"No, the stink is probably the dung heap." Lilly grinned. Bakura reached down and plucked up the goat.
"I'll be right back."
"Meet us down at the edge of the field."
It took the group all of fifteen minutes to get the trio out to the field. Chris drove the truck out and circled the fields keeping the speed up. Lilly rolled the window down and stuck her head out. Careless of the hunks of mud and corn stalks that flew up. He did donuts in great cirlces. Then he'd just race from one end to the next.
"Kura, you ever drive anything like this?" Bakura shook his head.
"No, never drove a car." Bakura said looking at the steering wheel. Chris stopped walked to the other side of the truck.
"Scoot over and take the wheel. You've gotta learn sometime." Chirs said hauling himself into the cab of the pick-up. Bakura scooted over and took the wheel. He pressed his foot down on the gas and they shot right out of the field straight for the woods. About half an inch from a tree he slammed the break.
"Why the hell would you want to opperate these things?" He demanded slamming the door. Lilly filed out behind Chris looked at the front bumber of her truck.
"No damage. Get back in. This time don't put your foot all the way down and steer." she told him. Bakura rolled his eyes and hesitantly started the truck again. Lilly talked him through backing up. "No really slowly put your foot down untill you get to a speed you like... Good. Now sweetie you're gonna want to turn." she said ignoring Chris' and Bakura's looks. Bakura, all the same, did as he was instructed and was soon driving large circles around the field at a rather slow speed compared to the one Chris had kept. He'd slow way down and almost stop then speed back up. It was on one of his slowing downs that he stopped.
"What are you doing?" Chris asked.
"It won't go." He said pressing the gass down completely. The truck groaned. She leaned forward and patted the dash..
"Come on baby doll. Ole Bri come on baby." she chanted. The truck still refused to move."Okay Bakura you're gonna stay in here and keep hitting the gas. Chris wanna get out and push?" her cousin nodded so she slid out of the cab with him and both of them moved to the back of the truck. Leaning into it they pushed.
"Cat litter?" she shook her head.
"Not yet." The truck began to move again then slid back down into the hole it was creating. "Okay let's try the cat litter." she sighed. "Stop turn it off. Uh bring me the radio from in there." Bakura jumped out of the truck and moved to her side having an easier time of moving than they were. He didn't sink half as much.
"Here, who's back there that you can get to help?" he asked.
"Matt, he said he'd be in the stables for a bit. He wasn't going to leave untill just before dinner. Mathew? You there?" she said into the microphone.
"Yeah, on my way out what's wrong?"
"We're stuck."
"Stuck? How'd you get stuck?"
"We took the truck out. You wanna bring us some cat litter?" she waited a moment "Please?" she pouted. She hated to beg, or pout, or even have to ask for help. Being self sufient was one of the biggest ability you must have to become a Seto Kiaba clone.
"Yeah, I'll come out on the tractor. It'll be faster and I'll bring chains so we can pull it out if we have to."
"Thanks. You here from the girls and Ry lately?"
"The SSR, as Suteki imformed me they are to be called, just got back and put away their tack. If you need them I can go grab them."
"No, just wanted to make sure they got back okay."
Bakura sat on the empty bag of cat litter. Lilly knelt at his side occasionally barking orders to Matt and Chris who were busy trying to rock and pull the truck out of it's pit. Matt would regularly let out a sting of swears. Never before had he seen Lilly afraid. Now she seemed to be.
"We might have to leave it and get your dad out here." Matt called swinging down off the tractor
"NO! We can't he'll skin me."
"Okay, I've got one more idea Sissy." Chris said grabbing one of the chains. "We hook this to the bumber and then to the tractor and drag 'er out." Matt shrugged.
"It's worth a shot. I just hope we don't hurt the truck. Dad'll kill us if we do." It was funny hearing them talk about Mr. Halse as if he were dangerous. He'd never so much as raised his voice. He shot a look at Lilly. Her hands were shaking so she'd stuck them between her knees pressing them together. But she continued to rock back and forth
"You gonna make it there?" she nodded.
"Dad loves the cars. I mean if it were an animal or one of our selves that we got stuck or hurt or whatever he'd flip but the cars. When Justin was fourteen he drove Dad's brand new pick up through the pasture. No biggie we'd done it half a dozen times before. This time Jus wasn't paying attention and crashed the truck into a corner post. Killed the car. Dad went nuts." she shook her head. "I'm in deep this time." she smiled.
"What?"
"I was trying to break Seth and Mandy had Loki in the pen he crashed into. I never thought about it before. I s'pose I was more worried about my brother in that moment. They were good horses untill they saw the crash. After that they started breaking out of everything." She lost her balance and flopped into the thick mud. Before he could move to pull her back to her feet the truck and tractor reeved in usion he looked up and the truck slowly moved out of the mud. From the tractor Matt let out a triumphant hoot.
"We can stop the SOS signals we're free!" Chris yelled out the window. Lilly stood up to fall down again. She laid there for a moment.
"Kura, would you mind?"
"Yes, but I don't want to listen to you're complaining either." he said reaching down to pull her to her feet. They took off after the truck and tractor. The time Lils had spent on the ground had been just enough for them to unhook the too machines and take off. Leaving Lilly and Bakura to chase after them. Falling more than a few times. As they both lay on their stomaches in the mud they lost sight of their prey.
"Which do you think would be worse for them: dueling them both infront of Serena, Ry, and Suteki or just whoopin up on 'em?" Bakura grinned and rolled over on his back in the mud. Lilly followed suit.
"I'm always up for both."
"Mud angles." she said moving her arms and legs in a motion he'd seen children do when laying in the snow.
"Wha?"
"I don't know. What else would we do? We're sinking nose deep in mud." She sat up and looked around. She stood up careful not to fall and offered him her hand. He took it.
"What are you thinking?" she smirked and reached in her pocket, she pulled out Matt's cell phone.
"He's an idiot." she laughed "Com'on we'll go over to Eyeore's Manision and I'll call SSR."
"What the hell is that about do you think?"
"It used to be double S. I gessus Suteki finally adopted Ry. Anyway we'll have them send the boys back out." She had hold of his hand and was dragging him heedlessly toward the place he knew the stick manison sat. "There are buckets in there. Sand pails really but they hold quiet a few mud balls." he caught her line of thought then. Tweenty minutes later he huddled down in one of the trenches watching the to boys approach. They would periodically call out for Lils and Bakura but the two didn't moved.
"When?"
"Don't shot untill you see the white of their eyes." she grinned. She'd smeared mud across her face and declared it war paint.
"I'm going to smash the video."
"Interplanet Janet she's galaxy girl... something something from future world. Travels like a rocket with the comet team there's never been a planet Janet hasn't seen." he elbowed her in the ribs and she cried out. "They saw us jerk. She yanked him up and shoved the a bucket in his hand. "NOW!" She threw the first mud ball smacking Matt in the forehead.
"Dude that is not cool." he screamed. Bakura refused to let her have all the fun and opened fire too. In moments the four were splattered with mud and scrambling to make more mud balls.
A/N I hope this chapter was long enough. I'll work on more ASAP. I turn my school stuff in this week and will be done. So hope you liked. I've said it before, if you have any ideas or whatever just say so. E-mail me or AIM sis3922 or YIM sis3922 or just review. THANKS again. Oh Mattea, I'll have more for your character in the next post.