A/N: This chapter was mostly for fun, and because you might begin to wonder where she was.
Kassandra: Yes, I know I'm cruel. Review anyway, please. :-)
Chapter 4 - They Did it to Laura Leddit
Lorelai Lisette Mariano came by her name honestly…at least the first one. The other two were debatable. At twelve-years-old, her coffee addiction was already prestigious, her closet was already bursting at the seams, and she could out-talk and out-eat a Gilmore when she put her mind to it - a fact which sometimes made her grandmother pout, but usually just made her Grandma's pride and joy!
"Lorelais of the world, unite!" It had become their slogan during the last week that she'd spent at her grandma and grandpa's house.
Of course, when they came up with it, her grandpa had dropped his chin with a thud and deadpanned, "Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here."
"A-ha! I'm so proud!" had been her grandma's response.
So, after a week like that, when she was dropped off at home, she was even Lorelaier than usual, bursting in with extraordinary good cheer and loud greetings, and singing into an imaginary microphone, and twirling…and wondering aloud why everything was so quiet! Where was everybody? "Everybody! Anybody?" At this point, she passed her older brother's room and saw him sitting there in a moping attitude. "Olly-Olly-infantry!…oxen-free!…something-y! What do oxen have to do with anything anyway? It is oxen-free, isn't it?" she puzzled.
"Go away, Laura," he said quietly.
"Fine greeting for your sister, after such a long, bitter, lonely separation!" she said in a dramatic, woebegone voice, wrapping her arms around his shoulders one after the other with true melodrama, then shifted to Popeye-speak, "Come on, Olive Oil - uyk! uyk! uyk!" This got no response at all. "Oliver Twist!" and she reached for his shirt in an attempt to twist something that she had no business twisting. Oliver slapped her hand away sharply. "Owwwuh!" she complained with a glare.
"If you think you can get away with giving me a purple-nurple just because you make it a pun!" Oliver grumbled.
"Nurple funny!" she grinned, eyes glittering mischievously.
"Will you please just leave me alone!" her brother groaned. She stuck out her bottom lip.
"Oliver grouchy! Oliver sad?" she inquired, bending to look into her brother's eyes.
"Oliver doesn't wanna talk about it," he muttered glumly. Her eyebrows went up and her pouty lip kept appearing between sentences.
"Oliver dowanna talk, means Oliver really sad…why?" her voice was cooing now. Even though he'd been all different shades of cranky and mean for a week or two before she left, she knew that wasn't how her brother usually acted, and he seemed almost back to his old self now…but his old self usually confided in her. The two of them were very close.
It took awhile for her to get him to open up and tell the story of yesterday, and today. And the story took considerably longer with her commentary. When he was through, she shook her head, rapidly as if she were trying to shake the ridiculous thoughts into a place where they'd make sense.
"Hold on, hold on, hold on! You're telling me, that after you yelled at mom and pushed her into a wall, that Dad - our dad - essentially did nothing. After which, you asked mom to punish you, with The Holy Breadboard of Terror, no less…and she wouldn't. And that today, you actually asked Dad to punish you, and his response was, 'If you want!'" She uttered the last part in a bizarrely chipper dad-voice that made the whole thing sound like an episode of Looney Tunes. She held her hand up to her brother's forehead. "Yes, friends and neighbors, the patient is clearly delirious! Delirious, delusional, delovely and," she finished by whistling a circus melody while swirling a finger around her temple in a "nutso!" gesture.
"Fine, don't believe me," Oliver grouched, batting her hand away and settling grumpily further down into his seat.
"Did I say that?" she asked, though they both knew she just did. "You're nuts! You're crazy! You're cracked! But, all the best people are…and you probably are telling the truth. But, what are you thinking? You actually want a ton of fireworks strapped to your butt? Are you insane?"
"Not helping!" he groaned.
"You're gonna let guilt send you to an early grave? 'Cause I'm pretty sure Dad was suffering some kind of stroke yesterday, and forgot that he'd normally kill anybody that hurt mom - and you, he's got a license to kill! It's not duck season or rabbit season…it's Oliver season! If you go through with this, your butt is burnt toast!" she warned. Clearly Oliver had not thought this through!
"What? You don't think I deserve it?" he asked. She threw her head back and looked at the ceiling, unable to believe her stupid brother.
"Are you kidding? After what you did to Mom, I think you deserve to sit in hot coals till you have no more butt, but that's not the point!"
"It's not?"
"No! How can you not see that?" She tipped her head all the way over to one side, as if to see his lopsided logic. "It doesn't matter that you deserve it - you're not supposed to think so! Dad is! The whole thing is wonky! No, you're nothing, absolutely nothing like an adult! But, tonight, you have to pretend you are! Because, if you don't, then you're gonna get punished like a kid! Even though you are a kid! But you're not!"
"You're scared!" Oliver realized in amusement.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about!" she defended, straightening her shoulders and lifting her head. Laura Mariano wasn't scared of anything!
"You're scared that if I tell Dad I can't 'be an adult' about this, and he does paddle me, that you'll be a little kid, subject to getting her butt spanked for a long, long time," he laughed, seeing his sister frown.
"Ha-ha! Very funny! I'm trying to help you understand how stupid you're being, but if all you can think about is ways to turn this around to torment me, then I won't bother!" she huffed.
"Even worse, you're scared that maybe Dad will start looking at The Holy Breadboard of Terror as a viable option for keeping in check everybody's favorite little trouble-maker!" he continued, undeterred.
"Shut up! You're the only one who's done anything bad enough to get a whole spanking with that thing, which is the whole reason we have it in the first place! If you hadn't tried to kill me, the H-BOT would still be safely at Grandpa Luke's!"
"The H-BOT?" he made fun of the new name.
"It's easier to say," she said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.
"And, I did not try to kill you! You and Izzy were being brats! You wouldn't leave us alone. Me and Gary were just holding you down there awhile so you'd get mad and go away and stop bugging us!"
"I swallowed half the lake!" she hyperbolized.
"Yeah, and I got my butt burned for it, so we're even! And, I am not the only one who did something 'bad enough to get the paddle.' I remember you blubbering about getting it!" He narrowed his eyes knowingly at her.
"One swat!" she defended, stoutly.
"One-swat-scared-straight! You were good as gold for months! I think Dad should've gotten the hint and used it every time!" he grinned, poking and tickling her sides.
"That's it! Tell Dad you're a little kid who needs his butt spanked! I hope you get it good! Maybe then you'll be nicer!" She folded her arms in front of her chest, sulking.
"Aw…don't be mad." It was his turn to coax and tease. "Laura-loo, wash your shoe, hop along to Timbuktu…" he crooned softly, but she shook her head petulantly, refusing to be coaxed in her turn. Oliver feigned an Irish accent, and began to sing, "I'll tell you a story that is no sham, in Holland lived a merchant man." She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "And every morning he said 'I am the richest merchant in Amsterdam.' They did it to Laura-Laura-Leddit! They did it to Laura-Laura-Lee!"
"You think the way to get me to talk to you is to sing a song about a man named Laura!" she scoffed. His eyes twinkled and he nodded rapidly.
"Well it worked, didn't it?" he grinned. She stuck her tongue out at him and turned her back.
He resumed the ridiculous song about the man with the cork leg that hopped under it's own power. "…a doctor came on his vocation, and made a thorough examination, and over it made a long oration, and finished it off with an amputation. They did it to Laura-Laura-Leddit! They did it to Laura-Laura-Lee!" She sighed and stalked off. Oliver followed her around the house, forgetting for the moment to feel guilty or worry about weighty decisions or play the grump. His sister was home. He'd missed her.
"On land and sea…from shore to shore…and Europe he has traveled o'er… Although he'd dead and is no more… The…leg goes on as it did before! They did it to Laura-Laura-Leddit! They did it to Laura-Laura-Lee!"
She finally turned to him with a puzzled scowl. "So was his last name Leddit or Lee?"
He shrugged. "Probably Leddit-Lee…hyphenated." He threw a light, playful punch that stopped half an inch from her shoulder, then pulled it back teasingly and swiped at her nose with his forefinger - the last being a motion the kids had all taken from their mom, and used affectionately between themselves. Laura relented and threw her arms around him in a hug he tried to pretend he didn't want.