Sunday afternoon brought about ideal condition that not only permitted the children of Royal Woods to run outside and play to their heart's content, but encouraged such rambunctious pleasure—it was if nature herself bid the birds the order of singing a gaily tune that cried out for such an excited bustle to take place.
Best friends Lincoln Loud and Clyde McBride heeded that call, and the two boys soon found themselves directly underneath skies that were even clearer than the field they were presently occupying. By now, it had been about a half an hour since they had decided to take turns swinging at a baseball thrown by the other—they had already burnt out on Frisbee tossing by this point, and Clyde was eager to show his best friend a thing or two about batting.
Once again, metal met ball with a deafening *crack*—Lincoln was used to having practically every pitch of his brushed aside like it was nothing by now, but he couldn't help but be in awe at watching Clyde in his element. He was so entranced by wonder that it didn't register that Clyde had just smacked a fly ball clear into the air, quickly hurdling towards him, until Clyde cried out to him.
"Heads up, Lincoln!"
Panic was the first thing that assaulted Lincoln's brain, sapping him of all focus. Thankfully, it only took him about half a second to snap out of it and realize that the perfect solution to stopping the incoming missile was literally lying at his feet. Without taking his eyes of the ball, Lincoln crouched down, blindly grasped at his trusty baseball mitt, slipped it on, and outstretched his mitt-wielding arm to embrace the imminent impact.
But soon, it became apparent that the ball's trajectory was off course from Lincoln's hasty calculations, and the boy found himself shuffling about as he tried to get completely underneath the ball. Though the Sun's bright rays made honing in on it difficult, Lincoln was determined to cap off Clyde's impressive feat with one of his own.
When a reachable distance was finally crossed, Lincoln lifted off the ground with a jump as visions of success coached him on.
"Gotch-yow!"
His declaration ended on a startled note instead of a triumphant one—he couldn't have finished with anything else after having the baseball conk him on the shoulder instead of landing in his mitt like he wanted. His landing was fortunately more graceful, though that didn't help the biting sting of the blow from making his shoulder joint and muscles throb. It didn't take long for Clyde to drop his bat and race towards his friend, who was too busy rubbing his hurt shoulder to notice him until he was right in front of him.
"You alright, buddy?" Clyde asked.
Lincoln gave him a pained, sheepish smile through clenched teeth. "Yeah," he said. "I'm good."
Clyde watched in silence as Lincoln favored his shoulder with more rubs for a few seconds. Once he stopped and Clyde was sure that Lincoln was no longer in any pain—or at least a degree of pain that would make his imminent offer foolish—he said, "I can take a crack at catching, if you want."
Lincoln shook his head, his smile reduced to a self-deprecating grin.
"I guess I could," he said, "but I doubt I'll be anywhere close to being as good as you. I'd probably just strike out at least eighty-five percent of the time."
Lincoln thought that his estimation wasn't entirely bred from doubt in his own abilities—he had always come up short to Clyde in the baseball department, but having a bad shoulder wasn't going to help him measure up any better.
Clyde smiled and gave him a comforting pat on his good shoulder. "Hey, you never know unless you try," he said.
Lincoln reacted to his consolation with nothing but a shrug and a defeatist reply. "Eh, I dunno," he said. "There are just some things in life that are obvious without having to 'try'."
Lincoln half-expected Clyde to needle him into giving it a shot. Instead, his friend smirked at him and arched up an eyebrow teasingly.
"You mean like how you're gonna eat my dust at 'Astral Death Squad IV: The Dead Arise' when we get back to my house?" Clyde asked.
The nagging pain of Lincoln's shoulder was dampened and his retort to Clyde's cockiness melted away on the tip of his tongue, his gleeful disbelief in Clyde's declaration nipping it in the bud before it could sprout.
"Shut up!" Lincoln cried, a wide grin covering half his face. "How'd your parents allow to get a game like that?!"
While it was true that Clyde's parents were way less smothering towards their son, that didn't mean that they had completely abandoned their overprotective ways. The fact that they supposedly allowed their son to buy the hottest T-rated game in stores—that featured suggestive themes, infrequent coarse language, and minimal blood—meant that either Mr. and Mr. McBride were making way more progress than Lincoln could've ever guessed was possible or he had to hand his title of the "Master of Convincing" over to Clyde.
"I haven't played it yet, though. They said I could play it as long as I follow up each playing session with a thorough evaluation from Dr. Lopez to make sure I'm mentally stable," Clyde said as he picked up the baseball.
Lincoln chuckled. Ah, now that sounded like his parents. In any case, now that Lincoln knew that there was such an amazing game just waiting to be played, the prospect of baseball failed to live up to that standard of entertainment.
"Say, if you don't mind, I wanna play it right away," Lincoln said. "All this running around has made me want to just kick back and blast some space zombies into dust."
Lincoln's hopes for hours of mindless, interstellar violence were realized when Clyde, who was on heading over to where his baseball bat and Frisbee laid on the ground, looked over his shoulder and said, "I thought you'd never ask."
Lincoln had his Frisbee tucked under his arm while Clyde handled the baseball equipment, the load easy to manage because of the trusty duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
It seemed that "Astral Death Squad IV: The Dead Arise" was doomed to be on the brains of both boys for the rest of the day as they walked to Clyde's house. For several minutes on end, they spoke of nothing but that game and all of its violent features. Though Lincoln had no problem contributing to the conversation with just as much enthusiasm as Clyde, he was still taken aback by how much Clyde—someone who tended to be the more squeamish one between the two of them—seemed enthralled by all the blood-splattering gore and viscerally gruesome mayhem that awaited them.
It only dawned on Lincoln about halfway through their travels that he had exciting news of his own to share. Once he did, the talk of video game shenanigans was put on hold as Lincoln barreled over the discussion by chatting about what he had learned at dinner a few days ago. Though he did his best to recount how his parents had told him and his sisters about their upcoming spring break vacation with as little fervor as possible—as to not make Clyde feel bad about missing out on the experience—it did little to quell the kindling of disappointment that materialized on Clyde's face.
"Man, you're so lucky," Clyde said, his head slightly drooped. "I wish I was doing something cool for Spring break."
Guilt inspired Lincoln to try his hand at consolation as he put an arm around his buddy's shoulders and said, "You could always come with us."
They may not have shared the same last name, but Clyde was the closest thing he had to a brother as far as he was concerned. And now that he brought up the proposal, he couldn't imagine a vacation without him tagging along for the fun.
But unfortunately, Clyde had other ideas. "Nah, it's a family vacation," he said, shaking his head while flashing a sad smile. "I don't wanna be a third wheel. I'll find something to do to pass the time. I promise."
Lincoln was tempted to convince him again, but he thought better of it when he considered the circumstances. He didn't imagine that it would be impossible for Clyde's parents to pony up enough money to accommodate for their son—he couldn't see his parents having enough money to spare to take care of Clyde after taking their eleven children into account—but that did fly in the face of what his father seemed to convey when he told them all, in no uncertain words, that it would be the Louds that would be going to Grand Rapids. He'd have to ask his parents to make a consideration, but he couldn't believe in that possibility enough to do anything but act as if Clyde's exclusion was already set in stone.
"I'll make sure to take plenty of pictures and send them to you," Lincoln said.
Lincoln was certain that, at best, Clyde would appreciate his offer with half-hearted acceptance—overall, it was pretty meager solace. Once again, however, Clyde seemed intent on defying his expectations at every turn. Instead of a paltry grin, flaunted in an attempt to mask his disappointment, the boy couldn't have seemed happier if he tried.
But if anything, given what Lincoln knew enough about Clyde's present expression—his love-struck grin poised underneath the faraway, ablaze look in his eyes as it gazed off in the distance—the tingles of squeamish disease festering in his gut and agitated exasperation swarming through his bones weren't sensations bred by paranoia.
No, his faithful intuition was telling him exactly where Clyde's head was, and the thought of it made him groan in misery; he really didn't want to hear about her right now.
Once again, Clyde McBride was whisked away to a world of pleasant fantasy, his blissful illusions inspired by his dearly beloved—and just like every other instance of his daydreams of passionate yearning, Lori Loud never failed to make him believe that that she was God's most beautiful creature.
He had Lincoln's proposal to thank for his state of mind. He had no idea what Grand Rapids was like, but the could only imagine that any possible tourist spot or venue of notoriety lacked the majestic splendor that only Lori wielded. But even with his mind thinking such things, he couldn't think of anything better to salve his feelings of loss—over his best friend leaving him for spring break—than pictures of his dearest Lori, whether there were any backdrops that could come close to complimenting to her beauty or not.
His next course of action permitted him to gain charge of his mental faculties long enough for him to ask with burning longing, his voice choked from his airy daze, "Mind taking a few of Lori for me? My Lori shrine could use a bit of sprucing up, and I—"
A quick, cursory glance at Lincoln scalded his nerves like icy, arctic water, and it forced his mouth to clamp shut, his eyes to widen, and for his heart to flutter from a breadth of uneasiness. He didn't know the catalyst behind Lincoln's present mood—personified by his furious scowl furrowed brow, and glare that looked hot enough to melt him on the spot—but his ignorance didn't stop him from trying to understand where this sudden shift of emotions was coming from.
"Uh...Lincol—"
"What?"
Truthfully, the clipped reply offended him, but he was still repentant enough to assume, through a blind scramble to get to the bottom of things, that he had done something wrong.
"Hey, man, I'm sorry," Clyde said. "Forget I asked. If you're really offended by the idea, I'll just—"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine."
Clyde raised an eyebrow in confusion, no longer as nervous and apprehensive as before. Lincoln's face was quite as scrunched up in irritation as before, but all Clyde could see it as was an attempt to fortify Lincoln's plea of satisfaction.
"What'd you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?" Clyde asked as he came to a full stop, doing so after Lincoln had the same a second ago. "I just brought up that picture thing with Lori and you got all—"
Then, in the blink of an eye, his glare and frown suddenly twisted back to their former glory. "See?!" Clyde cried. "You do that! You get all 'scowly' and stuff!"
Clyde's impatience only grew when Lincoln decided that not only was coming clean out of the question, but that a snarky retort was all he deserved.
"I'm only 'scowly and stuff' because you don't know when to take a hint," he said, his tone bridled by stinging poison.
"About what?"
"Exactly."
Clyde groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lincoln, you're not making any sense. What's your deal? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of whatever's bugging..."
He trailed off when he recalled the words he spoke before Lincoln got so heated, and the hint of a plausible answer came to him from that. It made a tiny grin come to life at the prospect of finally making some leeway. Overall, it wasn't much to lean on, but at least it was something.
"Oh, I think I know what's going on," Clyde said, his mood and voice colored by a burst of pride. "Something happened between you and Lori, didn't it? That's why you're upset."
When Lincoln didn't do anything except bore holes into him, Clyde's confidence began to falter, making him shrink back in shame. He supposed that he was wrong and all he managed to do was bring Lori's integrity into the fray at the expense of a hasty whim. There was no doubt that he made Lincoln feel even worse, for daring to question his bond with his sister so callously, and he couldn't blame him if he felt that he—
"And what if something did happen, huh? What's it to you?"
Clyde was too shocked to form a retort, the revelation of him being on the nose more startling than the ever-growing ire that presented itself in Lincoln's speech.
"Let me guess, you're gonna tell me that I should just get over it, right?" Lincoln asked with seething indignation. "That Lori's my sister and I should try to make things right with her?"
Though Clyde wasn't sure what Lori did to make his friend so angry—nor did he know why Lincoln never bothered to bring this up to him until he accidentally pried it out of him—it took the wind out of sails, all the same. Now, his brewing exasperation was rendered a meager little steam, and uneasiness returned to occupy his being.
"Um...yeah," Clyde said, unsure of stating anything else that could've conveyed his point more bluntly than that.
Lincoln sneered bitterly and rolled his eyes. "It figures you'd say that."
Clyde frowned. "You make it sound like that's a bad thing."
"Well, maybe that's because it is, Clyde."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand. You'd just admit she was wrong and then act like nothing ever happened." Lincoln looked to the side, and cast his stare at his feet with a dark glare. "Just like everyone else."
Clyde had to resist the urge to shake Lincoln about until he came to his senses. All he wanted was to spend time with his buddy on a pleasant Sunday afternoon and all he got for his troubles was a surly attitude and half-answers shrouded in vexing mystery.
Needless to say, he wasn't going to put up with it for one second longer.
"You know what? I just..." Clyde sighed as he turned his back on Lincoln. "I can't hang out with you when you're like this. Until you're ready to talk to Lori and take care of whatever happened between you two, I don't wanna be around you anymore."
The last thing he heard, as he stormed off, was Lincoln shouting at him with more rage than he had ever heard him use before:
"Fine! See if I care!"
It wasn't often when the Loud house wasn't occupied with at least one patron running amok, their blind pursuits carried on the whim of hectic energy. This Sunday afternoon was no different. If there was an anomaly, a discrepancy that broke the humdrum frantic cycle, however, it would be that the house's most frantic commotion didn't involve any of the children for a change.
Holed up in their bedroom with open suitcases (some empty and some partially stocked) littering the floor and bed, Lynn Sr. and Rita were bound to the whims of their vacation checklist—that was long enough to stretch from one end of their room to the other—as they did their best to ensure that nothing on their list was unaccounted for. While Rita held it in her grip, rattling off different items for her husband to find and stuff in the suitcases, Lynn Sr. took any and all measures to find those items (upturning furniture and ransacking through their closet several times fit the bill for what he considered as a worthy courses of action).
About a quarter of the way through the list, Lynn Sr. called for a timeout, wanting to not only take a quick rest by sitting on his bed but for the sake of recollection—he might've been off the mark, but he could've sworn that from the assortment of items that his wife bought yesterday, in accordance with the checklist, that she had missed out on one important product.
"Honey?" Lynn Sr. asked, watching as Rita rolled up the list.
"Yes, Lynn?" she replied without looking up at him.
"Did you make sure to buy Lola her special sunscreen? The one with the SPF 200 label?"
Rita paused, blinked, and looked up at her husband. "Wait a second," she said, her face scrunched in pensive thought, "I thought you were in charge of the sunscreen."
Lynn Sr. shook his head. "No, I was in charge of finding a hotel that had a loose enough pet policy to let Lana and Lucy bring their pets with us. You were supposed to take care of the sunscreen, remember?"
Realization dawned on her with the fury of a thunderbolt, and she dropped the checklist as her hands flew over her mouth.
"Sorry. Uh, must've slipped my mind," she admitted after her arms fell limp by her sides. As if she wanted to make up for her mistake, she quickly added, her smile pleading for forgiveness, "But I did make sure to buy more diapers for Lily, a suitcase big enough for Lynn's grappling dummies, and animal crackers for Lisa."
Lynn Sr. sighed. He supposed it really wasn't a big deal, but given how much they had to pack before they left on Friday, he didn't want to spend any of the free time the weekends afforded him to make extra trips to the store to get what they needed. Still, such an oversight wasn't something he could get mad at his wife for—with thirteen people to care for, a mistake or two was bound to happen.
"Ah, it's alright," he said. "I guess I'll have to run down to the store and pick some up later. In the meantime, we can continue to rest before we pick up from where we left off. After that, we can ask them what they want to do in Grand Rapids and buy whatever else we need to make those plans happen."
He tapped his chin for a second, wondering which of his children he could go to first. Half of them were out with friends, meaning that he'd have to choose someone who was already at home. With his limited selection, his eldest daughter was the first to come to mind.
"We can start with Lori," he decided. "After that, we can ask—"
"Lynn?"
Lynn Sr. paused, waiting for Rita to follow her interruption with the rest of her thoughts on...whatever it was that crossed her mind. Whatever it was, he gave it the respect and attention he felt her current appearance deserved by not saying a word—wrinkles and a frown, bred from what looked like worry, etched on her face while her eyes featured unspoken regret.
"Actually, there's something about Lori that I want to talk to you about," she said.
It occurred to Lynn Sr. that his wife's visage was just like Leni's a few days ago, and her target of concern just so happened to be Lori, too.
"What about her?" he asked.
"Well, you know how we had her clean up the attic? As part of her punishment?" She spoke again once her husband nodded. "A little earlier, I went up there to check on her. I wanted to see if she needed anything for lunch, since she had been cleaning for about an hour since she started after twelve."
"What'd she say?"
Rita's eyes shifted away while her hands wrung together. "She said she wasn't hungry and told me not to bother getting her anything."
Warmth passed through Lynn Sr., thawing out nerves that were on edge from what he thought was going to be a serious proclamation.
"And...why is that a problem?" he asked, cracking a grin while he shrugged. "If she's not hungry, she's not hungry. It can't be helped."
Rita was too fussed to be insulted by Lynn Sr.'s indifference.
"Well, it wasn't what she said, Lynn. It's how she said it," she continued as somberly as ever. "It reminded me of when Lori excused herself from dinner a few days ago."
Lynn Sr. didn't remember Lori looking out of sorts, though it was a little difficult for him to recall any suspicious details with his wife talking over him. It'd be best, he decided, to think about that a little later.
"She sounded..." She paused briefly to consider her words. "...sad. I can't really put my finger on it, but 'sad' is the word I'd use. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, like my mind was just playing tricks on me. But when she almost said nearly the exact same thing to me in the nearly the exact same way a little while ago, I couldn't help but make the comparison."
She looked back at her husband, who still seemed to comfortable in his own skin after everything she had just said.
"Call me crazy, but I think that Leni might've had a point. Maybe something is wrong with Lori, and we're not being attentive eno—"
Her train of speech derailed when Lynn Sr., who had been sitting idly by and listening intently, decided to get off the bed, walk over to her, and hug her. She was driven by instinct to be annoyed, thinking that her husband was just condescendingly pacifying her feelings. She thought better when she thought better; it wouldn't be fair to think that he was trying to dismiss her like she was a child stirred up by nothing. After all, she was quick to believe that Leni didn't truly "get" what Lori was going through, and she most definitely wasn't trying to push her away.
"Look, Rita," Lynn Sr. said, "as much I think that you and Leni only have Lori's best interest at heart, I think we should stick to our guns and let Lori be. Remember when I went up to Lori's room to talk to her after she apologized to everyone for the babysitting incident?"
"Yes," Rita said. "I remember."
"I told her that she can always go to therapy if she feels like she needs to talk to someone about her issues. Well, it's been weeks since that happened, and she hasn't gone to me to take me up on my offer. If she really needed something to get off her chest, don't you think she would've told me by now?"
Lynn Sr. broke the hug, only to tilt her wife's head up by the chin until she was looking in his eyes directly.
"Besides," he continued on, taking pleasure in how his wisdom seemed to have an effect on her, "she hasn't gotten herself into any trouble as far as I can tell. And when Leni talked to us about her the other day, she didn't mention anything that was worth getting bent out of shape over. I mean, yeah, it stinks that she's apparently not spending as much time with Leni as much as she usually does, but part of growing up and handling your responsibilities means that you don't always get what you want.
We should be proud that Lori's thinking like an adult, not fussing over nothing. I'll admit that maybe she's a little down in the dumps about being grounded for as long as she is, but that's nothing to get worried about."
By now, what was once smothering anxiety quelled to a feeble flicker of a flame that a peck on the forehead from her husband put out.
"I guess you're right, dear," she said, chuckling at what she believed to be foolishness. "Maybe I'm just being a little silly and not really thinking things through."
Lynn Sr. laughed. "Hey now, what's wrong with being a little silly?" he asked. "You had no problem getting married to me, remember?"
Rita smirked. "Weeeeell, I wouldn't say that I didn't have a few problems with it," she said.
Her smirk turned into a giddy grin when Lynn Sr. caught her off guard with tickling hands that found her sides. When she tried to playfully bat him away, he moved to her neck instead. Her mirthful peals of laughter only encouraged him to keep it up, his ticklish assault roaming everywhere he pleased.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Mercy!" Rita cried, her begging and squirming finally getting Lynn Sr. to stop, but not before he gave her a light poke in her belly.
"Hmph," Lynn Sr. huffed with folded arms and a self-satisfied smile. "That's what I thought."
While Rita took a moment to catch her breath, Lynn Sr. got back to thinking about Lori. He trusted his intuition, but that didn't mean that he couldn't reward his daughter for all her hard work. As far as he could remember, she had taken her punishment on the chin without so much as a complaint. If she was feeling down, then compensating her labor seemed like the right thing to do.
"Anyway," he said, "now that you mentioned Lori, I think I've got something in mind that'll lend us a helping hand and give her a little treat all at once."
With that, he donned another mischievous grin and latched his fingers into Rita's sides again.
"Now then," he said as his wife stared at him with a look of giddy terror, knowing full well where he was going with this, "I'm not finished being silly yet."
As he flounced towards his house, Lincoln's vision was bathed in red, and his stomps carried venom that he had yet to unleash, even after giving his best friend scathing parting words. He just needed to get away, to make as much distance from stupid Clyde and his stupid suppositions as he possibly could.
What did he know, anyway? What gave him the right to go around and think so highly of himself that he felt that he was a good enough judge of character to know what Lori should be worth to him? How could he, someone who wasn't even in the know about the consequences of Lori's selfish recklessness, go to bat for her without even so much as believing that he had a bone to pick for a good reason?
Fine. Whatever. Clyde could have his dumb crush, and the fantasized, glorified impression of Lori that came along with it. Meanwhile, he would deal with reality. He would see Lori for what she truly was and know that not only was she not worth speaking to but that he didn't need her cycle of self-indulgence ruining not only his life but other people's lives, too.
He made it to the front door's pathway a few minutes later, too indulged with his anger to pay Lola and Lana—who were driving around in Lola's toy car in the front yard—any mind, even after they waved and called out to him. Before he could make it to the door, he chucked his Frisbee away with a hardy toss, too incensed to care where it landed.
His path met a barrier of resistance in the shape of the front door, its locked state becoming apparent to him after he gave the doorknob a few turns. He hissed an angry breath through clenched teeth and banged the door a few times with a heavy fist, the seconds after his last knock a bitter annoyance as he impatiently waited for it to open.
He only had to wait a few more seconds later for the door to finally open, revealing a smiling Leni. Lincoln didn't notice, as he roughly slipped past to march towards the stairs, how her bright beaming faltered once she got a good look at him and the churlish way he brushed her aside. Her bewilderment became apparent to him only after Leni had halted him by grabbing him by the arm. While she held him in place, she took the opportunity to close and lock the door with her other hand before addressing him.
"Lincoln, hold on," she said with a voice far more gentle than her grasp was. "Are you okay?"
Hearing Leni reach out to him in concern quashed his anger by a significant fraction, but not enough to turn around and look at her nor reply in a tone that wasn't soaked in annoyance.
"I'm not," he said as he tried to shimmy out of Leni's hold on him, "but I'd rather not talk about it. I just wanna read my comic books in peace."
His noncommittal answer, unfortunately, had no effect on quelling Leni's curiosity.
"Why not talk about it?" she asked.
"I just don't wanna. Now, let got of me, please."
"But, Lincoln, I—"
"Leni, I just wanna go to my room for a bit and cool off. I don't want to be bothered right now. Let. Me. Go."
He immediately found success once Leni got the hint and dropped his arm, as if it were a scalding hot potato. And just like, Lincoln cringed at how his forceful, abrasive words must've shredded Leni's goodwill to shreds. The way she replied with a muttered, "O-okay," only drove that point further, along with blooming guilt that sprouted from his gut and threatened to swallow him whole.
He let out a weary sigh and resigned himself to what was fair but uncomfortable—though he really wasn't in the mood to spill his guts, Leni didn't deserved to get snapped at like that, much less left in the dark to do nothing but worry while he moped and brooded in his room all day.
Knowing what he had to do, he turned around, looked at Leni, and said, "Look, I'll tell you about it. Just...just promise me you'll try to understand me, okay?"
Though he should've known better than to not trust Leni, one of most caring and empathetic people he knew, he couldn't allow himself to be relieved when she promised him, with as much earnestness as he had ever seen from her, that she would hear him out with everything that she had.
The chances were, Lincoln considered with gloom as Leni led him up the stairs by the hand, that Leni would just blindly stand up for Lori and abandon him if he had the "audacity" to stand his ground.
Just like Clyde had done.