Chapter 5

"Mrs. Burke," began Neal only to be interrupted,

"Neal please just call me Mom; I consider you a wayward son," Carolyn said to the

younger man.

"Won't Peter get upset? You are actually his mother?"

"Nope, it won't bother me in the least; I consider you a pesky younger brother most of the time if not a son, who needs a firm hand," replied Peter as he slowly made his way down the stairs.

Neal blushed with the statement of the 'firm hand' but pleased how Peter's family felt about him. "I would be honored to call you Mom," he told Carolyn and then groaned saying; "now I have three surrogate mothers…I'll never be able to sit comfortably again."

"Neal all you have to do is stay out of trouble and your mothers won't be so quickl to take you in hand," replied Peter with a knowing smile.

"That's easy for you to say; I wasn't brought up that way," complained Neal.

"But as long as you are my son, you will learn to be honest," warned Carolyn with a twinkle in her eye.

"Yes ma'am. Now to get back to what I wanted to ask you in the beginning. What did Peter do to get a spanking for not taking the syrup?"

"NEAL!"

Neal turned a smiling face towards Peter and said, "I was just curious; I didn't think you ever did anything wrong."

"Who told you that Peter never did anything wrong growing up?" asked Carolyn.

"Well, he seldom gets into trouble now; I just assumed that it was the same when he was young."

"You want to know why I seldom get into trouble as an adult," Peter directed his question to Neal. "It is because I learned as a child that the consequences weren't nice and sometimes can be downright painful…this is something you have yet to learn."

"Peter, tell him what happened with the cough syrup," requested his mother. "It might keep him from following the same route and getting his third spanking once he recovers. I'll just go upstairs and help El with his meal," she added as she walked up the stairs.

"You really want to know?" queried Peter.

Neal nodded and looked expectantly as Peter made himself comfortable in the rocker. "I must have been around ten when I got a bad cough. I tried for days to

keep from coughing around Mom because I knew as soon as she knew I would have to take that nasty cough medicine she made. My big brother Tom warned me about it, but eventually I was unable to keep it a secret from her one night when she came in to tell me goodnight. She then quizzed me about it and when she learned that I had been hiding it from her she wasn't happy," Peter grimaced at the memory.

Peter remembered the incident as if it happened yesterday. He was lying in bed and feeling so bad trying to keep from coughing out loud when, "You know Mom is going to find out that you are coughing," Tom said as he came into the room set aside for treating the sick.

"But her cough medicine taste so bad," whined ten year old Peter before launching into a nasty cough.

"Yeah; you would think that as often she has to give it to us she could add more honey to it," replied Tom wishfully.

"I put in as much as I can, son," replied their mom who had just walked in and then turning to her young son she scolded,

"and you should have told me that you were coughing. How long have you been trying to hide it?"

"Only a day, Mom," replied Peter as he launched into another spell.

"Tom, hurry and get me the bottle and a tablespoon; your brother is going to need a double dose to get that cough under control," ordered Carolyn as she hurried to Peter's side and pulled him up into a sitting position to help ease the coughing.

It was only a few minutes later that the coughing stopped; just about the same time the bottle of homemade cough syrup arrived. Peter watched as his mother poured the syrup into a tablespoon and approached him with it.

"I was nasty, wasn't it?" asked Neal as he broke into Peter's remembering.

Peter nodded, "and I fought her so much that she ended up spilling it on me to such an extent that I had to change my pajamas."

Peter blushed as recalled what happened next - the cough syrup was all over his pajamas and as he hurried to get out of them since the smell was just about as bad as the taste his mother upended him and spanked him.

"What happened Peter; you are blushing," asked Neal?

"She spanked me as I was in the process of changing pajamas," replied Peter as

he remembered exactly what happened. "It's all over my pajamas and it smells terrible Mom," Peter said as he jumped out of bed to prevent the stuff from getting on his sheets.

"And whose fault is that," replied Carolyn as she quickly handed him a clean pair.

Peter grabbed them and hurriedly pull is top off and then his pajama pants but before he could pull them up he felt his mom pull him over her lap.

"Noooo…I'm sorry…I won't do it again," he pleaded as he felt the first lick fall on his bare bottom. "Ow…ow…ow….mom…owww…owwww…owww...owww…

I'm…sorry," before it finally came to an end and he was allowed to pull up his pajama bottoms and scoot under the covers.

"Now take your medicine unless you want me to add to the warmness in your bottom and Peter hurriedly opened his mouth and swallowed the cough syrup before laying back down on his side to rest.

"I take it that your fighting her was your first mistake?" asked Neal.

Peter nodded, "and my second mistake was while I was still crying from the pain in my backside I thought that it would be a good idea to get rid of that nasty stuff. I went to sleep planning it and woke that I would wait until after Mom went to feed the animals, we lived on a farm when I was growing up."

"I take it that it didn't work?"

"No; what I didn't realize that the ingredients were so easy to come by all Mom needed to do was make more…which she did when she noticed that the bottle it was in was found broken in the trash."

"She spanked you for that?"

"She spanked me for breaking her favorite container. It had originally been a gift from a close friend and had contained honey. The container was very decorative and Mom had loved it and now thanks to me it was broken. After that I decided that taking the medicine was the least painful part of the cough and if I were you I would do the same now," Peter said seriously as he finished his tale.

Neal nodded his agreement but it was only an act. "I just won't get caught and I'll go the next step and get rid of the onions…lemons and honey aren't that bad it must be the onion that make it taste so badly," he thought just as El brought down a tray filled with soup and sandwiches for them all to enjoy. Carolyn followed behind closely with a tray filled with hot cups of tea and coffee.

"I thought we would keep Neal company and have our lunch with him," El informed the two in the basement.

It was during lunch that Neal started coughing again that Carolyn decided to strengthen her cough remedy by adding the juice of garlic and ginger to it. It only took one spoonful to make Neal decide that at the first opportunity he would act in getting rid of the intensely nasty stuff; he had rather cough then take any more of the Burke Coughing Syrup.

Neal suffered through two more doses before he was able to put his plan into action. It was two o'clock and he laid back down telling Peter that he was going to try and get some sleep now that his coughing had eased. Peter had nodded and waited beside the bed while Neal closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. Desperation being a good teacher he had succeeded in convincing Peter that he had in fact fallen asleep and heard his friend quietly leave his room. He waited five minutes after hearing his footsteps on the stairs before slowly raising up to survey what he hoped to be an empty room and breathed a sigh of relief to discover that he was right.

Neal slowly scooted to the edge of the bed slipping his feet into the slippers and grabbing a robe lying at the end of the bed. It wouldn't do for him to be discovered out of bed without slippers on his feet or his wearing a robe. Neal silently went up the stairs pausing at the top to check and see where his keepers were. He was nearly ecstatic to find them all in the living room. Peter was in his recliner watching a ball game and dozing; El was sipping a cup of tea reading her newest mystery and Carolyn, his newest surrogate mother, was doing some sort of needle craft. Satchmo was even lying quietly at El's feet. He loved the dog but didn't want him around to alert the others that he might be up.

Neal gathered his nerve and after casting a glance into the living room one last time he made his way into the kitchen where he hurried to the refrigerator and found the nasty stuff in a bottle on the door next to the salad dressings and jellies. He grabbed it up and after rummaging through the vegetable storage departments found the onions. The garlic and ginger were in a bowl on the second shelf. He took little time in placing all the found in a small plastic bag and

tiptoeing to the back door but in his haste to get out he accidently pushed in the lock on the door's handle and locked it. He was outside and down the stairs when the door closed and locked him outside in the cold. Neal breathed a sigh of relief when he placed the small bag in the large garbage can beside the back gate but began to shiver as the cold wind blew through the light weight robe he was wearing causing him to hurry back. He had his hand on the door knob already envisioning his warm bed when he realized that it wouldn't open and came to the conclusion that he was trapped outside and in a load of trouble.

Neal opened his mouth to call for help when he began to cough as he banged on the door but the others didn't hear him due to the volume Peter had the game tuned to. But fortunately Satch did hear and began to bark alerting El who only thought that the yellow lab needed to go out and stood up to do just that.

"You had better hurry back Satch, it is real nasty out there," she said conversationally as the dog hurried to the back door. She was surprised that before Satch could go out Neal hurried in still coughing.

"NEAL! What were you doing outside?" she asked as she hurried to his side.

Carolyn and Peter heard the commotion in the kitchen and hurried to find out what was going on. As they got closer they could hear the coughing and knew that it was Neal. "What is he doing out of bed?" asked Carolyn as he walked into

the room and headed straight for the refrigerator to get out her cough syrup.

She paused when it wasn't where she left it and turning to her son she said, "He's hidden it somewhere."

Peter nodded and began to look around the kitchen; it was then that he noticed that Neal was shivering and put two and two together. "Neal was outside, wasn't he?" he asked his wife.

She nodded, "Satch must have heard him and that is why he wanted to go out. As soon as I opened the door Neal slipped in; he must have locked himself out somehow."

Peter glanced at his friend who finally got his coughing under control before glancing outside to see footprints in the snow leading to the garbage cans near the back gate and hurried to the hall closest to get his warm coat before going out to retrieve the cough syrup Neal must have thrown out.

He was gone for only a moment and when he returned he was carrying a small bag which he handed to his mother who was glaring angrily at Neal. "He not only

threw out the cough syrup but some of the ingredients to keep you from making more," he informed the angry woman.

"Neal, it looks like you are going to experience the same discussion Peter did when he was a boy," Carolyn said as she held a tablespoon of the cough syrup to his mouth. He wisely opened up and swallowed the nasty stuff before whining,'

"But I'm too cold."

"That's okay dear; what I have in mind will warm you up nicely, "Carolyn said as she added,

"Peter would you be so kind as to fetch my hairbrush; I want to introduce Neal to its punishing powers when I apply it liberally to his bottom."

When Neal heard that he began to shake his head violently, "No…that isn't necessary. Haven't I been punished enough when I swallowed the cough syrup?"

"You don't know what punishment is until Mom has taken you in hand," replied Peter as he handed his mother the hairbrush.

Carolyn grabbed Neal by his ear and propelled him towards the basement stairs saying, "Now my dear you have an appointment with my hairbrush," and gave him a mighty swat to hurry him on.

"OWWWW!"