August 11, 1916
For the most part, Theodore and Lila were able to avoid the majority of the chores that were involved in taking care of the old house in Vickery Meadows. That's not to say that they lived like pigs (no matter what Granny Olga said); they did, in fact, take care of their own little corner of the house, but it wasn't like they were always walking the hallways with rag or broom in hand. It wasn't like they tended to keep up with the cleanliness standards of the era; they were, afterall, just teenagers.
Sometimes though, Theodore would wake early to take out the trash or shuffle out in his pyjamas to collect the mail from the letterbox at the end of the driveway. But afterwards, he'd still shuffle back up the stairs, shove Mr Pennycrumb out of the warm spot in his bed, slip back under the covers and snore away the hours until Lila came stumbling into the kitchen around ten in the morning to make her daily pot of coffee; banging and stirring up a kerfuffle all the while. She wouldn't even both with a mug and just drink straight from the pot with a straw. To be fair—much like Granny Olga—it was just about the only thing that his friend could make, and even then, the Garde girl always burnt the coffee just a tad.
Lila, on the other hand, was expected to do most of the housework as was befitting of a woman of the time. She did, but she never did so without whining or complaining and Theodore usually found himself itching to do something to take his mind off of the continuous ache that had become his daily norm. Typically, they split those chores fifty-fifty, but some days were just too hard for him to handle even a dish.
But at some point during the new year, Grandaddy Edwin had decided that enough was enough, and that in order to set Theodore "to rights" and make him "more manly", he would have him do some of the more hands-on, manual labour jobs. Like waking at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens, to chop firewood and—as of last week—stack the bags of chicken feed in the shed. Lila usually turned up at one point to just watch & make unwanted commentary, sipping at her death-defying coffee.
"Oh my Lore!" Lila bemoaned, "This is, like, pure torture!" She threw herself on to the living room couch, despairing over the early morning hour and the already sizzling heat of the day.
"Stop your drama, girl, or I'll have you helping out too" Grandaddy Edwin said, smothering his smile into his own mug of steaming coffee. He shoved his calloused finger into Theodore's sleep-riddled face, "You, boy, go put on something that you don't mind getting dirty and meet me outside"
Theodore nodded tiredly, dragging his feet along the floor as he shuffled back where he'd come. "Uh huh"
"Dirty means covered in sweat and animal crap" Lila helpfully told Theodore as he dragged himself back upstairs to change out of his pyjamas. It was already well over ninety degrees Fahrenheit; the day clear and the land sizzling with heat. It promised to be another scorcher.
Grandaddy Edwin had opened up both doors of the double-breasted shed, but there was no cross breeze to speak of and the air was pathetically still & soupy. Despite being inside, Theodore was soaked with swat within minutes; the stray grains of chicken feed sticking to any exposed skin that it could find. Nevertheless, Theodore & Grandaddy Edwin fell into a familiar mediative rhythm that needed no words: Grandaddy Edwin hauled a bag of chicken feed out of the wheelbarrow, tossing it over to Theodore who heaved it up onto his shoulder and shoved it through the doorway and dumped them inside, ready to be stacked.
"Once we get 'em all in there, boy, you need to stack 'em up against the wall. All neat-like; not just ass over kettle like ya did last time. You hear me, boy?" Grandaddy Edwin instructed, wiping sweat from his brows as he eyed up Theodore in the doorway.
Theodore sighed, nodding along to the old man's request. "I hear" He paused to wipe sweat from his own brow and fan his face with his gloved hand, a question on his lips. "Where the hell is Lila, anyway? Shouldn't she out be here, suffering too?"
"House" Grandaddy Edwin grunted as he tossed the fifteen year old another bag of chicken feed.
"Oof!" Theodore caught it, but only just barely and he stumbled back a pace or two, banging his hip against the frame of the doorway. "Tss!"
"Whoa there, sonny boy" Grandaddy Edwin warned, his hand coming up far too late to stop the boy from banging into the doorframe when he became unbalanced. "You all good?"
Theodore winced, rubbing at the spot where a bruise would no doubt bloom later. "Yeah, I'm fine" He hummed as he dumped the bag of grain atop of the others, in the shed. "Just seems like Lila should be here too, is all" Theodore continued to whinge. "Pretty convenient time to go missing"
"She didn't go missing" Grandaddy Edwin sighed wearily, "Girl's got her own chores to do"
"Still don't see why she can't help with the grain" Theodore grumbled to himself as he returned to his own chores. "Its not like she can't lift her own body weight"
"Mind your own business, boy" Grandaddy Edwin chided. His tone was hard, in that kind of tone that meant he was done with Theodore's whiny bullshit. "Last I heard, you weren't in charge around here"
"Grr…mm…nn" Theodore huffed, grumbling to himself but he kept his head down and did as he was told. "Why don't you like Lila?" He asked as he busied himself, "Lila says its because you think that she's a creeper or is it because she's nosy as hell?"
"I don't even know what a creeper is" Grandaddy Edwin huffed, "But I'm pretty sure that Lila isn't one"
Theodore turned to shove the bag of chicken feed onto the current row of stacked grains, "But you don't act like you like her" He pursued. When Theodore turned to claim the next bag of chicken feed, he found Grandaddy Edwin looking at the remaining bags with something dark and unreadable swimming in his eyes.
"…That's not true" Grandaddy Edwin eventually said. He said so easily enough, his expression swiftly changed to something more easygoing that it almost made Theodore think that he'd imagined the dark look.
"Seems true…" He retorted with a murmur, annoyed at the feeling of being left out of the loop (again).
"Well, you're both young enough to be our grandchildren" Grandaddy Edwin reminded the boy, "Hard to be friends, really. It's enough that you both do as you're told; go to school, do your chores and don't cause trouble for us. Doesn't need to be any more than that"
"Yeah, whatever" Theodore grumbled irritably, still a little annoyed that he had to do all of this back-breaking work on his lonesome (Grandaddy Edwin didn't count, these were supposed to be Theodore's chores). Still, he kept his head down and his comments to himself as he continued to haul the chicken feed into the shed.
Wiping the sweat that beaded on his brow and ignoring the way his shirt clung to his body in absolutely scrumptious patches of perspiration, Grandaddy Edwin sighed wearily. "Tell you what, sonny boy, why don't you kids cut on out of here?" He proffered, "You've done enough for today"
"I thought we had to stack the feed in the shed?" Theodore pettily reminded him.
"Nah, it's good enough" He waved off, "Besides, the day's getting too hot to be out here, working. Why don't you kids head down to the swimming hole?"
"Are you suuuuure?" Theodore narrowed his eyes at the elder man, suspicious at his suddenly kind gesture. The man wasn't known for his out of pocket kindness; usually his offers had strings attached; the kind of strings that were attached to women in breathy negligee and holey tights.
"What are you waiting for, boy? Go on, get! Go have some fun" He shooed, "The summer ain't getting any cooler"
Theodore tried to think of the old man's ulterior motives as he chucked in the towel. "Thanks, I guess"
After returning to the house and rescuing Lila from her chores, the two easily made their way into central Dallas. Before they slipped out to the back fields where the Cooper's farm lay forty minutes outside of town; chugging down the road in Grandaddy Edwin's old Model T pickup truck. See, the Cooper's farm wasn't within reasonable walking distance to The Stellar Suites nor did the buses travel out that way. So, the pickup truck it was. Not that either of them actually had their licenses; but as long as they obeyed the rules & didn't draw attention to themselves, no one really seemed to care.
At least, no one seemed to care so far. Because the people of this time were far too trusting an it wasn't unusual to see teens riding around the backstreets. As for the Cooper far, it was in fact, tucked away on the backside of what Grandaddy Edwin considered "Dallas proper" out where the "hillbillies" lived. Out there, right around the place where the picket white fences of Bristol ended and acres upon acres of corn fields and cattle began.
The swimming hole, itself, was on the backend of the Cooper's property; back there, where the ears of corn had refused to grow, down by the heavenwards-reaching woods. Theodore & Lila had been there a thousand times before over the years practically growing up in the Cooper's barn where the "Alien Tracking Board" had been forged, where little Elliot Gussman's thirst for the otherworldly had been nurtured and even where they had participated in the annual Dallas Scarecrow Festival.
Theodore's favourite scarecrow had to have been the one from a year or two prior, where they'd carved a crudely-drawn face onto the pumpkin head and stuck a twiggy little candle inside. They'd then shoved a pointed hat onto its head and stuffed strands of straw into a pair of old farmhand clothes, before erecting their masterpiece out on the front gates for all to see. They'd—appropriately—named it "Jack"
Like usual, Theodore sat behind the wheel whilst Lila sat passenger-side with her hand surfing through the air and hair piled high off of her neck. Sweat was slick on both of them and made their bare legs stick to the leathery seats beneath them. Theodore never felt more like he was living in a history book than when he was bouncing down the road in the old Model T; the dinky little doors & single windscreen doing only the barest minimum to protect them from flying gravel & leafy refuse.
As they bounced down the road, sticky with sweat and desperately wishing for air conditioning, Grandaddy Edwin's warning about how the truck better come back in exactly the same condition as it had left, rolled about in Theodore's head. "What do you think Grandaddy Edwin would do if I wrecked it?" Theodore mused, only half-kidding as his jaw clacking after another hard bump.
"Kill you" Lila replied as if it were obvious, as they went over another pothole. "Good fucking Lore! Do you have to hit every single rut?"
"I can't see them!" Theodore retorted, cheekily. "The grass is too high"
"There! Right there!" Lila suddenly screeched, pointing towards the turn-off that they'd almost missed.
"Lore!" Theodore cursed as he yanked hard on the wheel, wincing at how his ears rang with Lila's voice. "Quit screeching in my ear!"
"Stop!"
"Lila!" Theodore glared at the Luvan as he pulled the truck into park beneath one of the trees that lined the swimming hole.
Lila grinned unapologetically, eyes swimming with mirth. "Sorry, not sorry!" She sang.
Theodore just rolled his eyes in exasperation.