(The following is a nonprofit work of fanfiction and is outside of the original canon. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and/or incidents of any kind depicted within this story are being used for entertainment purposes only.)
(The Loud House and all related characters were created by Chris Savino and all rights belong to Nickelodeon.)
- Chapter Twenty-Four -
Shakin' the House
Sunday, August 1st.
7:15 A.M...
It was always a given that no other little kid likes to wake up early on Sunday mornings and be made to go to church.
Just because school was over for the rest of summer vacation didn't mean we were exempted from still attending every once a week, no matter how badly my sisters and I would sometimes wish so. And there all eleven of us were, our bath towels slung over our shoulders and toothbrushes in our hands, standing closely to each other in a decreasing line in front of the bathroom door at the opposite end of the hallway. I grumbled under my breath as I tried massaging the tiredness off my face.
This is the last time I forget to set my alarm clock. I thought to myself in irritation. Each one of us took our five-minute turns in the shower, being very careful not to go over the time limit and use up too much of the hot water. Like I said before, a long hot shower was considered a major luxury in our house. After we were done, we each made our way back into our respective bedrooms and got dressed into our best Sunday clothes.
For that Sunday, I wore my regular attire, which came with a dark blue necktie, an orange button-up dress shirt which was tucked underneath my tanned-colored slacks, and a pair of dark brown loafers. Wanting to smell nice and fresh, I took from my nightstand a bottle of my father's Hai Karate cologne that I had borrowed, poured some onto my hands and then I rubbed it into the skin around my face and neck.
Definitely a lot better than the more expensive stuff, I thought as I took a good whiff of its musky fragrance.
I'll admit that whenever I watch those commercials for it—which I saw in these old VHS tapes Mom and Dad used in recording reruns of their favorite television shows back in the 70's—I would get absolutely jealous of the men who were being chased around by beautiful women after having rubbed some of it on themselves. This got my impressionable little brain into thinking that if this stuff worked for them like in the commercials, then surely it could work for me in real life, right?
I knew I shouldn't believe everything I see or hear on TV. But still, why not take a chance? You never know.
I sure hope this stuff will work in getting Sam's attention, I thought to myself as I examined the little bottle I held in my hands. I grinned really big like the lovesick goofball I was when I started to fantasize my aforementioned crush taking one giant whiff in my direction, her eyes instantly fashioning into glowing red hearts, jumping into my arms bridal style, and then planting kiss marks all over my face. The idea was just about exciting enough to make me almost drool.
"Has anybody seen my Hai Karate anywhere?" I heard Dad's voice suddenly call out, pulling me straight out of my little fantasy world. I hastily placed the bottle of cologne in the bottom drawer of my nightstand, hiding it nice and safely underneath my other stuff.
I'll give it back to him when the time is right, I thought to myself. With that, I walked outside of my bedroom. As I marched down the stairs, becoming enticed by the seductive smell that was our morning breakfast, I could faintly hear Mom and Lucy arguing over at the dining room. Taking a curious peak to the side, I spotted Lucy wearing an all-black satin dress that honestly made her appear like a nine-year-old version of Morticia from The Addams Family.
"No! No! No! You are not wearing that!" Mom declared sternly, towering before her.
"But Mother, I—" argued Lucy emotionlessly.
"—I don't want to hear another word, young lady!" Mom swiftly cut her off. "You are going to church, not a Halloween party! Now, you march your skinny little butt back upstairs to your room and change into something more appropriate!"
"But—"
"—I...! Said...! March...!" And so, I heard Lucy utter the word "Sigh..." in a very dreary tone and she walked around the corner and slowly climbed up the stairs past me to her bedroom, not once sparing me a noticing glance.
"Ugh! Do I really have to wear this thing every Sunday?" I heard Leni complain as both she and Lori appeared right at the very top of the stairs. For that Sunday morning, our fashionista for a sister wore a seafoam green dress which was decorated with little white flowers all around as well as a white frilly-laced collar. This was the same dress she would find herself always being forced to wear each and every time we went to church, much to her chagrin.
"Oh, stop your complaining, Leni!" Lori grunted, marching down the steps with our sister. "Just be glad you only get to wear it one day a week! It's not like it's the end of the world or anything!"
"It might as well be!" Leni argued back. "Like, seriously! I totally look like an old lady in this dress!"
She kind of does, I thought humorously.
"You think you have it bad, sis?" Luna piped up from the top of the stairs, sounding very irritated. "Try being forced to dress up like a 1950's schoolgirl." We saw that our rock n' roll loving sister's church clothes mainly comprised of a purple blouse with shortened sleeves and was buttoned up to the neck, a lavender-colored, knee-length, checker-patterned skirt, and also a purple headband—not the kind she usual wore—which gently pulled her brown hair back.
If I were being honest, I'd say she looked almost more like a brown-haired version of Carol Pingrey.
"Oh, don't be like that, girls!" Mom said, appearing from the doorway of the dining room. "The three of you look just fine!"
"But Mom, I look like somebody's grandma!" Leni whined again as she, Lori, and Luna finally reached the bottom of the stairs. "If my friends from work, like, see me wearing this, I'll totally never live it down for the rest of my life!"
"This is so not tubular!" Luna groaned. "Not even a little bit!"
"Nonsense, Luna!" Mom brushed their complaints off. "You look wonderful! Beautiful, even! Why, this style was all the rage back in my time!"
"Yeah, back in your time," I heard Lori grumble under her breath, looking away. Mom's ears perked and she shot her firstborn a very stern expression.
"What was that, little missy?" she grunted, hands placed firmly on her hips.
"N-Nothing!" Lori quickly said, smiling nervously with her hands behind her back. Deciding to say out of it, I moved over to the couch where Charles and Cliff were resting on each side. I sat between the two of them while vigilantly trying to be careful not to wake them both up. I then suddenly heard Mom and Dad's bedroom door open from behind, causing me to turn around and see Dad walking right out, dressed in his favorite brown tweed suit, black necktie, and green dress shirt.
"Seriously, does anybody know where my Hai Karate is?" he asked, sounding a little annoyed. "I could have sworn I left it on top of my nightstand just the other day. Now I can't seem to find it anywhere!" I looked quickly away, my head shrinking deeper between my scrawny shoulders, feeling extremely sheepish.
"Maybe you just misplaced it is all, Pop," Luna said.
"Yeah, I lose my stuff, like, all the time," Leni chimed in.
"I'm sure we'll find your cologne eventually, Lynn," Mom assured. "But right now, let's all—"
"—Waaait just a ding dang minute!" our father commanded; his tone of voice now flavored in suspicion. I blinked in confusion but then became filled with dread when he took a good whiff. He knew none of the girl's would have used it, because it was specifically for guys. They knew this for a fact as well. And the only two males living in our house was him and myself. I felt Dad's gaze set upon me, which made me all the more nervous. My heart started to pound with the speed of a jackhammer as I watched his shadow starting to grow and then loom over me.
I swallowed a hard lump that suddenly appeared in my throat as I heard him take another hard sniff, drawing ever closer to finding the culprit—none other than ME. Before he was about to draw the right conclusion, as if God Himself was watching, the doorbell rang, grabbing everybody's attention all around the living room. Using this given opportunity, I quickly exclaimed, "I'll get it!" and rushed off from the couch over to our front door.
Relief washed all over me like a tidal wave as I mentally thanked the Good Lord above for coming to my rescue. After turning the knob and opening the front door, I was greeted by the welcoming sight of Grandpa, Uncle Lance, Aunt Sharon, and our three cousins, all dressed up and ready for church as we were. Uncle Lance didn't wear his usual Adidas tracksuit, instead he wore a bright blue dress shirt, a black necktie, and a pair of dark tanned slacks.
Aunt Sharon wore a single-breasted white suit jacket that had shoulder pads and a shin-length pink-colored skirt, Shane was dressed in a long-sleeved, buttoned-down purple shirt and a pair of gray tweed pants and suspenders, Shelby's clothes came with a fitting pink sweatshirt and a green plead skirt, and Shiloh wore a pair of short-legged overalls and a lavender polo shirt. And finally, Grandpa wore a brown two-piece tweed suit, an orange button-up shirt and a slightly short black necktie, and his Santa Clause beard appeared to be nice and groomed as well.
I flashed a bright smile at them.
"Hey, guys! You're just in time for breakfast!" I said, moving aside and keeping the door open to let them inside.
"And good thing too!" Grandpa nearly exclaimed. "Because those hashbrowns sure smell delicious!" After giving me a quick little hug, he and the others marched over to the dining room and took their respective spots at the table. Earlier that morning, Mom had to go out to the garage to get six folding chairs while Dad was busy making breakfast and my sisters and I were upstairs taking each of our turns for the bathroom.
"Kids! Breakfast is ready!" Within a matter of seconds, the rest of my sisters came clambering down the stairs, each dressed in their Sunday best, including Lucy who wore a set of black clothes which now made her look like Wednesday Addams—if not our late Great-Grandma Harriet.
Why didn't she wear that earlier? I wondered before walking over to take my usual spot at the table. The addition of including six more chairs had pretty much made us sit a lot closer together to the point where we were touching each other's elbows. It was like we were all being forcefully squeezed inside a sardine can, which we might as well have been. Once after we bowed our heads and said our prayers—remembering it this time—we finally dug into our morning feast until there was pretty much nothing else left. No pancakes, no waffles, no scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, orange juice, nothing.
As always, our table was completely cleared. Grandpa let out a satisfied exhale, patting his full belly and relaxing against his chair, as did the rest of us.
"Just how do you do it, son?" he muttered in astoundment over at Dad. "How in the world do you manage to make a giant feast perfectly on time and not snap under the stress of feeding thirteen people?"
I've been wondering about that myself for a long time, I thought. Dad leaned back in his own chair with a proud smile.
"Years of practice, Pop," he said, right before chugging down the remainder of his Folgers. "Sometimes, it takes a lot of trial and error to get it just right." Uncle Lance made a soft snort in amazement.
"Now that's dedication," I heard him mutter to Aunt Sharon, who nodded in agreement. After breakfast was over, we each did our usual bit in helping to clear the table and wash some of the dishes. I took a quick glance at my wristwatch, and the time was nearly eight ten. We wouldn't leave for church until close to nine thirty, so this gave us ample room to kill whatever spare time we had left until then, which was about one hour and twenty minutes. While the teens and adults were busy talking, and my younger sisters back up in their rooms getting further ready, Shiloh, Shelby, and myself decided to quickly set up my Nintendo.
My two cousins stared in total awe, marveling at its wonderous splendor.
Back in the 1980's, owning a Nintendo Entertainment System basically made you a member of the cool kids in the eyes of those who couldn't afford one of their own. And I could tell that both Shiloh and Shelby were going to look at me in a whole different light from then on. The three of us sat together on the floor in front of the old Zenith, and I asked Shiloh to go ahead and pick the first game from my stack. Finally, he chose one at the very top and then handed the cartridge to me.
I smiled when I quickly recognized the game's cover art which had Count Dracula's evil grinning face, and our whip-wielding hero of a vampire slayer, Simon Belmont, going up to the Vampire Lord's towering castle fortress as well as the title of the game itself located just above it all...
"Ah, Castlevania," I proclaimed. "Bought this one about five days ago at Kmart."
Without wasting any more time than we already had, I grabbed the game cartridge from my cousin's hands and stuck it inside my console. The first stage was not really a problem at all, with Simon Belmont easily taking down any opponent that had the misfortune to get right in his way with his whip; Zombies, Black Leopards, Fish Men, and Vampire Bats, while at the same time collecting as much hearts as possible for our special attacks.
However, it was around on the second and third stage when the difficulty had drastically spiked. We spent at least maybe the next fifteen minutes trying our best to fend off against multiple foes while traversing through the levels, and the enemies we faced proved to be much more of a challenge than we realized.
I'm talking about Ravens, Fleamen, Black Knights, Flying Medusa Heads, White Skeletons, and Red Skeletons—those ones I hated the most because they always got back up after being taken down. But just when the three of us thought we were so ding dang close to reaching the next level, we would end up dying pretty quickly, having to start that level all over again, if not the entire game. It took all my will power for me to not throw my controller to the side and scream bloody murder.
I breathed deeply through my nose and rubbed my tired face in frustration.
"Man," I muttered aloud. "When they said this game was hard, they were not joking."
"You are so lucky to have a Nintendo, Lincoln," Shiloh remarked from my right.
I couldn't help but feel pretty good about myself after hearing my cousin say that.
"Yep, I guess I really am," I said with an air of pridefulness.
"I sure wish we had one too," Shelby said, sounding just a little bit jealous. "All we've got back home is an Atari that barely works anymore." We then decided to take a break and then watch a little bit of TV. We made sure to keep the volume down just a little bit so that our parents could hear themselves speak at the dining room table. We went on to watch several rerun episodes of Family Ties, Perfect Strangers, and then Growing Pains, which happened to be one of Shelby's favorites.
"Man, I love this show," she declared, head resting in her hands.
"Only because you have a big crush on that Kirk Cameron guy." Shiloh teased, much to Shelby's annoyance. When Growing Pains was over, the next show to appear before us was an episode of this fairly brand-new series called Married...with Children, which came out some time ago in April. The second I heard Frank Sinatra's Love and Marriage; I quickly seized the remote from the coffee table, pointed it, and changed to a different station as fast as I could. My sisters and I were not allowed to watch that show growing up at the time, mainly because Mom and Dad told us it was very inappropriate, not to be seen by little kids.
After what happened with A Nightmare on Elm Street, I was more than ready to take their word for it this time, no questions asked.
The last thing I wanted to do was pollute my brain even further than before.
"Alright, time to go, everybody!" we heard Dad announce. Instinctively, we immediately stood up from the floor, dusted ourselves, and I turned off the television. Both our families made our way outside and we climbed into our own respective vehicles. Uncle Lance and Aunt Sharon were the first to pull their Nissan C22 Vanette out of the driveway, allowing us to back up into the street. And after that, we drove off through the neighborhood with our other family closely following us.
"How about we play some music to get us in the spirit?" Mom asked from the front passenger seat as she rummaged through her small collection of cassette tapes. Having seemingly found what she was looking for, I watched as she fished out Christian rock band Petra's Back to the Streets album. She took it out of its hard plastic case and then stuck it inside Vanzilla's tape player. Almost instantly, music started playing from the car's speakers, though Mom kept it at a lowish volume. But instead of listening, each of my sisters did their own thing.
I wasn't paying close attention, but I was really positive Lori and Leni's conversation involved mostly clothes, the mall, and their boyfriends.
Typical, I thought. I saw Lily giggling and raising her pudgy fists above her head to the music, Luna bobbed her head to the beat of the next song that played. I was at least glad to see them enjoying themselves. Lucy sat quietly in her spot trying to write down what I easily guessed was her next poem, and Lynn sat closely next to me droning on and on about whatever sports was interested in. Lola and Lana, on the other hand, were too busy yelling and fighting about who touched whom.
"Mom! Lana's touching me!"
"I am so not touching you!" The noise in the car went on for a while now. It didn't matter how much I tried to listen to the music playing; all it did was allow itself to be drowned out by the surrounding clatter. It eventually got to the point where Dad turned up the volume just a hair. The next song to play was Shakin' the House. It was one of my favorite songs for ironic reasons, mostly because it involved the chorus which sang, "Everything that can be shaken will be shakin' from within!"
I knew the song was really talking about something else, but I couldn't help but feel like it was about us.
We pretty much shake our house all the time, I thought in amusement.
After driving through another block, our church eventually came into view in the distance ahead of us. The closer we got, the more visible it became. The overall design of the building itself appeared like your typical small-town church, reaching up to more than two floors high and forty feet in width with a triangle-shaped roof. A small bell tower was located just close to one side, and every wall was painted an off-white color.
Two triangular-shaped windows accompanied the front wooden double doors on each side, and a small flight of steps were located at the foot.
As we drove our way into the wide parking lot, I noticed the large sign right outside which was positioned closely next to the building itself. The sign read in big uppercase letters, "The Evangelical Church of Royal Woods." The parking lot itself was nearly packed with other neighboring church goers, mostly people that we personally knew. We soon found an empty parking space with Uncle Lance and his family's car parked right next to ours.
As soon as Dad switched off Vanzilla's engine, we each climbed outside one by one and stretched our arms out like we just got back from a long road trip.
With our grandpa, uncle, aunt, and three cousins, we walked through the parking lot and made our way inside through the opened wooden double front doors of the church. Upon entering the building itself, we saw that every wall was painted the same off-white color just like from outside, with the exception of the roof high above us where four ceiling fans were suspended far above our heads. There were about four satin blue banners which hung against each wall between triangular windows. The banners themselves had sown in images of the cross, a crown of thorns, or an open Bible.
There was a huge row of fourteen pews on each side that went straight from our location all the way towards the other side where the podium was. And finally, on the far end behind the podium was a large well-furnished wooden cross hanging securely on the wall. Everywhere we saw, people of different ages were here, most of them consisting mainly of elderly folk who were dressed nicely in their own choice of Sunday clothes. I looked behind and saw Dad introducing people to Grandpa, Aunt Sharon, and Uncle Lance who were visiting from out of town, which he explained.
And looked out in front of me, and standing amongst the surrounding crowd, I managed to spot none other than Mr. and Mrs. Pingrey, along with Carol, Conner—whom at that point was all better from his cold—and their younger sister, Cassie. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Carol also had another sibling, and it happened to be the blonde girl who stood closely next to Conner.
Her name was Cassandra Pingrey or just simply known as "Cassie" for short. She was about maybe a year younger than Conner with a matching shade of blonde hair, and she was also very pale-skinned like Lucy. Her choice of church clothes, oddly enough, almost resembled Carol's everyday attire, but the only major difference was that Cassie's long-sleeved, button-up cardigan sweater was a jet-black color, and her checker-patterned skirt was dark gray.
Yep. We were not the only ones with a goth in our family.
Poor gal looks really miserable, I remarked in my head, noticing the gloomy frown on her pale face. This clearly told me she would seriously rather be anywhere else than be here of all places. And frankly, neither did Conner because I saw that he was frowning in almost the same fashion as well. Couldn't say I blamed the two of them. Like I said beforehand, no little kid likes to wake up early on Sunday mornings and be forced to go to church.
I then managed to spot Clyde standing over at one part of the church foyer as he seemed to be conversing with Stella while garbed in a very nice blue vest and a white dress shirt and a pair of coffee brown pants. I walked up to the two of them and said hello and then Conner soon joined us. We talked about things we were planning for this month, like seeing the upcoming Masters of the Universe film and then The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Not once did we mention Jaws: The Revenge, seeing as we didn't want to relive those horrible memories in the theater.
It was then we finally got around to talking about—in very low whispers, of course—picking up from where we had left off on our Dungeons & Dragons campaign, which we agreed to do some time later that week. None of us dared to speak out loud about our game in front of everybody. We knew there were several people in our church who foolishly bought into the lie that Dungeons & Dragons was somehow evil and promoted witchcraft and satanism.
Just as we were going further in our little group chat, we heard a piano start to play. Church had finally started. We went over to our own families, taking our seats in wherever part of the sanctuary we were. My family and I mostly sat all the way in the far back in the first two rows of the left-side pews. This was Dad's idea because he always wanted us to be the first ones outside whenever church was over. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy going. It was because he had other things to do back home.
Together, we sang from one or two songs over to the next, and then right after that, the pastor got to preach his sermon for the day.
And just like all the other past Sundays before this one, it was excruciatingly boring. After fifteen minutes, I sat in my spot in the pews, already dull out of my mind. My eyes drifted over to the left side, and I saw that Leni, Luna, and Lynn were having some difficulty trying to stay awake, while Lisa let out a big yawn. I looked down at my wristwatch. We had forty-five minutes left until. And it couldn't go any faster than this. I glanced over to see Lily already asleep in Mom's arms. Lucky her.
I'd rather be home in my bedroom reading The Hobbit right now, I thought, rubbing the tiredness out of my eyes.
In a desperate attempt, my imaginative little brain went directly back to Sam. Instead of listening to a sermon, I imagined our church decorated very nicely, doves and little white flower peddles fluttering in the air. Clyde stood closely next to me as my best man, the two of us dressed in swanky tuxedos while Sam stood in front of me, her glistening eyes staring directly into mine, wearing the most fabulous wedding dress ever seen. I swore that I saw a heavenly glow from behind her head.
I then imagined Luna smiling very proudly along with Leni and Lori, tears of joy running down her freckled face as she watched her own little brother getting hitched with her close friend. After saying our vows, Sam and I then puckered our lips. But just before our lips could meet, I suddenly felt a painful jab in my left side, which promptly pulled me straight out of my little fantasy world and back to reality. I looked over and saw Lori looking down at me.
"Stand up, we're going to sing," she ordered. My brows furrowed.
Church is over already? I mentally wondered. I guess I must have fallen asleep without even realizing it.
And so, we stood back up on our feet with our hymnals in each of our hands, harmonizing to classic hymns like Be Thou My Vision, Blessed Assurance. However, when we got to the third song The Holy City, things went from being super dull to funny really quickly. There was this elderly woman—Mrs. Hendrick—who sang up on stage with the piano player, and she would... Well. You know how opera singers would heavily use that warble in their singing? That was what she did whenever she sang on Sunday. Except it was a lot more than what we could stand. It was like listening to nails scratch against a chalkboard.
If anything, she sounded more like a car having trouble starting. Luna always told me those who rely too much on that warble are the ones who cannot carry an actual tune to save their own lives. But that annoyance quickly changed when my sisters and I looked over to the side and saw Luan making comical gestures, pretending to twist the keys in the ignition, trying to start up a car engine. She only did that whenever Mrs. Hendrick dragged out the lyrics "JeruUuUuUsalem! JeruUuUuUsalem!"
When we realized this, we quickly bowed our heads as low as we could make them, snorting and snickering, our shoulders trembling.
"Luan, stop it! You're gonna get us in trouble!" Luna harshly whispered, using every strength she had to control her laughter. Grandpa, Uncle Lance, Aunt Sharon, Shane, Shelby, and Shiloh must have noticed the commotion going on from behind them, because they ended up bowing their heads while trying to hide their laughter as well. Once more, when Mrs. Hendrick dragged out, "JeruUuUuUsalem! JeruUuUuUsalem!" Luan did the funny gesture again, causing my family and I to heave and giggle even harder. Even Lisa was having trouble controlling herself, removing her glasses and wiping tears from her eyes.
Lori then fell to the floor on her knees, her one free hand covering her mouth, cheeks turning red. By the end of the song, we finally calmed down, our faces worn out and tinted a dark shade of pink, and our church pastor gave his blessing to go in peace. The second he was finished; I was the first one to bolt up from my spot in our respective pew and then run outside through the front double wooden doors to get some fresh air. I leaned against a wooden column and then laughed—but out loud this time. The rest of my family soon followed after me, Lynn staying behind for a moment to sit down on the stone steps, bursting out laughing as well.
"Oh, man!" I managed to say, catching my breath. "I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in my life!"
"I swear, I came this close to passing out!" Lynn explained, cheeks red and face most likely hurting. After a short while, we calmed back down again. "You think we'll get in trouble for this?"
"I certainly hope not!" I spoke. I then noticed something strange. "Say..., where's Dad?" We turned around and saw Dad still in the church foyer and was talking with Mrs. Hendrick—telling her about what just happened, a guilty look on his face as he explained what had happened. Mrs. Hendrick gave our father a strange look.
"You guys were laughing?" she asked him, sounding perturbed. "I thought you were crying in emotion because of the music!" As I think about it now, it did kind of appear like we were all crying, with our heads bowed down and bodies trembling. When she and Dad finally parted ways, seemingly on more than good terms, he walked outside, and we followed after him over to Vanzilla. Sitting in my seat as we drove back home, I saw Dad giving us a hard look from the rearview mirror.
"You know, we should probably ground you kids for what just happened," he spoke in a clear tone. But then his expression softened. "But..., I think it'd be better if we decided not to."
I don't know what possessed me to stare at my own father and then ask him, "Why is that?"
He made a slightly embarrassed smile as his head nearly shrank between his shoulders, cheeks starting to blush.
"Well... it's because your mother and I were laughing just as hard." he admitted.
And with that, we all calmly sat in our seats as we drove back home as Mom decided to play some Petra once again...
