flavour of the day and strawberry shortcake
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: One Jump Ahead
Rating: PG (very mild violence/dead person)
Challenge: FOTD: lummox, Strawberry Shortcake #29: one jump ahead
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, fresh pineapple, fresh blueberries, malt
Wordcount: 340
Summary: Jacob Graham places blame.
Notes: I’m considering putting Jacob under sprinkles. He’s also bordering on hot fudge. Hmm. Anyway, he’s twelve here. Lummox: a clumsy, stupid person. Pineapple: Growing up it all seemed so one-sided/ Opinions all provided.-‘Subdivisions’, Rush. Blueberries: In many matters, children-not ensnared by dogmatism, passion or erudition-judge far truer than adults. Malt: Easter egg picture from Shayna.
It was the hair, young Jacob thought on later reflection, that gave him away. His hair was supremely unhelpful. It corkscrewed. Who could fail to spot that bobbing around between the barrels and ropes mid-battle?
“For God’s sake, yer great lug,” roared Digby, who was the swarthy boatswain on his side, spittle flying as he heaved a freshly-bloodied sword from the back of Jacob’s attacker. Or what had been Jacob’s attacker. The skin of the dead man’s pouchy face drooped alarmingly before he was dropped like a sack of sand onto the deck in front of Jacob’s face. Thud. “The quarter deck cabins!”
“I know where I’m goin’!” Jacob insisted in his childish bell-peal of a voice, trying to scramble up only to have his bare feet glide frictionlessly through saltwater and blood, sending him smashing down onto an elbow. He cursed and then rolled away from an impatient nudge-kick from Digby’s grimy boots.
“Yer father said…”
“I know.”
This time with just a few more slip-slip-slips, he got to his feet. He has to find this, he has to find that. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir. He’d never been on this ship in his life; how was he meant to locate these cabins without a bit of skidding back and forth? What was so important about a bloody map, anyway?
You’re about as sneaky as a sackful of tambourines, boy, his father would always sigh. Captain Todd Graham! King pin of the Spanish Main! If anyone knew what a sackful of tambourines sounded like, surely it was him.
“It ain’t my fault people keep tryin’ to kill me,” Jacob snapped as Digby grabbed a scrawny arm and hustled him past a squirming, screaming mass of fighting pirates to shove him face-first into a door. The door he was looking for. As he happily dove for the handle, Digby gave a response that would also come back later, around the same time Jacob would decide his hair was to blame for being spotted.
“Whose is it, then?”
Title: One Jump Ahead
Rating: PG (very mild violence/dead person)
Challenge: FOTD: lummox, Strawberry Shortcake #29: one jump ahead
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, fresh pineapple, fresh blueberries, malt
Wordcount: 340
Summary: Jacob Graham places blame.
Notes: I’m considering putting Jacob under sprinkles. He’s also bordering on hot fudge. Hmm. Anyway, he’s twelve here. Lummox: a clumsy, stupid person. Pineapple: Growing up it all seemed so one-sided/ Opinions all provided.-‘Subdivisions’, Rush. Blueberries: In many matters, children-not ensnared by dogmatism, passion or erudition-judge far truer than adults. Malt: Easter egg picture from Shayna.
It was the hair, young Jacob thought on later reflection, that gave him away. His hair was supremely unhelpful. It corkscrewed. Who could fail to spot that bobbing around between the barrels and ropes mid-battle?
“For God’s sake, yer great lug,” roared Digby, who was the swarthy boatswain on his side, spittle flying as he heaved a freshly-bloodied sword from the back of Jacob’s attacker. Or what had been Jacob’s attacker. The skin of the dead man’s pouchy face drooped alarmingly before he was dropped like a sack of sand onto the deck in front of Jacob’s face. Thud. “The quarter deck cabins!”
“I know where I’m goin’!” Jacob insisted in his childish bell-peal of a voice, trying to scramble up only to have his bare feet glide frictionlessly through saltwater and blood, sending him smashing down onto an elbow. He cursed and then rolled away from an impatient nudge-kick from Digby’s grimy boots.
“Yer father said…”
“I know.”
This time with just a few more slip-slip-slips, he got to his feet. He has to find this, he has to find that. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir. He’d never been on this ship in his life; how was he meant to locate these cabins without a bit of skidding back and forth? What was so important about a bloody map, anyway?
You’re about as sneaky as a sackful of tambourines, boy, his father would always sigh. Captain Todd Graham! King pin of the Spanish Main! If anyone knew what a sackful of tambourines sounded like, surely it was him.
“It ain’t my fault people keep tryin’ to kill me,” Jacob snapped as Digby grabbed a scrawny arm and hustled him past a squirming, screaming mass of fighting pirates to shove him face-first into a door. The door he was looking for. As he happily dove for the handle, Digby gave a response that would also come back later, around the same time Jacob would decide his hair was to blame for being spotted.
“Whose is it, then?”